Read more here: Danger: Ionizing air purifiers impure
There may indeed be negative health effects from using such products, but I haven't seen any conclusive research, and the link you provided is little more than a CNN blurb about a Consumer Reports article.
I'd suggest that there may be health benefits from these products, aside from the obvious "cleaner air" benefit.
I've never owned one, but a few years ago I came across someone selling ionic purifiers who agreed to let me trial one of his units for a couple of weeks. I ran it 24-7 on High (whatever that meant) and was impressed with the results. What was most notable (at least to me), was that the air in the entire house had a distinctly clean "feel" to it, I felt more alert or "refreshed", and most definitely didn't experience any burning in my lungs, loss of smell, or an increased sensitivity to allergens. Again, I don't know whether long-term exposure to high indoor concentrations of ozone are good or bad, but I do know that anyone who has grown up in a part of the world where there's rain would agree that the "after-thunderstorm" air smells as good as it feels, and that's what the ionic unit recreated.
Maybe someone else has more to say on the subject.
Well, if the definition of "cunning linguist" includes the likes of folks like Carl Rove, then yes. It should come as no surprise that anyone who can define the terms of a discussion, controls the discussion. That's why words are important, kids.
"War on Terror" by itself is meaningless and mostly a non-sequitor, but it sounds a lot better than "Invade countries and overthrow rulers." Similarly, "stealing" is more effective than "copyright infringement". And "pro life" does have a nicer ring to it than "anti abortion". The folks who know this also know that most people are too uneducated, too lazy or too prone to going along with everyone else to question the terms of the discussion. Which is easier: using a spell-czecher or investing in a desktop edition of the OED and using your brain? Hell, who even notices? If Slashdot is any measure, sloppiness in thinking and (and by extension, sloppiness in writing) seems to tolerated, if not encouraged.
Admittedly, what Microsoft is doing is subtle enough that few, aside from a single linguist, would notice. Or complain. I think they've already won.
Why not ban all muslims from airplanes, since a few muslims hijacked some airplanes? IT'S THE SAME THOUGHT PROCESS. You think the muslims are pissed about the pope right now? Wait 'till you piss off some Apple fanatics - then you will be in a living hell.
Even worse - Muslim Mac users!
The DHS should add that category to their profile Top Ten List, right above Weird Looking Guys with Beards.
I've had bad/lazy posture for most of my life. I'm tall, so slouching is something I'm good at. In addition, I sustained a minor injury in my teen years that aggravated the state of affairs and as a result, most all of my adult life included intermittent back pain (pinched sciatic nerve) along with the usual visits to doctors, chiropracters, massage "therapists" and nights of sleeping on a bare floor. The doctors offered addictive drugs; the chiropracters offered instant relief, weird bone cracking noises, and a dent in my pocket book; the massage therapists mostly just made me feel sore.
A few years back, my sister decided I should attend a Yoga class with her. I thought, "What the hell - why not?" and agreed. She picked me up in her car late one afternoon from a cafe where I'd sat drinking espresso and smoking cigarettes for a few hours with some friends. New sweats and T-shirts were in a bag waiting for me.
We get to the "studio" and walk through the building past various workout rooms where people are using free weights, performing aerobics and you name it, and walk up a circular staircase to a glass-walled room on the top floor. As we turn the corner, I look into the room and see twenty or so people in an identical pose but notice an amazingly attractive woman in her early twenties, at least 8 months pregnant, standing, like everyone else in the room, motionless on one leg with the other leg held vertically straight above her. My second thought was, "I really don't think this is for me." I was expecting a small group of new-age types, but the group was a nice cross-section of what you'd expect in any city. Ordinary guys included.
To make a long story short, I spent the 60 minutes engaged in one of the best workouts of my life! I can say that because I used to use free weights, run, and box, but for the record, I dislike exercising -- free weights satisfy one's vanity, and while other activities can be fun, I'd rather sit at in front of a computer and smoke cigarettes.) At any rate, the Yoga workout, by comparison, was head to toe. I came out sweating, relaxed as a baby, and my posture was normal, probably for the first time in my life. And it was fun.
I took a few more classes, and eventually stopped. After each class, the "effects" lingered for some time so, given that I walked, sat, slept and did everything else better than I ever had, and my sciatic problems magically just disappeared, it was easy to slack off and go back to my usual habits knowing that I could bend down and put my hands flat on the floor whereas in the past, I was never able to touch my toes. With one exception. I could practise my Yoga adequately from home with no fuss.
Yoga, for those unfamilar with it, is, at its essence, just streching. And breathing. Breathing is the most important part. Stretching while holding your breath is an excercise in futility and laughable. Heaving breathing (or heavy exhaling, to be more exact) without stretching *is* relaxing, but won't do much for your body. Combine carefully learned and structured postures and movement with heavy breathing and you get Yoga. It's almost a no-brainer, but the practice dates back further than you want to know, so yes, there is definitely more to it.
My advice? Skip the expensive furniture. Ergonomic chairs are nice, but the best chairs are also best at making you comfortable while in a ridiculous, cramped, or otherwise unhealthy posture. And horribly expensive. Skip the therapists, too, unless you have a real medical condition. You'll get more satifaction by hiring a hooker. Learn some basic stretches (read Yoga postures) and BREATHE. You can practise Yoga in an hour-long class, at home, or by simply taking a few minutes out of a hectic afternoon and doing some basic stretches. I'll guarantee it.
