I've always wondered this, so I hope someone can answer this for me: Firefox is arguably the premier open source desktop product, with security being one of its selling points. At the same time, almost anyone can write an extension for it which alters its behaviour, possibly in some hidden way. How do we reconcile the two?
I wonder about this every day as I start up Firefox on my KDE desktop. Should I be using Konqueror instead? After all, it passed the ACID2 test. But then I think of all those indispensable extensions --Adblock (Plus), Filterset.G, NoScript, etc. Geez, every time I install those (at the dozen work computers I use, since I rotate between locations), a warning dialogue pops up which I habitually ignore: "Warning! This extension is not signed!" (So far I haven't come across a single extension that *is* signed.) And I wait the obligatory n seconds before clicking on the "Install Now" button.
My current take on this is that, yes, Firefox has this vulnerability built in, and I actually hope that some day some trojan extension makes headlines so we can start taking this seriously. In the meanwhile, though --where are the signatures on the extensions? Where's the md5 hash (or whatever is secure these days) on the extension download page?
Am I being too cavalier? Are we breeding a bunch of Firefox users who are as numb to security threats as the typical MS Windows user who accepts spyware as a way of life, or as the typical smoker who gives nary a glance at the big notice on the cigarette package that says, "If you smoke this, you will die"?
Or can someone please show me that I'm wrong? Can someone please tell me that the downloaded *.xpi files are actually human-readable and as open-source as JavaScript? Does Firefox set up a sandbox so that InnocuousExtension.xpi can't actually log my keystrokes or send my pageview history to TotallyInnocentDomain.com.ru?
Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.
I agree that there's a lot of unnecessary ill-will that's subconsciously and reflexively generated whenever we Linux geeks hear that some software costs money. Although Linux is predicated on software freedom ("free" software), we are too accustomed to zero-cost software ("free" software).
The quantity of quality zero-cost software is nothing short of astounding, for which I will always be grateful to the hacker community --but at the same time, it creates expectations that form a trap. We are used to leveraging our geek skills to gain certain "powers" (from a software Role-Playing-Game point of view) without having to pay, and it's almost like a return on our investment in being geeks. "You had to *buy* Photoshop?" you say to your roommate, your voice dripping with disdain. "*I* got GIMP for free!" (And then we get upset that Photoshop was pirated, of course. What's the use of being a geek if the non-geeks can get zero-cost software, too?)
But, for those of you who envision software freedom spreading throughout the world, let me ask you: where do you want the money to come from, in such a world, so that software businesses large and small can continue to flourish? Okay, I know the standard answers --payment for support, most software is within large companies, payment for reliable source of software, etc. etc.
The next question is: how do you think we should get there? After all, an "open world where there's no need for windows or gates" (tm) doesn't just pop into being; you have to make a transition. How do companies make money in a world where people will buy copies of copy-protected proprietary tax software for us$30, but not pay for zero-cost FOSS that can replace all of Microsoft Office (or even Microsoft Windows)?
In short, *should* we pay for software?
Linspire wants $20 to $50 to do C&R. Are they truly being sleazy? They're getting $$$ just to set up a server for distributing free Debian software! They're fooling people into paying money that users don't really have to pay!
And accounting company H&R Block charges for tax preparation services. How sleazy! They're getting $$$ for filling in forms you can get for free! They're fooling their customers into paying, when they can use a calculator for free!
We need to think before we bash Linspire's C&R service. They are being rewarded for filling a niche, or at least Linspire thinks so, and from our capitalist way of thinking, they should be admired. The fact that we geeks don't need C&R doesn't mean that Linspire is trying to pull a fast one, any more than we despise Barnes & Noble for trying to sell books like "Apache Security for Dummies" when *any* geek knows how easy it is to set up a chroot jail on a headless server --what a rip-off!
I'm not saying that the C&R service is perfect, and I have my own hesitations about having C&R. (I bought my own Lindows-preinstalled PC some years ago.) My main concerns are: 1) does it lock you into C&R, or will the standard Debian repositories be compatible? 2) Is the C&R software high quality (well-packaged)?
I think that Slashdot is a valuable place for discussing and criticising what's wrong with Linspire, and figuring out where we'd like Linspire to go (especially since Mr. Carmony himself seems to be participating in this discussion), but what I see instead is invalid and unnecessary bashing of C&R. I see a risk that this thread will terminate prematurely, before we can take advantage of our collective Slashdot intellect to analyze the actual situation.
Guys, the Linspire CEO is here. Wouldn't you like a chance to tell what you think to the leader of a company that might be poised to get Linux exposure in certain unique markets? If you do, there better be a bit more insight than "Linux good!" or "Linux for money bad!".
If the Internet was separated by states, how much would you lose? How often do we Californians visit other states' web sites anyway? Why would anyone email someone living On The Other Side? Most of the time I don't even understand the language of other websites like whitehouse.gov, anyway. When was the last time I really needed them?
Come to think of it, why should San Francisco be connected to the rest of the Internet, anyway? It would just raise costs. I mean, all I do is order pizza from the web. It's not like I actually *need* Los Angeles or something.
I even emailed out a survey to see if there *is* anyone who lives outside of the SF Bay Area. Not a one! Every single email either said, "I live in the Bay Area," or "quit fooling around on the company intranet and get back to work."
Hello. Can you give me some guidace as to how you got the numbers for the ModeLine command? I need something similar, but for two other types of screens. One is for a new 1440x900 LCD monitor I plan to buy; the odd dimensions are because it doubles as a widescreen TV. The other is for my ATI Rage Fury Pro TV output; I can't seem to get the TV output to work with the newer X.org arrangements like Ubuntu, and am stuck using the XFree86 in Mandrake 10.0-o.
I've tried digging around for safe numbers to use on my screens that won't fry them, but I haven't come up with anything practical.
On reading this thread, I begin to appreciate the design of my new office, where every room gets exterior light, even rooms that don't share a wall with the exterior of the building. This is accomplished by having the top 50cm or so of every wall be transparent, so that external light filters into the hallways and from there into the interior rooms. We still need room lights, but the whole place looks bright and cheery on a sunny day.
Ah. You asked. Here's your answer, at least partially.
CURSOR SHAPE DIFFERENT FROM TOOLBAR ICON
The way the toolbar icons are not the same as the cursor icons. For example, the crop/resize tool button in the main GIMP window looks like a paintbrush, but a different sort of paintbrush from the real paintbrush. (Later I theorized that the icon actually represents an artist's knife, for the "cropping" part, although I don't know how that relates to "resize".) But when you move the cursor onto the sheet, the "crop&resize" cursor looks completely different, and I'm not sure I've selected the right function. I'll let you find other examples of where the cursor shape is different from the toolbar button.
MASK
The way the "mask" concept is implemented is non-intuitive. You have a selected area, and anything you do only affects that selected area. For example, say you select a rectangular area in an empty layer. You fill the layer with a certain colour (using the Pouring Paint Can tool), expecting the entire layer to get filled, but only that rectangular area gets filled, even if you clicked the Pouring Paint Can outside the selected rectangle. All well and good, but...
