Isn't the whole prision thing a way to correct the prisioner's behavior, and to re-integrate him to the society? How can we do that if we don't trust them enought even to use a computer?
Shall we keep all prisioners all tied up, like Hannibal Lecter, to prevent them from doing harm? This is fscking insane!!
If the prisioner has a good behavior, and is really commited to pay for its crimes, then why he should not be allowed to use a computer to, for example, send a email to his lawyer?
And, surprise! The law make mistakes too... THERE ARE INNOCENT PEOPLE IN JAIL, shouldn't they be able to fight for their innocence? Shouldn't they be able to set a site on the net to tell their side of the history? Hell, even the guilty prisioners should be able to do this!
As a brazilian citzen, I can say a word or two about our average computer user... They're clueless, as any other computer illiterate in the world. So, if it's not crippled for GAMES most users won't notice the difference.
Also, most of the users use whatever OS that came with their machines. I don't know of any home user that bought a LEGAL copy of Windows to update.
This "Windows Starter Edition" wont do any good for Microsoft here. The home user is already using Windows, so sales wont grow up. The small business are using Linux SERVERS, not desktops... so thei're attacking the wrong front here. And, finally, the governament is commited with OpenSource.
It would be a lot better if they created a "Microsof Office Start Edition" to fight OpenOffice. This is what is really driving people to Linux Desktops around here.
Here at Brasil we have lots of documents, each one with "unique" numbers to identify them...
The problem is that experience has proved that none of this numbers are really unique, one can claim that lost his old document and get a new one with a different ID. So the governament is still trying to figure out some way to create a unified way to identificate the citzens.
This is not as bad as it sounds, a unified database is the holy grail of our public healthcare system (yeah, we have one). This way the Hospitals can access the history of any patient, and check if he is alergic to some medicine or if he has some cronical disease, etc.
With biometry the identification can be done even if the patient is not awake, or has lost his ID card. This would be of enourmous help on emergencies, to quickly identify the victms of acidents and to contact their relatives.
What stop Debian from using the Ubuntu packages?
As far as I know, Ubuntu developers get their packages from Debian SID. So if the Debian developers release Sarge they'll be able to use these packages on Etch...
If they just release Sarge and stop complaining about someone doing a better job, everyone would win.
To get MP3, and other formats working simply open Synaptic and enable the "RESTRICTED" repository. Then install "gstreamer0.8-plugins", and "mplayer" packages.
Java is a bit more tricky... You can download the official tarball (not the RPM!!) from Sun's site, and then install "java-package" and "fakeroot" packages to create a DEB package. Ubuntu will only accept up to JRE1.4.
After downloading the packages invoke the command: "fakeroot make-jpkg.bin". It will create a DEB file that you can install with: "sudo dpkg -i.deb". This will add the "java" command to your path, and install the mozilla/firefox plugin. The JRE HOME will be "/usr/lib/j2re1.4-sun/".
Or, if you want to be 100% opensource you can install the "java-gcj-compat" and "gcjwebplugin" packages. This will install a java environment based on the GNU gcj compiler and the gij bytecode interpreter. I have no idea if this is a reliable setup, I use myself the Sun JRE.
I hope that the Ubuntu guys manage to include a better way to install java support.
Yeah,
But that's not the point. The point is, why the industry can't create a simple common protocol, and spare costs on driver development? With the side effect of being able to sell it to Linux and MacOSX users.
IMHO, USB webcams are a perfect exemple of bad engeneering.
What we really need is a well defined stardart for usb video interfaces!!
Why do USB MassStorage and USB HID are standartized protocols and USB Video isn't!? I just can't understand that.
Right now is a very difficult task indentify a Linux-compatible USB Webcam... most use a combination of two chips, the CCD sensor and the USB interface. Linux must have drivers for both chips, and some combinations don't work. Worse, some manufactures mix different combinatios of those chips under one webcam model, so you can't know for sure if one model is really supported.
