Yes. I built a computer for my non-computer literate fiance recently (how sweet of me). She was using an earlier Netscape 4.x. Good that she's not using IE, but bad that she's using an ancient buggy browser.
So on her new computer, I put Mozilla 0.9.8 on instead of netscape 4.x. She complained loudly at first to the point where she said should wouldn't use the computer unless it had Netscape 4.x on it.
Yeah. Anyway, I made up a few excuses on why I couldn't get around to it right away. A few months later, I ask her what she thinks of Mozilla now and she says it's great! To the point where she's been trying to convince some of her friends to switch to Mozilla now.
Eh, the For Dummies series was a really great idea (and still is). But now the sitation is the same as that for the O'Reilly tech books: watch whichs ones you buy. They're not all good. Some plain suck. A few of the recent ones I've skimmed through were absolute shit. I remember reading a few of the very first For Dummies books: DOS for Dummies and HTML for Dummies. (The former was for the humour, the latter for actual information. This was a long time ago, though...)
Those two were actually quite good. But then the For Dummies publisher went ahead and starting hiring authors to write on every topic under the sun from piano playing to gardening to finances to beer. A year or two ago I saw a newer For Dummies book on Perl and skimmed through it at the bookstore. Wow did that suck. Not only was there absolutely no humour in it but the author apparently had no actual experience of the language. Programming Perl beat it by leaps and bounds, even for people who aren't into programming.
Speaking of Dave... (this ripped directly from the Window Maker README):
"Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to please for God's sake read this owner's manual carefully before you unpack the device. You already unpacked it, didn't you? You unpacked it and plugged it in and turned it on and fiddled with the knobs, and now your child, the same child who once shoved a polish sausage into your videocassette recorder and set it on "fast forward", this child also is fiddling with the knobs, right??? We might as well just break these devices right at the factory before we ship them out, you know that?" -- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
(Had to retype most of this in lower case to get it to post. Anyone ever wonder if the lameness filter would filter itself?)
It's common knowledge with audiophiles and professional musicians that vacuum tubes are better than solid state technologies at reproducing sound.
But it's not-so-common knowledge that solid state technologies can reproduce the exact same sound as tube amps. In fact, digital equipment can reproduce any sound with any quality distinguishable to human ears.
Then why do we still keep hearing people remark about how tube amps are just "better" without offering any further explanation? The answer: tube amps add a defining "warm" quality to the sound, whereas solid state circuitry reproduces it quite a lot more accurately (but not always perfectly depending on your equipment, same goes for tube amps, actually) than tube amps. That is, without the "warm" quality.
It's not about quality or which is better, it's about the characteristics that get added to the sound due to the type of components in the circuitry.
I'm not bashing those who like tube amps, just pointing out that solid state and digital are not inferior, just more accurate. A lot of people don't want accurate sound, they want nice sound. I can't say I disagree with them, honestly.
Mwahaha, couldn't agree more. I'm still a rather inexperienced programmer and while I've dabbled in various languages, C is definitely the one that makes me shudder. They present it to you easily enough... at first. Ya know: These are variables, this is an array, these are for loops. And then all of the sudden its "Oh my god, how do I use pointers! How to define a structure?! HOLY SHIT, IF THIS 5-LINE FUNCTION SEGFAULTS ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO MURDER THE ENTIRE PLANET!!"
I'm sure we've all been there.
Re:Crappy moderation...
on
What Free Cable?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Uh, crack down on what exactly? They know damn well you're going to watch the basic cable that comes along with it. That's why the friggin service costs $50.
Check with all the other posts in this article: most of their cable companies make you subscribe to basic service and then add like $20 on top of that for broadband. Either way, it works out to around $50. I subscribe to Comcast, and the only difference here is that they charge $50 for the boardband and then imply that basic cable service comes free with the deal.
To wit: There's nothing sneaky going on, there's nothing the cable companies don't already know. You can't pirate that which is offered for free. It seems clear that C|net has written a very troll that the slashbots latched onto right away.
Re:Slashdot: News for thieves. Like ethics matter.
on
What Free Cable?
·
· Score: 2
Don't be ridiculous. This is like producing one CD for all of your products etc etc
This just in: analogies make shitty arguments. You can write analogies until the cows come and it doesn't make you any more correct. I wish slashbots would learn this...
I've been using Reiser on my production machines with not a single hiccup, and I know of many others who do the same. For that matter, ext3 is used (reliably) in a lot of places as well. rpmfind.net is one that comes to mind.
I know at least one guy who absolutely swears by XFS since it's not a "new" fs like Reiser and ext3 and has actually been used in production for years now. I'm thinking of giving it a try soon.
It's really hard to go wrong with any of the journaling filesystems available in Linux these days. The visible differences betweent them are fairly small and which one you choose will depend mainly on if you have any special needs. (For example, ext3 is forwards and backwards compatible with ext2, NFS is noted to be more cranky with some filesystems than others, etc.)
1.3 is just a number, a stake in the ground. The idea that 1.0 is the first stable release is a marketeerism, and I'm sure the Hurd kids don't have a bunch of MBAs on their back trying to help decide what the most strategic release number is.
Um, it's a sort of de facto standard that the version 1.0 release of any software (open source, public domain, or commecial) is assumed to be stable and ready for production use. I know that's not the case for a LOT of stuff out there, but that is the expected scenario. The GNU team are of course free to number their versions however they want, but if they're still working on getting basic features into the kernel and naming it 1.3 at the same time, then from my perspective, they are trying to mislead people on the actual status of the code.
If you think Hurd is rushed, you should put down the crackpipe.
Yeah, I'm afraid you're right. That was a really bad way to put it.