Check out your local phonebook for a Yoga class near you. In my area there's one called Stiff White Guys Yoga. Says it all, doesn't it? If nothing else, you'll find lots of very relaxed babes, all willing to help out a novice, and you'll learn some things you can use for the rest of your life.
They need to stop worrying about being authoritative or credible. Wikipedia is useful for discovering links and keywords to use in a subsequent search for authoritative material.
Sounds fair, but there's that tricky part of obtaining the cooperation of everyone who cites a Wikipedia article as an authoritative source to go along. Judging from posts on Slashdot, for example, I'd suggest the "It's on the internet, therefore it's true." approach is, if not alive and well, valid enough to garner enough nods of approval to merit mod points, which in turn lends more credibility to something that can often be characterised as somewhere between innacurate and vaguely wrong, or lacking enough context to make it misleading.
Human nature being what it is, I find myself agreement with those who view this as a social problem rather than a technical one. That said, I'll continue reading Wikipedia as a primer on certain subjects, but defer to the pipe-smoking-cardigan-wearing old guys who publish their work elsewhere.
Sexual crimes against children are some of the most monsterous things mankind can do - and they do occur with a very high frequency, and they are worth detecting and stopped at every opportunity.
When I read words like these, I have to wonder if there is a purpose to such self-righteous posturing, or whether the poster expect everyone to share that leap of faith and assume it's relevant to the article or subject.
Hate to disturb any heads that might have been nodding in unison, but what the hell. A reasonable estimate is that 99.99% of the crap that would/could be found is the same crap that's been shovelled and re-shovelled through usenet as far back as I remember. Have a look some time. The only real crime to be found (with rare exceptions) is the crime you would commit by looking (i.e., downloading) and that crime, as far as I'm concerned, is a very technical one. As for everything else -- provocative, lewd, in bad taste, shameful -- I can think of lots of words, but an organised police hunt to track down a bunch of wankers downloading pictures protects no one and is a misplaced effort at best. If you're looking for likely targets of people who do, in fact, commit real crimes against children, you might start by looking at families -- aunts, uncles and close relatives. Those folks rarely take pictures, however, let alone publish evidence of their crimes for everyone on the the internet to share.
I'm reminded of something I heard not too long ago on a show hosted by that emotional snow-job of a wanna-be-anchor by the name of Anderson Cooper. He was speaking with some law enforcement officer who informed him with requisite officiousness that there were "over 100,000 child pornography sites" on the internet. Shit, you'd think with that many we'd all be tripping over them every day! But we don't. Go figure. The veteran reporter's reply was "Gee, I didn't know that."
Journalism at it's finest.
What does exists, to varying degrees, is the content from a bunch o teen modelling sites (many in the US) and a few websites here and there that are most likely run by Russian mafia that belong in the provocative, lewd, or in bad taste category (depending on one's jurisdiction, religeous affiliation and/or degree of interest in prurient matter). Criminals? Most likely, at least the Russian ones. But no monsters.
Well, the statement "it was not possible to erase the data on them" directly contradicts the possibility of an answer the question of how to "non-destructively (physically) destroy data on a hard disk without access to a bulk eraser", unless of course, your current limitations include the magical exception of having access to some really fun electronics equipment.
Then again, I'm still wondering WTF the term "bulk eraser" is supposed to mean.
MS generally provides pretty basic versions of software for their included versions. As you noted, IE is an exception, but things like the firewall, defragmenter and so on are functional and fine, but really don't compete with the stuff you can buy [...] The defragmenter is a great example. Windows 2000 and above have a built in one. It works on NTFS and FAT drives and does an ok job. How then do companies like Executive Software and Raxico survive making replacements for it? Simple: They make more feature rich versions.
Sorry, but this completely wrong. The "built-in" Windows 2000 defragmenter was Diskeeper-lite, licensed for use from (who else?) the folks at Diskeeper. Most people, when discovering the inherent limitations of their lite version (innability to defrag page files, etc.), purchased the full version of Diskeeper or opted for an alternative like PerfectDisk, etc.
In general, the availability of certain third-party replacements for native or included tools has always been a fact of life in Windows, and indeed, is often the prefered choice. As Microsoft typically seeks out the lowest denonimator (if it works, it's good enough), it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that included programs are no different. However, the situation is a bit more complicated than your summary suggests. Licensing is one factor. OS tie-ins are another.
KDE has many things going well for it. This'll sound weird, I'm sure, but I like Gnome better because it feels better. KDE has a weird feel to it that I can't get over.
Is it that same feeling you get when you see two men kissing?
My opinion has always been that between the feature-rich and overly-colourful KDE approach, and dumbed-down (almost to the point of stupidity) but subdued Gnome approach, there should be a compromise of some sort. I don't think it exists, but for those relying on a graphical interface to use their computers, it shouldn't be surprising to see such contradictory opinions.
I learnt how to conjugate my ( Latin and English ) verbs about 52 years ago. It looks as if M/S must have realised that the current generations of modern teachers are no longer able to teach much about grammar. Thus they have discovered yet another niche to fill, I didn't think there were any left, well good for them.
