51. [...] Without such copy protection, the motion picture companies would not have allowed their copyrighted motion pictures to be available in this new digital video format. [...]
Hey, does this mean that future digital media will not carry movies unless they also have shoddy protection schemes? (-:
Analogue media have no serious protection schemes, so I guess movies can't be made available on those, either. It's not terribly difficult to do a digital statistical analysis on multiple playings of an analogue medium (e.g. VHS tape(s)) and closely approach the quality of DVD.
I think what should be really frightening for the movie people is that the price per meg of hard drives is steadily and inevitably dropping to the point where it is becoming cost effective to copy four or five DVD-quality movies onto a sub-20GB hard drive rather than buying originals.
As storage technology breakthroughs like the 140GB multi-layer multi-wavelength CDs become cheaply writeable, the cost per meg is going to get ridiculously low. This taken together with oddments like removable caddies for standard hard drives is probably what the movie people really have in mind, so they're frantically trying to stomp out leaks in their system now.
Sadly for their cause, stomping hard and thoughtlessly on a fire often spreads the fire rather than extinguishing it. Read a few of the messages above, if you don't think this is happening to DVD rippers while you wait.
OTOH, and in practical terms, if they had bothered to release software (a black box tool that could be used by applications as mpg123 is by many MP3 players) to do the actual decoding on a wide variety of systems (Linux, Solaris, *BSD, BeOS, who else?) there would have been much less incentive to to break their scheme.
Instead, they were stingy, hoping to only put in the effort to cover the one or two most popular systems thus making their cries of "pirate" seem rather pathetic and self-serving.
50. Information posted on Defendants' web sites establishes that they are fully aware that, in posting or "linking" to the DeCSS program, they are wrongfully appropriating proprietary trade secrets.
Not so. It only establishes that the defendants possess or know of information relating to (ex-)trade secrets. It does not establish wrongfulness, nor does it establish knowledge of a trade secret per se, merely knowledge of the means for bypassing a trade secret.
It does establish an awareness of a hyperlitigious society (say that six times fast!). In this vein, I think the DVD CCA should be countersued in a class action for frivolous and malicious prosecution.
Of course, this is an easy thing to say from behind the safety of my keyboard here in Australia, but OTOH Oz is also a signatory to many extremely dangerous UN and quasi-UN agreements, including WIPO. I think a good place to start would be to write your pollies asking them to UN-sign WIPO (and every other UN mousetrap agreement you can tie in), and point to this fiasco as a reason.
Q: Have you considered doing a Unix server for BackOrifice?
The main reason that I ask is because this would imply the need for a decent Open server for X under Windows for the Unix server + Windows client situation. (-:
I would like to be able to secureshell from a Windows box to Unix (mostly Linux) servers and run X programs without having to buy licences for whichever Windows box happens to be closest at communication time.
You could call it BackOrifice 2000 Second Edition or BackOrifice Bidirectional (BOB).
With hundreds of third-party products plugging into IIS, you could theoretically replace Windows components at almost any level. For example, you could bypass COM for some purposes and implement a third-party CORBA broker to talk to external systems. This versatility lets you opt for Windows NT as your Web platform without locking you into a Microsoft-only solution.
"And you, Mr Reviewer, are addressing us from the surface of which planet?" He who pays the piper calls the tunes; this has two implications here: at the presentation level (1) this particular piper is being paid by...? and at the content level (2) you'll find out just how MS-independent you are when you install Service Pack 6, and suddenly discover why SP6a (-: God forbid that they should call it "SP7"!:-) was quietly released.
I think the first component to replace would be the entire web service (with Apache, much less prone to running the command of your choice than IIS), and the second would be the entire OS (with almost any Unix-ish). Then you could safely say "I am not locked into a Microsoft-only solution" without me laughing long and loud at you.
As long as chemical reactions can take place, there is probably a chance for some sort of life (says the non-biologist who has merely read a book or two:) ).
Let's make the entire universe out of the 20 universal useful amino acids, one for each atom. Thats 10^80 molecules. Ignore the effects of distance, so that every molecule can "see" every other molecule. Assume that they've got correct chirality (twistedness). Assume that there is no decay process, that the aminos only bond the right way around, and that non-useful bonds instantly break. Interact these molecules a billion times each second for the last 20 billion years.
