Instead of Government getting in the way and trying to run everyones' lives, how about smaller government and more freedoms? I would rather rely upon civil litigation lawyers in the case of driver malfeasance and personal injury, instead of an overbearing Nanny State. In car GPS is hardly the worse distraction for drivers. I used to drive the I-495 Beltway around Washington DC every day, and I once saw a vehicle drifting back and forth between 2 lanes (non-rush hour traffic) who I sped by and overtook at a high rate of speed (70+ mph). The driver had a newspaper unfolded on the dashboard in front of his steering wheel, a cellular phone BT headset he was talking to, and was changing clothes while driving (when he wasn't sipping on a Grande Starbucks coffee).
We all will not need GPS in our vehicles much longer anyway, since there will be enough TSA / BP / Nat. Guard / check-points to go through that there will be plenty of stops to make use of either a GPS or paper map quite safely. Those women drivers that need directions can always ask at those multiple check-points. The Police State has arrived, and with martial law right around the corner. Big Brother makes one heck of a guardian Nanny State nanny, slinging a cocked-and-locked M4 assault rifle, and wearing day-old latex gloves lubricated by "smelly smegma" for your "erotic" pleasure.
I've already stopped flying, and when martial law kicks in I'll probably stop driving as well. Frack Big Brother Obama && Big Sister Napolitano. I've had it with this banana republic. How many Americans have died on average per year from "terrorist" attacks, compared to, for instance prescription drugs, or cancer, or even drunk drivers?
I haven't tried Arch Linux, nor seriously tried a number of other linux variants in the past 18 months, so I cannot say whether it will break with the installation of a vanilla (kernel.org) kernel. Configuring and building a new kernel from source is my preferred method of getting a new kernel, rather than merely installing a replacement distribution kernel binary. But then, I like NetBSD, FreeBSD, Dragonfly BSD, and (especially) OpenBSD as well.
As an aside, I tend to concur with those who would say that a camel is a horse designed by committee.
ES, TDIAF, AC! ---------- BTW, AC, I've been immersed in unix & unix-like OSes for 15 years and am no "slackware" snob. I was merely pointing out some issues that other slashdot readers might need to be aware of before trashing their OS.
Ubuntu has a ways to go before it is as polished & stable as HPUX, even and especially on a VME backplane, but it's a damn sight cheaper. Get over your hyper-sensitivity to fact-based criticism of your particular favorite brand of GNU/Linux -- none are perfect, even Slackware. Even IRIX 6.5.xx wasn't perfect, although I have never seen another commercial unix variant as pretty, stable, and logically laid out -- even Mac OS X could stand some serious improvements.
On a number of Linux distributions, installing a vanilla (kernel.org) kernel source tar-ball isn't even possible. Either the kernel will fail to successfully build due to mismatched versioning of libraries or sometimes gcc itself. The underlying issues are not merely a vanilla kernel. For other Linux distributions, the directory structure itself doesn't match up to generally accepted standards. Often the user of a specific distribution must wait until the vendor's own series of patches (kernel, libraries, utilities, etcetera) are made available -- on the vendor's timetable, not the users.
I am not denigrating other GNU/Linux distributions -- there are plenty of reasons to stick with a particular distribution if you are comfortable with the timeliness of upgrades and the level of support from that distribution's user base. If the user pays for a support contract, deviation from the standard baseline can render your support contract null-and-void, or at least problematic.
I personally like to try brand new whiz-bang applications and utilities from the original development teams rather than relying upon a specific distribution vendor to make that application or utility available via their support structure. It's all a matter of your personal (or corporate) comfort level with risk. No one in a production environment would change a kernel, an application , or utility on a production machine without a graceful way to back out of those changes. This is not just a GNU/Linux platform issue, but applies to any OS and any application, and I have been involved in supporting a number of commercial unixes and "hobbyist" unix-like OSes. What I have discovered is that If you stick with, for instance Red Hat, you will learn Red Hat, but if you learn a distribution like Slackware you will learn unix -- that's what kept me gainfully employed.
I cannot answer this question for any GNU/Linux distribution except for Slackware, which may or may not get Linux Kernel 3.3.xx as part of an official distribution for at least one Slackware release iteration... But my personal Slackware machine will be getting 3.3 as soon as it finishes building and I reboot the machine.;-)
It's nice to have a GNU/Linux distribution that doesn't jerk users around with strange application locations, misaligned library versions, or an update schedule tied to commercial support contracts. I've tried the rest, and I returned to the best (imho), since GNU/Linux kernel 0.96. Don't try dropping a new kernel source tar-ball onto RH Enterprise Server, Fedora, or even Ubunto -- it will break your system, and your $$$$ support agreement.
Consider for a minute the number of USA state-sponsored false-flag attacks, sometimes characterized as terrorism, that have occurred or were planned in the past 100+ years:
(1) USS Maine in Havana Harbor: faulty design, rather than a Spanish "mine" -- Spanish-American War
(2) Lusitania Sinking: American passengers aboard a liner packed to the gills with munitions -- US entry into WW-1
(3) Pearl Harbor, HI: total economic embargo of Japan & asset seizure & outdated naval ships left vulnerable -- US entry into WW-2
(4) Operation Gladio: false-flag terrorism in Europe after WW-2 -- installation of right-wing governments in Greece, Italy, etc.
