but the fact is that it is reasonably technically possible for an ISP to know when a user is sharing a file illegally
You'd think that, but it is not "reasonably technically possible" for an ISP to know every single piece of copyrighted work in all its forms and be able to decode the information flowing through the pipe and compare that to a database to determine if said work is copyrighted (oh wait, almost all work is, even this comment) and whether the owner of the copyright wishes to enforce it.
You can say "sure just look for video data or audio data" but then you block people who share home movies and other amateur productions.
It's not as cut and dried as you make it sound.
but it is not reasonably technically possible for your telecom to know if you are plotting a crime on the phone
I'd beg to differ. Voice recognition has become powerful enough that the telco could easily monitor all calls to pick out keywords and flag calls for more detailed (automated) analysis.
nor for the Post Office to know what illegal dvds you are shipping
Interesting. You're proposing that ISPs inspect every single packet that passes through their pipes looking for data that copyright owners don't want shared (where does that stop, and how do they determine what is actually not allowed to pass through?) yet the post office isn't allowed to inspect your DVD shipments to make sure they're not all pirated movies.
these people can imply or claim that the ISPS know all this and are exploiting this revenue-generating high bandwidth usage for their own ends
These people _can_ claim that, but it would never stand up. All ISPs include clauses that forbid the user from breaking the law or performing acts of copyright violation in their TOS.
For every person who chews out their monthly data allocation on pirated downloads there's probably at least 2 who download stuff they have paid for or are entitled to. I know that I chew out 20G/mo and a good part of that is VPN chatter to and from my employer. It's amazing how much you can burn up if you need to be on a remote desktop session a lot.
Hey deek, I did say "very new hardware". I have only one thing I can't make work on the Win7 box I tried. That was my 7 year old USB scanner. Fortunately I have Linux and it works out of the box. Funny turn of events, because even a few years ago it was flaky on Linux.
Therefore if we are to restrict our options to OpenBSD and FreeBSD i would lean towards FreeBSD simply due to the large no. of apps available through ports.Also i believe driver compatibility is a little better in FreeBSD, especially recently with nvidia cards.
FreeBSD only had NVidia on i386 kernels at least when I tried it on the desktop and quit about 2 months ago. You have the open source driver with works, but for decent multi head on a new model card you still need the closed source driver. OpenBSD has similar and (in my case) sometimes better hardware support. The Intel wireless card in my Dull laptop is supported on OpenBSD out of the box but FreeBSD still required me (at 8.0-RC1) to download a driver and munge with boot options to make it happen. Doable, but mildly annoying since it is the essentially the same driver with an extra PCI ID added to it to let it use the card.
If you're building a kick-ass server then the choice is up to you. You can't go wrong with Slowlaris or *BSD. I like FreeBSD because it has jails. They take a little getting used to but they are great. It's particularly useful to be able to give people root in a jail to admin something and know they can't actually root any of the other jails or the host. Solaris has Zones. Linux has a suite of patches that can do jails but it's not mainstream yet, and I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it if I were trying to attach a patched kernel to a current distro.
Solaris and FreeBSD have ZFS. Both are stable. Solaris has the slightly more mature support, but I've never seen FreeBSD lose data or kernel panic on me because of ZFS. There's a LOT of advantages to using ZFS. Quite a few are met with LVM on Linux or dynamic disks on Windows, but not all.
OpenBSD is going to be more secure out of the box, until you start installing from ports or packages.
Solaris is heavy. The default install was massive last time I tried it and it took forever to boot. Linux is even worse on size but fast to boot now (Ubuntu and Fedora at least have made huge advances in their latest releases). FreeBSD and OpenBSD can be shoehorned into very little space if needed without resorting to rolling your own distro, which can be advantageous.
For hardware support, Linux is generally better than the alternatives. If you only have very new hardware then Windows 7 is going to have better support.
Right; it should be clear as mud now that every system has its own advantages and disadvantages. It's like asking "should I choose a Porsche or a VW" (Ok since VW owns half of Porsche now...) Horses for courses as they say. You'd test drive the cars if you were looking to make sure they met your needs. Try the different operating systems on a sacrificial machine or VM. Stick with the choice that you feel comfortable with.
The department of motor vehicles is a good example. This is akin to asking the department to pass on infringement notices because somebody in a car was doing burnouts on my front lawn. You can actually do that in several ways. The only way that won't cost you money is involve the police on a destruction of property charge. If you want to access the DMV database you need a warrant and to pay money.
Why should ISPs be any different? They incur costs and if the music and film industries had to actually pay some of these costs they'd probably realise they're being greedy cunts and return to only chasing the bastards who _sell_ pirated films.
> They are just saying that the ISP's should be handling copyright notices, because it should be their responsibility.
Why is it the ISPs responsibility? They don't work for the music industry, and last I checked copyright infringement for non-commercial use was still a civil matter. Therefore the ISP has precisely zero responsibility to do anything since the law doesn't require it.