I seriously want to try out and play around with Hurd, but the last time I checked, the required hardware didn't even remotely match anything I have laying around.
Sheesh, and they're on version 1.3? It just looks a little suspect to me when the size difference between version 1.1.3 and 1.2 is over a megabyte of compressed code.
What's that about commercial software being rushed out the door incomplete?
I agree with you totally on the dependencies thing. That's the main reason I installed Slack about a year ago. I bought the Mandrake 8.0 Power Pack for something like $80, discovered it was crap, and downloaded Slackware 8.0. It's on all 3 of my machines now and I haven't looked back.
The downside: Of course, the obvious downside to using Slackware is time. You need to have heaps of time to learn and use it.
I think I disagree with this. The time spent on learning Slackware is time that you'll spend on learning Linux itself anyway. If you're coming from one of the Bells-and-Whistles distros (like RH, Mandrake, or Suse) then you'll actually save quite a bit of time because you aren't trapseing all over the whole system disabling things, getting rid of performance wasters, and closing security holes.
I'll bet I could customize a brand new Slackware install to my tastes within an hour. Doing the same with Mandrake (for example), used to take me upward of 2 or 3 entire evenings.
I don't think you understand the man at all. He doesn't want anything that isn't GNU to be called GNU. He does think that when you have the various distributions of 'Linux' which are bundles of the linux kernel and a bunch of other Free Software, a good portion GNU, you should call it GNU/LINUX. I don't think that's so crazy.
I don't think it's so crazy either, except that RMS is going after developers and geeks who already *know* the relationship that GNU has with Linux. He's not trying to persuade the distribution creators to change their names (to Red Hat GNU/Linux, for example). Instead he chastises a LUG... his own fans.
I don't disagree that RMS has done a *lot* more than most could ever dream of in the interests of free software. The GNU tools are great, but just as much as a kernel alone doesn't make an operating system, the inverse is also true. Much to Stallman's chagrin, a set of utilities and libraries do nothing at all if you don't have the kernel. (As many who have tried Hurd can attest to.)
Crucial tools without which a Free kernel could not be written - shells, fileutilities, compilers, text editors. The infrastructure of the Operating System.
On this page, Stallman would have everyone believe that the Linux kernel would never have even been written if it weren't for GNU. This is patently false. Torvalds designed the first stages of the Linux kernel on top of Minix, largely using Minix tools. But he knew all along that he wanted to get away from Minix and at the time, GNU had the most complete set of libraries and utilities available for free. (In fact, if I recall, it wasn't even Linus who started porting the GNU stuff over to Linux, it was other developers in it just for the hacking.)
But if GNU did not exist, then I promise you that people would have started writing their own or grabbing utilities and libraries from the net into a big collection for use with the kernel. There's more than one way to skin a/bin/cat, you know. The spirit of free software says that if what you need doesn't exist, write it and then share it. I have no doubt that Linus would have begun writing his own tools even if none at all were available.
Another argument: If development of the Linux kernel would have been delayed or started a couple years later, BSD's tools would have been in prime position to get ported to the Linux kernel. (But of course, then it is debatable whether Linux would have taken off at all.)
GNU tools are used on every Unix, on Apple systems, on Microsoft systems, on VMS even. The GNU tools literally made Linux possible, and Linux is not the only kernel on which the GNU tools and other Free Software can be combined to produce a complete functional and completely Free system.
Just because GNU tools have been ported to almost every OS doesn't really mean that they're being used on almost every OS. BSD offers GNU tools in ports, but they don't come with any BSD by default. Most BSD users just stick with the BSD tools, I think. Apple and Microsoft... good grief. Just because you *can* use bash or Emacs on Windows or Mac OS = 9 doesn't mean you should. (That was a joke.)
Hurd doesn't count as a "completely functional and completely Free system." (I'm honestly interested in hearing about which other kernels work in concert with the GNU tools. A BSD perhaps?) Likewise, the GNU tools are not the only software that can be combined with Linux to form a complete usable operating system. There is at least one group that has had success in getting the BSD tools ported to Linux and yet another who were creating their own tools from scratch. (Not sure on the current status of that last one.) I also seem to remember a commercial company who did this as well, only with proprietary tools. Needless to say, they don't seem to be around any more.
Don't get me wrong, I love GNU software. Much better than I like BSD's, even. But it was never the only choice for the early Linux kernel developers, just the easiest.
I'm not sure I understand your analogies. I still maintain that roller coaster parks make it quite clear that their rides are not entirely risk-free and that you assume any unforseen dangers arising due to your actions or state of health as soon as you sit down in the car. (Barring empoyee negligence and equipment failure, of course.)
I'm glad you found a workaround to your problem, (because I believe that riding a coaster is one of the more fun things that money can buy) but I still think any doctor would be telling you to cut out the roller coaster riding.
As an aside about the G-forces, I read in a magazine that the Air Force has developed a new anti-G-force suit that has a bunch of water-filled bladders in it. The same G-forces that force blood down toward your legs will also force water down there as well, which will in effect push back and lessen the amont of blood that leaves your upper body.
He's talking about the digital capcity of the network the wireless devices form, not the signals themselves. CB radio is to networks as public bulletin boards are to Time Magazine.
While I don't agree with your post, I would at least mod it up as Interesting if I had the points.:P
The problem that I have with RMS and his GNU/Linux charade is that he's harping on the wrong people.
Calling the whole operating system "Linux" probably started back in the day when developers would download the kernel (named Linux) and a couple of support utilities that happened to be from the GNU project. The exciting part of this was the kernel (named Linux) which came seemingly out of nowhere and was taking the then small open-source community by storm. It was the kernel that was the exciting part and thus when the devlopers referred to the system as a whole, they naturally just called it Linux, because that was the name of the exciting part and it happened to be fairly catchy.