But it will be more cost effective to have one BIG fuel motor, than dozen of small ones on the streets. You can even use Biodiesel to harm even less the environment...
Also, you can use electrical motors to compress the air... mind you that most of the electricity produced here at Brasil comes from hidrelectrical power plants that consumes zero fuel.
This air cars have been around for years, and they are a wonderfull idea. But we wont see them on the streets as long as companies like Exxon, Shell, Halliburton, Texaco and etc. exist.
How is it different from rotating you HD by 90 degrees?!?
That's it... i'll try this at home, put my computer on a horizontal position, so my HDs will be on a vertical position. Then I'll se how much they grow in size.
Because we all hope that Sony can get some clue, and add all this features on the next release of PSP[1].
This could be great, I can't imagine a celphone combined with an videogame, Nokia tried and failed... but I can see future for a Zaurus combined with a videogame!
Comon Sony, QTopia/Opie[2] is already there for free! Just add a touchscreen to the PSP[1] and you're set to kill the DS[3]!! --- [1] Play Station Portable [2] http://opie.handhelds.org [3] Nintendo DS
They're called "Código de defesa do Consumidor", or "Consummer defense Code".And it states that no one can couple some product to another.
For example, if you're going to open a bank account the bank can't say that aquiring a credit card is a pre-requisite. Or if you're going to buy a car the reseller can't say that buying the insurance from company X is a pre-requisite.
It's indeed a very nice law... when correctly enforced. Unfortunetely our major DSL provider (Telemar) couples the service to an account on a "internet provider". This is of course nonsense, since the real conectivity provider is Telemar itself... but yet they still require such account. The worst part is that NONE of the so called "internet providers" has full Linux-compatible media content...
The irony is that all of that topics already have an solution... they're not put in pratice because of politics. Please, don't blame the scientists... blame the governament, or blame the people that elected the politicians that run your country!
So instead of writing this on Slashdot, why don't you make a telephone call to you Senator? Why don't you gather people that think like you and tell it to him?
If he got your vote, he might have a minute or two to listen what you has to say... You voted, didn't you?
Well,
If you're using Jython to pave the road for a migration, you can use whatever you want from Java. Also, using Jython is a way to keep your codebase.
I think that's the real advantage of python/jython, it's a nice "glue" language, that you can use to build applications based on whatever you already have.
The games The kids Or the kids parents, that allowed them to play violent games?
It's me or is just plain easier to blame the games, reliefing the parents from their responsabilities?
Governament has the right, and the duty to force game classification. So parents can decide if their kids can, or cannot play such games. But govenament CAN'T decide what is better for our children, this is pure censorship.
These politician are taking an witch-hunt position because it's an easy way out. If they tell that parents should be responsible for what their children are doing they'll loose popularity, and votes.
And this behavior isn't limmited to the USA, here at Brasil it happens too. Some time ago a girl was murdered on a cemetery, she was playing "Vampire the Masquerade" RPG... instantly the blame fell on the RPG books, they called them "satanic", and "wichcraft" books... Just plain stupid.
Free, dead-brain simple, and with nice features such as Gmail and Moz-Thunderbird integration, and order prints online trough kodak.
Installed for my mom, and she loved it.
http://www.picasa2.com/
So it might be used to show progress over time on open-source projects. It would be usefull to show progress over a single project or how two projects merged, and to show wich contribuitions made it to final versions, or witch developer has more code on it.
It should be very interesting to see it applied to big projects, like the Linux kernel or the KDE project to see how it evolved from the number of contribuitions and devellopers, and to see how long each contribuition survived unnaltered on the source.
Which one is more likely to fail, an remote-operated robot drill, or a big hammer?
I guess NASA chose the keep-it-simple way, they throw a big hammer on the commet and analyse the dust that will be ejected from the impact. Its way more simple than landing some robot, to rescue it after. Also, the impact will reveal deeper materials than a robot-drill could reach.
I can see art on grafitti, there's real effort to make something nice looking there. People that make really good grafitti has to commit a lot of time to it, just as a "real" painter, only the canvas is different.