What the music industry is asking is for the ISP to _spend_ money so the music industry _doesn't_ have to. If these cunts want to send their copyright notices then fine. Let them go to the courts, prove that $IP downloaded $LIST to a standard that the court requires and obtain a warrant to serve the notice directly. Let them PAY the ISP for their involvement, since the ISP is nothing but a carrier. They are trying to sidestep the due process because they know their evidence is flimsy and wouldn't stand up.
Essentially what they're asking to do now is increase the costs involved in running an ISP; costs which will be amortized across all customers and result in a more expensive service for everyone.
Works for me;) Every time a disk fails I replace it and all is good. Haven't needed to load my backup tapes yet.
Superstitious idiots are going to be around as long as there are cockroaches.
Um, no. Cockroaches will become extinct at some point (possibly evolving into a new more intelligent species) and superstitious idiots will still be around. Hopefully our new cockroach-based friends are more interesting to talk to.
If you're not out to make a killing profit, but more to just cover your costs of doing it (as you say, bandwidth charges, and Apple's developer fees) then that's fair. Of course, the GPL doesn't stop you making a killing profit so there's not a lot the original authors could do about it.
I'm imagining that it was a fair effort to port the software to the spyPhone, so it's not like you've blatantly ripped off code and just started compiling and selling it (not that the GPL prevents you from doing that).
Morally, I'd feel dirty trying to make a profit by packaging and selling someone else's GPL program, but the GPL is fine with it (so long as you keep the source available for your modifications). It doesn't sound like you guys are out to make a profit, but more cover your costs which I can't disagree with.
Moral of the story: The GPL allows you to use the code, make a killing profit so long as you release your code, and there's not a lot anyone can do about it.
How are they supposed to stay in business with you refusing to pay for their poorly recorded garbage?
By paying of law makers to pass laws that prove you must be violating copyright if you don't pay their 'protection' fees and receive little shiny tokens of protection for it:
"But your honour, he didn't have a single one of our CDs when we illegally raided his house. That proves he pirates our stuff!"
Actaully, no actual law was broken. Downloading copyrighted works is still a civil matter in this country.
Being removed from your university accomodation for it is probably illegal, and you can probably drag the uni through the courts for it on account of a letter from Media Sentry doesn't hold ANY legal weight without a court order as well.
I was tempted to stop reading at point 12, since it's pure nonsense. Find me an OS that provides protection... *grumbles* while TFA thinks it's doing a service it's really pure trite written by a (mostly) ignorant author, probably to feed us FOSS trolls.
In the last paragraph the author talks about implementations of SMB and AD (active directory?) not being available, then excludes samba. I with he would say why. Samba seems pretty good in that area.
What's interesting is that if Linux were the desktop OS then AD integration would be a moot point; who the fsck wants AD integration for a Linux-only environment?
Adding to that, I had Samba3 managing a domain (ok, not full AD) two years ago. Sure, it wasn't perfectly easy but a day's work to integrate the SMB schema into the LDAP and then configure phpldapadmin made it simple enough. Actually, it was so simple a monkey (the PHB) could figure it out).
My point is that Linux is already there as a server; it shouldn't need to replace Windows, because Windows has never had any rightful place as a server. It's been forced there by MS fanbois who know nothing about real computing. If you're not comfortable/capable of editing text files to configure the server then you shouldn't be administering servers FULL STOP; you obviously don't know enough to make them reliable and secure.
Linux on the desktop just works. The reason it doesn't "just work" for so many people is they expect to type "windows live messenger" into Google and get a.exe they can run. They don't get that computers aren't Windows and that there are alternate programs. Mac has the same problems. You'd not believe the number of n00b Mac users who asked me why they couldn't install this.exe or that.exe.
In response to the TFA's pointing out how many open bugs there are on some of the project's trackers: At least you can see the bugs and make a choice. Large commercial firms have just as many open tickets that aren't being actioned (believe me, I have worked in large commercials) but you get no visibility into them.
Long story short, Linux works on the desktop - it's far more stable than the Redmond equivalent but most people need to get over the fact they can't use their pet apps and need to start using alternatives. Sure, there's some users who are bound to Windows because of expensive proprietary apps, but most could switch in a heartbeat.
Computers are useful - even in courtrooms for journalists who may wish to take notes.
The real issue is not court rooms; it's high security establishments, where the employee may want to bring in a personal mobile phone. The simplest way of protecting the area is to disallow bringing in personal electronic devices. That's a bit harsh, since some people may want to bring in iPods and the like to listen to music (specially programmers, but I can think of lots of other people who would too).
There's a growing trend to make every mobile device a be-all and end-all. Most laptops have webcams integrated and a lot have that shitty "don't boot windows to play your DVDs" mode. Phones are the same - nearly every model has WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS and a camera. It's getting harder and harder to find phones without.