It occurred to me as I was reading all the responses that you may indeed be right. It's not that this or similar methods/tools cater to the lowest common denominator; they cater to what is quite likely the norm. Who else but Microsoft to step in and fill the void? Proof reading one's own words is now synonymous will spell-checking, isn't it?
It's been said that in politics, people deserve the government they get. Maybe this is no different.
Is a key to your house sitting in a Supra lockbox hanging on the door handle so the maid can get in? Or is it, perhaps, in that fake looking rock next to the porch?
I opted for the fake dog poop, myself.
Three reasons. First, because I think it's funny. Secondly, because I figure if a burglar is willing to bend down and examine it for authenticity, there's a chance that he'll be wrong, at least once. And that would be funny. And last, because I own a dog He's not much of a watch dog, but at least he knew it was fake the first time he saw it.
Offtopic perhaps, but it seems these days Samsung releases new technologies/products at a really fast pace. Not only that, their products tend to upper-middle of the pack (good feature sets, reasonably reliable, priced a bit higher than some of the competition but worth it).
I remember when Samsung was a crummy Korean electronics company selling crummy Korean electronics. At the time, I was a token Caucasian working in a similarly crummy Korean company that made equally crummy products. I thought to myself, "No way. These guys aren't Japanese. No one will ever rival the Japanese."
Shame on me. Especially considering the fact that I was around when Sony, a Japanese company no one had ever heard of, decided to try and sell these tiny crappy transistor radios in the US. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yeah, I'd agree. Samsung does seem to come out with a lot of new products. Any one of them would be a worthwhile purchase, especially given the fact their products tend to also be less expensive than their competitors.
Ive worked as a tech for 10 years now, and for every 1 problem I've seen with a Seagate or Western Digital, I see 3 problems with a Maxtor. Both in retail sales and repair...
I could echo the same experience on my end. Anecdotal evidence aside, it's worth noting that most Maxtors being sold are offered with a 1 year warranty. The Seagates often come with a 5 year warranty. If the bean counters have figured out the appropriate price point, you would have figured the consumer could as well. Instead... "Oh, look, this one's on sale..."
I've always considered there is something rotten with the political grandstanding of greenpeace.
Grandstanding, if that's how you characterise it, is a part of the political process, and life, for better or worse, is political in nature. It may help to remember that one of the reasons why people are even remotely conscious of the environment today is because years ago, certain individuals took it upon themselves to do nutty things like chain themselves to trees, or shoot videos of seal hunts.
As for computer "waste", that's a tough issue. My version of recycling is if it can go into my garden or under the lawn, then that's where it goes and Life is Good. If it can't, it's garbage that needs to be disposed of. Everything else should be reused. Or sold eBay. Plastics, obviously, don't fit into those category, and neither does all the nasty, toxic sh*t that are used in the manufacture of computers.
For now, I'm willing to make the exception for computers. Hypocritical perhaps, or maybe just naive. I do know that computers are dramatically changing our world and they're not going away. We don't yet know what form they'll take in the future, so a naive hope is better than none at all. In the interim, it doesn't hurt for the manufacturers to be subjected to a few rules, or be monitored by concerned groups, Greenpeace included.
... DOS utilities I've been collecting over the years, and Unix-style utilities (ps.exe, kill.exe, and others) ported to Windows, without the need for a layer like Cygwin
I used to do the same. Install Windows then a metric bucketload of "utilities" (text editors, Sysinternals programs, ActiveState Perl, ActivateState Python, Resource Kits, etc.) that made using Windows bearable. Like some self-fulfilling prophecy. And back when collecting warez was regarded as fashionable and not adolescent, I'd install even more Must Have programs. Now, when possible, I simply skip the nonsense and install Cygwin.
No emulation layer needed? Maybe. In a few isolated cases, perhaps. But if you're going to run a program, you'd prefer a centralised distribution. And then you'll need a real terminal, you'll need a real shell, interpreters, centralised and consistent documentation, and you'll mostly like needed something like SSH to make it all work. Hell, a full Cygwin installation is comparable a typical Linux installation, and larger than Windows, but for an average user, the base install (coreutils, etc.) with SSH and few other packages will more than suffice. A no brainer compared to collect one-off programs from any number of sources.
The consistency is especially nice in that I can go back and forth from Linux or BSD without blinking (same programs and same manpages, right?), no annoying little problems like CR/LF endings get in the way. And as a bonus, I get a perverse pleasure reading the manpages I wrote for Windows programs.
In regards to your comment about Israel/Lebanon, I am a bit taken aback. Israel acted with extreme restraint [...] The difference is that Israel wasn't targeting those civilians.
Thoughtful and reasoned replies I've found are always more useful than the knee-jerk reaction I was expecting. The only thing I can say in response to any They Did This Because of That is that the Middle East has a long history of action/reaction, and the continuation of the cycle, while grotesque and unfathomable to us outsiders, has support from both sides. My own opinion is that like everything in life, there are two sides to every story, and in this story, both are sides are equally culpable.
