You shouldn't charge so much for dated and misleading information. I just checked out a boatload of name servers and they are all not only running at 9.0, most of them at 9.2 or later. Not caching a domain like google is also bad advice. Someone more critical may even say unprofessional.
If you bothered to RTFA, you would also know that the problem is with Windows NT servers (that should have been taken offline years ago or upgraded to Linux) and Unix machines that were compromised (probably also not up to date). No upgrade in bind will help you on that one and NT is famous for being full of holes. Don't sweat it though, "experts" are dated quickly in this field.
Encourage people to keep their systems up to date, patched and watched would be better. Do integrety checking - like with tripwire. Check it every day. Even then you can still get burned, happens to the best of us.
Now, how do I get one of those fancy $450/hr jobs (No moving to Boston!)?
Kind of curious, can't Linus stay with the (free) version he is using right now? Nobody seems to consider that. Otherwise back to CVS like the rest of us.
This reminds me of when they tried to shut down the patent office at the end of the 19th century because they thought everything had been invented that could be invented. AI can do a lot for us but I think we will need humans for the forseeable future.
Seems to me that the Shuttles are nearing their end of life anyhow. Your right about the concern for life and that is a very good thing. I really would appreciate a safe return just as when I fly GA aircraft. I make sure they are right before I fly, to the best of my ability. I have never had an accident or an aircraft failure to date. I know that something can happen to me every time I get into either a car or aircraft. I think a shuttle flight is more risky, however it is certaintly not a suicide mission.
I understood that they have the tile problem solved. For example they loose sometimes a few dozen tiles during a mission. The design is robust enough to handle that. The problem with the last mission is they lost too many in a critical area, the leading edge where the heat builds up. They have a solution to that problem now. At the very least they have a way to check to see if there is a problem, and the tank foam has been replaced.
The concern up to now was all from the administrator. He is an accounting guy and he would never think that the benefit from the shuttle would outweight the risk. He is entitled to his opinion (no matter how wrong it was) and he had the final say. Now there is a better person in that position and the correct decision to return to space is being made. The next shuttle should go up in June.
I have very good reason to believe that a space shuttle mission to Hubble makes sense and can be done with very little risk. Side from the fact we have done it before to correct the mirrors, this is exactly the mission that was planned for originally when it was built. Seems like a "no brainer" to me.
Well time will tell. If they ultimately decide to not do it (and burn it up), it will be like shooting a foot off - they have another one. I hope they do it in the Atlantic this time so I can see a billion (or so) dollar sparkler go into the drink. Yea, like that will happen.
There could be more to come. Sometimes people retire or a new admin comes in - as is one right now and they change old bad decisions. What they should do is go up with the shuttle and fix it. That is how it was designed to be maintained.
Many of you might be thinking who would be foolish enough to fly such a mission? I'd do it! Even if it killed me. Hard to beat that ride! I bet plenty of others would do it.
Start getting your resume ready. If you think you have lost respect or they are seeing you as a necessary evil then they are likely to get rid of you for either nobody or someone cheaper. I have seen this done to more people than I can remember. Even if it shoots themself in the foot. They have another foot they think.
Your all wet. Go someplace else where you are walking on water again.
Do you think you'll just invade countries and plunder what you what?
Sounds like you are believing what the left tells you. Where have we plundered what we want? We turn it back over to the people of that country. As for plundering, why don't you look at the UN and their oil for food program? You sound like you are jelous that we trade with other countries. We do have needs, we pay for them, people are willing to sell to us so what is your problem? Maybe the US should stop selling to Canada? Is that what you want? I don't think you know what you truly want. Isolationism has never worked. Seems like anything good that you want to do there is a lot of opposition to it. Keep it the same. Stop global progress.
We do appreciate Canada's contribution to addressing agression around the world, as we do with France, Germany and many other countries. Sorry about your soldiers, we have bombed our own guys too. That happens and it is unfortunate. I am surprised that you called your own guys not just soldiers but 'fucking' soldiers. Do you have 'fucking' policemen too? 'Fucking' politicians? Unfortunately if you want to live in a relatively safe world, military action is required from time to time. This is similar to police needing to take care of the same thing on a smaller scale.
