Don't forget pants: they prevent ass blisters while sitting on the chairs to look at the monitor and manipulate the mouse to command the adsl modem to illegally download mp3s. But not to download porn..a least, not when pants are involved.
From what I've heard from my family at least, there was a somewhat similar argument over color broadcasts when they first started appearing. Now, I realize that in such a situation, things were a much less severe change, but even so, try to look at it from this point of view: The better the image on the screen looks, the more likely it is to hold someone's attention. If that weren't the case, nobody would pay to clear up those 'fuzzy channels' at the end of the dial.
The metaphorical dial, of course. If your TV has a dial, you need to kill yourself. Preferably through starvation, from the debt of buying an HDTV.
Okay, lets look at the current maximum feasible specs we could use: 24 bit color depth at 2400dpi, seem reasonable?
Per square inch of space, that's:
(2^24)^(2400*2400) possible combinations of data, which equals 2^(24*2400*2400) if rewritten, or, conveniently enough (since I started in base 2) 24*2400*2400 bits of data per square inch, about 17 megs
17 megs per square inch of paper, although fairly impressive, falls vastly short of what was supposedly achieved. And no matter what mysterious system of shapes might be used, once put on paper, the data is going to be in dots. There's nothing you can do about that. It's just the physical limitations of two dimensions.
The 2.4ghz segment of the microwave spectrum used for wireless devices is essentially harmless. E = hc/w where w = wavelength (normally he symbol lambda is used). The wavelength in this section of the spectrum is very large, comparatively speaking. You know those little holes in the screen of the microwave? Simply put, even those are too small for a microwave to fit through. And the amplitude of wireless lan devices is rather small--ban cellular phones long before you ban a wifi network. The most that particular set of frequencies can do is warm the human body up, and to do that it would need to be far more intense of a signal to have any noticeable effect. Those florescent bulbs used for lighting are more harmful--that white coating on the inside is all that's keeping ultraviolet light, which is harmful, inside the bulb.
There's no evidence that it isn't harmful, I'll give you that. But find evidence that the easter bunny doesn't exist while you're at it. Just because some mammals grow so large, or just because some electromagnetic waves have the potential of being harmful, doesn't mean they all do.
If they saw any personal electronic device (phone, PSP, etc) you were immediately scolded. Usually the first time it happened, MOST teachers/administrators wouldn't do anything beyond scolding you, but after that (or even the first time with some) they would confiscate the device and/or send you to the office.
Of course, there was the occasional teacher who didn't give a damn what you did, so long as it wasn't disruptive. But otherwise, everyone acted about the same.
Now, I personally think of cell phones and the like as a crutch on which no person should depend--much like computers, though at least a computer has more potential for good. But seriously, with the exception of when your car breaks down (yet another crutch), when if ever are you someplace where you cannot find a phone to use?
That being said, the policies which came into effect at my school did absolutely nothing beyond encouraging students to simply not get caught. If you ask me, this encourages exactly the wrong type of behavior. Which is probably why on every survey taken by the sociology class to which I saw the results, some 85% of students admitted to cheating. Punishing people for getting caught only encourages them to be more careful about not getting caught, but rarely is this sufficient to prevent the act itself from happening.
So, unless the administration at the school from the article plans to either punish the act of the student carrying such a device, by searching every student as they come into the building (possibly via a metal detector), or make the consequences of getting caught so severe that no student would dare risk getting caught (ie: first offense-detention. second-suspension. third-expulsion), then I don't see this having any real effect. It's just like the speed limit: almost every single person goes 5 miles over because the odds of getting caught are so slim and the consequences are almost negligible.
Furthermore, it's difficult to define personal electronic device. In the case of my former school, I made it a point to emphasize that under their current system, a digital watch was against regulations.
So, essentially what I'm saying is, even if the school implements such a policy, I doubt that it will affect the behavior of the students adversely, speaking from experience.
Copyright laws, we all agree I'm sure, should prevent people from illegally copying and reselling content. Originally, this applied pretty much only to printed books, so that's what the initial system was designed for. Once you start having different mediums, an important concept needs to be well defined which I think both sides of the argument have really addressed: When you buy something, are you paying for the copy, or the content?
