Slackware is an excellent choice as a first (noobie) linux distribution, for some interestingly (contrarian) logic that the parent poster has enumerated. It really IS THE most non-distribution-specific distribution that I know of. ( It is also THE linux distribution that I started out on as a noobie... )
The graphical but non-GUI installation is reliable and uncluttered for anyone who already has some experience with the underlying hardware, MS-DOS, and Windows. It is THE only linux distribution that I am aware of that the user can add an application or a brand new kernel from source code downloaded from the original authors (like kernel.org or sourceforge.org) and have it work as advertised. With every other distribution, the user is forced to wait until that particular application (or version of application, or kernel) has been "digested" into that particular distribution's approved installation format as a binary (RPM, deb, inst, etcetera). Open any standard book on linux (O'Rielly or other), and this distribution's internals, "/etc" structure and filenaming conventions will be instantly recognisable. The knowledge the user gains from this experience will quickly gain an understanding of linux, as well as other *NIX distributions. After "cutting my teeth" on slackware, I had little problem digging into HPUX, IRIX, and Solaris.
Open Firmware is actually an IEEE standard. Apple's new Wintel Macs don't use Open Firmware because Intel (in Microsoft-like fashion) decided to "roll their own" rather than use an open standard. While I do already own PPC Macs, this is a primary reason why I will buy no more (Wintel) Macs.
It is possible to write a new driver in Forth, incorporate it into a new Open Firmware image, and burn it into the EEPROM. In fact, it is possible to write an entire OS based upon Forth and replace the OEM's operating system. The trick would be to make it look like the OEM's OS, including the use of standard API calls. Imagine being able to run an OS, with F/OSS applications entirely from firmware without resorting to very rare and very expensive solid state disks.
I, for one, would welcome our new Forth / Open Firmware overlords...
The long answer is: American corporations have all the benefits (and more!) of the individual, but without the annoying (to shareholders) liabilities. They can (and will) do anything they want with the personal information gathered about you. They treat it as yet another profit center, to be sold to whomever for whatever the market will bear. And since they acquired that information about you in the process of selling other goods or services to you, it was virtually free. Just how much due diligence and / or security do you expect these corporate entities to expend on their free profit center (your data) when there is no real downside? Yes, it blows chunks, but if you truly cared so much about YOUR personal data, you would have either tarred and feathered your legislative representatives OR moved to the European Union long ago. So sorry, mate.
I have a love-hate relationship with Apple Computer. I own (and love) my G4 Powerbook, but I hate what Apple has done to crowd out / supplant third party applications with less robust products. And until you factor in the costly regular upgrade but irregular patch cycle of Apple's software offerings, they actually look less expensive.
Considering Apple's move to the Wintel platform also caused them to close their (Darwin) source, I am looking for a F/OSS operating system and (largely) F/OSS applications. While OS X is based upon FreeBSD with a mach kernel, FreeBSD cannot seem to fully support the Apple PPC Mac product line. The only large multiplatform F/OSS player appears to be Fedora Core, but installing a new generic kernel is as problematic for FC as it has been for RedHat. Even OpenBSD doesn't fully support the Apple PPC Mac platform.
The truth is that Apple has (largely) been given a "free pass" in the media for their platform. While the BSD license allows for generating new, closed source software from F/OSS sources, the balance of giving back to the F/OSS community has not been equitable. I don't think that Apple can be trusted to maintain support for their PPC platforms when there is so much more money to be made from their over-priced Wintel platform.
The parent poster is a troll, and his argument is patently absurd.
HIFN might make their documentation available to the (USA) public, but if it is released under restrictive NDA language, it is hardly "OSS- friendly". Is OpenBSD supposed to bundle binary-only drivers, with the MS-inspired adage "Trust us, we know what's best for you?" I think not!
Imagine your level of trust in OpenBSD drivers that you cannot even see the source code to, let alone be forced to go back to the OEM for man / info pages. HIFN has far exceeded any legal requirement that USA Export Control regulations impose, and Theo has rightfully called them out for their current nonsensical position. This is not about HIFN furnishing proprietary SystemC or ERDA(?) data that would reveal the construction of the chipset or the crypto algorythms involved -- this is about data on how to fully interface to the chipset's I/O. There is no valid reason for OpenBSD (or any other open source OS) to continue to support HIFN. In fact, I woudn't mind seeing kernel code included that would fail to build with HIFN support, sort of like has been discussed on/. regarding locking out the SCO OS.
Theo is absolutely right, and HIFN unequivocably wrong.
There is a huge difference between making your product's documentation freely available (and without stupid NDA restrictions), and making your proprietary (and US Export Controlled) chipsets available without any restrictions. Even SDKs and sample source code should be readily available.
This is the very same type of chicken-shit OEM behaviour that Microsoft has repeatedly been involved in. It has nothing to do with US export restrictions and everything to do with OSS lock-out. Apparently HIFN is convinced that the US government need be their only customer, no doubt intimately tied into MS Windows Vista DRM.
