As most other posters (so far) seem to be saying "These people are cluseless about unix."
Okay, there were no graphcisla file mamagers in 1982, but come on people this is 2000. Sun has had graphcics filemanager since they were trying to get everyone to sue their own propritary window system over X. They have had one for X for years. That is over course one example.
I happen to like unix, with the many different approaches that work togather. If they were working on a standard way to make all file managers interoperate (so I can drag a file from KFM to the irix dumpster for example) more power to them. But to say that I should use their file manager over the 100+ out there? Forget it, I'll use a different one just to be contary.
I don't think these people understand that unix still has a following amoung people who don't care if anyone else can use it or not, only that they can get their work done with speed.
To put it anouther way, my prefered default shell is csh Not tcsh, sh, ksh, zsh, bash, or any of a number of less well known choices that all get the job done. Yeah you can make arguements against csh, but I'm used to those idiocryncies and there is no clear advantage of switching. (of course when I'm root I use sh) Likewise I use tcl not perl or python (either of which is better suited) to write my simple scripts. (again, scripts for starting up the system are sh - though now perl is a part of most base systems)
Re:PKI and other issues, Interlock protocol
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SSH v. SRP
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This won't work for all man in the middle cases. Consider this:
1)A sends B is public key C intercepts that key can changes it to his public key 3)B sends A his public key 4)C intercpets and changes 5)A sends C a message encrypted with C's public key. 6)C decrypts and recrypts with B`s public key 7) B sends half the message encrypted. You get the idea
Remember for this to work A and B have to have no non-seceret knowledge of the other that C does not share, and C needs compete high speed access to the entire data stream. Of course if any step is accomplished where C cannot get it (snail mail? federal crime, but doable. Meeting face to face can be fixed too, with impersonators.)
In the end you have to take some risk. Then again, if A and B know so little about each other and are doing buisness that is sensitive enough to encrypt they probably don't trust each other at all anyway.
When you realise that anyone can find an exception to what you're saying, it should occur to you that maybe that's because there are rather a lot of exceptions?
Of course there are many of them. Doesn't change the fact that when comparing normal men with normal women doing the same amount of exercise the man will be stronger. Since in the real world none of the other variables are constant there will be exceptions.
As an example, I know a girl who can sing lower then me. She has an adnormally low voice, and I'm a normal tenor. Stating that exception does not make false any claim that men have lower voices then women. Thats the point I was trying to get across: an exception doesn't invalidate the rules.
Sure, the body shape is female, but that doens't make them female. Gender is more then just body shape. It is no coicidence that men are stronger then women. Oh sure, a really in shape girl can out run me, or lift more then me, but if I as a normal male started exercising that much I would be able to out do the girls in any strenth contest. It is all about testostorne and a few other hormons.
No look closely at the so called girl players. They are men in strenght every aspect. Many guys in high school play sports (okay, not/.) and are in peak shape about the age of most game charicters. Most girls, even if in the same sport are not as strong. Oh they might be more agile (I don't have knowlede here, but I don't think aglilness is gender related - can anyone clarify?) but they do not have the strength to do the things that men can do. Very few people can do what Lora is doing in tomb raider, but men will have a much easier time devolping that strenght.
So my point is these are not girls they are playing, they are men with the overt features of women.
Now in D&D it is possibal to play the opposite gender, but video games don't provide that. Even in D&D type games, can you really say that you are doing a good job? I tried it once, and I won't again - girls think differently, it isn't something I can put my finger one, but they do. Now maybe with some study I could duplicate that ability, but not now.
Note, when I say that girls are different from men I'm trying not to put judgements on it. Yes men are stronger, but that doesn't mean better. And calling women weaker should not be used to imply they are not strong enough since for most tasks they are plenty strong. And thinking different is something that I can't put my finger on and even then you have to realise that I don't think like most men either.
When games get female roles that are female and male roles that are male, without reverting to sterotypes then we can compare.
See a lot of discussion in rec.arts.interactive-fiction (or whatever the group is) on the subject of gender. It turns out to be hard to do gender correctly.
P.S. All generalzations are false. Be careful when/if composing a rebuttal that your not pointing out and exception. Anyone can find an exception.
It is impossibal to be unbiased, but we want unbiased. NPR for instance is credited of having great news, but listen closely and you realise they are baised for big goverment - they tend to cut off those advocating cuts as soon as they can without sounding like cutting them off. One person I know puts it this way: He reads the Syndny (Austrila) paper, the London (UK) paper, and the New York Paper (US). He would read more if he could read more languages. Each paper has a bias, and this way he can at least cancel them out. Get togather with Those papers, and agree that each will put togather one section of "important issues" from their area. That secion will be run included as is in each paper, and must be made only of stories included in their paper. The goal is to get their bias exactly as they have it. Anti-US if that is what their bias is on the news. Don't let them write specail watered down stories for you, get the meat of the matter and include it in it's entirity.
Learn to seperate news for human interest. The Kennidy plane crash of last summer comes to mind. This nobody, who had never done anything made the front page, and was considered a great tragity above the dealth of a friend of mine. When you look at it, neither one had done anything news worthy, but one had parents who did do newsworthy things. (BTW, don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing him for not being newsworthy, that is his choice - there is nothing wrong with making it and I respect him for making that choice. But the fact remains he wasn't news worthy) Likewise we have the Diana/Mother Theresa deaths, one which outweighed the other. In fact both were human interest and neither were news. For that matter in the US a obsolete royality of anouther country is not news whatsoever. (Except that it would be in the london section if you took my advice of the last paragraph. )
Speaking of Mother Theresa, hsa anyone really examined the critics of her? I was brought up being told continuiosly that she was a saint despite religious differences. Latter I found some critcism in less trust worthy places that I can't quite discount because it adds up. REport those stories. News is not always nice to read, and your job is to present that side, even if unpopular. Assuming of course that it is true.
Try making the comic interesting. Calvin and Hobbes won't come back, but find other commited ARTISTs who can draw something interesting. Yes this is fun, but all work and no play makes jonny a dul boy as it were. There must be come artists out there with talent that you can give half a page a week to. (Note I said half a page a week. If a creative person can't create enough for something every day give them once a week. Your columists don't all write every day. My favoirte columnists appears only on wednesday and sunday.)
Remember filler isn't everything. If you have enough ads for 50 pages, but only enough news for 20 pages under the normal forumla then raise the ad prices until you get the same income from 20 pages of well researched news and the rest of the advertisers decide to go elsewhere.
