the incident you infer reference to was
the loss of a NASA probe that didn't quite
make it intact to Mars. Pretty darn hard
to achieve the correct orbital parametrics
with the differences between the two systems.
It was not NASA but two different development
teams working for a NASA contractor in Colorado
that screwed up. One worked their part of the
contract in metric units, and the other in
English units. The project management never
bothered to question the units worked in, nor
provide the appropriate management oversight
that would have discovered the anomalies. The
result was the loss of a $250 million dollar
Mars probe.
I worked for that prime contractor, although
not in that location, and not on that project.
(Thank goodness.) Believe me, there was plenty
of embarrassment to go around (including NASA.)
The hyper velocity of the railgun projectiles
poses some interesting problems in physics.
The light weight of the projectiles, regardless
of speed, will be deflected over a long distance
due to (1) loss of speed and (2) differences in
environmental conditions (wind speed & direction,
humidity, weather).
Even the use of a large number of projectiles
(in order to assure a target kill) will not
prevent a number of projectiles from going off
course. Very rapid sequential deployment of
these projectiles would conceivably alter a
minature atmospheric tunnel that could be
"walked" into the target kill zone.
I guess there will be a lot more "nuke" ships
in the future US Navy, because it will take
a huge power source to power a surface naval
exchange of any long time duration. I would
not want to be anywhere downrange of such a
barrage.
Really just a natural extension to Poindexter's TIA (Total Information Awareness) project (which lives!) I could have sworn that the only military arm that has ANY LEGAL DOMESTIC charter is the Nat. Guard.
Once DoD gets involved in domestic law enforcement investigations, the next step is assigning "political officers" to each brigade, just like the Nazis and Stalinists, as well as "Cuban-style" neighborhood watch/informers...
Oh, wait, we already have that bit with the establishment of the HSA, via phone, letter, or website. (Amaze your friends, and strike fear into your neighbors: file a suspicious report against them and watch the fun ensue as various Fed agencies trip all over themselves trying to "score" the next "big terrorist plot".)
Don't think that the Patriot Act & HSA are not being used to counter domestic political opposition: that has already happened when FAA, FBI, & HSA got involved in the search for the "missing" Texas Democratic legislators, as well as the computer server "breakins" at the US Senate.
These bastards that have taken over the government all swore an oath to protect the US Constitution and Bill or Rights. Their actions already qualify them (IMO) for impeachment and trial (and prison). How hard is it going to be to get these "national socialists" voted out of office? (Especially considering their $6 billion USD initiative for "upgrading to eVoting" ?
Considering that most USA IT pro pay scale has gone way down in the last 2 years, MOST of the pay differential is hazardous duty pay. Very recent events in the ME would indicate that the pay differential is for REAL RISKS.
I understand that the pay is tax-free, so there is more money to spend on health & life ins., ceramic body armour, and a folding AK-47.
I started my linux experience with Slackware 0.96, in late 1993 or early 1994. I still have the CDs. Okay, so I was already something of a "geek" at the time, but it wasn't hard to do even then.
The installation tools are simple, and pretty darn solid. No surprises, and no helpful "Bob" or "Clippy" GUI that misconfigures the system. And generally very stable. That tradition continues to this day. I am running 9.1, with the 2.6.6 kernel.
I haven't downloaded Slackware (even BitTorrent), but buy the CDROM packaged distribution in order to help support the project. While it would have been nice to get the 2.6 kernel standard with the 10.0 release, I agree that it would not have been in keeping with Slackware's reputation for solid reliability.
IMHO, Slackware is the best linux distribution going, and I have tried most of them.
1a) At a time when ALL US aircraft were grounded
(after 9/11/2001), the Saudi's flew several
commercial aircraft around the USA. Members
of the bin Laden family, Saudi royal family,
and others were all flown out of the USA
before the FBI could interview them.
1b) Riggs Bank just got hit with the largest fine
ever against any US bank for failure to report
nearly $25 million in CASH withdrawls made by
the Saudi Embassy over the past 4 years, nor
is there any accounting for where that money
went. (I am sure they weren't paying their
embassy utility bills with that much money.)
1c) Michael Moore isn't any more a crackpot than
Bill Riley is: you just don't like either
his politics or his message.
