"... things like the ambiguities in the file system (/bin,/usr/bin,/usr/local/bin, etc... try explaining that to a "computer retard"®). "
Hm...
That's a valid point!
Maybe, we should hide the whole filesystem from the user and present him just his home as a C: icon in nautilus...
Do you think, that Windows is much better, regarding the filesystem hirarchy? (Yes it is in fact/oviously, but not realy I think.)
I think, the user should never deal with these things anyway, only administrators should. However there is a big caveeat... at home, the user and the administrator are the same person.
The only possible way, that "(home)users" do not come in touch with the filesystem hierarchy of the system and installed applications, is to fully abstract software installation, upgrading and system maintainance to a point, where at max users just have to click on the desktop.
Neither Windows, nor Linux are even close to that point. However Windows is much more advanced here.
Hm... once the Mac was a revolution, wasn't it?... Did Mac ever have more than 10% marketshare?;)
I think it is a revolution, when Linux is "ready for the desktop", since it was not in the past and probably isn't yet. But definitly Linux was never closer to that, than it is now.;)
"Chenobyl was not a hydrogen bomb - it was a steam explosion that scattered radioactive materials - simple mundane heat and water. It was still a disaster. "
Not entirely true! There was a steam explosion... but this was not the only one.
After the chain reaction in the reactor went out of control, the cooling system overheated and finaly exploded. This first stem explosion lifted of the cover plate of the reactor, but released only some fission products to the atmosphere. After the first (steam) explosion, there was a second explosion in the reactor, that released fragments of the nuclear fuel and causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames. After the moderator was destroyed, the chain reaction continued and the heat melted down the rest of the reactor and through the foundation of the reactor building.
The first (and smaller) steam explosion, released just a few fision products, the second explosion (although there is some dispute about it's nature) threw out parts of burning nuclear fuel rods, graphite and othere materials from the reactor core. However, the final graphite modertor fire burned for nine days, causing the main release of radiactive materials into the atmosphere.
"Did you know that radioactivity in and around coal plants is higher by two orders of magnitude than those found outside a nuclear power plant?"
"No I didn't, and I suspect the only people who do know have read some pamphlet on behalf of the nuclear industry. It sounds very unlikely to me - where is it all going to come from? "
I am not sure, if the grand parent is right, regarding radiation around coal power plants. However the point that coal power plants produce highly radioaktive waste is correct.
The explanation is for that is very simple.
Coal naturaly contains (like every other material) some radioactive isotopes. If you burn coal, these isotopes do not magicaly vanish. Except for a few isotopes, they do not burn and are left in the ashes or leak as solid matter particles with the exhaust fumes. Because most of the coal has burned and vanished as gas and most of the isotopes are left behind, they are in a much higher concentration, then they where before. Actually burning coal concentrates nantural radiation to unnatural high radiation in the ashes (and solid matter particles.)
It depends on the filters of the coal power plant, how much particles leak with the exhaust fumes and fall out near the plant. But anyway the waste of a coal power plant is radiactive waste. (But still far less radioactive than burned out fuel rods of a nuclear power plant.)
"If ANY industry were held to the same safety standards as nuclear, they would be bankrupt. As it stands, nuclear is still competitive. If such ornerous (ridiculous) safety checks were not in place, it would be substantially more reliable and cost effective than any alternative."
Hm... in Sovjet Russia, there were not these ridiculous checks...
Reliability and cost efficency was proven on 25.4.1886 in Chernobyl.
Ok, this is a bit trolling, however the extend of the damages caused by accidents with nuclear power make such checks neccessary and not RIDICULOUS at all!
And never ever nuclear power will be more reliable if such checks are not in place!
And please, don't answer, that US nuclear power plants cannot be compared to others!
It was just luck, verry great luck, that on 28.3.1979 there was _only_ a partial reactor meltdown in Harrisburg. For about 4 days it was uncertain to everyone what will happen.