Suppose the mask is so small that you can't see it, or you don't notice that you have a mask on because you've zoomed to another area? Especially since I can't seem to find how to get rid of the mask. Say I used the mask for some other operation, eg. touching up the picture somewhere else. Now I want to get rid of the mask and operate on the entire drawing.
You could say, "Well, there's a keyboard shortcut for turning off the mask. It's [whatever]." Well, again, since GIMP is a GRAPHICS manipulator, I would expect something in the GRAPHICS user interface.
You could say, "Well, you can select the entire area." That's a cop-out.
The real question is, how am I supposed to know that there is a mask in the first place? I tried to get rid of the mask by using the rectangle selection tool and double-clicking in the picture, effectively making a mask of size 0. Well, GIMP thought that I actually did want a mask of size 0, and from then on none of the drawing tools worked (because they only operate on what's within the mask, and the mask is size zero). If I had not remembered that I had set a 0-size mask, I would have thought GIMP was not working.
There should be some indicator in the status bar that the mask is on. When the user double-clicks the selection tools (the dotted rectangle, dotted circle, or lasso), there should be a pop-up window with various options including "turn off mask".
(By the way, for anyone trying to tell me "but Photoshop does the same thing!" --stop trying to compare GIMP with Photoshop. GIMP should stand on its own, and actually I don't use Photoshop, so that doesn't help.)
STATUS INDICATORS
This leads to the next topic: status indicators. As we mentioned, status indicators for whether a mask is in effect are sadly lacking. Other non-intuitive problems, where nothing you do seems to affect the picture, can be caused by selecting a non-visible layer: suppose not all layers are visible, and you somehow accidentally select a non-visible layer to work on. You might want to doodle all over your drawing, but nothing seems to happen! In the meanwhile, you are actually defacing a different layer of your drawing without realizing it. This is because the layer status window is a separate window.
Others have debated the wisdom of using multiple separate windows rather one big window containing all subwindows, so I won't rehash it here. My peeve is that there is only one window for layer status no matter how many drawings you are working on. Suppose you open a 3-layer drawing to work on; you see that drawing, plus the layer status window, plus the main GIMP window (plus the toolbar selection window if applicable). Now open another 2-layer drawing, say. Well, you still have the same window
I've always wondered what was complicating just getting a blood test, analyzing it and telling you every imaginable thing about your physical condition. Viruses, markers indicating bone damage, infection, stressed liver/kidneys, metastacizing cancers, there should be chemical indications of all these things in a few mls of blood, shouldn't there?
Good grief. Sorry, you've pushed a button in me; I get this request from my patients all the frick'n time, so maybe if I answer this one, it will save a lot of doctors (and patients) some trouble.
Why don't we just do a "blood test that checks for everything"? The short answer that "there is no such test", but then my patient asks for a CT scan or MRI scan, or wonders when we will be technologically advanced enough so that we can invent such a test. It will never happen. Here's why:
Each test result is imperfect and must be interpreted in light of the clinical context. In other words, you have to know what you are looking for, or else you won't be able to tell what's normal or not normal. I view each test as being a somewhat inaccurate answer to a Yes/No question, e.g. "Is it Horrible Disease X?", but there is no test that tells you, "What disease is it?"
Just casting a net far and wide, looking for "everything", will net you all sorts of useless false positives that will waste time, cause worry, and worst of all, result in further unnecessary testing that may be risky.
There are two main reasons for this: test accuracy, and test relevance. Let me illustrate:
Elderly men everywhere are demanding to have their Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood levels checked, because it's not as embarrassing as having the doctor stick his finger up the bum to feel the prostate. Hey, you gotta check the PSA, because --what if you have cancer!!?? How can you be SURE that I don't have prostate cancer, doctor? (Answer: you probably do, and the prostate cancer will kill you in 135 years.) PSA testing is still controversial, and in fact the Canadian task force actually labeled PSA testing as harmful because then you need to surgically sample the prostate, leading to the risks associated with minor surgery.
How about that? A test that's actually harmful, hmm? You'd think you could just ignore the test result if that were the case, but nooo... now there's a medicolegal obligation to follow through with prostate biopsy.
On the other hand, if you carry a high risk for prostate cancer, then the PSA is a very useful test. If your father and his father and his father all had (clinically significant) prostate cancer, then I would definitely get you a PSA without you asking for it.
There's a mathematical basis behind this, so let me illustrate.
Suppose there's a Horrible Disease X that everyone is afraid of. Let's say it's HIV/AIDS, which some 1 million people have in the USA, but this applies to any other disease.
Suppose I have a test that is 99% sensitive; that is, if you really do have Disease X, then only 1% of the time will the test erroneously say that you are okay. The test is also 99% specific; that is, if you DON'T have X, then only 1% of the time will the test erroneously say that you do have it.
I need a volunteer from the USA population to try my Super Duper Get-Checked-In-Case-You-Have-X test. You there, with the Slashdot username "lifeisgreat", why don't we try it on you?
Horrors! The test is positive! Life is not great, after all! What's the chance that you have Disease X? What's the probability that my Super Duper test, with 99% accuracy, is wrong?
Think out your answer before reading on. You have just tested positive for one of those "every imaginable things" test that you were asking for. What will you do now? Call a doctor? Talk to family? Write a will? Will you ever live to have kids? Will you ever get frist psot on Slashdot again?
Very good point: the eye, being transparent (in parts), is the one place where you get to see nerves and blood vessels directly, without cutting anything open. You can tell whether there is increased pressure in the brain (the blind spot will have ill-defined borders), and you can actually see whether there is cholesterol coating the blood vessels, or damage from high blood pressure or diabetes. You can even see arterial pulsations, if you look for them. This is a pretty routine exam I do when I see patients.
All this is from a $80 ophthalmoscope that you can fit into your pocket. As other posters have pointed out, this is pretty much old news.
Well, checking the ears won't identify "the runs" (diarrhea), but I routinely check patients' ears if they give a history of cough, headache, pink eye, or other head/neck symptoms. This is to help identify nasal congestion, a common cause of head/neck problems. Fluid (normally) produced in the sinuses, middle ear (behind the eardrum, so it can't come out through the eardrum), and eyes (excessive amounts would be called "tears") all normally drain into nasal cavity. If your nose is plugged, then you'd get sinus fluid buildup causing sinus headache, ear fluid buildup causing plugged and sore ears, and failure to adequately lubricate the eyes causing irritation and possibly infection. Furthermore, if your nasal mucus is running down the back of your throat, the "post-nasal drip" can cause a cough that won't go away with cough medicine. But try a decongestant, and the cough medicines will magically start working.
When I look in the ears, I can see whether there is fluid behind the eardrum, and tympanic bulging, which tells me that the eustachian tube (and therefore the nose) is plugged. If it is, then I can predict that the patient will probably have the sinus/eye/cough symptoms mentioned above. So the conversation would be more like:
P: I've got a cough and a headache. D: Let me look in your ears. Yup, you've got a cough and headache.