Your not the only one thinking we are pissing the country away. We do give a shit, that is part of the problem. Everyone is concerned about it and everyone seems to have a different way to save it and everyone elses idea can't possibly work, even if it is the same idea. Our own "environmentalists" that don't want to allow logging even if it means the forest burns up.
You like the WTO? They rule for trade and business no matter what, even at the expense of the endangered sea turtles than spending $2 for a piece of sheet metal to protect them. You can hardly blame the US for the concern about Beef. The ONLY cattle in the US with BSE came from Canada. We are still hurting from that even though our beef is safe. Why don't you complain about Japan, they have an embargo against your beef too for the same reason. So do a number of other countries.
Just remember that the US protects you guys too. You don't think anyone would dare attack Canada with us right here do you? The US has a lot of trade with Canada and we help the country a lot.
You also seem short on mentioning just how divided your own country is. French, English? Split or stay one Canada? Some of the most unstable people I know have headed up to Canada to live now... sorry and good luck with them.
Not sure why you think you are paying high rates for electric to subsidize California. Got a link that explains?
I hope you enjoy your vacations to Asia and Europe. The culture might do you some good. I don't mean that insultingly, it is good to go to other parts of the world. Talk to the people in those countries, don't be shy. Show them that we are all people and we are not so different after all. Hopefully it will lead to fewer wars.
How do you think about governments' funding OSS developments(by tax)?
Asked to Bill Gates (how I think he would answer): "What a stupid idea? Why only a complete moron would support that! There is nothing like it in the world. On the other hand taxes should support Microsoft since we know every man, woman, child, even pets benefit from Microsoft products and they should pay for it. We are getting ripped of to the tune of 1 billion billion bucks a month!"
I wonder if this was an extention to a science fair project... Maybe he lost and he thought "I'll show them. This will work!" This is way better than the project that won - "How to get a strange dog to bite you"
They used to hire people like him. Can't beat him so join him. Have Jon write their new DRM and give him blanket amnesty for any prior bad's and pay him well.
This is not the first time it has happened. Maybe the first time in that country but us SlashDoters know all too well the many people that the MPAA has accused and were clearly wrong about. An 80 year old dead woman comes to mind recently. The granny pirate didn't stick, the MPAA had egg all over their face again.
Some of us may remember a flap of the MPAA in 1998 where the MPAA was going after girl scout troops that were singing the Macarena, a popular song at the time with a dance that went along with it. They didn't want the Girl Scouts to use any copyrighted music on their boom boxes... Nope, nosirreee, stop that dancing and listening to music that is not on the radio girls!
If someone is violating the law that is one thing. Planting evidence is something entirely different. Anyone doing that should face a stiff penalty for that. Perhaps they should be convicted of the original crime and have to serve the punishment.
Why do you think this? Have you ever been to an IRS office? The IRS has some of the newest systems out there. Most if not all employees work on a computer each day they are at work. I don't work for the IRS but I do interact with them professionally. I saw a lot of contemporary machines on desks - at least >= 2 gig pentiums. Machines that you would find at any Fortune 500 company. Machines that may be better than the one you are using. They interact with some of the best database machines out there - Terradata for example.
There is a surprise here. The IRS has what is known as "title" data, it is in the USC under section 24 or "Title 24" data. They are very strict and EVERYONE that has access to their data has to go through training every year on it. They are not kidding, they make sure everyone has completed the training or they will stop you from accessing it. I have seen them do it. There is a test on it and they do audit. I have had the completion nazi's come after me more than once.
Obviously they have a problem with understanding what they learned and how to apply it to daily activities. I know I have found professionally that if someone is having trouble, they will do anything to get it working again. They ask very few questions. Obviously you don't do this to someone that has a clue, there are plenty of clueless ones around. Just look at Mitnick's book on social engineering. Obviously they are aware of the problem and they are trying to do something about it.
You couldn't get me... besides it wouldn't matter. You see I have this guy in Nigeria that sent me a letter about making a bunch of money for helping him, his father died a year ago.... Just kidding. Check out http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/
Turn the job down. That is what I have done in the past. Fight back! They have always come back and that part of the agreement was eliminated. Sometimes they change it so they own whatever it is I am working on. I'm ok with that. You pay for it, it is yours. Don't try to snatch stuff I'm doing on my own on my own time.