Essentially, if I go buy a CD, is it the CD that I would own, or the songs themselves? In music and movies, the lines blur more than on other issues. As the system is currently set up, it seems to be leaning pretty strongly to the "Copy" side of the argument, but, at least from my point of view, doesn't seem to be completely well defined. Now, with anti-circumvention laws and the many forms of copy protection out there, it naturally leans to the "Copy" side anyway... and if you ask me, that's not the way it should be. A content-based system of regulations simply makes more sense to me--and until anti-circumvention laws started getting the green light left and right, that's (at least, from what I can remember) the way things worked for the most part. Let's face it, where's the sense in a law which does nothing but require you re-purchase something you already own simply to use it a little differently. That's like requiring you to own a separate car for interstate driving and city driving.
In my eyes at least, the copyright should apply to the content. The price of purchasing something should consist of buying the legal rights to use it, along with the cost of labor and materials for that copy. But you should be free to copy it as you wish, for your own use.
Selling copies of something such as a movie should of course be illegal, but not when a transfer of the license takes place. In this case, following my argument of how the law should be, preloading content from a legally purchased DVD onto an iPod should be perfectly legal.
Of course, lots of things SHOULD be one way, doesn't mean they are. But, at least from my point of view, I think my argument makes a lot of sense. Too bad those who make and enforce the laws so rarely seem to listen to reason, though hopefully after the last election things should start becoming more reasonable.
Why does gaming suck on linux? Developers. Windows is the popular OS, so that's what they program for. Sure, some games could be ported, but unless the demand for a linux compatible version is enough to warrant the cost needed to port, no company is going to consider it. Even then, only a handful are willing to take the risk.
Wine, and it's offshots, are a great way of getting things to run. For mundane programs which cannot be ported, it works wonders. But although it works well for games too, it's not a solution.
Of course, with less than optimal support for some hardware, linux has a bit of a disadvantage from the performance standpoint with some setups, but again this is because of the developers--or the people working above them. From what I've heard, no sane developer would wish to use directx over opengl, but I don't have enough experience with either to make any strong arguments about that.
When all is said and done, if you think gaming sucks on linux, you may be right. But who's responsible? The developers, or the project managers above them, are merely developing for the largest market. Although on a different topic, if I may quote V, I think the message is the same...
"How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror." -- V, from V for Vendetta
As long is Microsoft Windows continues to dominate, nay decimate*, the OS market, then hacked together solutions such as Wine will have to suffice for anyone who wishes not to 'sell out' to Microsoft.
*I realize this is an awkward use of the word decimate. Literally, it means to reduce by 1/10th, where as MS Windows has reduced competition to below 1/10th. Although technically incorrect, I think you understand what I mean.
PS: I fully support the Wine project and all derivatives. I think they're doing a great thing by allowing users to run software to which there is no alternative. However, the better support Wine has for software, the less reason most companies will feel the need to port it at their cost, and most companies feel uneasy to say the least about the idea of giving away their source code. It's a bit of a catch 22. Even so, any support for an application is better than no support. Keep up the good work.
If we assume IQ tests are valid measures of intelligence, this actually kind of makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Humans have always survived because of our relatively high intelligence by comparison to everything else in the world. A person who clearly has access to sufficient food is going to naturally necessitate less intelligence to survive than someone who has to struggle to meet every meal. Although the circumstances of the modern world have changed, such behavior could easily stick around. If your body 'thinks' you're in need of food, it might change its chemestry to stimulate more thought.
Of course, this is all very hypothetical, I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back it up. And it still falls on that assumption that it's okay to assume IQ tests measure something relevant. And when you assume anything, that's exactly what you do: make an ASS out of U and ME.
but from what I've heard, Hans is a killer coder---but not THAT kind of killer coder.
No matther what happens, I'm sure reiserfs will go on as it would have before, though it'll be nearly crippled in the short term till things get reorganized. But that's not what's important right now. Many of the people reading this article likely owe at least a little respect to Hans (I'm looking at you, ubuntu users. His FS is the default) and should be doing what they can to help Hans out. Let's face it, the justice system in this country always blames the husband when a wife goes missing or is killed or something. That or an anonymous african american male, but let's not get into that arugment. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? Blaming the husband, especially a would-be ex-husband, is usually an easy way out, and if that is what actually happened then I really hope we see some conclusive proof of it, but let's please not try and turn this into another one of those court cases where regardless of the evidence, the population at large (that's aware of the case) goes into it pointing fingers and really wanting nothing more than a good show.
