How many of you really watch movies on your computer?
I built a CD/MP3 player out of a cheap CPU. It has an ethernet adapter. It has it's own IP address on my home network. It's not a workstation--it's part of my entertainment system.
And of course, it runs Linux. I haven't bought a DVD player because I intend to replace the CD-ROM drive in my MP3/CD player with a DVD-ROM drive. The problem has been that software to use the equipment hasn't been available for Linux. I was thrilled when I found out that the DeCSS guys were making headway. Now greedy corporations are trying to undo their work. This means I have to wait that much longer before I spend any money on DVD's and related technology.
BTW, I don't want to buy a DVD player. I'm building it because I want to build it. If I wanted to buy one premade I would already have one.
My brother-in-law just spent Christmas Eve driving around town to various crack houses looking for his adolescent neices father. When the dirty bastard showed up, he had spent every penny he had (which was given to him to buy the child a present) on crack. I can't believe this would happen without the addictive nature of the drug. I enjoy a cigar now and again, but I wouldn't trade the Christmas morning look on my boys' face for one. Drugs like crack can't be handle by normal humans and the government has a responsibility to protect.
I promised myself I wouldn't get on a rant. Let's see if I can manage to avoid that. The government is more concerned about protecting the pharmaceutical companies, breweries, distilleries, tabacco companies, and anyone else that contributes tons of money to the war on drugs.
They did not "protect" your brother-in-law(-in-law) from crack. The crack houses are still there, here, and everywhere. Drugs are everywhere, and if you fit the right demographic they'll come to you without any effort. I really feel the overall effect of the drug war is that illicit drugs are more dangerous (in every way), more interesting (to some), and more profitable (for criminals and lawyers.)
I hurt everytime I talk to someone that I know is good at heart, has potential, and is throwing it all away on drugs. Hearing politicians talk about protecting us from drugs does nothing to ease that pain. In fact it infuriates me.
The government doesn't/can't/will never protect any of us from drug abuse and it's side effects. I know a lot of people here understand because they've seen first-hand what I am talking about...the underground drug network is as uncontrollable as the Internet.
I'd make crack unavailable if I could. But it's just not going to happen. If the government wants to help they can sponsor scientific research on drugs that are illegal and provide us with a clear picture of their effects instead of FUD. Efforts that could be made to lessen the problem are turned into efforts designed to protect and maximize the profit of those that contribute to the war on drugs. It's hard enough as it is making the right choices while growing up--it only makes it harder when the truth is being clouded intentionally.
A little closer to the original topic: Anything that stands in the way of people getting drugs that they need is a problem as far as I'm concerned. Anything that stands in the way of big business collecting money in the process will be a problem as far as they're concerned. The government will step in to resolve this conflict of interests. They will not be impartial.
I dug up the info from the alphalinux faq. I've used it myself, however I had no luck with icecast when I tried running it emulated. There were a lot of other issues so I'm not sure that em86 was at fault. That's about the extent of my personal experience with it.
You can find inexpensive Alphas. www.dcginc.com sells complete Alpha systems for $1800-$5500 and bare bone systems for much less. Alphas CAN run 32 bit code under NT using the FX32! Emulator.
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86 emulation available.
Of course, the emulation isn't quite as important under Linux as it is under Windows since most software for Linux is open source and able to be compiled natively. Note that I am NOT implying that it's always as easy as simply recompiling the source...
BTW, doesn't seem like a great idea to go with an Alpha/NT combo these days anyway. Microsoft ceased development of NT5/Win2k/whatever for the Alpha. Presumably because they need to focus on rigging it to work with the IA64 first. I wonder if Windows for the IA64 will end up being enough 64 bit code to call it a 64 bit OS and as much of the old 32 bit code as they can get away running under emulation. Any guesses?
Owners of proprietray, closed source, defacto standard software systems ground us under their foot for so long that we had to react. Now what we need is a similar, open hardware movement. Sure, there are problems that are harder - designing hardware requires expensive equipment.
Hmm. I like the idea of an open hardware movement. Are there any current efforts being made yet to brand an "open standard compatible" logo?
It seems to me hardware that has met some kind of open standard requirements would be preferable to most consumers. Obviously simply creating such a logo isn't going to make a difference on its own. In time however, it could end up being identified with products of superior quality and use to the end user.
I don't think your typical end-user is going to be incredibly knowledgable about open standards and such. That's why a simple recognizable icon/logo is important.
I have a feeling someone is going to pop up and say "hey, people are already working on this...here's the link..." Hope so. At any rate, I think more thought/effort should be put into an "open" branding scheme of some sort.
I'm assuming that this Jacksonville is the one in Florida. I don't know the laws there pertaining to minors in establishments that serve alcohol. Here in Washington State, if he placed the terminal in the Bar area, no kiddies would be checkin' out the pr0n...
Yes, it's FL. In general it's a pretty nice place to live. As far as the bar goes, it's rather small -- max capacity is less than 50 people. I don't think he'd really care if people were looking at porn. What he cares about is people seeing it that don't want to see it. If his customers didn't care I doubt he'd worry about it either.
Another point I should have made earlier is that it's not really useful fighting the software. It's the abuse of the software that needs to be fought. Maybe that's why I prefer to continue calling it censorware--to remind people that are using it that they aren't getting to see the whole picture or hear the whole story...
A couple months ago I had a discussion with Warren, the owner of a local bar and grille, who was interested in setting up an Internet terminal in his establishment. For him decent censorware is a necessity.
Warren is not necessarily someone who wants to censor people. However he has to consider the plusses and minuses of an Internet terminal with regard to his business.
It's not unlikely that someone will leave a screenful of porn for the next family to use the terminal to see. This would upset customers and lose him business. He understands that censorware is not fool-proof but it will help, and also offer him some legal protection as well. The city of Jacksonville is rather conservative when it comes to sex and I'm not entirely sure that he couldn't be prosecuted here for displaying pornography in a public place.
In a case like this his options are censoring the Internet or NO Internet. What options am I missing?
On the face of it, it's not all that hard: parse the Makefile and pull out any configuration options. Present them to the user in a nice friendly format (complete with default options already selected) and give them a button to push.
Actually I thought about it a little more and it maybe a 'meta-configure' script could be set up to pop up a Tk GUI interface asking for options such as --prefix= for configure, etc.
The standard make targets defined in the GNU Coding Standards (here) include most of the work that needs to be done by the Makefile. Using a meta-configure program and make doesn't mean that you can't distribute the binary as part of the package. In fact I'm pretty sure you doesn't even have to include the source code as part of the package but it's recommended. (obviously you would need at least one or the other.)