IEEE / ISO standard == open standard Chinese WAPI == closed standard
The Chinese government requires that any implimentor pay licensing costs to China. If you want to embed their WAPI, you must incorporate in China with a Chinese entity as the majority shareholder. The questions become: "Does Intel really want to make the Chinese government their "senior" partner in chipset fabs, just to get WAPI embedded?" "And considering the potential for Chinese government trojans and/or backdoors in their WAPI code, would Intel risk losing any/all of their Western government hardware sales by adopting WAPI?"
Leveno quality control, as well as the increased potential for trojans / backdoors in their software drivers, has already made a negative impact on sales of IBM's former hardware company.
The parent poster is right on target. As the Middle Class continues to lose good paying jobs in the auto, manufacturing, shoe, textile, and high tech (IT & R&D) sectors, the consumer base that has been the main driving force of the US economy will continue to erode, if not disappear. The USA's economy is not now, and has not been for a very long time, a level playing field for economic development. The USA's economy is, in reality, circling the drain.
If you really want to counter this economic trend, you need to look at the voting records of "our" politicians, who keep voting for a larger and larger number of H1-B visas for their corporate overlords. Considering that the number of H1-B visa slots for 2006-2007 have already been used up, the time to apply pressure to "our" politicians is RIGHT NOW. And don't be shy about threatening to throw them out of office if they continue to vote AGAINST the US Middle Class in favor of their corporate masters.
I had the misfortune to reside over 1800 feet away from my phone company's central office. Worse yet, for a majority of that distance the 35+ year old wiring was all underground. My dial-up service never got better than about 32 Kbps using a 56K modem to link to my ISP's 56K access point.
When I decided to sign up for DSL service (Speakeasy & Covad & Verizon), I was told that I could only use ADSL modem service,due to distance and line quality. I would also be limited to only 384 kbps service. Several weeks worth of technicians (Covad & Verizon) labor went into troubleshooting various line quality issues. I signed up for a one year contract. While there were few service availability issues (thanks Speakeasy & Covad), I could never achieve better than 90 kbps d/l and 64 kbps u/l.
Between QoS, oversubscription, distance, AND line quality issues, neither DSL nor ADSL has proved to be any bargain for me. And just forget about local cablemodem internet access. The local cable company (Adelphia) was still in the "digital dark ages", using asynchronous service (cable d/l and dial-up u/l) and an internal 16-bit cable modem. I switched back to strictly dial-up service, because the alternatives were not worth the cost.
YMMV, but DSL/ADSL service in the USA is a crap-shoot. Buyer beware!
Installation of a border wall, concertina-razor wire, an electrified fence, or even a minefield are all great ideas to impliment in regard to improving border security. The electronic measures, such as border cameras, IR equipped UAVs, ground vibration sensors ALL require "boots on the ground" to interdict the cross-border invasion. Not only are there not enough "boots on the ground" thanks to lack of political resolve and financial resources since the 1986 alien amnesty, this oxymoronic Department of Homeland Security has adopted the (small "c") conservative policy of "catch and release", adopted from wildlife management tactics. Unfortunately, this policy was devised to protect ecologically threatened wildlife species. It is not as if illegal alien immigrants crossing the USA's borders are a "species" in need of conservation. Continued wrong-headed neo-Con(artist) policies of "open borders" and "amnesty for all" will threaten the USA's economy, ecology, culture, and sovereignty. The USA currently has between 12 and 28 million illegal aliens, depending upon who is doing the counting. Only 6 billion world citizens left to arrive in the good old USA. Guess who is coming to supper?
I came across a chemistry book, circa 1889, that went into great detail about things like: (1) how to safely manufacture and store nitroglycerin, (2) how to manufacture gunpowder (black powder), (3) how to manufacture photo flash powder, etcetera.
Human society seems to continually (genetically?) break down individual freedom and responsibility, and give those increased powers to the state. It's almost enough to make one a libertarian (or an anarchist).
Parent poster is absolutely correct, and also absolutely incorrect.
Any EU citizen wishing to visit the USA always has the option (thank you, Decider-in-Chief GW Bush) of flying to Canada, and then crossing our completely unprotected northern border, just like any other tourist or terrorist with a wad of cash.
Four and one-half years after 9-11-2001, and the Bush adminstration still refuses to consider the sanctity and sovereignty of USA borders, security of USA seaports, or inspection of all domestic air cargo as being important to their "war on terror". Repeatedly (and often) Bush administration representatives would make scary public pronouncements that "it is not a matter of if (another domestic terrorist attack occurs), but of when." Certainly, this is an easy prognostication to make, when you deign to leave USA borders open. Given this time frame, it would be hard to imagine that Al Queda, etcetera, have NOT ALREADY infiltrated the USA, along with whatever passes for WMD.