It is impossibal to be unbiased. Ideally every story would be jointly written by two people with explictily different biases. Send a rebublican and a democrat to the Democratic national convention and give each half the space. (If you have the sapce send a socalist, libratarian too, but evetially you can't afford to pay that many reporters and you miss the little important things because each wants to cover the same big thing)
When the newspapers become relavant I'll read them, but the fact is most days what appears on the front page is filler. Maybe it is the biggest news story of the day, but it isn't really important.
I've found that every 5-6 months it becomes painful to type. At this point I need to take a week of vacation (Not less then a week, I've tried it) and let things heal. Come back to typing and I'm fine..
Those weeks of vacation are to do things that do not involve typing. Sometimes I go to a week long church retreat, other times I go hunting and fishing. Maybe just remodel the kitchen. Doesn't matter so long as I'm not using typing motions.
Between vacations I find wrist splints help - though what helps most is not using the mouse.
A (vague) friend of mine wrote a program he called image spider (for OS/2 I belive) , which did essentially the same thing. He got a threatening letter from some website, and lacking the money to fight the battle he ended up shutting down.
My mom and my grandmother can both read. Both have not problem playing solitary, and they can write down all the nessicay steps to do so. THey could log into a cli, startx, move to the xterm and type xsol -preferences sol.pref -conf sol.conf -other stragne_option. If that is really what it takes. Yeah they'd hate it and wouldn't understand, but they can do this. They can even write down how to log out after words and do it.
My uncle has 4 kid, the oldest is 6. I setup microsoft networking so he can print on his new computer (via some old 10base2 network that I discarded) to the old 486 that still runs quicken just fine but won't do the games that the kids play. The kids however cannot figgure out how to get past that log in screen. I had to disable that. He is better off using sneaker net (which he can figgure out via written insctructions) so that the kids can play their games.
The kids can turn the comptuer on, and they can use the mouse to double click the game application on the desktop. Chaninging a CDROM is byond their abilites. (The oldest can do that, but the 3 year old would scratch the cd if they left them in her reach, and yes the three year old plays games on the computer)
I've heard that KDM is a login that kids have a chance to use, if there is no password on the games account. (I can prevent the games account from loging in via anything but local connection if security is a concern) Can kids use the rest of the system? I've not tried to set my system up that way so I can't make more comments in this area.
PS, why are their so few kids games for unix? We could use a few decerate the treehouse things that I see the kids enjoying now.
What is the license? What is the cost? What are the required system specs (speed)? Will I be able to get this is Debian/other distribution, or do I have to buy the offical redHad? Will it work in FreeBSD linux emullation? Will it take advantage of SMP to allow two slower (not half speed) CPUs to do the same work?
I can make some guesses: Not open source, $40, PII-250 with 32 meg of ram, Yes, Yes, NO. Those are guesses, but they seem reasonable. I'd say that at least one is wrong though.
Too bad I couldn't find any of that information in the press release.
Everyone hears about the $600 hammer (The versions I've heard have all ben $600, not $400, but it doesn't matter), and $1000 toilet seats. Those stories all miss the rest of the picture: when a detailed study is done the govermetn did not pay too much.
That hammer was missing from a tool kit used in explosive enviroments. Therefore the hammer had to not react with the chemicals used, and it could not cause a spark when used! Normal iron doesn't qualify, and the metal they used really is exepnsive enough to justify the hammer being sold for $600. You cannot go to your local hardware store and buy this hammer off the shelf. You might find one that can order one, but you too will pay $600 for it. (probably more, after inflation)
Likewise the $1000 toilet seat is not a normal $20 hardware store model. It was destined to go in the space shuttle, and had to deal with zero g. Those with dirty minds might enjoy figguring out all the things that can go wrong, but I prefer not to go down that path.
I'll agree that goverment spends too much money, but the problem is too many programs, not waste in the accual spending. Many CEOs have discovered that after laying off 1000 people in a year they have exactly the same number of people on the payroll - they didn't cut any projects, and the projects needed to be staffed, so they had to hire that many back. The goverment needs to cut some projects. However now you get into old people who say "Yeah, cut welfare as I don't use it, but keep the FDA so that the medican I need is safe." To which the kid who made a mistake and now has to raise a kid without a good education responds "Cut that FDA, medican is safe enoguh and I don't use any, but keep welfare because I'll need it for anouther year before I can make it on my own." And so on.
My expirence is that those of you across the pond have no idea how big the US is. When we travel there most people ask "Whats New York like?" And I respoond "Whats Moscow like?". It is farther from my house to New York (city) then from most europiean houses to Moscow! I live in Minneapolis, so I'm not in the middle.
Lets put your trip this way: If you drive the speed limits (I recomend it, as some towns finance their police with speeding tickets) without stoping, don't get lost, you will arrive on the third day. This means that you only stop for gas, and grab a meal on teh run. You don't see the scenery this way, nor do you get any sleep. The last is the worse I suppose, but I don't recomend that style anyway. Slow down, there are a lot of wierd things along the way. (I'm not sure how to put it, some people think it is beatiful, others think it looks like a faceless coproration raped the land, though in fact that is how God made it [whatever you want to substitute for God])
So plan your time, figgureing 100 km/h as your speed when driving, (55 mph is 98 km/h, and better get used to american speeds) and have fun. Maybe you should take a shorter trip, but see more along the way. Of course if you have a month that is different.
Other general recomendataions: Most things are cheaper in the US. I know a couple (From Swizterland) who came here a couple years back, bought a gas grill to use on their trip, and then shiped the gas grill home. They figgure they are money ahead on the grill, since the trip was partially buisness. Likewise have the clothes on your back, and not much more. You probably don't have cowboy clothes, which are the normal attire in some areas, for practical reasons. If you decide to take in some areas you would do well to dress like the locals. (Not like the movies which is how most tourists dress, the locals idea of cowboy dress is different from what you would think) Clothes are dirt cheap, consider donating them to goodwill when you leave. Have you considered going backwords? Sometimes people rent a car to drive to a city when they move, leaving extra cars in one area, and not as many in anouther. (This is very common with moving vans, less so with cars)
Blieve the signs that say last gas, and remember the next station may not be open when you get there. I don't know if you will go through that areas where lack of stations is a problem, but if you do.
Have fun. That is most important. If you can't get a net connection one day, don't curse, just do something else.
FreeBSD: The most worked on. Closest compition to Linux. Runs fast, many belive faster then Linux, but this depends on many variables, and both are playing leapfrog with speed, and working on different areas. (in particular, until linux 2.2 FreeBSD had better networking, and until FreeBSD 4.0 linux has better SMP, and linux may still be different) If you are a normal PC user and want to try something else this is the best bet.
NetBSD: The most protable. The NetBSD folks have more useful ports then anything else, and they are all running from the same source. (Note, linux has more ports, but netBSD has more useable ports) If you find a strange platform in a basement someplave netBSD is most likly to run, and probably easiest to get running it it doens't currently run.