"Please do not misunderstand. I welcome increased usage of solar, wind, and to some extend tidal, but these are not enough to supply 3,720 billion kilowatt hours of power -- the amount used by the U.S. in 2001 -- "
Hm... please do not misunderstand, it is rather that way, that there is not enough supply for 4% of the worlds population consuming 25% of the worlds energy production! --- That's the amount used by the US... not only in 2001.
And do not try to argue, that it is that way, due to economic power of the US. It is a fact, that all other major democratic industrial nations are much more efficent. The ratio energy consumptio per gross national product is about 0.23 for the us and 0.16 for Japan, Germany or the UK.
As a conclusion from that numbers, it would be possible for the US, to shut down every nuclear power plant (or whatever you think is the worst/expensive way to produce energy), if they would modernize their economy to reach the efficency of the mentioned countries.
And belive me, modernization does not cost any money, it saves money! (Costs for energy are reduced to 2/3 of the current value.)
If you want to have numbers for other countries, take a look at:
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?Indica to rID=19
(for GDP)
or at:
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?Indica to rID=146
Oh, I forgot something... it does not matter, if anyone is ever paid, the promise to get paid is enough to catch the fools running that virtual MDA fore some hours.
And I forgot another point... once that virtual MDA is capable to construct the information of the real MDA it mimics, from information collected on the client it runs, it's getting worse. It could, similar to Loveletter, scan the outlook adressbook for adresses, but not to send spam to this adress, but to use it as sender of the mail.
There is absolutly no limitation what a virtual MDA can do...
"You're not going to get much spamming done through a dialup connection"
Hm... spamm-mails are not that huge... I think I still transmitt about 4 spam-mails per second over a 56k dial up connection. That would be about 350.000 mails per day.
That's enough to send every single person (with an internetconnection) in the whole world a email in less than a year...;)
You mentioned costs? What costs' The cost for a dial-up line?... puh man, it takes me a few seconds to tap a line... the ones of public telephones can be tapped in less than 10 seconds, but the ones in the basements of a large apartment houses I would prefere for that kind of work;)
"Also, ISPs are getting wise to residential spamming. An ISP will disconnect you if they catch you repeatedly sending spam."
I am not sure, if you lack deep knowledge how a a "virtual MDA" works or if you lack knowledge what possibilities ISP have, to detect spam. (No offense!) Either an ISP catch me sending spam over their smtp-servers or they trace the my packets sent on transport layers. The first is circumvented with a virtual MDA, the second is technically nearly impossible for ISP's.
Anyway it is a good idea, to use a dial up connection on a tapped line, send out 666 mails, disconnect and dial in again, maybe even to a different ISP...
Ok, that's everything, a spammer can already do on his own and probably they already do this or similar things... and these methodes work fine! However, it is much easier and probably more efficent to hire people from all over the world. Spammers don't have to care for "new and clean" IP'S, they do no more have to care about beeing detected, because a ferw stupid people (and there are realy many of them around) just try it out.
If there are just a few spammers (maybe a hundred or two) in the world and they can flood the whole net with spams, what will happen if they find some more idiots to spam around, for a few $ ??
If only 0.0001% of all users on the internet try to earn some extra $ with that virtual MDA per day, then you have about a 1000 new spammers per day... (if I remember the number of internetusers correctly.)
But you feel save, cause you have blacklisted all dynamic IP's... what a foolish aproach...
It is not to difficult to spoof information in an email! Exactly that's what a _virtual MDA_ does... it is a _virtual mail transport agent_, because it mimics a _real mail transpüort agent_! All information you find in emails, sent by such a program looks like it was sent by a real (and not blöacklisted!) mail transport agent! (If the program is very clever, it even spoofs the IP packets sent out and there is nothing left, to differ between a real and a spoofed mail, not even on lower transport layers!)