The "Department of Homeland Security" and the "Department of Defense" have been turned into little more than oxymoronic "black holes" to empty the US Treasury funds into (on their way to favored
government contractors. If the money spent (and wasted) on BushCo illegal domestic spying (wire- tapping, TIA & MATRIX database acquisition, infiltration of anti-Bush and anti-war groups had been spent instead on border security and enforcement of existing laws against illegal immigration and USA employers' hiring of them, this country would be a lot closer to that "homeland security" the American taxpayers demand.
Parent poster reminds/. that Microsoft WOULD replace *nix servers at eBay with THEIR flagship product.
It is not outside the realm of rational thought that Microsoft will be desperate to have some highly visible enterprise to demonstrate the successful adoption of MS Vista OS, even if they have to buy the company in order for that to happen. Vista is far behind schedule, and this only after shedding 90% of the new "gotta-have" features they were touting. Many, many corporations will be unmoved to migrate to Windows Vista OS until (1) it is a PROVEN product, and (2) prior MS products reach EOL status.
If Microsoft spends 20% of its' cash reserves to purchase eBay, and then another 20% to massage a working enterprise IT structure in order to demonstate Vista's viability, what other choice would they have? Their business plan is dependent upon regularly scheduled corporate upgrades, including the support contracts and training/certification treadmill. So long as such a massive acquisition takes place during the current (BushCo) business climate, they are less likely to get pinged by the DoJ regarding monopoly abuse.
You might say that Microsoft's future business is dependent upon a closing "window of opportunity" to demonstrate a viable enterprise MS Windows Vista deployment. The most notable feature of Vista, h/w-s/w DRM with corporate key control, would be an ideal non-political fit for an enterprise utterly dependent upon e-commerce.
The function F(x) could have been anything from cosmic rays, environmental out-of-boundary conditions, to the "hand of God" that disrupted the embryronic DNA replication that became a chicken.
But it did take man, over thousands of years of selective breeding, to bring us "buffalo wings" and "chicken fingers".
Yes, SM4 is needed, but not the one originally scheduled. The original SM4 was the EOL (End Of Life) mission, which would handle the decommissioning (removing solar panels, installing retro rockets, etc.) The dream of stowing HST into the SST cargo bay and bringing it home had long been abandoned. SI upgrades have already been built, as well as platform maintenence modules (gyros, etc.) So a real servicing mission SM4 is really needed, as well as an EOL SM5 in 2010. The SST program is in too much turmoil to count on for either mission. Politics, bad management, and lackidasical Congressional funding has all but killed off the SST program, and by default the HST AND (eventually) the ISS. (Thanks, GOP!)
I had the pleasure and privilege to work at Goddard SFC for nearly five years, related to HST control center software as well as support of SI testing programs. I have never seen such a talented group of dedicated personnel, before or since. At this juncture, even NASA itself is at risk of survival, given the current (and enduring) political environment.
MS Salesman: Wouldn't you like to buy an Enterprise license and support agreement?
Corporate ITO: Well, we have really have a mixed IT environment. What's the advantage?
MS Salesman: You might not get audited by the BSA. I understand that the audit process
can be very disruptive to a business' daily operations. Plus, we can almost
guarantee that you will not have any problems getting replacement License
6 OS and Productivity Suite authorization keys. You might even qualify for
timely security patches.
Corporate ITO: Well, aahhh, okay. Here's a blank check for you...
A metallic planetary suit for Hazardous EnVIronmets would be a HEVI suit.
Why bother! BushCo NASA funding means a Mars environmental suit field tested in North Dakota (you ARE kidding, right?) and deployed in a Utah desert soundstage. There will be no USA/NASA manned trip to Mars, let alone back to the Moon. But it will likely be offshore outsourced to a PRC - based private enterprise space corporation in alliance with PRC real estate developers, using the interest on current/future USA trade deficit.
In a hypothetical future conflict with China, China would win. And it would be an occupying force. All that China needs to do is load up all those cargo containers headed for USA ports for distribution to Wal-Mart with PLA (People's Liberation Army) troops & armaments. Our oxymoronic Dept. of Homeland Security thinks closing USA borders and examining every cargo container prior to entry to USA ports is too expensive (manpower) and too detrimental to the USA economy. As if a civil war, a war against an invading army (armed or not), or yet another major domestic terrorist attack would not be detrimental.
Instead of land-based lasers pointed to Low Earth Orbit, this country really needs them along our borders. Leave the satellite-killing to cheaper autonomous orbiting robots. And use the money saved to build up our Coast Guard, Customs, and Border Patrol to examine all cargo containers at holding points along the 12 mile limit offshore.
Isn't the real point that OpenXML is a valid document format just so long as no Microsoft- defined documents are used?
Non-standard tags, as well as a proprietary (and patented) binary wrapper for Microsoft's XML implimentation is IMHO enough to take MS products out of the running for any company, government organization, or international body for use in long term document retrieval.
The EU is now doing to MS what the Bush administration's USA Department of Justice failed to do -- financially punish Microsoft for an enduring and pernicious monopolistic pattern of business practices.