When companies want their travelling contractors/salesmen to have mobile phones and computers they'll often get one of the you-beaut models but if the employee must enter secure facilities then they can't take them in. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the phone in the first place.
It's not so hard to get a custom-order Dull without a webcam. Just don't try and do it online. Build the order, save it for later then call up and give the trained monkey the order code and ask for sans-webcam. They will do that for you on most laptops. I haven't tried with other laptop companies. Phones on the other hand; you're S.O.L. You can go for entry level and avoid the camera (there are a few still around) but that'll be a phone which does nothing more than call and SMS people, meaning you also need an entry-level cam-less PDA (They've discovered this wonderful new material called 'paper' that they make those out of now).
I agree here. If you're sitting on your desk all day then get a mouse with a wire. There's no need to worry about flat batteries if you go that route. The wired mouse/keyboard are more secure; no snooping on potentially insecure over the air protocols.
To top it all off, Linux support for bluetooth keyboards (in my experience) is ratshit. My Bluetooth keyboard takes about 6 attempts to pair with the damn thing (the pairing dialog times out faster than I can type in the 4 digit PIN each time). When I finally get it paired it mostly works though apart from interference on occasion.
Wires remove all those problems and really aren't that inconvenient, really.
Air compressors in cars use an enormous amount of power. Figures are 20-40 HP (~15-30 kW).
The solar gain in a car is enormous no thanks to all that glass letting in the sun and no (legal) way of shading the windows to keep it out while you're driving along. Dark cars do have a slightly higher solar gain than lighter one, so this would have a small effect on overall fuel consumption, but not in the middle of summer, where the compressor runs full time anyway. The effects would be so negligible compared to some of the other (more complicated) methods of reducing fuel consumption.
I agree on the cutting out weight part. Modern cars can have in excess of 200kg of electrical cable in them to bus around power and control signals. This is in part because cars are generally 12V power systems so you need enormous current (and thus enormous cable) to even run a headlight, let-alone crank the engine.
Moving to a higher voltage would reduce the cable requirements considerably. 48V electrics in cars would require 1/16 the current weight in cable (the old I^2 * R rule) to retain the current electrical losses in the cables.
There's a huge benefit to be had there but still we persist with 12V electrics in cars. This is mostly tradition, but originally it would have been convenience, safety and the fact that 12V doesn't require a sparkie's license to wok on.
Everything on the car can improve economy. Paying the extra money for good tyres will make a noticeable difference, as will keeping the wheels correctly aligned and inflated.
Keeping roads flowing smoothly and road surfaces in good condition will reduce overall wasted fuel.
Keeping your car well maintained and having services at manufacturer specified intervals will keep it running efficiently.
Driving smaller cars with smaller, more efficient engines uses less fuel. Modern 2L 4cyl engines can generate as much power as a gas guzzling V8 (I am sitting at 124kW from a naturally aspirated 2L motor and fuel consumption is BETTER than an equivalently powered V6 from another manufacturer).
Simply driving more smoothly and not applying the boot to either pedal too heavily all of the time can have an enormous effect. Accelerating too hard is just wasteful, and doubly so in traffic where you usually overshoot and have to brake immediately anyway. Braking hard and late is also more wasteful because you often overshoot when you might not have needed to come to a complete halt.
There's so many (more expensive and more complicated) things that have a far bigger effect on fuel consumption than wankily banning dark coloured cars!!!
If the company won't correct the problem, and you think the blame will fall on you...
I have been tempted a couple of years ago in a small company to do just that; they were pirating everything, and as the "hey this engineer happens to know how to install software" guy I was given a lone legit license to Windows and told to bypass activation on all the machines.
I put Linux on where I could, and quit shortly after because it was obvious that the company was going nowhere anyway... they wouldn't even pay for the tools they used, yet they had massive capital investment that they blew on fancy furniture, expensive desk phones, multiple big monitors for the CEO's desk so he looked important, etc.
It's brutal, but simple, and most importantly, true. Until people are willing to admit that some subset of the population needs an ongoing pattern of extermination, humanity will never improve.
Your stupidity and ignorance astounds me. So some part of our population doesn't fit the evolutionary model that you'd like to assume. You'd like to simply perform mass genocide. There's a group of people that society likes to bring to a pig circus trial and hang. They are the very same who propose and perform mass genocide. They went after Hitler and they went after Saddam. They've chased everyone in between. Perhaps we should send you to the gallows?
It won't surprise me if the list has been updated to include Wikileaks. It seems that the site is not responding, but that could be the slashdot effect kicking in.
What really offends me about this mess is that (AFIK) images of aborted babies are not illegal to look at, even if they are gory and sickening to a lot of people. In fact, these very images can serve as educational material AGAINST abortion because most people don't really believe that there's a little person in there yet until the day they give birth... it would serve well to show the gruesome things that are done in the name of "choice" (I am pro-choice, but I think education on the facts is still worthwhile).