OpenBSD: orginialy a netBSD plus a few minor changes (thus in theory it is easially ported, but most ports are not maintained, so it is less useful on random platforms) OpenBSD has seen several years go by without a remotely exploitable security hole in the distribution. IF security is important, this is the one for you. I should note there that distribution in the *BSD sense is more equivelent to Debian or Redhat in the linux sense, thus even if the linux kernel was perfect if there was a hole in something else suppliled with the kernel openBSD would call it a hole. This isn't to say that linux can't be made secure, or that openBSD cannot be made to leak like a sieve, only that by default it doesn't. (In other words openBSD is a tool that helps security conscience administrators, but the incompitant administrator will destroy that)
As a programer I prefer the *BSDs. *BSD takes the additude of do it right the first time, while linux is more do it quick, and fix the bugs latter. That isn't to say that nobody takes the time to figgure out the right way in linux, because many do. However a there are also parts that were not well designed. Of course saying that parts of linux were not well designed is not ment to imply that all of *BSD was. Confused yet? Good, you should be because in the end the only thing for sure is you need to try them all and decide for yourself what you like best.
This is not religion. You won't burn in hell for chosing the wrong one. You won't burn in hell for trying something new once you find out which is the real best OS.
Okay, we agree that it isn't worth it to send the shuttle up in space to mine all the gold that is hanging around for the taking in orbit.
Lets change the parameters slightly. You send the shuttle up for some unrelated mission. Repair the hubble or whatever. Now take a day, however much the shuttle can safely get back to earth, and leave. No it isn't profitable on its own. But if you have a payload that will pay for a one way trip, and nothing profitable to take on the return trip, you can still make money with the unprofitable because you have to come back anyway. So long as the cost of one extra day in space (when nothing else is going on, is less then the worth of the gold on earth you come out ahead. So using yourn figgure, the cost to repair the hubble is no longer $500 million, but 500-220 = 280 million dollars. Still a great cost to tax payers, but much less then otherwise.
Of course this ignores the effect on the price of gold. Not that it matters, since there isn't unlimited amounts of gold un orbit just waiting for someone to take.
Simply put, you open letter is a good start. However is only half done. You need to offer a better suggestion. This orginization in the end simply wants to protect their kids.
One scare tatic I've heard (and suppsidly this is true. Lets assume for the sake of discussion that it is true) is a mother noticed some rowdy kids in the library, looking at a comptuer. She walked by with her kid and saw the kids looking at porn. The mother then talked to the head librarian, who said that they can't do anything - the moment they try to censor this stuff the first admendment advocates get on their case.
In the above situation I want to note a few things. First, this was a public place, second, kids (not adults) were looking at it without their parents knowlege. Third, this is not something that can be called research.
The open letter above has showed that the filtering software doesn't work well. (It would be nice if you could have found a porn site that was not blocked. These come and go all the time, so you would have to be quick, but I think it can be done) However by not doing anything we get the situation above. Very few/. readers would agree that children should be able to view something that goes against their parents or the publics beliefs. (Note that this is a bit broad. We can all find exceptions, where parents are in cults.)
So the next step is propose an alternate solution: In Minnestoa for instance it is illegal to view porn in a public place, and illegal [for anyone but parents] to expose kids to violance or porn. This puts the issue back in the parents hands, and librarians can simply walk by, and if anyone, adult or kid is looking at porn you call the police and let the courts deal with it.
I much prefer a general, broad, law that covers all aituations to several targeted laws.
Couple months ago AOL was sued under the Americans with Disabilities act. I'd find that case, point the corprate lawyers to it and let them at it. BTW, keep notes so you can prive you warned the lawyers - if they ignore you and the company is sued you are holding a smoking gun. You can then show the lawyers were negligant, and anything to get the lawyers is good. And if they fight the battle like to keep the company legal, so much the better. Anyone else see the irony of a medical website that is not accessable? The elderly after all are the ones who need drugs the most, and the elderly typically have worse eyesite then younger people.
There was a general leading his troops across the desert. One day the troops dutifully brought him the last helmet full of water. The general poured it on the ground saying "If my troops don't drink I don't drink." While this sounds good, and it makes you popular, it isn't the best style. (But if it is your style there is nothing big wrong with it) The problem is when you need to make hard decisions. You lose popularity, and this leader works best on popularity.
Then there is the slave driver. I mean the old fashoned kind that was not afraid to use the whip, and I'm not talking metaphoricly. This leader has no respect, but he gets the work done. He probably gets it done the fastest too, speed of work is all he really has to work on, and so you work fast to avoid the whip. Fortunatly modern laws have eliminated this guy. Lets pray it stays that way.
Next look at the big shot in his fancy office. He may be a great leader, but you don't see him. You hear (through the chain of commmand) his orders, and you obey. He gets all the fancy stuff. Despite this remoteness he inspires loyality if he is good. And you have only his decision to judge him on, so if he is a good decision maker you think well of him. Unfortunatly this is the hardest to do well. (IMHO) This guy lives on the power he has, and dies on it. Because he is remote it doesn't take many bad decisions before he either has to leave or step up enforcement of his decisions. (kings do the latter, in a modern company the board votes him out much faster)
There is the cheerleader. This person doesn't really make decisions, but can be an efficeive leader in some situations. I don't know much mroe about it though, I've only heard it exists.
There are two important things that a leader needs to do: make decisions, and enforce them. The leader can change his mind. The leader can (except for the slave driver should) listen to underlings. In the end though, the leader needs to enforce his decisions in whatever way needed.
I have known bad leader who were liked, and bad leaders who were hated. I've known good leaders who were liked and good leader who were hated. The part that makes them good is making the right decision quickly (often without enough information, but they are allowed to change their mind - though a leader who changes his mind too often is making bad decisions), then following up on it. I hate the latter part, when I'm leading good people who do what I tell them to do I like leading when they don't do what I tell them to, or are lazy about it I hate leading. That isn't to say I force them to do stupid things, I like the smart person who will tell me I've made the wrong decision, or can change midstream to a more improtant task if an emergency pops up.
Leaders cannot associate with underlings too much. You can be distant friends, play in the same band socially. But if you get too close you start to fell personal when you have to make hard decisions involving them. (do they get a cost of living raise and a big raise to the new guy who is very sharp, or split the limited money for saleries between them. How can you give a friend trying to raise 3 kids and pay for the house a small raise when you know his fininacial problems?)
There are many different styles of leadership that work. Some give you more respect then others. Pick one that works for you, but beware, if you are the dump the water out if there isn't enough, then you can never buy a yacht even though your company needs one to take clients on. The gold plated limo leader can't pour the water on the ground though either.