Some of the stuff people release for Unix needs all kinds of wierd input to get it properly installed. But A LOT of it only needs stuff as simple as an installation path if you choose not to use the default.
The way I see it, autoconf and make already simplify installs and uninstalls tremendously. It seems like a relatively small step to make an interface to them that end-users can use as easily as InstallShield.
I use Windows becuase it's easy to install a program, becuase it's easy to see what im doing, where im going and how to get there. I use it because when i want an mp3 dbasing util, i can download a single package, and install it with a mouse click. I don't need to hunt for an obscure library file, i don't need to make sure that it will run with the Window Manager i want to use, i don't need to decode version numbers of updates to work out what i need and don't need. This may sound lazy, but i don't have the time to do this, i don't have the energy to do this, i don't have the knowledge to do this.
This is an excellent point which I forgot to mention. There are several programs make installation and un-installation easier (like RedHat Package Manager.) But no one seems to have agreed on a standard for this kind of thing. Most software is still distributed as gzipped tape archives...which is a great format for many reasons.
tar xvfz package.tar.gz cd package ./configure make install
^ is pretty easy when you know how it works, but there's no reason that this couldn't somehow be condensed into a double-click.
Linux has a DHCP client. A friend of mine recently installed Linux, and it autodetected his ethernet adapter and automatically configured his Internet access (he was connected by ADSL.)
He was completely blown away because he expected it to be another fiasco like when he tried to configure his winmodem.
I definitely agree with the author about what a hassle configuring Xwindows can be. I know RedHat 6.1 has made some improvements to their X configurator, but still with most systems I've installed it on I ended up having to do it manually anyway.
OK, disk partitioning is sort of a problem. I really don't like disk druid. It picks the name and order of partitions for me which would be nice for a new user, but it's not cool when they force it on you. Fortunately for me fdisk suits my needs just fine for partitioning--however disk druid would probably be the way to go for a new user. It's good that RedHat provides both. However, disk druid needs some work.
I recently installed Debian 2.1r4--liked that a lot despite some wierd problems, but it would still be a little much to ask a newbie. I don't think newbies are Debian's target audience anyway.
There are little nits here and there with Gnome and Enlightenment, but nothing that won't be fixed soon I'm sure.
Newbie documentation. Linux distributions include tons of in depth documentation about the operating system and all things related. If you bought Windows, you'd have to spend $50-$100 on books after buying the operating system and you'd still have nowhere near as much depth of technical information. The X/Gnome/E help systems available for apps look great also--however a lot of the apps don't use them. There is a good reason for this. So much of this software is still being developed and improved--documenting works in progress for newbies would take away from the time that could be put into the apps themselves.
I'm pretty sure these things are being worked on as we complain:) For me Linux already works great...I'd just like to see it be more available to my friends that don't have as much experience. Of course, a well-configured (and PRE-CONFIGURED) Linux system would be great for a newbie.
ObWinDis: Installing any Windows operating system on a machine that didn't come with it is no joy either. In comparison to installing Linux, it's a long convoluted process that takes several reboots. In fact, installing RedHat 6.1 on a system that does not already have Windows on it, and has fully supported hardware, would probably be easier for a newbie than installing Windows. It would certainly take less time.
I see all the advantages of open source, I just dont think theres enough money in it to make a second Microsoft. (unlike what long term VA/RH investors seem to think)
I hear ya... Not even a kindler, gentler Microsoft. The model doesn't seem like it would support a huge monopoly does it? No complaints here.
At the same time, though, I think the OSS software development model has a great chance of crushing Microsoft--well, as much as M$ crushed IBM. Microsoft CAN produce good software, but I don't think that's been their primary goal--maybe we'll see more of it from them when it becomes essential to their survival again. Back to the point, it's not RedHat or VA that I see doing the "crushing" -- it's everyone that's involved in Open Source.
The only big money in Open Source is from suckering investors:)
Heheh, well I guess that all depends on what you consider to be big money. The money is probably going to end up spread out over as many companies as it takes to get it right. I can't picture a single company dominating over open source--how could it happen? (That's not rhetorical--there certainly could be something I haven't thought about:)
I really think the biggest, most successful OSS companies in the long term are going to be those that give the most back (not just monetarily) to the OSS movement. It seems that RedHat and VA Linux feel this way too. They're making huge investments in the trust and goodwill of the OSS community with good reason. Reputation is going to make or break OSS companies.
Maybe they've decided that they can be inlets to OSS from the sea of money that that is floating around out there. They could try to take advantage of this situation, but then they'll lose support from the OSS community. If they lose the community's support their products become less effective. I'm hoping there is enough of a natural balance here to keep things going well.
I'm hoping there will be a natural balance between the investors and the OSS community as well. By pressuring OSS companies into purely greedy options they (investors) will get burned. By nurturing the flow of money and resources into OSS they will themselves profit.
I realize that all my comments are really just speculation, particularly that last paragraph--I really know next to 0% about finance/investing/economics. I don't know a whole lot about meteorology either (like even how to spell it) but I can still tell from which direction the wind is blowing.
It's great that open source software is getting this opportunity to prove that it can be competitive. About a month ago Slashdot posted an article about SourceForge and it kinda slipped by me. I just checked SourceForge out after someone mentioned the site on irc.worldforge.org (no relation:)
VA Linux is NOT joking about making open source work. If open source fails--turns out unable to compete in the long run (quite unlikely IMHO)--it will not be for lack of effort or commitment on VA's part.
I think the SourceForge FAQ offers a lot insight into VA's vision, as seen by the guys at SourceForge. If you haven't checked this out, do it. The SourceForge site may be the OSS "killer app" of 2000. (once again MHO)
Somehow I knew this article was going to happen on Slashdot. So I've had some time to think about my answer. My first thought was Linus Torvalds. But that just seemed too easy--not creative at all.
So I thought about who else might be a better choice. Really I tried... In the end I still came back to Linus.
Despite his accomplishments he remains humble. Despite his influence he refrains from wielding it like a sword. Despite his success he still leads a somewhat modest life. Yet he's become an icon.
I think he's set an excellent example by sticking with what he believes is right and being honest with himself and everyone else. In doing this he encourages other people that feel the same to acheive their goals in the same way. We don't have to step on each others' necks to get somewhere in life.