(5) Operation Northwoods: (planned, not carried out): "student-filled" aircraft "shot down" over Cuba -- 2nd Bay of Pigs Invasion
(6) JFK Assassination: No SS protection, no Army G3 on streets, pristine "magic bullet" that wounds 2 people -- US regime change
(7) Gulf of Tonkin "Incident": N Vietnamese gunboats "attack" US 5th Fleet -- US enters Vietnam Civil War, not "Falling Domino"
(8) RFK Assassination: lone gunman "kills" candidate with wrong caliber pistol from back, not front -- eliminates political opposition
(9) Waco, TX: Branch Davidians assaulted & burned-out by over-aggressive FBI -- beginning of Police State legislation
(10) First WTC Towers Bombing: Thorough FBI involvement in attack planning, funding, arming -- set-up of fabled Moslem enemies
(11) OKC Bombing: Bomb damage far in excess of 1 ANFO truck bomb & multiple bombs -- ramp-up of Police State legislation
(12) 9/11/2001: inept "terrorists" coordinated w/ NORAD "drills" & WTC 1/2/7 drop at free-fall speed into own footprint -- Iraq War
(13) Anthrax Letters: weapons-grade anthrax genetically ID'ed as USA military strain -- blamed on Saddam, USA PATRIOT Act
(14) Numerous "failed attempt" domestic terror "attacks": FBI infiltrated, subverted, suborned "terror cells" -- rise of Police State
It is no longer a matter of wild speculation that the USA government itself is & has been deeply involved in self-inflicted "terrorist attacks" to alter & sway public opinion in favor of an increasingly tyrannical Police State. And just as the Twin Towers were a depreciated property with tremendous looming asbestos clean-up, the USS Enterprise is scheduled for dismantling & disposal of 8 nuclear reactor cores with a final cost of over $2 Billion USD. How naive can the American People (& world-wide spectators) possibly be if state-sponsored false-flag terrorism is not considered regarding this decrepit aircraft carrier, when "justification" for a new war, this time against Iran, is involved?
One of the reasons that I have liked Slackware is that it uses standard locations for file locations, as well as up-to-date library / driver versioning for proper functioning. I can download a new standard kernel.tar from kernel.org and build it without breaking anything. And if you download any other software from the original project location and build it on your system, it knows where to find files. I don't want to slam any other linux distribution, but if you install some versions you may well find that libraries don't match up & when updated may break other applications that share those libraries. Try building a new generic kernel on Red Hat or Fedora and you will find that it breaks.
As far as any windowing system is concerned, I still like KDE over gnome because it is a "friendlier" UI for Windows users. The KDE SDKs are available for other platforms, such as Windows or Mac OSX, for developing same-looking programs. Commercial use does require $$, but for internal non-commercial use the SDKs are free. Of course, YMMV...
It really doesn't matter how many counterfeit $50s & $100s that the DPRK can print or dump onto the international marketplace. Not one bit, even if the DPRK counterfeited $1 Billion USD instead of only $200 Million USD. Compare that to the $2+ Trillion USD that the USA Federal Reserve has created out of thin air, and without even bothering to print them up. This was the amount of "digital dollars" that have been passed along to international corporations, foreign banks, and foreign central banks since September 2008. And this doesn't even count the new Fed Reserve QE3 initiative begun recently.
I'm waiting for the Federal Reserve to come out with a couple of new lines of USA PetroDollars, as toilet paper and wall paper. Forecast: Continued deflation / stagflation, with an overnight chance of hyper-inflation. I saw somewhere on YT a $1 Trillion Zimbabwean currency note. We aren't there yet, but that specter is in our future as well. Bitcom looks like a stable method of commerce in comparison.
No doubt there will be a "fair & balanced" amendment added to this Kentucky legislation that would force the local telephone companies to surrender all rights to their no-longer-serviced basic phone service "right-of-way" granted by the state. No? WTF! That's shocking news...
I am a big fan of MLK Jr. He was a man, with all the usual human frailties attached, but he was special. No small part of that "specialness" was his "I Have A Dream" speech. Strip all his now copyrighted & now protected evermore speeches and sermons from pulpits and there would be nothing left to remember him except his holiday. "WTH was it that MLK Jr. was so honored with a national holiday?" will be a question often asked in another generation or two, not a situation that MLK Jr himself would be in favor of.
It is possible, even likely, to kill that which you love or respect most by holding it so closely that it cannot be shared. Obviously, the lunatics are now running the asylum, and they are evil greedy f**kers.
What's next? Not allowing direct quotations be made, audible or in writing, of the Bible, the Quran, or the Torah? Which corporate entity gets the licensing fees from Those Violations?
I've seen poured concrete houses, in Roanoke VA USA, and I don't think they age well. They are inherently cold as an icebox, expensive to make any utility repairs in, even more expensive to expand or modify, and when they do eventually crack due to settling are nearly impossible to maintain wall alignment. "Printed houses" can either be equally problematic to poured concrete houses, or else "disposable".
The longest standing buildings have used post-and-beam construction, with either stone or concrete block walls, or quicklime & straw block walls. Some such constructions are listed in Britain's Domesday Book, nearly 800 years old. The modern equivalent building is made of reinforced concrete and steel beams -- very durable in spite of extreme examples to the contrary seen by the destruction of the NYC WTC Towers & Building 7 -- certainly historical anomalies.
Ideally, houses would be efficiently constructed from local building materials, like the sod dugouts built in the USA Northern Plains. I would rather live in a yurt than a "printed house" -- at least they have been proven to "travel" well. In many "purportedly civilized" regions, building codes that enforce monopoly construction methods outweigh common sense. Bankers' rules. Better a small home wholly owned than a modern palace "rented" from a bank for nearly forever.