You can blacklist the whole dynamic IP adressrange, but your mail-servers won't "see" any of these IP's, because the whoile mail (if not even the whole transport) contains false (the virtual) IP's.
You receive mail from aomeone@aol.com and belive AOL is doing a good job in preventing spam, so you do not blacklist aol.com, but actually not even one byte of that mail ever passed any system that belongs to aol... you are perfectly fooled, buy some fools that just want to earn some extra bucks.
That won't ever happen, there is not realy a reason for it... except for such things like spam!
A computer is not that expensive. If someone is in need of computing power, it is cheaper to buy the computer than to "hire" that computation-power. And if it is not cheaper to buy your own computers (and bandwidth and...), one can rent it from professional centers, that have computation-power, bandwidth (and everything else that normal users could provide in "small units".)
Actually, the smaller the units you want to rent get, the higher your costs for all the accounting and financial-transactions get. That's the reason why huge-centers (not only with computing, with _everything_ else) work more efficent than small ones.
The only thing, that normal users could offer are their IP's... the spammers do not want to rent your computational-power, neither your bandwith, they want to hire your IP-adresses... that's what they want to spend money on!
"Until programmers learn to to look at things from the point of view of a user..."
You draw a false conclusion!
The right conclusion would be:
The OSS community lacks programmers that are able to look at things from the point of view of a user.
The programmers that created all that stuff are fine, although they can't listen to other's. They are good in creating code/features and not in creating GUI/documentation.
If you want a nice roadster, you need good designers for the body and a good engeneers for the engine... and some more experts, for different aspects.;)
First of all, for Linux uneven numbers are development-versions. Second the 1.X versions stopped at 1.3 Third, version 1.0 surely was not the 10th major release... not even real swedish programmers begin counting at 0, like their programs do;)
However, this truly is the forth Service Pack for the Linux 2.6... within a few month they fix more, than M$ ever fixed in w2k;)
An if you are preparing to comit a crime at that moment, you buy such a device, then the store and even Apple itself is helping you to comitt a crime, that again is a crime in Germany...
Perhaps one should tries to sue all stores and Apple for that;)
In 1932-1945 German kids were tought, that the Jew...
In Israel the kids tought, that the Palestinen...
The Paletinen kids were tought......
Oh, and it is not a long time ago, that kids in the US were tought, that niggers... and the communists... and the drugs...... and the Iraqi... and the Chinese... and so on and so on and God says, that... has anybody ever heard God speaking?
You are wrong in one point of your vision... it is not a world _without_ possession, it is a world, where a _few people posses everything_ and the majority of people are just granted a few rights.
Uhm... hey it is quite close to the world we are already living, 10% of the people posses 90% of all property.
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg _was_ a terrorist, he blew up people! And noone remembers him as a bad guy, despite the fact that the attempted assasination at 20. July 1944 (and his resistance against the nazi regime in the time before) meets every criteria of terrorism!
The most important one is that wildcarding has no place at TLD level.
That's, _because_ there is nothing that can be achieved different and there is _no_ practical advantage here (as it would be in your ISP example) and because there are too many disadvantages!
Didn't the Nazi in Germany consider Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his fellows consider as terrorists, too, for their attempted assasination at 20. July 1944?
Of course they were terrorists, the bombed and killed people, but if they were right or wrong is a completly different question!
Regarding any terrorism, right or wrong is not something that the definition of terrorism includes.
Not every terrorist is a bad guy by default, Stauffenberg surly was not!
SCSI is cheaper (for me) since the SCSI drives I purchased some years ago are still fast enough and still outperform newer IDE drives and it will still take some time until IDE drives will outperform my SCSI drives.
And not to forget, that none of my SCSI drives broke, whereas dozens of IDE drives broke in my company.... ah, I know, I just had luck;)
First comparison was 1 year old ATA against 3 year old SCSI! Additionally the ATA was attached to a 2.2 GHz P4 abd the old SCSI was attached to a 750 MHz P III.
