If an asteroid hits us, we will not be able to retain a 1960s civilisation level because we will not have enough factories and infrastructure to support it and even if the knowledge is saved in the form of college textbooks etc, the people will have more interest to find food (An asteroid will change the climate so the farms will not produce enough food) rather than reading books they don't understand.
The problem is more general, it is not only limited to emails.
As digital storage becomes more popular, someday we will lose valuable historical data and information because we will be unable to read the digital code of some device.
If a very big asteroid hits Earth and civilisation returns to its 19th century state, for example, and after some time the future archaelogists try to discover the pre-asteroid history of civilisation, they will have no idea what these chips and CDs and memories are! they will be unable to even think that these things contain information written by humans.
There is a period in human history called "dark ages" (before the middle ages) because the historians know very little about it and we have found nearly no writings from that era. see: http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.php?title=Dark_Ages
I think it would be better to accept emails from everyone. It is more interesting to see the emails of a great scientist before he/she became one, instead of after it.
However, although legal agreements should be read by humans, I do recognise that the most people who cannot read these agreements or are boring to do so, could benefit from some form of software alarm for abusive paragraphs in these agreements.
Legal agreements are written to be read by humans not by algorithms.
However the problem with stupid terms of service is becoming bigger and bigger. I always read the terms of service and I find that I cannot agree to many of them. I refused to use the websites of many well-known corporations because I found their terms abusive or imbalanced.
Examples:
an online auction site wanted the copyright of my auctions and uploaded pics. I disagreed so I preferred to sell my old PCs by using the local newspaper.
an advertising company's privacy policy stated that I cannot expect my personal info to remain private after signing up. I refused.
I was unable to become an affiliate of an online bookseller because, although their terms were acceptable, they had a cooperation with a company which had not acceptable terms.
another advertising corporation wanted to use my name and logo in their own promotional material. I said "forget it" and decided not to use their services.
an ISP wanted to have the copyright of everything I could publish on my user webpages. I decided not to use my user pages although I would do if the terms were acceptable.
a (small) ISP said in the terms that their technicians and administrators could read my e-mail messages and their content (text). I decided to use my ISP email only for boring newsletters and signed up with another company for my webmail.
I could not agree to the EULAs of many software products and decided to switch to Free software (such as GNU/Linux and BSD) instead.
all these examples are real. in my experience I have found that good terms of service can be found mostly (if not only) in small corps or startups. when a corp becomes bigger and stronger, their contracts tend to become more imbalanced (i.e. not taking care of you). In addition I have also abandoned listening to commercial music and watching cinema movies because I feel that the copyright industry don't take care of me. Instead, I prefer listening to Free music (check creativecommons.org) or not listening to anything. If I buy a commercial music CD it will be either because the band supports creativecommons or if it is classical music in cheap price.
The copyright industry (and very soon the software patents industry) does not produce quality music, good movies, educational books and culture. They produce copyrightable content even if it is useless or even harmful to society and our culture and makes money by selling copyright licenses i.e. you pay them for getting the "right" not to be sued by them for "infringement" later.
I decided to vote with my Euros and refuse to buy anything if I know that the corp does something I consider immoral. I demand that the products I buy must have been made by ethical persons and under ethical situations. I searched and found corps which support ethical business practices and local communities and I buy mostly from them.
A New Desktop Orientation Proposal for KDE Folks!
on
KDE 3.3.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
Hey slashdot folks!
I want to write and present to the kde developers an official proposal for a new default desktop orientation in kde 3.4.
To see a draft of the proposal (with some humourously text for fun), see: http://nsk.wikinerds.org.nyud.net:8090/img/ (coral cache, original at http://nsk.wikinerds.org/img )
If you like what you read please communicate with me to agree on a final version to be proposed for kde 3.4!
I would prefer to have a real Mac rather than running an unreviewed emulator. A real Mac is more sexy and less messy than a PC, unless the PC runs the impressive KGX.
They should care, because if they don't support our OS, we will soon start an open source alternative. When they ignore the open source community, we always find ways to create better products than theirs. See for example http://www.freeciv.org/ where a couple of opensource programmers created a game which is better than Sim Meier's Civilisation and it's GPL.
All these programs require separate login, but I am going to code a program for single login between most of these programs. If you are interested in this send me a mail so that I will remember you when I will have it ready.
I checked their website and I found that GANDI does not provide a proxy service, but can hide your email address. It is interesting though, that GANDI has released DNS software under the GPL.
But why Opteron, you might ask.
I would prefer an Athlon64 over an Opteron because of the extra reliability that ECC offers. If I know it well, A64 has the ECC circuit builtin, but many motherboards do not use it. With an Opteron you know that you get true ECC and also registered memory (which is SLOWER but more reliable).
IMHO reliability is more important than speed in numerical apps. You could lose months of work just because of a single bit error. Opteron is 100% realiable and has been used successfully even in supercomputers.