Well, once development of the kernel fell into a rhythm and the ports of various utilities because fairly stable, some people thought it would be a good idea to package these systems up for easy distribution. At the time, developers were still referring to the operating system as a whole as "Linux" so of course all of the distribution titles had to have "Linux" in there somewhere as well.
Fast forward to somewhere around now. The kernel is a much smaller piece of the puzzle than it once was and the little operating system now does an order of magnitude of what it could even theoretically do before. It is also much more widespread and practically a household name. (I, for one, no longer get blank looks whenever I tell a perfect stranger what operating system I run at home.)
... But it's all still called "Linux." I remember reading something about the history of the Linux name and of it, I remember specifically that Linus had no idea what to call it and chose something crappy, but it was later renamed by the operator of the FTP server that one of the first kernels ever resided on. And "Linux" stuck because Linus didn't (and probably doesn't) really care what the hell the software is called, as long as it's a fine piece of code.
The people that RMS should be bitching at are the distribution creators themselves. If he is so adamant about the system being called "GNU/Linux," then he ought to be out there every day banging on the front doors of Red Hat, Suse, and Mandrake, begging them to prefix their product name with the recursive acronym GNU. He should not be berating the developers and users, or even his own fans for crying out loud. An entire user group was ready to change their name just to get him to speak.
IMHO, RMS really needs to try a slice of humble pie. He has lofty and noble dreams, but he acts like a child because they haven't been fully met. There are few free software advocates in this world who have done as much good as RMS has, but there comes a point where you just have to sit down and admit to yourself that you've done a pretty good job and leave it at that.
I think the main differences between the BSDs and Linux is that the BSDs come with their own tools and offer GNU tools as replacements as the administrator needs them. (For example BSD make supposedly does not cut the mustard for a lot of software's build scripts...) Whereas all serious Linux systems use the GNU tools by default.
My personal opinion is that RMS is nuts. With the crusade he's on, I'm amazed that newer versions of the GPL don't include a clause that say something to the effect of "Any derivitives or bundled software included with this product must be prefixed by the recursive acronym GNU."
My main gripe about RMS is that he's bitching to the wrong crowd about this. I think most people can agree that when they're talking about the entire Linux operating system, they merely say "Linux." I think most can also agree that replacing every instance of this with GNU/Linux is a mouthful. How often do you read a usenet post where the poster says "Microsoft Windows 98" or "Sun Microsystems Solaris" instead of simply "Windows" or "Solaris"?
The people RMS should be bitching to is the Linux distribution creators themselves. The ones who brand and market Linux for fun and/or profit. Especially since RMS stated in the article that his goal is not to educate those already involved with Linux (who already know that the GNU tools form a large part of the complete operating system), but those who don't know much, or anything, about Linux and the software that it is comprised of.
My perception on the whole dealie with the LUG(which may not be yours or anyone else's) is that RMS is saying "Pay homage to me or else."
The other thing I disagree strongly with:
Just consider: the GNU Project starts developing an operating system, and years later Linus Torvalds adds one important piece. The GNU Project says, "Please give our project equal mention," but Linus says, "Don't give them a share of the credit; call the whole thing after my name alone!" Now envision the mindset of a person who can look at these events and accuse the GNU Project of egotism. It takes strong prejudice to misjudge so drastically.
No, RMS, it takes strong bullheadedness to criticize so strongly the only reason your GNU tools are still alive today. (Not to mention putting words in people's mouths that they have never uttered.) And dear RMS, you also seem to have forgotton that Linus develops only the kernel and as such is free to call his kernel whatever the hell he wants. There is not even an ethical obligation to prefix the kernel itself with GNU. And here I thought that was only a mistake that newbies made...
I sincerely hope you don't go on *any* roller coasters any more after your experience. To do otherwise would just be plain foolish and dangerous to your health. IANAD, but I would suspect you have a condition that is highly aggrevated by extreme G-forces. I say this because thousands of other people ride roller coasters every single day and come away with no ill side-effects at all except a slight adrenaline rush.
All of the roller coaster parks that I've been to have big noticable signs at the entrance that say riding any ride in the park is done so at the customer's own risk. There are usually a list of policies and rules that you agree to abide by when you purchase your ticket and enter the park. Basically, anything that happens to you that isn't the fault of an equipment malfuntion is 100% your problem. This includes your headache. I've seen ride operators explictly forbid pregnant and elderly folks from riding. (And probably also to avoid potential lawsuits...) Generally, roller coaster park employees are very good at enforcing park and ride rules because their jobs depend on it.
For example, the roller coaster capitol of the world has their policies and procedures online as well as having printed copies available in locations throughout the park. The online copy is here.
Now on to the practical. The roller coaster park that I'm partial to has millions of visitors each year and I have not heard about a single death that occured due to the rides. (Yeah, you get a few morons who don't hydrate themselves and die of heatstroke in the hot summer sun or a few older folks that have heart attacks in the park itself, but nothing that can be attributed to maintenance or employee negligence.) For the record, I've never even heard of anyone dying of excess G-forces on a roller coaster prior to this slashdot article.
Now the legal. If people like you feel they can't handle roller coasters, then they should simply not ride them. Quite a shocker there, huh? I mean, doesn't this ring just a bit of hipocracy[sp]? It seems a lot like trying to pass a law making all alcoholic beverages less potent because every morning after you've been drinking heavily you wind up with a splitting headache. Laws like this (and indeed the government itself) are far too extreme for what the problem really is: people who do not know or intentionally disregard their own limitations.