The original article refers to the BMW X5, certainly a luxury SUV pricewise. I would not be surprised if the X5 used the same OS as the BMW 7xx series, which is MS Windows CE. A graphical UI screen on the 7xx is used to access radio/stereo functions, bluetooth config, environmental controls, GPS navigation, car servicing info, etc. Why MS Windows CE? Both vehicles were designed and built in the USA, so I presume that there was an inherent pre- disposition toward this OS.
Another/. poster related a $30K Honda, parted out, as worth more than $90K. No doubt, a $60 - 70K luxury BMW might break down to more than $200K, parted out. Certainly not chump-change. This represents a relatively high return for 20 minutes worth of effort, as opposed to hacking a server somewhere, especially when you consider the downside. Hacking a server in the USA draws a lot of attention, and violates enough Federal laws to rack up 20 to 30 years in prison (FBI, DHS, DMCA, Computer Security Act, Patriot Act, etc.). An auto theft, OTOH, would rack up only 2 - 5 years, even if an interstate crime (Feds).
Methinks some physical anti-theft device, like a brake pedal lock, might be in order for even a luxury car like the BMW X5 or 7xx. Nothing would prevent a rogue tow-truck operator from getting your vehicle, though.
I will respect you enough to merely consider your remarks as "uneducated" rather than either an ignoramous or a troll.
Illegal aliens that cross the USA's southern border, including Mexicans (largest percentage), Latin Americans, East Asians including those from China, Korea, Indonesia, and Phillipines, West Asians including those from India and Pakistan, Africans, and Arabs all migrate to all parts of the USA, including along the USA's northern border.
The web is a great tool for gathering news and information, if one should decide to dedicate some time and effort instead of a knee-jerk reaction. News aggregators such as www.cis.org, google, and yahoo have had links to local news stories about public outcry over Mexican day laborers in such places as Idaho, West Virginia, and New Hampshire, Mexican document mills run in such places as Washington, Tennessee, and Georgia, MS-13 gang activity in such far-flung locales as Arkansas, Iowa, and Maine.
Please engage the tools available on the internet prior to unthoughtful posts.
The co-relation of 75% overlap between areas of increased (and formerly controlled)
infectious diseases and that of increased population density of illegal aliens is not casual.
There was a good reason for medical screening and innoculations that was such a large part of the legal immigration process at such historical sites as Ellis Island. Based upon monitoring of immigration news aggregators such as "www.cis.org", every contiguous TX, NM, AZ, and CA county to the USA's southern border, as well as every internal focal point of illegal immigration, has seen dramatic increases in HIV/AIDS and drug resistant STDs, TB, hepatitus, and even malaria.
Border states are now (or in the process of) suing the Federal government for additional Medicare/Medicaid funding due to the fiscal stress on hospitals and urgent care medical clinics that are legally forced (and morally obligated) to provide free health care to the indigent, especially illegal aliens. It is only a small percentage of illegal aliens who, without false papers, are forced to work as "off-the-books" day laborers. Most illegal aliens do have documentation - through ID theft or ID fraud that includes SSNs, health certificates, driver IDs, and innoculation records. The service industry, especially restaurants, meat packing plants, K-12 schools and universities, all hire low wage labor whose documentation will not bear close scrutiny.
If you support the USA May Day demonstrations, you can blame the next disease you catch on your own political inclinations.
The truly scary thing is that this does not include the FBI's CARNIVORE program, the NSA's ECHELON program, the NSA's widespread illegal domestic evesdropping program, the DoD's domestic terrorist infiltration program (including peace activists and political opponents), or the DoD's MATRIX program.
Who in the hell is watching the watchers? Whatever happened to Congressional oversight? Who in the bloody hell annointed GW Bush King George?
Of course, NASA management ALWAYS overrides concerns the engineers might express. The problems with delamination of the foam insulation on the external fuel tank could easily be corrected, merely by switching BACK to the originally used foam insulation. The formula was changed in order to be "politically correct" when Congress mandated a reduction in the use of CFC's in order to help protect the ozone layer. An exemption for NASA's shuttle program could have been politically acceptable.
Somehow, I think that the release of some CFCs in the application of foam insulation on the external fuel tank, as well as it burning off during re-entry, was far less hazardous environmentally than a space shuttle burning up on re-entry. The loss of life, the millions of dollars wasted in trying to "fix the fix", the early demise of the Hubble Space Telescope (no further repair missions), and the threatened EOL of the International Space Station need never happened.
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Slackware is an excellent choice as a first (noobie) linux distribution, for some interestingly (contrarian) logic that ... )
the parent poster has enumerated. It really IS THE most non-distribution-specific distribution that I know of.