Unless I'm mistaken, this story was already featured on/. well over a year ago.
But thanks for the reminder. I sure hope at least one copy of the thing's DNA survived. I wanna ride a T-Rex!! (inside joke--ask my D&D buds, or don't)
a bit more matter than antimatter survived, providing the universe with the planets, stars and galaxies visible today.
The whole universe just one bit... this is even more amazing than.kkrieger, the 96kb fps. Makes me wonder what happened to the other 7 bits... I suppose 3 could be antimatter (0?) and 4 could be matter (1?) but then we'd STILL have a missing bit... unless...
Wait, the universe must have been created before 8 bits became standard! Ok, now the joke's even gotten old to me.
If they'd just open all the consoles, we could port Frets On Fire to them all, and get it that way too. I'm sure someone will eventually get homebrew code running on everything, much like stepmaniax running on xbox, but the hardware developers sure aren't making life easy for the rest of us.
Pass a law mandating emmisions be lowered by 25%, then sue the makers of the auto's for the user's actions with their product being in violation of a law that was passed after they made their product. While we're at it, let's throw every gun and knife manufacturer in jail because their products have killed people in the past.
End Sarcasm
I'm not particularly familiar with the law that was passed, but if you ask me, laws limiting greenhouse gas emmisions are a good thing on the whole (assuming they mandate semi-gradual change). But outrageous actions (and IMHO to sue them right now looks outrageous) will probably hurt the cause far more than it helps it. But what would I know?
I've installed linux on several machines that are much older than what most people have around. ~133 mhz and 16mb of ram is what I'm used to working with in many cases. The fastest way to get such a machine up and running is Damn Small Linux, via the text-mode installer on the disc. However, I've never attempted that on less than 16 megs of ram. Slackware has a 4meg kernel appropriate for machines with 8mb of ram, which I was planning to test on an old packard bell fitting the descritption of a 'true' windows 95 era machine outlined near the start of the comments. However, it seems my family has gotten rid of the machine since I last used it, so I cannot test the performance of the 4meg slackware route. I will say this, anything with 8 megs of ram is going to extremely slow if at all using any sort of desktop enironment. Damn Small Linux is a great examle of how fluxbox or jwm can be used to set up a fairly friendly interface without driving yourself mad in the process.
In short, if the systems can handel it, DSL is the fastest way to set something up, but otherwise I'd suggest slackware for an old machine.
Of course, the name Damn Small Linux isn't too elementary-school friendly... I've never used it, but puppy linux is similar to DSL in many ways from what I've read, and might be a more child-friendly alternative. But if you've got the time, I personally think slackware is the way to go on an old machine. X Windows On A Floppy would be of some interest if we weren't talking about something for children to work on.
That is, unless you want to try the a thin terminal, but that's going to cost a little money.
You make a sound argument. I was merely suggesting that, as you pointed out, they are making record profits. Yet we are contantly being fed the information, correct or not, that we are in some sort of a gas crisis. I was simply remarking upon this paradox, and that I personally find it hard to dismiss the sharp fall of gas prices and the approach of the mid term election as coincidence, but I could very well be wrong.
I used gentoo almost exclusively for all my computer useage for about a year, and dual booted with another os for another year or so. The only linux distro's I had used before then were slackware (my first), and ed's xebian, a fork of debian for xbox.
You can know virtually nothing about linux, but if you're patient and read the doccumentation, and take the time to learn what hardware is in your machine, you'll be fine with gentoo. The customization potential of the distro is nearly limitless, and because of that, it can be a headache if you don't know what you're doing. In all honest, I think it's the best distro I've ever used. But I don't use it at the moment, because as nice as having the newest of everything is, or having a custom tailored system, at the moment stability is key for me.
For an old or specialized machine (once it's been compiled), or for something you plan to set up once and be done with it (such as a mythtv box), gentoo is great. However, somewhere betwen 5.10 and 6.06, Ubuntu hit a huge performance increase. No, it's not as fast as gentoo, but the time it takes to maintin gentoo finally reached a point where quick and easy package updates offset the performance increase.