Government controlled secret censorship lists are a bad bad thing. Conroy did a bad bad thing (I could go the whole way with a parody of Chris Isaak here). Why are they fearing making the list public? If all the sites are required to be blocked by ISPs then there should be no way Australians can access the 'disgusting' material on the list anyway. *sighs*
Everyone's a tough guy on the Internet. Why don't you try killing the next person who comes into your home uninvited and see where you end up.
Why don't you try killing the police when they come into your home uninvited but with a warrant granting them the ability to do so. See where you end up.
I can tell you in both cases you'll have a hard time not winding up locked in with the sodomites.
BTW did you notice by now, that the whole storyline is about a swedish case, as in swedish defendants, swedish plaintiffs, swedish judge, swedish court, swedish piratebay, and it's all in Sweden?
Wow, there's a town called 'Sweden'? What state is that in? Texas?
Who said ANYTHING about mollycoddling children? I certainly didn't. I merely pointed out that expecting the Government's Internet filter to protect them from the evil 1nt4rw3bs is madness. In my own very pissed off way I pointed out other things that you wouldn't expect the government to protect your kids from.
when all of you geeks become parents, either you will spend 95% of your time manually filtering your child's on-line access, buy closed-source software from some "very dependable" company or be a very bad parent.
I can tell you first-hand (as a parent and someone from a "very dependable company") that Internet filtering is not all it's cracked up to be. The filters are simply not accurate enough to rely on for home use; there are sites out there which deliberately try and remain unfiltered. There are a LOT of ways to get around them, depending on the tech. I can tell you that none of the companies that I know of are perfect. The government's expensive testing even proved that. The only reason Internet filtering works in schools and businesses is group mentality. Students and employees start to think they're being watched and tend to avoid doing things that are inappropriate lest they be found out and others find out what they're doing.
Porn is not a problem. If you're letting a young child out onto the Internet unsupervised you're a fucking moron. You are the problem in that case. Plain and simple. Are you so fucking stupid you let them swim in a pool without watching them too? I bet it'll be the government's fault for not when they drown! Do you take them to large events (sporting ones perhaps) and let them run around where you can't see them? Oh, Uncle Sam should have protected them there too because you were too fucking lazy to!
Being a parent is not the job of the gumbiment. Being a parent is your job, and I've got some news for you shit-stick; it's a full time job. I know this because I am a parent and it never ends. It may be hard work, but it's also great fun and a real rush, knowing you're molding and shaping them into responsible little versions of you.
*end rant*
I make no apologies for flying off the rails. It sickens me to the very core that some people actually think they shouldn't have to look after their own children.
the kernel is not bloated, it's just that it comes with drivers for a shitload of hardware.
That _is_ the definition of bloated, since many people use a limited subset of PC-compatible hardware. It's nice that you can just stick in almost any piece of kit and Linux detects it and runs with it. It would be nicer if all that cruft was cut out of the base kernel and drivers were available for download on demand rather than shipped with it.
That said, I agree with Linus on the topic of multiple distros. I have had on one occasion to patch the hell out of Linux/Glibc just to make a distro that met size+international+supported by our toolset vendor. There is a market for many distros for many things.
I also think the biggest hold-back for Linux is that there is no single "this is Linux" distro for the masses. Windows is the same no matter where you install it. Things are in the same place on every XP install on the planet for the most part. Why can't there be a single distribution that meets the needs of average Joe desktop user, has good 3D hardware and gaming support, lets them achieve all they need without logging in as root, and "just works".
Ubuntu comes close to this, and almost every conceivable software package for the average user exists in its software repository somewhere. I'm a power user/dev/sysadmin and I don't often need to stray outside the Ubuntu package system to find what I'm looking for.
But in the academic world the "geniuses" are those students that can memorise the most trivia (see TV game shows for example). While truly intelligent lateral thinkers get put in the bottom classes and made to feel dumb.
This isn't quite the case. In a lot of cases the "truly intelligent" ask questions that even the teacher hasn't thought about or really can't answer properly. Instead of the teacher admitting defeat they get defensive. I saw it a few times even at post-graduate level. Humans are fallable but they don't want to be seen to be in front of their peers.
I have noticed a trend in society that seems to be getting worse, and that is rewarding rampant stupidity. Some of the most highly paid people are some of the dumbest - sports players (particularly AFL). There's massive amounts of money thrown at sports, but to get anything for scientific research (unless it's in sports-somethingorother, or is the current hot topic) you have to go begging.