2) Electronic voting machines have been in use for
over a decade, and there have been problems
reported with all of them that do not have a
paper audit trail. The Bush-dominated Congress
has seen fit to spend $6 billion to fix the
"hanging chad" problem, but nearly all of the
eVoting machines introduced have no paper audit
trail. None of the manufacturers use ISO 9001
standards for process control, and certain
companies (like "Die Hard & Bold") have spent
more on lawyers and DMCA lawsuits to crush
any public uproar over their QC standards
than they have on systems & process upgrades.
The next election in November 2004 will be stolen by the arch conservative national socialist Bush administration with the help of these machines, and the voting public will not know that they have been disenfranchised.
Hmmm... 95GHz range microwave burst sounds pretty effective for an anti-personnel device.
Wonder when commercial products will be available for use in automotive and home burglar alarms? Even if it is as expensive as a "Lo-Jack" system, your auto would be vacated too quickly to get too far away, or stripped for that matter.
GWB and Co. have made such a cock-up of Iraq, that a real cynic (like me) might draw the conclusion that either
1) the Bush team couldn't find their
asses with both hands when it comes
to either fighting terrorism or winning
a war AND the peace, OR (my favorite
conspiracy theory)
2) that Bush & Co teamed up with the saudis
and al-Queda to commit 9/11/2001.
The second almost sounds like heresy, but consider the following:
Bush initiated the State Dept. "VISA Express" program to help facilitate Saudi visitors.
When all aircraft were grounded in the USA, the Saudis flew hundreds of Moslems out of US jurisdiction, including Saud royal family, bin Laden family, and many others.
The Saudi embassy withdrew tens of millions of dollars IN CASH from Riggs Bank, all unaccounted for.
The sections of the 9/11 Commission report (preliminary) that was made public was "sanitized" to remove all reference to the Saudis. The final report will do same.
Bush squeeked into office with a vote of the Supreme Court. Without 9/11/2001 to rally Americans around him, none of his arch conservative legislation would have passed.
The question you might consider is: "With the commercial interests of Bush/Chaney and the Saudis so closely aligned, is it beyond comprehension that conservative religious Moslems and conservative religious Christians would not have found common cause to advance ANY conservative religious movement in the USA? Particularly one that also served those commercial interests?
This "webmaster/terrorist" is one of the cast of thousands that provide aid and comfort to world Islamic terrorism. It is a travesty of justice for him to be found innocent. GWB & Co. have a much bigger problem in the ME than just Iraq.
The Western economies have been dancing with the devil ever since oil was discovered and developed in Saudi Arabia. Providing the House of Saud with the economic and military might to control their patch of the Middle Eastern sandbox has been a gamble that has powered the devil's work.
This closed theocratic society worships death. There is no tolerance in the Wahhabist sect for Western ideals, let alone other schisms of Islam. Anyone not a Wahhabist is considered an infidel, worthy only of either conversion or death. They have raised an army of martyrs who seek the rewards of an afterlife filled with pleasures unattainable and antithetical to this lifetime. The Wahhabist inspiration is the imperial Islam of the 12th century, which controlled Europe from the Atlantic south of the Pyrenees, north to the gates of Vienna, east to the Great Wall of China, and made the Mediterranean a Moslem sea.
Their control of Mecca and Medina, the heart of Islam, has been used, along with their vast oil wealth, to propagate their religious beliefs throughout the rest of the world. The mosques and religious schools that they built abroad as "works of charity" have been used as the training ground and recruiting centers for their war against all other religions. It is Wahhabist clerics that lead these centers, funded by Saudi Arabian oil money.
The current wave of terrorism within Saudi Arabia has been directed primarily against Westerners, and it's largest impact has been a spike in oil prices (more funding for their terrorists). Saudi victims of these attacks cannot be considered "collateral damage" in the Western sense, but martyrs to the cause. Cynical consideration of the Wahhabist culture of death and empire in assessing these terrorist acts could draw one to conclude that it is little more than "good theater", and propaganda meant for the West.
Our leaders would do well to consider the possibility that al-Queda is little more than a not-so-secret Wahhabist army, a Saudi Arabian OSS with plenty of "plausible deniability" for the gullible West.