One last thought: I once worked for a person who was a good leader, but she saw a gap above her, filled that, and it turne dout to take all her time. She ended up not leading well because this one area consumed her time, but didn't have the power to deligate it to others either. She is gone now because of that. Make sure your leaders know their number one job and they don't forget that.
Its been said that more buisnesses fail due to bad management then all other reasons combined. This is true, so get good management. Techies who are barely compitent can get the job done if management recignises their weakness and plans for it. (note that I'm not suggesting you get less then the best techs)
Watch the cash flow. Every month get a summery of all the money you have, and how much you spent. Get it noterized as correct every three months. (a previous poster mentioned that bogus books were showed to him - make sure you have a good case for a law suit if the books are bogus) Don't take anyone's word for how well you are doing. Bad management will show up in cash flow first so know what the bottom line is. After a few months you should get a feel for how much you normally spend. Once you have a general idea figgure out if you have enough money to make it to release.
My dad got involved in a spin off with 15 others, and a product that was pulling in 15 million/year and would for the next 5 years. They looked at the cash flow one month and decided to send my dad out as a contractor for a week. They needed cash flow now, and even though they would get 15 million this year, money in july (or whenever) doesn't pay the bills until then. They had to make a choice when doing this, and it means that their next version will be a couple weeks latter, but at least they won't go belly up with lots of money coming in latter. (Fortunatly the manager that arranged that spin off "quit for personal reasons" a few months latter - I own stock in and work for the parent company I was not happy about losing that income stream)
BTW, you have heard that 50% of all buisness fail in the first year. I just read in the news paper (but I can't remember which one, so you should research this or call it hear-say) that 85% of startups make it.
I work for STK (The company that owns the tape storage market for big companbies with lots of data) Our customers already have this problem.
Nasa (Which has all that satalite and other automaticly collected data that needs to be stored. Not all of it has been processed yet despite being 20 years old or more) They are in the habbit of migrating to the latest tape technology every couple years. (3? no more then 6) because the latest and greatest allows them to get double the storage in the same space. they do this not only for the space savings, but also to keep that data from getting unreadable.
They are not alone, but I can't remember the specifics. (I'm also not sure I'm allowed to mention more)
STK equpiment has a reputation of reliability. Then again, you pay minimum of $20,000 for a tape drive and it goes up to $150,000. (Or buy the OEMed DLT drives for $6,000)
As a linux user, right not the best you can do is copy to a new medium every couple years. Make sure you do a verified write, and keep a copy offsite. (in case of fire if not protection from over zealious law enforcement) Better yet is a vaulting company, which do in fact exist, but they are immature at this point. (Meaning that you shouldn't trust your data to them without research into them, there are good ones and there are those that will lose your data. Pricing may also be more then you want to spend) I would not trust any one media to be my backup.
Remember that most data isn't worth backing up. (linux source - except for local mods that are not yet in the source,/usr, most jpegs . ..) Think carefully, what is worth saving to backup? Probably "My dog by jessica age 6" (momentos of youe kids), pictures of the family, the project you are working on today. Tax records (for three years in most cases). There is more, but the majority of your 50 gig hard drive isn't worth the bother.
Don't forget what other have said about reliability of the medium. They appear to have more data then me so I don't cover that ground. They had other insiteful things to say too.
You probably can't do a buisness. However, since you are donating your time, this can probably count. I don't know if your time is deductable, but you can look into that angle.
If the judge ever sentences you to 180 hours of comunity service or something, you should be able to count this - but don't cheat or the judge will check up on you. (I'd say don't commit a crime, but with DVD and encryption, sometimes the crime is worth comitting as a protest means. But that is your buisness)
I am neither a lawyer or a tax advisor. These are to be taken as ideas to looked into further to see which if any are legal. They may not be legal.
Didn't you See the c compiler that built a trojan verson of login, and had the sense to compile it's trojan version of login into all c compilers it compiled even thoguh the source didn't have it? Was a/. artical not too long ago.
I can get 14.4k right now through my cell phone. Still pay airtime though, so I don't consider it a big win. I'm still waiting for reasonably priced high speed access, but belive me, I've considered this more then once.
While other posters are correct that Eurpoe is ahead of the US in wireless, that is partially because our land lines phones aren't as expensive. When you have to pay 10 cents a minute to call you may as well have the convience of a cell phone. When it doesn't cost you anything (extra) to use the land phone vs 10 cents a minute for the cell, you try to use the land line phone wherever possibal. (Note that 10 cents is a estimate, and not intended to reflect accual prices which vary)
All in all this is good though. It brings my dream of the floating office closer to reality. I can't wait until the time when I work from the lake.
I've seen many upgradabout systems. I've never seen anyone upgrade one. Tommorows technology makes it into the mobotherboard rather quickly, and you turn out to want that.
Besides, how do you know what will come. A guy at church keeps complaining to me that he bought a PII-233, and the motherboard is documented to go up to 500mhz. He can't do it though, because when they released the chips faster then 300 intel changed the rules slightly. (I'm not sure if it is voltage, bus speed or something else)
I would say that you are best off buying a good system now, and putting a network card in it. When you buy the greater system in a few years everything will change. (Maybe it will be athalon, or maybe the successer) with a simple network you have either a comptuer in the living room and the den, or at least a comptuer for good head to head gaming when friends come over.
That aside, I bought a dual ppro a couple years ago, and the only thing that makes me consider replacing it is the fan noise. And I in fact followed my philsophy, the 386 the ppro replaced is still running in a closet somewhere - it still has my USR courior modem and I got email last night) Granted it can't do much by todays standard, but if I'm ever in that closet I have a terminal.
Remember, these are not geeks we are talking to. Some of these people are smart (but not on computers), and others are stupid. (I also know some stupid geeks, so the score is even) You need to talk to their level.
I strongly recomend analgies that they understand. For instance, I bought a manual for my car published by one "Haynes" company. For those who don't know, this company buys a car, and takes it apart. Point out to the beurocrats that they are reverse engineering and that any decision to prohibit reverse engineering computers must also prohibit reverse this company from reverse engineering cars.
If anyone else can come up with good examples, please post them. It would be nice if/. would then find the best of the best for anouther artical, but that might be asking too much.
While e-mail is okay, snail mail is better, so spend some money on stamps.
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As most other posters (so far) seem to be saying "These people are cluseless about unix."
Okay, there were no graphcisla file mamagers in 1982, but come on people this is 2000. Sun has had graphcics filemanager since they were trying to get everyone to sue their own propritary window system over X. They have had one for X for years. That is over course one example.