Slashdot Mirror
but the fact is that it is reasonably technically possible for an ISP to know when a user is sharing a file illegally
You'd think that, but it is not "reasonably technically possible" for an ISP to know every single piece of copyrighted work in all its forms and be able to decode the information flowing through the pipe and compare that to a database to determine if said work is copyrighted (oh wait, almost all work is, even this comment) and whether the owner of the copyright wishes to enforce it.
You can say "sure just look for video data or audio data" but then you block people who share home movies and other amateur productions.
It's not as cut and dried as you make it sound.
but it is not reasonably technically possible for your telecom to know if you are plotting a crime on the phone
I'd beg to differ. Voice recognition has become powerful enough that the telco could easily monitor all calls to pick out keywords and flag calls for more detailed (automated) analysis.
nor for the Post Office to know what illegal dvds you are shipping
Interesting. You're proposing that ISPs inspect every single packet that passes through their pipes looking for data that copyright owners don't want shared (where does that stop, and how do they determine what is actually not allowed to pass through?) yet the post office isn't allowed to inspect your DVD shipments to make sure they're not all pirated movies.
these people can imply or claim that the ISPS know all this and are exploiting this revenue-generating high bandwidth usage for their own ends
These people _can_ claim that, but it would never stand up. All ISPs include clauses that forbid the user from breaking the law or performing acts of copyright violation in their TOS.
For every person who chews out their monthly data allocation on pirated downloads there's probably at least 2 who download stuff they have paid for or are entitled to. I know that I chew out 20G/mo and a good part of that is VPN chatter to and from my employer. It's amazing how much you can burn up if you need to be on a remote desktop session a lot.
Hey deek, I did say "very new hardware". I have only one thing I can't make work on the Win7 box I tried. That was my 7 year old USB scanner. Fortunately I have Linux and it works out of the box. Funny turn of events, because even a few years ago it was flaky on Linux.
Therefore if we are to restrict our options to OpenBSD and FreeBSD i would lean towards FreeBSD simply due to the large no. of apps available through ports.Also i believe driver compatibility is a little better in FreeBSD, especially recently with nvidia cards.
FreeBSD only had NVidia on i386 kernels at least when I tried it on the desktop and quit about 2 months ago. You have the open source driver with works, but for decent multi head on a new model card you still need the closed source driver. OpenBSD has similar and (in my case) sometimes better hardware support. The Intel wireless card in my Dull laptop is supported on OpenBSD out of the box but FreeBSD still required me (at 8.0-RC1) to download a driver and munge with boot options to make it happen. Doable, but mildly annoying since it is the essentially the same driver with an extra PCI ID added to it to let it use the card.
If you're building a kick-ass server then the choice is up to you. You can't go wrong with Slowlaris or *BSD. I like FreeBSD because it has jails. They take a little getting used to but they are great. It's particularly useful to be able to give people root in a jail to admin something and know they can't actually root any of the other jails or the host. Solaris has Zones. Linux has a suite of patches that can do jails but it's not mainstream yet, and I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it if I were trying to attach a patched kernel to a current distro.
Solaris and FreeBSD have ZFS. Both are stable. Solaris has the slightly more mature support, but I've never seen FreeBSD lose data or kernel panic on me because of ZFS. There's a LOT of advantages to using ZFS. Quite a few are met with LVM on Linux or dynamic disks on Windows, but not all.
OpenBSD is going to be more secure out of the box, until you start installing from ports or packages.
Solaris is heavy. The default install was massive last time I tried it and it took forever to boot. Linux is even worse on size but fast to boot now (Ubuntu and Fedora at least have made huge advances in their latest releases). FreeBSD and OpenBSD can be shoehorned into very little space if needed without resorting to rolling your own distro, which can be advantageous.
For hardware support, Linux is generally better than the alternatives. If you only have very new hardware then Windows 7 is going to have better support.
Right; it should be clear as mud now that every system has its own advantages and disadvantages. It's like asking "should I choose a Porsche or a VW" (Ok since VW owns half of Porsche now...) Horses for courses as they say. You'd test drive the cars if you were looking to make sure they met your needs. Try the different operating systems on a sacrificial machine or VM. Stick with the choice that you feel comfortable with.
I'm going to reply to my own post.
The department of motor vehicles is a good example. This is akin to asking the department to pass on infringement notices because somebody in a car was doing burnouts on my front lawn. You can actually do that in several ways. The only way that won't cost you money is involve the police on a destruction of property charge. If you want to access the DMV database you need a warrant and to pay money.
Why should ISPs be any different? They incur costs and if the music and film industries had to actually pay some of these costs they'd probably realise they're being greedy cunts and return to only chasing the bastards who _sell_ pirated films.
> They are just saying that the ISP's should be handling copyright notices, because it should be their responsibility.
Why is it the ISPs responsibility? They don't work for the music industry, and last I checked copyright infringement for non-commercial use was still a civil matter. Therefore the ISP has precisely zero responsibility to do anything since the law doesn't require it.
