'Computers don't need water' - Yeah, I know. I was extrapolating outwards: computers need people to operate them; if people are going to operate them they'll need (thinking prosaically here) to use toilets every so often...;)
As far as JWZ's statement goes, I didn't mean it in financial terms at all. You're right about the time spent aspect. And you're correct, I should have clarified this statement much more than I did.
What I meant was to implicitly ask the question, 'How much training on how to use Linux is being doled out together with the CD-ROMs?' Granted, NGOs and UNESCO are not likely to just donate software and then just walk away. But using the OS can't be taught all that quickly, no?
Thanks, roca =) You helped me to clear up some confusing bits.
The basic problem with your response is that it misinterprets the quandary. You are right when you say that IMF loans are being used incorrectly. However, they most certainly are *not* being used to further 'Keynesian' policies - how many of these loans support generalised welfare? Shelter? Unemployment insurance? The problem is that IMF and World Bank (you might as well throw the EBRD for good measure) both act to entrench *monetarist* and *classical liberal* policies (cf. Milton Friedman - and an aside to/. editors: It's not 'Friendman!').
I would agree that the imposition of Western labour laws *without* additional cultural memes (democratic practices and freedoms, a civil society amongst others) would be a mistake. But if you suggest that the US government is solely power-politics-oriented and does not pay much attention to economic affairs, then I would say you've made a gross oversimplification that doesn't hold together at all. I would argue that if anything corporations are much more indirectly dangerous than governments are - they're subtle fuckers, and they love a good scam when they see one.
I would like to mention here that developing countries often are disadvantaged both in relative and absolute terms in comparison with the West. This is relevant in that infrastructure is often lacking when considering Third World concerns. I believe that while using free software in this manner is no doubt A Good Thing, you often have to presume a great deal for this method of intellectual diffusion to work.
Having suitably-equipped machines with access to the Net is one. Cheap unmetered Net usage is another. And of course these two conditions predicate a whole slew of others, such as telephone infrastructure, electricity and water access, and so forth.
From what little I remember of my polisci courses, most of the disparity with regards to industrialised countries vs their developing neighbours has historically resulted from the siphoning-off of natural and human resources from the South to the North, under the rubric of imperialism, colonisation, and decolonisation. While the argument has been made in recent decades that 'leapfrogging' intermediate stages of development should be possible by southern nations, it has only been with further integration into the Western-dominated system that some countries have been able to prosper. This argument was perhaps most cogent with the Asian Tigers' hypothesis of ten to fifteen years ago. OK, so far so good.
But, [and you know there has to be a 'but'] this thesis of leapfrogging has a problem. I would argue that as worthy as giving away open source stuff is, it just simply is not enough. Too many things are taken for granted for the statement of 'Giving away software outside of the West is no question a great idea' to be effective. Take everyone's favourite OS. It's not quite there for normal desktop use. Still. In order to get it to normal usage one still has to spend a lot of time figuring out how to use it. What was that quote from the Unix-Haters' Handbook? 'Linux is only free if your spare time is worthless.'
I think this statement is probably even more applicable to other countries than it is to the West.
I would be interested to see what the Association for Progressive Communications would make of all this. They comprise a network of ISPs dedicated to spread and enhance Net-enabled communications between NGOs, ordinary citizens and the UN. They were responsible for handling telecom services during the Rio Summit and other international conferences.
Interesting questions, overambitious answers
on
Can Computers Pray?
·
· Score: 1
To the extent that computers doing anything is interesting, getting them to straightforwardly mimic human activity serves little purpose. These machines have even less soul than bacteria do, and yet they get anthropomorphosised into something eventually significant.
The **idea** is a fascinating one. But to the extent that it exists today, computing does not yet embody anything resembling soul, in any way. Everything else mentioned is merely cosmetic slightly pseudy window dressing as 'art'. The technology simply isn't that good yet.
Some sharp mind might even try to pair this up with Real Doll.
A quick note -- I don't particularly care about the moderation; I rather wanted to make a few points (I assume others have made these, but I've got to add my two cents' worth).
This was informative. No, that's not a pisstake. Everyone here got to see for themselves what a prat this idiot really is. I don't see the need to comment on him any further, as others have readily deconstructed him pretty thoroughly. I was surprised you originally chose him, given the depth of feeling that seemed to arise from both you and the users here, but thought that it was at least worth checking the idea out.