Also, be careful what you say and what you put into any reports. Saying you wrote scripts to do something can cause them to demand the scripts. Even if they only existed for the line that you typed in.
It may seem that way and it is true to a certain extent just as it is in Europe, Asia, Africa and other places. The twist we have here is a concept that "the other side is lying." You can't believe that study, that was done by {fill in biased group, even if they are not biased}. Sometimes those biased groups have misleading names, for example "the union of concerned scientists", check them out at http://www.activistcash.com. In fact check out a lot of them, it explains a lot. Both sides have people that openly call the other liars, even in book form. Both sides seem very convinced as well.
The people that tend to speak out are the ones that have strong feelings. In order to get those strong feelings they usualy feel that they have been wronged or helped somehow. Perceptions could be totally wrong. Some groups keep issues alive even though they won them long ago lest they not be needed anymore and they loose their income.
In fact both political sides have good things to contribute as well as bad things. Hopefully they try to stop us from doing stupid things. The unfortunate part is sometimes people get into power and want to measure just how powerful they are and winning is the only thing. The only way to get rid of them is when they either retire or die because they can't be voted out, no matter how outrageous they are, Kennedy or Lott for example.
As for Bush, he deserves a feather in his cap. Previously the left said that what was done was impossible. Now we can get pathogen and animal free stem cells. If he didn't restrict things then they wouldn't have even tried.
I would like to see the idea expanded and changed a bit. Artist work for the end user and artist work that is used in another compilation or end product, say a multimedia presentation or play.
Looking at my CD's, there are typically between 15 and 20 songs on them. One of them by ABBA I picked up for $5 in the get rid of bin and it has 19 songs on it, another one that is contemporary I paid $19 for 15 songs. So we are paying around $1 a track now for new pop cd's, even for tracks that we never listen to.
Tracks that are newer than some threshold (5 years say) and genre should be charged more than other genre's and older ones. Pop music sells better than say Bach. The ABBA, Beatles, etc should be say 1-10 cents/track. The newer ones I'd go as far as $1/track. HOWEVER when I buy it, it is mine. I own it and I may put it on whatever I choose in the future. I can also put it on Ebay and sell it there, transfer the rights to someone else. A virtual track if you will.
This will stop me from having to pay for songs over and over again as the medium changes. Most of the money doesn't even go to the artist, the record companies get it. If I buy a CD or track by mistake, I can get rid of it.
Lets also address the high prices of using a piece of work in something you produce. Say you want to make a multi-media presentation or show and use tracks from an artist/studio. They should be required to allow you to use the work and be compensated accordingly. Right now they require minimums by statute essentially making it cost prohibited to do it. Syncronization, mechanical and other licenses should be fast, cheap and easy to get.
I realize a lot of you will probably think $1 is a lot of money for a track. You only have to buy the tracks you like, probably only 2 out of the whole CD. I have a closet full of CD's from the past 20 years. I don't want to even think how much I spent on them and how many of those tracks I paid for that I never listen to.
There is also an impact to state governments that get sales tax on CD's. They should welcome this but I don't think they will see it that way.
I read somewhere that if you commit suicide that you are immediately born again and put right back into the same situation again until you overcome it. When you have overcome everything and die naturally or by accident (and your assignment is over), you are free and can rest. Some people think that living on Earth is hell. Life 200 years ago, that seems reasonable to think that. Hell isn't so bad anymore, they have air-conditioning and health care.
The solution is often easy by the way. Don't allow yourself to think about it. An idle mind is the plaything of the Devil (old saying). Do other things, join a church group, help the handicapped, rewrite some software, anything but do something with yourself. Too many people waste their lives doing nothing or next to nothing. I had to write a eulogy for someone last year and I realized that individual didn't do a damn thing with their time here except waste resources (in her 40's). Even the parents had nothing to add.