If you ask me, installing gentoo is a great way to teach a person to use linux. Hand them the disc, make sure their data is backed up so they wont lose anything, and tell them to knock themselves out. By the end of the third day, they'll take you literally -- or they're the patient type who actually read the doccumentation, and by now they've got a working KDE or GNOME set up. Slackware works almost as well as a teaching tool, but if you ask me zipslack on a fat32 with windows is the way to go, as it forces them to learn the command line in the process of setting up X, which is how I learned (took a few days, but eventually I got the hang of it, then it was just learning the syntax of the programs I actually use).
Gentoo is a great project, but for the average user, who wants things to 'just work' or doesn't think they're the type to actually read all the output that gets fed to your screen, it's not the right choice. If you really want easy package management, go with something debian based (either pure debian or an ubuntu server install work well, and build upon that).
Is it just me, or does it seem very convenient that gas prices are dropping, by huge margins, just before the mid-term elections..almost as if it were planned out, like they were trying to..I don't know..make it seem like a certain party's strategies finally payed off, and that a certain party's elected officials should stay in the house of representatives.
Because nothing in the world that I can find could possibly account for such a decline in prices recently, unless the oil companies started selling the oil back to themselves at a less than 400% markup. Seriously, is it just me, or does nobody else seem to see it?
Between this and the story on mini-frige keys opening voting machines, I really am starting to wonder if the whole 'election' thing is just a formality at this point.
This is all of course just my opinion formulated from what I have observed, I don't mean to offend anybody, but..from where I'm sitting.. I no longer think there's any possibility of it being coincidence that many of these things have happened. Ok, I suppose it IS technically possible that it's a coincidence, just as it's technically possible that, due to the properties of quantum mechanics, while I'm typing this my finger might simply pass through the keys, but the odds are extrordinary.
If gas prices drop to about a buck eighty six, then after mid term elections skyrocket again, don't say I never told you so.
Slashdot Mirror
D&D should switch from a d20 system to a d12?
Yes, THAT was my first thought in hearing the universe might be 12 sided...
"If you're an investor you can dump your money in the hole there."
That about sums it up. If you must invest in open source, look at the companies which offer tech-support: that's where lot most of the profits are.
Don't forget pants: they prevent ass blisters while sitting on the chairs to look at the monitor and manipulate the mouse to command the adsl modem to illegally download mp3s. But not to download porn..a least, not when pants are involved.
From what I've heard from my family at least, there was a somewhat similar argument over color broadcasts when they first started appearing. Now, I realize that in such a situation, things were a much less severe change, but even so, try to look at it from this point of view: The better the image on the screen looks, the more likely it is to hold someone's attention. If that weren't the case, nobody would pay to clear up those 'fuzzy channels' at the end of the dial.
The metaphorical dial, of course. If your TV has a dial, you need to kill yourself. Preferably through starvation, from the debt of buying an HDTV.
Okay, lets look at the current maximum feasible specs we could use: 24 bit color depth at 2400dpi, seem reasonable?
Per square inch of space, that's:
(2^24)^(2400*2400) possible combinations of data, which equals
2^(24*2400*2400) if rewritten, or, conveniently enough (since I started in base 2)
24*2400*2400 bits of data per square inch, about 17 megs
17 megs per square inch of paper, although fairly impressive, falls vastly short of what was supposedly achieved. And no matter what mysterious system of shapes might be used, once put on paper, the data is going to be in dots. There's nothing you can do about that. It's just the physical limitations of two dimensions.
The 2.4ghz segment of the microwave spectrum used for wireless devices is essentially harmless. E = hc/w where w = wavelength (normally he symbol lambda is used). The wavelength in this section of the spectrum is very large, comparatively speaking. You know those little holes in the screen of the microwave? Simply put, even those are too small for a microwave to fit through. And the amplitude of wireless lan devices is rather small--ban cellular phones long before you ban a wifi network. The most that particular set of frequencies can do is warm the human body up, and to do that it would need to be far more intense of a signal to have any noticeable effect. Those florescent bulbs used for lighting are more harmful--that white coating on the inside is all that's keeping ultraviolet light, which is harmful, inside the bulb.