However, now that this [worthy] experiment has been concluded, it would be appropriate for you lot to exercise a bit more judgement in who you interview.
To reiterate: this isn't an anti-cracker thing -- your work with the cDc people split my sides more than once, and managed to be effectively informative as well as entertaining.
Your Bruce Schneier and John Carmack interviews in particular set some extremely high standards. How about some other cool people? The 'Three-Initial Mafia', as someone else said? Or Avie Tevanian at Apple? Or Theo DeRaadt over at OpenBSD? There's got to be no shortage of eligible/interesting folk out there...
On PBS (KCTS 9, Seattle) last night The Timor Conspiracy by John Pilger was broadcast. You may have seen it already; I saw it in London on ITV just after the network decided it was losing too many viewers with too many Heartbeat repeats -- this would have been about eight months ago.
In the show explicit notice is given that the Australian security services were electronically monitoring the fall of East Timor to the Indonesians; they were able to pinpoint precisely where an Australian news team were abducted and later executed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Various former heads of governmental departments were interviewed, including Whitelaw. Several of these people stated unequivocally that they used electronic surveillance to get as much information as possible. Echelon specifically is not named, but the implication is clear: this thing exists. How far it goes, is anyone's guess.
Converting to Debian from Red Hat?
on
Debian Freezing
·
· Score: 1
Hey ppl
Eight or so months ago I happened across a simple text file at the Debian website that described in depth how to convert one's system to Debian from RH. It seems to have completely disappeared, probably due to widening gaps between D and RH (2.2.x, updates to X, etc). If *ANYONE* has the slightest idea where I can find it please please PLEASE post a reply up here or to me personally. I'm willing to wager many people would love to see this file back up.
...as these are possibly the *shittiest* motherboards I've ever seen. I have never, never, ever experienced as much pain with a computer as I have with a PC Chips motherboard. Add to that the horror of trying to fathom out a Linux installation in the pre-GUI with no prior experience and you have a recipe for baldness that I would recommend to anyone wanting more stress in their lives.
Just to give you a taster: 1. Mobo runs SS7 chips at exactly half their rated speed. Any BIOS-level adjustment upwards results in kernel panics and signal 11 crashes. 2. Complete failure to recognise Xfree86 when originally installed. 3. I decided a couple of months ago to replace the case. So I ripped out the mobo and put it in the new case. Exactly according to the mobo instructions. What happened? No video. At all.
Finally I decided to cannibalise the machine entirely. The replacement, an Abit BH6 with an overclocked Celeron 400 (-->500), goes like stink and the Linux HDD is so much happier it practically shouts out with joy every time I boot up.
I hope to hell Corel doesn't end up regretting this. With the current speculation in Canada over the company's future it may be that their marketing department fucked up things yet again. If they actively chose PC Chips as a partner I would take that as evidence of their own stupidity.
...for Corel to be there. Corel might be one of the crown jewels of the Central Canadian region in high-tech businesses, but the fact that the National Capital Region is *the* hub for the federal government means that there will always be companies ready to do the establishment's bidding. In essence Corel is neither here nor there as far as the NCR is concerned; other firms will fill the gap should the company prove inadequate to the task. I suspect that Corel's success or failure will have sweet FA to do with Cowpland himself -- this post above slices and dices the argument much better than I could.
I wonder how much of these was the result of the Open Content initiative, as well as others such as the directory.mozilla.org and Gutenberg projects. Anyone have any ideas?
Please post your thoughts back to Debian itself!
on
Debian Retail on CNN
·
· Score: 1
This would expand (OK, just a little bit, but you get the idea) the userspace info on the distro a touch -- would this not be useful too?
This AC is correct. Why the hell haven't you looked at the reports *and learned to read them properly?!*
Where the hell was the Gartner Group URL?
If you want to forward yourselves as viable alternatives to mainstream media (a la Jane's), you have to look into things with an eye towards some journalistic integrity, even if those very same mainstreamers don't apply those standards themselves.
This applies equally here as to the whole Jesux controversy -- you really fucked up badly by engaging in petty blackmail ('You'd better change your login!'), seriously intentioned or not.