( It is also THE linux distribution that I started out on as a noobie
The graphical but non-GUI installation is reliable and uncluttered for anyone who already has some experience with
the underlying hardware, MS-DOS, and Windows. It is THE only linux distribution that I am aware of that the user
can add an application or a brand new kernel from source code downloaded from the original authors (like kernel.org
or sourceforge.org) and have it work as advertised. With every other distribution, the user is forced to wait until that
particular application (or version of application, or kernel) has been "digested" into that particular distribution's approved
installation format as a binary (RPM, deb, inst, etcetera). Open any standard book on linux (O'Rielly or other), and this distribution's internals, "/etc" structure and filenaming conventions will be instantly recognisable. The knowledge the
user gains from this experience will quickly gain an understanding of linux, as well as other *NIX distributions. After
"cutting my teeth" on slackware, I had little problem digging into HPUX, IRIX, and Solaris.
Open Firmware is actually an IEEE standard. Apple's new Wintel Macs don't use Open Firmware because Intel (in Microsoft-like fashion) decided to "roll their own" rather than use an open standard. While I do already own PPC Macs, this is a primary reason why I will buy no more (Wintel) Macs.
...
It is possible to write a new driver in Forth, incorporate it into a new Open Firmware image, and burn it into the EEPROM. In fact, it is possible to write an entire OS based upon Forth and replace the OEM's operating system. The trick would be to make it look like the OEM's OS, including the use of standard API calls. Imagine being able to run an OS, with F/OSS applications entirely from firmware without resorting to very rare and very expensive solid state disks.
I, for one, would welcome our new Forth / Open Firmware overlords
The short answer is: "NO!"
The long answer is: American corporations have all the benefits (and more!) of the individual,
but without the annoying (to shareholders) liabilities. They can (and will) do anything they want
with the personal information gathered about you. They treat it as yet another profit center, to
be sold to whomever for whatever the market will bear. And since they acquired that information
about you in the process of selling other goods or services to you, it was virtually free. Just how
much due diligence and / or security do you expect these corporate entities to expend on their
free profit center (your data) when there is no real downside? Yes, it blows chunks, but if you
truly cared so much about YOUR personal data, you would have either tarred and feathered your
legislative representatives OR moved to the European Union long ago. So sorry, mate.
I have a love-hate relationship with Apple Computer. I own (and love) my G4 Powerbook, but I hate what Apple
has done to crowd out / supplant third party applications with less robust products. And until you factor in the
costly regular upgrade but irregular patch cycle of Apple's software offerings, they actually look less expensive.
Considering Apple's move to the Wintel platform also caused them to close their (Darwin) source, I am looking
for a F/OSS operating system and (largely) F/OSS applications. While OS X is based upon FreeBSD with a mach
kernel, FreeBSD cannot seem to fully support the Apple PPC Mac product line. The only large multiplatform
F/OSS player appears to be Fedora Core, but installing a new generic kernel is as problematic for FC as it has
been for RedHat. Even OpenBSD doesn't fully support the Apple PPC Mac platform.
The truth is that Apple has (largely) been given a "free pass" in the media for their platform. While the BSD
license allows for generating new, closed source software from F/OSS sources, the balance of giving back to
the F/OSS community has not been equitable. I don't think that Apple can be trusted to maintain support for
their PPC platforms when there is so much more money to be made from their over-priced Wintel platform.
The parent poster is a troll, and his argument is patently absurd.
/.
HIFN might make their documentation available to the (USA) public,
but if it is released under restrictive NDA language, it is hardly "OSS-
friendly". Is OpenBSD supposed to bundle binary-only drivers, with
the MS-inspired adage "Trust us, we know what's best for you?"
I think not!
Imagine your level of trust in OpenBSD drivers that you cannot even
see the source code to, let alone be forced to go back to the OEM for
man / info pages. HIFN has far exceeded any legal requirement that
USA Export Control regulations impose, and Theo has rightfully called
them out for their current nonsensical position. This is not about HIFN
furnishing proprietary SystemC or ERDA(?) data that would reveal the
construction of the chipset or the crypto algorythms involved -- this
is about data on how to fully interface to the chipset's I/O. There is
no valid reason for OpenBSD (or any other open source OS) to continue
to support HIFN. In fact, I woudn't mind seeing kernel code included that
would fail to build with HIFN support, sort of like has been discussed on
regarding locking out the SCO OS.
Theo is absolutely right, and HIFN unequivocably wrong.
There is a huge difference between making your product's documentation
freely available (and without stupid NDA restrictions), and making your
proprietary (and US Export Controlled) chipsets available without any
restrictions. Even SDKs and sample source code should be readily available.
This is the very same type of chicken-shit OEM behaviour that Microsoft
has repeatedly been involved in. It has nothing to do with US export
restrictions and everything to do with OSS lock-out. Apparently HIFN is
convinced that the US government need be their only customer, no doubt
intimately tied into MS Windows Vista DRM.