There is always someone else out there that is worse off than you are. I have met people that life has been very cruel to. They get involved in groups and they say it helps a lot. Before you know it, you will be old and it will be your time to go. On the other hand if you think about it, one day can be like a lifetime.
Having said all of this, I do think a site that has information on how to commit suicide with the least impact should be out there. Many suicides have collateral damage - death by police, death by auto accident, and so on. They needlessly burdon someone else with a death and sometimes jail time. Was it a suicide or homicide? Police do the best they can (at least I hope they do) but it is their job to suspect foul play. Then there is the possibility that it won't be successful. I have seen pictures where a guy blew the side of his face off with a shotgun - and lived. I'm amazed at what people have tried and survived. A site that shows how to do it right would seem to be a good idea. Maybe some lawyers and politicians would use it. Sorry, couldn't resist.
I'm a long time IEEE member. I switched all of my subscriptions to electronic a number of years ago. I switched back after 2 years because I found I wasn't reading them online even though I have the bandwidth. For my Consumers Reports subscription, I DID switch that over because I typically don't read it until I want to buy something. The IEEE publications make good reading when I find myself waiting for something - bank, store, doctor's office, wife, and the big waiting factor - kids (at least until they drive themselves).
It may also be useful if they would send out notices when something is available. No periodical I know of does this, even after I strongly suggested it. Nothing fancy, a simple one line e-mail would be nice. i.e. "April 2005 Consumer Report's is available, click here to pull it up." Of course they wouldn't do that though. They would insist on making it fancy.
I have been keeping track of this for the past year. I hear detractors of Linux from SUN and Microsoft folks, more from M$ though.
The biggest criticism and outright hysteria I hear is from non technical people followed by technical people that don't know what is out there, myself included. Another problem is which one and that is a problem.
Users and managers are still frightened. They remember Linux distro's of old. Yesterday a user that does web pages was ready to scrap RedHat and go with SuSE because Veritas has a segmentation violation if she uses xbp. That is the ONLY problem she had with it. It isn't as if you can simply move what she does in 10 minutes or an hour.
What can it do? Can they read, write, view everything they an with M$? Often the answer is yes. Sometimes yes if you install something. Sometimes yes if you spend enough time getting all the stuff you need - like vlc for example and other times the answer is no.
Which one? Here we are in the idiot religon wars again - RedHat, Suse, Knoppix, Mandrake, Bob's distro. The only ones I hear about are RedHat and Suse, the others are never mentioned seriously. I know places where they are putting off going to Linux because they don't know which one to use. Personally I don't care, however I would appreciate it if everyone used one or the other or at least make them so they are very similar between them.
Looking at other posts I'm surprised that people don't see this one for what it really is, a TAX.
They don't call it that because that is banned at the federal level. So they repackage it, say you need an "appretinceship", etc and make it so it doesn't look like a sales tax. This is clear since an apprenticeship does zero for the auction. Ebay conducts the auction and it would run the same way for a 30 year auctioneer as it would for Jane the girl next door. Ebay has no special rules for bonded auctioneers than for anyone else.
So this is not a thinly veiled attempt, it is a thickly veiled attempt to get money from off of the net. $200 sounds like a figure that they think they are loosing by not collecting sales tax. The scary part is that not even the author of the bill is sure who is covered. Just get the money rolling in. I bet she doesn't sell stuff on Ebay.
We need to stop this one cold or you can depend on it spreading like a wildfire to other states and innocent men, women and children being beaten by police, fined and put in jail for not paying it.
I also read where someone claimed that Ohio has the right to do this. I don't think so. Congress has the exclusive right to regulate interstate commerce. It would seem that they are infringing on a Federal domain. If they are then they should put the people who voted for this in jail since they seem so fond of jail.
Slashdot Mirror
If you bothered to RTFA, you would also know that the problem is with Windows NT servers (that should have been taken offline years ago or upgraded to Linux) and Unix machines that were compromised (probably also not up to date). No upgrade in bind will help you on that one and NT is famous for being full of holes. Don't sweat it though, "experts" are dated quickly in this field.
Encourage people to keep their systems up to date, patched and watched would be better. Do integrety checking - like with tripwire. Check it every day. Even then you can still get burned, happens to the best of us.