But this grafedia is just like write your webpage addres on a bathroom wall!! It takes NO effort, and it will make LOTS of people ruin perfectly good walls with this shit. I can see now, instead of drawing a penis in the bathroon door, people will start to write links to penis-pictures in the same door!!! Wow! What a revolution!!
They're talking about "Linux", and its a kernel. RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Slack, Suse... these are OSes!
So, if you get a sloppy distro (wont cite any names to avoid flames) and compare it to Windows, you can say that distro is more insecure than Windows. But you cant say "Linux is more insecure than Windows"!
If they really want to compare Linux to Windows, well... then lets compare the kernels, Linux X NT! Witch one is more secure? Has more bugs? Heh, that's something I'd like to see.
First... the original joke is funnier when told in its original brasilian portuguese. And even then it wouldnt be that funny, because I'm really bad at telling jokes... and even worse at making analogies;-)
But, essencialy, what I mean is that the sharing wont stop even if they ban every form of p2p. People still will share their software using other methods.
The only way to stop this is find why people does piracy. Maybe CDs, DVDs and Software are too expensive nowdays... But, fix those is harder than just blame p2p.
Well, hope that this time I made myself clearer... Im no native english speaker. Sorry for my bad jokes/analogies...
Slashdot Mirror
Sorry, but YOUR assumptions are even poorer.
Isn't the whole prision thing a way to correct the prisioner's behavior, and to re-integrate him to the society? How can we do that if we don't trust them enought even to use a computer?
Shall we keep all prisioners all tied up, like Hannibal Lecter, to prevent them from doing harm? This is fscking insane!!
If the prisioner has a good behavior, and is really commited to pay for its crimes, then why he should not be allowed to use a computer to, for example, send a email to his lawyer?
And, surprise! The law make mistakes too... THERE ARE INNOCENT PEOPLE IN JAIL, shouldn't they be able to fight for their innocence? Shouldn't they be able to set a site on the net to tell their side of the history? Hell, even the guilty prisioners should be able to do this!
What I really want to see is a JSP taglib tailored to output XUL interfaces! This would be an awesome way to deploy Java applications!
Hello XUL !!!
I for one welcome our new multi-plattaform-xml-interface-builder overlords!
http://www.xulplanet.com
As a brazilian citzen, I can say a word or two about our average computer user... They're clueless, as any other computer illiterate in the world. So, if it's not crippled for GAMES most users won't notice the difference.
Also, most of the users use whatever OS that came with their machines. I don't know of any home user that bought a LEGAL copy of Windows to update.
This "Windows Starter Edition" wont do any good for Microsoft here. The home user is already using Windows, so sales wont grow up. The small business are using Linux SERVERS, not desktops... so thei're attacking the wrong front here. And, finally, the governament is commited with OpenSource.
It would be a lot better if they created a "Microsof Office Start Edition" to fight OpenOffice. This is what is really driving people to Linux Desktops around here.
Look at the bright side, at least you'll be able to have MORE applications running without losing performance!
Like, to rip a DVD and play HalfLife2 at the same time. Or to emerge KDE on Gentoo, and start Doom3.
Now, before buying I'd like to see some serious benchmarks between Intel and AMD offerings.
Here at Brasil we have lots of documents, each one with "unique" numbers to identify them...
The problem is that experience has proved that none of this numbers are really unique, one can claim that lost his old document and get a new one with a different ID. So the governament is still trying to figure out some way to create a unified way to identificate the citzens.
This is not as bad as it sounds, a unified database is the holy grail of our public healthcare system (yeah, we have one). This way the Hospitals can access the history of any patient, and check if he is alergic to some medicine or if he has some cronical disease, etc.
With biometry the identification can be done even if the patient is not awake, or has lost his ID card. This would be of enourmous help on emergencies, to quickly identify the victms of acidents and to contact their relatives.
Congrats to France, a realy good idea.
