And Christopher Tolkien's contribution is usually just editing. He is generally very careful to separate his father's words from his commentary (usually with a different font).
Translation: you have no rational response, so you're going to play stupid. Unfortunately, your spin attempt is about as effective as a cat trying to bury a turd on a hardwood floor.
Nice analogy. We've drifted a bit here, but as a reminder, someone suggested that the good guys be allowed nukes, and the bad guys not. I pointed out that it's subjective as to who the bad guys are.
This is because there are no "good guys". Not one country in the world has got it right. And if it ever happened, that country would sink into the sea under the weight of everyone who moved there.
If I was "screeching" against the US government in Syria, I doubt they'd mind much. Same for the UK government, same for the Thai government (I live in Thailand). And yes, if I criticised the Syrian government in Syria. I might suddenly have a little more explaining to do. But you read the PATRIOT act, right? Sure, death is by a surprise bullet is probably worse than being held indefinitely in Guantanamo, but there's only shades of wrong here - no right.
So explain to me why America is morally superior and gets to play with all the nukes.
Because you can screech about the government here and not get an automatic bullet in the head? Just a thought.
The last time I checked the UK had plenty of nukes, too. Did you not know this or is it more deliberate stupidity? You can screech about the UK government in the UK as well, by the way, so it's also morally superior.
The situation in Pakistan, China, Iran, and North Korea is rather different. Of course, you know that as well as I do. It doesn't fit into your eeeeeeevil Amerikkka psychosis, though, so you chose to ignore that inconvenient fact.
I never said anyone was perfect - just trying to point out that the only people who think that America are the "good guys" are generally Americans. And that they're a minority, globally. If you want to arrange the nations of the world into "good" and "bad" sets, great - but be aware that everyone's idea would be different, and yours would not be the most popular.
Enjoy your screech, son, but do realize that sane people laugh at you. All the time.
Ah. So everyone outside the borders of the US is insane? Good work.
Go to Iran or Syria and start posting inane, screeching rants against the government and see what happens.
Which government? Mine, yours or theirs? I don't think my point was inane or screeching, but it's all kind of subjective isn't it? Which, funnily enough, is kind of the point here:
Everyone assumes they're the good guys - who gets to decide, and why?
America? Because you happen to have been born there?
I think you'll find that your dullwitted moral equivalence argument doesn't play out too well in reality.
So explain to me why America is morally superior and gets to play with all the nukes.
Okay, The Independent (a British broadsheet newspaper, voted Newspaper of the Year) ran the front page "Israel's Verdict: We Lost The War" - see a JPG of the cover here.
Their website is subscription-based, unfortunately, but if you search Google News (The Independent should be the first link) then you can read the article on one of the sites it was republished on.
The BBC also reports, reaction from the mainstream British broadsheet press - neutral enough for you?
Let's ask Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon etc who they think are the "good" and "bad" guys.
America can hand their nukes in at the door, on their way out of the Middle East (after explaining what exactly they're doing there in the first place).
The six-day war was 40 years ago. More recently, they took quite a beating in Lebanon.
Nukes or not, you know as well as I do that Israel aren't quite stupid enough to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike - even Bush would have a hard time defending that kind of action.
So they were stuck using conventional weapons, and in case you missed it, they lost.
The current Iranian administration is dangerous. Leaders who want to wipe Israel off the map probably aren't making nuclear power plants to save the owls from the fossil fuels they export in huge quantities. Someone has to stop them.
And Israel want to wipe Palestine and Lebanon off the map - why shouldn't someone stop them instead?
In case you're not, you might like to know that the reason the Brazil team is called "Brazil" is because all of their players are Brazilian. That's the only criteria to play for the team.
All the Ecuador players, surprisingly enough, are Ecuador citizens. And will never be able to play for Brazil, no matter how much money they're given.
We're trying to do a variety of things that might appeal to people who aren't using Linux or open source already.
Such as? What does it do?
There isn't necessarily a strong connection between all of them (though there is some "platform" that we've been sharing among features so far, such as an XMPP server connecting everyone's desktop, friend lists, groups, etc.)
Certainly it only seems to be an issue in largely religious countries. I don't know anyone in the UK (or other European countries outside Catholic Ireland and maybe the Vatican:-) who's as fiercely "pro-life" as the Americans...
This explanation isn't entirely relevant to the thread, but perhaps it'll help you to understand why some people really do prefer analogue.
Your senses are analogue. When you hear a sound wave from a piano in real life, it is analogue. Your eardrum vibrates producing analogue waves, which are sent to your brain (and yes, eventually "digitised" as far as in that the brain is an electrical appliance...).