Let Time go ahead an nominate Jeff Bezos--it just goes to show what THEY respect in a person enough to make them man of the year.
Linus is NOT the only one that deserves mention, obviously, but I'll leave that to everyone else.
Operating Temperature: 0 to 50 degrees C (32 to 122 deg. F) Non-operating Temperature: 0 to 60 degrees C (32 to 140 deg. F) Shipping Temperature: -40 to 60 degrees C (-40 to 140 deg. F) Relative Humidity: 5 to 95% non-condensing Wet Bulb: 29.4 degrees C (85 deg. F) Altitude (operating): 0 to 7000 feet (0 to 2134 meters) (non-operating): 0 to 15000 feet (0 to 4575 meters) Electrical - 100-125VAC and 200-245VAC switchable BTU Output (as-shipped): 200 BTU/hour (maximum config.): 1417 BTU/hour) Shock: 30G, 3ms duration Vibration: 0.67G RMS random from 5Hz to 500Hz Particulate Protection: Dust and dripping water resistant -
We used to use a similar types of machines as data collection units for slot machines. The PC's ran 24/7, year in and year out, in poorly ventilated cabinets in an incredibly dusty and dirty area--no moisture to deal with though... Very reliable. The question is will the machine generate enough BTU's (in the spec) to keep it warm during the winter...and will it stay cool enough during the summer.
It's amazing to me how many people still brush this stuff off like it's no big deal. Yet the big brother thing really is happening here:
Mosaic 2k: Technology to flag your records if you appear to be the type that deviates from the norm--while you're still in high school. EZ-Pass: Technology that keeps a database when and where you are drive as you pay tolls. Digital Wiretapping: Legislation requiring that the phone companies provide the government with the ability to tap up to 1% of phone lines at any given time (in-house--they don't even have to go to the phone company.) Key-escrow/weak encryption: Government pressuring companies to only provide encryption that the government can break. Tracking money: Unless you're paying cash for everything, just about every transaction you make is recorded somewhere. Cameras everywhere: no need to be redundant here
Yet I still see people saying "what's the big deal?" everytime something else is added to the list. Add it up people!
My list is short and incomplete, but the actual list of freedoms and privacies that are being taken away grows almost daily. How you look, what you are doing, where you are, what money you transact, even which information you exchange--all these things governments deem necessary to track.
You could even point to some of these things and say that they don't necessarily violate your rights--but your rights mean nothing to those that would violate them. People talk freely on here about suing police if they violate their rights. Yet I'm sure most of you have never had to attempt it. People think, "yeah, ok, I'll just find a lawyer and we'll go to court and sue them because they were wrong." It doesn't work that way.
Suppose you want to sue a state trooper for clearly violating one of your constitutional rights. First, take about $5000 out of the bank (if you're willing to settle for a mediocre lawyer.) He and the state will send paperwork back and forth for a year or so. Eventually you'll be permitted to drive to the state capital for an audience with an assistant state district attorney who will take a deposition to help determine if the state will allow you to sue (no, you cannot sue a state trooper without the state's permission unless it's not related to his job.) After another year or so, provided the state agrees to be brought to court, you'll get your day in court--or at least in the lobby at the courthouse while the lawyers and the judge have little meetings determining whether it can be settled without making the details of the incident a matter of public record. Afterwards the judge gets to decide whether or not to throw the case out. If you're lucky enough to be allowed your day(s) in court, head to the bank and take out another $5k for when they decide they can finally schedule you in.
Now, over these couple years, the officer knows where you live, your license number, all the details about your car, and if you're job is registered with the state, he knows where you work. He doesn't need a warrant to dig up information on you if he does it on the sly.
Now I'm sure if you have more than a measly $10k to spend on your court case things go somewhat more smoothly than this. The judge, the DA, the cop, they'll all have a pretty good idea how much money you have backing you up and how much trouble you can cause them. But if you don't have the cash, you can quit whining about your rights because you'll just be a mild annoyance.
If you believe that abuse of individuals' rights is rare, then you probably have never had to opportunity to find out how wrong you are first-hand. Many cops are trained in "profiling." This means they know if you fit certain profiles such as soccer mom, drug dealer, CEO, disadvantaged, able to afford a lawyer, not able to afford a lawyer, etc.
Sometimes you see the little guy come out on top in cases like this on TV. That's because it's on TV. When it's not on TV your case is work that everyone wants to get off their desk as quickly as possible. If you've been in a real courtroom you probably know that the courtroom is generally not filled people that are intensely interested in the resolution of *your* problems.
I really don't understand the point of getting excited about this. The police can probably already match paper and ink, and minute impressions in the paper from handling to identify a specific printer.
The things you mention can be used to make a positive identification of the printer...but they have to find it first. The serial numbers, however, can be looked up in a manufacturers database. For those that didn't read the article (I almost didn't but I'm glad I did) here's something interesting from it:
To read these IDs, the document in question is scanned and the "noise" decoded via a secret and proprietary algorithm. In the case of Xerox-manufactured equipment, only Xerox has the means to do this, and they require a court order to do so (except for some specific government agencies, for whom they no longer require court authorizations). I'm told that the number of requests Xerox receives for this service is on the order of a couple a week from within the U.S.
In other words, according to the author, Xerox routinely, sometimes WITHOUT REQUIRING A WARRANT, gives out information regarding ownership of copiers based on these ID numbers.
One of the few things I found impressive about Win98SE was the cool music that played when I first booted it after installing it. Also, games like Diablo, Rainbow Six, and Starcraft (just to name few) use music to enhance your experience.
My point is that there is a lot of room for music in the "open source experience." Alot of musicians could gain exposure if their music was distributed with open source software. The music could be part of the installation program, the documentation, or even the app itself.
There is a lot of effort made to make open source software visually appealing (see e.themes.org.) But there is another sense to be tapped.
Adding music may seem like useless overhead, but is it really if it adds another dimension to the experience of using your software? Bandwidth will continue to open up and after a while adding a couple tunes and musical cues to your tarball/rpm won't make a significant difference.
If you find an unsigned band you like on mp3.com, e-mail them, see if they want to be involved in your project. Maybe you can work something out. Or, if you're a musician, find an open source project that interests you and offer to work with them. If the project takes off, then everyone benefits. If not, nothing really has been lost.
I spent some time trying to think of a domain name that I liked, wasn't taken, and was short. The best I could do was two out of three. Finally I decided to go with the automatically assigned hostname (g27) that was given to our server before we had a domain. It worked out great because everyone using the server already refered to the server as G27 and was used to typing it in as the hostname. It also ended up being easy to remember and unambigous (almost no one is going to type gtwentyseven.org instead of g27.org.) Best of all I fit five syllables into 3 characters.