If any action is really needed (which I do not think it is), then at most they should measure the G-forces of the coaster with some accelerometers (which most parks do already) and post a sign saying "The maximum G-Force of this ride x.x G's." If a patron has ridden coasters with a similar G-force rating and experienced ill side-effects, then they should not ride it.
Nah, that's just too simple. Wouldn't make sense to anybody.
Long as they stay out of Ohio, they can do whatever the piss the want. But you dumbass legislators even *think* about regulating my rides at the greatest roller coaster park in the world, then I'll ensure that Goatsecx Man looks like an amateur compared to you.
IANACDE (compact disc expert), but I remember reading an article once on the history of compact discs... the music CD format allowed for inaudible imperfections on the media itself when the disc is manufactured, but CDs to hold programs and such could have no imperfections or else the CD would be worthless... To get around this, there is supposedly error checking (and correction) built into data CD-ROMs. I have no idea how or if I'm even right, so I invite the clueful to correct me on this.
and, no, there is no such thing as "identity theft".
From that ignorant statement right there, I can tell you have no idea what "identity theft" is.
Tell me what you call it then, when somebody very expertly gains illegal access to every important piece of personal information that you have, and then make enormous fraudlent loans, purchases, and applications for credit cards whilst assuming your identity.
This exact thing happened to a very close friend of mine and it turned her life into a living hell. She has paid thousands of dollars in lawyers fees trying to get her financial status back on track and it's looking like it will never return to 100% normal.
A stolen credit card number is not identify theft. Identity theft occurs when a criminal assumes your whole identity: social security number, credit background, you name it. With that kind of information, they can apply for loans and open various types of accounts. It's not a simple matter of calling the credit card company and having them do all the work for you while you sit on your couch and sip lemonade as you apparently did.
And you can't just call up each company where the criminal did his business under your identity... First off, you have no idea which companies were involved until (for example) you get a bill collector calling you asking why you haven't yet paid the full balance for that $80,000 sports car.
You have absolutely no idea how well-connected businesses are when it comes to money... The aforementioned friend is still getting refusals from businesses and the occasional bank because of the identity theft. It's a lot easier for companies to mark a particular name and SSN down as an abuser of finances than it is to remove them from the same files.
My friend is not the only one. While there is all kinds of advice out there on the prevention of identity theft, there are no organizations that will help you recover after the damage has been done.
Trying to equate identity theft with piracy is almost the most absurd, stupid, and asinine things I've ever read on this website. Piracy (almost always) hurts no one whereas identity theft is impossible to totally recover from.
The only way to secure a transaction/service is to use physical ID/presense. So go shopping at the mall, and share ideas online. Simple solution to a complex problem.
Sorry, but I trust 128-bit SSL encryption about 1000 times more than I trust the Pimply-Faced Human Sales Proxy at Babbages or Sam Goody. I absolutely hate using my credit card at physical stores because I know how easy it is for them to jot down the number & expiration date or take home copies of the reciepts and trade the numbers online. (Hint: I know, because I once knew a person who did this several times. No, he didn't get caught because he wisely decided not to make a living out of it.)
Yes, even the most wired online store has humans somewhere behind it, but many online stores never keep a copy of your credit card number anywhere... Once the number is validated and your account charged, the purchasing server forgets about it. This is the way it should be for physical stores as well, but I have yet to see one operate in this manner.
I only use my credit card at retail locations if the bill is going to be over $60. 90% of the time I know what I'm going to be buying and how much it will cost before I go into a store. It's a trivial excercise to stop by the ATM and get whatever I need before doing my shopping.
What really pisses me off is restaurants that print your friggen credit card number right on the damned receipt! Reason #1 that I pay cash at all restaurants now too.
The word halitosis[sp] was actually invented by Listerine marketing in their earlier days. There was and is no such scientific term.
If you ever read a (third-party) history of Listerine's corporate life, they started out with this liquid but didn't know quite what to market it as. Proposed uses were an air freshener, shoe cleaner, and toilet bowl cleaner. They eventually hired some guy (now supposedly recognized as the person who brought hype-based advertising to the masses, I forget his name) who came up with the idea to market it as a mouthwash since none of the ingredients were known to be harmful if ingested.
Problem was, nobody bought the stuff. Toothpaste did a fine job, why on earth would one need to buy a separate item that only does half of what toothpaste did anyway? Here's where the marketing genius part came in. They ran a series of ads in newspapers and magazines at the time, each proclaiming the paraphrased message: "Do people shy away from you when you speak to them? Find that nobody approaches you at parties? Does your boss avoid you? You might have halitosis. And Listerine can cure halitosis. Halitosis is the devil and Listerine eliminates halitosis completely."
After these ads ran, Listerine sales increased orders of magnitude. Nobody realized at the time that with the help of the aforementioned marketing genius, Listerine made up the term halitosis completely on its own.
That's the story as I rememeber it. Anyone else reading this, feel free to point out mistakes and/or link to a more official version of this.
I have a strain of bacteria living along the outside edge of my bathroom sink that are resistant to everything I've thrown at them. I've gone so far as straight bleach and scrubbing with a toothbrush, and then rinsing the area thoroughly. "That'll get 'em this time," I always say. But sure enough, later that day, I see the thin familiar orange line of ogranic matter lining the edge of the sink.
I've just learned to live with them now. The tiny crevice they occupy hasn't gotten any larger in the last year that I've abstained from purposely attempting to obliterate them and so long as they don't mutate into a cockroach or Adam Sandler, they're fine with me.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes. I built a computer for my non-computer literate fiance recently (how sweet of me). She was using an earlier Netscape 4.x. Good that she's not using IE, but bad that she's using an ancient buggy browser.