I happen to like unix, with the many different approaches that work togather. If they were working on a standard way to make all file managers interoperate (so I can drag a file from KFM to the irix dumpster for example) more power to them. But to say that I should use their file manager over the 100+ out there? Forget it, I'll use a different one just to be contary.
I don't think these people understand that unix still has a following amoung people who don't care if anyone else can use it or not, only that they can get their work done with speed.
To put it anouther way, my prefered default shell is csh Not tcsh, sh, ksh, zsh, bash, or any of a number of less well known choices that all get the job done. Yeah you can make arguements against csh, but I'm used to those idiocryncies and there is no clear advantage of switching. (of course when I'm root I use sh) Likewise I use tcl not perl or python (either of which is better suited) to write my simple scripts. (again, scripts for starting up the system are sh - though now perl is a part of most base systems)
This won't work for all man in the middle cases. Consider this:
1)A sends B is public key
C intercepts that key can changes it to his public key
3)B sends A his public key
4)C intercpets and changes
5)A sends C a message encrypted with C's public key.
6)C decrypts and recrypts with B`s public key
7) B sends half the message encrypted.
You get the idea
Remember for this to work A and B have to have no non-seceret knowledge of the other that C does not share, and C needs compete high speed access to the entire data stream. Of course if any step is accomplished where C cannot get it (snail mail? federal crime, but doable. Meeting face to face can be fixed too, with impersonators.)
In the end you have to take some risk. Then again, if A and B know so little about each other and are doing buisness that is sensitive enough to encrypt they probably don't trust each other at all anyway.
When you realise that anyone can find an exception to what you're saying, it should occur to you that maybe that's because there are rather a lot of exceptions?
Of course there are many of them. Doesn't change the fact that when comparing normal men with normal women doing the same amount of exercise the man will be stronger. Since in the real world none of the other variables are constant there will be exceptions.
As an example, I know a girl who can sing lower then me. She has an adnormally low voice, and I'm a normal tenor. Stating that exception does not make false any claim that men have lower voices then women. Thats the point I was trying to get across: an exception doesn't invalidate the rules.
Sure, the body shape is female, but that doens't make them female. Gender is more then just body shape. It is no coicidence that men are stronger then women. Oh sure, a really in shape girl can out run me, or lift more then me, but if I as a normal male started exercising that much I would be able to out do the girls in any strenth contest. It is all about testostorne and a few other hormons.
No look closely at the so called girl players. They are men in strenght every aspect. Many guys in high school play sports (okay, not /.) and are in peak shape about the age of most game charicters. Most girls, even if in the same sport are not as strong. Oh they might be more agile (I don't have knowlede here, but I don't think aglilness is gender related - can anyone clarify?) but they do not have the strength to do the things that men can do. Very few people can do what Lora is doing in tomb raider, but men will have a much easier time devolping that strenght.
So my point is these are not girls they are playing, they are men with the overt features of women.
Now in D&D it is possibal to play the opposite gender, but video games don't provide that. Even in D&D type games, can you really say that you are doing a good job? I tried it once, and I won't again - girls think differently, it isn't something I can put my finger one, but they do. Now maybe with some study I could duplicate that ability, but not now.
Note, when I say that girls are different from men I'm trying not to put judgements on it. Yes men are stronger, but that doesn't mean better. And calling women weaker should not be used to imply they are not strong enough since for most tasks they are plenty strong. And thinking different is something that I can't put my finger on and even then you have to realise that I don't think like most men either.
When games get female roles that are female and male roles that are male, without reverting to sterotypes then we can compare.
See a lot of discussion in rec.arts.interactive-fiction (or whatever the group is) on the subject of gender. It turns out to be hard to do gender correctly.
P.S. All generalzations are false. Be careful when/if composing a rebuttal that your not pointing out and exception. Anyone can find an exception.
It is impossibal to be unbiased, but we want unbiased. NPR for instance is credited of having great news, but listen closely and you realise they are baised for big goverment - they tend to cut off those advocating cuts as soon as they can without sounding like cutting them off. One person I know puts it this way: He reads the Syndny (Austrila) paper, the London (UK) paper, and the New York Paper (US). He would read more if he could read more languages. Each paper has a bias, and this way he can at least cancel them out. Get togather with Those papers, and agree that each will put togather one section of "important issues" from their area. That secion will be run included as is in each paper, and must be made only of stories included in their paper. The goal is to get their bias exactly as they have it. Anti-US if that is what their bias is on the news. Don't let them write specail watered down stories for you, get the meat of the matter and include it in it's entirity.
Learn to seperate news for human interest. The Kennidy plane crash of last summer comes to mind. This nobody, who had never done anything made the front page, and was considered a great tragity above the dealth of a friend of mine. When you look at it, neither one had done anything news worthy, but one had parents who did do newsworthy things. (BTW, don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing him for not being newsworthy, that is his choice - there is nothing wrong with making it and I respect him for making that choice. But the fact remains he wasn't news worthy) Likewise we have the Diana/Mother Theresa deaths, one which outweighed the other. In fact both were human interest and neither were news. For that matter in the US a obsolete royality of anouther country is not news whatsoever. (Except that it would be in the london section if you took my advice of the last paragraph. )
Speaking of Mother Theresa, hsa anyone really examined the critics of her? I was brought up being told continuiosly that she was a saint despite religious differences. Latter I found some critcism in less trust worthy places that I can't quite discount because it adds up. REport those stories. News is not always nice to read, and your job is to present that side, even if unpopular. Assuming of course that it is true.
Try making the comic interesting. Calvin and Hobbes won't come back, but find other commited ARTISTs who can draw something interesting. Yes this is fun, but all work and no play makes jonny a dul boy as it were. There must be come artists out there with talent that you can give half a page a week to. (Note I said half a page a week. If a creative person can't create enough for something every day give them once a week. Your columists don't all write every day. My favoirte columnists appears only on wednesday and sunday.)
Remember filler isn't everything. If you have enough ads for 50 pages, but only enough news for 20 pages under the normal forumla then raise the ad prices until you get the same income from 20 pages of well researched news and the rest of the advertisers decide to go elsewhere.
It is impossibal to be unbiased. Ideally every story would be jointly written by two people with explictily different biases. Send a rebublican and a democrat to the Democratic national convention and give each half the space. (If you have the sapce send a socalist, libratarian too, but evetially you can't afford to pay that many reporters and you miss the little important things because each wants to cover the same big thing)
When the newspapers become relavant I'll read them, but the fact is most days what appears on the front page is filler. Maybe it is the biggest news story of the day, but it isn't really important.
Thats right, I said that I, an acknolwged full blown geek spent over one week without using a computer, and further I do this on atwice yearly basis!