The music industry can blow me. I can always find higher quality music from garage bands who don't have a problem distributing their stuff on the net in MP3 format. I'll do my business with companies that support open protocols and don't try to violate my rights in their greedy scramble for more money. Don't let them ease us in to a pay-per-view world.
I agree whole-heartedly. Dig around mp3.com for a little while and you'll find many bands that are as good or better than you'll hear on the radio. Of course, a lot of it is as bad, and some even worse than the crap that gets played over and over on the top 40 stations.
I've been thinking about this a bit though and I do see one big thing that will keep the record companies in business. There seems to be a pretty huge segment of the music-buying population that only wants music that's "safe." By "safe" I don't mean the opposite of dangerous. I mean that they want something that will be deemed acceptable by their peer groups. They tend to choose their music like I chose my clothes.
I don't particularly care what my clothes look like as long as I'm comfortable--yet I do care about my appearance, so I try to select clothing that makes me "fit in." In other words, I think most people want music that's in fashion.
The girl in the cube next to me listens to the local top 40 station, the most popular in town, and I can hear it from my desk just fine. Some of the music is cute, but none has any depth to it--it's as if it's specifically chosen for the fact that in 12-18 months no one will ever want to hear it again so they'll have to upgrade their CD collection. Planned obsolescence I guess. The alternative stations are somewhat better but they seem to be becoming more like the top 40 stations as far as quality of music these days.
I think music released on the Internet will end up hurting the recording industry, but not killing them. I think they'll lose people that are really into music, but they'll still keep the crowd that needs to be told what kind of music they like--no garage band is going to be able to compete with the recording industry marketing machines.
The "sheep" segment will continue to make them the most money and won't care (or even know) about open standards and such. And of course, where there's money to be made the industry will try to protect it.
It seems to me that these "profiles" will be useful beyond high school. I don't know a whole lot about psychological profiles, but this one would appear more likely to raise a flag on anyone that might fight back responsibly--the kids today who are going to be smart enough and mad enough to try to affect a change on society and/or government. If we didn't live in a free country, this would be a great way for a government to get a profile of everyone that might become a potential "enemy of the state."
If they really wanted to create a profile to detect where problems in schools will occur, wouldn't it be the schools themselves that they'd be profiling? Why aren't they profiling the administrators? How they respond to problems? How they respond to kids that don't fit the norm? Where do they lay blame for various problems in their school? This is the kind of profiling that SHOULD be being done!
How they don't have any idea of who you are. And with the use of leg extensions and such it negates quite clearly any trace. Most law enforcement people are not as smart as those who work for "the Smoking man" on the X-files. Typically most people would be fooled with that and perhaps a phony accent. I can really do a mean british accent when the need arises.
The ID number would just be a piece of the puzzle. Assuming they have no other evidence, and never find any other evidence, then you're correct--they'll probably never find you since you bought leg extensions, dyed your hair, and learned how to speak with a phony accent prior to purchasing the processor.
As far the part about the intelligence of law enforcement... I do agree that most law enforcement people are not as smart as those that work for "the Smoking man" (ie: Chris Carter.) However, the FBI, CIA, NSA, governments, and corporations most assuredly do have people that smart with more resources and tricks up their sleeves than you would imagine.
If you are a typical nerd, destined to make a good clean legal living, and don't engage in political discussions against an oppressive government, etc then it doesn't matter to you.
However, if you are doing something, for good or evil, writing or sneaking information out of the country, or anything that could potentially hurt a powerful organization then that ID number becomes a serious worry.
Suppose a large organization is trying to silence someone that is leaking information to the public regarding wrong-doings. They're starting to take some heat because the guy, still anonymous, has been right on the money too many times for it to be coincidence. They've narrowed the number down to about 50 people on the planet that could have possibly leaked the information. Then boom, one day they get a lucky break, an a processor ID. They track to processor to it's last recorded location, which happens to be a retail outlet less than 3 hours away from one of the 50 suspects--and the other 49 suspects don't even live in the country where the processor was bought. This is what I mean by "a piece of the puzzle." It's not as bad as installing a GPS transmitter in each processor, but it still adds one more security hole in the whole process of maintaining anonymity.
Or maybe I've read too much fiction and watched too much X-files. Maybe there really are no good people fighting evil under the cover of anonymity. Maybe all the good guys already work for our governments, and it's only the bad guys that need anonymity.
The guys that perpetrate these hacks are known as the Hackers on MIT campus. The MIT campus is full of little hacks as well. (ie: graffitti somehow painted in the underground tunnels underneath pipes and high voltage conduits--I looked at this closely and it just didn't appear possible that it was done without completely disconnecting a lot of stuff.) Anyway, I think the cop car on the dome hack was better than the R2D2 hack. I have a "MIT Culture" sweatshirt with that picture on it.
Speaking of MIT Culture, if any of the 333rd are here, just wanted to say, I was at DTYD a couple years ago and you guys rock!
Suppose I walk into a store with a disguise. Fake beard moustache, wig, colored contacts, teeth, fake id to match. I then decide to buy a PIII enabled computer with cash and leave the store. Drive to some desolate location and take off and burn said desguise. I drive home and presto suddently even if that serial number gets out no one has any idea that it was me (mystery person) who bought it. See look ma no fear here.
You could dead-end the trail at the place where you buy it in such a manner, but if someone important is looking for you it's still a pretty good lead. Also, if you're computer is confiscated for some reason, that ID could possibly be used as evidence against you, or even to manufacture evidence against you.
If you really want nothing to fear, just don't do or say anything that will make you stand out from everyone else.
Please people, I realize this article is somewhat more rambling and pointless than most, but isn't it a little inappropriate to give a public forum to someone who self-confessedly doesn't know what he's talking about?
Perhaps you're correct that the author doesn't deserve this public forum. OTOH, I really think the topic deserves some discussion.
I know Linux is better than NT because I've used them both for so long. But, though the technical reasons that Linux is better are still obvious, how hard or easy it is to use compared to NT just isn't clear to me anymore. I've spent so much time working on both which perhaps makes me too close to the issue to see it cleary, if that makes any sense.
For me they both have good and bad parts of the installation and configuration process. I find them both equally easy to set up (overall--it can go either way depending on the 'wierdness' of the hardware.) It's just much easier to set up something reliable and efficient using Linux no matter how I look at it.