So on her new computer, I put Mozilla 0.9.8 on instead of netscape 4.x. She complained loudly at first to the point where she said should wouldn't use the computer unless it had Netscape 4.x on it.
Yeah. Anyway, I made up a few excuses on why I couldn't get around to it right away. A few months later, I ask her what she thinks of Mozilla now and she says it's great! To the point where she's been trying to convince some of her friends to switch to Mozilla now.
Eh, the For Dummies series was a really great idea (and still is). But now the sitation is the same as that for the O'Reilly tech books: watch whichs ones you buy. They're not all good. Some plain suck. A few of the recent ones I've skimmed through were absolute shit. I remember reading a few of the very first For Dummies books: DOS for Dummies and HTML for Dummies. (The former was for the humour, the latter for actual information. This was a long time ago, though...)
Those two were actually quite good. But then the For Dummies publisher went ahead and starting hiring authors to write on every topic under the sun from piano playing to gardening to finances to beer. A year or two ago I saw a newer For Dummies book on Perl and skimmed through it at the bookstore. Wow did that suck. Not only was there absolutely no humour in it but the author apparently had no actual experience of the language. Programming Perl beat it by leaps and bounds, even for people who aren't into programming.
Speaking of Dave... (this ripped directly from the Window Maker README):
"Congratulations! You have purchased an extremely fine device that would give you thousands of years of trouble-free service, except that you undoubtably will destroy it via some typical bonehead consumer maneuver. Which is why we ask you to please for God's sake read this owner's manual carefully before you unpack the device. You already unpacked it, didn't you? You unpacked it and plugged it in and turned it on and fiddled with the knobs, and now your child, the same child who once shoved a polish sausage into your videocassette recorder and set it on "fast forward", this child also is fiddling with the knobs, right??? We might as well just break these devices right at the factory before we ship them out, you know that?"
-- Dave Barry, "Read This First!"
(Had to retype most of this in lower case to get it to post. Anyone ever wonder if the lameness filter would filter itself?)
It's common knowledge with audiophiles and professional musicians that vacuum tubes are better than solid state technologies at reproducing sound.
But it's not-so-common knowledge that solid state technologies can reproduce the exact same sound as tube amps. In fact, digital equipment can reproduce any sound with any quality distinguishable to human ears.
Then why do we still keep hearing people remark about how tube amps are just "better" without offering any further explanation? The answer: tube amps add a defining "warm" quality to the sound, whereas solid state circuitry reproduces it quite a lot more accurately (but not always perfectly depending on your equipment, same goes for tube amps, actually) than tube amps. That is, without the "warm" quality.
It's not about quality or which is better, it's about the characteristics that get added to the sound due to the type of components in the circuitry.
I'm not bashing those who like tube amps, just pointing out that solid state and digital are not inferior, just more accurate. A lot of people don't want accurate sound, they want nice sound. I can't say I disagree with them, honestly.
Mwahaha, couldn't agree more. I'm still a rather inexperienced programmer and while I've dabbled in various languages, C is definitely the one that makes me shudder. They present it to you easily enough... at first. Ya know: These are variables, this is an array, these are for loops. And then all of the sudden its "Oh my god, how do I use pointers! How to define a structure?! HOLY SHIT, IF THIS 5-LINE FUNCTION SEGFAULTS ONE MORE TIME I'M GOING TO MURDER THE ENTIRE PLANET!!"
I'm sure we've all been there.
Uh, crack down on what exactly? They know damn well you're going to watch the basic cable that comes along with it. That's why the friggin service costs $50.
Check with all the other posts in this article: most of their cable companies make you subscribe to basic service and then add like $20 on top of that for broadband. Either way, it works out to around $50. I subscribe to Comcast, and the only difference here is that they charge $50 for the boardband and then imply that basic cable service comes free with the deal.
To wit: There's nothing sneaky going on, there's nothing the cable companies don't already know. You can't pirate that which is offered for free. It seems clear that C|net has written a very troll that the slashbots latched onto right away.
Don't be ridiculous. This is like producing one CD for all of your products etc etc
This just in: analogies make shitty arguments. You can write analogies until the cows come and it doesn't make you any more correct. I wish slashbots would learn this...
Alternatively...
I've been using Reiser on my production machines with not a single hiccup, and I know of many others who do the same. For that matter, ext3 is used (reliably) in a lot of places as well. rpmfind.net is one that comes to mind.
I know at least one guy who absolutely swears by XFS since it's not a "new" fs like Reiser and ext3 and has actually been used in production for years now. I'm thinking of giving it a try soon.
It's really hard to go wrong with any of the journaling filesystems available in Linux these days. The visible differences betweent them are fairly small and which one you choose will depend mainly on if you have any special needs. (For example, ext3 is forwards and backwards compatible with ext2, NFS is noted to be more cranky with some filesystems than others, etc.)
1.3 is just a number, a stake in the ground. The idea that 1.0 is the first stable release is a marketeerism, and I'm sure the Hurd kids don't have a bunch of MBAs on their back trying to help decide what the most strategic release number is.
Um, it's a sort of de facto standard that the version 1.0 release of any software (open source, public domain, or commecial) is assumed to be stable and ready for production use. I know that's not the case for a LOT of stuff out there, but that is the expected scenario. The GNU team are of course free to number their versions however they want, but if they're still working on getting basic features into the kernel and naming it 1.3 at the same time, then from my perspective, they are trying to mislead people on the actual status of the code.
If you think Hurd is rushed, you should put down the crackpipe.
Yeah, I'm afraid you're right. That was a really bad way to put it.