What the music industry is asking is for the ISP to _spend_ money so the music industry _doesn't_ have to. If these cunts want to send their copyright notices then fine. Let them go to the courts, prove that $IP downloaded $LIST to a standard that the court requires and obtain a warrant to serve the notice directly. Let them PAY the ISP for their involvement, since the ISP is nothing but a carrier. They are trying to sidestep the due process because they know their evidence is flimsy and wouldn't stand up.
Essentially what they're asking to do now is increase the costs involved in running an ISP; costs which will be amortized across all customers and result in a more expensive service for everyone.
RAID doesn't even work all that well.
Works for me ;) Every time a disk fails I replace it and all is good. Haven't needed to load my backup tapes yet.
Superstitious idiots are going to be around as long as there are cockroaches.
Um, no. Cockroaches will become extinct at some point (possibly evolving into a new more intelligent species) and superstitious idiots will still be around. Hopefully our new cockroach-based friends are more interesting to talk to.
Yes. I'd say that's fair.
If you're not out to make a killing profit, but more to just cover your costs of doing it (as you say, bandwidth charges, and Apple's developer fees) then that's fair. Of course, the GPL doesn't stop you making a killing profit so there's not a lot the original authors could do about it.
I'm imagining that it was a fair effort to port the software to the spyPhone, so it's not like you've blatantly ripped off code and just started compiling and selling it (not that the GPL prevents you from doing that).
Morally, I'd feel dirty trying to make a profit by packaging and selling someone else's GPL program, but the GPL is fine with it (so long as you keep the source available for your modifications). It doesn't sound like you guys are out to make a profit, but more cover your costs which I can't disagree with.
Moral of the story: The GPL allows you to use the code, make a killing profit so long as you release your code, and there's not a lot anyone can do about it.
How are they supposed to stay in business with you refusing to pay for their poorly recorded garbage?
By paying of law makers to pass laws that prove you must be violating copyright if you don't pay their 'protection' fees and receive little shiny tokens of protection for it:
"But your honour, he didn't have a single one of our CDs when we illegally raided his house. That proves he pirates our stuff!"
Actaully, no actual law was broken. Downloading copyrighted works is still a civil matter in this country.
Being removed from your university accomodation for it is probably illegal, and you can probably drag the uni through the courts for it on account of a letter from Media Sentry doesn't hold ANY legal weight without a court order as well.
I was tempted to stop reading at point 12, since it's pure nonsense. Find me an OS that provides protection... *grumbles* while TFA thinks it's doing a service it's really pure trite written by a (mostly) ignorant author, probably to feed us FOSS trolls.
In the last paragraph the author talks about implementations of SMB and AD (active directory?) not being available, then excludes samba. I with he would say why. Samba seems pretty good in that area.
What's interesting is that if Linux were the desktop OS then AD integration would be a moot point; who the fsck wants AD integration for a Linux-only environment?
Adding to that, I had Samba3 managing a domain (ok, not full AD) two years ago. Sure, it wasn't perfectly easy but a day's work to integrate the SMB schema into the LDAP and then configure phpldapadmin made it simple enough. Actually, it was so simple a monkey (the PHB) could figure it out).
My point is that Linux is already there as a server; it shouldn't need to replace Windows, because Windows has never had any rightful place as a server. It's been forced there by MS fanbois who know nothing about real computing. If you're not comfortable/capable of editing text files to configure the server then you shouldn't be administering servers FULL STOP; you obviously don't know enough to make them reliable and secure.
Linux on the desktop just works. The reason it doesn't "just work" for so many people is they expect to type "windows live messenger" into Google and get a .exe they can run. They don't get that computers aren't Windows and that there are alternate programs. Mac has the same problems. You'd not believe the number of n00b Mac users who asked me why they couldn't install this .exe or that .exe.
In response to the TFA's pointing out how many open bugs there are on some of the project's trackers: At least you can see the bugs and make a choice. Large commercial firms have just as many open tickets that aren't being actioned (believe me, I have worked in large commercials) but you get no visibility into them.
Long story short, Linux works on the desktop - it's far more stable than the Redmond equivalent but most people need to get over the fact they can't use their pet apps and need to start using alternatives. Sure, there's some users who are bound to Windows because of expensive proprietary apps, but most could switch in a heartbeat.
Computers are useful - even in courtrooms for journalists who may wish to take notes.
The real issue is not court rooms; it's high security establishments, where the employee may want to bring in a personal mobile phone. The simplest way of protecting the area is to disallow bringing in personal electronic devices. That's a bit harsh, since some people may want to bring in iPods and the like to listen to music (specially programmers, but I can think of lots of other people who would too).
There's a growing trend to make every mobile device a be-all and end-all. Most laptops have webcams integrated and a lot have that shitty "don't boot windows to play your DVDs" mode. Phones are the same - nearly every model has WLAN, Bluetooth, GPS and a camera. It's getting harder and harder to find phones without.