In upgrading my 2.2.1x kernel I noticed that the order in which the task is done is important. Make sure that the order in which you configure and compile is *exactly* the same. Perhaps a stupid thing to mention, but I'd been caught out on this more than once (OK, so maybe I'm an idiot!).
The relevance of *this* distribution getting recognition should be immediately obvious. Debian is the only mainstream distro that is not put together by a software company, it's put together by volunteers.
I would suspect that VA Linux, O'Reilly and SGI looked at Corel and Storm and thought, 'hey, let's beef it up but keep it as a conduit for further development'. What I mean by this is that by explicitly advocating Debian **as a branded product in its own right** they avoid the interminable 'Linux-is-fragmenting' arguments.
That being said, tho', I take your point about the slow (too-slow) updating process -- it's actually the only reason why I haven't gone off Red Hat yet.
Go to non-US domain registrars
on
Dirty Domains
·
· Score: 2
Just ignore those guys. I have an e-mail address at www.fuckyou.co.uk (no, sorry, no e-mail listing here 8) - can't recall where I heard about it originally... go have fun if you're into it...
I think doing the article this way is asking for excessive digression -- at this stage. Take a look at the comments posted already. The best way (in my opinion--feel free to disregard this) to approach this is to **first** provide an editorial structure, or scaffolding, if you will, of topics in this area you want to consider. Then ask Slashdotters their opinions on the subject areas. If you don't provide at least **some** editorial guidance your job will be made a hell of a lot harder.
I was talking to my father yesterday and he happened to mention that he suffered from the condition last year. He noticed that while changing his wrist position helped the real culprit seemed to be what he ate.
He found that if he stopped eating sweet foods on a daily basis (ie/ had only a sweet or some ice cream once a week) the condition disappeared totally.
Slashdot Mirror
'Computers don't need water' - Yeah, I know. I was extrapolating outwards: computers need people to operate them; if people are going to operate them they'll need (thinking prosaically here) to use toilets every so often... ;)
As far as JWZ's statement goes, I didn't mean it in financial terms at all. You're right about the time spent aspect. And you're correct, I should have clarified this statement much more than I did.
What I meant was to implicitly ask the question, 'How much training on how to use Linux is being doled out together with the CD-ROMs?' Granted, NGOs and UNESCO are not likely to just donate software and then just walk away. But using the OS can't be taught all that quickly, no?
Thanks, roca =) You helped me to clear up some confusing bits.
The basic problem with your response is that it misinterprets the quandary. You are right when you say that IMF loans are being used incorrectly. However, they most certainly are *not* being used to further 'Keynesian' policies - how many of these loans support generalised welfare? Shelter? Unemployment insurance? The problem is that IMF and World Bank (you might as well throw the EBRD for good measure) both act to entrench *monetarist* and *classical liberal* policies (cf. Milton Friedman - and an aside to /. editors: It's not 'Friendman!').
I would agree that the imposition of Western labour laws *without* additional cultural memes (democratic practices and freedoms, a civil society amongst others) would be a mistake. But if you suggest that the US government is solely power-politics-oriented and does not pay much attention to economic affairs, then I would say you've made a gross oversimplification that doesn't hold together at all. I would argue that if anything corporations are much more indirectly dangerous than governments are - they're subtle fuckers, and they love a good scam when they see one.
I would like to mention here that developing countries often are disadvantaged both in relative and absolute terms in comparison with the West. This is relevant in that infrastructure is often lacking when considering Third World concerns. I believe that while using free software in this manner is no doubt A Good Thing, you often have to presume a great deal for this method of intellectual diffusion to work.
Having suitably-equipped machines with access to the Net is one. Cheap unmetered Net usage is another. And of course these two conditions predicate a whole slew of others, such as telephone infrastructure, electricity and water access, and so forth.
From what little I remember of my polisci courses, most of the disparity with regards to industrialised countries vs their developing neighbours has historically resulted from the siphoning-off of natural and human resources from the South to the North, under the rubric of imperialism, colonisation, and decolonisation. While the argument has been made in recent decades that 'leapfrogging' intermediate stages of development should be possible by southern nations, it has only been with further integration into the Western-dominated system that some countries have been able to prosper. This argument was perhaps most cogent with the Asian Tigers' hypothesis of ten to fifteen years ago. OK, so far so good.