Let's see what the real issues are:
/all of their Western government hardware sales by
IEEE / ISO standard == open standard
Chinese WAPI == closed standard
The Chinese government requires that any implimentor pay
licensing costs to China. If you want to embed their WAPI,
you must incorporate in China with a Chinese entity as the
majority shareholder. The questions become: "Does Intel
really want to make the Chinese government their "senior"
partner in chipset fabs, just to get WAPI embedded?"
"And considering the potential for Chinese government trojans
and/or backdoors in their WAPI code, would Intel risk losing
any
adopting WAPI?"
Leveno quality control, as well as the increased potential for
trojans / backdoors in their software drivers, has already
made a negative impact on sales of IBM's former hardware
company.
The parent poster is right on target. As the Middle Class continues to lose good paying jobs in the auto, manufacturing, shoe, textile, and high tech (IT & R&D) sectors, the consumer base that has been the main driving force of the US economy will continue to erode, if not disappear. The USA's economy is not now, and has not been for a very long time, a level playing field for economic development. The USA's economy is, in reality, circling the drain.
If you really want to counter this economic trend, you need to look at the voting records of "our" politicians, who keep voting for a larger and larger number of H1-B visas for their corporate overlords. Considering that the number of H1-B visa slots for 2006-2007 have already been used up, the time to apply pressure to "our" politicians is RIGHT NOW. And don't be shy about threatening to throw them out of office if they continue to vote AGAINST the US Middle Class in favor of their corporate masters.
I call "bullshit" on your 6mbps ADSL "guarantee".
I had the misfortune to reside over 1800 feet away from my phone company's central office.
Worse yet, for a majority of that distance the 35+ year old wiring was all underground. My
dial-up service never got better than about 32 Kbps using a 56K modem to link to my ISP's
56K access point.
When I decided to sign up for DSL service (Speakeasy & Covad & Verizon), I was told that I
could only use ADSL modem service,due to distance and line quality. I would also be limited
to only 384 kbps service. Several weeks worth of technicians (Covad & Verizon) labor went into troubleshooting various line quality issues. I signed up for a one year contract. While there
were few service availability issues (thanks Speakeasy & Covad), I could never achieve better
than 90 kbps d/l and 64 kbps u/l.
Between QoS, oversubscription, distance, AND line quality issues, neither DSL nor ADSL has
proved to be any bargain for me. And just forget about local cablemodem internet access.
The local cable company (Adelphia) was still in the "digital dark ages", using asynchronous
service (cable d/l and dial-up u/l) and an internal 16-bit cable modem. I switched back to
strictly dial-up service, because the alternatives were not worth the cost.
YMMV, but DSL/ADSL service in the USA is a crap-shoot. Buyer beware!
The parent poster brings up an important point.
Installation of a border wall, concertina-razor wire, an electrified fence, or even a minefield are all
great ideas to impliment in regard to improving border security. The electronic measures, such as border cameras, IR equipped UAVs, ground vibration sensors ALL require "boots on the ground" to
interdict the cross-border invasion. Not only are there not enough "boots on the ground" thanks to
lack of political resolve and financial resources since the 1986 alien amnesty, this oxymoronic
Department of Homeland Security has adopted the (small "c") conservative policy of "catch and release", adopted from wildlife management tactics. Unfortunately, this policy was devised to
protect ecologically threatened wildlife species. It is not as if illegal alien immigrants crossing the
USA's borders are a "species" in need of conservation. Continued wrong-headed neo-Con(artist)
policies of "open borders" and "amnesty for all" will threaten the USA's economy, ecology, culture, and sovereignty. The USA currently has between 12 and 28 million illegal aliens, depending upon
who is doing the counting. Only 6 billion world citizens left to arrive in the good old USA. Guess who is coming to supper?
I know what you mean exactly.
I came across a chemistry book, circa 1889, that went into great detail about things like:
(1) how to safely manufacture and store nitroglycerin,
(2) how to manufacture gunpowder (black powder),
(3) how to manufacture photo flash powder, etcetera.
Human society seems to continually (genetically?) break down individual freedom and
responsibility, and give those increased powers to the state. It's almost enough to make
one a libertarian (or an anarchist).
Parent poster is absolutely correct, and also absolutely incorrect.
Any EU citizen wishing to visit the USA always has the option (thank
you, Decider-in-Chief GW Bush) of flying to Canada, and then crossing
our completely unprotected northern border, just like any other tourist
or terrorist with a wad of cash.
Four and one-half years after 9-11-2001, and the Bush adminstration still refuses to consider the sanctity and sovereignty of USA borders, security of USA seaports, or inspection of all domestic air cargo as being important to their "war on terror". Repeatedly (and often) Bush administration representatives would make scary public pronouncements that "it is not a matter of if (another domestic terrorist attack occurs), but of when." Certainly, this is an easy prognostication to make, when you deign to leave USA borders open. Given this time frame, it would be hard to imagine that
Al Queda, etcetera, have NOT ALREADY infiltrated the USA, along with whatever passes for WMD.