For an overview of Opteron models and tech, check my article here
Slashdot Mirror
If an asteroid hits us, we will not be able to retain a 1960s civilisation level because we will not have enough factories and infrastructure to support it and even if the knowledge is saved in the form of college textbooks etc, the people will have more interest to find food (An asteroid will change the climate so the farms will not produce enough food) rather than reading books they don't understand.
The problem is more general, it is not only limited to emails.
As digital storage becomes more popular, someday we will lose valuable historical data and information because we will be unable to read the digital code of some device.
If a very big asteroid hits Earth and civilisation returns to its 19th century state, for example, and after some time the future archaelogists try to discover the pre-asteroid history of civilisation, they will have no idea what these chips and CDs and memories are! they will be unable to even think that these things contain information written by humans.
There is a period in human history called "dark ages" (before the middle ages) because the historians know very little about it and we have found nearly no writings from that era. see: http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.php?title=Dark_Ages
I think it would be better to accept emails from everyone. It is more interesting to see the emails of a great scientist before he/she became one, instead of after it.
there is something fishy here...
However, although legal agreements should be read by humans, I do recognise that the most people who cannot read these agreements or are boring to do so, could benefit from some form of software alarm for abusive paragraphs in these agreements.
However the problem with stupid terms of service is becoming bigger and bigger. I always read the terms of service and I find that I cannot agree to many of them. I refused to use the websites of many well-known corporations because I found their terms abusive or imbalanced.
Examples:
all these examples are real. in my experience I have found that good terms of service can be found mostly (if not only) in small corps or startups. when a corp becomes bigger and stronger, their contracts tend to become more imbalanced (i.e. not taking care of you). In addition I have also abandoned listening to commercial music and watching cinema movies because I feel that the copyright industry don't take care of me. Instead, I prefer listening to Free music (check creativecommons.org) or not listening to anything. If I buy a commercial music CD it will be either because the band supports creativecommons or if it is classical music in cheap price.
The copyright industry (and very soon the software patents industry) does not produce quality music, good movies, educational books and culture. They produce copyrightable content even if it is useless or even harmful to society and our culture and makes money by selling copyright licenses i.e. you pay them for getting the "right" not to be sued by them for "infringement" later.
I decided to vote with my Euros and refuse to buy anything if I know that the corp does something I consider immoral. I demand that the products I buy must have been made by ethical persons and under ethical situations. I searched and found corps which support ethical business practices and local communities and I buy mostly from them.
KDE will soon launch its own version of "desktop search". see www.kde.org
oh and now that I said KDE... check this
So ppl who run Prime95 cannot use this thingy?
Hey slashdot folks!
I want to write and present to the kde developers an official proposal for a new default desktop orientation in kde 3.4.
To see a draft of the proposal (with some humourously text for fun), see: http://nsk.wikinerds.org.nyud.net:8090/img/ (coral cache, original at http://nsk.wikinerds.org/img )
If you like what you read please communicate with me to agree on a final version to be proposed for kde 3.4!
default or not, in any case you will be able to switch to your favourite theme. so it's not the end of the world :)
Will it work on GNU/Linux?
"You are not completely human"
Perhaps not the news that can make my day!
I wonder why people continue building cities and towns close to volcanoes or places with high earthquake risk.
I would prefer to have a real Mac rather than running an unreviewed emulator. A real Mac is more sexy and less messy than a PC, unless the PC runs the impressive KGX .
I think a cultural solution should be found. there is no need for technological or legal solutions. See this: http://nsk.wikinerds.org/blog/index.php?p=65
They should care, because if they don't support our OS, we will soon start an open source alternative. When they ignore the open source community, we always find ways to create better products than theirs. See for example http://www.freeciv.org/ where a couple of opensource programmers created a game which is better than Sim Meier's Civilisation and it's GPL.
how do they expect me to buy their game if they don't support my OS?
Does this game run on GNU/Linux?
- phpBB2
- Drupal
- Two installations of MediaWiki
- phpCollab
- Mailman
- WordPress
- etc
All these programs require separate login, but I am going to code a program for single login between most of these programs. If you are interested in this send me a mail so that I will remember you when I will have it ready.use Yahoo :)
I checked their website and I found that GANDI does not provide a proxy service, but can hide your email address. It is interesting though, that GANDI has released DNS software under the GPL.
You mean GNU/Linux, right?
But why Opteron, you might ask.
I would prefer an Athlon64 over an Opteron because of the extra reliability that ECC offers. If I know it well, A64 has the ECC circuit builtin, but many motherboards do not use it. With an Opteron you know that you get true ECC and also registered memory (which is SLOWER but more reliable).
IMHO reliability is more important than speed in numerical apps. You could lose months of work just because of a single bit error. Opteron is 100% realiable and has been used successfully even in supercomputers.
For an overview of Opteron models and tech, check my article here
I would get an Opteron148/150 or 244/246 depending on whether the work is threaded or not.
As long it doesn't have LEGO, it isn't credible.