When companies want their travelling contractors/salesmen to have mobile phones and computers they'll often get one of the you-beaut models but if the employee must enter secure facilities then they can't take them in. Kind of defeats the purpose of having the phone in the first place.
It's not so hard to get a custom-order Dull without a webcam. Just don't try and do it online. Build the order, save it for later then call up and give the trained monkey the order code and ask for sans-webcam. They will do that for you on most laptops. I haven't tried with other laptop companies. Phones on the other hand; you're S.O.L. You can go for entry level and avoid the camera (there are a few still around) but that'll be a phone which does nothing more than call and SMS people, meaning you also need an entry-level cam-less PDA (They've discovered this wonderful new material called 'paper' that they make those out of now).
I agree here. If you're sitting on your desk all day then get a mouse with a wire. There's no need to worry about flat batteries if you go that route. The wired mouse/keyboard are more secure; no snooping on potentially insecure over the air protocols.
To top it all off, Linux support for bluetooth keyboards (in my experience) is ratshit. My Bluetooth keyboard takes about 6 attempts to pair with the damn thing (the pairing dialog times out faster than I can type in the 4 digit PIN each time). When I finally get it paired it mostly works though apart from interference on occasion.
Wires remove all those problems and really aren't that inconvenient, really.
Air compressors in cars use an enormous amount of power. Figures are 20-40 HP (~15-30 kW).
The solar gain in a car is enormous no thanks to all that glass letting in the sun and no (legal) way of shading the windows to keep it out while you're driving along. Dark cars do have a slightly higher solar gain than lighter one, so this would have a small effect on overall fuel consumption, but not in the middle of summer, where the compressor runs full time anyway. The effects would be so negligible compared to some of the other (more complicated) methods of reducing fuel consumption.
I agree on the cutting out weight part. Modern cars can have in excess of 200kg of electrical cable in them to bus around power and control signals. This is in part because cars are generally 12V power systems so you need enormous current (and thus enormous cable) to even run a headlight, let-alone crank the engine.
Moving to a higher voltage would reduce the cable requirements considerably. 48V electrics in cars would require 1/16 the current weight in cable (the old I^2 * R rule) to retain the current electrical losses in the cables.
There's a huge benefit to be had there but still we persist with 12V electrics in cars. This is mostly tradition, but originally it would have been convenience, safety and the fact that 12V doesn't require a sparkie's license to wok on.
Everything on the car can improve economy. Paying the extra money for good tyres will make a noticeable difference, as will keeping the wheels correctly aligned and inflated.
Keeping roads flowing smoothly and road surfaces in good condition will reduce overall wasted fuel.
Keeping your car well maintained and having services at manufacturer specified intervals will keep it running efficiently.
Driving smaller cars with smaller, more efficient engines uses less fuel. Modern 2L 4cyl engines can generate as much power as a gas guzzling V8 (I am sitting at 124kW from a naturally aspirated 2L motor and fuel consumption is BETTER than an equivalently powered V6 from another manufacturer).
Simply driving more smoothly and not applying the boot to either pedal too heavily all of the time can have an enormous effect. Accelerating too hard is just wasteful, and doubly so in traffic where you usually overshoot and have to brake immediately anyway. Braking hard and late is also more wasteful because you often overshoot when you might not have needed to come to a complete halt.
There's so many (more expensive and more complicated) things that have a far bigger effect on fuel consumption than wankily banning dark coloured cars!!!
If the company won't correct the problem, and you think the blame will fall on you...
I have been tempted a couple of years ago in a small company to do just that; they were pirating everything, and as the "hey this engineer happens to know how to install software" guy I was given a lone legit license to Windows and told to bypass activation on all the machines.
I put Linux on where I could, and quit shortly after because it was obvious that the company was going nowhere anyway... they wouldn't even pay for the tools they used, yet they had massive capital investment that they blew on fancy furniture, expensive desk phones, multiple big monitors for the CEO's desk so he looked important, etc.
Modern LCD panels are 1920x1280 @ 60FPS, so let's increase your numbers a bit.
It's brutal, but simple, and most importantly, true. Until people are willing to admit that some subset of the population needs an ongoing pattern of extermination, humanity will never improve.
Your stupidity and ignorance astounds me. So some part of our population doesn't fit the evolutionary model that you'd like to assume. You'd like to simply perform mass genocide. There's a group of people that society likes to bring to a pig circus trial and hang. They are the very same who propose and perform mass genocide. They went after Hitler and they went after Saddam. They've chased everyone in between. Perhaps we should send you to the gallows?
It won't surprise me if the list has been updated to include Wikileaks. It seems that the site is not responding, but that could be the slashdot effect kicking in.