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How many of you really watch movies on your computer?
I built a CD/MP3 player out of a cheap CPU. It has an ethernet adapter. It has it's own IP address on my home network. It's not a workstation--it's part of my entertainment system.
And of course, it runs Linux. I haven't bought a DVD player because I intend to replace the CD-ROM drive in my MP3/CD player with a DVD-ROM drive. The problem has been that software to use the equipment hasn't been available for Linux. I was thrilled when I found out that the DeCSS guys were making headway. Now greedy corporations are trying to undo their work. This means I have to wait that much longer before I spend any money on DVD's and related technology.
BTW, I don't want to buy a DVD player. I'm building it because I want to build it. If I wanted to buy one premade I would already have one.
numb
My brother-in-law just spent Christmas Eve driving around town to various crack houses looking for his adolescent neices father. When the dirty bastard showed up, he had spent every penny he had (which was given to him to buy the child a present) on crack. I can't believe this would happen without the addictive nature of the drug. I enjoy a cigar now and again, but I wouldn't trade the Christmas morning look on my boys' face for one. Drugs like crack can't be handle by normal humans and the government has a responsibility to protect.
I promised myself I wouldn't get on a rant. Let's see if I can manage to avoid that. The government is more concerned about protecting the pharmaceutical companies, breweries, distilleries, tabacco companies, and anyone else that contributes tons of money to the war on drugs.
They did not "protect" your brother-in-law(-in-law) from crack. The crack houses are still there, here, and everywhere. Drugs are everywhere, and if you fit the right demographic they'll come to you without any effort. I really feel the overall effect of the drug war is that illicit drugs are more dangerous (in every way), more interesting (to some), and more profitable (for criminals and lawyers.)
I hurt everytime I talk to someone that I know is good at heart, has potential, and is throwing it all away on drugs. Hearing politicians talk about protecting us from drugs does nothing to ease that pain. In fact it infuriates me.
The government doesn't/can't/will never protect any of us from drug abuse and it's side effects. I know a lot of people here understand because they've seen first-hand what I am talking about...the underground drug network is as uncontrollable as the Internet.
I'd make crack unavailable if I could. But it's just not going to happen. If the government wants to help they can sponsor scientific research on drugs that are illegal and provide us with a clear picture of their effects instead of FUD. Efforts that could be made to lessen the problem are turned into efforts designed to protect and maximize the profit of those that contribute to the war on drugs. It's hard enough as it is making the right choices while growing up--it only makes it harder when the truth is being clouded intentionally.
A little closer to the original topic: Anything that stands in the way of people getting drugs that they need is a problem as far as I'm concerned. Anything that stands in the way of big business collecting money in the process will be a problem as far as they're concerned. The government will step in to resolve this conflict of interests. They will not be impartial.
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Any links on this? Anyone used it?
Yes, it's called em86.
I dug up the info from the alphalinux faq. I've used it myself, however I had no luck with icecast when I tried running it emulated. There were a lot of other issues so I'm not sure that em86 was at fault. That's about the extent of my personal experience with it.
http://www.alphalinux.org/faq/FAQ-16.html
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You can find inexpensive Alphas. www.dcginc.com sells complete Alpha systems for $1800-$5500 and bare bone systems for much less. Alphas CAN run 32 bit code under NT using the FX32! Emulator.
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86 emulation available.
Of course, the emulation isn't quite as important under Linux as it is under Windows since most software for Linux is open source and able to be compiled natively. Note that I am NOT implying that it's always as easy as simply recompiling the source...
BTW, doesn't seem like a great idea to go with an Alpha/NT combo these days anyway. Microsoft ceased development of NT5/Win2k/whatever for the Alpha. Presumably because they need to focus on rigging it to work with the IA64 first. I wonder if Windows for the IA64 will end up being enough 64 bit code to call it a 64 bit OS and as much of the old 32 bit code as they can get away running under emulation. Any guesses?
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Owners of proprietray, closed source, defacto standard software systems ground us under their foot for so long that we had to react. Now what we need is a similar, open hardware movement. Sure, there are problems that are harder - designing hardware requires expensive equipment.
Hmm. I like the idea of an open hardware movement. Are there any current efforts being made yet to brand an "open standard compatible" logo?
It seems to me hardware that has met some kind of open standard requirements would be preferable to most consumers. Obviously simply creating such a logo isn't going to make a difference on its own. In time however, it could end up being identified with products of superior quality and use to the end user.
I don't think your typical end-user is going to be incredibly knowledgable about open standards and such. That's why a simple recognizable icon/logo is important.
I have a feeling someone is going to pop up and say "hey, people are already working on this...here's the link..." Hope so. At any rate, I think more thought/effort should be put into an "open" branding scheme of some sort.
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I'm assuming that this Jacksonville is the one in Florida. I don't know the laws there pertaining to minors in establishments that serve alcohol. Here in Washington State, if he placed the terminal in the Bar area, no kiddies would be checkin' out the pr0n...
Yes, it's FL. In general it's a pretty nice place to live. As far as the bar goes, it's rather small -- max capacity is less than 50 people. I don't think he'd really care if people were looking at porn. What he cares about is people seeing it that don't want to see it. If his customers didn't care I doubt he'd worry about it either.
Another point I should have made earlier is that it's not really useful fighting the software. It's the abuse of the software that needs to be fought. Maybe that's why I prefer to continue calling it censorware--to remind people that are using it that they aren't getting to see the whole picture or hear the whole story...
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A couple months ago I had a discussion with Warren, the owner of a local bar and grille, who was interested in setting up an Internet terminal in his establishment. For him decent censorware is a necessity.
Warren is not necessarily someone who wants to censor people. However he has to consider the plusses and minuses of an Internet terminal with regard to his business.
It's not unlikely that someone will leave a screenful of porn for the next family to use the terminal to see. This would upset customers and lose him business. He understands that censorware is not fool-proof but it will help, and also offer him some legal protection as well. The city of Jacksonville is rather conservative when it comes to sex and I'm not entirely sure that he couldn't be prosecuted here for displaying pornography in a public place.
In a case like this his options are censoring the Internet or NO Internet. What options am I missing?
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On the face of it, it's not all that hard: parse the Makefile and pull out any configuration options. Present them to the user in a nice friendly format (complete with default options already selected) and give them a button to push.
Actually I thought about it a little more and it maybe a 'meta-configure' script could be set up to pop up a Tk GUI interface asking for options such as --prefix= for configure, etc.