A swarm of Hellfire missile equipped Raptor UAVs would have made a great "ice-breaker" for that Russian supply ship.
But such an application is not the primary intent for deploying armed UAVs over the continental USA. All aspects of military-focused high technology developed for conflicts overseas ultimately finds its way to domestic "urban pacification" or against domestic "enemy combatants". 30 years of increasingly draconian police state legislation has brought us to the point that: (1) citizens can be stripped of citizenship with only an executive decision; (2) citizens can be preemptively indefinitely detained without charges; (3) citizens can be summarily executed based only upon an executive decision; (4) any crime suspected or charged against citizens may now be treated as "terrorism";
The kidnapping of citizens is now "extreme rendition". The torture of of citizens is now "enhanced interrogation techniques". The extrajudicial imprisonment of citizens is now "indefinite preventive detention". Unintended civilian deaths is now "collateral damage". Reaction in response to our use of military force is now "blow-back". We justify interference in the internal affairs of other nations as "bringing freedom and democracy", even though we are no longer a democratic republic or constitutional republic, and if we bring not freedom but only death and destruction. If forces aligned with our side commit violence, it's justifiable in the name of "freedom fighting" -- but if their are aligned with our opponents they are deemed to be "terrorists."
Drones are the very least of our problems, at least until The SHTF...
The breakup of the USA explicitly implies a new Civil War, hardly possible considering the heavy balance of military power in favor of Empire. The Powers That Be would rather slaughter 9/10th of the civilian population, more in keeping with the advance of the eugenics programs envisioned by the New World Order. "Hope and change you can believe in" has left the building, with a Unitary Executive even more powerful under Obama than existed under Bush the Lessor.
The future doesn't so much repeat the past as it does rhyme with it. Prognostications of the future 100 years hence tracks more closely with the dystopian science fiction novel by George Orwell's "1984". "If you want to know what the future holds for humankind, imagine a boot stomping a human face, forever."
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength.
Right. It's so much simpler to blame cave-dwelling Islamist fundamentalists living in the middle of BumF*ckIstan, to precisely coordinate their terrorist attack 7,000 miles away with NORAD drills pertaining to: "multiple hijacked commercial aircraft".
You just broke your K.I.S.S. principle. If you follow all the evidence, all the purposefully missing evidence, and answer the question: "who benefits?", you will arrive much closer to the truth. Your response should be a textbook / dictionary example of the term "cognitive dissonance".
Psychos, really? That would make you a Cheney sycophant, a paid troll, or a co-conspirator. There is a cadre of small but influential groups that routinely dredge up the aspersion "Holocaust denier" charge as their primary method of squashing any dissenting views, without merit, I might add. The least credible conspiracy theory about 9/11/2001 is the official government version.
I challenge you to explain how WTC Building 7 collapsed into its own footprint symmetrically and at near free-fall speed. TV reporters live at the time publicly remarked that the WTC 7 collapse exactly resembled a controlled demolition. If one building was rigged for controlled demolition, it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to conclude that all 3 WTC buildings were similarly wired.
WTC 7 was the only one of three office towers on 9/11/2001 to not have been struck by an aircraft. All three WTC office towers, constructed of steel beams, concrete, & glass are the only such structures in history to collapse from office fires -- and not just collapse, but to collapse symmetrically into their own footprints.
Finally, please answer the question "cui bono?" (Who benefits?) It certainly was not Osama Bin Laden, al-Queda, the Taliban, the Iraqis, or the American people. There is a whole long list of persons, corporations, and several governments that have benefitted -- in regard to money, power, political influence, and regional hegemony.
Ten years ago, 19 hijackers armed only with box-cutters, took over 4 commercial aircraft and 3 of 4 of them into USA militarily & economically sensitive sites while eluding the entire NORAD defense organization, causing nearly 3 thousand deaths. At least, that is the official conspiracy theory, that through a series of extraordinary coincidences in near-perfect alignment, 9/11/2001 "just happened", "and that no one had any idea that such an event was even possible."
Ignored, discounted, and not investigated were such factors as (1) the USA 'Visa Express' program based in Saudi Arabia was used to bring Islamist fighters to the USA for military training for many years and, (2) the fact that at least 8 of 19 hijackers were still alive in the ME and merely victims of identity theft, (3) that 3 office towers built from concrete, steel, & glass fell symmetrically within their own footprints at very nearly the acceleration of gravity in a vacuum, and (4) that senior Bush regime officials were collaborators & signatories to the PNAC document which called for global military hegemony subsequent to a "new Pearl Harbor".
I don't mean to sound callus about the loss of those 3,000 people on 9/11/2001, but 200,000+ people per year die from tobacco-related illnesses, and 20,000+ people per year die from alcohol-related traffic accidents. We Americans have surrendered our birthright Constitution & Bill of Rights, and have waged "preemptive wars" for the past 10 years in 6+ countries, costing over $1.2 Trillion and over 5,000 servicemen killed & 100,000+ GIs seriously wounded. In all that 10 year period, no additional domestic terrorist attacks by foreign islamic terrorists have ever been consummated, and each serious attack attempted have been thwarted by alert civilians, not the USA police state.
How has this vast expenditure of blood & treasure, of the loss of individual freedoms, liberties, and inalienable rights, been worth the minimal risk of new domestic terrorist attacks? I don't see the value...
"Okay, let me see you do realtime waveform analysis in plain text."