Now, how do I get one of those fancy $450/hr jobs (No moving to Boston!)?
Kind of curious, can't Linus stay with the (free) version he is using right now? Nobody seems to consider that. Otherwise back to CVS like the rest of us.
Would be even more hilarious if they change their mind and open the film now that everyone is out of line...
This reminds me of when they tried to shut down the patent office at the end of the 19th century because they thought everything had been invented that could be invented. AI can do a lot for us but I think we will need humans for the forseeable future.
I understood that they have the tile problem solved. For example they loose sometimes a few dozen tiles during a mission. The design is robust enough to handle that. The problem with the last mission is they lost too many in a critical area, the leading edge where the heat builds up. They have a solution to that problem now. At the very least they have a way to check to see if there is a problem, and the tank foam has been replaced.
The concern up to now was all from the administrator. He is an accounting guy and he would never think that the benefit from the shuttle would outweight the risk. He is entitled to his opinion (no matter how wrong it was) and he had the final say. Now there is a better person in that position and the correct decision to return to space is being made. The next shuttle should go up in June.
I have very good reason to believe that a space shuttle mission to Hubble makes sense and can be done with very little risk. Side from the fact we have done it before to correct the mirrors, this is exactly the mission that was planned for originally when it was built. Seems like a "no brainer" to me.
Well time will tell. If they ultimately decide to not do it (and burn it up), it will be like shooting a foot off - they have another one. I hope they do it in the Atlantic this time so I can see a billion (or so) dollar sparkler go into the drink. Yea, like that will happen.
Many of you might be thinking who would be foolish enough to fly such a mission? I'd do it! Even if it killed me. Hard to beat that ride! I bet plenty of others would do it.
Your all wet. Go someplace else where you are walking on water again.
Just think of the ideas. Get a Pez dispenser with Janet Jackson's head and get a MP3 malfunction! Lots of funny material here...
Sounds like you are believing what the left tells you. Where have we plundered what we want? We turn it back over to the people of that country. As for plundering, why don't you look at the UN and their oil for food program? You sound like you are jelous that we trade with other countries. We do have needs, we pay for them, people are willing to sell to us so what is your problem? Maybe the US should stop selling to Canada? Is that what you want? I don't think you know what you truly want. Isolationism has never worked. Seems like anything good that you want to do there is a lot of opposition to it. Keep it the same. Stop global progress.
We do appreciate Canada's contribution to addressing agression around the world, as we do with France, Germany and many other countries. Sorry about your soldiers, we have bombed our own guys too. That happens and it is unfortunate. I am surprised that you called your own guys not just soldiers but 'fucking' soldiers. Do you have 'fucking' policemen too? 'Fucking' politicians? Unfortunately if you want to live in a relatively safe world, military action is required from time to time. This is similar to police needing to take care of the same thing on a smaller scale.
Your not the only one thinking we are pissing the country away. We do give a shit, that is part of the problem. Everyone is concerned about it and everyone seems to have a different way to save it and everyone elses idea can't possibly work, even if it is the same idea. Our own "environmentalists" that don't want to allow logging even if it means the forest burns up.
Just remember that the US protects you guys too. You don't think anyone would dare attack Canada with us right here do you? The US has a lot of trade with Canada and we help the country a lot.
You also seem short on mentioning just how divided your own country is. French, English? Split or stay one Canada? Some of the most unstable people I know have headed up to Canada to live now... sorry and good luck with them.
Not sure why you think you are paying high rates for electric to subsidize California. Got a link that explains?
I hope you enjoy your vacations to Asia and Europe. The culture might do you some good. I don't mean that insultingly, it is good to go to other parts of the world. Talk to the people in those countries, don't be shy. Show them that we are all people and we are not so different after all. Hopefully it will lead to fewer wars.
Asked to Bill Gates (how I think he would answer): "What a stupid idea? Why only a complete moron would support that! There is nothing like it in the world. On the other hand taxes should support Microsoft since we know every man, woman, child, even pets benefit from Microsoft products and they should pay for it. We are getting ripped of to the tune of 1 billion billion bucks a month!"