I seriously want to try out and play around with Hurd, but the last time I checked, the required hardware didn't even remotely match anything I have laying around.
Sheesh, and they're on version 1.3? It just looks a little suspect to me when the size difference between version 1.1.3 and 1.2 is over a megabyte of compressed code.
What's that about commercial software being rushed out the door incomplete?
I agree with you totally on the dependencies thing. That's the main reason I installed Slack about a year ago. I bought the Mandrake 8.0 Power Pack for something like $80, discovered it was crap, and downloaded Slackware 8.0. It's on all 3 of my machines now and I haven't looked back.
The downside: Of course, the obvious downside to using Slackware is time. You need to have heaps of time to learn and use it.
I think I disagree with this. The time spent on learning Slackware is time that you'll spend on learning Linux itself anyway. If you're coming from one of the Bells-and-Whistles distros (like RH, Mandrake, or Suse) then you'll actually save quite a bit of time because you aren't trapseing all over the whole system disabling things, getting rid of performance wasters, and closing security holes.
I'll bet I could customize a brand new Slackware install to my tastes within an hour. Doing the same with Mandrake (for example), used to take me upward of 2 or 3 entire evenings.
This is exactly what I did with Slack 8.0 when it was new last year. Haven't looked back since. In fact, it's on all 3 of my systems now.
--Former Mandrake User
I don't think you understand the man at all. He doesn't want anything that isn't GNU to be called GNU. He does think that when you have the various distributions of 'Linux' which are bundles of the linux kernel and a bunch of other Free Software, a good portion GNU, you should call it GNU/LINUX. I don't think that's so crazy.
I don't think it's so crazy either, except that RMS is going after developers and geeks who already *know* the relationship that GNU has with Linux. He's not trying to persuade the distribution creators to change their names (to Red Hat GNU/Linux, for example). Instead he chastises a LUG... his own fans.
I don't disagree that RMS has done a *lot* more than most could ever dream of in the interests of free software. The GNU tools are great, but just as much as a kernel alone doesn't make an operating system, the inverse is also true. Much to Stallman's chagrin, a set of utilities and libraries do nothing at all if you don't have the kernel. (As many who have tried Hurd can attest to.)
Crucial tools without which a Free kernel could not be written - shells, fileutilities, compilers, text editors. The infrastructure of the Operating System.
On this page, Stallman would have everyone believe that the Linux kernel would never have even been written if it weren't for GNU. This is patently false. Torvalds designed the first stages of the Linux kernel on top of Minix, largely using Minix tools. But he knew all along that he wanted to get away from Minix and at the time, GNU had the most complete set of libraries and utilities available for free. (In fact, if I recall, it wasn't even Linus who started porting the GNU stuff over to Linux, it was other developers in it just for the hacking.)
But if GNU did not exist, then I promise you that people would have started writing their own or grabbing utilities and libraries from the net into a big collection for use with the kernel. There's more than one way to skin a
Another argument: If development of the Linux kernel would have been delayed or started a couple years later, BSD's tools would have been in prime position to get ported to the Linux kernel. (But of course, then it is debatable whether Linux would have taken off at all.)
GNU tools are used on every Unix, on Apple systems, on Microsoft systems, on VMS even. The GNU tools literally made Linux possible, and Linux is not the only kernel on which the GNU tools and other Free Software can be combined to produce a complete functional and completely Free system.
Just because GNU tools have been ported to almost every OS doesn't really mean that they're being used on almost every OS. BSD offers GNU tools in ports, but they don't come with any BSD by default. Most BSD users just stick with the BSD tools, I think. Apple and Microsoft... good grief. Just because you *can* use bash or Emacs on Windows or Mac OS = 9 doesn't mean you should. (That was a joke.)
Hurd doesn't count as a "completely functional and completely Free system." (I'm honestly interested in hearing about which other kernels work in concert with the GNU tools. A BSD perhaps?) Likewise, the GNU tools are not the only software that can be combined with Linux to form a complete usable operating system. There is at least one group that has had success in getting the BSD tools ported to Linux and yet another who were creating their own tools from scratch. (Not sure on the current status of that last one.) I also seem to remember a commercial company who did this as well, only with proprietary tools. Needless to say, they don't seem to be around any more.
Don't get me wrong, I love GNU software. Much better than I like BSD's, even. But it was never the only choice for the early Linux kernel developers, just the easiest.
I'm not sure I understand your analogies. I still maintain that roller coaster parks make it quite clear that their rides are not entirely risk-free and that you assume any unforseen dangers arising due to your actions or state of health as soon as you sit down in the car. (Barring empoyee negligence and equipment failure, of course.)
I'm glad you found a workaround to your problem, (because I believe that riding a coaster is one of the more fun things that money can buy) but I still think any doctor would be telling you to cut out the roller coaster riding.
As an aside about the G-forces, I read in a magazine that the Air Force has developed a new anti-G-force suit that has a bunch of water-filled bladders in it. The same G-forces that force blood down toward your legs will also force water down there as well, which will in effect push back and lessen the amont of blood that leaves your upper body.
He's talking about the digital capcity of the network the wireless devices form, not the signals themselves. CB radio is to networks as public bulletin boards are to Time Magazine.
While I don't agree with your post, I would at least mod it up as Interesting if I had the points. :P
The problem that I have with RMS and his GNU/Linux charade is that he's harping on the wrong people.
Calling the whole operating system "Linux" probably started back in the day when developers would download the kernel (named Linux) and a couple of support utilities that happened to be from the GNU project. The exciting part of this was the kernel (named Linux) which came seemingly out of nowhere and was taking the then small open-source community by storm. It was the kernel that was the exciting part and thus when the devlopers referred to the system as a whole, they naturally just called it Linux, because that was the name of the exciting part and it happened to be fairly catchy.