Ahh, you didn't take the red pill. You see a screenful of columns of characters streaming down. I see a woman in a red dress, and I see Agent Smith.
Wait for it... Windows without a GUI is called... DOS. A Windows server running without a GUI makes sense, but may very well require a local Windows client with a GUI to manage that server. Microsoft's "regression" to a GUI-less version of Windows after 20 years isn't only a dramatic change, but it also opens the door to the requirement for a whole new 3rd party software upgrade path. Think about the expanded revenue stream, and learning a new Windows paradigm.
In that respect, at least, one could say that "DOS (NT) ist gude."
Well, I'm not a conspiracy theorist either, at least in regard to the failure of this Russian spacecraft bound for Mars to be damaged by the USA HAARP project.;-) AFAIK, at the time of each SST (shuttle) disaster, there was initial speculation in the lame stream media that blamed the Russians, and with the second disaster blamed the Chinese.
There are plenty of high tech gear, that if bumped in the night, tend to rapidly go pear-shaped. It is rocket science, after all, and each a project comprised of tens of thousands of critical components not always made to a 99.999 quality standard by the lowest bidders.
But that being said, there is a great deal of paranoia and mistrust between the "space powers" regarding the militarization of Earth orbit, as a reflection of similar ground-based paranoia and mistrust. For some reason or other, the USA cannot seem to stay out of foreign conflicts for more than a year or two, ever since WW2.
That there is far more buzz on the internet about these issues of our police state than is ever covered by the lame stream media, for some reason or other... something to do with free speech, DHS/TSA "lists", and the national security surveillance police state. Occupy Movement type public demonstrations seems to keep attracting more and more of a police state response, these domestic UAVs being only the "latest thing". How long before these domestic UAVs are armed with missiles or 20 mm cannon, for law enforcement purposes of course?
"Above my pay grade" is an attitude that may work for an IT worker in a union shop, or government / public service worker, but doesn't bode well career-wise. SAs, even Senior SAs, are by job definition on a rotating 24/7 on-call service to many IT shops. The "pay grade" includes, or should include, an elevated monetary compensation for your extra effort.
I worked as a sub-contractor SA to a government systems engineering / information technology contractor, with a quite generous union scale benefits package. Compartmentalized support meant that I didn't write code beyond some administrative scripting -- that was left to even more generously compensated software engineers. But when it was a test system server whose primary storage crashed at 0400 on a Saturday morning, it was me that spent the entire weekend on-site, not these software engineers. My extra effort regularly expended earned me respect, extra bonuses, and an employment contract that got extended four times.
You should consider your off-the-clock software coding to be part of the service you provide, even if not directly compensated. You could always issue a non-exclusive license for your code to your employer under GPL, and use this on your CV.
It isn't as if China doesn't have more science & technology patents these days. How many different RISC-based processors have been crushed by Intel's predatory marketing instead of best technology? I count at least 3: Alpha, MIPS, and Sparc. From that lot, they could pick and choose the technology to apply -- they are not necessarily reliant upon an IBM-PC compatible platform, nor a Microsoft operating system.
On top of that, what percentage of total semiconductor manufacturing capacity is in China's backyard? Maybe 70%?
Some of the USA's most valuable high technology has been shipped overseas, like IP, not just the manufacturing capacity. The biggest exports the USA has these days is war & weapons of war. When other countries possess the core technologies, they will find other systems integrators to replace the over-priced USA versions.
The Chinese don't need industrial espionage to acquire our technology -- they're our bankers, and they hold the "mortgage paper" to much of our economy. In other words, why would they steal what they already own?
It's a war OF terror, not a war ON terror -- with the primary victims being the the world's citizens falling under an increasingly draconian curtailment of human rights (i.e.. Constitution & Bill of Rights in the USA). Of course, I am not belittling the vast number of victims of state-sponsored terrorism, nor that of rogue groups -- only that state-sponsored terrorism is much more effective at killing because they can put the money behind real WMD.
The world's economy is going down the tubes because eminent "peak everything" spells the doom of the one thing the current economy / banking system / ponzi scheme is most dependent upon -- continuous growth. Those at the very top of the "food chain" are basically "strip-mining the economy" as quickly as they can to acquire as much as they can before the economic crash landing. The blatant emerging police state is one element put in place to assure an orderly transition into a feudal economy with a world government.
Empirical evidence refutes your claims. One need only look at drug use statistics in Switzerland and Portugal, both of whom have eliminated their country's 'war on drugs' in favor of treating drug addiction as a medical condition instead of a criminal one. Please tell me again how big a problem illegal alcohol stills are now in the USA, 80 years after alcohol prohibition ended. Statistics also show, beyond refute, that regions where marijuana laws are relaxed or eliminated, alcohol consumption goes down. Drivers high on marijuana are an insignificant negative impact on society compared to DUI alcohol. Google for the LEAP organization, and educate yourself.
Considering the funding available to the Mexican drug cartels, they could build tunnels the size of the Chunnel between Britain & France, using the same type of equipment. These boring machines can excavate through solid rock, handle the debris automatically, and provisionally install concrete or steel caisson wall reinforcement as part of the process.
I would be surprised if this hasn't already happened. Of course, we wouldn't actually hear about it unless it was discovered by law enforcement personnel not already on the drug cartels' payrolls. Figure the odds on That happening. Even the Wall Street Mobsters have been awash in drug cartel money laundering, for decades.