I think you are wrong. You can't compare a setup with significant larger cahe (decent buffering) to one without.
A single U2-SCSI will outperform even an ATA hardware Raid, if you turn of the raid controlers cache. Or vice versa, if you use a single U2-SCSI drive with a hardware raid-controler (no raid setup, just to benefit from the cache!) outperforms a 4 disk ATA-Raid setup.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever tried Knoppix ?
" ... things like the ambiguities in the file system (/bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin, etc... try explaining that to a "computer retard"®). "
...
...
... at home, the user and the administrator are the same person.
Hm
That's a valid point!
Maybe, we should hide the whole filesystem from the user and present him just his home as a C: icon in nautilus
Do you think, that Windows is much better, regarding the filesystem hirarchy?
(Yes it is in fact/oviously, but not realy I think.)
I think, the user should never deal with these things anyway, only administrators should. However there is a big caveeat
The only possible way, that "(home)users" do not come in touch with the filesystem hierarchy of the system and installed applications, is to fully abstract software installation, upgrading and system maintainance to a point, where at max users just have to click on the desktop.
Neither Windows, nor Linux are even close to that point. However Windows is much more advanced here.
Hm
I think it is a revolution, when Linux is "ready for the desktop", since it was not in the past and probably isn't yet.
But definitly Linux was never closer to that, than it is now.
"Chenobyl was not a hydrogen bomb - it was a steam explosion that scattered radioactive materials - simple mundane heat and water. It was still a disaster. "
... but this was not the only one.
Not entirely true! There was a steam explosion
After the chain reaction in the reactor went out of control, the cooling system overheated and finaly exploded. This first stem explosion lifted of the cover plate of the reactor, but released only some fission products to the atmosphere. After the first (steam) explosion, there was a second explosion in the reactor, that released fragments of the nuclear fuel and causing the graphite moderator to burst into flames.
After the moderator was destroyed, the chain reaction continued and the heat melted down the rest of the reactor and through the foundation of the reactor building.
The first (and smaller) steam explosion, released just a few fision products, the second explosion (although there is some dispute about it's nature) threw out parts of burning nuclear fuel rods, graphite and othere materials from the reactor core.
However, the final graphite modertor fire burned for nine days, causing the main release of radiactive materials into the atmosphere.
"Did you know that radioactivity in and around coal plants is higher by two orders of magnitude than those found outside a nuclear power plant?"
"No I didn't, and I suspect the only people who do know have read some pamphlet on behalf of the nuclear industry. It sounds very unlikely to me - where is it all going to come from? "
I am not sure, if the grand parent is right, regarding radiation around coal power plants. However the point that coal power plants produce highly radioaktive waste is correct.
The explanation is for that is very simple.
Coal naturaly contains (like every other material) some radioactive isotopes. If you burn coal, these isotopes do not magicaly vanish. Except for a few isotopes, they do not burn and are left in the ashes or leak as solid matter particles with the exhaust fumes.
Because most of the coal has burned and vanished as gas and most of the isotopes are left behind, they are in a much higher concentration, then they where before. Actually burning coal concentrates nantural radiation to unnatural high radiation in the ashes (and solid matter particles.)
It depends on the filters of the coal power plant, how much particles leak with the exhaust fumes and fall out near the plant. But anyway the waste of a coal power plant is radiactive waste. (But still far less radioactive than burned out fuel rods of a nuclear power plant.)
"If ANY industry were held to the same safety standards as nuclear, they would be bankrupt. As it stands, nuclear is still competitive. If such ornerous (ridiculous) safety checks were not in place, it would be substantially more reliable and cost effective than any alternative."
... in Sovjet Russia, there were not these ridiculous checks ...
... please do not misunderstand, it is rather that way, that there is not enough supply for 4% of the worlds population consuming 25% of the worlds energy production! --- That's the amount used by the US ... not only in 2001.
a to rID=19
a to rID=146
Hm
Reliability and cost efficency was proven on 25.4.1886 in Chernobyl.