But, [and you know there has to be a 'but'] this thesis of leapfrogging has a problem. I would argue that as worthy as giving away open source stuff is, it just simply is not enough. Too many things are taken for granted for the statement of 'Giving away software outside of the West is no question a great idea' to be effective. Take everyone's favourite OS. It's not quite there for normal desktop use. Still. In order to get it to normal usage one still has to spend a lot of time figuring out how to use it. What was that quote from the Unix-Haters' Handbook? 'Linux is only free if your spare time is worthless.'
I think this statement is probably even more applicable to other countries than it is to the West.
I would be interested to see what the Association for Progressive Communications would make of all this. They comprise a network of ISPs dedicated to spread and enhance Net-enabled communications between NGOs, ordinary citizens and the UN. They were responsible for handling telecom services during the Rio Summit and other international conferences.
To the extent that computers doing anything is interesting, getting them to straightforwardly mimic human activity serves little purpose. These machines have even less soul than bacteria do, and yet they get anthropomorphosised into something eventually significant.
The **idea** is a fascinating one. But to the extent that it exists today, computing does not yet embody anything resembling soul, in any way. Everything else mentioned is merely cosmetic slightly pseudy window dressing as 'art'. The technology simply isn't that good yet.
Some sharp mind might even try to pair this up with Real Doll.
Then we'd really need a smoke or six...
This is all just a little too strange for me... but I like it!
Time for another blunt, methinks
...but you might be right about this.
One point in contravention: What if Crusoe is not in fact an embedded processor that functions like others we've seen up to now?
'Gates', or did you mean, 'Clinton'?
People have got to get their names right. Misrepresenting facts like this opens everyone to the possibility of libel suits and other such nastiness.
Hi guys
A quick note -- I don't particularly care about the moderation; I rather wanted to make a few points (I assume others have made these, but I've got to add my two cents' worth).
This was informative. No, that's not a pisstake. Everyone here got to see for themselves what a prat this idiot really is. I don't see the need to comment on him any further, as others have readily deconstructed him pretty thoroughly. I was surprised you originally chose him, given the depth of feeling that seemed to arise from both you and the users here, but thought that it was at least worth checking the idea out.
However, now that this [worthy] experiment has been concluded, it would be appropriate for you lot to exercise a bit more judgement in who you interview.
To reiterate: this isn't an anti-cracker thing -- your work with the cDc people split my sides more than once, and managed to be effectively informative as well as entertaining.
Your Bruce Schneier and John Carmack interviews in particular set some extremely high standards. How about some other cool people? The 'Three-Initial Mafia', as someone else said? Or Avie Tevanian at Apple? Or Theo DeRaadt over at OpenBSD? There's got to be no shortage of eligible/interesting folk out there...
So who decided that feces was a good shade to imitate?
Thank you gas -- here we go... off to check it out.
Cheers Chris, greatly appreciated!!
Methinks I'll wait 'til the commercial vn of Debian comes out. Still no 'Net access...
On PBS (KCTS 9, Seattle) last night The Timor Conspiracy by John Pilger was broadcast. You may have seen it already; I saw it in London on ITV just after the network decided it was losing too many viewers with too many Heartbeat repeats -- this would have been about eight months ago.
In the show explicit notice is given that the Australian security services were electronically monitoring the fall of East Timor to the Indonesians; they were able to pinpoint precisely where an Australian news team were abducted and later executed for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Various former heads of governmental departments were interviewed, including Whitelaw. Several of these people stated unequivocally that they used electronic surveillance to get as much information as possible. Echelon specifically is not named, but the implication is clear: this thing exists. How far it goes, is anyone's guess.
Hey ppl
Eight or so months ago I happened across a simple text file at the Debian website that described in depth how to convert one's system to Debian from RH. It seems to have completely disappeared, probably due to widening gaps between D and RH (2.2.x, updates to X, etc). If *ANYONE* has the slightest idea where I can find it please please PLEASE post a reply up here or to me personally. I'm willing to wager many people would love to see this file back up.