Well, once development of the kernel fell into a rhythm and the ports of various utilities because fairly stable, some people thought it would be a good idea to package these systems up for easy distribution. At the time, developers were still referring to the operating system as a whole as "Linux" so of course all of the distribution titles had to have "Linux" in there somewhere as well.
Fast forward to somewhere around now. The kernel is a much smaller piece of the puzzle than it once was and the little operating system now does an order of magnitude of what it could even theoretically do before. It is also much more widespread and practically a household name. (I, for one, no longer get blank looks whenever I tell a perfect stranger what operating system I run at home.)
... But it's all still called "Linux." I remember reading something about the history of the Linux name and of it, I remember specifically that Linus had no idea what to call it and chose something crappy, but it was later renamed by the operator of the FTP server that one of the first kernels ever resided on. And "Linux" stuck because Linus didn't (and probably doesn't) really care what the hell the software is called, as long as it's a fine piece of code.
The people that RMS should be bitching at are the distribution creators themselves. If he is so adamant about the system being called "GNU/Linux," then he ought to be out there every day banging on the front doors of Red Hat, Suse, and Mandrake, begging them to prefix their product name with the recursive acronym GNU. He should not be berating the developers and users, or even his own fans for crying out loud. An entire user group was ready to change their name just to get him to speak.
IMHO, RMS really needs to try a slice of humble pie. He has lofty and noble dreams, but he acts like a child because they haven't been fully met. There are few free software advocates in this world who have done as much good as RMS has, but there comes a point where you just have to sit down and admit to yourself that you've done a pretty good job and leave it at that.
I think the main differences between the BSDs and Linux is that the BSDs come with their own tools and offer GNU tools as replacements as the administrator needs them. (For example BSD make supposedly does not cut the mustard for a lot of software's build scripts...) Whereas all serious Linux systems use the GNU tools by default.
My personal opinion is that RMS is nuts. With the crusade he's on, I'm amazed that newer versions of the GPL don't include a clause that say something to the effect of "Any derivitives or bundled software included with this product must be prefixed by the recursive acronym GNU."
My main gripe about RMS is that he's bitching to the wrong crowd about this. I think most people can agree that when they're talking about the entire Linux operating system, they merely say "Linux." I think most can also agree that replacing every instance of this with GNU/Linux is a mouthful. How often do you read a usenet post where the poster says "Microsoft Windows 98" or "Sun Microsystems Solaris" instead of simply "Windows" or "Solaris"?
The people RMS should be bitching to is the Linux distribution creators themselves. The ones who brand and market Linux for fun and/or profit. Especially since RMS stated in the article that his goal is not to educate those already involved with Linux (who already know that the GNU tools form a large part of the complete operating system), but those who don't know much, or anything, about Linux and the software that it is comprised of.
My perception on the whole dealie with the LUG(which may not be yours or anyone else's) is that RMS is saying "Pay homage to me or else."
The other thing I disagree strongly with:
Just consider: the GNU Project starts developing an operating system, and years later Linus Torvalds adds one important piece. The GNU Project says, "Please give our project equal mention," but Linus says, "Don't give them a share of the credit; call the whole thing after my name alone!" Now envision the mindset of a person who can look at these events and accuse the GNU Project of egotism. It takes strong prejudice to misjudge so drastically.
No, RMS, it takes strong bullheadedness to criticize so strongly the only reason your GNU tools are still alive today. (Not to mention putting words in people's mouths that they have never uttered.) And dear RMS, you also seem to have forgotton that Linus develops only the kernel and as such is free to call his kernel whatever the hell he wants. There is not even an ethical obligation to prefix the kernel itself with GNU. And here I thought that was only a mistake that newbies made...
I sincerely hope you don't go on *any* roller coasters any more after your experience. To do otherwise would just be plain foolish and dangerous to your health. IANAD, but I would suspect you have a condition that is highly aggrevated by extreme G-forces. I say this because thousands of other people ride roller coasters every single day and come away with no ill side-effects at all except a slight adrenaline rush.
All of the roller coaster parks that I've been to have big noticable signs at the entrance that say riding any ride in the park is done so at the customer's own risk. There are usually a list of policies and rules that you agree to abide by when you purchase your ticket and enter the park. Basically, anything that happens to you that isn't the fault of an equipment malfuntion is 100% your problem. This includes your headache. I've seen ride operators explictly forbid pregnant and elderly folks from riding. (And probably also to avoid potential lawsuits...) Generally, roller coaster park employees are very good at enforcing park and ride rules because their jobs depend on it.
For example, the roller coaster capitol of the world has their policies and procedures online as well as having printed copies available in locations throughout the park. The online copy is here.
Now on to the practical. The roller coaster park that I'm partial to has millions of visitors each year and I have not heard about a single death that occured due to the rides. (Yeah, you get a few morons who don't hydrate themselves and die of heatstroke in the hot summer sun or a few older folks that have heart attacks in the park itself, but nothing that can be attributed to maintenance or employee negligence.) For the record, I've never even heard of anyone dying of excess G-forces on a roller coaster prior to this slashdot article.
Now the legal. If people like you feel they can't handle roller coasters, then they should simply not ride them. Quite a shocker there, huh? I mean, doesn't this ring just a bit of hipocracy[sp]? It seems a lot like trying to pass a law making all alcoholic beverages less potent because every morning after you've been drinking heavily you wind up with a splitting headache. Laws like this (and indeed the government itself) are far too extreme for what the problem really is: people who do not know or intentionally disregard their own limitations.