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Instead of Government getting in the way and trying to run everyones' lives, how about smaller government and more freedoms? I would rather rely upon civil litigation lawyers in the case of driver malfeasance and personal injury, instead of an overbearing Nanny State. In car GPS is hardly the worse distraction for drivers. I used to drive the I-495 Beltway around Washington DC every day, and I once saw a vehicle drifting back and forth between 2 lanes (non-rush hour traffic) who I sped by and overtook at a high rate of speed (70+ mph). The driver had a newspaper unfolded on the dashboard in front of his steering wheel, a cellular phone BT headset he was talking to, and was changing clothes while driving (when he wasn't sipping on a Grande Starbucks coffee).
We all will not need GPS in our vehicles much longer anyway, since there will be enough TSA / BP / Nat. Guard / check-points to go through that there will be plenty of stops to make use of either a GPS or paper map quite safely. Those women drivers that need directions can always ask at those multiple check-points. The Police State has arrived, and with martial law right around the corner. Big Brother makes one heck of a guardian Nanny State nanny, slinging a cocked-and-locked M4 assault rifle, and wearing day-old latex gloves lubricated by "smelly smegma" for your "erotic" pleasure.
I've already stopped flying, and when martial law kicks in I'll probably stop driving as well. Frack Big Brother Obama && Big Sister Napolitano. I've had it with this banana republic. How many Americans have died on average per year from "terrorist" attacks, compared to, for instance prescription drugs, or cancer, or even drunk drivers?
I haven't tried Arch Linux, nor seriously tried a number of other linux variants in the past 18 months, so I cannot say whether it will break with the installation of a vanilla (kernel.org) kernel. Configuring and building a new kernel from source is my preferred method of getting a new kernel, rather than merely installing a replacement distribution kernel binary. But then, I like NetBSD, FreeBSD, Dragonfly BSD, and (especially) OpenBSD as well.
As an aside, I tend to concur with those who would say that a camel is a horse designed by committee.
ES, TDIAF, AC! ---------- BTW, AC, I've been immersed in unix & unix-like OSes for 15 years and am no "slackware" snob. I was merely pointing out some issues that other slashdot readers might need to be aware of before trashing their OS.
Ubuntu has a ways to go before it is as polished & stable as HPUX, even and especially on a VME backplane, but it's a damn sight cheaper. Get over your hyper-sensitivity to fact-based criticism of your particular favorite brand of GNU/Linux -- none are perfect, even Slackware. Even IRIX 6.5.xx wasn't perfect, although I have never seen another commercial unix variant as pretty, stable, and logically laid out -- even Mac OS X could stand some serious improvements.
On a number of Linux distributions, installing a vanilla (kernel.org) kernel source tar-ball isn't even possible. Either the kernel will fail to successfully build due to mismatched versioning of libraries or sometimes gcc itself. The underlying issues are not merely a vanilla kernel. For other Linux distributions, the directory structure itself doesn't match up to generally accepted standards. Often the user of a specific distribution must wait until the vendor's own series of patches (kernel, libraries, utilities, etcetera) are made available -- on the vendor's timetable, not the users.
I am not denigrating other GNU/Linux distributions -- there are plenty of reasons to stick with a particular distribution if you are comfortable with the timeliness of upgrades and the level of support from that distribution's user base. If the user pays for a support contract, deviation from the standard baseline can render your support contract null-and-void, or at least problematic.
I personally like to try brand new whiz-bang applications and utilities from the original development teams rather than relying upon a specific distribution vendor to make that application or utility available via their support structure. It's all a matter of your personal (or corporate) comfort level with risk. No one in a production environment would change a kernel, an application , or utility on a production machine without a graceful way to back out of those changes. This is not just a GNU/Linux platform issue, but applies to any OS and any application, and I have been involved in supporting a number of commercial unixes and "hobbyist" unix-like OSes. What I have discovered is that If you stick with, for instance Red Hat, you will learn Red Hat, but if you learn a distribution like Slackware you will learn unix -- that's what kept me gainfully employed.
I cannot answer this question for any GNU/Linux distribution except for Slackware, which may or may not get Linux Kernel 3.3.xx as part of an official distribution for at least one Slackware release iteration ... But my personal Slackware machine will be getting 3.3 as soon as it finishes building and I reboot the machine. ;-)
It's nice to have a GNU/Linux distribution that doesn't jerk users around with strange application locations, misaligned library versions, or an update schedule tied to commercial support contracts. I've tried the rest, and I returned to the best (imho), since GNU/Linux kernel 0.96. Don't try dropping a new kernel source tar-ball onto RH Enterprise Server, Fedora, or even Ubunto -- it will break your system, and your $$$$ support agreement.
Consider for a minute the number of USA state-sponsored false-flag attacks, sometimes characterized as terrorism, that have occurred or were planned in the past 100+ years:
(1) USS Maine in Havana Harbor: faulty design, rather than a Spanish "mine" -- Spanish-American War
(2) Lusitania Sinking: American passengers aboard a liner packed to the gills with munitions -- US entry into WW-1
(3) Pearl Harbor, HI: total economic embargo of Japan & asset seizure & outdated naval ships left vulnerable -- US entry into WW-2
(4) Operation Gladio: false-flag terrorism in Europe after WW-2 -- installation of right-wing governments in Greece, Italy, etc.