There's no evidence that it isn't harmful, I'll give you that. But find evidence that the easter bunny doesn't exist while you're at it. Just because some mammals grow so large, or just because some electromagnetic waves have the potential of being harmful, doesn't mean they all do.
If they saw any personal electronic device (phone, PSP, etc) you were immediately scolded. Usually the first time it happened, MOST teachers/administrators wouldn't do anything beyond scolding you, but after that (or even the first time with some) they would confiscate the device and/or send you to the office.
Of course, there was the occasional teacher who didn't give a damn what you did, so long as it wasn't disruptive. But otherwise, everyone acted about the same.
Now, I personally think of cell phones and the like as a crutch on which no person should depend--much like computers, though at least a computer has more potential for good. But seriously, with the exception of when your car breaks down (yet another crutch), when if ever are you someplace where you cannot find a phone to use?
That being said, the policies which came into effect at my school did absolutely nothing beyond encouraging students to simply not get caught. If you ask me, this encourages exactly the wrong type of behavior. Which is probably why on every survey taken by the sociology class to which I saw the results, some 85% of students admitted to cheating. Punishing people for getting caught only encourages them to be more careful about not getting caught, but rarely is this sufficient to prevent the act itself from happening.
So, unless the administration at the school from the article plans to either punish the act of the student carrying such a device, by searching every student as they come into the building (possibly via a metal detector), or make the consequences of getting caught so severe that no student would dare risk getting caught (ie: first offense-detention. second-suspension. third-expulsion), then I don't see this having any real effect. It's just like the speed limit: almost every single person goes 5 miles over because the odds of getting caught are so slim and the consequences are almost negligible.
Furthermore, it's difficult to define personal electronic device. In the case of my former school, I made it a point to emphasize that under their current system, a digital watch was against regulations.
So, essentially what I'm saying is, even if the school implements such a policy, I doubt that it will affect the behavior of the students adversely, speaking from experience.
Copyright laws, we all agree I'm sure, should prevent people from illegally copying and reselling content. Originally, this applied pretty much only to printed books, so that's what the initial system was designed for. Once you start having different mediums, an important concept needs to be well defined which I think both sides of the argument have really addressed: When you buy something, are you paying for the copy, or the content?
Essentially, if I go buy a CD, is it the CD that I would own, or the songs themselves? In music and movies, the lines blur more than on other issues. As the system is currently set up, it seems to be leaning pretty strongly to the "Copy" side of the argument, but, at least from my point of view, doesn't seem to be completely well defined. Now, with anti-circumvention laws and the many forms of copy protection out there, it naturally leans to the "Copy" side anyway... and if you ask me, that's not the way it should be. A content-based system of regulations simply makes more sense to me--and until anti-circumvention laws started getting the green light left and right, that's (at least, from what I can remember) the way things worked for the most part. Let's face it, where's the sense in a law which does nothing but require you re-purchase something you already own simply to use it a little differently. That's like requiring you to own a separate car for interstate driving and city driving.
In my eyes at least, the copyright should apply to the content. The price of purchasing something should consist of buying the legal rights to use it, along with the cost of labor and materials for that copy. But you should be free to copy it as you wish, for your own use.
Selling copies of something such as a movie should of course be illegal, but not when a transfer of the license takes place. In this case, following my argument of how the law should be, preloading content from a legally purchased DVD onto an iPod should be perfectly legal.
Of course, lots of things SHOULD be one way, doesn't mean they are. But, at least from my point of view, I think my argument makes a lot of sense. Too bad those who make and enforce the laws so rarely seem to listen to reason, though hopefully after the last election things should start becoming more reasonable.
I have a box filled with RPG handbooks, and this is the first I've heard of it...
Wait, THAT kind of RPG...the kind with explosions...and no dice...
Wine, and it's offshots, are a great way of getting things to run. For mundane programs which cannot be ported, it works wonders. But although it works well for games too, it's not a solution.
Of course, with less than optimal support for some hardware, linux has a bit of a disadvantage from the performance standpoint with some setups, but again this is because of the developers--or the people working above them. From what I've heard, no sane developer would wish to use directx over opengl, but I don't have enough experience with either to make any strong arguments about that.
When all is said and done, if you think gaming sucks on linux, you may be right. But who's responsible? The developers, or the project managers above them, are merely developing for the largest market. Although on a different topic, if I may quote V, I think the message is the same...
