getting stuck on belief in [...] free-software purism guarantees we will lose.
Staying Free is a guaranteed way to lose? Tell me more, you seem to have invented a fascinating new branch of logic, cos it seems to me that if you are forced to use non-Free software (or hardware), you have already lost.
We've got to ship something that works now. For a given value of "works", where 'works' is defined as meeting requirements. My first requirement as a software user is that doesn't steal my freedoms to share, copy, study, modify, redistribute (etc) it. If I can't do that with it, it's not working. There's a saying about he who would swap eye-candy for essential freedoms deserving neither. (Danny O'Brien I think that was.)
You beat me to it - all that info but nothing to answer the most important question, will it run proper (Free) software, or am I shackled to Microsoft if I want to use the hardware? This post comes from an R51 running GNU, Mandriva Linux 2006 flavour, and very nice it is as well (tho' I broke the wifi support trying to get it to support EAP - that's what comes of tinkering with your kernel when you don't really understand what you're doing:( )
I heard this chap interviewed on the Today programme yesterday morning. He put great emphasis on pointing out that it's only the Rockhoppers that have declined: the Gentoo and Emperor penguin species seem to be unaffected by whatever's causing this. Readers in the UK running Windows legacy systems can watch the related TV story here. Hmmm, and there's a story here from 2002.
If Microsoft are to be believed, Vista and TPM (aka Untrustworthy Computing) will start reducing the size of the pool of potential botnet zombies. I don't think they are to be believed... idiots will always be out there thinking "Hey, a cool screensaver, I'll install that". Either MS removes their ability to install executables, or the spam problem continues growing.
Right, but I think you underestimate the skill of the lawyers and engineers Microsoft will have poring over this problem. How's this for a scenario. Microsoft release a new product specifically for SuSE interop - not just for SMB, but the real value of the Microsoft LAN stuff which is Active Directory. The product contains two main components. A client-side blob runs on the SuSE client and includes ready-to-go config files (note: not software, just configs) to set various stuff up - Kerberos or OpenLDAP, Samba, PAM, CUPS perhaps, and so on. All that software can be made to work well with AD, but anyone who's tried to learn it from the man pages will have also spent a lot of time searching mailing lists for config tips. The software probably has a wizard, it prods the local network and DCs to see what is likely to be well received, makes "intelligent" guesses to recommend default settings, builds the config files and HUPs the required services / daemons. The whole thing would appear in the SuSE installer as something like "Microsoft Network InterOp Kit". The MS-blessed configs would just eliminate the hell of trying to make everything work OK. (I've been using Linux as a workstation and for security and web development work for eight years now, and it's as much as I can do to make icons on the desktop that open smb:// URLs in Konquerer. A keen web dev tried to get his LAMP wiki to use AD authentication, he was messing about with mod_auth_kerb for weeks, every few days he'd get excited & come over asking me to try it again, again without success.
The Microsoft-blessed config files can of course be easily read and copied, but they're (c) Microsoft and no other distribution can use them. They can't even read them , go "Aha! I need to set signing to NTLMv2 AES-128 *only* for NMB lookups, not Samba SMB traffic itself" (or whatever it may be) and then write the appropriate lines into their own custom config files. And if anyone looked like getting close, MS would I am sure be happy to kick off a decade or two of lawsuits, draining tens of millions of dollars from the victim distributions and vigorously smearing FUD over the whole GNU world. The end result is that SuSE Linux interoperates beautifully with a Windows AD based network, has a "Microsoft Approved" sticker on the front, and comes with file & print, mail & whatnot all working really slickly. No other distribution can ship the same thing because Microsoft own the copyright on the configs and client-side agent binary. Other distros can attempt to find their own magic configs, but let's face it, we've been working on Windows interop technologies for ten years and although huge amounts of excellent work have been done, Microsoft will always easily be able to FUD corporates by saying it's unsupported -- "Unlike Microsoft's new "Services for Linux" product, included with our selected Linux Partner Vendor, Novell. Here's their number, tell 'em Bill sent you..."
No linking to GPL'd software required, no source released, Microsoft succeed in partially subverting Free software. Score: Microsoft 1: Free Software community 0.