I wonder if the SBC Netgear uses has a JTAG port. The CPU and memory available on the premium version of the product has (IMO) enough capabilities for an embedded install of OpenBSD (preferably Ver. 3.4 or 3.5).
Monopoly$oft's use of the subscription-based profit model to enforce the support issue, especially combined with their DRM strategy.
It's 2008, and your M$ AS2K3 server has just crashed. For the privledge of re-authorizing your software keys, M$ now wants the 3 years worth of subscription support paid for (that you dropped in 2005), plus another 3 year support subscription, now, it full. Oh, and there is a software key recovery fee of $10K per product to be paid for, as well as a $1K per simultaneous user fee.
If you really need to keep your business afloat, you had better be using this time to develop a F/OSS replacement, because Monopoly$oft WILL be screwing you when you need their support the most...
Okay, so I am still using Win2Kpro instead of WinXPpro. I was going to buy a commercial (OEM) copy of the latest & greatest MS OS ever (choke), but Monopoly$oft's bad press regarding XP made me hesitate.
Now it looks like I need to hold out until M$ releases WinXPpro with SP2 already there (around the end of the year?).
However, during this time period I will be looking at (gasp) an alternative OS that ALREADY provides better security. If the stars fall into alignment AND WINE becomes a more stable environment for those apps I can't do without, Monopoly$oft will NOT be getting any more of my money.
I am willing to bet that M$ will be losing many more customers besides me during that time frame.
This is STILL a republic, just not so democratic anymore. You really didn't expect our wonderful "representatives" NOT TO consider their true constituency the mega-corporation businessmen, lawyers, doctors, and American "royality", did you?
Money is the "mother's milk" of politics, and the true "republican" constituency are those who contribute the most money with the politician's least efforts.
(Oops, excuse me, but that's "Republican" constituency.)
Most of the really big political agendas are no longer set by the politicians: -- they are cooked up by the (now predominantly conservative) think tanks and business associations, then handed to the politicians on a silver platter. That is why so much legislation is passed that no individual politician has a total understanding of. A good case in point is the new Medicare legislation, which favors the drug companies, their captive distribution systems, and the various health maintenence organizations. Most seniors cannot understand the new drug benefit programs, so there is a very small percentage enrolled: it is all tied up in bureaucratic legalese and gobbledigook.
Don't expect the FTC or PTO bureaucracies to be any different, or better.
Hubble Space Telescope was designed in the 1970's, using 1970's technology. Prior manned servicing missions to HST required months of training in order to obtain a successful mission. Specialized tools and developed dexterity skills were required in order to remove equipment (in order to access other equipment). The complex motions, including disconnecting electrical couplings strickly by feel (through a space glove no less) are not likely to be attained by a robot. Precision motions by robots require point of origin markers (optical or mechanical) that were never included in the design of the Hubble Telescope.
One of the largest problems with Hubble is the longevity of it's gyroscopes, which have been failing more rapidly than their design parameters. Unforunately, the only likely robotic mission to HST will be to attach auxillary rockets for de-orbiting it. And considering the big mess made by US Skylab when it came down, a gentle push toward the sun is the more likely outcome.
The replacement space telescope is NOT a true functional equivalent, as it operates in the IR spectrum. The beautiful and mysterious visible light images that Hubble Space Telescope made available to humanity will not be part of this next generation instrument. NASA must resort to the riskly venture of a manned mission to service HST if it is to continue operations.
My limited functionality, microprocessor- controlled personal java engine (Mr. Coffee) has been using single-click, multi-click, and time domain click buttons since I first purchased it SEVEN YEARS AGO. The buttons are used to program time-of-day, and time-to- brew functions. In what way is this NOT prior art, stupid, stupid PTO?
IMHO, slackware 9.1 is the cleanest, most well thought out linux distribution going. (Okay, it might not be intended for newbies, but I went from MS-DOS and Win31 to the 0.96 distribution of slackware without any problems. And, it has only gotten better since then.)
I am running the very latest (2.6.6) kernel, ext3 primary with xfs raid0 (on IDE), and making great use of the PC-Card, USB2, and Firewire for my graphics work. 9.1 was advertised as kernel 2.6 ready (and it was).
I tried the Fedora FC1 release on the same platform, but experienced problems with the raid controller, Firewire, my WiFi card, and the DVD-R drive. Unless Fedora FC2 is head and shoulders better than FC1, I will stick with Slackware 9.1.
