I'm for limiting anonymous use of the Internet. You can deal with privacy concerns by using encryption.
Eliminating anonymity would eliminate spam. Spam houses rely on masking their origination. Using encryption will not help them do that, but it WILL allow a non-anonymous user to avoid incriminating himself -- especially with the help of the DMCA, which makes it illegal to crack encryption.
Sure the government could still crack encryption, but they could not use that information in court.
Technically, the PATRIOT acts still require a judge to ok the warrants.
Actually, that's not my understanding. The Act is worded such -- and is being interpreted such -- that a judge's clerk can okay a warrant, without the judge ever having seen it. To my knowledge, this is not supposed to happen with "normal" warrants.
I'm not making this up, but neither am I sure of it. I think I read it in something ACLU sent me.
How are they working to increase market share and compete with the Wintel market?... What do they intend to do about a limited market share?
Ah, yes. The old "market share" argument.
That's why Porche, Leica, Gucci, Hummer, Rolex, et. al. are all going out of business. That's why rich people buy posters at Wall-Mart instead of original art or even (gasp!) pseudo-originals like Thomas Kinkaid reproductions. That's why there are no houses on the market over about $250,000 or so. That's why fine dining has gone out of style, and the hoi-poli are all eating at McDonalds.
But it gets even better -- a Hummer costs at least 4x the price of a Kia, yet they will both get you to work in the same amount of time. A Rolex costs thousands of times more than a watch at the Dollar Store, but they both tell the same time.
But the new G5 is within a few percent of the price of an equivalent Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc.! So YOU can be part of the hoi-poli on a budget!
Chasing "market share" is not an innovator's game. (Look what it did to Apple under Sculley.) The masses (Geoffry Moore's "mice") will always choose a product for reasons other than technical innovation. It's the "gazelles" that drive innovation, and they are always a minority, almost by definition!
So leave the market share game to those whose specialty is super-efficient manufacturing and marketing. And if you want the absolutely cheapest computer that everyone else has, it's a great time to own a Wintel machine!:-)
As for OS X, it definitely isn't a 64-bit operating system... WinXP 64-bit for AMD64 will be a full-fledged 64-bit operating system from the ground up.
You can write and execute 64-bit applications for MacOS X. It is true that not many have done so. (Adobe, are you listening?)
I'm not sure what part of MacOS X you're saying doesn't measure up to what is available in Windows today.
Surely, you must agree that comparing MacOS X today with Longhorn in '05 is not quite fair! Certainly, one could also claim that by the time Longhorn arrives, MacOS X could fit your definition of a "real" 64-bit OS?
Regardless of what some imaginary "real" Microsoft 64-bit OS might look like someday, I can use 8 GB of RAM today -- nya, nya, n' nya, nya!
Hell, viruses in ATMs are NOTHING! I'm sure CEOs of firms like Enron and Worldcom are much more a threat to the economy.
What worries me is that Diebold is one of the leading makers of voting machines. Are these machines also subject to such hacking?
The "Diebold Memos" circulating on the web document the insecurity of their voting machines. Also food for conspiracy theorists: Diebold CEO is a close friend of Dubya, Diebold contributed $300,000 to Dubya's last campaign, and they promised to "deliver Ohio" to Bush in the next election -- a state that has a large majority of Diebold voting machines.
"can't you just compile && install vanilla XFree and run it on top of the Darwin/Mach/BSD core?"
Sure, but again, why? The lastest MacOS X (10.3) comes with XFree86 4.3.0 as a supported binary.
IMHO, the biggest difference between MacOS X and a dual-boot Winux box is that you don't have to reboot the Mac to run Excel after you've been using GIMP.:-)
"I'm still pissed that AOL won't let me send email to any of their customers, just because I run my own SMTP server."
That's simply not true. The key is that you must follow certain conventions when running a "legit" SMTP server.
For example, you need to have a valid reverse DNS look-up. MOST ISPs will block you if you don't do this simple thing. I do! (I turn away some 1,000 emails a day because the sender doesn't have a valid reverse-lookup -- and 99.9999% of it is spam.)
This essentially means you must have a static IP address for your mail server. This only makes sense -- the post office will not deliver mail to a recreational vehicle, for example, so why should ANYONE agree to take email from someone who does not have some relatively permanent location on the Internet?
If you have a static IP address, and it has a proper reverse-DNS look-up, I can assure you that you can certainly send mail to AOL.
(BTW: I serve my own SMTP, and can send email to AOL. I'm using a "speedy" IDSL (144kbps) connection, but I know people who do the same over a 56k modem and a nailed connection.)
"Historic period in solar flares? Sorry, I might not be all that caught up on my solar flare monitoring, but how long have we been doing that exactly? It can't be more than in the last 50 years..."