My motive, if there was one, was to highlight the possibility that an average person or family in Lebanon doesn't have to an extremist to view the destruction in his country as something more than the abstract interplay of geopolitical forces, or the calculated military maneuverings of their respective militaries. Put another way, if someone bombs your neighbourhood in the ground and kills most of your family or neighbours, chances are you'd view the person who did the bombing as a dangerous threat. If you're smart, you flee the country (as many did). If you're angry and armed, you take up weapons and fight back. If your're angry and without arms, you do throw rocks and molotov cocktails like the poor in the Palestinian territories.
As for Iran, I think we'd all agree their rhetoric is alarming, but then I find the speeches of Bush, Cheney & Co. alarming as well. I can say that and laugh, but I don't live in the Middle East. If I was an Iranian citizen, I wouldn't be laughing, but I would be proud that my country wants to extert its influence in the region (the Shia crescent), and find a perverse but perfectly-human satisfaction that my country could snub its nose at a greater power. Not unlike a typical US citizen who feel proud when the US goes out to remake the world in its own image, or thumping their chest when the conversation involves United Nations, the WTO, or internal treaties of any sort.
I'm afraid that the US will, for the time being, continue to prosecute its bogeyman theories, while the bogeymans themselves (Russia, Cuba, Iran, and so on), will continue on despite, or perhaps in spite. One thing is certain if not a constant in each case. Someone is Really Pissed Off. Doesn't hurt to ask, or consider why that is.
I think they're just goading the Israelis to take out the facility, gain more support in the Arab world, and rid themselves of the problem while they secretly create a more clandestine program.
Reading this reminds of Bush's Axis of Evil speech. Convenient, simple-minded, defined by a narrow-enough perspective that appeals to voters, and effective in removing the complexities of the situation so as to allow everyone to move forward without thinking. A few bullet point for thought.
Iran is a sovereign country. Irrespective of what anyone's opinion of their current leadership (or the public rhetoric of their leadership), I think that is A Good Thing. Remember that they had to overthrow the US-supported Shah to get their country back. Hardly surprising they view the US with contempt and distrust.
Iran is surrounded by nations with nuclear capabilities, and most of those nations are perceived, to one degree or another, as a threat. They fought a long, brutal war with Iraq only to have the US move in and set up camp. Hardly a stretch to consider that they, too, have legitimate defense needs. Notable among the list of those nations is Israel. Think what you want about Israel, but the folks in Lebanon most certainly view, and justifiably so, Israel as real threat. I doubt the the folks in Iran intend to wait to be bombed to rubble for them to justify their concerns to the western world.
The US doesn't talk directly with Iran. Or with Syria. Or with North Korea. Or with many other nations for that matter. So much for the diplomatic process, and so much for the extent of US influence in the region.
Iran sits on a lot of oil. Our economy depends on that oil continuing to flow. The bluster about taking direct action, or hinting to Israel that they direct action on our behalf may work for the voters, but balancing "national security" concerns includes ensuring the US economy continues to grow.
To my mind, the only possible outcome is for the US, and by extension, its allies, is to move toward acccepting the eventuality that Iran will in due time have nuclear weapons and nothing anyone says or does is going to change that. Once the US learns live with that, maybe the Iranians will get over their hatred of the US and it's involvement in their own country, and its continuing involvement in the countries that surround it.
Can you help someone out by pointing me towards a link to a good site that show's how to set something like that up? I've got a bit of experience with linux and solaris, but mostly use windows. I don't have any experience using BSD...
I'll offer a suggestion. Install FreeBSD on any old computer with two NICs. You'll find the installation as easy as any Linux system, the routine maintenance probably easier, and the documentation far superiour.
Sit down to read the pf FAQ on OpenBSD's site. It's well written and comprehensive so read from the first page to the last page. Make some coffee and then read it again.
Edit/etc/pf.conf using the home user scenario provided at the end of the 'pf FAQ'. Reboot and you're good to go.
You'll find pf far less verbose than iptables, ipfw, etc., and easier to learn and to use for that reason among others. There's also lots of additional tools available for pf that will help as well.
$ cd/usr/ports && make search name=pf | less
Google for all the rest.
A final comment. Using this approach gives you a secure firewall with all the unixy goodness you'd expect, not to mention logging, SSH, NTP synchronisation, etc that you may want to use as well. And earning the right to sneer at everyone using those plastic Linksys NAT boxes doesn't hurt.
Slashdot Mirror
I am shocked, shocked I tell you! LonleyGirl isn't real?! People would actually post videos that are not what they appear to be?!
...
I'm shocked, too!
I say go ahead and fork the project! Let's put an end to all these anonymous
Sorry, wrong story.
Counterfitting is when someone runs illegal copies and then sells the copies for their own profit. It's a subtle difference, but an important one.
... that's counterfeiting.
Err
Subtle difference, but an important one.
No, it doesn't move, you can't do animation at all, nor any cool transition. But I personaly think it's a plus side.
That's incorrect. Transitions in PDF have been around for years. Additionally, you can perform all sorts of fun javascript/multimedia stuff.
PDF Transitions Made Easy
With judicious use, transitions can be effective.
Read more here: Danger: Ionizing air purifiers impure
There may indeed be negative health effects from using such products, but I haven't seen any conclusive research, and the link you provided is little more than a CNN blurb about a Consumer Reports article.