I personally think it's a tactic that shows signs of desperation; you can bet they've spent a lot of lawyer-years brainstorming ways to attack Free software, but it looks like they've got something here in the short term. It would be a dangerous move to be seen to endorse Linux even slightly, and shipping software to run on it would certainly do that -- but most of all I think it'd increase the exposure of Windows admins to Linux / Free software, which just increases the rate of attrition of MS mindshare. So in a couple more decades, OSes will be seen as far more of a commodity, and minimal, streamlined feature sets with straightforward modular components. And will include an old.au file of a man saying "My name is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce it 'Lee-nuhx':)
unfortunately the correlation may not imply causation. i.e. people who live longer drink more, but not vice-versa. You are correct, Sir. Clearly, further research is indicated. Cheers!:)
Don't come crying to me when you have to pull everything offline for a week to rebuild it. The users don't own their machines, therefore they don't get Admin or the right to install arbitrary bits of software. Add a dusting of policy on top plus some random sampling to catch out smart-arses who try running binaries from their home directories -- you may have to nail up a few of the slower sales droids outside reception before the message sinks in; there's nothing like a decaying corpse to remind people of your AUP -- and you're done.
I thought the PS3 had an all-new processor called the Cell, nothing to do with PPC but designed from scratch to be massively parellisable and distributed - a cluster in a box in fact. Was I dreaming? Or could it be that the story submitter took a bit of a knock in the maul or a ruck, or had a scrum come down on him, with consequent massive brain trauma and oxygen starvation? That's what happened to me - tighthead in the hardest postion on the damn pitch IMO, you can't even punch your oppo back... mind you this is Welsh borders school rugby I'm talking about. Much more important than just a came.
Brilliant - thanks. That URL's going to be mailed round to a few friends who I think must have missed it first time round.
I have a really excellent portrait of Tito on my wall. He's looking at me sideways as I write this... My friend Stoljan did a show under the title "Rex Mundi", with lots of old / dead dictators and autocrats - Milosevic was in there, so was Nixon, but the Tito one was more ambivalent than you might expect from that description.
Judging from the description given in the story, this game would be illegal in the UK. Incitement to racial or religious hatred is a pretty serious offence here. Although,...hmmm, it strikes me that the behaviour this depicts as "Christian" is exactly what the loony fringe of Islam asserts it is - a crusade to conquerer the world and force everyone to convert. If it was claimed to be a satirical work sending up lunatic American religious zealots, it would probably get through OK. Then again, the mostly US-only Christian right (who would certainly be regarded as potentially dangerous lunatics here) are rather beyond humour now, ever since the whole "Pro-Life murderers" thing.
After the 2004 election, a well-known British comedian said on the BBC (words to the effect of): "You try not to stereotype Americans as all being lazy, venal, ignorant and Americo-centric... and then they go and elect a bellicose fundamentalist who is an argument against alcoholics recovering. You want to say, ``for heaven's sake, stop acting up to your stereotype!' " Stories like this, and the recent spate of "global warming sceptic" bullshit really does dismay those of us who want to believe we have shared cultural values. Sorry if this sounds like flamebait or troll, it's not intended to, but that's how it looks from over here. (Yes, I know there are islands of civilisation on the coasts, but even California has the death penalty and throws 30% of it's black male citizens in jail.)
Just like any other organisation, the national governments, commercial and other entities within Africa can get just as much IP space as they need. Justify your request and it will be granted. It's really very simple. Google for (eg) "AFNIC address request justify policy" (not checked that, might need tweaking.)
Thanks for mentioning it, though; you've reminded me that I've been vaguely intending to dig out a couple of books I bought shortly after the war (I was 13 in 1982 and just getting interested in news & current affairs.) Realising over the next few years that, to some extent, I'd been swept along with the jingoism and nationalism and fetishisation of the military by modern media was definitely a formative experience.