If any action is really needed (which I do not think it is), then at most they should measure the G-forces of the coaster with some accelerometers (which most parks do already) and post a sign saying "The maximum G-Force of this ride x.x G's." If a patron has ridden coasters with a similar G-force rating and experienced ill side-effects, then they should not ride it.
Nah, that's just too simple. Wouldn't make sense to anybody.
Long as they stay out of Ohio, they can do whatever the piss the want. But you dumbass legislators even *think* about regulating my rides at the greatest roller coaster park in the world, then I'll ensure that Goatsecx Man looks like an amateur compared to you.
Thank you and have a pleseant day.
IANACDE (compact disc expert), but I remember reading an article once on the history of compact discs... the music CD format allowed for inaudible imperfections on the media itself when the disc is manufactured, but CDs to hold programs and such could have no imperfections or else the CD would be worthless... To get around this, there is supposedly error checking (and correction) built into data CD-ROMs. I have no idea how or if I'm even right, so I invite the clueful to correct me on this.
and, no, there is no such thing as "identity theft".
From that ignorant statement right there, I can tell you have no idea what "identity theft" is.
Tell me what you call it then, when somebody very expertly gains illegal access to every important piece of personal information that you have, and then make enormous fraudlent loans, purchases, and applications for credit cards whilst assuming your identity.
This exact thing happened to a very close friend of mine and it turned her life into a living hell. She has paid thousands of dollars in lawyers fees trying to get her financial status back on track and it's looking like it will never return to 100% normal.
A stolen credit card number is not identify theft. Identity theft occurs when a criminal assumes your whole identity: social security number, credit background, you name it. With that kind of information, they can apply for loans and open various types of accounts. It's not a simple matter of calling the credit card company and having them do all the work for you while you sit on your couch and sip lemonade as you apparently did.
And you can't just call up each company where the criminal did his business under your identity... First off, you have no idea which companies were involved until (for example) you get a bill collector calling you asking why you haven't yet paid the full balance for that $80,000 sports car.
You have absolutely no idea how well-connected businesses are when it comes to money... The aforementioned friend is still getting refusals from businesses and the occasional bank because of the identity theft. It's a lot easier for companies to mark a particular name and SSN down as an abuser of finances than it is to remove them from the same files.
My friend is not the only one. While there is all kinds of advice out there on the prevention of identity theft, there are no organizations that will help you recover after the damage has been done.
Trying to equate identity theft with piracy is almost the most absurd, stupid, and asinine things I've ever read on this website. Piracy (almost always) hurts no one whereas identity theft is impossible to totally recover from.
The only way to secure a transaction/service is to use physical ID/presense. So go shopping at the mall, and share ideas online. Simple solution to a complex problem.
Sorry, but I trust 128-bit SSL encryption about 1000 times more than I trust the Pimply-Faced Human Sales Proxy at Babbages or Sam Goody. I absolutely hate using my credit card at physical stores because I know how easy it is for them to jot down the number & expiration date or take home copies of the reciepts and trade the numbers online. (Hint: I know, because I once knew a person who did this several times. No, he didn't get caught because he wisely decided not to make a living out of it.)
Yes, even the most wired online store has humans somewhere behind it, but many online stores never keep a copy of your credit card number anywhere... Once the number is validated and your account charged, the purchasing server forgets about it. This is the way it should be for physical stores as well, but I have yet to see one operate in this manner.
I only use my credit card at retail locations if the bill is going to be over $60. 90% of the time I know what I'm going to be buying and how much it will cost before I go into a store. It's a trivial excercise to stop by the ATM and get whatever I need before doing my shopping.
What really pisses me off is restaurants that print your friggen credit card number right on the damned receipt! Reason #1 that I pay cash at all restaurants now too.
The word halitosis[sp] was actually invented by Listerine marketing in their earlier days. There was and is no such scientific term.
If you ever read a (third-party) history of Listerine's corporate life, they started out with this liquid but didn't know quite what to market it as. Proposed uses were an air freshener, shoe cleaner, and toilet bowl cleaner. They eventually hired some guy (now supposedly recognized as the person who brought hype-based advertising to the masses, I forget his name) who came up with the idea to market it as a mouthwash since none of the ingredients were known to be harmful if ingested.
Problem was, nobody bought the stuff. Toothpaste did a fine job, why on earth would one need to buy a separate item that only does half of what toothpaste did anyway? Here's where the marketing genius part came in. They ran a series of ads in newspapers and magazines at the time, each proclaiming the paraphrased message: "Do people shy away from you when you speak to them? Find that nobody approaches you at parties? Does your boss avoid you? You might have halitosis. And Listerine can cure halitosis. Halitosis is the devil and Listerine eliminates halitosis completely."
After these ads ran, Listerine sales increased orders of magnitude. Nobody realized at the time that with the help of the aforementioned marketing genius, Listerine made up the term halitosis completely on its own.
That's the story as I rememeber it. Anyone else reading this, feel free to point out mistakes and/or link to a more official version of this.
I have to agree with (parts of) this post.
I have a strain of bacteria living along the outside edge of my bathroom sink that are resistant to everything I've thrown at them. I've gone so far as straight bleach and scrubbing with a toothbrush, and then rinsing the area thoroughly. "That'll get 'em this time," I always say. But sure enough, later that day, I see the thin familiar orange line of ogranic matter lining the edge of the sink.
I've just learned to live with them now. The tiny crevice they occupy hasn't gotten any larger in the last year that I've abstained from purposely attempting to obliterate them and so long as they don't mutate into a cockroach or Adam Sandler, they're fine with me.
And not everyone who reads
That's a bloody good thing.