I wonder if this was an extention to a science fair project... Maybe he lost and he thought "I'll show them. This will work!" This is way better than the project that won - "How to get a strange dog to bite you"
Some of us may remember a flap of the MPAA in 1998 where the MPAA was going after girl scout troops that were singing the Macarena, a popular song at the time with a dance that went along with it. They didn't want the Girl Scouts to use any copyrighted music on their boom boxes... Nope, nosirreee, stop that dancing and listening to music that is not on the radio girls!
The artists stepped in to stop the madness. Here, read it for yourself - http://csmonitor.com/cgi-bin/durableRedirect.pl?/d urable/1998/06/11/fp51s1-csm.htm
(Thanks uncle google).
If someone is violating the law that is one thing. Planting evidence is something entirely different. Anyone doing that should face a stiff penalty for that. Perhaps they should be convicted of the original crime and have to serve the punishment.
There is a surprise here. The IRS has what is known as "title" data, it is in the USC under section 24 or "Title 24" data. They are very strict and EVERYONE that has access to their data has to go through training every year on it. They are not kidding, they make sure everyone has completed the training or they will stop you from accessing it. I have seen them do it. There is a test on it and they do audit. I have had the completion nazi's come after me more than once.
Obviously they have a problem with understanding what they learned and how to apply it to daily activities. I know I have found professionally that if someone is having trouble, they will do anything to get it working again. They ask very few questions. Obviously you don't do this to someone that has a clue, there are plenty of clueless ones around. Just look at Mitnick's book on social engineering. Obviously they are aware of the problem and they are trying to do something about it.
You couldn't get me... besides it wouldn't matter. You see I have this guy in Nigeria that sent me a letter about making a bunch of money for helping him, his father died a year ago.... Just kidding. Check out http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/
Also, be careful what you say and what you put into any reports. Saying you wrote scripts to do something can cause them to demand the scripts. Even if they only existed for the line that you typed in.
Read the contract. Know what you are agreeing to.
The only concern is that you make sure the politicians don't suck, they all have to blow.
1) The code base had been reviewed, for years, by many organizations including IBM and we all knew SCO had no basis for their suit.
2) The suit harmed Linux. I know of plenty of places that Linux was not adopted. Solaris and Windows benefited.
Another more positive side effect is that it made SCO Unix scarce out there. I still get questions about the SCO lawsuit.
The people that tend to speak out are the ones that have strong feelings. In order to get those strong feelings they usualy feel that they have been wronged or helped somehow. Perceptions could be totally wrong. Some groups keep issues alive even though they won them long ago lest they not be needed anymore and they loose their income.
In fact both political sides have good things to contribute as well as bad things. Hopefully they try to stop us from doing stupid things. The unfortunate part is sometimes people get into power and want to measure just how powerful they are and winning is the only thing. The only way to get rid of them is when they either retire or die because they can't be voted out, no matter how outrageous they are, Kennedy or Lott for example.
As for Bush, he deserves a feather in his cap. Previously the left said that what was done was impossible. Now we can get pathogen and animal free stem cells. If he didn't restrict things then they wouldn't have even tried.
Looking at my CD's, there are typically between 15 and 20 songs on them. One of them by ABBA I picked up for $5 in the get rid of bin and it has 19 songs on it, another one that is contemporary I paid $19 for 15 songs. So we are paying around $1 a track now for new pop cd's, even for tracks that we never listen to.
Tracks that are newer than some threshold (5 years say) and genre should be charged more than other genre's and older ones. Pop music sells better than say Bach. The ABBA, Beatles, etc should be say 1-10 cents/track. The newer ones I'd go as far as $1/track. HOWEVER when I buy it, it is mine. I own it and I may put it on whatever I choose in the future. I can also put it on Ebay and sell it there, transfer the rights to someone else. A virtual track if you will.
This will stop me from having to pay for songs over and over again as the medium changes. Most of the money doesn't even go to the artist, the record companies get it. If I buy a CD or track by mistake, I can get rid of it.
Lets also address the high prices of using a piece of work in something you produce. Say you want to make a multi-media presentation or show and use tracks from an artist/studio. They should be required to allow you to use the work and be compensated accordingly. Right now they require minimums by statute essentially making it cost prohibited to do it. Syncronization, mechanical and other licenses should be fast, cheap and easy to get.