I'd suggest that there may be health benefits from these products, aside from the obvious "cleaner air" benefit.
I've never owned one, but a few years ago I came across someone selling ionic purifiers who agreed to let me trial one of his units for a couple of weeks. I ran it 24-7 on High (whatever that meant) and was impressed with the results. What was most notable (at least to me), was that the air in the entire house had a distinctly clean "feel" to it, I felt more alert or "refreshed", and most definitely didn't experience any burning in my lungs, loss of smell, or an increased sensitivity to allergens. Again, I don't know whether long-term exposure to high indoor concentrations of ozone are good or bad, but I do know that anyone who has grown up in a part of the world where there's rain would agree that the "after-thunderstorm" air smells as good as it feels, and that's what the ionic unit recreated.
Maybe someone else has more to say on the subject.
Well, if the definition of "cunning linguist" includes the likes of folks like Carl Rove, then yes. It should come as no surprise that anyone who can define the terms of a discussion, controls the discussion. That's why words are important, kids.
"War on Terror" by itself is meaningless and mostly a non-sequitor, but it sounds a lot better than "Invade countries and overthrow rulers." Similarly, "stealing" is more effective than "copyright infringement". And "pro life" does have a nicer ring to it than "anti abortion". The folks who know this also know that most people are too uneducated, too lazy or too prone to going along with everyone else to question the terms of the discussion. Which is easier: using a spell-czecher or investing in a desktop edition of the OED and using your brain? Hell, who even notices? If Slashdot is any measure, sloppiness in thinking and (and by extension, sloppiness in writing) seems to tolerated, if not encouraged.
Admittedly, what Microsoft is doing is subtle enough that few, aside from a single linguist, would notice. Or complain. I think they've already won.
Why not ban all muslims from airplanes, since a few muslims hijacked some airplanes? IT'S THE SAME THOUGHT PROCESS. You think the muslims are pissed about the pope right now? Wait 'till you piss off some Apple fanatics - then you will be in a living hell.
Even worse - Muslim Mac users!
The DHS should add that category to their profile Top Ten List, right above Weird Looking Guys with Beards.
Here's a funny story.
I've had bad/lazy posture for most of my life. I'm tall, so slouching is something I'm good at. In addition, I sustained a minor injury in my teen years that aggravated the state of affairs and as a result, most all of my adult life included intermittent back pain (pinched sciatic nerve) along with the usual visits to doctors, chiropracters, massage "therapists" and nights of sleeping on a bare floor. The doctors offered addictive drugs; the chiropracters offered instant relief, weird bone cracking noises, and a dent in my pocket book; the massage therapists mostly just made me feel sore.
A few years back, my sister decided I should attend a Yoga class with her. I thought, "What the hell - why not?" and agreed. She picked me up in her car late one afternoon from a cafe where I'd sat drinking espresso and smoking cigarettes for a few hours with some friends. New sweats and T-shirts were in a bag waiting for me.
We get to the "studio" and walk through the building past various workout rooms where people are using free weights, performing aerobics and you name it, and walk up a circular staircase to a glass-walled room on the top floor. As we turn the corner, I look into the room and see twenty or so people in an identical pose but notice an amazingly attractive woman in her early twenties, at least 8 months pregnant, standing, like everyone else in the room, motionless on one leg with the other leg held vertically straight above her. My second thought was, "I really don't think this is for me." I was expecting a small group of new-age types, but the group was a nice cross-section of what you'd expect in any city. Ordinary guys included.
To make a long story short, I spent the 60 minutes engaged in one of the best workouts of my life! I can say that because I used to use free weights, run, and box, but for the record, I dislike exercising -- free weights satisfy one's vanity, and while other activities can be fun, I'd rather sit at in front of a computer and smoke cigarettes.) At any rate, the Yoga workout, by comparison, was head to toe. I came out sweating, relaxed as a baby, and my posture was normal, probably for the first time in my life. And it was fun.
I took a few more classes, and eventually stopped. After each class, the "effects" lingered for some time so, given that I walked, sat, slept and did everything else better than I ever had, and my sciatic problems magically just disappeared, it was easy to slack off and go back to my usual habits knowing that I could bend down and put my hands flat on the floor whereas in the past, I was never able to touch my toes. With one exception. I could practise my Yoga adequately from home with no fuss.
Yoga, for those unfamilar with it, is, at its essence, just streching. And breathing. Breathing is the most important part. Stretching while holding your breath is an excercise in futility and laughable. Heaving breathing (or heavy exhaling, to be more exact) without stretching *is* relaxing, but won't do much for your body. Combine carefully learned and structured postures and movement with heavy breathing and you get Yoga. It's almost a no-brainer, but the practice dates back further than you want to know, so yes, there is definitely more to it.
My advice? Skip the expensive furniture. Ergonomic chairs are nice, but the best chairs are also best at making you comfortable while in a ridiculous, cramped, or otherwise unhealthy posture. And horribly expensive. Skip the therapists, too, unless you have a real medical condition. You'll get more satifaction by hiring a hooker. Learn some basic stretches (read Yoga postures) and BREATHE. You can practise Yoga in an hour-long class, at home, or by simply taking a few minutes out of a hectic afternoon and doing some basic stretches. I'll guarantee it.