(5) Operation Northwoods: (planned, not carried out): "student-filled" aircraft "shot down" over Cuba -- 2nd Bay of Pigs Invasion
(6) JFK Assassination: No SS protection, no Army G3 on streets, pristine "magic bullet" that wounds 2 people -- US regime change
(7) Gulf of Tonkin "Incident": N Vietnamese gunboats "attack" US 5th Fleet -- US enters Vietnam Civil War, not "Falling Domino"
(8) RFK Assassination: lone gunman "kills" candidate with wrong caliber pistol from back, not front -- eliminates political opposition
(9) Waco, TX: Branch Davidians assaulted & burned-out by over-aggressive FBI -- beginning of Police State legislation
(10) First WTC Towers Bombing: Thorough FBI involvement in attack planning, funding, arming -- set-up of fabled Moslem enemies
(11) OKC Bombing: Bomb damage far in excess of 1 ANFO truck bomb & multiple bombs -- ramp-up of Police State legislation
(12) 9/11/2001: inept "terrorists" coordinated w/ NORAD "drills" & WTC 1/2/7 drop at free-fall speed into own footprint -- Iraq War
(13) Anthrax Letters: weapons-grade anthrax genetically ID'ed as USA military strain -- blamed on Saddam, USA PATRIOT Act
(14) Numerous "failed attempt" domestic terror "attacks": FBI infiltrated, subverted, suborned "terror cells" -- rise of Police State
It is no longer a matter of wild speculation that the USA government itself is & has been deeply involved in self-inflicted "terrorist attacks" to alter & sway public opinion in favor of an increasingly tyrannical Police State. And just as the Twin Towers were a depreciated property with tremendous looming asbestos clean-up, the USS Enterprise is scheduled for dismantling & disposal of 8 nuclear reactor cores with a final cost of over $2 Billion USD. How naive can the American People (& world-wide spectators) possibly be if state-sponsored false-flag terrorism is not considered regarding this decrepit aircraft carrier, when "justification" for a new war, this time against Iran, is involved?
One of the reasons that I have liked Slackware is that it uses standard locations for file locations, as well as up-to-date library / driver versioning for proper functioning. I can download a new standard kernel.tar from kernel.org and build it without breaking anything. And if you download any other software from the original project location and build it on your system, it knows where to find files. I don't want to slam any other linux distribution, but if you install some versions you may well find that libraries don't match up & when updated may break other applications that share those libraries. Try building a new generic kernel on Red Hat or Fedora and you will find that it breaks.
As far as any windowing system is concerned, I still like KDE over gnome because it is a "friendlier" UI for Windows users. The KDE SDKs are available for other platforms, such as Windows or Mac OSX, for developing same-looking programs. Commercial use does require $$, but for internal non-commercial use the SDKs are free. Of course, YMMV ...
It really doesn't matter how many counterfeit $50s & $100s that the DPRK can print or dump onto the international marketplace. Not one bit, even if the DPRK counterfeited $1 Billion USD instead of only $200 Million USD. Compare that to the $2+ Trillion USD that the USA Federal Reserve has created out of thin air, and without even bothering to print them up. This was the amount of "digital dollars" that have been passed along to international corporations, foreign banks, and foreign central banks since September 2008. And this doesn't even count the new Fed Reserve QE3 initiative begun recently.
I'm waiting for the Federal Reserve to come out with a couple of new lines of USA PetroDollars, as toilet paper and wall paper. Forecast: Continued deflation / stagflation, with an overnight chance of hyper-inflation. I saw somewhere on YT a $1 Trillion Zimbabwean currency note. We aren't there yet, but that specter is in our future as well. Bitcom looks like a stable method of commerce in comparison.
No doubt there will be a "fair & balanced" amendment added to this Kentucky legislation that would force the local telephone companies to surrender all rights to their no-longer-serviced basic phone service "right-of-way" granted by the state. No? WTF! That's shocking news ...
I am a big fan of MLK Jr. He was a man, with all the usual human frailties attached, but he was special. No small part of that "specialness" was his "I Have A Dream" speech. Strip all his now copyrighted & now protected evermore speeches and sermons from pulpits and there would be nothing left to remember him except his holiday. "WTH was it that MLK Jr. was so honored with a national holiday?" will be a question often asked in another generation or two, not a situation that MLK Jr himself would be in favor of.
It is possible, even likely, to kill that which you love or respect most by holding it so closely that it cannot be shared. Obviously, the lunatics are now running the asylum, and they are evil greedy f**kers.
What's next? Not allowing direct quotations be made, audible or in writing, of the Bible, the Quran, or the Torah? Which corporate entity gets the licensing fees from Those Violations?
Printed houses? Really?
I've seen poured concrete houses, in Roanoke VA USA, and I don't think they age well. They are inherently cold as an icebox, expensive to make any utility repairs in, even more expensive to expand or modify, and when they do eventually crack due to settling are nearly impossible to maintain wall alignment. "Printed houses" can either be equally problematic to poured concrete houses, or else "disposable".
The longest standing buildings have used post-and-beam construction, with either stone or concrete block walls, or quicklime & straw block walls. Some such constructions are listed in Britain's Domesday Book, nearly 800 years old. The modern equivalent building is made of reinforced concrete and steel beams -- very durable in spite of extreme examples to the contrary seen by the destruction of the NYC WTC Towers & Building 7 -- certainly historical anomalies.
Ideally, houses would be efficiently constructed from local building materials, like the sod dugouts built in the USA Northern Plains. I would rather live in a yurt than a "printed house" -- at least they have been proven to "travel" well. In many "purportedly civilized" regions, building codes that enforce monopoly construction methods outweigh common sense. Bankers' rules. Better a small home wholly owned than a modern palace "rented" from a bank for nearly forever.