Accually it isn't bad. Kinda interesting to see how primitive people manage to survive. It didn't kill me, and in fact was fun in a way.
I've found that every 5-6 months it becomes painful to type. At this point I need to take a week of vacation (Not less then a week, I've tried it) and let things heal. Come back to typing and I'm fine..
Those weeks of vacation are to do things that do not involve typing. Sometimes I go to a week long church retreat, other times I go hunting and fishing. Maybe just remodel the kitchen. Doesn't matter so long as I'm not using typing motions.
Between vacations I find wrist splints help - though what helps most is not using the mouse.
A (vague) friend of mine wrote a program he called image spider (for OS/2 I belive) , which did essentially the same thing. He got a threatening letter from some website, and lacking the money to fight the battle he ended up shutting down.
My mom and my grandmother can both read. Both have not problem playing solitary, and they can write down all the nessicay steps to do so. THey could log into a cli, startx, move to the xterm and type xsol -preferences sol.pref -conf sol.conf -other stragne_option. If that is really what it takes. Yeah they'd hate it and wouldn't understand, but they can do this. They can even write down how to log out after words and do it.
My uncle has 4 kid, the oldest is 6. I setup microsoft networking so he can print on his new computer (via some old 10base2 network that I discarded) to the old 486 that still runs quicken just fine but won't do the games that the kids play. The kids however cannot figgure out how to get past that log in screen. I had to disable that. He is better off using sneaker net (which he can figgure out via written insctructions) so that the kids can play their games.
The kids can turn the comptuer on, and they can use the mouse to double click the game application on the desktop. Chaninging a CDROM is byond their abilites. (The oldest can do that, but the 3 year old would scratch the cd if they left them in her reach, and yes the three year old plays games on the computer)
I've heard that KDM is a login that kids have a chance to use, if there is no password on the games account. (I can prevent the games account from loging in via anything but local connection if security is a concern) Can kids use the rest of the system? I've not tried to set my system up that way so I can't make more comments in this area.
PS, why are their so few kids games for unix? We could use a few decerate the treehouse things that I see the kids enjoying now.
What is the license? What is the cost? What are the required system specs (speed)? Will I be able to get this is Debian/other distribution, or do I have to buy the offical redHad? Will it work in FreeBSD linux emullation? Will it take advantage of SMP to allow two slower (not half speed) CPUs to do the same work?
I can make some guesses: Not open source, $40, PII-250 with 32 meg of ram, Yes, Yes, NO. Those are guesses, but they seem reasonable. I'd say that at least one is wrong though.
Too bad I couldn't find any of that information in the press release.
Everyone hears about the $600 hammer (The versions I've heard have all ben $600, not $400, but it doesn't matter), and $1000 toilet seats. Those stories all miss the rest of the picture: when a detailed study is done the govermetn did not pay too much.
That hammer was missing from a tool kit used in explosive enviroments. Therefore the hammer had to not react with the chemicals used, and it could not cause a spark when used! Normal iron doesn't qualify, and the metal they used really is exepnsive enough to justify the hammer being sold for $600. You cannot go to your local hardware store and buy this hammer off the shelf. You might find one that can order one, but you too will pay $600 for it. (probably more, after inflation)
Likewise the $1000 toilet seat is not a normal $20 hardware store model. It was destined to go in the space shuttle, and had to deal with zero g. Those with dirty minds might enjoy figguring out all the things that can go wrong, but I prefer not to go down that path.
I'll agree that goverment spends too much money, but the problem is too many programs, not waste in the accual spending. Many CEOs have discovered that after laying off 1000 people in a year they have exactly the same number of people on the payroll - they didn't cut any projects, and the projects needed to be staffed, so they had to hire that many back. The goverment needs to cut some projects. However now you get into old people who say "Yeah, cut welfare as I don't use it, but keep the FDA so that the medican I need is safe." To which the kid who made a mistake and now has to raise a kid without a good education responds "Cut that FDA, medican is safe enoguh and I don't use any, but keep welfare because I'll need it for anouther year before I can make it on my own." And so on.
Considering there is no country by the name of Holland I'd say that this Holland library is not in that country is a good guess.
Or maybe you ment the Country of the Nethererlands, which has a state called Holland?
In any case this Holland refers to a small town in Michigan, a State of the US.
PS, while you can be forgiven for not knowing where Holland Michigan is, mistaking Holland for the Netherlands is unexcusable, even if it is common.
Not exactly on topic, but anyway...
My expirence is that those of you across the pond have no idea how big the US is. When we travel there most people ask "Whats New York like?" And I respoond "Whats Moscow like?". It is farther from my house to New York (city) then from most europiean houses to Moscow! I live in Minneapolis, so I'm not in the middle.
Lets put your trip this way: If you drive the speed limits (I recomend it, as some towns finance their police with speeding tickets) without stoping, don't get lost, you will arrive on the third day. This means that you only stop for gas, and grab a meal on teh run. You don't see the scenery this way, nor do you get any sleep. The last is the worse I suppose, but I don't recomend that style anyway. Slow down, there are a lot of wierd things along the way. (I'm not sure how to put it, some people think it is beatiful, others think it looks like a faceless coproration raped the land, though in fact that is how God made it [whatever you want to substitute for God])
So plan your time, figgureing 100 km/h as your speed when driving, (55 mph is 98 km/h, and better get used to american speeds) and have fun. Maybe you should take a shorter trip, but see more along the way. Of course if you have a month that is different.
Other general recomendataions: Most things are cheaper in the US. I know a couple (From Swizterland) who came here a couple years back, bought a gas grill to use on their trip, and then shiped the gas grill home. They figgure they are money ahead on the grill, since the trip was partially buisness. Likewise have the clothes on your back, and not much more. You probably don't have cowboy clothes, which are the normal attire in some areas, for practical reasons. If you decide to take in some areas you would do well to dress like the locals. (Not like the movies which is how most tourists dress, the locals idea of cowboy dress is different from what you would think) Clothes are dirt cheap, consider donating them to goodwill when you leave. Have you considered going backwords? Sometimes people rent a car to drive to a city when they move, leaving extra cars in one area, and not as many in anouther. (This is very common with moving vans, less so with cars)
Blieve the signs that say last gas, and remember the next station may not be open when you get there. I don't know if you will go through that areas where lack of stations is a problem, but if you do.
Have fun. That is most important. If you can't get a net connection one day, don't curse, just do something else.
FreeBSD: The most worked on. Closest compition to Linux. Runs fast, many belive faster then Linux, but this depends on many variables, and both are playing leapfrog with speed, and working on different areas. (in particular, until linux 2.2 FreeBSD had better networking, and until FreeBSD 4.0 linux has better SMP, and linux may still be different) If you are a normal PC user and want to try something else this is the best bet.