By the way, about half my patients don't believe me when I tell them about their nasal congestion, because there's no mucus running out the nostrils, and their nose is unplugged enough so that they can breathe ok. Doesn't mean the eustachian tube's not blocked.
At the time I was a grad student, not working, and due to a quirk in my university schedule, only taking one course at the time. I did not need much of a social life at the time, so I decided to try it: 2 hours awake, half hour sleep. I set alarms for when I had to go to sleep or wake up. I timed it so that my only class, a 2-hour lecture, fit into a 2-hour wakeful time slot. Once or twice I had to take my half-hour nap on school grounds (I found a spot in the library), but I adhered to the schedule strictly.
It did not work. I lasted somewhere more than 24 hours but less than 36. I did not feel particularly sleepy at the time, although it felt weird, something I attributed to just being disoriented on my schedule. But during one of my supposed half-hour naps, I slept right through the fairly loud alarm and ended up sleeping 3-4 hours. That threw my schedule off, and since the total number of sleeping hours per day with the extra-long nap was the same as my usual number of hours, there was no point trying this new schedule, so I went back to the conventional sleep schedule.
"The Present" by Kenneth Blanchard is similar. I read it at a bookstore. The story-telling style of a young man in search of happiness and peace of mind might sound sappy, but there's some good advice in there. A short book in the style of the well-known "Who Moved My Cheese?"
LibraNet helped me overcome my fear of Linux
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Libranet On The Rocks
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Although not a LibraNet user (I've been using Mandrake since 9.0, now switching over to Ubuntu), I have to acknowledge LibraNet's help in getting me past Linux's steep learning curve.
Having had trouble downloading Linux, I had ordered a stack of some 20 CD's or so of every Linux distro imaginable (to me at the time). LibraNet was one of them, sandwiched among Lycorix, Peanut Linux, Slack, FreeBSD, Pink Tie linux (Red Hat was going to sue unauthorized users of the term "Red Hat"), and the nine CD's of the main Debian 3.0 distro. For some reason I would keep getting errors installing (including the vaunted Mandrake with its "user-friendliness").
LibraNet was the first to install successfully, and make it easy to switch between KDE, GNOME, and ICEwm with the click of a button. It showed me what Linux was capable of. Even more impressive was the big button which simply said, "Recompile kernel". I never used it, but it was a shock to me that one could recompile the kernel as easily as clicking on a button. LibraNet impressed me with its multitude of screensavers. (Basically these were X screensavers, for which I have yet to find an equal that works with KDE --why are KDE screensavers so sluggish?)
LibraNet gave me the motivation to keep moving forward, to find what could be done with Linux. Kudos to the maintainers.
(I should sneak in a line or two about BasicLinux by Steven Darnold, who also showed what Linux was capable of, installed on a lowly 386 through a diskette.)
My first reaction was: I wonder which lobbyist of a Large Software Company helped put this one through?
The programmer is personally liable, but the big corporation who employs him/her profits from the work? Wasn't the whole point of creating a corporation to put a degree of separation into liability?
Also, even if A Large Software Company promised to protect their own employees (some liability insurance as part of the benefit, say), this would still be bad news because it discourages independent programmers and coerces everyone into joining A Big Corp.
A better idea would be to make it optional, like certification by a licensed Software Engineer. Just like, for example, how you could build your own toolshed with wood and hammer, but to build a house, you have to get a Licensed Inspector or be a Licensed Civil Engineer or something. (Details fuzzy, but you get the idea.)
We could have stopped the abuse more easily by simply closing out the account, but she flatly refused to do that, on general principles (she was a very stubborn woman)
The word for "fire" is used, but in this context it means "voltage". I have been assuming that the "cow" part refers to the fact that a transformer (which used to be much larger than they are nowadays) was a large object that made a low-pitched humming sound reminiscent of a moo. In any case "cow" is often the nickname for large implements or tools. So, a "voltage tool".
I'm sure there are non-English speakers who find it odd that the English word for mushroom is literally "mushroom".
Most people would much rather fix bugs or implement new cool features than work on tiny UI details or *gasp* write some documentation.
Agreed! And yet it is those things, especially documentation, that make certain programs such a pleasure to use.
The shining example I have in mind is GnuCash. I had shunned it, thinking, "Ugh --financial program. What a boring concept!" It was only during an utterly boring flight as I was clicking distractedly on my Knoppix-booted laptop that I came across the GnuCash documentation.
What an interesting read! I couldn't believe I was actually getting into the user manual as if it were some spy thriller novel. Everything followed a logical path and kept leading me on. Since then, I have been happily using GnuCash where previously I had used... well, actually, I hadn't used anything comparable at all previously.
The GnuCash documentation writers probably deserve as much credit as the programmers themselves.
What if someone used his home without permission?
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Firefox vs. SP2's IE?
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· Score: 1, Interesting
"Grandpa, how would you feel if this were not your computer, but your house?
"You might say, 'I don't need to lock my doors --I know all my neighbours in this small town, and it's such an unnecessary hassle to have to lock the doors. No one else lives with me, I don't have anything worth stealing, and anyway, I only use basically the one bedroom and the kitchen.'
"Once in a while you come home from the grocery store, and the door is open or stuff isn't where you left it. Probably some nosy kids poking around, you think. What's that noise you hear from the basement sometimes? Probably just the furnace getting old.
"Then one day you hear on the radio that the police are looking for some drug dealers. They've been on the lam from the city cops for the past year for synthesizing drugs. The feds figure they're hiding in a small town somewhere around here, but they checked all the vacant and rental homes where they could be hiding, and can't figure out where they could be running their LSD-manufacturing operation.
"Still think locking your house is not an issue?"
I previously lived in a small town where everyone knew almost everyone else (population 10,000 --technically a "city") although there was a significant portion of population turnover due to seasonal/short-term jobs, etc. I would use the above as an explanation for why an unsophisticated Internet user should still install the necessary protective measures. I absolutely agree with the parent poster.
Very good points about the newfangled handhelds.
In the same vein, I currently use a HandEra 330. (For those who don't know, this is a little-known utilitarian Palm-compatible that takes both CF and SD cards.) I've been using it for about 3 years now. The thing is, it is now out of production, so I really should find something else. But I can't find anything that meets my needs.
It's not because of expense, mind you. In fact, where I previously worked, we were each entitled to one new handheld computer every year at company expense --for us to keep, not to give back to the company when we were done. There was no real limit on the expense.
So of course I went out and bought the most expensive Palm available. I was already using a HandEra, and wanted to continue using the Palm system; I didn't have time to mess with switching to PocketPC stuff. I bought my very own Tungsten T3 plus a two-year warranty at company expense. Very sweet: high-res colour screen, telescoping casing, rotatable display, built-in Bluetooth, etc.
I fiddled and fiddled and fiddled with it. And in the end, I refunded it. (Actually, I gave it to a colleague and let him claim the expense, so I neither gained nor lost money.)