Dig the Byrds ref (Turn! turn! turn!)... I picked up a 28-track best-of for £2.99 on a lunchtime whim a few years back, and it blew me away - definitely underrated by ver kidz today, IMHO. That said, I have no Beatles, or Stones, or indeed much else at all from the 60s (apart from some Who)... Prog didn't really get going until 1970:)
You are misinformed here. Although the Reagan administration maintained a public distance, the US actually provided considerable technical support behind the scenes - not least, satellite intel on Argentinian shipping movements - even whilst apparently trying to negotiate a UN-brokered settlement Why do you think Caspar Weinberger, and Reagan himself, were awarded honourary knighthoods? They don't tend to dish those out to foreigners without very substantial reasons.
Actually, they couldn't do it today for three reasons; "the passengers wouldn't stand for it" would be #3, behind #1 "cockpit doors are now locked and reinforced sufficiently to withstand prolonged attack with an axe", and #2, "aircrew will not open the cockpit door to hijackers under any circumstances, even if they line up every passenger and torture them to death". They're going to turn round and land at the nearest airport.
Hasn't anyone done a chart showing the number of aircraft hijackings over the last few decades? Has no-one noticed that where there were often multiple hijacks or attempted hijackers every year, there are now effectively none - anywhere? Yes, that includes places outside the USA that aren't subject to the TSA security theatre. That's because our aircraft have the same reinforced doors and hijacker-averse aircrew. Nothing to do with Secure Flight or CAPPS or the TSA at all.
Straw man. The alleged spin-off benefits of manned spaceflight could have been produced a lot more efficiently by spending the same money on engineering and scientific research. You don't need a ridicukous project to "colonise the moon" to justify investment in R&D... I hope.
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry. Back to the climate change trolls.
Staying Free is a guaranteed way to lose? Tell me more, you seem to have invented a fascinating new branch of logic, cos it seems to me that if you are forced to use non-Free software (or hardware), you have already lost.
We've got to ship something that works now. For a given value of "works", where 'works' is defined as meeting requirements. My first requirement as a software user is that doesn't steal my freedoms to share, copy, study, modify, redistribute (etc) it. If I can't do that with it, it's not working. There's a saying about he who would swap eye-candy for essential freedoms deserving neither. (Danny O'Brien I think that was.)You beat me to it - all that info but nothing to answer the most important question, will it run proper (Free) software, or am I shackled to Microsoft if I want to use the hardware? This post comes from an R51 running GNU, Mandriva Linux 2006 flavour, and very nice it is as well (tho' I broke the wifi support trying to get it to support EAP - that's what comes of tinkering with your kernel when you don't really understand what you're doing :( )
We read it here first.
I heard this chap interviewed on the Today programme yesterday morning. He put great emphasis on pointing out that it's only the Rockhoppers that have declined: the Gentoo and Emperor penguin species seem to be unaffected by whatever's causing this. Readers in the UK running Windows legacy systems can watch the related TV story here. Hmmm, and there's a story here from 2002.
If Microsoft are to be believed, Vista and TPM (aka Untrustworthy Computing) will start reducing the size of the pool of potential botnet zombies. I don't think they are to be believed... idiots will always be out there thinking "Hey, a cool screensaver, I'll install that". Either MS removes their ability to install executables, or the spam problem continues growing.
I personally think it's a tactic that shows signs of desperation; you can bet they've spent a lot of lawyer-years brainstorming ways to attack Free software, but it looks like they've got something here in the short term. It would be a dangerous move to be seen to endorse Linux even slightly, and shipping software to run on it would certainly do that -- but most of all I think it'd increase the exposure of Windows admins to Linux / Free software, which just increases the rate of attrition of MS mindshare. So in a couple more decades, OSes will be seen as far more of a commodity, and minimal, streamlined feature sets with straightforward modular components. And will include an old .au file of a man saying "My name is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce it 'Lee-nuhx' :)
Don't come crying to me when you have to pull everything offline for a week to rebuild it. The users don't own their machines, therefore they don't get Admin or the right to install arbitrary bits of software. Add a dusting of policy on top plus some random sampling to catch out smart-arses who try running binaries from their home directories -- you may have to nail up a few of the slower sales droids outside reception before the message sinks in; there's nothing like a decaying corpse to remind people of your AUP -- and you're done.