NetBSD: The most protable. The NetBSD folks have more useful ports then anything else, and they are all running from the same source. (Note, linux has more ports, but netBSD has more useable ports) If you find a strange platform in a basement someplave netBSD is most likly to run, and probably easiest to get running it it doens't currently run.
OpenBSD: orginialy a netBSD plus a few minor changes (thus in theory it is easially ported, but most ports are not maintained, so it is less useful on random platforms) OpenBSD has seen several years go by without a remotely exploitable security hole in the distribution. IF security is important, this is the one for you. I should note there that distribution in the *BSD sense is more equivelent to Debian or Redhat in the linux sense, thus even if the linux kernel was perfect if there was a hole in something else suppliled with the kernel openBSD would call it a hole. This isn't to say that linux can't be made secure, or that openBSD cannot be made to leak like a sieve, only that by default it doesn't. (In other words openBSD is a tool that helps security conscience administrators, but the incompitant administrator will destroy that)
As a programer I prefer the *BSDs. *BSD takes the additude of do it right the first time, while linux is more do it quick, and fix the bugs latter. That isn't to say that nobody takes the time to figgure out the right way in linux, because many do. However a there are also parts that were not well designed. Of course saying that parts of linux were not well designed is not ment to imply that all of *BSD was. Confused yet? Good, you should be because in the end the only thing for sure is you need to try them all and decide for yourself what you like best.
This is not religion. You won't burn in hell for chosing the wrong one. You won't burn in hell for trying something new once you find out which is the real best OS.
Okay, we agree that it isn't worth it to send the shuttle up in space to mine all the gold that is hanging around for the taking in orbit.
Lets change the parameters slightly. You send the shuttle up for some unrelated mission. Repair the hubble or whatever. Now take a day, however much the shuttle can safely get back to earth, and leave. No it isn't profitable on its own. But if you have a payload that will pay for a one way trip, and nothing profitable to take on the return trip, you can still make money with the unprofitable because you have to come back anyway. So long as the cost of one extra day in space (when nothing else is going on, is less then the worth of the gold on earth you come out ahead. So using yourn figgure, the cost to repair the hubble is no longer $500 million, but 500-220 = 280 million dollars. Still a great cost to tax payers, but much less then otherwise.
Of course this ignores the effect on the price of gold. Not that it matters, since there isn't unlimited amounts of gold un orbit just waiting for someone to take.
Simply put, you open letter is a good start. However is only half done. You need to offer a better suggestion. This orginization in the end simply wants to protect their kids.
One scare tatic I've heard (and suppsidly this is true. Lets assume for the sake of discussion that it is true) is a mother noticed some rowdy kids in the library, looking at a comptuer. She walked by with her kid and saw the kids looking at porn. The mother then talked to the head librarian, who said that they can't do anything - the moment they try to censor this stuff the first admendment advocates get on their case.
In the above situation I want to note a few things. First, this was a public place, second, kids (not adults) were looking at it without their parents knowlege. Third, this is not something that can be called research.
The open letter above has showed that the filtering software doesn't work well. (It would be nice if you could have found a porn site that was not blocked. These come and go all the time, so you would have to be quick, but I think it can be done) However by not doing anything we get the situation above. Very few /. readers would agree that children should be able to view something that goes against their parents or the publics beliefs. (Note that this is a bit broad. We can all find exceptions, where parents are in cults.)
So the next step is propose an alternate solution: In Minnestoa for instance it is illegal to view porn in a public place, and illegal [for anyone but parents] to expose kids to violance or porn. This puts the issue back in the parents hands, and librarians can simply walk by, and if anyone, adult or kid is looking at porn you call the police and let the courts deal with it.
I much prefer a general, broad, law that covers all aituations to several targeted laws.
Couple months ago AOL was sued under the Americans with Disabilities act. I'd find that case, point the corprate lawyers to it and let them at it. BTW, keep notes so you can prive you warned the lawyers - if they ignore you and the company is sued you are holding a smoking gun. You can then show the lawyers were negligant, and anything to get the lawyers is good. And if they fight the battle like to keep the company legal, so much the better. Anyone else see the irony of a medical website that is not accessable? The elderly after all are the ones who need drugs the most, and the elderly typically have worse eyesite then younger people.
There are many different styles of GOOD leaders.
There was a general leading his troops across the desert. One day the troops dutifully brought him the last helmet full of water. The general poured it on the ground saying "If my troops don't drink I don't drink." While this sounds good, and it makes you popular, it isn't the best style. (But if it is your style there is nothing big wrong with it) The problem is when you need to make hard decisions. You lose popularity, and this leader works best on popularity.
Then there is the slave driver. I mean the old fashoned kind that was not afraid to use the whip, and I'm not talking metaphoricly. This leader has no respect, but he gets the work done. He probably gets it done the fastest too, speed of work is all he really has to work on, and so you work fast to avoid the whip. Fortunatly modern laws have eliminated this guy. Lets pray it stays that way.
Next look at the big shot in his fancy office. He may be a great leader, but you don't see him. You hear (through the chain of commmand) his orders, and you obey. He gets all the fancy stuff. Despite this remoteness he inspires loyality if he is good. And you have only his decision to judge him on, so if he is a good decision maker you think well of him. Unfortunatly this is the hardest to do well. (IMHO) This guy lives on the power he has, and dies on it. Because he is remote it doesn't take many bad decisions before he either has to leave or step up enforcement of his decisions. (kings do the latter, in a modern company the board votes him out much faster)
There is the cheerleader. This person doesn't really make decisions, but can be an efficeive leader in some situations. I don't know much mroe about it though, I've only heard it exists.
There are two important things that a leader needs to do: make decisions, and enforce them. The leader can change his mind. The leader can (except for the slave driver should) listen to underlings. In the end though, the leader needs to enforce his decisions in whatever way needed.
I have known bad leader who were liked, and bad leaders who were hated. I've known good leaders who were liked and good leader who were hated. The part that makes them good is making the right decision quickly (often without enough information, but they are allowed to change their mind - though a leader who changes his mind too often is making bad decisions), then following up on it. I hate the latter part, when I'm leading good people who do what I tell them to do I like leading when they don't do what I tell them to, or are lazy about it I hate leading. That isn't to say I force them to do stupid things, I like the smart person who will tell me I've made the wrong decision, or can change midstream to a more improtant task if an emergency pops up.
Leaders cannot associate with underlings too much. You can be distant friends, play in the same band socially. But if you get too close you start to fell personal when you have to make hard decisions involving them. (do they get a cost of living raise and a big raise to the new guy who is very sharp, or split the limited money for saleries between them. How can you give a friend trying to raise 3 kids and pay for the house a small raise when you know his fininacial problems?)