The Tungsten T3 was the epitome of new technology being --well, not necessarily worse, but not better, but most of all being utterly incompatible with the old. Here's my list of gripes:
the HandEra has fast enough response time. You click the AddressBook button on the HandEra, and the address book flashes on. If you do the same on the Palm Tungsten or Microsoft PocketPC or even the Zaurus-on-Linux, it takes about one second for the AddressBook to come on. (When I'm driving and I need to find a phone number from my handheld using only one hand, any handheld that takes 0.6 seconds to turn on is too slow.)
With the HandEra, I can do one-handed text entry using the special Graffiti letters. The new Palm uses a "new improved" system where some letters are more than one stroke. For example, "i" is a downstroke plus a dot, while "L" is just a downstroke. So, after a downstroke, it waits to see if you input a dot. If it does, it deletes the "L" and puts a "i" instead. But you have to do the dot quickly, or else it turns into "L" plus the period. Also, some symbols are ridiculously complicated. The dollar sign is: upstroke (meaning "special symbol"), then the S shape, then two downstrokes for the two bars in the dollar sign, then another upstroke (meaning "end of special symbol"). This is supposed to be easier and more intuitive --but what if you're used to doing the downstrokes before the S? What if your dollar sign is usually a single downstroke instead of double? So you still have to learn Their Way of writing, except now it is just so slow.
Which smartass thought of the telescoping casing for the Tungsten? This is supposed to be a "plus"? It's designed for 80,000 opens-and-shuts; it's the main way how you turn on the handheld. Guess what? With me, that would last about eight months. What a prime point of mechanical failure. You can't avoid using it, either. You can't write graffiti without telescoping out the case, and there's nothing to lock it in the open position even if you never want to close it.
I had to remember to charge the Tungsten battery by placing it in the cradle *while the computer was turned on*.
My HandEra can run off four AAA batteries. On low power, I can swap in batteries. I don't need to worry about a charger when I go off on my canoe camping trip. The Tungsten needed charging every other day, if not more often.
The Tungsten didn't use CF (CompactFlash) card, but the more expensive SD card which my camera *doesn't* use. The HandEra uses both, and thus can take advantage of cheaper CF memory, or CF WiFi
It uses Bluetooth. I want WiFi (802.11).
The Tungsten used a "new improved" Palm OS v5.0, which meant all my old programs which used the "old and out-of-date
How do you what to junk when you do need space?
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Digital Packrats
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· Score: 1
I agree with a "might as well save it" approach with data that could be, but probably won't be, useful in the future. Still, if I hoard data on my 60 GB drive but I really only need 20 GB or so, wouldn't it be a pity if I ran out of space and needed to buy an extra 40 GB drive?
As another poster said, it would take too much time to sort out what's needed and what's not. "Drives are cheap, so you might as well buy one." But what a waste! As data flow increases and people hoard more, this problem will merely worsen. I can't help feeling the attitude of "the disposable society" coming upon the digial world.
The trick there is to figure out what you can afford to lose and what you can't. If you could somehow rank your files in order of importance, you could simply let new files overwrite unneeded old ones when more storage is needed, much like the way a (memory or disk) cache works. But for this to work, it must be very convenient to rank the importance of each file.
One easy metric is to see when the last time was that you've used the file. To this end, I'm glad that modern Linux filesystems store, in addition to File Creation and File Modification dates, the File Access date. Haven't accessed a file in two years? Might as well get rid of it! Exceptions can be marked in any number of ways, including something as mundane as a Never_Delete_Me directory.
I haven't done it yet, but someday I'll write a bash or Python script to sort through my stuff this way.
Your window manager might let you get rid of the splash screen. I use KDE 3.2, which lets me drag the screen away if I hold down Alt while dragging. More recently, I learned how to sink the splash screen beneath all the other windows:
KDE Control Center > LookNFeel > Window Behaviour > Actions > Inner Window-Title Bar & Frame > Modifier Key + Middle Mouse Button: set this to "Lower" (or "Toggle Raise and Lower")
Now when you middle-click the splash screen while holding down the Alt key (or whatever the "Modifier" key is set to), the splash screen is covered by all the other windows. Talk about retribution! Still, it bugs me that it doesn't automatically do this.
Can't boot from CD? This floppy will let you!
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Knoppix 3.7 Released
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· Score: 2, Informative
With boot from floppy and install to hard drive, can get some use out of those 10 year old Pentium PCs that have Windows 95 (infected, of course) on a 1G hard drive and can't boot CDs. I know, I know, who'd want to bother with such obsolete hardware when $100 buys a crappy new PC that is nevertheless far better.
Smart Boot Manager lets you boot itself from floppy (as well as CD-ROM, hard disk, etc.). It then lets you continue the boot process from whatever media you wish. It's perfect for those computers that can't boot from their own CD drive: you boot SmartBtMgr from a floppy, then transfer the boot process to your Knoppix CD. With it, you would no longer need to carry a separate boot floppy for each Knoppix or other bootable CD.
If I recall, the download is a program that generates the correct boot image on your specified medium, whether floppy, CD-R, etc. SmartBtMgr can be set to autoboot (eg. if you know you want to boot from the CD each time) and can protect any boot choices with a password. You could boot from your CD drive (let's say) and then choose which of your 23 bazillion SCSI/USB/SATA drives you want to boot from.
Note that Smart Boot Manager is not a replacement for Linux loaders such as LILO, since it is merely a boot program and not a kernel loader. To combine them, presumably you would install SmartBtMgr on the Master Boot Record of your hard drive, then install LILO on that particular partition that contains Linux, but I haven't tried this before.
Doctors hand out antibiotics like candy?
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Seaweed Antibiotics?
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· Score: 3, Interesting
"If the Doctors would stop handing out antibiotics like it were candy (and the people would take them correctly! No more "I feel better so I'll SAVE the last three doses" crap) we wouldn't have a drug resistance problem in the first place."
You are right. You are so right, in fact, that it verges on a straw man argument. Or maybe I see this more than the average person.
From the doctor's perspective, I see patients all the time who complain of infectious symptoms. I have a choice: the slow way or the fast way. The slow way is: I explain to them why it is important to finish the full course of antibiotics. More likely, though, I spend the time to tell them why it is more likely that they have a viral illness where they don't need antibiotics. If I do that, then I need to make sure that they really don't have a bacterial infection (or at least one that should be treated). Even if I am confident that they don't need antibiotics, I need to show to the patient that I took their concern seriously, or else they will simply ignore my medical advice and go to another doctor, who might do it the fast way.
The fast way is: I write a prescription for "amoxicillin 875mg PO bid; mit: #20". Done! Boy, that was fast. Zip in, zip out. I could see 10 patients an hour this way, and make so much money that I could afford to buy Windows XP. In this day and age, you add a disclaimer to the patient: "It's mostly likely a virus where the antibiotic doesn't work, but just in case... I want to make sure you get better, you know." There, now you can't be classified as "doctor who tells patients that antibiotics will treat viruses."