The standard make targets defined in the GNU Coding Standards (here) include most of the work that needs to be done by the Makefile. Using a meta-configure program and make doesn't mean that you can't distribute the binary as part of the package. In fact I'm pretty sure you doesn't even have to include the source code as part of the package but it's recommended. (obviously you would need at least one or the other.)
Some of the stuff people release for Unix needs all kinds of wierd input to get it properly installed. But A LOT of it only needs stuff as simple as an installation path if you choose not to use the default.
The way I see it, autoconf and make already simplify installs and uninstalls tremendously. It seems like a relatively small step to make an interface to them that end-users can use as easily as InstallShield.
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I use Windows becuase it's easy to install a program, becuase it's easy to see what im doing, where im going and how to get there. I use it because when i want an mp3 dbasing util, i can download a single package, and install it with a mouse click. I don't need to hunt for an obscure library file, i don't need to make sure that it will run with the Window Manager i want to use, i don't need to decode version numbers of updates to work out what i need and don't need. This may sound lazy, but i don't have the time to do this, i don't have the energy to do this, i don't have the knowledge to do this.
This is an excellent point which I forgot to mention. There are several programs make installation and un-installation easier (like RedHat Package Manager.) But no one seems to have agreed on a standard for this kind of thing. Most software is still distributed as gzipped tape archives...which is a great format for many reasons.
tar xvfz package.tar.gz
cd package
./configure
make install
^ is pretty easy when you know how it works, but there's no reason that this couldn't somehow be condensed into a double-click.
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Linux has a DHCP client. A friend of mine recently installed Linux, and it autodetected his ethernet adapter and automatically configured his Internet access (he was connected by ADSL.)
He was completely blown away because he expected it to be another fiasco like when he tried to configure his winmodem.
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I definitely agree with the author about what a hassle configuring Xwindows can be. I know RedHat 6.1 has made some improvements to their X configurator, but still with most systems I've installed it on I ended up having to do it manually anyway.
:) For me Linux already works great...I'd just like to see it be more available to my friends that don't have as much experience. Of course, a well-configured (and PRE-CONFIGURED) Linux system would be great for a newbie.
OK, disk partitioning is sort of a problem. I really don't like disk druid. It picks the name and order of partitions for me which would be nice for a new user, but it's not cool when they force it on you. Fortunately for me fdisk suits my needs just fine for partitioning--however disk druid would probably be the way to go for a new user. It's good that RedHat provides both. However, disk druid needs some work.
I recently installed Debian 2.1r4--liked that a lot despite some wierd problems, but it would still be a little much to ask a newbie. I don't think newbies are Debian's target audience anyway.
There are little nits here and there with Gnome and Enlightenment, but nothing that won't be fixed soon I'm sure.
Newbie documentation. Linux distributions include tons of in depth documentation about the operating system and all things related. If you bought Windows, you'd have to spend $50-$100 on books after buying the operating system and you'd still have nowhere near as much depth of technical information. The X/Gnome/E help systems available for apps look great also--however a lot of the apps don't use them. There is a good reason for this. So much of this software is still being developed and improved--documenting works in progress for newbies would take away from the time that could be put into the apps themselves.
I'm pretty sure these things are being worked on as we complain
ObWinDis: Installing any Windows operating system on a machine that didn't come with it is no joy either. In comparison to installing Linux, it's a long convoluted process that takes several reboots. In fact, installing RedHat 6.1 on a system that does not already have Windows on it, and has fully supported hardware, would probably be easier for a newbie than installing Windows. It would certainly take less time.
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I see all the advantages of open source, I just dont think theres enough money in it to make a second Microsoft. (unlike what long term VA/RH investors seem to think)
:)
:)
I hear ya... Not even a kindler, gentler Microsoft. The model doesn't seem like it would support a huge monopoly does it? No complaints here.
At the same time, though, I think the OSS software development model has a great chance of crushing Microsoft--well, as much as M$ crushed IBM. Microsoft CAN produce good software, but I don't think that's been their primary goal--maybe we'll see more of it from them when it becomes essential to their survival again. Back to the point, it's not RedHat or VA that I see doing the "crushing" -- it's everyone that's involved in Open Source.
The only big money in Open Source is from suckering investors
Heheh, well I guess that all depends on what you consider to be big money. The money is probably going to end up spread out over as many companies as it takes to get it right. I can't picture a single company dominating over open source--how could it happen? (That's not rhetorical--there certainly could be something I haven't thought about
I really think the biggest, most successful OSS companies in the long term are going to be those that give the most back (not just monetarily) to the OSS movement. It seems that RedHat and VA Linux feel this way too. They're making huge investments in the trust and goodwill of the OSS community with good reason. Reputation is going to make or break OSS companies.
Maybe they've decided that they can be inlets to OSS from the sea of money that that is floating around out there. They could try to take advantage of this situation, but then they'll lose support from the OSS community. If they lose the community's support their products become less effective. I'm hoping there is enough of a natural balance here to keep things going well.
I'm hoping there will be a natural balance between the investors and the OSS community as well. By pressuring OSS companies into purely greedy options they (investors) will get burned. By nurturing the flow of money and resources into OSS they will themselves profit.
I realize that all my comments are really just speculation, particularly that last paragraph--I really know next to 0% about finance/investing/economics. I don't know a whole lot about meteorology either (like even how to spell it) but I can still tell from which direction the wind is blowing.
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It's great that open source software is getting this opportunity to prove that it can be competitive. About a month ago Slashdot posted an article about SourceForge and it kinda slipped by me. I just checked SourceForge out after someone mentioned the site on irc.worldforge.org (no relation :)
VA Linux is NOT joking about making open source work. If open source fails--turns out unable to compete in the long run (quite unlikely IMHO)--it will not be for lack of effort or commitment on VA's part.
I think the SourceForge FAQ offers a lot insight into VA's vision, as seen by the guys at SourceForge. If you haven't checked this out, do it. The SourceForge site may be the OSS "killer app" of 2000. (once again MHO)
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Somehow I knew this article was going to happen on Slashdot. So I've had some time to think about my answer. My first thought was Linus Torvalds. But that just seemed too easy--not creative at all.
So I thought about who else might be a better choice. Really I tried... In the end I still came back to Linus.
Despite his accomplishments he remains humble. Despite his influence he refrains from wielding it like a sword. Despite his success he still leads a somewhat modest life. Yet he's become an icon.