1. Spend millions installing thousands of WiFi hotspots 2. Give away free Internet access at these sites 3. Eliminate "Supersize" and reduce portions 4. Profit!
As a user of NTFS 4(WinNT 4.0) for five years, I noticed a huge problem went I switched to NTFS 5 (Win2K). During the D/L of big files, I would get an OS alert that there was not enough disk space free: the report would claim insufficient space for a 50 MB file while I had over 2 GB free. The disk analysis tool (MS) would report perhaps 20% fragmentation.
The only way I could proceed with the 50 MB file D/L would be to log in as the administrator, defrag the partition (sometimes more than once), and reboot the system. This problem NEVER occurred with NTFS 4. And, being the cheapskate that I am, I never used anything but the MS- supplied defragmentation tool.
I have never experienced these types of file- system problems with ANY other OS, including hpux (10.x), irix (6.x), linux (2.x), solaris (2.5/6/7/8), or my mac (10.x). The Win2K filesystem is worst than any of those supported by any of these other OSes (and the defrag tool is worst than in WinNT 4).
If I could get (native) support in Win32 for XFS and HPFS+, I wouldn't use NTFS at all. (Or better still, rock solid binary support for those Win32 applications under linux or max osx, and do away with Win2K completely).
Both the PRC (and their proxy, DPRK) got really miffed at the USA's plans for the (new & improved) missile defense system. I fully expect any Chinese space station to be very well armed.
Of course, once the Chinese found out that the USA's moon missions were really filmed in the Nevada desert, they lost interest.
McBride obviously took a page out of the Hollywood star/starlette SOP: good news or bad, being in the news is still worth it's weight in gold. Exposure rules.
IANAL, but the marketing techniques employed by the SCO Group more closely resemble pages right out of the RICO (organized crime and racketeering statutes). They share the same infamy with some other corporations: Enron, Global Crossing, PSINet, Worldcom, Tyco, etc.
Too bad it isn't likely that the USA would adopt sharia-style punishments, instead of the Federal (golf & tennis) "country club" that most white collar criminals become members of.
that the EU starts protecting their citizens from the heavy hand of the US government.
The good old USA stopped being a representative democracy in December, 2000, when a coup d'e-tat by a coalition of neo-conservatives, religious fundamentalists (including Islamic), certain energy and defense contractor companies, and a cliche within the intelligence agencies (the same one that brought us Iran-Contra Gate) overthrew the government of/by/and for the people.
It can now be more properly classified as a national socialist (fascist) oligarchy.
The whole problem with jamming cellular phone service at any time is the larger threat to public safety. Considering how poorly the cellular service held out in NYC on 9/11/2001 due to system overload, it is rediculous to consider ACTIVE jamming. Communications is key to any "rapid responders" whether they are using cellular service or service radios. Any policy of jamming is a big, big mistake.
It is not as if those people so inclined to commit terrorist acts would not have the ability to circumvent "high-tech" measures. The USA has screened for guns and (bigger) knives, only to be thwarted with terrorists using boxcutters.
GW Bush and company have spent billions of dollars on a missile defense system which still does not work. It is more likely that someone crossing a USA border with one of the USSR's missing suitcase nukes, or shipping a big nuke in a shipping container will be the real "next big event".
There is almost always a "low-tech" solution to the barriers erected by a "high-tech" defense. There has been plenty of IEDs made from converted artillery shells, and controlled by wire, that have taken lives in Iraq. And the military still hasn't arrived at a solution to the destruction of a $25 million dollar Abrams tank with a couple of $50 RPG-7s.
Slashdot Mirror
the incident you infer reference to was the loss of a NASA probe that didn't quite make it intact to Mars. Pretty darn hard to achieve the correct orbital parametrics with the differences between the two systems. It was not NASA but two different development teams working for a NASA contractor in Colorado that screwed up. One worked their part of the contract in metric units, and the other in English units. The project management never bothered to question the units worked in, nor provide the appropriate management oversight that would have discovered the anomalies. The result was the loss of a $250 million dollar Mars probe. I worked for that prime contractor, although not in that location, and not on that project. (Thank goodness.) Believe me, there was plenty of embarrassment to go around (including NASA.)
