One of my favorite Lynx hacks is the OpenSSL patch which supports HTTPS and secure NNTP connections (requires OpenSSL/SSLeay). Unfortunately the test link isn't working right now.
Coming from MS-DOS and JP Software's 4DOS, I found bash the easiest shell to adapt to, as a lot of good ideas in 4DOS appear to have come from bash (most notably the up/down arrow keys to navigate command history, and tab completion). bash is a little more demanding on system resources than most of the competition, if you're limited to somewhat older hardware. I think of bash as the mutt of shells, if a bit more bloated than mutt compared to other mail agents.
A) They're a group of individuals, rather than an individual; something I think is proper for open source/free software awards.
B) Debian is cool. So what if it doesn't have the latest kernel? It's arguably the most stable and well-designed of the Linux distributions; certainly the most "BSD-ish".
"Take what you can use and let the rest go by." (Ken Kesey)
"Hand in hand, we copy foreigners' merits and compensate our shortcomings." (Fong Sai Yuk) There are flashier contributions from individuals and groups, but personally when I think Linux I think "Debian", on both technical and philosophical grounds.
This is why many people I know deliberately avoid going into business, making "too much" money, etc. Why bother? The more you make, the more is taken; and from the moment you go into business, everything you do is illegal or immoral. "Downscaling" isn't just because people are learning to live with less, though that's certainly a significant component -- the less you have, the less of a target you are for criminals, both in and out of the State.
According to my wife, many countries sell Lego "cannons" that actually work, i.e., fire (I'm weak on the specific details). Naturally, this is Horrible and Evil and must be banned at our borders to protect us simple-minded Americans from blowing ourselves and each other up. So we're reduced to doing the job with Duplos.
Thank you for being one of those willing to do something -- almost anything is better than apathy, and it's a hard one to overcome. YRO is unfortunately not seeing much activity since most/. readers apparently don't come here directly and only see stories also posted to the main page, and a lot of good potential discussion is going unsaid -- I'm probably one of the least insightful around, though I try to at least be informative!
Also see Adbusters: Culture Jammers; I don't always care for their view of Economics and Money as Evil, and I do believe advertising can be art; but they have a very nice response to the incessant klaxon blare of Don't Worry, Be Happy (and insecure) that mainstream media seems to want to shove down our throats.
"Go back to bed, America! Here, watch American Gladiators. Here's 57 channels of American Gladiators. Watch these drooling, pituitary retards thrash each other's skulls open. Go back to bed, America! You are free! Free, to do as we tell you!"
Meme-monkeywrenching requires organization and funding like anything else. See Guns Save Lives, Women Against Gun Control and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership for some examples of turning the tables, putting the burden of proof back in the other corner. On somewhat controversial topics (at least for Slashdot), there's I recall a few organizations that were formed to attempt to act as a counter to all the D.A.R.E. misinformation polluting the airwaves, but can't find any URL's among my bookmarks. In any case, such efforts face the same burden as trying to educate people about the distinction between hacker and cracker, and are usually about as successful; you may convince a few individuals, but many factors, including economics and the consolidation of media (see Ben Bagdikian), keep such "subversive" messages from getting any air time, except perhaps on a few isolated cable access channels.
the history of the name "Jane's"? I've always been curious why all these combat simulators, military intelligence thingies, etc., were produced under this name. Is the female connotation supposed to make it seem less threatening?
Yay, another organ of "official truth". An army of revisionist historians, marching in lock step with no room for different drummers. Will Stephen Levy's "Hackers" be banned next? After all, it glorifies both the proper usage of the noun and the activities themselves, even the mindset of these Evil Beings. Perhaps a few parents will deliberately exclude their children from these sessions as some have done with the DARE programs; certainly some will see it as yet another reason to home-school. At the very least it should encourage some hard, rational discussions amongst parents and children about issues of right and wrong...ethics being a much more complex subject than "Hacking Is Bad".
in a lot of banned books for [pre] adolescents, especially Judy Blume, is their addressing issues discussed here unto death in re Columbine; namely, the mental and physical torture of one's "peers", and how people deal with it. Blubber was a particularly disturbing book (and still is), but I'm glad I read it. Anyone else think Stephen King's Richard Bachman story "Rage" might be banned soon somewhere? (It's a first person narrative by a high school kid who snaps one day and holds his class hostage, exploring all the minute cruelties of their relationships with each other. Who needs a gun...you can ruin someone's day pretty good with a well-placed pencil.)