That's what "history" means -- as long as humans have been keeping track. Otherwise, it's known as "prehistoric," as in dinosaurs and cave men.
"My rather informal test still raises the spectre that a large corporate entity may be clandestinely trying to sway you or your child's political views..."
Hey, have you been tracking the Diebold fiasco? Here is a company that gave over $600,000 to the Republican Party (nada to the Demos), who's president visits Crawford regularly, and has his own Dubya pet name, who denies there is any problem with their software, while vigorously prosecuting websites under DMCA for publishing Diebold internal memos that state that there are serious flaws with the software, who's voting machines gave a negative 16,000 votes to Al Gore in a Florida precinct with only 2,000 registered voters, who erased all memory cards within hours of an Illinois election when the state law requires retention for 21 months, who posted "preview" results of a California election (contrary to state law) when it appeared Republicans weren't turning out -- yet this company is the second biggest supplier of voting machines in this country!
Why even bother to "sway you or your child's political views" when you can simply write the statistics and the election result directly? No "swaying" required!
If you are really concerned about civil liberty, there are a lot of things more worthy of your indignation.
"Why does everyone assume all our hydrocarbons come from dead, compacted plants? There are hydrocarbons all over the solar system. Should we assume that all those hydrocarbons on Titan, the moon of Saturn, came from dead, compacted plants?"
Certainly, methane can come from many astronomical processes. But I think life is pretty much the dominant player in making large, complex hydrocarbons. That doesn't mean they don't exist in space, just that life is particularly good at making them.
I never said we should convert farmland to vegoil production for the purpose of powering vehicles.
I only mentioned that there is a simple way to use an existing waste product as a transportation or heating fuel, with the side effect of less pollution than the fuel it displaces, and all you folk who are threatened by new ideas went postal on me!
I'm outta here. You guys are just too willing to put words in other people's mouths.
But the next time you stand on the street and hear a diesel vehicle approaching, and then get a whiff of french fries (or doughnuts, or elephant ears) instead of obnoxious diesel fumes, you can think of me and be greatful that some people are willing to do something now for the environment, instead of sitting at their computer, sniping from the sidelines. Veggie Van Gogh
Who said anything about soybeans? Any plant that produces oil can produce transportation and heating fuel. It doesn't even have to be a wonderful nitrogen fixer like soybeans. (I would disagree they're "terrible for the soil.") Or you can alternate nitrogen-depletors like corn with beans, getting two oil crops that complement each other's soil use. (I grew up on a farm, so please don't tell me what is good or bad unless you can claim the same.)
"We are converting farmland back into forest in the US and if we met domestic demand for diesel through vegetable oil we would be back to deforesting and depleting. Bad idea."
First, I would argue both that we are NOT "converting farmland... to forest" in any significant quantity, and also that any resulting "managed" forest is no better than farmland with respect to environmental factors.
I never claimed that we should get all our transportation needs from farm crops. Indeed, if you re-read what I wrote, I was advocating using WASTE cooking oil. How you got from there to "soybeans" and "farmland" is beyond me.
"A far better option seem to be CWT. These guy say they can change any carbon into distilled water, balanced organic fertilizer and gasoline."
Well, I couldn't find any place where they claimed that!
Their process seems to consume unspecified hydrocarbons and produces various hydrocarbons. It appears to be energy- and water-intensive, with lots of heat and pressure required. It is unclear exactly what the feedstock is and exactly what the result is, except that it consumes a great deal of water and energy in the process.
A hydrogen energy economy is decades away. Vegetable oil diesel can serve as an important part of a transition away from fossil fuels. This can be done with today's technology -- indeed, in a handyman's garage -- using a waste stream that is currently a disposal problem.
Just don't tell me it can't be done, or I'll have to un-drive all those miles I've driven, powered by waste vegetable oil!
I cut out the middle man. To me, it isn't the amount of plant matter consumed by cars as it is the millions of years it takes to convert it to petroleum products. All that carbon has been sequestered for millennia, and we're just shooting it into the atmosphere.
So I do away with the process of turning plants into petroleum, and burn the plants directly in my engine. Anyone can do it! You only need:
a diesel powered vehicle, and
a way to thin vegetable oil, either
alcohol and a base catylist (typically methanol and lye), or
a heater to bring vegetable oil up to about 80C (180F).
With either method, waste vegetable oil from restaurants can be used, solving two problems at once!
With the exception of nitrous oxide and CO2, vegetable oil powered diesels are MUCH cleaner than petro diesels. Yes, they produce climate-warming CO2 in similar quantities to petro-diesel engines, but the CO2 they release was taken out of the atmosphere last year, NOT millions of years ago.