A CD recording of that piano will approximate the analogue waves into a digital representation of the sound. When you play back that CD, the player will convert the digital approximation back into an analogue wave, which sounds mostly like the sound the piano made, but without the data above its own digital limits (44.1KHz, 16-bit etc). MP3 (or any other lossy format) is several orders of magnitude worse. But I'm hoping you knew that.
With an analogue record, for example, the noise it "hears" is recorded onto wax, still in analogue format, pressed to vinyl, and then played back afterwards. Much truer to the source.
Most people either claim they can't hear the difference, or don't think it's worth the bother. A small but highly vocal minority do.
Your primary danger is the laptop users. A laptop will get infected at home, the luser will bring it in and jack into your network, and the infected laptop will infect all the other windows hosts if you haven't been regularly patching them, or at least some other laptops (which were out of the office when you applied the latest patch)...
Ideally make windows clients perform a virus definitions update and then a virus scan as part of your Windows domain logon script. Make them install any outstanding Microsoft patches on logon too. Anything not on the domain doesn't get access to anything.
Keep laptops on an entirely separate subnet from your permanently resident machines and firewall all traffic between the two, whitelisting only the ports/protocols you absolutely need.
Then it goes without saying that you need active firewalling on the main internet gateway/router, email scanning/cleansing software on the mail server, and anti-spyware, anti-virus and maybe personal firewall software on each individual machine, as a start. Block dangerous filetypes at the web proxy. Disable any and all unnecessary Windows services, and don't let your users run with as administrators. Disable IE (don't just remove the icon - actually block it at the firewall) and Outlook (Express), install Firefox and Thunderbird or similar and keep them fully patched too.
All of the above won't guarantee the safety of your network, but it'll help. Remember that your lusers will actively attempt to circumvent all of your security policies however they can, and that they're all pathological liars.
As for what specific software you should use, I'd lean heavily towards Linux on all servers/routers, but can't help you on the Windows stuff. The last virus I got on an Amstrad 386 running DOS. I've been careful since then, but your users won't be - because they simply don't care.
What would be even more useful would be if Gentoo did this for you. The current state of affairs, with thousands of users all wasting time compiling identical binaries, is insane.
I understand that the mirrors' storage requirements would mushroom, but Gentoo would be several thousand times more attractive if their mirrors contained not only source, but binary compiled packages for the various combinations of architectures and USE flags.
You'd still get the alleged "optimisation" for your setup, but it wouldn't take a week for you to install your OS.
Slashdot Mirror
If you don't like either candidate, simply vote out the incumbent.
If nobody can hold onto the seat for more than one term, perhaps they'll eventually realise they need to change their approach...
As long as it's not Comic Sans MS!
Nice analogy. We've drifted a bit here, but as a reminder, someone suggested that the good guys be allowed nukes, and the bad guys not. I pointed out that it's subjective as to who the bad guys are.
This is because there are no "good guys". Not one country in the world has got it right. And if it ever happened, that country would sink into the sea under the weight of everyone who moved there.
If I was "screeching" against the US government in Syria, I doubt they'd mind much. Same for the UK government, same for the Thai government (I live in Thailand). And yes, if I criticised the Syrian government in Syria. I might suddenly have a little more explaining to do. But you read the PATRIOT act, right? Sure, death is by a surprise bullet is probably worse than being held indefinitely in Guantanamo, but there's only shades of wrong here - no right.
Sure. You just get flown to Eastern Europe and tortured in secret jails instead. Or locked up without charge in Guantanamo. The USA have got a way to go on the morality front yet, I'm afraid.
Yeah, unless you happen to be an Asian on an aeroplane, or a Brazilian on public transport. It's also turning into a police state, although not as swiftly as the US.
I never said anyone was perfect - just trying to point out that the only people who think that America are the "good guys" are generally Americans. And that they're a minority, globally. If you want to arrange the nations of the world into "good" and "bad" sets, great - but be aware that everyone's idea would be different, and yours would not be the most popular.
Ah. So everyone outside the borders of the US is insane? Good work.Are you asking me or telling me?
Cite?
Which government? Mine, yours or theirs? I don't think my point was inane or screeching, but it's all kind of subjective isn't it? Which, funnily enough, is kind of the point here:
Everyone assumes they're the good guys - who gets to decide, and why?
America? Because you happen to have been born there?
So explain to me why America is morally superior and gets to play with all the nukes.
Indeed.
Okay, The Independent (a British broadsheet newspaper, voted Newspaper of the Year) ran the front page "Israel's Verdict: We Lost The War" - see a JPG of the cover here.