There are many different styles of leadership that work. Some give you more respect then others. Pick one that works for you, but beware, if you are the dump the water out if there isn't enough, then you can never buy a yacht even though your company needs one to take clients on. The gold plated limo leader can't pour the water on the ground though either.
One last thought: I once worked for a person who was a good leader, but she saw a gap above her, filled that, and it turne dout to take all her time. She ended up not leading well because this one area consumed her time, but didn't have the power to deligate it to others either. She is gone now because of that. Make sure your leaders know their number one job and they don't forget that.
Its been said that more buisnesses fail due to bad management then all other reasons combined. This is true, so get good management. Techies who are barely compitent can get the job done if management recignises their weakness and plans for it. (note that I'm not suggesting you get less then the best techs)
Watch the cash flow. Every month get a summery of all the money you have, and how much you spent. Get it noterized as correct every three months. (a previous poster mentioned that bogus books were showed to him - make sure you have a good case for a law suit if the books are bogus) Don't take anyone's word for how well you are doing. Bad management will show up in cash flow first so know what the bottom line is. After a few months you should get a feel for how much you normally spend. Once you have a general idea figgure out if you have enough money to make it to release.
My dad got involved in a spin off with 15 others, and a product that was pulling in 15 million/year and would for the next 5 years. They looked at the cash flow one month and decided to send my dad out as a contractor for a week. They needed cash flow now, and even though they would get 15 million this year, money in july (or whenever) doesn't pay the bills until then. They had to make a choice when doing this, and it means that their next version will be a couple weeks latter, but at least they won't go belly up with lots of money coming in latter. (Fortunatly the manager that arranged that spin off "quit for personal reasons" a few months latter - I own stock in and work for the parent company I was not happy about losing that income stream)
BTW, you have heard that 50% of all buisness fail in the first year. I just read in the news paper (but I can't remember which one, so you should research this or call it hear-say) that 85% of startups make it.
Good luck.
I work for STK (The company that owns the tape storage market for big companbies with lots of data) Our customers already have this problem.
Nasa (Which has all that satalite and other automaticly collected data that needs to be stored. Not all of it has been processed yet despite being 20 years old or more) They are in the habbit of migrating to the latest tape technology every couple years. (3? no more then 6) because the latest and greatest allows them to get double the storage in the same space. they do this not only for the space savings, but also to keep that data from getting unreadable.
They are not alone, but I can't remember the specifics. (I'm also not sure I'm allowed to mention more)
STK equpiment has a reputation of reliability. Then again, you pay minimum of $20,000 for a tape drive and it goes up to $150,000. (Or buy the OEMed DLT drives for $6,000)
As a linux user, right not the best you can do is copy to a new medium every couple years. Make sure you do a verified write, and keep a copy offsite. (in case of fire if not protection from over zealious law enforcement) Better yet is a vaulting company, which do in fact exist, but they are immature at this point. (Meaning that you shouldn't trust your data to them without research into them, there are good ones and there are those that will lose your data. Pricing may also be more then you want to spend) I would not trust any one media to be my backup.
Remember that most data isn't worth backing up. (linux source - except for local mods that are not yet in the source, /usr, most jpegs . . .) Think carefully, what is worth saving to backup? Probably "My dog by jessica age 6" (momentos of youe kids), pictures of the family, the project you are working on today. Tax records (for three years in most cases). There is more, but the majority of your 50 gig hard drive isn't worth the bother.
Don't forget what other have said about reliability of the medium. They appear to have more data then me so I don't cover that ground. They had other insiteful things to say too.
You probably can't do a buisness. However, since you are donating your time, this can probably count. I don't know if your time is deductable, but you can look into that angle.
If the judge ever sentences you to 180 hours of comunity service or something, you should be able to count this - but don't cheat or the judge will check up on you. (I'd say don't commit a crime, but with DVD and encryption, sometimes the crime is worth comitting as a protest means. But that is your buisness)
I am neither a lawyer or a tax advisor. These are to be taken as ideas to looked into further to see which if any are legal. They may not be legal.
Didn't you See the c compiler that built a trojan verson of login, and had the sense to compile it's trojan version of login into all c compilers it compiled even thoguh the source didn't have it? Was a /. artical not too long ago.
I can get 14.4k right now through my cell phone. Still pay airtime though, so I don't consider it a big win. I'm still waiting for reasonably priced high speed access, but belive me, I've considered this more then once.
While other posters are correct that Eurpoe is ahead of the US in wireless, that is partially because our land lines phones aren't as expensive. When you have to pay 10 cents a minute to call you may as well have the convience of a cell phone. When it doesn't cost you anything (extra) to use the land phone vs 10 cents a minute for the cell, you try to use the land line phone wherever possibal. (Note that 10 cents is a estimate, and not intended to reflect accual prices which vary)
All in all this is good though. It brings my dream of the floating office closer to reality. I can't wait until the time when I work from the lake.
I've seen many upgradabout systems. I've never seen anyone upgrade one. Tommorows technology makes it into the mobotherboard rather quickly, and you turn out to want that.
Besides, how do you know what will come. A guy at church keeps complaining to me that he bought a PII-233, and the motherboard is documented to go up to 500mhz. He can't do it though, because when they released the chips faster then 300 intel changed the rules slightly. (I'm not sure if it is voltage, bus speed or something else)
I would say that you are best off buying a good system now, and putting a network card in it. When you buy the greater system in a few years everything will change. (Maybe it will be athalon, or maybe the successer) with a simple network you have either a comptuer in the living room and the den, or at least a comptuer for good head to head gaming when friends come over.
That aside, I bought a dual ppro a couple years ago, and the only thing that makes me consider replacing it is the fan noise. And I in fact followed my philsophy, the 386 the ppro replaced is still running in a closet somewhere - it still has my USR courior modem and I got email last night) Granted it can't do much by todays standard, but if I'm ever in that closet I have a terminal.
Remember, these are not geeks we are talking to. Some of these people are smart (but not on computers), and others are stupid. (I also know some stupid geeks, so the score is even) You need to talk to their level.
I strongly recomend analgies that they understand. For instance, I bought a manual for my car published by one "Haynes" company. For those who don't know, this company buys a car, and takes it apart. Point out to the beurocrats that they are reverse engineering and that any decision to prohibit reverse engineering computers must also prohibit reverse this company from reverse engineering cars.
If anyone else can come up with good examples, please post them. It would be nice if /. would then find the best of the best for anouther artical, but that might be asking too much.
While e-mail is okay, snail mail is better, so spend some money on stamps.