Stop and think about how favourable to life our assumptions are. For example, the universe is 99% hydrogen, distance exists, and decay does happen. Never mind - press on!
Let's take this bloody huge "warm pond" and make a single, extremely small 100-mer protein in it (one only, with means of support or reproduction). On yer marks... get set... go!
20 aminos ^ 100 bonds = 1.26E141 interactions to make a protein, on average; 20 GA = 6.31E17 seconds to interact in; * 1E9 interactions per second (wheeeee...!) * 1E80 molecules interacting = 6.31E107 interactions total.
Dividing interactions needed by interactions total yields: 2E23 universe lifetimes under ridiculously favourable conditions to get even odds of one small protein molecule by accident. Would you bet on a horse against odds like that?
Let's not talk about a whole DNA string, shall we? The novelty of playing with bc wears off after a while. (-:
life exists no where else in this universe, and in a few decades, it won't exist here either. who cares.
Are we having a bad day today? (-:
We have not seen life anywhere else in the universe. This does not mean that there is none, even though the odds against any life forming anywhere in this universe given any number of billions of years are just ridiculously high (we're talking at least tens or hundreds of thousands of orders of magnitude against).
Have we the arrogance to say that something doesn't exist simply because it doesn't do what we expect it to?
Of course we do!
Many people say that God doesn't exist simply because He won't submit Himself to scrutiny at our pleasure. This involves ignoring truckloads of not-so-subtle hints observable in nature. But what use would a pocket God whom we control be? Shall the creation control the Creator? The tail wag the dog? Not mine.
As for who cares, I do. Enum, there is a life out there waiting for you. Go get it!
a group of American scientists have apparently discovered what they believe to be the 300 or so genes that are all that is required to create a simple life-form
Gee, 300 or so genes... Oh, well, it's a shoe-in then!
Or is it?
Have you ever counted the atoms in one gene, let alone 300?
Are these dudes planning on starting from raw atoms, or will they be reassembling bits of existing ex-life with very small stitches? Will their construction reproduce, in keeping with one of the basic definitions of "life"? What will they mount their assembly in? Betcha it's an existing cell! What? They're not going to make their own cell? Now, why would that be? Why should they have a problem with assembling hundreds of interdependent homeostatic systems on a molecular scale?
Hands up all those who visualise a cell as a tiny lump of simple jelly! Today's message is: WRONG! A cell has millions of very specific atoms in very specific dynamic relationships with each other.
This is not making life, this is just more tinkering with the basic life components! Who let the PR agent into this?
Does being able to make working DNA necessarily mean that you can create a new organism?
In short, no. You can, however, create new DNA, and insert that into an existing organism to change what it does.
On the subject of religious leaders, they've collectively caused more misery in the millennia up to now than any other single person or group of people, Hitler and Genghis Khan included. Scientists, and you, need to stay as far away from them as possible!
On the subject of Miller, his experiment was supposed to mimic a primordial anaerobic atmosphere. One with water in it. Water made of two parts hydrogen and one water. Anaerobic? Hmmm.
It also featured a number of items not found even in hypothetical primordial atmospheres, like a cycle into and out of the reaction chamber through a filter designed to rescue the proto-organics before said reaction chamber volatised them on the next pass.
Quite aside from this, ALL rocks have oxygen in them. There are NO rocks compatible with an anaerobic atmosphere, or any evidence that there ever was such a thing.
Telstra announced another record profit last financial year.
Off the top of my head, retail ISDN is currently $Oz50/month for the 64kb line, plus $Oz3/hour connect, not including Internet connection. An all-you-can-eat Internet connection is $Oz990/month for 64kb plus $Oz1000 setup fee; 128kb is about $Oz2100 a month plus $Oz0.29/megabyte over a certain useage %age (calculated daily to maximize Telstra profits on the busier weekends).
Here in Perth, Western Australia, companies like RadioWAN are offering decent connection speeds (256kb to 3Mb wireless in the metro area) with free in-system traffic but costs are still relatively high ($Oz1100 connect, plus $Oz200/month for 256kb, plus $Oz0.19/MB above a smallish byte limit).
Many Perth ISPs are hooked up through a data exchange called WAIX, which makes a considerable amount of traffic (e.g. local tucows mirror and redhat mirror) free.