What stop Debian from using the Ubuntu packages? As far as I know, Ubuntu developers get their packages from Debian SID. So if the Debian developers release Sarge they'll be able to use these packages on Etch... If they just release Sarge and stop complaining about someone doing a better job, everyone would win.
To get MP3, and other formats working simply open Synaptic and enable the "RESTRICTED" repository. Then install "gstreamer0.8-plugins", and "mplayer" packages.
.bin". It will create a DEB file that you can install with: "sudo dpkg -i .deb". This will add the "java" command to your path, and install the mozilla/firefox plugin. The JRE HOME will be " /usr/lib/j2re1.4-sun/".
Java is a bit more tricky... You can download the official tarball (not the RPM!!) from Sun's site, and then install "java-package" and "fakeroot" packages to create a DEB package. Ubuntu will only accept up to JRE1.4.
After downloading the packages invoke the command: "fakeroot make-jpkg
Or, if you want to be 100% opensource you can install the "java-gcj-compat" and "gcjwebplugin" packages. This will install a java environment based on the GNU gcj compiler and the gij bytecode interpreter. I have no idea if this is a reliable setup, I use myself the Sun JRE.
I hope that the Ubuntu guys manage to include a better way to install java support.
Yeah, But that's not the point. The point is, why the industry can't create a simple common protocol, and spare costs on driver development? With the side effect of being able to sell it to Linux and MacOSX users. IMHO, USB webcams are a perfect exemple of bad engeneering.
What we really need is a well defined stardart for usb video interfaces!!
Why do USB MassStorage and USB HID are standartized protocols and USB Video isn't!? I just can't understand that.
Right now is a very difficult task indentify a Linux-compatible USB Webcam... most use a combination of two chips, the CCD sensor and the USB interface. Linux must have drivers for both chips, and some combinations don't work. Worse, some manufactures mix different combinatios of those chips under one webcam model, so you can't know for sure if one model is really supported.
A real mess...
Yeah,
But it will be more cost effective to have one BIG fuel motor, than dozen of small ones on the streets. You can even use Biodiesel to harm even less the environment...
Also, you can use electrical motors to compress the air... mind you that most of the electricity produced here at Brasil comes from hidrelectrical power plants that consumes zero fuel.
This air cars have been around for years, and they are a wonderfull idea. But we wont see them on the streets as long as companies like Exxon, Shell, Halliburton, Texaco and etc. exist.
How is it different from rotating you HD by 90 degrees?!?
That's it... i'll try this at home, put my computer on a horizontal position, so my HDs will be on a vertical position. Then I'll se how much they grow in size.
Do you want a piece of me, punk?
;-)
[portuguese]
Putz, Carlos!!
Você veio lá do Debian-RJ me catar aqui, só pra me dar lição de como burlar o Velox!? Vá catar coquinhos!
Te vejo na próxima reunião!
Abraço,
Victor
[/portuguese]
Because we all hope that Sony can get some clue, and add all this features on the next release of PSP[1].
This could be great, I can't imagine a celphone combined with an videogame, Nokia tried and failed... but I can see future for a Zaurus combined with a videogame!
Comon Sony, QTopia/Opie[2] is already there for free! Just add a touchscreen to the PSP[1] and you're set to kill the DS[3]!!
---
[1] Play Station Portable
[2] http://opie.handhelds.org
[3] Nintendo DS
They're called "Código de defesa do Consumidor", or "Consummer defense Code".And it states that no one can couple some product to another.
For example, if you're going to open a bank account the bank can't say that aquiring a credit card is a pre-requisite. Or if you're going to buy a car the reseller can't say that buying the insurance from company X is a pre-requisite.
It's indeed a very nice law... when correctly enforced. Unfortunetely our major DSL provider (Telemar) couples the service to an account on a "internet provider". This is of course nonsense, since the real conectivity provider is Telemar itself... but yet they still require such account. The worst part is that NONE of the so called "internet providers" has full Linux-compatible media content...