Their website is subscription-based, unfortunately, but if you search Google News (The Independent should be the first link) then you can read the article on one of the sites it was republished on.
The BBC also reports, reaction from the mainstream British broadsheet press - neutral enough for you?
Good plan.
Let's ask Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon etc who they think are the "good" and "bad" guys.
America can hand their nukes in at the door, on their way out of the Middle East (after explaining what exactly they're doing there in the first place).
The six-day war was 40 years ago. More recently, they took quite a beating in Lebanon.
Nukes or not, you know as well as I do that Israel aren't quite stupid enough to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike - even Bush would have a hard time defending that kind of action.
So they were stuck using conventional weapons, and in case you missed it, they lost.
I really hope you're fishing, but I can't tell.
In case you're not, you might like to know that the reason the Brazil team is called "Brazil" is because all of their players are Brazilian. That's the only criteria to play for the team.
All the Ecuador players, surprisingly enough, are Ecuador citizens. And will never be able to play for Brazil, no matter how much money they're given.
Such as? What does it do?
What's XMPP? What does it do?
Oh, so you're copying delicious and last.fm. Why?
This is the vaguest response I've ever seen. Do you even want me to use this? Tell me, what does it do?
Irish then? :)
:-) who's as fiercely "pro-life" as the Americans...
Certainly it only seems to be an issue in largely religious countries. I don't know anyone in the UK (or other European countries outside Catholic Ireland and maybe the Vatican
I'm guessing you're American - most of Europe, and indeed the rest of the "first world", wouldn't have even noticed that - it's taken as read...
I'd pick a dusty record over a scratched CD any day :-)
This explanation isn't entirely relevant to the thread, but perhaps it'll help you to understand why some people really do prefer analogue.
Your senses are analogue. When you hear a sound wave from a piano in real life, it is analogue. Your eardrum vibrates producing analogue waves, which are sent to your brain (and yes, eventually "digitised" as far as in that the brain is an electrical appliance...).
A CD recording of that piano will approximate the analogue waves into a digital representation of the sound. When you play back that CD, the player will convert the digital approximation back into an analogue wave, which sounds mostly like the sound the piano made, but without the data above its own digital limits (44.1KHz, 16-bit etc). MP3 (or any other lossy format) is several orders of magnitude worse. But I'm hoping you knew that.
With an analogue record, for example, the noise it "hears" is recorded onto wax, still in analogue format, pressed to vinyl, and then played back afterwards. Much truer to the source.
Most people either claim they can't hear the difference, or don't think it's worth the bother. A small but highly vocal minority do.
And helpfully doesn't list the order of cos, sin and tan! How is that useful?
Your primary danger is the laptop users. A laptop will get infected at home, the luser will bring it in and jack into your network, and the infected laptop will infect all the other windows hosts if you haven't been regularly patching them, or at least some other laptops (which were out of the office when you applied the latest patch)...
Ideally make windows clients perform a virus definitions update and then a virus scan as part of your Windows domain logon script. Make them install any outstanding Microsoft patches on logon too. Anything not on the domain doesn't get access to anything.
Keep laptops on an entirely separate subnet from your permanently resident machines and firewall all traffic between the two, whitelisting only the ports/protocols you absolutely need.
Then it goes without saying that you need active firewalling on the main internet gateway/router, email scanning/cleansing software on the mail server, and anti-spyware, anti-virus and maybe personal firewall software on each individual machine, as a start. Block dangerous filetypes at the web proxy. Disable any and all unnecessary Windows services, and don't let your users run with as administrators. Disable IE (don't just remove the icon - actually block it at the firewall) and Outlook (Express), install Firefox and Thunderbird or similar and keep them fully patched too.
All of the above won't guarantee the safety of your network, but it'll help. Remember that your lusers will actively attempt to circumvent all of your security policies however they can, and that they're all pathological liars.
As for what specific software you should use, I'd lean heavily towards Linux on all servers/routers, but can't help you on the Windows stuff. The last virus I got on an Amstrad 386 running DOS. I've been careful since then, but your users won't be - because they simply don't care.
College boy? Not me - I got expelled. Four times :-)
Where's the -1, Bitter option when you need it?
What would be even more useful would be if Gentoo did this for you. The current state of affairs, with thousands of users all wasting time compiling identical binaries, is insane.
I understand that the mirrors' storage requirements would mushroom, but Gentoo would be several thousand times more attractive if their mirrors contained not only source, but binary compiled packages for the various combinations of architectures and USE flags.
You'd still get the alleged "optimisation" for your setup, but it wouldn't take a week for you to install your OS.