Check out your local phonebook for a Yoga class near you. In my area there's one called Stiff White Guys Yoga. Says it all, doesn't it? If nothing else, you'll find lots of very relaxed babes, all willing to help out a novice, and you'll learn some things you can use for the rest of your life.
This suit just seems like a bunch of damned lawyers going for the gold.
Given the fact that a District judge has allowed the case to go forward, I'd suggest a few years in law school may help to refine that opinion.
They need to stop worrying about being authoritative or credible. Wikipedia is useful for discovering links and keywords to use in a subsequent search for authoritative material.
Sounds fair, but there's that tricky part of obtaining the cooperation of everyone who cites a Wikipedia article as an authoritative source to go along. Judging from posts on Slashdot, for example, I'd suggest the "It's on the internet, therefore it's true." approach is, if not alive and well, valid enough to garner enough nods of approval to merit mod points, which in turn lends more credibility to something that can often be characterised as somewhere between innacurate and vaguely wrong, or lacking enough context to make it misleading.
Human nature being what it is, I find myself agreement with those who view this as a social problem rather than a technical one. That said, I'll continue reading Wikipedia as a primer on certain subjects, but defer to the pipe-smoking-cardigan-wearing old guys who publish their work elsewhere.
I think Eliot Spitzer needs a new hobby.
I hope not.
His recent hobbies impress the shit out of me.
Sexual crimes against children are some of the most monsterous things mankind can do - and they do occur with a very high frequency, and they are worth detecting and stopped at every opportunity.
When I read words like these, I have to wonder if there is a purpose to such self-righteous posturing, or whether the poster expect everyone to share that leap of faith and assume it's relevant to the article or subject.
Hate to disturb any heads that might have been nodding in unison, but what the hell. A reasonable estimate is that 99.99% of the crap that would/could be found is the same crap that's been shovelled and re-shovelled through usenet as far back as I remember. Have a look some time. The only real crime to be found (with rare exceptions) is the crime you would commit by looking (i.e., downloading) and that crime, as far as I'm concerned, is a very technical one. As for everything else -- provocative, lewd, in bad taste, shameful -- I can think of lots of words, but an organised police hunt to track down a bunch of wankers downloading pictures protects no one and is a misplaced effort at best. If you're looking for likely targets of people who do, in fact, commit real crimes against children, you might start by looking at families -- aunts, uncles and close relatives. Those folks rarely take pictures, however, let alone publish evidence of their crimes for everyone on the the internet to share.
I'm reminded of something I heard not too long ago on a show hosted by that emotional snow-job of a wanna-be-anchor by the name of Anderson Cooper. He was speaking with some law enforcement officer who informed him with requisite officiousness that there were "over 100,000 child pornography sites" on the internet. Shit, you'd think with that many we'd all be tripping over them every day! But we don't. Go figure. The veteran reporter's reply was "Gee, I didn't know that."
Journalism at it's finest.
What does exists, to varying degrees, is the content from a bunch o teen modelling sites (many in the US) and a few websites here and there that are most likely run by Russian mafia that belong in the provocative, lewd, or in bad taste category (depending on one's jurisdiction, religeous affiliation and/or degree of interest in prurient matter). Criminals? Most likely, at least the Russian ones. But no monsters.
Well, the statement "it was not possible to erase the data on them" directly contradicts the possibility of an answer the question of how to "non-destructively (physically) destroy data on a hard disk without access to a bulk eraser", unless of course, your current limitations include the magical exception of having access to some really fun electronics equipment.
Then again, I'm still wondering WTF the term "bulk eraser" is supposed to mean.
A useful starting point would be reading Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory. A quick Google search also came up with this tidbit concerning NTFS file systems.
MS generally provides pretty basic versions of software for their included versions. As you noted, IE is an exception, but things like the firewall, defragmenter and so on are functional and fine, but really don't compete with the stuff you can buy [...] The defragmenter is a great example. Windows 2000 and above have a built in one. It works on NTFS and FAT drives and does an ok job. How then do companies like Executive Software and Raxico survive making replacements for it? Simple: They make more feature rich versions.
Sorry, but this completely wrong. The "built-in" Windows 2000 defragmenter was Diskeeper-lite, licensed for use from (who else?) the folks at Diskeeper. Most people, when discovering the inherent limitations of their lite version (innability to defrag page files, etc.), purchased the full version of Diskeeper or opted for an alternative like PerfectDisk, etc.
In general, the availability of certain third-party replacements for native or included tools has always been a fact of life in Windows, and indeed, is often the prefered choice. As Microsoft typically seeks out the lowest denonimator (if it works, it's good enough), it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that included programs are no different. However, the situation is a bit more complicated than your summary suggests. Licensing is one factor. OS tie-ins are another.
KDE has many things going well for it. This'll sound weird, I'm sure, but I like Gnome better because it feels better. KDE has a weird feel to it that I can't get over.
Is it that same feeling you get when you see two men kissing?