China's Jindalee clone was demoed with a live track of an aircraft over North China, whose flight parameters just happened to match "stealth"; although nobody there actually made any announcements about this funny track they were showing, the US reps suddenly got very nervous...
One bloke gave a business talk to a class of Hispanic high-schoolers. They weren't paying attention. Then he announced that he'd pay the Uni tuition of any student who graduated fom this class. 98% (ie, all but two of those present) graduated.
Still, as system is a system, and one as monolithic as the typical State school in any Western country is always going to present each student with more of a problem with fighting the system than with the actual learning part. The student has to not only learn, but has to either change the system or go outside of the system (as the hispanics did: the local library actually became popular) to do it. Precious few students fit into the system even roughly.
Have you actually read any science texts or even popular books in the last 30 years? They almost universally begin by assuming that evolution is a fact, even when they actually say "theory", then scrabble around trying to support their assumption. Many of them have phrases like "the fact of evolution" dotted around.
So, do they really believe, or are they lying?
And of course, I must plug The Talk.Origins Archive, which has lists of this and other common misconceptions about evolution.
Such as: that Trilobites are a simple organism? That spontaneous generation, or as some title it, abiogensis is not really impossibility squared, cubed and tesseracted but indeed likely? Ahuk, ahuk, ahuk...
T.O statements about the petrified Yellowstone trees growing in situ are classic; how did they do it without any roots?
As proudly hand-crafted Open Source is to selfish proprietary "production line" business models, so Home Education is to traditional faceless "production line" schooling - with comparable results.
SlashDot follows the Home Education "find out for yourself" free-for-all mentality, not the we-must-complete-module-four-first mentality. Early hackers called it "the Hands On Imperative."
While the large majority of educational problem lie within the system, many educators remain in that system because it suits them (and many don't, I'm related to some). There really are still people teaching Haeckels' recaptulation fraud as gospel, and no system requires them to do this. There are still people teaching that a Trilobite is a simple animal, and nobody tells them that they must.
Their revolution must come from within. Our contribution is to be the solution. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a hallmark of the failed education system; "live your beliefs" is what any evangelist, be they urging technology, animal rights or a religion, must do if they are not to die a failed hypocrite.
When people can see, feel, hear, smell and touch a working system and its benefits, then they will adopt it. Seldom otherwise.
...with which a radar station in Australia knowns more about traffic at LAX than the Los Angeles control tower itself does. The Chinese followup to Jindalee featured a live track at the opening demo session which (although nobody there said as much) just happened to include a US "stealth" aircraft flying over North China. For less technical hacks I like the bloke from CalTech who went down to a nearby sportsground every day for months, wearing a white coat, to blow a whistle and throw bread to the birds. Guess what happened when the football season opened and the umpire came out to start the first game? (-:
After a browser/email kit and office suite, the next application I see most often on Windows machines is an accounting package. Are there any plans for, er, Kbucks (?) - an internationalisable accounting package?
unlike Mozilla... bah I know I'm going to get it for that one
Are you? I downloaded M11 and it promptly leaked memory until it drowned itself after about ten minutes. It still doesn't do HTTPS as far as I can see, but OTOH handles forms a lot better than M10. I don't like the Explorer-ish bookmark panel.
Mozilla promises to fix some of these problems, but nevertheless still seems to be trying to be an all-things-to-all-men browser. This is one of the attributes which makes Internet Exploder a security nightmare.
KFM makes a reasonable sort of browser and is quite light-weight (about 4MB plus libraries offhand) but still muffs tables badly on occasion, often responds to a redirect by closing (OTOH it displays PNGs better than Netscape), and isn't too savvy about HTTPS protocol.
Konqueror, I gather, fits the still-rather-broad niche between these, as Mnemonic fits the showing-equations-right lightweight browser niche.
For those of you who think SciFi that makes you scared of humanity began with Gibson, go an read something like The Martian Chronicles.
Nah, The Sheep Look Up was much more realistic, much more possible from today's POV, so much more scary. Even Harry Harrisson got a bit dark sometimes, although you might find that hard to believe after reading any of his Stainless Steel Rat series. My reaction to Ray has been mixed - some brilliant, some boring - but a stroke is not a thing to wish on anybody, even less a creative soul like Mr Bradbury.
The coal-fired Muja power plant, 200km SSE of where I sit, releases 12 TONNES of uranium every year (3ppm x 4Mt/a).