I almost invariably choose the slow way, but the choice is not always that black & white. Not only is there time pressure to do it the fast way (think about this the next time you complain about waiting room times), but there is pressure from the patients who demand the antibiotic. Even for these demanding patients, I try to explain why the antibiotic is probably not effective, hoping to wear away at their resistance to conservative (non-medical) treatment, knowing full well that I will end up writing a prescription, at least this time.
It's not all the patient's fault either. Suppose you are a coder working for EA Games or something. You need to be at work, but you have infectious symptoms. You want something to make it go away, quickly and reliably. Can you be blamed for wanting an antibiotic? You know, *just in case* it's bacterial. And, geez, it's been 7 days of sore throat already --surely a visit to the doctor is justified? And surely you don't want to walk out of there with the doctor merely patting you saying, "There there, there there"? Besides, what good are drug benefits if you don't take advantage of them?
Maybe you decide to get the antibiotic, but you won't take them if your symptoms improve --that way you don't overuse antibiotics, right? Two months down the road, George in the next cubicle goes home sick with strep throat during one of those Death March sessions, and you can't afford to go home sick either! Hey, didn't you have some antibiotics from last time that you never used? You'd go to a doctor and all, but, geez, you're already behind schedule with 12-hour days. Might as well use the antibiotics before they expire.
You see, even with an educated populace it's difficult to do the right thing, simply because the acute problem is so much more overwhelming than the abstract concept of "population epidemiology". Surely if you pop that one antibiotic, it wouldn't cause spiraling Medicare costs ten years down the road? If this is so, what can you expect of citizens of impoverished countries who get these magical pills that make things all better?
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I've always wondered this, so I hope someone can answer this for me: Firefox is arguably the premier open source desktop product, with security being one of its selling points. At the same time, almost anyone can write an extension for it which alters its behaviour, possibly in some hidden way. How do we reconcile the two?
I wonder about this every day as I start up Firefox on my KDE desktop. Should I be using Konqueror instead? After all, it passed the ACID2 test. But then I think of all those indispensable extensions --Adblock (Plus), Filterset.G, NoScript, etc. Geez, every time I install those (at the dozen work computers I use, since I rotate between locations), a warning dialogue pops up which I habitually ignore: "Warning! This extension is not signed!" (So far I haven't come across a single extension that *is* signed.) And I wait the obligatory n seconds before clicking on the "Install Now" button.
My current take on this is that, yes, Firefox has this vulnerability built in, and I actually hope that some day some trojan extension makes headlines so we can start taking this seriously. In the meanwhile, though --where are the signatures on the extensions? Where's the md5 hash (or whatever is secure these days) on the extension download page?
Am I being too cavalier? Are we breeding a bunch of Firefox users who are as numb to security threats as the typical MS Windows user who accepts spyware as a way of life, or as the typical smoker who gives nary a glance at the big notice on the cigarette package that says, "If you smoke this, you will die"?
Or can someone please show me that I'm wrong? Can someone please tell me that the downloaded *.xpi files are actually human-readable and as open-source as JavaScript? Does Firefox set up a sandbox so that InnocuousExtension.xpi can't actually log my keystrokes or send my pageview history to TotallyInnocentDomain.com.ru?
Any insight into this would be greatly appreciated.
I agree that there's a lot of unnecessary ill-will that's subconsciously and reflexively generated whenever we Linux geeks hear that some software costs money. Although Linux is predicated on software freedom ("free" software), we are too accustomed to zero-cost software ("free" software).
The quantity of quality zero-cost software is nothing short of astounding, for which I will always be grateful to the hacker community --but at the same time, it creates expectations that form a trap. We are used to leveraging our geek skills to gain certain "powers" (from a software Role-Playing-Game point of view) without having to pay, and it's almost like a return on our investment in being geeks. "You had to *buy* Photoshop?" you say to your roommate, your voice dripping with disdain. "*I* got GIMP for free!" (And then we get upset that Photoshop was pirated, of course. What's the use of being a geek if the non-geeks can get zero-cost software, too?)
But, for those of you who envision software freedom spreading throughout the world, let me ask you: where do you want the money to come from, in such a world, so that software businesses large and small can continue to flourish? Okay, I know the standard answers --payment for support, most software is within large companies, payment for reliable source of software, etc. etc.
The next question is: how do you think we should get there? After all, an "open world where there's no need for windows or gates" (tm) doesn't just pop into being; you have to make a transition. How do companies make money in a world where people will buy copies of copy-protected proprietary tax software for us$30, but not pay for zero-cost FOSS that can replace all of Microsoft Office (or even Microsoft Windows)?
In short, *should* we pay for software?
Linspire wants $20 to $50 to do C&R. Are they truly being sleazy? They're getting $$$ just to set up a server for distributing free Debian software! They're fooling people into paying money that users don't really have to pay!
And accounting company H&R Block charges for tax preparation services. How sleazy! They're getting $$$ for filling in forms you can get for free! They're fooling their customers into paying, when they can use a calculator for free!
We need to think before we bash Linspire's C&R service. They are being rewarded for filling a niche, or at least Linspire thinks so, and from our capitalist way of thinking, they should be admired. The fact that we geeks don't need C&R doesn't mean that Linspire is trying to pull a fast one, any more than we despise Barnes & Noble for trying to sell books like "Apache Security for Dummies" when *any* geek knows how easy it is to set up a chroot jail on a headless server --what a rip-off!
I'm not saying that the C&R service is perfect, and I have my own hesitations about having C&R. (I bought my own Lindows-preinstalled PC some years ago.) My main concerns are: 1) does it lock you into C&R, or will the standard Debian repositories be compatible? 2) Is the C&R software high quality (well-packaged)?
I think that Slashdot is a valuable place for discussing and criticising what's wrong with Linspire, and figuring out where we'd like Linspire to go (especially since Mr. Carmony himself seems to be participating in this discussion), but what I see instead is invalid and unnecessary bashing of C&R. I see a risk that this thread will terminate prematurely, before we can take advantage of our collective Slashdot intellect to analyze the actual situation.
Guys, the Linspire CEO is here. Wouldn't you like a chance to tell what you think to the leader of a company that might be poised to get Linux exposure in certain unique markets? If you do, there better be a bit more insight than "Linux good!" or "Linux for money bad!".
If the Internet was separated by states, how much would you lose? How often do we Californians visit other states' web sites anyway? Why would anyone email someone living On The Other Side? Most of the time I don't even understand the language of other websites like whitehouse.gov, anyway. When was the last time I really needed them?
Come to think of it, why should San Francisco be connected to the rest of the Internet, anyway? It would just raise costs. I mean, all I do is order pizza from the web. It's not like I actually *need* Los Angeles or something.
I even emailed out a survey to see if there *is* anyone who lives outside of the SF Bay Area. Not a one! Every single email either said, "I live in the Bay Area," or "quit fooling around on the company intranet and get back to work."