My opinion has always been that between the feature-rich and overly-colourful KDE approach, and dumbed-down (almost to the point of stupidity) but subdued Gnome approach, there should be a compromise of some sort. I don't think it exists, but for those relying on a graphical interface to use their computers, it shouldn't be surprising to see such contradictory opinions.
These same people were drinking wine from lead goblets, I don't know if they are the ones we should be looking at for safety advice.
Exactly!
And apart from nanotechnology and cool pyramids, what have the Egyptians ever done for us?
I learnt how to conjugate my ( Latin and English ) verbs about 52 years ago.
It looks as if M/S must have realised that the current generations of modern teachers are no longer able to teach much about grammar. Thus they have discovered yet another niche to fill, I didn't think there were any left, well good for them.
It occurred to me as I was reading all the responses that you may indeed be right. It's not that this or similar methods/tools cater to the lowest common denominator; they cater to what is quite likely the norm. Who else but Microsoft to step in and fill the void? Proof reading one's own words is now synonymous will spell-checking, isn't it?
It's been said that in politics, people deserve the government they get. Maybe this is no different.
Is a key to your house sitting in a Supra lockbox hanging on the door handle so the maid can get in? Or is it, perhaps, in that fake looking rock next to the porch?
I opted for the fake dog poop, myself.
Three reasons. First, because I think it's funny. Secondly, because I figure if a burglar is willing to bend down and examine it for authenticity, there's a chance that he'll be wrong, at least once. And that would be funny. And last, because I own a dog He's not much of a watch dog, but at least he knew it was fake the first time he saw it.
Offtopic perhaps, but it seems these days Samsung releases new technologies/products at a really fast pace. Not only that, their products tend to upper-middle of the pack (good feature sets, reasonably reliable, priced a bit higher than some of the competition but worth it).
I remember when Samsung was a crummy Korean electronics company selling crummy Korean electronics. At the time, I was a token Caucasian working in a similarly crummy Korean company that made equally crummy products. I thought to myself, "No way. These guys aren't Japanese. No one will ever rival the Japanese."
Shame on me. Especially considering the fact that I was around when Sony, a Japanese company no one had ever heard of, decided to try and sell these tiny crappy transistor radios in the US. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yeah, I'd agree. Samsung does seem to come out with a lot of new products. Any one of them would be a worthwhile purchase, especially given the fact their products tend to also be less expensive than their competitors.
Ive worked as a tech for 10 years now, and for every 1 problem I've seen with a Seagate or Western Digital, I see 3 problems with a Maxtor. Both in retail sales and repair ...
... "Oh, look, this one's on sale ..."
I could echo the same experience on my end. Anecdotal evidence aside, it's worth noting that most Maxtors being sold are offered with a 1 year warranty. The Seagates often come with a 5 year warranty. If the bean counters have figured out the appropriate price point, you would have figured the consumer could as well. Instead
Set the date and time, account password and keyboard configuration, and bobs your uncle!
Actually, Bob's my aunt, ut we don't talk about him much anymore.
Thanks. I'll be here all night.
I've always considered there is something rotten with the political grandstanding of greenpeace.
Grandstanding, if that's how you characterise it, is a part of the political process, and life, for better or worse, is political in nature. It may help to remember that one of the reasons why people are even remotely conscious of the environment today is because years ago, certain individuals took it upon themselves to do nutty things like chain themselves to trees, or shoot videos of seal hunts.
As for computer "waste", that's a tough issue. My version of recycling is if it can go into my garden or under the lawn, then that's where it goes and Life is Good. If it can't, it's garbage that needs to be disposed of. Everything else should be reused. Or sold eBay. Plastics, obviously, don't fit into those category, and neither does all the nasty, toxic sh*t that are used in the manufacture of computers.
For now, I'm willing to make the exception for computers. Hypocritical perhaps, or maybe just naive. I do know that computers are dramatically changing our world and they're not going away. We don't yet know what form they'll take in the future, so a naive hope is better than none at all. In the interim, it doesn't hurt for the manufacturers to be subjected to a few rules, or be monitored by concerned groups, Greenpeace included.
... DOS utilities I've been collecting over the years, and Unix-style utilities (ps.exe, kill.exe, and others) ported to Windows, without the need for a layer like Cygwin
I used to do the same. Install Windows then a metric bucketload of "utilities" (text editors, Sysinternals programs, ActiveState Perl, ActivateState Python, Resource Kits, etc.) that made using Windows bearable. Like some self-fulfilling prophecy. And back when collecting warez was regarded as fashionable and not adolescent, I'd install even more Must Have programs. Now, when possible, I simply skip the nonsense and install Cygwin.
No emulation layer needed? Maybe. In a few isolated cases, perhaps. But if you're going to run a program, you'd prefer a centralised distribution. And then you'll need a real terminal, you'll need a real shell, interpreters, centralised and consistent documentation, and you'll mostly like needed something like SSH to make it all work. Hell, a full Cygwin installation is comparable a typical Linux installation, and larger than Windows, but for an average user, the base install (coreutils, etc.) with SSH and few other packages will more than suffice. A no brainer compared to collect one-off programs from any number of sources.
The consistency is especially nice in that I can go back and forth from Linux or BSD without blinking (same programs and same manpages, right?), no annoying little problems like CR/LF endings get in the way. And as a bonus, I get a perverse pleasure reading the manpages I wrote for Windows programs.