Ok, this is a bit trolling, however the extend of the damages caused by accidents with nuclear power make such checks neccessary and not RIDICULOUS at all!
And never ever nuclear power will be more reliable if such checks are not in place!
And please, don't answer, that US nuclear power plants cannot be compared to others!
It was just luck, verry great luck, that on 28.3.1979 there was _only_ a partial reactor meltdown in Harrisburg. For about 4 days it was uncertain to everyone what will happen.
"Please do not misunderstand. I welcome increased usage of solar, wind, and to some extend tidal, but these are not enough to supply 3,720 billion kilowatt hours of power -- the amount used by the U.S. in 2001 -- "
Hm
And do not try to argue, that it is that way, due to economic power of the US. It is a fact, that all other major democratic industrial nations are much more efficent. The ratio energy consumptio per gross national product is about 0.23 for the us and 0.16 for Japan, Germany or the UK.
As a conclusion from that numbers, it would be possible for the US, to shut down every nuclear power plant (or whatever you think is the worst/expensive way to produce energy), if they would modernize their economy to reach the efficency of the mentioned countries.
And belive me, modernization does not cost any money, it saves money! (Costs for energy are reduced to 2/3 of the current value.)
If you want to have numbers for other countries, take a look at:
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?Indic
(for GDP)
or at:
http://globalis.gvu.unu.edu/indicator.cfm?Indic
(for energy consumption)
Hm
1. Never change a running system!
2. ???
3. Profit
Oh, I forgot something
And I forgot another point
There is absolutly no limitation what a virtual MDA can do
Mhm
Hm
"You're not going to get much spamming done through a dialup connection"
Hm
That's enough to send every single person (with an internetconnection) in the whole world a email in less than a year
You mentioned costs? What costs' The cost for a dial-up line?
"Also, ISPs are getting wise to residential spamming. An ISP will disconnect you if they catch you repeatedly sending spam."
I am not sure, if you lack deep knowledge how a a "virtual MDA" works or if you lack knowledge what possibilities ISP have, to detect spam. (No offense!)
Either an ISP catch me sending spam over their smtp-servers or they trace the my packets sent on transport layers. The first is circumvented with a virtual MDA, the second is technically nearly impossible for ISP's.
Anyway it is a good idea, to use a dial up connection on a tapped line, send out 666 mails, disconnect and dial in again, maybe even to a different ISP
Ok, that's everything, a spammer can already do on his own and probably they already do this or similar things
However, it is much easier and probably more efficent to hire people from all over the world. Spammers don't have to care for "new and clean" IP'S, they do no more have to care about beeing detected, because a ferw stupid people (and there are realy many of them around) just try it out.
If there are just a few spammers (maybe a hundred or two) in the world and they can flood the whole net with spams, what will happen if they find some more idiots to spam around, for a few $ ??
If only 0.0001% of all users on the internet try to earn some extra $ with that virtual MDA per day, then you have about a 1000 new spammers per day
But you feel save, cause you have blacklisted all dynamic IP's
It is not to difficult to spoof information in an email! Exactly that's what a _virtual MDA_ does
All information you find in emails, sent by such a program looks like it was sent by a real (and not blöacklisted!) mail transport agent!
(If the program is very clever, it even spoofs the IP packets sent out and there is nothing left, to differ between a real and a spoofed mail, not even on lower transport layers!)
You can blacklist the whole dynamic IP adressrange, but your mail-servers won't "see" any of these IP's, because the whoile mail (if not even the whole transport) contains false (the virtual) IP's.