Hello. Can you give me some guidace as to how you got the numbers for the ModeLine command? I need something similar, but for two other types of screens. One is for a new 1440x900 LCD monitor I plan to buy; the odd dimensions are because it doubles as a widescreen TV. The other is for my ATI Rage Fury Pro TV output; I can't seem to get the TV output to work with the newer X.org arrangements like Ubuntu, and am stuck using the XFree86 in Mandrake 10.0-o.
I've tried digging around for safe numbers to use on my screens that won't fry them, but I haven't come up with anything practical.
My wife's company uses McAfee products. I told her about McAfee's blunder, causing computers to crash.
She didn't She said, "But my computer crashes every day, anyway."
On reading this thread, I begin to appreciate the design of my new office, where every room gets exterior light, even rooms that don't share a wall with the exterior of the building. This is accomplished by having the top 50cm or so of every wall be transparent, so that external light filters into the hallways and from there into the interior rooms. We still need room lights, but the whole place looks bright and cheery on a sunny day.
The way the toolbar icons are not the same as the cursor icons. For example, the crop/resize tool button in the main GIMP window looks like a paintbrush, but a different sort of paintbrush from the real paintbrush. (Later I theorized that the icon actually represents an artist's knife, for the "cropping" part, although I don't know how that relates to "resize".) But when you move the cursor onto the sheet, the "crop&resize" cursor looks completely different, and I'm not sure I've selected the right function. I'll let you find other examples of where the cursor shape is different from the toolbar button.
The way the "mask" concept is implemented is non-intuitive. You have a selected area, and anything you do only affects that selected area. For example, say you select a rectangular area in an empty layer. You fill the layer with a certain colour (using the Pouring Paint Can tool), expecting the entire layer to get filled, but only that rectangular area gets filled, even if you clicked the Pouring Paint Can outside the selected rectangle. All well and good, but
Suppose the mask is so small that you can't see it, or you don't notice that you have a mask on because you've zoomed to another area? Especially since I can't seem to find how to get rid of the mask. Say I used the mask for some other operation, eg. touching up the picture somewhere else. Now I want to get rid of the mask and operate on the entire drawing.
You could say, "Well, there's a keyboard shortcut for turning off the mask. It's [whatever]." Well, again, since GIMP is a GRAPHICS manipulator, I would expect something in the GRAPHICS user interface.
You could say, "Well, you can select the entire area." That's a cop-out.
The real question is, how am I supposed to know that there is a mask in the first place? I tried to get rid of the mask by using the rectangle selection tool and double-clicking in the picture, effectively making a mask of size 0. Well, GIMP thought that I actually did want a mask of size 0, and from then on none of the drawing tools worked (because they only operate on what's within the mask, and the mask is size zero). If I had not remembered that I had set a 0-size mask, I would have thought GIMP was not working.
There should be some indicator in the status bar that the mask is on. When the user double-clicks the selection tools (the dotted rectangle, dotted circle, or lasso), there should be a pop-up window with various options including "turn off mask".
(By the way, for anyone trying to tell me "but Photoshop does the same thing!" --stop trying to compare GIMP with Photoshop. GIMP should stand on its own, and actually I don't use Photoshop, so that doesn't help.)
This leads to the next topic: status indicators. As we mentioned, status indicators for whether a mask is in effect are sadly lacking. Other non-intuitive problems, where nothing you do seems to affect the picture, can be caused by selecting a non-visible layer: suppose not all layers are visible, and you somehow accidentally select a non-visible layer to work on. You might want to doodle all over your drawing, but nothing seems to happen! In the meanwhile, you are actually defacing a different layer of your drawing without realizing it. This is because the layer status window is a separate window.
Others have debated the wisdom of using multiple separate windows rather one big window containing all subwindows, so I won't rehash it here. My peeve is that there is only one window for layer status no matter how many drawings you are working on. Suppose you open a 3-layer drawing to work on; you see that drawing, plus the layer status window, plus the main GIMP window (plus the toolbar selection window if applicable). Now open another 2-layer drawing, say. Well, you still have the same window
Good grief. Sorry, you've pushed a button in me; I get this request from my patients all the frick'n time, so maybe if I answer this one, it will save a lot of doctors (and patients) some trouble.
Why don't we just do a "blood test that checks for everything"? The short answer that "there is no such test", but then my patient asks for a CT scan or MRI scan, or wonders when we will be technologically advanced enough so that we can invent such a test. It will never happen. Here's why:
Each test result is imperfect and must be interpreted in light of the clinical context. In other words, you have to know what you are looking for, or else you won't be able to tell what's normal or not normal. I view each test as being a somewhat inaccurate answer to a Yes/No question, e.g. "Is it Horrible Disease X?", but there is no test that tells you, "What disease is it?"
Just casting a net far and wide, looking for "everything", will net you all sorts of useless false positives that will waste time, cause worry, and worst of all, result in further unnecessary testing that may be risky.
There are two main reasons for this: test accuracy, and test relevance. Let me illustrate:
Elderly men everywhere are demanding to have their Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood levels checked, because it's not as embarrassing as having the doctor stick his finger up the bum to feel the prostate. Hey, you gotta check the PSA, because --what if you have cancer!!?? How can you be SURE that I don't have prostate cancer, doctor? (Answer: you probably do, and the prostate cancer will kill you in 135 years.) PSA testing is still controversial, and in fact the Canadian task force actually labeled PSA testing as harmful because then you need to surgically sample the prostate, leading to the risks associated with minor surgery.
How about that? A test that's actually harmful, hmm? You'd think you could just ignore the test result if that were the case, but nooo... now there's a medicolegal obligation to follow through with prostate biopsy.
On the other hand, if you carry a high risk for prostate cancer, then the PSA is a very useful test. If your father and his father and his father all had (clinically significant) prostate cancer, then I would definitely get you a PSA without you asking for it.
There's a mathematical basis behind this, so let me illustrate.
Suppose there's a Horrible Disease X that everyone is afraid of. Let's say it's HIV/AIDS, which some 1 million people have in the USA, but this applies to any other disease.
Suppose I have a test that is 99% sensitive; that is, if you really do have Disease X, then only 1% of the time will the test erroneously say that you are okay. The test is also 99% specific; that is, if you DON'T have X, then only 1% of the time will the test erroneously say that you do have it.
I need a volunteer from the USA population to try my Super Duper Get-Checked-In-Case-You-Have-X test. You there, with the Slashdot username "lifeisgreat", why don't we try it on you?
Horrors! The test is positive! Life is not great, after all! What's the chance that you have Disease X? What's the probability that my Super Duper test, with 99% accuracy, is wrong?
Think out your answer before reading on. You have just tested positive for one of those "every imaginable things" test that you were asking for. What will you do now? Call a doctor? Talk to family? Write a will? Will you ever live to have kids? Will you ever get frist psot on Slashdot again?
The answer: there is les
Very good point: the eye, being transparent (in parts), is the one place where you get to see nerves and blood vessels directly, without cutting anything open. You can tell whether there is increased pressure in the brain (the blind spot will have ill-defined borders), and you can actually see whether there is cholesterol coating the blood vessels, or damage from high blood pressure or diabetes. You can even see arterial pulsations, if you look for them. This is a pretty routine exam I do when I see patients.