The hyper velocity of the railgun projectiles poses some interesting problems in physics. The light weight of the projectiles, regardless of speed, will be deflected over a long distance due to (1) loss of speed and (2) differences in environmental conditions (wind speed & direction, humidity, weather). Even the use of a large number of projectiles (in order to assure a target kill) will not prevent a number of projectiles from going off course. Very rapid sequential deployment of these projectiles would conceivably alter a minature atmospheric tunnel that could be "walked" into the target kill zone. I guess there will be a lot more "nuke" ships in the future US Navy, because it will take a huge power source to power a surface naval exchange of any long time duration. I would not want to be anywhere downrange of such a barrage.
merely cleaning the scum out of the gene pool.
Really just a natural extension to
...
Poindexter's TIA (Total Information
Awareness) project (which lives!)
I could have sworn that the only
military arm that has ANY LEGAL
DOMESTIC charter is the Nat. Guard.
Once DoD gets involved in domestic law
enforcement investigations, the next
step is assigning "political officers"
to each brigade, just like the Nazis
and Stalinists, as well as "Cuban-style"
neighborhood watch/informers
Oh, wait, we already have that bit with
the establishment of the HSA, via phone,
letter, or website. (Amaze your friends,
and strike fear into your neighbors:
file a suspicious report against them
and watch the fun ensue as various Fed
agencies trip all over themselves trying
to "score" the next "big terrorist plot".)
Don't think that the Patriot Act & HSA
are not being used to counter domestic
political opposition: that has already
happened when FAA, FBI, & HSA got involved
in the search for the "missing" Texas
Democratic legislators, as well as the
computer server "breakins" at the US
Senate.
These bastards that have taken over the
government all swore an oath to protect
the US Constitution and Bill or Rights.
Their actions already qualify them (IMO)
for impeachment and trial (and prison).
How hard is it going to be to get these
"national socialists" voted out of office?
(Especially considering their $6 billion USD
initiative for "upgrading to eVoting" ?
120,000 USD/year isn't anything to sneeze at.
Considering that most USA IT pro pay scale has
gone way down in the last 2 years, MOST of the
pay differential is hazardous duty pay. Very
recent events in the ME would indicate that the
pay differential is for REAL RISKS.
I understand that the pay is tax-free, so there
is more money to spend on health & life ins.,
ceramic body armour, and a folding AK-47.
Where do I sign up?
I started my linux experience with Slackware 0.96,
in late 1993 or early 1994. I still have the CDs.
Okay, so I was already something of a "geek" at
the time, but it wasn't hard to do even then.
The installation tools are simple, and pretty
darn solid. No surprises, and no helpful "Bob"
or "Clippy" GUI that misconfigures the system.
And generally very stable. That tradition
continues to this day. I am running 9.1, with
the 2.6.6 kernel.
I haven't downloaded Slackware (even BitTorrent),
but buy the CDROM packaged distribution in order
to help support the project. While it would have
been nice to get the 2.6 kernel standard with the
10.0 release, I agree that it would not have been
in keeping with Slackware's reputation for solid
reliability.
IMHO, Slackware is the best linux distribution
going, and I have tried most of them.
1a) At a time when ALL US aircraft were grounded
(after 9/11/2001), the Saudi's flew several
commercial aircraft around the USA. Members
of the bin Laden family, Saudi royal family,
and others were all flown out of the USA
before the FBI could interview them.
1b) Riggs Bank just got hit with the largest fine
ever against any US bank for failure to report
nearly $25 million in CASH withdrawls made by
the Saudi Embassy over the past 4 years, nor
is there any accounting for where that money
went. (I am sure they weren't paying their
embassy utility bills with that much money.)
1c) Michael Moore isn't any more a crackpot than
Bill Riley is: you just don't like either
his politics or his message.
2) Electronic voting machines have been in use for
over a decade, and there have been problems
reported with all of them that do not have a
paper audit trail. The Bush-dominated Congress
has seen fit to spend $6 billion to fix the
"hanging chad" problem, but nearly all of the
eVoting machines introduced have no paper audit
trail. None of the manufacturers use ISO 9001
standards for process control, and certain
companies (like "Die Hard & Bold") have spent
more on lawyers and DMCA lawsuits to crush
any public uproar over their QC standards
than they have on systems & process upgrades.