I realize a lot of you will probably think $1 is a lot of money for a track. You only have to buy the tracks you like, probably only 2 out of the whole CD. I have a closet full of CD's from the past 20 years. I don't want to even think how much I spent on them and how many of those tracks I paid for that I never listen to.
There is also an impact to state governments that get sales tax on CD's. They should welcome this but I don't think they will see it that way.
Great for those of us who are all thumbs! The trouble is those people are usually butter-fingers too.
The solution is often easy by the way. Don't allow yourself to think about it. An idle mind is the plaything of the Devil (old saying). Do other things, join a church group, help the handicapped, rewrite some software, anything but do something with yourself. Too many people waste their lives doing nothing or next to nothing. I had to write a eulogy for someone last year and I realized that individual didn't do a damn thing with their time here except waste resources (in her 40's). Even the parents had nothing to add.
There is always someone else out there that is worse off than you are. I have met people that life has been very cruel to. They get involved in groups and they say it helps a lot. Before you know it, you will be old and it will be your time to go. On the other hand if you think about it, one day can be like a lifetime.
Having said all of this, I do think a site that has information on how to commit suicide with the least impact should be out there. Many suicides have collateral damage - death by police, death by auto accident, and so on. They needlessly burdon someone else with a death and sometimes jail time. Was it a suicide or homicide? Police do the best they can (at least I hope they do) but it is their job to suspect foul play. Then there is the possibility that it won't be successful. I have seen pictures where a guy blew the side of his face off with a shotgun - and lived. I'm amazed at what people have tried and survived. A site that shows how to do it right would seem to be a good idea. Maybe some lawyers and politicians would use it. Sorry, couldn't resist.
It may also be useful if they would send out notices when something is available. No periodical I know of does this, even after I strongly suggested it. Nothing fancy, a simple one line e-mail would be nice. i.e. "April 2005 Consumer Report's is available, click here to pull it up." Of course they wouldn't do that though. They would insist on making it fancy.
The biggest criticism and outright hysteria I hear is from non technical people followed by technical people that don't know what is out there, myself included. Another problem is which one and that is a problem.
Users and managers are still frightened. They remember Linux distro's of old. Yesterday a user that does web pages was ready to scrap RedHat and go with SuSE because Veritas has a segmentation violation if she uses xbp. That is the ONLY problem she had with it. It isn't as if you can simply move what she does in 10 minutes or an hour.
What can it do? Can they read, write, view everything they an with M$? Often the answer is yes. Sometimes yes if you install something. Sometimes yes if you spend enough time getting all the stuff you need - like vlc for example and other times the answer is no.
Which one? Here we are in the idiot religon wars again - RedHat, Suse, Knoppix, Mandrake, Bob's distro. The only ones I hear about are RedHat and Suse, the others are never mentioned seriously. I know places where they are putting off going to Linux because they don't know which one to use. Personally I don't care, however I would appreciate it if everyone used one or the other or at least make them so they are very similar between them.
They don't call it that because that is banned at the federal level. So they repackage it, say you need an "appretinceship", etc and make it so it doesn't look like a sales tax. This is clear since an apprenticeship does zero for the auction. Ebay conducts the auction and it would run the same way for a 30 year auctioneer as it would for Jane the girl next door. Ebay has no special rules for bonded auctioneers than for anyone else.
So this is not a thinly veiled attempt, it is a thickly veiled attempt to get money from off of the net. $200 sounds like a figure that they think they are loosing by not collecting sales tax. The scary part is that not even the author of the bill is sure who is covered. Just get the money rolling in. I bet she doesn't sell stuff on Ebay.
We need to stop this one cold or you can depend on it spreading like a wildfire to other states and innocent men, women and children being beaten by police, fined and put in jail for not paying it.
I also read where someone claimed that Ohio has the right to do this. I don't think so. Congress has the exclusive right to regulate interstate commerce. It would seem that they are infringing on a Federal domain. If they are then they should put the people who voted for this in jail since they seem so fond of jail.