The irony is that all of that topics already have an solution... they're not put in pratice because of politics. Please, don't blame the scientists... blame the governament, or blame the people that elected the politicians that run your country!
So instead of writing this on Slashdot, why don't you make a telephone call to you Senator? Why don't you gather people that think like you and tell it to him?
If he got your vote, he might have a minute or two to listen what you has to say... You voted, didn't you?
Well, If you're using Jython to pave the road for a migration, you can use whatever you want from Java. Also, using Jython is a way to keep your codebase. I think that's the real advantage of python/jython, it's a nice "glue" language, that you can use to build applications based on whatever you already have.
The games
The kids
Or the kids parents, that allowed them to play violent games?
It's me or is just plain easier to blame the games, reliefing the parents from their responsabilities?
Governament has the right, and the duty to force game classification. So parents can decide if their kids can, or cannot play such games. But govenament CAN'T decide what is better for our children, this is pure censorship.
These politician are taking an witch-hunt position because it's an easy way out. If they tell that parents should be responsible for what their children are doing they'll loose popularity, and votes.
And this behavior isn't limmited to the USA, here at Brasil it happens too. Some time ago a girl was murdered on a cemetery, she was playing "Vampire the Masquerade" RPG... instantly the blame fell on the RPG books, they called them "satanic", and "wichcraft" books... Just plain stupid.
To record anything you want as long as your batteries last. Then, preview the clips directly on the vPod screen!
Thats would be a great hit, never buy a DV tape again!
More, Apple should join forces with JVC, Panasonic, Pionner or someone like these to lauch a VideoCam that plugs an iPod directly as its storage!
It would be fantastic!
Free, dead-brain simple, and with nice features such as Gmail and Moz-Thunderbird integration, and order prints online trough kodak. Installed for my mom, and she loved it. http://www.picasa2.com/
So it might be used to show progress over time on open-source projects. It would be usefull to show progress over a single project or how two projects merged, and to show wich contribuitions made it to final versions, or witch developer has more code on it.
It should be very interesting to see it applied to big projects, like the Linux kernel or the KDE project to see how it evolved from the number of contribuitions and devellopers, and to see how long each contribuition survived unnaltered on the source.
It could prove to be a very usefull tool indeed.
Which one is more likely to fail, an remote-operated robot drill, or a big hammer?
I guess NASA chose the keep-it-simple way, they throw a big hammer on the commet and analyse the dust that will be ejected from the impact. Its way more simple than landing some robot, to rescue it after. Also, the impact will reveal deeper materials than a robot-drill could reach.
This is just lame...
I can see art on grafitti, there's real effort to make something nice looking there. People that make really good grafitti has to commit a lot of time to it, just as a "real" painter, only the canvas is different.
But this grafedia is just like write your webpage addres on a bathroom wall!! It takes NO effort, and it will make LOTS of people ruin perfectly good walls with this shit. I can see now, instead of drawing a penis in the bathroon door, people will start to write links to penis-pictures in the same door!!! Wow! What a revolution!!
They're talking about "Linux", and its a kernel. RedHat, Fedora, Debian, Slack, Suse... these are OSes!
So, if you get a sloppy distro (wont cite any names to avoid flames) and compare it to Windows, you can say that distro is more insecure than Windows. But you cant say "Linux is more insecure than Windows"!
If they really want to compare Linux to Windows, well... then lets compare the kernels, Linux X NT! Witch one is more secure? Has more bugs? Heh, that's something I'd like to see.
First... the original joke is funnier when told in its original brasilian portuguese. And even then it wouldnt be that funny, because I'm really bad at telling jokes... and even worse at making analogies ;-)
But, essencialy, what I mean is that the sharing wont stop even if they ban every form of p2p. People still will share their software using other methods.
The only way to stop this is find why people does piracy. Maybe CDs, DVDs and Software are too expensive nowdays... But, fix those is harder than just blame p2p.
Well, hope that this time I made myself clearer... Im no native english speaker. Sorry for my bad jokes/analogies...