As long is Microsoft Windows continues to dominate, nay decimate*, the OS market, then hacked together solutions such as Wine will have to suffice for anyone who wishes not to 'sell out' to Microsoft.
*I realize this is an awkward use of the word decimate. Literally, it means to reduce by 1/10th, where as MS Windows has reduced competition to below 1/10th. Although technically incorrect, I think you understand what I mean.
PS: I fully support the Wine project and all derivatives. I think they're doing a great thing by allowing users to run software to which there is no alternative. However, the better support Wine has for software, the less reason most companies will feel the need to port it at their cost, and most companies feel uneasy to say the least about the idea of giving away their source code. It's a bit of a catch 22. Even so, any support for an application is better than no support. Keep up the good work.
..would this make it a bad idea to dial the phone with your testicles?
Here's my thought's on a windows-mac switch
Pros: It's not windows
Cons: It's not linux
That was an attempt at humor, by the way
If we assume IQ tests are valid measures of intelligence, this actually kind of makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint. Humans have always survived because of our relatively high intelligence by comparison to everything else in the world. A person who clearly has access to sufficient food is going to naturally necessitate less intelligence to survive than someone who has to struggle to meet every meal. Although the circumstances of the modern world have changed, such behavior could easily stick around. If your body 'thinks' you're in need of food, it might change its chemestry to stimulate more thought.
Of course, this is all very hypothetical, I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever to back it up. And it still falls on that assumption that it's okay to assume IQ tests measure something relevant. And when you assume anything, that's exactly what you do: make an ASS out of U and ME.
should I join the empire or the rebel alliance? the answer is clearly......wait..which one offers dental again?
In Soviet Russia, vest hugs you!!
...
... damnit!
but from what I've heard, Hans is a killer coder---but not THAT kind of killer coder.
No matther what happens, I'm sure reiserfs will go on as it would have before, though it'll be nearly crippled in the short term till things get reorganized. But that's not what's important right now. Many of the people reading this article likely owe at least a little respect to Hans (I'm looking at you, ubuntu users. His FS is the default) and should be doing what they can to help Hans out. Let's face it, the justice system in this country always blames the husband when a wife goes missing or is killed or something. That or an anonymous african american male, but let's not get into that arugment. Innocent until proven guilty, remember? Blaming the husband, especially a would-be ex-husband, is usually an easy way out, and if that is what actually happened then I really hope we see some conclusive proof of it, but let's please not try and turn this into another one of those court cases where regardless of the evidence, the population at large (that's aware of the case) goes into it pointing fingers and really wanting nothing more than a good show.
Hans deserves better than that.
who'd like to take two of these things, put them in the same room, start to play something, then stop and see how the two work off eachother?
Unless I'm mistaken, this story was already featured on /. well over a year ago.
But thanks for the reminder. I sure hope at least one copy of the thing's DNA survived. I wanna ride a T-Rex!! (inside joke--ask my D&D buds, or don't)
The whole universe just one bit... this is even more amazing than
Wait, the universe must have been created before 8 bits became standard!
Ok, now the joke's even gotten old to me.
If they'd just open all the consoles, we could port Frets On Fire to them all, and get it that way too. I'm sure someone will eventually get homebrew code running on everything, much like stepmaniax running on xbox, but the hardware developers sure aren't making life easy for the rest of us.
Sarcasm
Pass a law mandating emmisions be lowered by 25%, then sue the makers of the auto's for the user's actions with their product being in violation of a law that was passed after they made their product. While we're at it, let's throw every gun and knife manufacturer in jail because their products have killed people in the past.
End Sarcasm
I'm not particularly familiar with the law that was passed, but if you ask me, laws limiting greenhouse gas emmisions are a good thing on the whole (assuming they mandate semi-gradual change). But outrageous actions (and IMHO to sue them right now looks outrageous) will probably hurt the cause far more than it helps it. But what would I know?