The next election in November 2004 will be stolen
by the arch conservative national socialist Bush
administration with the help of these machines,
and the voting public will not know that they
have been disenfranchised.
Hmmm ... 95GHz range microwave burst sounds
pretty effective for an anti-personnel device.
Wonder when commercial products will be available
for use in automotive and home burglar alarms?
Even if it is as expensive as a "Lo-Jack" system,
your auto would be vacated too quickly to get
too far away, or stripped for that matter.
Agreed, wholeheartedly.
GWB and Co. have made such a cock-up of
Iraq, that a real cynic (like me) might
draw the conclusion that either
1) the Bush team couldn't find their
asses with both hands when it comes
to either fighting terrorism or winning
a war AND the peace, OR (my favorite
conspiracy theory)
2) that Bush & Co teamed up with the saudis
and al-Queda to commit 9/11/2001.
The second almost sounds like heresy, but
consider the following:
Bush initiated the State Dept. "VISA Express"
program to help facilitate Saudi visitors.
When all aircraft were grounded in the USA,
the Saudis flew hundreds of Moslems out of
US jurisdiction, including Saud royal family,
bin Laden family, and many others.
The Saudi embassy withdrew tens of millions
of dollars IN CASH from Riggs Bank, all
unaccounted for.
The sections of the 9/11 Commission report
(preliminary) that was made public was
"sanitized" to remove all reference to
the Saudis. The final report will do same.
Bush squeeked into office with a vote of the
Supreme Court. Without 9/11/2001 to rally
Americans around him, none of his arch
conservative legislation would have passed.
The question you might consider is: "With
the commercial interests of Bush/Chaney and
the Saudis so closely aligned, is it beyond
comprehension that conservative religious
Moslems and conservative religious Christians
would not have found common cause to advance
ANY conservative religious movement in the
USA? Particularly one that also served those
commercial interests?
This "webmaster/terrorist" is one of the
cast of thousands that provide aid and
comfort to world Islamic terrorism. It
is a travesty of justice for him to be
found innocent. GWB & Co. have a much
bigger problem in the ME than just Iraq.
The Western economies have been dancing with
the devil ever since oil was discovered and
developed in Saudi Arabia. Providing the House
of Saud with the economic and military might
to control their patch of the Middle Eastern
sandbox has been a gamble that has powered the
devil's work.
This closed theocratic society worships death.
There is no tolerance in the Wahhabist sect for
Western ideals, let alone other schisms of Islam.
Anyone not a Wahhabist is considered an infidel,
worthy only of either conversion or death. They
have raised an army of martyrs who seek the
rewards of an afterlife filled with pleasures
unattainable and antithetical to this lifetime.
The Wahhabist inspiration is the imperial Islam
of the 12th century, which controlled Europe from
the Atlantic south of the Pyrenees, north to the
gates of Vienna, east to the Great Wall of China,
and made the Mediterranean a Moslem sea.
Their control of Mecca and Medina, the heart of
Islam, has been used, along with their vast oil
wealth, to propagate their religious beliefs
throughout the rest of the world. The mosques and
religious schools that they built abroad as "works
of charity" have been used as the training ground
and recruiting centers for their war against
all other religions. It is Wahhabist clerics
that lead these centers, funded by Saudi Arabian
oil money.
The current wave of terrorism within Saudi
Arabia has been directed primarily against
Westerners, and it's largest impact has been
a spike in oil prices (more funding for their terrorists). Saudi victims of these attacks
cannot be considered "collateral damage" in
the Western sense, but martyrs to the cause. Cynical consideration of the Wahhabist culture
of death and empire in assessing these
terrorist acts could draw one to conclude that
it is little more than "good theater", and propaganda meant for the West.
Our leaders would do well to consider the
possibility that al-Queda is little more
than a not-so-secret Wahhabist army, a
Saudi Arabian OSS with plenty of "plausible
deniability" for the gullible West.
I wonder if the SBC Netgear uses has a JTAG
port. The CPU and memory available on the
premium version of the product has (IMO)
enough capabilities for an embedded install
of OpenBSD (preferably Ver. 3.4 or 3.5).
Anyone know of any efforts along this line?