In regards to your comment about Israel/Lebanon, I am a bit taken aback. Israel acted with extreme restraint [...] The difference is that Israel wasn't targeting those civilians.
Thoughtful and reasoned replies I've found are always more useful than the knee-jerk reaction I was expecting. The only thing I can say in response to any They Did This Because of That is that the Middle East has a long history of action/reaction, and the continuation of the cycle, while grotesque and unfathomable to us outsiders, has support from both sides. My own opinion is that like everything in life, there are two sides to every story, and in this story, both are sides are equally culpable.
My motive, if there was one, was to highlight the possibility that an average person or family in Lebanon doesn't have to an extremist to view the destruction in his country as something more than the abstract interplay of geopolitical forces, or the calculated military maneuverings of their respective militaries. Put another way, if someone bombs your neighbourhood in the ground and kills most of your family or neighbours, chances are you'd view the person who did the bombing as a dangerous threat. If you're smart, you flee the country (as many did). If you're angry and armed, you take up weapons and fight back. If your're angry and without arms, you do throw rocks and molotov cocktails like the poor in the Palestinian territories.
As for Iran, I think we'd all agree their rhetoric is alarming, but then I find the speeches of Bush, Cheney & Co. alarming as well. I can say that and laugh, but I don't live in the Middle East. If I was an Iranian citizen, I wouldn't be laughing, but I would be proud that my country wants to extert its influence in the region (the Shia crescent), and find a perverse but perfectly-human satisfaction that my country could snub its nose at a greater power. Not unlike a typical US citizen who feel proud when the US goes out to remake the world in its own image, or thumping their chest when the conversation involves United Nations, the WTO, or internal treaties of any sort.
I'm afraid that the US will, for the time being, continue to prosecute its bogeyman theories, while the bogeymans themselves (Russia, Cuba, Iran, and so on), will continue on despite, or perhaps in spite. One thing is certain if not a constant in each case. Someone is Really Pissed Off. Doesn't hurt to ask, or consider why that is.
I think they're just goading the Israelis to take out the facility, gain more support in the Arab world, and rid themselves of the problem while they secretly create a more clandestine program.
Reading this reminds of Bush's Axis of Evil speech. Convenient, simple-minded, defined by a narrow-enough perspective that appeals to voters, and effective in removing the complexities of the situation so as to allow everyone to move forward without thinking. A few bullet point for thought.
Iran is a sovereign country. Irrespective of what anyone's opinion of their current leadership (or the public rhetoric of their leadership), I think that is A Good Thing. Remember that they had to overthrow the US-supported Shah to get their country back. Hardly surprising they view the US with contempt and distrust.
Iran is surrounded by nations with nuclear capabilities, and most of those nations are perceived, to one degree or another, as a threat. They fought a long, brutal war with Iraq only to have the US move in and set up camp. Hardly a stretch to consider that they, too, have legitimate defense needs. Notable among the list of those nations is Israel. Think what you want about Israel, but the folks in Lebanon most certainly view, and justifiably so, Israel as real threat. I doubt the the folks in Iran intend to wait to be bombed to rubble for them to justify their concerns to the western world.
The US doesn't talk directly with Iran. Or with Syria. Or with North Korea. Or with many other nations for that matter. So much for the diplomatic process, and so much for the extent of US influence in the region.
Iran sits on a lot of oil. Our economy depends on that oil continuing to flow. The bluster about taking direct action, or hinting to Israel that they direct action on our behalf may work for the voters, but balancing "national security" concerns includes ensuring the US economy continues to grow.
To my mind, the only possible outcome is for the US, and by extension, its allies, is to move toward acccepting the eventuality that Iran will in due time have nuclear weapons and nothing anyone says or does is going to change that. Once the US learns live with that, maybe the Iranians will get over their hatred of the US and it's involvement in their own country, and its continuing involvement in the countries that surround it.
Can you help someone out by pointing me towards a link to a good site that show's how to set something like that up? I've got a bit of experience with linux and solaris, but mostly use windows. I don't have any experience using BSD ...
/usr/ports/shells/bash && make install /etc/rc.conf
/etc/pf.conf using the home user scenario provided at the end of the 'pf FAQ'. Reboot and you're good to go.
/usr/ports && make search name=pf | less
I'll offer a suggestion. Install FreeBSD on any old computer with two NICs. You'll find the installation as easy as any Linux system, the routine maintenance probably easier, and the documentation far superiour.
Sit down to read the pf FAQ on OpenBSD's site. It's well written and comprehensive so read from the first page to the last page. Make some coffee and then read it again.
# cd
# echo 'pf_enable="YES"' >>
# echo 'pf_rules="/etc/pf.conf"' >> etc/rc.conf
Edit
You'll find pf far less verbose than iptables, ipfw, etc., and easier to learn and to use for that reason among others. There's also lots of additional tools available for pf that will help as well.
$ cd
Google for all the rest.
A final comment. Using this approach gives you a secure firewall with all the unixy goodness you'd expect, not to mention logging, SSH, NTP synchronisation, etc that you may want to use as well. And earning the right to sneer at everyone using those plastic Linksys NAT boxes doesn't hurt.