It is unlikely that Big Oil is going to embrace this, but you don't have to go it alone. Co-ops for producing and/or distributing biodiesel are sprining up like rapeseed oil plants. Google for "biodiesel," "SVO," "WVO" for more info, or visit www.GoBiodiesel.org for more information.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm for limiting anonymous use of the Internet. You can deal with privacy concerns by using encryption. Eliminating anonymity would eliminate spam. Spam houses rely on masking their origination. Using encryption will not help them do that, but it WILL allow a non-anonymous user to avoid incriminating himself -- especially with the help of the DMCA, which makes it illegal to crack encryption. Sure the government could still crack encryption, but they could not use that information in court.
Technically, the PATRIOT acts still require a judge to ok the warrants.
Actually, that's not my understanding. The Act is worded such -- and is being interpreted such -- that a judge's clerk can okay a warrant, without the judge ever having seen it. To my knowledge, this is not supposed to happen with "normal" warrants.
I'm not making this up, but neither am I sure of it. I think I read it in something ACLU sent me.
Ah, yes. The old "market share" argument.
That's why Porche, Leica, Gucci, Hummer, Rolex, et. al. are all going out of business. That's why rich people buy posters at Wall-Mart instead of original art or even (gasp!) pseudo-originals like Thomas Kinkaid reproductions. That's why there are no houses on the market over about $250,000 or so. That's why fine dining has gone out of style, and the hoi-poli are all eating at McDonalds.
But it gets even better -- a Hummer costs at least 4x the price of a Kia, yet they will both get you to work in the same amount of time. A Rolex costs thousands of times more than a watch at the Dollar Store, but they both tell the same time.
But the new G5 is within a few percent of the price of an equivalent Dell, Compaq, Gateway, etc.! So YOU can be part of the hoi-poli on a budget!
Chasing "market share" is not an innovator's game. (Look what it did to Apple under Sculley.) The masses (Geoffry Moore's "mice") will always choose a product for reasons other than technical innovation. It's the "gazelles" that drive innovation, and they are always a minority, almost by definition!
So leave the market share game to those whose specialty is super-efficient manufacturing and marketing. And if you want the absolutely cheapest computer that everyone else has, it's a great time to own a Wintel machine! :-)
Man, I've always been a miserable failure at buying xmas gifts. Thanks for all the great tips!
No, the troll was in the Hobbit! THAT must be what I was thinking of!
Tom Bombadil wasn't in LotR -- he was in The Hobbit.
(Rumor is that negotiations are taking place to produce The Hobbit as a prequel.)
So, which is it: "available now", or is it yet another Microsoft "will be?"
I admit that I'm nearly as clueless about Microsoft vaporware as you appear to be about shipping Apple products.
My signature doesn't work! How am I ever going to get a /. rating without a clever sig?
You can write and execute 64-bit applications for MacOS X. It is true that not many have done so. (Adobe, are you listening?)
I'm not sure what part of MacOS X you're saying doesn't measure up to what is available in Windows today.
Surely, you must agree that comparing MacOS X today with Longhorn in '05 is not quite fair! Certainly, one could also claim that by the time Longhorn arrives, MacOS X could fit your definition of a "real" 64-bit OS?
Regardless of what some imaginary "real" Microsoft 64-bit OS might look like someday, I can use 8 GB of RAM today -- nya, nya, n' nya, nya!
What worries me is that Diebold is one of the leading makers of voting machines. Are these machines also subject to such hacking?
The "Diebold Memos" circulating on the web document the insecurity of their voting machines. Also food for conspiracy theorists: Diebold CEO is a close friend of Dubya, Diebold contributed $300,000 to Dubya's last campaign, and they promised to "deliver Ohio" to Bush in the next election -- a state that has a large majority of Diebold voting machines.
I have yet to see this challenged, but my version of Panther uses NetInfo for user accounts, as it should.
NetInfo is great! I don't understand all the belly-acheing.
Sure, but again, why? The lastest MacOS X (10.3) comes with XFree86 4.3.0 as a supported binary.
IMHO, the biggest difference between MacOS X and a dual-boot Winux box is that you don't have to reboot the Mac to run Excel after you've been using GIMP. :-)
That's simply not true. The key is that you must follow certain conventions when running a "legit" SMTP server.
For example, you need to have a valid reverse DNS look-up. MOST ISPs will block you if you don't do this simple thing. I do! (I turn away some 1,000 emails a day because the sender doesn't have a valid reverse-lookup -- and 99.9999% of it is spam.)
This essentially means you must have a static IP address for your mail server. This only makes sense -- the post office will not deliver mail to a recreational vehicle, for example, so why should ANYONE agree to take email from someone who does not have some relatively permanent location on the Internet?
If you have a static IP address, and it has a proper reverse-DNS look-up, I can assure you that you can certainly send mail to AOL.
(BTW: I serve my own SMTP, and can send email to AOL. I'm using a "speedy" IDSL (144kbps) connection, but I know people who do the same over a 56k modem and a nailed connection.)