All this is from a $80 ophthalmoscope that you can fit into your pocket. As other posters have pointed out, this is pretty much old news.
Well, checking the ears won't identify "the runs" (diarrhea), but I routinely check patients' ears if they give a history of cough, headache, pink eye, or other head/neck symptoms. This is to help identify nasal congestion, a common cause of head/neck problems. Fluid (normally) produced in the sinuses, middle ear (behind the eardrum, so it can't come out through the eardrum), and eyes (excessive amounts would be called "tears") all normally drain into nasal cavity. If your nose is plugged, then you'd get sinus fluid buildup causing sinus headache, ear fluid buildup causing plugged and sore ears, and failure to adequately lubricate the eyes causing irritation and possibly infection. Furthermore, if your nasal mucus is running down the back of your throat, the "post-nasal drip" can cause a cough that won't go away with cough medicine. But try a decongestant, and the cough medicines will magically start working.
When I look in the ears, I can see whether there is fluid behind the eardrum, and tympanic bulging, which tells me that the eustachian tube (and therefore the nose) is plugged. If it is, then I can predict that the patient will probably have the sinus/eye/cough symptoms mentioned above. So the conversation would be more like:
P: I've got a cough and a headache.
D: Let me look in your ears. Yup, you've got a cough and headache.
By the way, about half my patients don't believe me when I tell them about their nasal congestion, because there's no mucus running out the nostrils, and their nose is unplugged enough so that they can breathe ok. Doesn't mean the eustachian tube's not blocked.
At the time I was a grad student, not working, and due to a quirk in my university schedule, only taking one course at the time. I did not need much of a social life at the time, so I decided to try it: 2 hours awake, half hour sleep. I set alarms for when I had to go to sleep or wake up. I timed it so that my only class, a 2-hour lecture, fit into a 2-hour wakeful time slot. Once or twice I had to take my half-hour nap on school grounds (I found a spot in the library), but I adhered to the schedule strictly.
It did not work. I lasted somewhere more than 24 hours but less than 36. I did not feel particularly sleepy at the time, although it felt weird, something I attributed to just being disoriented on my schedule. But during one of my supposed half-hour naps, I slept right through the fairly loud alarm and ended up sleeping 3-4 hours. That threw my schedule off, and since the total number of sleeping hours per day with the extra-long nap was the same as my usual number of hours, there was no point trying this new schedule, so I went back to the conventional sleep schedule.
Thought people might like to know.
"The Present" by Kenneth Blanchard is similar. I read it at a bookstore. The story-telling style of a young man in search of happiness and peace of mind might sound sappy, but there's some good advice in there. A short book in the style of the well-known "Who Moved My Cheese?"
Although not a LibraNet user (I've been using Mandrake since 9.0, now switching over to Ubuntu), I have to acknowledge LibraNet's help in getting me past Linux's steep learning curve.
Having had trouble downloading Linux, I had ordered a stack of some 20 CD's or so of every Linux distro imaginable (to me at the time). LibraNet was one of them, sandwiched among Lycorix, Peanut Linux, Slack, FreeBSD, Pink Tie linux (Red Hat was going to sue unauthorized users of the term "Red Hat"), and the nine CD's of the main Debian 3.0 distro. For some reason I would keep getting errors installing (including the vaunted Mandrake with its "user-friendliness").
LibraNet was the first to install successfully, and make it easy to switch between KDE, GNOME, and ICEwm with the click of a button. It showed me what Linux was capable of. Even more impressive was the big button which simply said, "Recompile kernel". I never used it, but it was a shock to me that one could recompile the kernel as easily as clicking on a button. LibraNet impressed me with its multitude of screensavers. (Basically these were X screensavers, for which I have yet to find an equal that works with KDE --why are KDE screensavers so sluggish?)
LibraNet gave me the motivation to keep moving forward, to find what could be done with Linux. Kudos to the maintainers.
(I should sneak in a line or two about BasicLinux by Steven Darnold, who also showed what Linux was capable of, installed on a lowly 386 through a diskette.)
My first reaction was: I wonder which lobbyist of a Large Software Company helped put this one through?
The programmer is personally liable, but the big corporation who employs him/her profits from the work? Wasn't the whole point of creating a corporation to put a degree of separation into liability?
Also, even if A Large Software Company promised to protect their own employees (some liability insurance as part of the benefit, say), this would still be bad news because it discourages independent programmers and coerces everyone into joining A Big Corp.
A better idea would be to make it optional, like certification by a licensed Software Engineer. Just like, for example, how you could build your own toolshed with wood and hammer, but to build a house, you have to get a Licensed Inspector or be a Licensed Civil Engineer or something. (Details fuzzy, but you get the idea.)
Okay, now to go RTFA.
I don't know -- whom are you kidding?
Somehow, that doesn't sound right.
"firecow"=transformer, not battery recharger
The word for "fire" is used, but in this context it means "voltage". I have been assuming that the "cow" part refers to the fact that a transformer (which used to be much larger than they are nowadays) was a large object that made a low-pitched humming sound reminiscent of a moo. In any case "cow" is often the nickname for large implements or tools. So, a "voltage tool".
I'm sure there are non-English speakers who find it odd that the English word for mushroom is literally "mushroom".
Agreed! And yet it is those things, especially documentation, that make certain programs such a pleasure to use.
The shining example I have in mind is GnuCash. I had shunned it, thinking, "Ugh --financial program. What a boring concept!" It was only during an utterly boring flight as I was clicking distractedly on my Knoppix-booted laptop that I came across the GnuCash documentation.
What an interesting read! I couldn't believe I was actually getting into the user manual as if it were some spy thriller novel. Everything followed a logical path and kept leading me on. Since then, I have been happily using GnuCash where previously I had used ... well, actually, I hadn't used anything comparable at all previously.
The GnuCash documentation writers probably deserve as much credit as the programmers themselves.
"Grandpa, how would you feel if this were not your computer, but your house?
"You might say, 'I don't need to lock my doors --I know all my neighbours in this small town, and it's such an unnecessary hassle to have to lock the doors. No one else lives with me, I don't have anything worth stealing, and anyway, I only use basically the one bedroom and the kitchen.'
"Once in a while you come home from the grocery store, and the door is open or stuff isn't where you left it. Probably some nosy kids poking around, you think. What's that noise you hear from the basement sometimes? Probably just the furnace getting old.
"Then one day you hear on the radio that the police are looking for some drug dealers. They've been on the lam from the city cops for the past year for synthesizing drugs. The feds figure they're hiding in a small town somewhere around here, but they checked all the vacant and rental homes where they could be hiding, and can't figure out where they could be running their LSD-manufacturing operation.
"Still think locking your house is not an issue?"
I previously lived in a small town where everyone knew almost everyone else (population 10,000 --technically a "city") although there was a significant portion of population turnover due to seasonal/short-term jobs, etc. I would use the above as an explanation for why an unsophisticated Internet user should still install the necessary protective measures. I absolutely agree with the parent poster.