These books were one of the things that made me realize I wasn't alone and kept me from acting out some of my more violent impulses. As with the War on Some Drugs, War on Crypto, and the like, the ends can never justify the means, and will be counter-productive in achieving them. I don't agree with Judy that you should let kids read whatever they want, but the age at which I would remove that restriction would vary according to the individual child, and certainly every parent's opinion would also differ tremendously. Hell, reading Atlas Shrugged at age 10 didn't turn me into a psycho (insert appropriate smiley here); and even if you could prevent one person from becoming a psycho by banning Mein Kampf, or whatever, the ends will never justify the means.
(Of course we must never forget Judy Blume's all time greatest book, "Please, God, Make The Six-Foot Purple Toads In My Bedroom Go Away"...eh?)
Isn't it funny how internet/connectivity providers expect you to just blithely hook up your personal box directly with absolutely no protection? With all the script kiddies and even more nefarious elements out there, anyone with a static IP who doesn't put a good solid firewall on it is painting a big red bullseye on themselves. I consider it the height of corporate arrogance and irresponsibility to both fail to provide at least adequate security for a customer and tell the customer they are prohibited from protecting themselves. This may be semi- related to the all-too-common "no servers" policies so many providers have, either implied or explicit.
I shudder to think of all the people who don't have sufficient competition in their area yet, and have no choice but to go with a provider who enforces these asinine, destructive rules. Some choice -- sit around waiting to get screwed, or try to protect yourself and hope the provider doesn't notice and cancel your account. I'd go with the second, and go all the way to the top demanding an explanation; at least it's more palatable than the alternative of getting cracked.
Here's a lovely little traveling exhibit called Ecce Homo, which according to Wired, manages to "provoke both the pope and the European parliament at the same time...The photos depict Christ at various stages in his life, death and resurrection...in the company of homosexuals." The exhibit will open in New York sometime next year; the artist has received death threats and now travels with bodyguards. Check it out and decide for yourself if it's art.
I can see it now...when you press CTRL-ALT-DEL on the Barbie PC, it exclaims, "Computers are HARD!"
Heck with that...just make a regular laptop a little more rugged (keeping in mind that nothing is kid-proof). I think my daughter would prefer racing stripes, or a black widow, painted on hers...we'll paint it together.
>Geeks don't want Linux to be easy to use. They don't want the masses to be able to use it.
The negative traits you attribute to "geeks" are more the province of the flaming idiots who inhabit the lunatic fringe of the religious wars between operating systems. Most of us just want everyone to be able to choose, to have access to a meaningful variety of choices, and to be able to make informed decisions. (Ignorance can be cured, but stupidity is forever.) If Linux is made easier to use without sacrificing its power, efficiency and flexibility, I have no objection, and I don't believe any rational person would have an objection.
The Seamonkey milestone page should give you a rough idea of when each upcoming Mozilla version will be released. Currently, they're aiming to go beta roughly in February, with feature-completeness and 100% UI freeze in late December.
To add to that, the author's acquaintance who snidely remarked, "You're installing Linux?" when the author showed the tiniest bit of ignorance reminds me of those who have nothing but scorn for anyone who knows less than they do. With friends like that, who needs enemies? The author might just have been writing a news story, but they were also being courageous and curious. No wonder newbies get frightened off. It's not the software, it's the attitude of the loud minority that pimp it and their own insecurities in an endless cycle of DickSizing Wars(tm).