The "Department of Homeland Security" and the "Department of Defense" have been turned into little
more than oxymoronic "black holes" to empty the US Treasury funds into (on their way to favored
government contractors. If the money spent (and wasted) on BushCo illegal domestic spying (wire-
tapping, TIA & MATRIX database acquisition, infiltration of anti-Bush and anti-war groups had been
spent instead on border security and enforcement of existing laws against illegal immigration and
USA employers' hiring of them, this country would be a lot closer to that "homeland security" the
American taxpayers demand.
Parent poster reminds /. that Microsoft WOULD replace *nix servers at eBay with THEIR
flagship product.
It is not outside the realm of rational thought that Microsoft will be desperate to have
some highly visible enterprise to demonstrate the successful adoption of MS Vista OS,
even if they have to buy the company in order for that to happen. Vista is far behind
schedule, and this only after shedding 90% of the new "gotta-have" features they were
touting. Many, many corporations will be unmoved to migrate to Windows Vista OS
until (1) it is a PROVEN product, and (2) prior MS products reach EOL status.
If Microsoft spends 20% of its' cash reserves to purchase eBay, and then another 20%
to massage a working enterprise IT structure in order to demonstate Vista's viability,
what other choice would they have? Their business plan is dependent upon regularly
scheduled corporate upgrades, including the support contracts and training/certification
treadmill. So long as such a massive acquisition takes place during the current (BushCo)
business climate, they are less likely to get pinged by the DoJ regarding monopoly abuse.
You might say that Microsoft's future business is dependent upon a closing "window of
opportunity" to demonstrate a viable enterprise MS Windows Vista deployment. The
most notable feature of Vista, h/w-s/w DRM with corporate key control, would be an
ideal non-political fit for an enterprise utterly dependent upon e-commerce.
Actually, in more general terms, that would be:
P=1
Z = | { F(x)P = NP }
N=0
The function F(x) could have been anything from cosmic rays,
environmental out-of-boundary conditions, to the "hand of God"
that disrupted the embryronic DNA replication that became a
chicken.
But it did take man, over thousands of years of selective breeding,
to bring us "buffalo wings" and "chicken fingers".
Yes, SM4 is needed, but not the one originally scheduled. The original SM4 was the EOL (End Of Life) mission, which would handle the decommissioning (removing solar panels, installing retro rockets, etc.) The dream of stowing HST into the SST cargo bay and bringing it home had long been abandoned. SI upgrades have already been built, as well as platform maintenence modules (gyros, etc.) So a real servicing mission SM4 is really needed, as well as an EOL SM5 in 2010. The SST program is in too much turmoil to count on for either mission. Politics, bad management, and lackidasical Congressional funding has all but killed off the SST program, and by default the HST AND (eventually) the ISS. (Thanks, GOP!)
I had the pleasure and privilege to work at Goddard SFC for nearly five years, related to HST control center software as well as support of SI testing programs. I have never seen such a talented group of dedicated personnel, before or since. At this juncture, even NASA itself is at risk of survival, given the current (and enduring) political environment.
MS Salesman: Wouldn't you like to buy an Enterprise license and support agreement?
...
Corporate ITO: Well, we have really have a mixed IT environment. What's the advantage?
MS Salesman: You might not get audited by the BSA. I understand that the audit process
can be very disruptive to a business' daily operations. Plus, we can almost
guarantee that you will not have any problems getting replacement License
6 OS and Productivity Suite authorization keys. You might even qualify for
timely security patches.
Corporate ITO: Well, aahhh, okay. Here's a blank check for you
Surely not!
A metallic planetary suit for Hazardous EnVIronmets would be a HEVI suit.
Why bother! BushCo NASA funding means a Mars environmental suit field
tested in North Dakota (you ARE kidding, right?) and deployed in a Utah
desert soundstage. There will be no USA/NASA manned trip to Mars, let
alone back to the Moon. But it will likely be offshore outsourced to a PRC -
based private enterprise space corporation in alliance with PRC real estate
developers, using the interest on current/future USA trade deficit.
In a hypothetical future conflict with China, China would win. And it would be an occupying
force. All that China needs to do is load up all those cargo containers headed for USA ports
for distribution to Wal-Mart with PLA (People's Liberation Army) troops & armaments. Our
oxymoronic Dept. of Homeland Security thinks closing USA borders and examining every
cargo container prior to entry to USA ports is too expensive (manpower) and too detrimental
to the USA economy. As if a civil war, a war against an invading army (armed or not), or yet
another major domestic terrorist attack would not be detrimental.
Instead of land-based lasers pointed to Low Earth Orbit, this country really needs them along
our borders. Leave the satellite-killing to cheaper autonomous orbiting robots. And use the
money saved to build up our Coast Guard, Customs, and Border Patrol to examine all cargo
containers at holding points along the 12 mile limit offshore.
Isn't the real point that OpenXML is a valid document format just so long as no Microsoft-
defined documents are used?