Cheers
...as these are possibly the *shittiest* motherboards I've ever seen. I have never, never, ever experienced as much pain with a computer as I have with a PC Chips motherboard. Add to that the horror of trying to fathom out a Linux installation in the pre-GUI with no prior experience and you have a recipe for baldness that I would recommend to anyone wanting more stress in their lives.
Just to give you a taster:
1. Mobo runs SS7 chips at exactly half their rated speed. Any BIOS-level adjustment upwards results in kernel panics and signal 11 crashes.
2. Complete failure to recognise Xfree86 when originally installed.
3. I decided a couple of months ago to replace the case. So I ripped out the mobo and put it in the new case. Exactly according to the mobo instructions. What happened? No video. At all.
Finally I decided to cannibalise the machine entirely. The replacement, an Abit BH6 with an overclocked Celeron 400 (-->500), goes like stink and the Linux HDD is so much happier it practically shouts out with joy every time I boot up.
I hope to hell Corel doesn't end up regretting this. With the current speculation in Canada over the company's future it may be that their marketing department fucked up things yet again. If they actively chose PC Chips as a partner I would take that as evidence of their own stupidity.
...for Corel to be there. Corel might be one of the crown jewels of the Central Canadian region in high-tech businesses, but the fact that the National Capital Region is *the* hub for the federal government means that there will always be companies ready to do the establishment's bidding. In essence Corel is neither here nor there as far as the NCR is concerned; other firms will fill the gap should the company prove inadequate to the task. I suspect that Corel's success or failure will have sweet FA to do with Cowpland himself -- this post above slices and dices the argument much better than I could.
I wonder how much of these was the result of the Open Content initiative, as well as others such as the directory.mozilla.org and Gutenberg projects. Anyone have any ideas?
This would expand (OK, just a little bit, but you get the idea) the userspace info on the distro a touch -- would this not be useful too?
Just a thought.
Dudes,
This AC is correct. Why the hell haven't you looked at the reports *and learned to read them properly?!*
Where the hell was the Gartner Group URL?
If you want to forward yourselves as viable alternatives to mainstream media (a la Jane's), you have to look into things with an eye towards some journalistic integrity, even if those very same mainstreamers don't apply those standards themselves.
This applies equally here as to the whole Jesux controversy -- you really fucked up badly by engaging in petty blackmail ('You'd better change your login!'), seriously intentioned or not.
As far as I know Apt will do it, in a simpler fashion than RPM. Seems to be better configured for the power user than RPM.
In upgrading my 2.2.1x kernel I noticed that the order in which the task is done is important. Make sure that the order in which you configure and compile is *exactly* the same. Perhaps a stupid thing to mention, but I'd been caught out on this more than once (OK, so maybe I'm an idiot!).
I guess this explains the retention of memories in the face of my extreme cannabis intake...
The relevance of *this* distribution getting recognition should be immediately obvious. Debian is the only mainstream distro that is not put together by a software company, it's put together by volunteers.
I would suspect that VA Linux, O'Reilly and SGI looked at Corel and Storm and thought, 'hey, let's beef it up but keep it as a conduit for further development'. What I mean by this is that by explicitly advocating Debian **as a branded product in its own right** they avoid the interminable 'Linux-is-fragmenting' arguments.
That being said, tho', I take your point about the slow (too-slow) updating process -- it's actually the only reason why I haven't gone off Red Hat yet.
Just ignore those guys. I have an e-mail address at www.fuckyou.co.uk (no, sorry, no e-mail listing here 8) - can't recall where I heard about it originally... go have fun if you're into it...
Mr Ingles,
I think doing the article this way is asking for excessive digression -- at this stage. Take a look at the comments posted already. The best way (in my opinion--feel free to disregard this) to approach this is to **first** provide an editorial structure, or scaffolding, if you will, of topics in this area you want to consider. Then ask Slashdotters their opinions on the subject areas. If you don't provide at least **some** editorial guidance your job will be made a hell of a lot harder.
Just my devalued two cents' Canadian
twilight
(yah, I know my sig's screwed up!)
I was talking to my father yesterday and he happened to mention that he suffered from the condition last year. He noticed that while changing his wrist position helped the real culprit seemed to be what he ate.
He found that if he stopped eating sweet foods on a daily basis (ie/ had only a sweet or some ice cream once a week) the condition disappeared totally.
Just passing the message along.