I thought the PS3 had an all-new processor called the Cell, nothing to do with PPC but designed from scratch to be massively parellisable and distributed - a cluster in a box in fact. Was I dreaming? Or could it be that the story submitter took a bit of a knock in the maul or a ruck, or had a scrum come down on him, with consequent massive brain trauma and oxygen starvation? That's what happened to me - tighthead in the hardest postion on the damn pitch IMO, you can't even punch your oppo back... mind you this is Welsh borders school rugby I'm talking about. Much more important than just a came.
Birds?? Hey, those little bastards are no friends of mine - they crap on my car. I say: fuck 'em.
I have a really excellent portrait of Tito on my wall. He's looking at me sideways as I write this... My friend Stoljan did a show under the title "Rex Mundi", with lots of old / dead dictators and autocrats - Milosevic was in there, so was Nixon, but the Tito one was more ambivalent than you might expect from that description.
After the 2004 election, a well-known British comedian said on the BBC (words to the effect of): "You try not to stereotype Americans as all being lazy, venal, ignorant and Americo-centric... and then they go and elect a bellicose fundamentalist who is an argument against alcoholics recovering. You want to say, ``for heaven's sake, stop acting up to your stereotype!' " Stories like this, and the recent spate of "global warming sceptic" bullshit really does dismay those of us who want to believe we have shared cultural values. Sorry if this sounds like flamebait or troll, it's not intended to, but that's how it looks from over here. (Yes, I know there are islands of civilisation on the coasts, but even California has the death penalty and throws 30% of it's black male citizens in jail.)
(no, this isn't off-topic; Bruce Sterling's married to Jasmina Tesanovic, an outstanding "citizen of the ghost republic", aka Serbia, and I believe has spent a fair bit of time over there recently.)
(Hey, doesn't Slashcode cope with Unicode or non-ASCII charsets? shame!!)
Just like any other organisation, the national governments, commercial and other entities within Africa can get just as much IP space as they need. Justify your request and it will be granted. It's really very simple. Google for (eg) "AFNIC address request justify policy" (not checked that, might need tweaking.)
Interesting theory; makes sense that num_FA_contribs will logarithmically whilst num_MS_devs can only scale linearly.
Both suspend and hibernate work fine on this Thinkpad under GNU/Linux... & have done since I got it, almost 2 years ago.
Thanks for mentioning it, though; you've reminded me that I've been vaguely intending to dig out a couple of books I bought shortly after the war (I was 13 in 1982 and just getting interested in news & current affairs.) Realising over the next few years that, to some extent, I'd been swept along with the jingoism and nationalism and fetishisation of the military by modern media was definitely a formative experience.
Dig the Byrds ref (Turn! turn! turn!)... I picked up a 28-track best-of for £2.99 on a lunchtime whim a few years back, and it blew me away - definitely underrated by ver kidz today, IMHO. That said, I have no Beatles, or Stones, or indeed much else at all from the 60s (apart from some Who) ... Prog didn't really get going until 1970 :)
You are misinformed here. Although the Reagan administration maintained a public distance, the US actually provided considerable technical support behind the scenes - not least, satellite intel on Argentinian shipping movements - even whilst apparently trying to negotiate a UN-brokered settlement Why do you think Caspar Weinberger, and Reagan himself, were awarded honourary knighthoods? They don't tend to dish those out to foreigners without very substantial reasons.
Hasn't anyone done a chart showing the number of aircraft hijackings over the last few decades? Has no-one noticed that where there were often multiple hijacks or attempted hijackers every year, there are now effectively none - anywhere? Yes, that includes places outside the USA that aren't subject to the TSA security theatre. That's because our aircraft have the same reinforced doors and hijacker-averse aircrew. Nothing to do with Secure Flight or CAPPS or the TSA at all.
Straw man. The alleged spin-off benefits of manned spaceflight could have been produced a lot more efficiently by spending the same money on engineering and scientific research. You don't need a ridicukous project to "colonise the moon" to justify investment in R&D... I hope.
And of course the big one: "One of these days, we're going to fly into a hole in the ground and not come out again."
Fascist.
Go ahead, mod me flamebait, I'm used to it when I express my honest opinion that manned spaceflight is a waste of time.