Very good points about the newfangled handhelds. In the same vein, I currently use a HandEra 330. (For those who don't know, this is a little-known utilitarian Palm-compatible that takes both CF and SD cards.) I've been using it for about 3 years now. The thing is, it is now out of production, so I really should find something else. But I can't find anything that meets my needs.
It's not because of expense, mind you. In fact, where I previously worked, we were each entitled to one new handheld computer every year at company expense --for us to keep, not to give back to the company when we were done. There was no real limit on the expense.
So of course I went out and bought the most expensive Palm available. I was already using a HandEra, and wanted to continue using the Palm system; I didn't have time to mess with switching to PocketPC stuff. I bought my very own Tungsten T3 plus a two-year warranty at company expense. Very sweet: high-res colour screen, telescoping casing, rotatable display, built-in Bluetooth, etc.
I fiddled and fiddled and fiddled with it. And in the end, I refunded it. (Actually, I gave it to a colleague and let him claim the expense, so I neither gained nor lost money.)
The Tungsten T3 was the epitome of new technology being --well, not necessarily worse, but not better, but most of all being utterly incompatible with the old. Here's my list of gripes:
I agree with a "might as well save it" approach with data that could be, but probably won't be, useful in the future. Still, if I hoard data on my 60 GB drive but I really only need 20 GB or so, wouldn't it be a pity if I ran out of space and needed to buy an extra 40 GB drive?
As another poster said, it would take too much time to sort out what's needed and what's not. "Drives are cheap, so you might as well buy one." But what a waste! As data flow increases and people hoard more, this problem will merely worsen. I can't help feeling the attitude of "the disposable society" coming upon the digial world.
The trick there is to figure out what you can afford to lose and what you can't. If you could somehow rank your files in order of importance, you could simply let new files overwrite unneeded old ones when more storage is needed, much like the way a (memory or disk) cache works. But for this to work, it must be very convenient to rank the importance of each file.
One easy metric is to see when the last time was that you've used the file. To this end, I'm glad that modern Linux filesystems store, in addition to File Creation and File Modification dates, the File Access date. Haven't accessed a file in two years? Might as well get rid of it! Exceptions can be marked in any number of ways, including something as mundane as a Never_Delete_Me directory.
I haven't done it yet, but someday I'll write a bash or Python script to sort through my stuff this way.
Just a thought.
I recently posted a comment about OOo's infamous always-on-top splash screen.= 10920011
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130816&cid
Your window manager might let you get rid of the splash screen. I use KDE 3.2, which lets me drag the screen away if I hold down Alt while dragging. More recently, I learned how to sink the splash screen beneath all the other windows:
KDE Control Center > LookNFeel > Window Behaviour > Actions > Inner Window-Title Bar & Frame > Modifier Key + Middle Mouse Button: set this to "Lower" (or "Toggle Raise and Lower")
Now when you middle-click the splash screen while holding down the Alt key (or whatever the "Modifier" key is set to), the splash screen is covered by all the other windows. Talk about retribution! Still, it bugs me that it doesn't automatically do this.
Smart Boot Manager lets you boot itself from floppy (as well as CD-ROM, hard disk, etc.). It then lets you continue the boot process from whatever media you wish. It's perfect for those computers that can't boot from their own CD drive: you boot SmartBtMgr from a floppy, then transfer the boot process to your Knoppix CD. With it, you would no longer need to carry a separate boot floppy for each Knoppix or other bootable CD.
If I recall, the download is a program that generates the correct boot image on your specified medium, whether floppy, CD-R, etc. SmartBtMgr can be set to autoboot (eg. if you know you want to boot from the CD each time) and can protect any boot choices with a password. You could boot from your CD drive (let's say) and then choose which of your 23 bazillion SCSI/USB/SATA drives you want to boot from.
Note that Smart Boot Manager is not a replacement for Linux loaders such as LILO, since it is merely a boot program and not a kernel loader. To combine them, presumably you would install SmartBtMgr on the Master Boot Record of your hard drive, then install LILO on that particular partition that contains Linux, but I haven't tried this before.
You can find Smart Boot Manager here:t ml
http://btmgr.webframe.org/index.php3?body=about.h
You are right. You are so right, in fact, that it verges on a straw man argument. Or maybe I see this more than the average person.
From the doctor's perspective, I see patients all the time who complain of infectious symptoms. I have a choice: the slow way or the fast way. The slow way is: I explain to them why it is important to finish the full course of antibiotics. More likely, though, I spend the time to tell them why it is more likely that they have a viral illness where they don't need antibiotics. If I do that, then I need to make sure that they really don't have a bacterial infection (or at least one that should be treated). Even if I am confident that they don't need antibiotics, I need to show to the patient that I took their concern seriously, or else they will simply ignore my medical advice and go to another doctor, who might do it the fast way.
The fast way is: I write a prescription for "amoxicillin 875mg PO bid; mit: #20". Done! Boy, that was fast. Zip in, zip out. I could see 10 patients an hour this way, and make so much money that I could afford to buy Windows XP. In this day and age, you add a disclaimer to the patient: "It's mostly likely a virus where the antibiotic doesn't work, but just in case ... I want to make sure you get better, you know." There, now you can't be classified as "doctor who tells patients that antibiotics will treat viruses."
I almost invariably choose the slow way, but the choice is not always that black & white. Not only is there time pressure to do it the fast way (think about this the next time you complain about waiting room times), but there is pressure from the patients who demand the antibiotic. Even for these demanding patients, I try to explain why the antibiotic is probably not effective, hoping to wear away at their resistance to conservative (non-medical) treatment, knowing full well that I will end up writing a prescription, at least this time.
It's not all the patient's fault either. Suppose you are a coder working for EA Games or something. You need to be at work, but you have infectious symptoms. You want something to make it go away, quickly and reliably. Can you be blamed for wanting an antibiotic? You know, *just in case* it's bacterial. And, geez, it's been 7 days of sore throat already --surely a visit to the doctor is justified? And surely you don't want to walk out of there with the doctor merely patting you saying, "There there, there there"? Besides, what good are drug benefits if you don't take advantage of them?
Maybe you decide to get the antibiotic, but you won't take them if your symptoms improve --that way you don't overuse antibiotics, right? Two months down the road, George in the next cubicle goes home sick with strep throat during one of those Death March sessions, and you can't afford to go home sick either! Hey, didn't you have some antibiotics from last time that you never used? You'd go to a doctor and all, but, geez, you're already behind schedule with 12-hour days. Might as well use the antibiotics before they expire.
You see, even with an educated populace it's difficult to do the right thing, simply because the acute problem is so much more overwhelming than the abstract concept of "population epidemiology". Surely if you pop that one antibiotic, it wouldn't cause spiraling Medicare costs ten years down the road? If this is so, what can you expect of citizens of impoverished countries who get these magical pills that make things all better?
Anyone else think, "Geez, can't they even spell 'quasar' correctly"?
Followed by an excited rush to the article to see how the heck a star can have volcanic activity, of course.