Monopoly$oft's use of the subscription-based
...
profit model to enforce the support issue,
especially combined with their DRM strategy.
It's 2008, and your M$ AS2K3 server has just
crashed. For the privledge of re-authorizing
your software keys, M$ now wants the 3 years
worth of subscription support paid for (that
you dropped in 2005), plus another 3 year
support subscription, now, it full. Oh,
and there is a software key recovery fee
of $10K per product to be paid for, as well
as a $1K per simultaneous user fee.
If you really need to keep your business
afloat, you had better be using this time
to develop a F/OSS replacement, because
Monopoly$oft WILL be screwing you when
you need their support the most
Okay, so I am still using Win2Kpro instead of
WinXPpro. I was going to buy a commercial
(OEM) copy of the latest & greatest MS OS
ever (choke), but Monopoly$oft's bad press
regarding XP made me hesitate.
Now it looks like I need to hold out until
M$ releases WinXPpro with SP2 already there
(around the end of the year?).
However, during this time period I will be
looking at (gasp) an alternative OS that
ALREADY provides better security. If the
stars fall into alignment AND WINE becomes
a more stable environment for those apps
I can't do without, Monopoly$oft will NOT
be getting any more of my money.
I am willing to bet that M$ will be losing
many more customers besides me during that
time frame.
This is STILL a republic, just not so
democratic anymore. You really didn't
expect our wonderful "representatives"
NOT TO consider their true constituency
the mega-corporation businessmen, lawyers,
doctors, and American "royality", did you?
Money is the "mother's milk" of politics,
and the true "republican" constituency
are those who contribute the most money
with the politician's least efforts.
(Oops, excuse me, but that's "Republican"
constituency.)
Most of the really big political agendas
are no longer set by the politicians: --
they are cooked up by the (now predominantly
conservative) think tanks and business
associations, then handed to the politicians
on a silver platter. That is why so much
legislation is passed that no individual
politician has a total understanding of.
A good case in point is the new Medicare
legislation, which favors the drug companies,
their captive distribution systems, and the
various health maintenence organizations.
Most seniors cannot understand the new drug
benefit programs, so there is a very small
percentage enrolled: it is all tied up in
bureaucratic legalese and gobbledigook.
Don't expect the FTC or PTO bureaucracies
to be any different, or better.
Hubble Space Telescope was designed in the
1970's, using 1970's technology. Prior
manned servicing missions to HST required
months of training in order to obtain a
successful mission. Specialized tools and
developed dexterity skills were required
in order to remove equipment (in order to
access other equipment). The complex
motions, including disconnecting electrical
couplings strickly by feel (through a space
glove no less) are not likely to be attained
by a robot. Precision motions by robots
require point of origin markers (optical or
mechanical) that were never included in
the design of the Hubble Telescope.
One of the largest problems with Hubble
is the longevity of it's gyroscopes, which
have been failing more rapidly than their
design parameters. Unforunately, the only
likely robotic mission to HST will be to
attach auxillary rockets for de-orbiting it.
And considering the big mess made by US Skylab
when it came down, a gentle push toward the sun
is the more likely outcome.
The replacement space telescope is NOT a
true functional equivalent, as it operates
in the IR spectrum. The beautiful and
mysterious visible light images that
Hubble Space Telescope made available to
humanity will not be part of this next
generation instrument. NASA must resort
to the riskly venture of a manned mission
to service HST if it is to continue
operations.
My limited functionality, microprocessor-
controlled personal java engine (Mr. Coffee)
has been using single-click, multi-click, and
time domain click buttons since I first
purchased it SEVEN YEARS AGO. The buttons
are used to program time-of-day, and time-to-
brew functions. In what way is this NOT prior
art, stupid, stupid PTO?
1) WindHorn 2006(R)
2) Horny BSOD 2006(R)
3) MS BSE-OD 2006(R)
4) CowPies 2006(R)
5) MS BSE0wn3d 2005(R)
IMHO, slackware 9.1 is the cleanest, most
well thought out linux distribution going.
(Okay, it might not be intended for newbies,
but I went from MS-DOS and Win31 to the 0.96
distribution of slackware without any problems.
And, it has only gotten better since then.)