Whether this goes up the stack directly into the atmosphere or accumulates in filters to make those filters a radioactive disposal issue, has not been made clear - but either way, how many tonnes of waste does a typical nuke produce every year?
Bear in mind that this is just the Uranium - stuff like Radium is released by the mining activities as well as by burning, and there's no figures for that.
And cheaper - how much cheaper is it going to be to NOT have to deal with the problems caused by the pollution, strip mining etc necessary to support a coal-fired plant? Not to mention side issues like the greater number of industrial deaths, the larger transport infrastructure, loss to industry of a greater number of workers through their dedication to the task, and so on.
Can you mirror MS in HTML and plain text as well? That way I won't have to crank up StarOffice to read the Word/perfect dox... or is there a monopoly^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcopyright issue here?
Aaaak! Pick anything, it'll be an improvement!
on
Which BSD?
·
· Score: 1
> I run Windows98.
No, you walk Windows 98 (softly, and carrying a big stick).
> So, I ask: Is *BSD as easy/hard to learn as > Linux?
Yes. (-:
> Can I/ Should I start with FreeBSD?
Yes. Start with Anything But Microsoft. Your mileage will vary whatever you do, but with any of Linux/*BSD you can at least find out what's going on, and there are very good odds that whatever your problem is, there are tools to fix it - and it will stay fixed. It is hard to emphasise what a relief this last point is to a tech support person! (-:
Today's rallying cry, "Give me convenience or give me death" is bearing fruit. People in affluent countries are using contraceptives more often, and murdering those who slip past the contraceptives - not that they need to do this as much since a diet of more and more preservatives, carcinogens and foodless food like Maccers is putting paid to the "natural" birth-rate anyway.
AND as if this weren't enough... stress, damage from vaccinations (e.g. the consequent 15-20% marginal encephalitis rate per capita) and a few less significant factors like the UN pacifying people to death and religious zealots (this includes atheists - consider the USSR for example) killing people who disagree with them are all doing their bit. Wait till AIDS and BSE/CJD really hit, then you'll see some population decline.
Slashdot Mirror
[leonb@marx leonb]$ wattroute --level=50 albuquerque.nm.us marxgen
Actually, I'd prefer a long bank of big, ugly-looking bakelite-handled knife switches, with lots of arcing and spitting. And a pipe organ. (-:
51. [...] Without such copy protection, the motion picture companies would not have allowed their copyrighted motion pictures to be available in this new digital video format. [...]
Hey, does this mean that future digital media will not carry movies unless they also have shoddy protection schemes? (-:
Analogue media have no serious protection schemes, so I guess movies can't be made available on those, either. It's not terribly difficult to do a digital statistical analysis on multiple playings of an analogue medium (e.g. VHS tape(s)) and closely approach the quality of DVD.
I think what should be really frightening for the movie people is that the price per meg of hard drives is steadily and inevitably dropping to the point where it is becoming cost effective to copy four or five DVD-quality movies onto a sub-20GB hard drive rather than buying originals.
As storage technology breakthroughs like the 140GB multi-layer multi-wavelength CDs become cheaply writeable, the cost per meg is going to get ridiculously low. This taken together with oddments like removable caddies for standard hard drives is probably what the movie people really have in mind, so they're frantically trying to stomp out leaks in their system now.
Sadly for their cause, stomping hard and thoughtlessly on a fire often spreads the fire rather than extinguishing it. Read a few of the messages above, if you don't think this is happening to DVD rippers while you wait.
OTOH, and in practical terms, if they had bothered to release software (a black box tool that could be used by applications as mpg123 is by many MP3 players) to do the actual decoding on a wide variety of systems (Linux, Solaris, *BSD, BeOS, who else?) there would have been much less incentive to to break their scheme.
Instead, they were stingy, hoping to only put in the effort to cover the one or two most popular systems thus making their cries of "pirate" seem rather pathetic and self-serving.
50. Information posted on Defendants' web sites establishes that they are fully aware that, in posting or "linking" to the DeCSS program, they are wrongfully appropriating proprietary trade secrets.
Not so. It only establishes that the defendants possess or know of information relating to (ex-)trade secrets. It does not establish wrongfulness, nor does it establish knowledge of a trade secret per se, merely knowledge of the means for bypassing a trade secret.