You receive mail from aomeone@aol.com and belive AOL is doing a good job in preventing spam, so you do not blacklist aol.com, but actually not even one byte of that mail ever passed any system that belongs to aol
Don't worry, be happy
That won't ever happen, there is not realy a reason for it
A computer is not that expensive. If someone is in need of computing power, it is cheaper to buy the computer than to "hire" that computation-power. And if it is not cheaper to buy your own computers (and bandwidth and
Actually, the smaller the units you want to rent get, the higher your costs for all the accounting and financial-transactions get. That's the reason why huge-centers (not only with computing, with _everything_ else) work more efficent than small ones.
The only thing, that normal users could offer are their IP's
Hm
Do you realy think, it is possible to blacklist, all the dynamic IP's dial up users get?
I dial up, spam, and spamcop blacklists, I am automatically disconnected after 24 hours, and reconnect, get a new, fresh I, rince&repeat.
Most homeusers have no fixed IP, that can be blacklisted, think about it!
Spammers want normal users to spam, just for one reason
"Until programmers learn to to look at things from the point of view of a user ..."
... and some more experts, for different aspects. ;)
You draw a false conclusion!
The right conclusion would be:
The OSS community lacks programmers that are able to look at things from the point of view of a user.
The programmers that created all that stuff are fine, although they can't listen to other's. They are good in creating code/features and not in creating GUI/documentation.
If you want a nice roadster, you need good designers for the body and a good engeneers for the engine
Ah, yes I think so
26th release is the wrong answer!
First of all, for Linux uneven numbers are development-versions.
Second the 1.X versions stopped at 1.3
Third, version 1.0 surely was not the 10th major release
However, this truly is the forth Service Pack for the Linux 2.6
Oh, I am clicking faster, than I can think
An if you are preparing to comit a crime at that moment, you buy such a device, then the store and even Apple itself is helping you to comitt a crime, that again is a crime in Germany
Perhaps one should tries to sue all stores and Apple for that
Hm
If you buy it, then you are actually preparing to commit a crime, and that itself is a crime.
Hey, where is your problem?
In 1932-1945 German kids were tought, that the Jew
In Israel the kids tought, that the Palestinen
The Paletinen kids were tought
Oh, and it is not a long time ago, that kids in the US were tought, that niggers
History repeats, it was already done successfully many times in history.
Most (in)famous example from Germany
You are wrong in one point of your vision
Uhm
I have already written it somewhere else here
Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg _was_ a terrorist, he blew up people!
And noone remembers him as a bad guy, despite the fact that the attempted assasination at 20. July 1944 (and his resistance against the nazi regime in the time before) meets every criteria of terrorism!
You are right in every single point!
The most important one is that wildcarding has no place at TLD level.
That's, _because_ there is nothing that can be achieved different and there is _no_ practical advantage here (as it would be in your ISP example) and because there are too many disadvantages!
There is something that makes me wonder
Didn't the Nazi in Germany consider Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg and his fellows consider as terrorists, too, for their attempted assasination at 20. July 1944?
Of course they were terrorists, the bombed and killed people, but if they were right or wrong is a completly different question!
Regarding any terrorism, right or wrong is not something that the definition of terrorism includes.
Not every terrorist is a bad guy by default, Stauffenberg surly was not!
My 2$
Oh, you mean "purchase cost", not cost per time.
SCSI is cheaper (for me) since the SCSI drives I purchased some years ago are still fast enough and still outperform newer IDE drives and it will still take some time until IDE drives will outperform my SCSI drives.
And not to forget, that none of my SCSI drives broke, whereas dozens of IDE drives broke in my company.
RTFA!
First comparison was 1 year old ATA against 3 year old SCSI! Additionally the ATA was attached to a 2.2 GHz P4 abd the old SCSI was attached to a 750 MHz P III.
I think you are wrong.
You can't compare a setup with significant larger cahe (decent buffering) to one without.
A single U2-SCSI will outperform even an ATA hardware Raid, if you turn of the raid controlers cache. Or vice versa, if you use a single U2-SCSI drive with a hardware raid-controler (no raid setup, just to benefit from the cache!) outperforms a 4 disk ATA-Raid setup.