The strangest thing is that for an accomplished websurfer, a 404 error should be no big deal. Backtrack along the URL until the server gives you something, and go from there...one of the first things I learned on the web.
That said, I think it's both more fun and more productive to A) expect to meet a computer halfway, instead of expecting it to do all the thinking, and B) have someone more experienced act as a friendly tutor whenever possible. Half of the fun of free software is the user community. Heck, if I lived near the author, I'd drive on over with coffee and doughnuts and do my best to explain things without dumbing them down. "What do you want to do with this thing? Okay, let's figure out how to do it."
Slashdot Mirror
("User data" being pr0n, mp3's, vob's, whatever.)
One of my favorite Lynx hacks is the OpenSSL patch which supports HTTPS and secure NNTP connections (requires OpenSSL/SSLeay). Unfortunately the test link isn't working right now.
Coming from MS-DOS and JP Software's 4DOS, I found bash the easiest shell to adapt to, as a lot of good ideas in 4DOS appear to have come from bash (most notably the up/down arrow keys to navigate command history, and tab completion). bash is a little more demanding on system resources than most of the competition, if you're limited to somewhat older hardware. I think of bash as the mutt of shells, if a bit more bloated than mutt compared to other mail agents.
"Heheh. Sorry 'bout that."
B) Debian is cool. So what if it doesn't have the latest kernel? It's arguably the most stable and well-designed of the Linux distributions; certainly the most "BSD-ish".
"Take what you can use and let the rest go by." (Ken Kesey)
"Hand in hand, we copy foreigners' merits and compensate our shortcomings." (Fong Sai Yuk) There are flashier contributions from individuals and groups, but personally when I think Linux I think "Debian", on both technical and philosophical grounds.
-demona, as usual being parshully faseeshus.
This is why many people I know deliberately avoid going into business, making "too much" money, etc. Why bother? The more you make, the more is taken; and from the moment you go into business, everything you do is illegal or immoral. "Downscaling" isn't just because people are learning to live with less, though that's certainly a significant component -- the less you have, the less of a target you are for criminals, both in and out of the State.
According to my wife, many countries sell Lego "cannons" that actually work, i.e., fire (I'm weak on the specific details). Naturally, this is Horrible and Evil and must be banned at our borders to protect us simple-minded Americans from blowing ourselves and each other up. So we're reduced to doing the job with Duplos.
Also see Adbusters: Culture Jammers; I don't always care for their view of Economics and Money as Evil, and I do believe advertising can be art; but they have a very nice response to the incessant klaxon blare of Don't Worry, Be Happy (and insecure) that mainstream media seems to want to shove down our throats.
"Go back to bed, America! Here, watch American Gladiators. Here's 57 channels of American Gladiators. Watch these drooling, pituitary retards thrash each other's skulls open. Go back to bed, America! You are free! Free, to do as we tell you!"
Meme-monkeywrenching requires organization and funding like anything else. See Guns Save Lives, Women Against Gun Control and Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership for some examples of turning the tables, putting the burden of proof back in the other corner. On somewhat controversial topics (at least for Slashdot), there's I recall a few organizations that were formed to attempt to act as a counter to all the D.A.R.E. misinformation polluting the airwaves, but can't find any URL's among my bookmarks. In any case, such efforts face the same burden as trying to educate people about the distinction between hacker and cracker, and are usually about as successful; you may convince a few individuals, but many factors, including economics and the consolidation of media (see Ben Bagdikian), keep such "subversive" messages from getting any air time, except perhaps on a few isolated cable access channels.
Dead Media is still active.
the history of the name "Jane's"? I've always been curious why all these combat simulators, military intelligence thingies, etc., were produced under this name. Is the female connotation supposed to make it seem less threatening?