It does establish an awareness of a hyperlitigious society (say that six times fast!). In this vein, I think the DVD CCA should be countersued in a class action for frivolous and malicious prosecution.
Of course, this is an easy thing to say from behind the safety of my keyboard here in Australia, but OTOH Oz is also a signatory to many extremely dangerous UN and quasi-UN agreements, including WIPO. I think a good place to start would be to write your pollies asking them to UN-sign WIPO (and every other UN mousetrap agreement you can tie in), and point to this fiasco as a reason.
Q: Have you considered doing a Unix server for BackOrifice?
The main reason that I ask is because this would imply the need for a decent Open server for X under Windows for the Unix server + Windows client situation. (-:
I would like to be able to secureshell from a Windows box to Unix (mostly Linux) servers and run X programs without having to buy licences for whichever Windows box happens to be closest at communication time.
You could call it BackOrifice 2000 Second Edition or BackOrifice Bidirectional (BOB).
With hundreds of third-party products plugging into IIS, you could theoretically replace Windows components at almost any level. For example, you could bypass COM for some purposes and implement a third-party CORBA broker to talk to external systems. This versatility lets you opt for Windows NT as your Web platform without locking you into a Microsoft-only solution.
:-) was quietly released.
"And you, Mr Reviewer, are addressing us from the surface of which planet?" He who pays the piper calls the tunes; this has two implications here: at the presentation level (1) this particular piper is being paid by...? and at the content level (2) you'll find out just how MS-independent you are when you install Service Pack 6, and suddenly discover why SP6a (-: God forbid that they should call it "SP7"!
I think the first component to replace would be the entire web service (with Apache, much less prone to running the command of your choice than IIS), and the second would be the entire OS (with almost any Unix-ish). Then you could safely say "I am not locked into a Microsoft-only solution" without me laughing long and loud at you.
I bet MS run into a problem at the "install Windows" phase if not before. (-:
As long as chemical reactions can take place, there is probably a chance for some sort of life (says the non-biologist who has merely read a book or two :) ).
Let's make the entire universe out of the 20 universal useful amino acids, one for each atom. Thats 10^80 molecules. Ignore the effects of distance, so that every molecule can "see" every other molecule. Assume that they've got correct chirality (twistedness). Assume that there is no decay process, that the aminos only bond the right way around, and that non-useful bonds instantly break. Interact these molecules a billion times each second for the last 20 billion years.
Stop and think about how favourable to life our assumptions are. For example, the universe is 99% hydrogen, distance exists, and decay does happen. Never mind - press on!
Let's take this bloody huge "warm pond" and make a single, extremely small 100-mer protein in it (one only, with means of support or reproduction). On yer marks... get set... go!
20 aminos ^ 100 bonds = 1.26E141 interactions to make a protein, on average; 20 GA = 6.31E17 seconds to interact in; * 1E9 interactions per second (wheeeee...!) * 1E80 molecules interacting = 6.31E107 interactions total.
Dividing interactions needed by interactions total yields: 2E23 universe lifetimes under ridiculously favourable conditions to get even odds of one small protein molecule by accident. Would you bet on a horse against odds like that?
Let's not talk about a whole DNA string, shall we? The novelty of playing with bc wears off after a while. (-:
life exists no where else in this universe, and in a few decades, it won't exist here either. who cares.
Are we having a bad day today? (-:
We have not seen life anywhere else in the universe. This does not mean that there is none, even though the odds against any life forming anywhere in this universe given any number of billions of years are just ridiculously high (we're talking at least tens or hundreds of thousands of orders of magnitude against).
Have we the arrogance to say that something doesn't exist simply because it doesn't do what we expect it to?
Of course we do!
Many people say that God doesn't exist simply because He won't submit Himself to scrutiny at our pleasure. This involves ignoring truckloads of not-so-subtle hints observable in nature. But what use would a pocket God whom we control be? Shall the creation control the Creator? The tail wag the dog? Not mine.
As for who cares, I do. Enum, there is a life out there waiting for you. Go get it!
a group of American scientists have apparently discovered what they believe to be the 300 or so genes that are all that is required to create a simple life-form
Gee, 300 or so genes... Oh, well, it's a shoe-in then!
Or is it?
Have you ever counted the atoms in one gene, let alone 300?