It's always the problem with weapons is that they can be turned against their owners. How many gun owners are killed or injured by their own weapons?
That's what "history" means -- as long as humans have been keeping track. Otherwise, it's known as "prehistoric," as in dinosaurs and cave men.
Hey, have you been tracking the Diebold fiasco? Here is a company that gave over $600,000 to the Republican Party (nada to the Demos), who's president visits Crawford regularly, and has his own Dubya pet name, who denies there is any problem with their software, while vigorously prosecuting websites under DMCA for publishing Diebold internal memos that state that there are serious flaws with the software, who's voting machines gave a negative 16,000 votes to Al Gore in a Florida precinct with only 2,000 registered voters, who erased all memory cards within hours of an Illinois election when the state law requires retention for 21 months, who posted "preview" results of a California election (contrary to state law) when it appeared Republicans weren't turning out -- yet this company is the second biggest supplier of voting machines in this country!
Why even bother to "sway you or your child's political views" when you can simply write the statistics and the election result directly? No "swaying" required!
If you are really concerned about civil liberty, there are a lot of things more worthy of your indignation.
Details and more at www.hightowerlowdown.org
Certainly, methane can come from many astronomical processes. But I think life is pretty much the dominant player in making large, complex hydrocarbons. That doesn't mean they don't exist in space, just that life is particularly good at making them.
Wow. You folks sure are good at making up stuff.
I never advocated more deep fried foods.
I never mentioned soybeans.
I never said we should convert farmland to vegoil production for the purpose of powering vehicles.
I only mentioned that there is a simple way to use an existing waste product as a transportation or heating fuel, with the side effect of less pollution than the fuel it displaces, and all you folk who are threatened by new ideas went postal on me!
I'm outta here. You guys are just too willing to put words in other people's mouths.
But the next time you stand on the street and hear a diesel vehicle approaching, and then get a whiff of french fries (or doughnuts, or elephant ears) instead of obnoxious diesel fumes, you can think of me and be greatful that some people are willing to do something now for the environment, instead of sitting at their computer, sniping from the sidelines. Veggie Van Gogh
Who said anything about soybeans? Any plant that produces oil can produce transportation and heating fuel. It doesn't even have to be a wonderful nitrogen fixer like soybeans. (I would disagree they're "terrible for the soil.") Or you can alternate nitrogen-depletors like corn with beans, getting two oil crops that complement each other's soil use. (I grew up on a farm, so please don't tell me what is good or bad unless you can claim the same.)
"We are converting farmland back into forest in the US and if we met domestic demand for diesel through vegetable oil we would be back to deforesting and depleting. Bad idea."
First, I would argue both that we are NOT "converting farmland... to forest" in any significant quantity, and also that any resulting "managed" forest is no better than farmland with respect to environmental factors.
I never claimed that we should get all our transportation needs from farm crops. Indeed, if you re-read what I wrote, I was advocating using WASTE cooking oil. How you got from there to "soybeans" and "farmland" is beyond me.
"A far better option seem to be CWT. These guy say they can change any carbon into distilled water, balanced organic fertilizer and gasoline."
Well, I couldn't find any place where they claimed that!
Their process seems to consume unspecified hydrocarbons and produces various hydrocarbons. It appears to be energy- and water-intensive, with lots of heat and pressure required. It is unclear exactly what the feedstock is and exactly what the result is, except that it consumes a great deal of water and energy in the process.
A hydrogen energy economy is decades away. Vegetable oil diesel can serve as an important part of a transition away from fossil fuels. This can be done with today's technology -- indeed, in a handyman's garage -- using a waste stream that is currently a disposal problem.
Just don't tell me it can't be done, or I'll have to un-drive all those miles I've driven, powered by waste vegetable oil!
So I do away with the process of turning plants into petroleum, and burn the plants directly in my engine. Anyone can do it! You only need:
With either method, waste vegetable oil from restaurants can be used, solving two problems at once!
With the exception of nitrous oxide and CO2, vegetable oil powered diesels are MUCH cleaner than petro diesels. Yes, they produce climate-warming CO2 in similar quantities to petro-diesel engines, but the CO2 they release was taken out of the atmosphere last year, NOT millions of years ago.
It is unlikely that Big Oil is going to embrace this, but you don't have to go it alone. Co-ops for producing and/or distributing biodiesel are sprining up like rapeseed oil plants. Google for "biodiesel," "SVO," "WVO" for more info, or visit www.GoBiodiesel.org for more information.
With a diesel vehicle, you can be oil-independent TODAY, with zero net greenhouse gas emissions and much lower polutants overall!
I run my diesel from waste vegetable oil, "harvested" from area restaurants. You can, too!
Check out GoBiodiesel for lots of links on the topic.