Non-standard tags, as well as a proprietary (and patented) binary wrapper for Microsoft's
XML implimentation is IMHO enough to take MS products out of the running for any company,
government organization, or international body for use in long term document retrieval.
The EU is now doing to MS what the Bush administration's USA Department of Justice failed
to do -- financially punish Microsoft for an enduring and pernicious monopolistic pattern
of business practices.
The original article refers to the BMW X5, certainly a luxury SUV pricewise. I would not be
/. poster related a $30K Honda, parted out, as worth more than $90K. No doubt,
surprised if the X5 used the same OS as the BMW 7xx series, which is MS Windows CE. A
graphical UI screen on the 7xx is used to access radio/stereo functions, bluetooth config,
environmental controls, GPS navigation, car servicing info, etc. Why MS Windows CE? Both
vehicles were designed and built in the USA, so I presume that there was an inherent pre-
disposition toward this OS.
Another
a $60 - 70K luxury BMW might break down to more than $200K, parted out. Certainly
not chump-change. This represents a relatively high return for 20 minutes worth of effort,
as opposed to hacking a server somewhere, especially when you consider the downside.
Hacking a server in the USA draws a lot of attention, and violates enough Federal laws to
rack up 20 to 30 years in prison (FBI, DHS, DMCA, Computer Security Act, Patriot Act, etc.).
An auto theft, OTOH, would rack up only 2 - 5 years, even if an interstate crime (Feds).
Methinks some physical anti-theft device, like a brake pedal lock, might be in order for
even a luxury car like the BMW X5 or 7xx. Nothing would prevent a rogue tow-truck
operator from getting your vehicle, though.
I will respect you enough to merely consider your remarks as "uneducated" rather than either an ignoramous or a troll.
Illegal aliens that cross the USA's southern border, including Mexicans (largest percentage),
Latin Americans, East Asians including those from China, Korea, Indonesia, and Phillipines,
West Asians including those from India and Pakistan, Africans, and Arabs all migrate to
all parts of the USA, including along the USA's northern border.
The web is a great tool for gathering news and information, if one should decide to dedicate
some time and effort instead of a knee-jerk reaction. News aggregators such as www.cis.org,
google, and yahoo have had links to local news stories about public outcry over Mexican
day laborers in such places as Idaho, West Virginia, and New Hampshire, Mexican document
mills run in such places as Washington, Tennessee, and Georgia, MS-13 gang activity in such
far-flung locales as Arkansas, Iowa, and Maine.
Please engage the tools available on the internet prior to unthoughtful posts.
The co-relation of 75% overlap between areas of increased (and formerly controlled)
infectious diseases and that of increased population density of illegal aliens is not
casual.
There was a good reason for medical screening and innoculations that was such a
large part of the legal immigration process at such historical sites as Ellis Island.
Based upon monitoring of immigration news aggregators such as "www.cis.org",
every contiguous TX, NM, AZ, and CA county to the USA's southern border, as well
as every internal focal point of illegal immigration, has seen dramatic increases in
HIV/AIDS and drug resistant STDs, TB, hepatitus, and even malaria.
Border states are now (or in the process of) suing the Federal government for
additional Medicare/Medicaid funding due to the fiscal stress on hospitals and
urgent care medical clinics that are legally forced (and morally obligated) to
provide free health care to the indigent, especially illegal aliens. It is only a
small percentage of illegal aliens who, without false papers, are forced to work
as "off-the-books" day laborers. Most illegal aliens do have documentation -
through ID theft or ID fraud that includes SSNs, health certificates, driver IDs,
and innoculation records. The service industry, especially restaurants, meat
packing plants, K-12 schools and universities, all hire low wage labor whose
documentation will not bear close scrutiny.
If you support the USA May Day demonstrations, you can blame the next
disease you catch on your own political inclinations.
The truly scary thing is that this does not include the FBI's CARNIVORE program, the NSA's
ECHELON program, the NSA's widespread illegal domestic evesdropping program, the DoD's
domestic terrorist infiltration program (including peace activists and political opponents), or
the DoD's MATRIX program.
Who in the hell is watching the watchers?
Whatever happened to Congressional oversight?
Who in the bloody hell annointed GW Bush King George?
Absolutely right!
Of course, NASA management ALWAYS overrides concerns the engineers might express.
The problems with delamination of the foam insulation on the external fuel tank could
easily be corrected, merely by switching BACK to the originally used foam insulation.
The formula was changed in order to be "politically correct" when Congress mandated
a reduction in the use of CFC's in order to help protect the ozone layer. An exemption
for NASA's shuttle program could have been politically acceptable.
Somehow, I think that the release of some CFCs in the application of foam insulation
on the external fuel tank, as well as it burning off during re-entry, was far less hazardous
environmentally than a space shuttle burning up on re-entry. The loss of life, the millions
of dollars wasted in trying to "fix the fix", the early demise of the Hubble Space Telescope
(no further repair missions), and the threatened EOL of the International Space Station
need never happened.