I think he's set an excellent example by sticking with what he believes is right and being honest with himself and everyone else. In doing this he encourages other people that feel the same to acheive their goals in the same way. We don't have to step on each others' necks to get somewhere in life.
Let Time go ahead an nominate Jeff Bezos--it just goes to show what THEY respect in a person enough to make them man of the year.
Linus is NOT the only one that deserves mention, obviously, but I'll leave that to everyone else.
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Environmental Specs:
...additional info here...there are also different units available...
Operating Temperature: 0 to 50 degrees C (32 to 122 deg. F)
Non-operating Temperature: 0 to 60 degrees C (32 to 140 deg. F)
Shipping Temperature: -40 to 60 degrees C (-40 to 140 deg. F)
Relative Humidity: 5 to 95% non-condensing
Wet Bulb: 29.4 degrees C (85 deg. F)
Altitude (operating): 0 to 7000 feet (0 to 2134 meters)
(non-operating): 0 to 15000 feet (0 to 4575 meters)
Electrical - 100-125VAC and 200-245VAC switchable
BTU Output (as-shipped): 200 BTU/hour
(maximum config.): 1417 BTU/hour)
Shock: 30G, 3ms duration
Vibration: 0.67G RMS random from 5Hz to 500Hz
Particulate Protection: Dust and dripping water resistant -
We used to use a similar types of machines as data collection units for slot machines. The PC's ran 24/7, year in and year out, in poorly ventilated cabinets in an incredibly dusty and dirty area--no moisture to deal with though... Very reliable. The question is will the machine generate enough BTU's (in the spec) to keep it warm during the winter...and will it stay cool enough during the summer.
It's amazing to me how many people still brush this stuff off like it's no big deal. Yet the big brother thing really is happening here:
Mosaic 2k: Technology to flag your records if you appear to be the type that deviates from the norm--while you're still in high school.
EZ-Pass: Technology that keeps a database when and where you are drive as you pay tolls.
Digital Wiretapping: Legislation requiring that the phone companies provide the government with the ability to tap up to 1% of phone lines at any given time (in-house--they don't even have to go to the phone company.)
Key-escrow/weak encryption: Government pressuring companies to only provide encryption that the government can break.
Tracking money: Unless you're paying cash for everything, just about every transaction you make is recorded somewhere.
Cameras everywhere: no need to be redundant here
Yet I still see people saying "what's the big deal?" everytime something else is added to the list. Add it up people!
My list is short and incomplete, but the actual list of freedoms and privacies that are being taken away grows almost daily. How you look, what you are doing, where you are, what money you transact, even which information you exchange--all these things governments deem necessary to track.
You could even point to some of these things and say that they don't necessarily violate your rights--but your rights mean nothing to those that would violate them. People talk freely on here about suing police if they violate their rights. Yet I'm sure most of you have never had to attempt it. People think, "yeah, ok, I'll just find a lawyer and we'll go to court and sue them because they were wrong." It doesn't work that way.
Suppose you want to sue a state trooper for clearly violating one of your constitutional rights. First, take about $5000 out of the bank (if you're willing to settle for a mediocre lawyer.) He and the state will send paperwork back and forth for a year or so. Eventually you'll be permitted to drive to the state capital for an audience with an assistant state district attorney who will take a deposition to help determine if the state will allow you to sue (no, you cannot sue a state trooper without the state's permission unless it's not related to his job.) After another year or so, provided the state agrees to be brought to court, you'll get your day in court--or at least in the lobby at the courthouse while the lawyers and the judge have little meetings determining whether it can be settled without making the details of the incident a matter of public record. Afterwards the judge gets to decide whether or not to throw the case out. If you're lucky enough to be allowed your day(s) in court, head to the bank and take out another $5k for when they decide they can finally schedule you in.
Now, over these couple years, the officer knows where you live, your license number, all the details about your car, and if you're job is registered with the state, he knows where you work. He doesn't need a warrant to dig up information on you if he does it on the sly.
Now I'm sure if you have more than a measly $10k to spend on your court case things go somewhat more smoothly than this. The judge, the DA, the cop, they'll all have a pretty good idea how much money you have backing you up and how much trouble you can cause them. But if you don't have the cash, you can quit whining about your rights because you'll just be a mild annoyance.
If you believe that abuse of individuals' rights is rare, then you probably have never had to opportunity to find out how wrong you are first-hand. Many cops are trained in "profiling." This means they know if you fit certain profiles such as soccer mom, drug dealer, CEO, disadvantaged, able to afford a lawyer, not able to afford a lawyer, etc.
Sometimes you see the little guy come out on top in cases like this on TV. That's because it's on TV. When it's not on TV your case is work that everyone wants to get off their desk as quickly as possible. If you've been in a real courtroom you probably know that the courtroom is generally not filled people that are intensely interested in the resolution of *your* problems.
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I really don't understand the point of getting excited about this. The police can probably already match paper and ink, and minute impressions in the paper from handling to identify a specific printer.
The things you mention can be used to make a positive identification of the printer...but they have to find it first. The serial numbers, however, can be looked up in a manufacturers database. For those that didn't read the article (I almost didn't but I'm glad I did) here's something interesting from it:
To read these IDs, the document in question is scanned and the "noise"
decoded via a secret and proprietary algorithm. In the case of
Xerox-manufactured equipment, only Xerox has the means to do this, and they
require a court order to do so (except for some specific government
agencies, for whom they no longer require court authorizations). I'm told
that the number of requests Xerox receives for this service is on the order
of a couple a week from within the U.S.
In other words, according to the author, Xerox routinely, sometimes WITHOUT REQUIRING A WARRANT, gives out information regarding ownership of copiers based on these ID numbers.
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One of the few things I found impressive about Win98SE was the cool music that played when I first booted it after installing it. Also, games like Diablo, Rainbow Six, and Starcraft (just to name few) use music to enhance your experience.
My point is that there is a lot of room for music in the "open source experience." Alot of musicians could gain exposure if their music was distributed with open source software. The music could be part of the installation program, the documentation, or even the app itself.
There is a lot of effort made to make open source software visually appealing (see e.themes.org.) But there is another sense to be tapped.
Adding music may seem like useless overhead, but is it really if it adds another dimension to the experience of using your software? Bandwidth will continue to open up and after a while adding a couple tunes and musical cues to your tarball/rpm won't make a significant difference.
If you find an unsigned band you like on mp3.com, e-mail them, see if they want to be involved in your project. Maybe you can work something out. Or, if you're a musician, find an open source project that interests you and offer to work with them. If the project takes off, then everyone benefits. If not, nothing really has been lost.