I am running the very latest (2.6.6) kernel,
ext3 primary with xfs raid0 (on IDE), and making
great use of the PC-Card, USB2, and Firewire
for my graphics work. 9.1 was advertised
as kernel 2.6 ready (and it was).
I tried the Fedora FC1 release on the same
platform, but experienced problems with
the raid controller, Firewire, my WiFi card,
and the DVD-R drive. Unless Fedora FC2 is
head and shoulders better than FC1, I will
stick with Slackware 9.1.
1. Spend millions installing thousands of WiFi hotspots
2. Give away free Internet access at these sites
3. Eliminate "Supersize" and reduce portions
4. Profit!
(thanks, McDonalds!)
As a user of NTFS 4(WinNT 4.0) for five years,
I noticed a huge problem went I switched to NTFS
5 (Win2K). During the D/L of big files, I would
get an OS alert that there was not enough disk
space free: the report would claim insufficient
space for a 50 MB file while I had over 2 GB free.
The disk analysis tool (MS) would report perhaps
20% fragmentation.
The only way I could proceed with the 50 MB file
D/L would be to log in as the administrator,
defrag the partition (sometimes more than once),
and reboot the system. This problem NEVER
occurred with NTFS 4. And, being the cheapskate
that I am, I never used anything but the MS-
supplied defragmentation tool.
I have never experienced these types of file-
system problems with ANY other OS, including
hpux (10.x), irix (6.x), linux (2.x), solaris
(2.5/6/7/8), or my mac (10.x). The Win2K
filesystem is worst than any of those supported
by any of these other OSes (and the defrag tool
is worst than in WinNT 4).
If I could get (native) support in Win32 for
XFS and HPFS+, I wouldn't use NTFS at all.
(Or better still, rock solid binary support
for those Win32 applications under linux or
max osx, and do away with Win2K completely).
Both the PRC (and their proxy, DPRK) got
really miffed at the USA's plans for the
(new & improved) missile defense system.
I fully expect any Chinese space station
to be very well armed.
Of course, once the Chinese found out that
the USA's moon missions were really filmed
in the Nevada desert, they lost interest.
McBride obviously took a page out of the
Hollywood star/starlette SOP: good news
or bad, being in the news is still worth
it's weight in gold. Exposure rules.
IANAL, but the marketing techniques employed
by the SCO Group more closely resemble pages
right out of the RICO (organized crime and
racketeering statutes). They share the same
infamy with some other corporations: Enron,
Global Crossing, PSINet, Worldcom, Tyco, etc.
Too bad it isn't likely that the USA would
adopt sharia-style punishments, instead of
the Federal (golf & tennis) "country club"
that most white collar criminals become
members of.
that the EU starts protecting their citizens
from the heavy hand of the US government.
The good old USA stopped being a representative
democracy in December, 2000, when a coup d'e-tat
by a coalition of neo-conservatives, religious
fundamentalists (including Islamic), certain
energy and defense contractor companies, and a
cliche within the intelligence agencies (the same
one that brought us Iran-Contra Gate) overthrew
the government of/by/and for the people.
It can now be more properly classified as a
national socialist (fascist) oligarchy.
From the Arabs, the West also got numerals,
including the very important concept of
zero. Where would modern mathematics be
without these things?
The whole problem with jamming cellular phone
service at any time is the larger threat to
public safety. Considering how poorly the
cellular service held out in NYC on 9/11/2001
due to system overload, it is rediculous to
consider ACTIVE jamming. Communications is
key to any "rapid responders" whether they
are using cellular service or service radios.
Any policy of jamming is a big, big mistake.
It is not as if those people so inclined to
commit terrorist acts would not have the
ability to circumvent "high-tech" measures.
The USA has screened for guns and (bigger)
knives, only to be thwarted with terrorists
using boxcutters.
GW Bush and company have spent billions of
dollars on a missile defense system which
still does not work. It is more likely that
someone crossing a USA border with one of the
USSR's missing suitcase nukes, or shipping
a big nuke in a shipping container will be
the real "next big event".
There is almost always a "low-tech" solution
to the barriers erected by a "high-tech"
defense. There has been plenty of IEDs
made from converted artillery shells, and
controlled by wire, that have taken lives
in Iraq. And the military still hasn't
arrived at a solution to the destruction
of a $25 million dollar Abrams tank with a
couple of $50 RPG-7s.