Are these dudes planning on starting from raw atoms, or will they be reassembling bits of existing ex-life with very small stitches? Will their construction reproduce, in keeping with one of the basic definitions of "life"? What will they mount their assembly in? Betcha it's an existing cell! What? They're not going to make their own cell? Now, why would that be? Why should they have a problem with assembling hundreds of interdependent homeostatic systems on a molecular scale?
Hands up all those who visualise a cell as a tiny lump of simple jelly! Today's message is: WRONG! A cell has millions of very specific atoms in very specific dynamic relationships with each other.
This is not making life, this is just more tinkering with the basic life components! Who let the PR agent into this?
Does being able to make working DNA necessarily mean that you can create a new organism?
In short, no. You can, however, create new DNA, and insert that into an existing organism to change what it does.
On the subject of religious leaders, they've collectively caused more misery in the millennia up to now than any other single person or group of people, Hitler and Genghis Khan included. Scientists, and you, need to stay as far away from them as possible!
On the subject of Miller, his experiment was supposed to mimic a primordial anaerobic atmosphere. One with water in it. Water made of two parts hydrogen and one water. Anaerobic? Hmmm.
It also featured a number of items not found even in hypothetical primordial atmospheres, like a cycle into and out of the reaction chamber through a filter designed to rescue the proto-organics before said reaction chamber volatised them on the next pass.
Quite aside from this, ALL rocks have oxygen in them. There are NO rocks compatible with an anaerobic atmosphere, or any evidence that there ever was such a thing.
Telstra announced another record profit last financial year.
Off the top of my head, retail ISDN is currently $Oz50/month for the 64kb line, plus $Oz3/hour connect, not including Internet connection. An all-you-can-eat Internet connection is $Oz990/month for 64kb plus $Oz1000 setup fee; 128kb is about $Oz2100 a month plus $Oz0.29/megabyte over a certain useage %age (calculated daily to maximize Telstra profits on the busier weekends).
Here in Perth, Western Australia, companies like RadioWAN are offering decent connection speeds (256kb to 3Mb wireless in the metro area) with free in-system traffic but costs are still relatively high ($Oz1100 connect, plus $Oz200/month for 256kb, plus $Oz0.19/MB above a smallish byte limit).
Many Perth ISPs are hooked up through a data exchange called WAIX, which makes a considerable amount of traffic (e.g. local tucows mirror and redhat mirror) free.
China's Jindalee clone was demoed with a live track of an aircraft over North China, whose flight parameters just happened to match "stealth"; although nobody there actually made any announcements about this funny track they were showing, the US reps suddenly got very nervous...
One bloke gave a business talk to a class of Hispanic high-schoolers. They weren't paying attention. Then he announced that he'd pay the Uni tuition of any student who graduated fom this class. 98% (ie, all but two of those present) graduated.
Still, as system is a system, and one as monolithic as the typical State school in any Western country is always going to present each student with more of a problem with fighting the system than with the actual learning part. The student has to not only learn, but has to either change the system or go outside of the system (as the hispanics did: the local library actually became popular) to do it. Precious few students fit into the system even roughly.
Scientists do not believe ANYTHING to be fact.
:-)
Suuure! (-: Nice theory
Have you actually read any science texts or even popular books in the last 30 years? They almost universally begin by assuming that evolution is a fact, even when they actually say "theory", then scrabble around trying to support their assumption. Many of them have phrases like "the fact of evolution" dotted around.
So, do they really believe, or are they lying?
And of course, I must plug The Talk.Origins Archive, which has lists of this and other common misconceptions about evolution.
Such as: that Trilobites are a simple organism? That spontaneous generation, or as some title it, abiogensis is not really impossibility squared, cubed and tesseracted but indeed likely? Ahuk, ahuk, ahuk...
T.O statements about the petrified Yellowstone trees growing in situ are classic; how did they do it without any roots?
As proudly hand-crafted Open Source is to selfish proprietary "production line" business models, so Home Education is to traditional faceless "production line" schooling - with comparable results.
SlashDot follows the Home Education "find out for yourself" free-for-all mentality, not the we-must-complete-module-four-first mentality. Early hackers called it "the Hands On Imperative."
While the large majority of educational problem lie within the system, many educators remain in that system because it suits them (and many don't, I'm related to some). There really are still people teaching Haeckels' recaptulation fraud as gospel, and no system requires them to do this. There are still people teaching that a Trilobite is a simple animal, and nobody tells them that they must.