Exactly.
A swarm of Hellfire missile equipped Raptor UAVs would have made a great "ice-breaker" for that Russian supply ship.
But such an application is not the primary intent for deploying armed UAVs over the continental USA. All aspects of military-focused high technology developed for conflicts overseas ultimately finds its way to domestic "urban pacification" or against domestic "enemy combatants". 30 years of increasingly draconian police state legislation has brought us to the point that:
(1) citizens can be stripped of citizenship with only an executive decision;
(2) citizens can be preemptively indefinitely detained without charges;
(3) citizens can be summarily executed based only upon an executive decision;
(4) any crime suspected or charged against citizens may now be treated as "terrorism";
The kidnapping of citizens is now "extreme rendition". The torture of of citizens is now "enhanced interrogation techniques". The extrajudicial imprisonment of citizens is now "indefinite preventive detention". Unintended civilian deaths is now "collateral damage". Reaction in response to our use of military force is now "blow-back". We justify interference in the internal affairs of other nations as "bringing freedom and democracy", even though we are no longer a democratic republic or constitutional republic, and if we bring not freedom but only death and destruction. If forces aligned with our side commit violence, it's justifiable in the name of "freedom fighting" -- but if their are aligned with our opponents they are deemed to be "terrorists."
Drones are the very least of our problems, at least until The SHTF ...
The breakup of the USA explicitly implies a new Civil War, hardly possible considering the heavy balance of military power in favor of Empire. The Powers That Be would rather slaughter 9/10th of the civilian population, more in keeping with the advance of the eugenics programs envisioned by the New World Order. "Hope and change you can believe in" has left the building, with a Unitary Executive even more powerful under Obama than existed under Bush the Lessor.
The future doesn't so much repeat the past as it does rhyme with it. Prognostications of the future 100 years hence tracks more closely with the dystopian science fiction novel by George Orwell's "1984". "If you want to know what the future holds for humankind, imagine a boot stomping a human face, forever."
War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength.
Right. It's so much simpler to blame cave-dwelling Islamist fundamentalists living in the middle of BumF*ckIstan, to precisely coordinate their terrorist attack 7,000 miles away with NORAD drills pertaining to: "multiple hijacked commercial aircraft".
You just broke your K.I.S.S. principle. If you follow all the evidence, all the purposefully missing evidence, and answer the question: "who benefits?", you will arrive much closer to the truth. Your response should be a textbook / dictionary example of the term "cognitive dissonance".
Psychos, really? That would make you a Cheney sycophant, a paid troll, or a co-conspirator. There is a cadre of small but influential groups that routinely dredge up the aspersion "Holocaust denier" charge as their primary method of squashing any dissenting views, without merit, I might add. The least credible conspiracy theory about 9/11/2001 is the official government version.
I challenge you to explain how WTC Building 7 collapsed into its own footprint symmetrically and at near free-fall speed. TV reporters live at the time publicly remarked that the WTC 7 collapse exactly resembled a controlled demolition. If one building was rigged for controlled demolition, it is hardly a stretch of the imagination to conclude that all 3 WTC buildings were similarly wired.
WTC 7 was the only one of three office towers on 9/11/2001 to not have been struck by an aircraft. All three WTC office towers, constructed of steel beams, concrete, & glass are the only such structures in history to collapse from office fires -- and not just collapse, but to collapse symmetrically into their own footprints.
Finally, please answer the question "cui bono?" (Who benefits?) It certainly was not Osama Bin Laden, al-Queda, the Taliban, the Iraqis, or the American people. There is a whole long list of persons, corporations, and several governments that have benefitted -- in regard to money, power, political influence, and regional hegemony.
Ten years ago, 19 hijackers armed only with box-cutters, took over 4 commercial aircraft and 3 of 4 of them into USA militarily & economically sensitive sites while eluding the entire NORAD defense organization, causing nearly 3 thousand deaths. At least, that is the official conspiracy theory, that through a series of extraordinary coincidences in near-perfect alignment, 9/11/2001 "just happened", "and that no one had any idea that such an event was even possible."
Ignored, discounted, and not investigated were such factors as (1) the USA 'Visa Express' program based in Saudi Arabia was used to bring Islamist fighters to the USA for military training for many years and, (2) the fact that at least 8 of 19 hijackers were still alive in the ME and merely victims of identity theft, (3) that 3 office towers built from concrete, steel, & glass fell symmetrically within their own footprints at very nearly the acceleration of gravity in a vacuum, and (4) that senior Bush regime officials were collaborators & signatories to the PNAC document which called for global military hegemony subsequent to a "new Pearl Harbor".
I don't mean to sound callus about the loss of those 3,000 people on 9/11/2001, but 200,000+ people per year die from tobacco-related illnesses, and 20,000+ people per year die from alcohol-related traffic accidents. We Americans have surrendered our birthright Constitution & Bill of Rights, and have waged "preemptive wars" for the past 10 years in 6+ countries, costing over $1.2 Trillion and over 5,000 servicemen killed & 100,000+ GIs seriously wounded. In all that 10 year period, no additional domestic terrorist attacks by foreign islamic terrorists have ever been consummated, and each serious attack attempted have been thwarted by alert civilians, not the USA police state.
How has this vast expenditure of blood & treasure, of the loss of individual freedoms, liberties, and inalienable rights, been worth the minimal risk of new domestic terrorist attacks? I don't see the value ...
"Okay, let me see you do realtime waveform analysis in plain text."