Yay, another organ of "official truth". An army of revisionist historians, marching in lock step with no room for different drummers. Will Stephen Levy's "Hackers" be banned next? After all, it glorifies both the proper usage of the noun and the activities themselves, even the mindset of these Evil Beings. Perhaps a few parents will deliberately exclude their children from these sessions as some have done with the DARE programs; certainly some will see it as yet another reason to home-school. At the very least it should encourage some hard, rational discussions amongst parents and children about issues of right and wrong...ethics being a much more complex subject than "Hacking Is Bad".
These books were one of the things that made me realize I wasn't alone and kept me from acting out some of my more violent impulses. As with the War on Some Drugs, War on Crypto, and the like, the ends can never justify the means, and will be counter-productive in achieving them. I don't agree with Judy that you should let kids read whatever they want, but the age at which I would remove that restriction would vary according to the individual child, and certainly every parent's opinion would also differ tremendously. Hell, reading Atlas Shrugged at age 10 didn't turn me into a psycho (insert appropriate smiley here); and even if you could prevent one person from becoming a psycho by banning Mein Kampf, or whatever, the ends will never justify the means.
(Of course we must never forget Judy Blume's all time greatest book, "Please, God, Make The Six-Foot Purple Toads In My Bedroom Go Away"...eh?)
I shudder to think of all the people who don't have sufficient competition in their area yet, and have no choice but to go with a provider who enforces these asinine, destructive rules. Some choice -- sit around waiting to get screwed, or try to protect yourself and hope the provider doesn't notice and cancel your account. I'd go with the second, and go all the way to the top demanding an explanation; at least it's more palatable than the alternative of getting cracked.
Here's a lovely little traveling exhibit called Ecce Homo, which according to Wired, manages to "provoke both the pope and the European parliament at the same time...The photos depict Christ at various stages in his life, death and resurrection...in the company of homosexuals." The exhibit will open in New York sometime next year; the artist has received death threats and now travels with bodyguards. Check it out and decide for yourself if it's art.
cpunks/cpunks is also a common one, and works on NYT.
Heck with that...just make a regular laptop a little more rugged (keeping in mind that nothing is kid-proof). I think my daughter would prefer racing stripes, or a black widow, painted on hers...we'll paint it together.
That would be Omega Central.
"Here's my money! I have money! Why won't you sell me that product?"
"Um, we're afraid you'll do something stupid with it and sue us."
"I'll sign this form waiving all liability!"
"Sorry, citizen-unit, you have not the discretional authority to make such decisions."
America. Where those who know what's best for us must rise and save us from ourselves.
We'll know YRO is getting enough public exposure when we start seeing, "F1R5T P05T!!!1!"
The negative traits you attribute to "geeks" are more the province of the flaming idiots who inhabit the lunatic fringe of the religious wars between operating systems. Most of us just want everyone to be able to choose, to have access to a meaningful variety of choices, and to be able to make informed decisions. (Ignorance can be cured, but stupidity is forever.) If Linux is made easier to use without sacrificing its power, efficiency and flexibility, I have no objection, and I don't believe any rational person would have an objection.
The Seamonkey milestone page should give you a rough idea of when each upcoming Mozilla version will be released. Currently, they're aiming to go beta roughly in February, with feature-completeness and 100% UI freeze in late December.
To add to that, the author's acquaintance who snidely remarked, "You're installing Linux?" when the author showed the tiniest bit of ignorance reminds me of those who have nothing but scorn for anyone who knows less than they do. With friends like that, who needs enemies? The author might just have been writing a news story, but they were also being courageous and curious. No wonder newbies get frightened off. It's not the software, it's the attitude of the loud minority that pimp it and their own insecurities in an endless cycle of DickSizing Wars(tm).
That said, I think it's both more fun and more productive to A) expect to meet a computer halfway, instead of expecting it to do all the thinking, and B) have someone more experienced act as a friendly tutor whenever possible. Half of the fun of free software is the user community. Heck, if I lived near the author, I'd drive on over with coffee and doughnuts and do my best to explain things without dumbing them down. "What do you want to do with this thing? Okay, let's figure out how to do it."