I've installed linux on several machines that are much older than what most people have around. ~133 mhz and 16mb of ram is what I'm used to working with in many cases. The fastest way to get such a machine up and running is Damn Small Linux, via the text-mode installer on the disc. However, I've never attempted that on less than 16 megs of ram. Slackware has a 4meg kernel appropriate for machines with 8mb of ram, which I was planning to test on an old packard bell fitting the descritption of a 'true' windows 95 era machine outlined near the start of the comments. However, it seems my family has gotten rid of the machine since I last used it, so I cannot test the performance of the 4meg slackware route. I will say this, anything with 8 megs of ram is going to extremely slow if at all using any sort of desktop enironment. Damn Small Linux is a great examle of how fluxbox or jwm can be used to set up a fairly friendly interface without driving yourself mad in the process.
In short, if the systems can handel it, DSL is the fastest way to set something up, but otherwise I'd suggest slackware for an old machine.
Of course, the name Damn Small Linux isn't too elementary-school friendly... I've never used it, but puppy linux is similar to DSL in many ways from what I've read, and might be a more child-friendly alternative. But if you've got the time, I personally think slackware is the way to go on an old machine. X Windows On A Floppy would be of some interest if we weren't talking about something for children to work on.
That is, unless you want to try the a thin terminal, but that's going to cost a little money.
You make a sound argument. I was merely suggesting that, as you pointed out, they are making record profits. Yet we are contantly being fed the information, correct or not, that we are in some sort of a gas crisis. I was simply remarking upon this paradox, and that I personally find it hard to dismiss the sharp fall of gas prices and the approach of the mid term election as coincidence, but I could very well be wrong.
I used gentoo almost exclusively for all my computer useage for about a year, and dual booted with another os for another year or so. The only linux distro's I had used before then were slackware (my first), and ed's xebian, a fork of debian for xbox.
You can know virtually nothing about linux, but if you're patient and read the doccumentation, and take the time to learn what hardware is in your machine, you'll be fine with gentoo. The customization potential of the distro is nearly limitless, and because of that, it can be a headache if you don't know what you're doing. In all honest, I think it's the best distro I've ever used. But I don't use it at the moment, because as nice as having the newest of everything is, or having a custom tailored system, at the moment stability is key for me.
For an old or specialized machine (once it's been compiled), or for something you plan to set up once and be done with it (such as a mythtv box), gentoo is great. However, somewhere betwen 5.10 and 6.06, Ubuntu hit a huge performance increase. No, it's not as fast as gentoo, but the time it takes to maintin gentoo finally reached a point where quick and easy package updates offset the performance increase.
If you ask me, installing gentoo is a great way to teach a person to use linux. Hand them the disc, make sure their data is backed up so they wont lose anything, and tell them to knock themselves out. By the end of the third day, they'll take you literally -- or they're the patient type who actually read the doccumentation, and by now they've got a working KDE or GNOME set up. Slackware works almost as well as a teaching tool, but if you ask me zipslack on a fat32 with windows is the way to go, as it forces them to learn the command line in the process of setting up X, which is how I learned (took a few days, but eventually I got the hang of it, then it was just learning the syntax of the programs I actually use).
Gentoo is a great project, but for the average user, who wants things to 'just work' or doesn't think they're the type to actually read all the output that gets fed to your screen, it's not the right choice. If you really want easy package management, go with something debian based (either pure debian or an ubuntu server install work well, and build upon that).
Is it just me, or does it seem very convenient that gas prices are dropping, by huge margins, just before the mid-term elections..almost as if it were planned out, like they were trying to..I don't know..make it seem like a certain party's strategies finally payed off, and that a certain party's elected officials should stay in the house of representatives.
Because nothing in the world that I can find could possibly account for such a decline in prices recently, unless the oil companies started selling the oil back to themselves at a less than 400% markup. Seriously, is it just me, or does nobody else seem to see it?
Between this and the story on mini-frige keys opening voting machines, I really am starting to wonder if the whole 'election' thing is just a formality at this point.
This is all of course just my opinion formulated from what I have observed, I don't mean to offend anybody, but..from where I'm sitting.. I no longer think there's any possibility of it being coincidence that many of these things have happened. Ok, I suppose it IS technically possible that it's a coincidence, just as it's technically possible that, due to the properties of quantum mechanics, while I'm typing this my finger might simply pass through the keys, but the odds are extrordinary.
If gas prices drop to about a buck eighty six, then after mid term elections skyrocket again, don't say I never told you so.