Ahh, you didn't take the red pill. You see a screenful of columns of characters streaming down. I see a woman in a red dress, and I see Agent Smith.
Wait for it ... Windows without a GUI is called ... DOS. A Windows server running without a GUI makes sense, but may very well require a local Windows client with a GUI to manage that server. Microsoft's "regression" to a GUI-less version of Windows after 20 years isn't only a dramatic change, but it also opens the door to the requirement for a whole new 3rd party software upgrade path. Think about the expanded revenue stream, and learning a new Windows paradigm.
In that respect, at least, one could say that "DOS (NT) ist gude."
Well, I'm not a conspiracy theorist either, at least in regard to the failure of this Russian spacecraft bound for Mars to be damaged by the USA HAARP project. ;-)
AFAIK, at the time of each SST (shuttle) disaster, there was initial speculation in the lame stream media that blamed the Russians, and with the second disaster blamed the Chinese.
There are plenty of high tech gear, that if bumped in the night, tend to rapidly go pear-shaped. It is rocket science, after all, and each a project comprised of tens of thousands of critical components not always made to a 99.999 quality standard by the lowest bidders.
But that being said, there is a great deal of paranoia and mistrust between the "space powers" regarding the militarization of Earth orbit, as a reflection of similar ground-based paranoia and mistrust. For some reason or other, the USA cannot seem to stay out of foreign conflicts for more than a year or two, ever since WW2.
That there is far more buzz on the internet about these issues of our police state than is ever covered by the lame stream media, for some reason or other ... something to do with free speech, DHS/TSA "lists", and the national security surveillance police state. Occupy Movement type public demonstrations seems to keep attracting more and more of a police state response, these domestic UAVs being only the "latest thing". How long before these domestic UAVs are armed with missiles or 20 mm cannon, for law enforcement purposes of course?
"Above my pay grade" is an attitude that may work for an IT worker in a union shop, or government / public service worker, but doesn't bode well career-wise. SAs, even Senior SAs, are by job definition on a rotating 24/7 on-call service to many IT shops. The "pay grade" includes, or should include, an elevated monetary compensation for your extra effort.
I worked as a sub-contractor SA to a government systems engineering / information technology contractor, with a quite generous union scale benefits package. Compartmentalized support meant that I didn't write code beyond some administrative scripting -- that was left to even more generously compensated software engineers.
But when it was a test system server whose primary storage crashed at 0400 on a Saturday morning, it was me that spent the entire weekend on-site, not these software engineers. My extra effort regularly expended earned me respect, extra bonuses, and an employment contract that got extended four times.
You should consider your off-the-clock software coding to be part of the service you provide, even if not directly compensated. You could always issue a non-exclusive license for your code to your employer under GPL, and use this on your CV.
It isn't as if China doesn't have more science & technology patents these days. How many different RISC-based processors have been crushed by Intel's predatory marketing instead of best technology? I count at least 3: Alpha, MIPS, and Sparc. From that lot, they could pick and choose the technology to apply -- they are not necessarily reliant upon an IBM-PC compatible platform, nor a Microsoft operating system. On top of that, what percentage of total semiconductor manufacturing capacity is in China's backyard? Maybe 70%? Some of the USA's most valuable high technology has been shipped overseas, like IP, not just the manufacturing capacity. The biggest exports the USA has these days is war & weapons of war. When other countries possess the core technologies, they will find other systems integrators to replace the over-priced USA versions. The Chinese don't need industrial espionage to acquire our technology -- they're our bankers, and they hold the "mortgage paper" to much of our economy. In other words, why would they steal what they already own?
No kidding.
It's a war OF terror, not a war ON terror -- with the primary victims being the the world's citizens falling under an increasingly draconian curtailment of human rights (i.e.. Constitution & Bill of Rights in the USA). Of course, I am not belittling the vast number of victims of state-sponsored terrorism, nor that of rogue groups -- only that state-sponsored terrorism is much more effective at killing because they can put the money behind real WMD.
The world's economy is going down the tubes because eminent "peak everything" spells the doom of the one thing the current economy / banking system / ponzi scheme is most dependent upon -- continuous growth. Those at the very top of the "food chain" are basically "strip-mining the economy" as quickly as they can to acquire as much as they can before the economic crash landing. The blatant emerging police state is one element put in place to assure an orderly transition into a feudal economy with a world government.
Empirical evidence refutes your claims. One need only look at drug use statistics in Switzerland and Portugal, both of whom have eliminated their country's 'war on drugs' in favor of treating drug addiction as a medical condition instead of a criminal one. Please tell me again how big a problem illegal alcohol stills are now in the USA, 80 years after alcohol prohibition ended. Statistics also show, beyond refute, that regions where marijuana laws are relaxed or eliminated, alcohol consumption goes down. Drivers high on marijuana are an insignificant negative impact on society compared to DUI alcohol. Google for the LEAP organization, and educate yourself.
Considering the funding available to the Mexican drug cartels, they could build tunnels the size of the Chunnel between Britain & France, using the same type of equipment. These boring machines can excavate through solid rock, handle the debris automatically, and provisionally install concrete or steel caisson wall reinforcement as part of the process. I would be surprised if this hasn't already happened. Of course, we wouldn't actually hear about it unless it was discovered by law enforcement personnel not already on the drug cartels' payrolls. Figure the odds on That happening. Even the Wall Street Mobsters have been awash in drug cartel money laundering, for decades.
Ah, FORTH. Greetings, comrade.