Their revolution must come from within. Our contribution is to be the solution. "Do as I say, not as I do" is a hallmark of the failed education system; "live your beliefs" is what any evangelist, be they urging technology, animal rights or a religion, must do if they are not to die a failed hypocrite.
When people can see, feel, hear, smell and touch a working system and its benefits, then they will adopt it. Seldom otherwise.
...with which a radar station in Australia knowns more about traffic at LAX than the Los Angeles control tower itself does. The Chinese followup to Jindalee featured a live track at the opening demo session which (although nobody there said as much) just happened to include a US "stealth" aircraft flying over North China. For less technical hacks I like the bloke from CalTech who went down to a nearby sportsground every day for months, wearing a white coat, to blow a whistle and throw bread to the birds. Guess what happened when the football season opened and the umpire came out to start the first game? (-:
Does this seem _strange_ to you? Why bin a small website but leave a large Y2K-panic movie alone?
Something smells odd...
After a browser/email kit and office suite, the next application I see most often on Windows machines is an accounting package. Are there any plans for, er, Kbucks (?) - an internationalisable accounting package?
unlike Mozilla... bah I know I'm going to get it for that one
Are you? I downloaded M11 and it promptly leaked memory until it drowned itself after about ten minutes. It still doesn't do HTTPS as far as I can see, but OTOH handles forms a lot better than M10. I don't like the Explorer-ish bookmark panel.
Mozilla promises to fix some of these problems, but nevertheless still seems to be trying to be an all-things-to-all-men browser. This is one of the attributes which makes Internet Exploder a security nightmare.
KFM makes a reasonable sort of browser and is quite light-weight (about 4MB plus libraries offhand) but still muffs tables badly on occasion, often responds to a redirect by closing (OTOH it displays PNGs better than Netscape), and isn't too savvy about HTTPS protocol.
Konqueror, I gather, fits the still-rather-broad niche between these, as Mnemonic fits the showing-equations-right lightweight browser niche.
KBiff doesn't seem to have much by way of command-line options, certainly no -help or --help, and does many non-intuitive things.
While it's being tinkered with, I would value the addition of a -dont-popup-the-damn-config-window command-line option.
Nah, The Sheep Look Up was much more realistic, much more possible from today's POV, so much more scary. Even Harry Harrisson got a bit dark sometimes, although you might find that hard to believe after reading any of his Stainless Steel Rat series. My reaction to Ray has been mixed - some brilliant, some boring - but a stroke is not a thing to wish on anybody, even less a creative soul like Mr Bradbury.
The coal-fired Muja power plant, 200km SSE of where I sit, releases 12 TONNES of uranium every year (3ppm x 4Mt/a).
Whether this goes up the stack directly into the atmosphere or accumulates in filters to make those filters a radioactive disposal issue, has not been made clear - but either way, how many tonnes of waste does a typical nuke produce every year?
Bear in mind that this is just the Uranium - stuff like Radium is released by the mining activities as well as by burning, and there's no figures for that.
And cheaper - how much cheaper is it going to be to NOT have to deal with the problems caused by the pollution, strip mining etc necessary to support a coal-fired plant? Not to mention side issues like the greater number of industrial deaths, the larger transport infrastructure, loss to industry of a greater number of workers through their dedication to the task, and so on.
Can you mirror MS in HTML and plain text as well? That way I won't have to crank up StarOffice to read the Word/perfect dox... or is there a monopoly^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcopyright issue here?
No, you walk Windows 98 (softly, and carrying a big stick).
> So, I ask: Is *BSD as easy/hard to learn as > Linux?
Yes. (-:
> Can I/ Should I start with FreeBSD?
Yes. Start with Anything But Microsoft. Your mileage will vary whatever you do, but with any of Linux/*BSD you can at least find out what's going on, and there are very good odds that whatever your problem is, there are tools to fix it - and it will stay fixed. It is hard to emphasise what a relief this last point is to a tech support person! (-:
AND as if this weren't enough... stress, damage from vaccinations (e.g. the consequent 15-20% marginal encephalitis rate per capita) and a few less significant factors like the UN pacifying people to death and religious zealots (this includes atheists - consider the USSR for example) killing people who disagree with them are all doing their bit. Wait till AIDS and BSE/CJD really hit, then you'll see some population decline.