Just a thought...
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I spent some time trying to think of a domain name that I liked, wasn't taken, and was short. The best I could do was two out of three. Finally I decided to go with the automatically assigned hostname (g27) that was given to our server before we had a domain. It worked out great because everyone using the server already refered to the server as G27 and was used to typing it in as the hostname. It also ended up being easy to remember and unambigous (almost no one is going to type gtwentyseven.org instead of g27.org.) Best of all I fit five syllables into 3 characters.
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The music industry can blow me. I can always find higher quality music from garage bands who don't have a problem distributing their stuff on the net in MP3 format. I'll do my business with companies that support open protocols and don't try to violate my rights in their greedy scramble for more money. Don't let them ease us in to a pay-per-view world.
I agree whole-heartedly. Dig around mp3.com for a little while and you'll find many bands that are as good or better than you'll hear on the radio. Of course, a lot of it is as bad, and some even worse than the crap that gets played over and over on the top 40 stations.
I've been thinking about this a bit though and I do see one big thing that will keep the record companies in business. There seems to be a pretty huge segment of the music-buying population that only wants music that's "safe." By "safe" I don't mean the opposite of dangerous. I mean that they want something that will be deemed acceptable by their peer groups. They tend to choose their music like I chose my clothes.
I don't particularly care what my clothes look like as long as I'm comfortable--yet I do care about my appearance, so I try to select clothing that makes me "fit in." In other words, I think most people want music that's in fashion.
The girl in the cube next to me listens to the local top 40 station, the most popular in town, and I can hear it from my desk just fine. Some of the music is cute, but none has any depth to it--it's as if it's specifically chosen for the fact that in 12-18 months no one will ever want to hear it again so they'll have to upgrade their CD collection. Planned obsolescence I guess. The alternative stations are somewhat better but they seem to be becoming more like the top 40 stations as far as quality of music these days.
I think music released on the Internet will end up hurting the recording industry, but not killing them. I think they'll lose people that are really into music, but they'll still keep the crowd that needs to be told what kind of music they like--no garage band is going to be able to compete with the recording industry marketing machines.
The "sheep" segment will continue to make them the most money and won't care (or even know) about open standards and such. And of course, where there's money to be made the industry will try to protect it.
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It seems to me that these "profiles" will be useful beyond high school. I don't know a whole lot about psychological profiles, but this one would appear more likely to raise a flag on anyone that might fight back responsibly--the kids today who are going to be smart enough and mad enough to try to affect a change on society and/or government. If we didn't live in a free country, this would be a great way for a government to get a profile of everyone that might become a potential "enemy of the state."
If they really wanted to create a profile to detect where problems in schools will occur, wouldn't it be the schools themselves that they'd be profiling? Why aren't they profiling the administrators? How they respond to problems? How they respond to kids that don't fit the norm? Where do they lay blame for various problems in their school? This is the kind of profiling that SHOULD be being done!
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The ID number would just be a piece of the puzzle. Assuming they have no other evidence, and never find any other evidence, then you're correct--they'll probably never find you since you bought leg extensions, dyed your hair, and learned how to speak with a phony accent prior to purchasing the processor.
As far the part about the intelligence of law enforcement... I do agree that most law enforcement people are not as smart as those that work for "the Smoking man" (ie: Chris Carter.) However, the FBI, CIA, NSA, governments, and corporations most assuredly do have people that smart with more resources and tricks up their sleeves than you would imagine.
If you are a typical nerd, destined to make a good clean legal living, and don't engage in political discussions against an oppressive government, etc then it doesn't matter to you.
However, if you are doing something, for good or evil, writing or sneaking information out of the country, or anything that could potentially hurt a powerful organization then that ID number becomes a serious worry.
Suppose a large organization is trying to silence someone that is leaking information to the public regarding wrong-doings. They're starting to take some heat because the guy, still anonymous, has been right on the money too many times for it to be coincidence. They've narrowed the number down to about 50 people on the planet that could have possibly leaked the information. Then boom, one day they get a lucky break, an a processor ID. They track to processor to it's last recorded location, which happens to be a retail outlet less than 3 hours away from one of the 50 suspects--and the other 49 suspects don't even live in the country where the processor was bought. This is what I mean by "a piece of the puzzle." It's not as bad as installing a GPS transmitter in each processor, but it still adds one more security hole in the whole process of maintaining anonymity.
Or maybe I've read too much fiction and watched too much X-files. Maybe there really are no good people fighting evil under the cover of anonymity. Maybe all the good guys already work for our governments, and it's only the bad guys that need anonymity.
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The guys that perpetrate these hacks are known as the Hackers on MIT campus. The MIT campus is full of little hacks as well. (ie: graffitti somehow painted in the underground tunnels underneath pipes and high voltage conduits--I looked at this closely and it just didn't appear possible that it was done without completely disconnecting a lot of stuff.) Anyway, I think the cop car on the dome hack was better than the R2D2 hack. I have a "MIT Culture" sweatshirt with that picture on it.
Speaking of MIT Culture, if any of the 333rd are here, just wanted to say, I was at DTYD a couple years ago and you guys rock!
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Suppose I walk into a store with a disguise. Fake beard moustache, wig, colored contacts, teeth, fake id to match. I then decide to buy a PIII enabled computer with cash and leave the store. Drive to some desolate location and take off and burn said desguise. I drive home and presto suddently even if that serial number gets out no one has any idea that it was me (mystery person) who bought it. See look ma no fear here.
You could dead-end the trail at the place where you buy it in such a manner, but if someone important is looking for you it's still a pretty good lead. Also, if you're computer is confiscated for some reason, that ID could possibly be used as evidence against you, or even to manufacture evidence against you.
If you really want nothing to fear, just don't do or say anything that will make you stand out from everyone else.
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Perhaps you're correct that the author doesn't deserve this public forum. OTOH, I really think the topic deserves some discussion.
I know Linux is better than NT because I've used them both for so long. But, though the technical reasons that Linux is better are still obvious, how hard or easy it is to use compared to NT just isn't clear to me anymore. I've spent so much time working on both which perhaps makes me too close to the issue to see it cleary, if that makes any sense.
For me they both have good and bad parts of the installation and configuration process. I find them both equally easy to set up (overall--it can go either way depending on the 'wierdness' of the hardware.) It's just much easier to set up something reliable and efficient using Linux no matter how I look at it.
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