What really offends me about this mess is that (AFIK) images of aborted babies are not illegal to look at, even if they are gory and sickening to a lot of people. In fact, these very images can serve as educational material AGAINST abortion because most people don't really believe that there's a little person in there yet until the day they give birth... it would serve well to show the gruesome things that are done in the name of "choice" (I am pro-choice, but I think education on the facts is still worthwhile).
Government controlled secret censorship lists are a bad bad thing. Conroy did a bad bad thing (I could go the whole way with a parody of Chris Isaak here). Why are they fearing making the list public? If all the sites are required to be blocked by ISPs then there should be no way Australians can access the 'disgusting' material on the list anyway. *sighs*
Everyone's a tough guy on the Internet. Why don't you try killing the next person who comes into your home uninvited and see where you end up.
Why don't you try killing the police when they come into your home uninvited but with a warrant granting them the ability to do so. See where you end up.
I can tell you in both cases you'll have a hard time not winding up locked in with the sodomites.
BTW did you notice by now, that the whole storyline is about a swedish case, as in swedish defendants, swedish plaintiffs, swedish judge, swedish court, swedish piratebay, and it's all in Sweden?
Wow, there's a town called 'Sweden'? What state is that in? Texas?
Who said ANYTHING about mollycoddling children? I certainly didn't. I merely pointed out that expecting the Government's Internet filter to protect them from the evil 1nt4rw3bs is madness. In my own very pissed off way I pointed out other things that you wouldn't expect the government to protect your kids from.
when all of you geeks become parents, either you will spend 95% of your time manually filtering your child's on-line access, buy closed-source software from some "very dependable" company or be a very bad parent.
I can tell you first-hand (as a parent and someone from a "very dependable company") that Internet filtering is not all it's cracked up to be. The filters are simply not accurate enough to rely on for home use; there are sites out there which deliberately try and remain unfiltered. There are a LOT of ways to get around them, depending on the tech. I can tell you that none of the companies that I know of are perfect. The government's expensive testing even proved that. The only reason Internet filtering works in schools and businesses is group mentality. Students and employees start to think they're being watched and tend to avoid doing things that are inappropriate lest they be found out and others find out what they're doing.
Porn is not a problem. If you're letting a young child out onto the Internet unsupervised you're a fucking moron. You are the problem in that case. Plain and simple. Are you so fucking stupid you let them swim in a pool without watching them too? I bet it'll be the government's fault for not when they drown! Do you take them to large events (sporting ones perhaps) and let them run around where you can't see them? Oh, Uncle Sam should have protected them there too because you were too fucking lazy to!
Being a parent is not the job of the gumbiment. Being a parent is your job, and I've got some news for you shit-stick; it's a full time job. I know this because I am a parent and it never ends. It may be hard work, but it's also great fun and a real rush, knowing you're molding and shaping them into responsible little versions of you.
*end rant*
I make no apologies for flying off the rails. It sickens me to the very core that some people actually think they shouldn't have to look after their own children.
the kernel is not bloated, it's just that it comes with drivers for a shitload of hardware.
That _is_ the definition of bloated, since many people use a limited subset of PC-compatible hardware. It's nice that you can just stick in almost any piece of kit and Linux detects it and runs with it. It would be nicer if all that cruft was cut out of the base kernel and drivers were available for download on demand rather than shipped with it.
That said, I agree with Linus on the topic of multiple distros. I have had on one occasion to patch the hell out of Linux/Glibc just to make a distro that met size+international+supported by our toolset vendor. There is a market for many distros for many things.
I also think the biggest hold-back for Linux is that there is no single "this is Linux" distro for the masses. Windows is the same no matter where you install it. Things are in the same place on every XP install on the planet for the most part. Why can't there be a single distribution that meets the needs of average Joe desktop user, has good 3D hardware and gaming support, lets them achieve all they need without logging in as root, and "just works".
Ubuntu comes close to this, and almost every conceivable software package for the average user exists in its software repository somewhere. I'm a power user/dev/sysadmin and I don't often need to stray outside the Ubuntu package system to find what I'm looking for.
They have probably just put one of these on a microphone...
http://banderasnews.com/howto/bullshit.htm
Who needs lie detectors?
But in the academic world the "geniuses" are those students that can memorise the most trivia (see TV game shows for example). While truly intelligent lateral thinkers get put in the bottom classes and made to feel dumb.
This isn't quite the case. In a lot of cases the "truly intelligent" ask questions that even the teacher hasn't thought about or really can't answer properly. Instead of the teacher admitting defeat they get defensive. I saw it a few times even at post-graduate level. Humans are fallable but they don't want to be seen to be in front of their peers.
I have noticed a trend in society that seems to be getting worse, and that is rewarding rampant stupidity. Some of the most highly paid people are some of the dumbest - sports players (particularly AFL). There's massive amounts of money thrown at sports, but to get anything for scientific research (unless it's in sports-somethingorother, or is the current hot topic) you have to go begging.