My family has a ranch in Oklahoma, USA. They keep 100 cows on about 300 acres (1.2km^2) of praire grassland. The soil is mostly clay, difficult to work, and there's no irrigation. We grow alfalfa, bermuda, and winter wheat as fodder. The cows walk around, munch grass for several years, then get turned into hamburgers and steaks.
Other lands are more appropriate for crops. The sandy alluvial soils in the Arkansas river floodplain grow a lot of soy beans, for example.
>2. Find out what the pets really do when you're not at home.
Awwwwww... This just seems mean! I mean, I feel a little guilty when I hear something in the kitchen, then sneak up and catch the cat on the table, spooking it badly.
But what if I could just remotely view through the cat's eyes in real time, say, while I was at the office. I could then send my voice to the cat's coclear implant: "Bad cat! I see you! Get down from that table!"
>deliberately give wacky answers when required to give demographic info.
Heh heh. When I heard how the supermarkets were misusing the demographic data gathered from customer's use of store discount cards, I threw mine away and got several more under false names and data. Now, I have one card that I just buy Sweet-Tarts (tm) candy with. Another that I use to buy 15 gallons of distilled water at a time.
Best of all, I choose names that are amusing to pronounce so I can hear the checkers say, "Have a good day, Mr. Auoeouuei..."
If Redhat were selling a closed product, then I doubt I'd have much interest in buying it. I doubt others would be as interested either. It wouldn't be as valuable to me.
Hmmm, I have a business card here from the last LinuxWorld. Says, "San Mehat, Director of Product Architecture, Hardware Canada Computing / Netwinder". I guess he went to work for VA?
I would suggest taking a look at Nedit. It's a GUI text editor that I've been using on Solaris to write text, email, HTML, Perl, and C. While it doesn't seem appropriate as a word processor, it does have syntax highlighting for coding, and splitable windows. I just wouldn't try to write a multicolumn newletter with pictures using it...
I do remember when Apple was about to go under. I remember the endless "Apple Dead?" headlines. I agree that Steve Jobs is a focused and determined CEO, not shy about making drastic and sometimes unpopular decisions for the sake of his company.
I am glad that the company is doing better, that they seem to selling a lot of iMacs. I bought my parents a G3 last year, figuring that it'd be easiest for my brother to support since he desktop publishes on macs.
But there was a certain seige mentality in the Mac community: When the cloners got killed off, I recall the pundits in MacWorld saying that it was harsh but necessary, that if Apple went under, the Mac ecosystem would too. I parrotted that line, too. Repeated it to my friends. Told them *years* ago, that the hardball moves were unfortunate, but Apple would recover, and had great things waiting to show us.
I got tired, though. Too many crashes. Too many Apple boxes purchased at a premium. Too long waiting for a decent OS. Too much money spent getting basic software utilities. Too little freedom.
That's why I walked. I got tired of the "Mac Ecosystem". It was like being a loyal citizen of a run down country run by a dictator. Jobs just seems the most successful.
I appreciate Bruce Peren's criticism of Apple's license, since I care about what Open Source means. I don't want to accept something possibly tainted, only to be stuck at a later date when things go sour. If there are problems with the APSL, I want to hear what they are, and hope that Apple will fix them.
As an ex-MacOS user, I'm real familiar with getting screwed by Apple. In the past, they've been a monopoly in a little niche: A single company sells you the hardware and the OS that works with it. Expensive. Flighty. Closed.
Remember when Apple, hoping to increase the Mac marketshare, opened up to letting other companies make clone Mac hardware? When the cloners ate into the low end of the market at Apple's expense, Apple stopped licensing the OS to them and put them all out of business.
Doesn't that sound familiar: "If your actions displease us, we'll put you out of business by refusing to sell you our OS..." ?
Now, imagine if the Open Source community came to rely on some almost-open-but-not-really code. If Apple felt like it, they could yank the rug out of under us:
"If your success threatens our business, we'll throw your development efforts into chaos by pulling your license."
Let's see how many examples of "they shoulda used some kind of encryption" we can come up with...
Newt Gingrich probably wishes that he was using at least a digital cell phone with minimal encryption when he got scannered down in Florida some years back. He was discussing with GOP leaders how to dodge an ethics charge over a course he taught. It was a mild scandal, both for the political content of the call and for the accusations of illegal (wireless) wiretapping.
I think one of the British royals had an analog cordless phone conversation with his girlfriend taped too. It showed up in the tabloids.
Then there's the Reagan administration's email trail that came up during the Iran/Contra hearings. I think I recall this coming up when Ollie North was in front of congress.
There were the break-ins of liberal/left organizations in the US, where nothing was taken except the disks and address lists. The Central America group at least.
...The best argument for crypto I've seen, is in the user feedback section of Zimmerman's site: http://www.nai.com/products/security/phil/phil-l etters.asp . There, someone from a human rights group talks about police trying to get information.
Personally, I've had my email snooped by an unethical sysadmin once.
Well, I don't know if it has improved or not, but you'd probably do well to avoid East Palo Alto. Ten years back, my friend's parents used to greet him with:
"We're glad you're home safe! There was automatic weapons fire in the neighborhood tonight..."
Slashdot Mirror
My family has a ranch in Oklahoma, USA. They keep 100 cows on about 300 acres (1.2km^2) of praire grassland. The soil is mostly clay, difficult to work, and there's no irrigation. We grow alfalfa, bermuda, and winter wheat as fodder. The cows walk around, munch grass for several years, then get turned into hamburgers and steaks.
Other lands are more appropriate for crops. The sandy alluvial soils in the Arkansas river floodplain grow a lot of soy beans, for example.
Silliness: http://www.theonion.com/onion3420/animal_rights.h
>2. Find out what the pets really do when you're not at home.
Awwwwww... This just seems mean! I mean, I feel a little guilty when I hear something in the kitchen, then sneak up and catch the cat on the table, spooking it badly.
But what if I could just remotely view through the cat's eyes in real time, say, while I was at the office. I could then send my voice to the cat's coclear implant: "Bad cat! I see you! Get down from that table!"
Instant feline neurosis?
>deliberately give wacky answers when required to give demographic info.
Heh heh. When I heard how the supermarkets were misusing the demographic data gathered from customer's use of store discount cards, I threw mine away and got several more under false names and data. Now, I have one card that I just buy Sweet-Tarts (tm) candy with. Another that I use to buy 15 gallons of distilled water at a time.
Best of all, I choose names that are amusing to pronounce so I can hear the checkers say, "Have a good day, Mr. Auoeouuei..."
If Redhat were selling a closed product, then I doubt I'd have much interest in buying it. I doubt others would be as interested either. It wouldn't be as valuable to me.
Hmmm, I have a business card here from the last LinuxWorld. Says, "San Mehat, Director of Product Architecture, Hardware Canada Computing / Netwinder". I guess he went to work for VA?
I would suggest taking a look at Nedit. It's a GUI text editor that I've been using on Solaris to write text, email, HTML, Perl, and C. While it doesn't seem appropriate as a word processor, it does have syntax highlighting for coding, and splitable windows. I just wouldn't try to write a multicolumn newletter with pictures using it...
Good luck!
I can see why he is getting flamed so nicely.
Has he not read Ken Thompson's Reflections on Trusting Trust , from 1984?
I do remember when Apple was about to go under. I remember the endless "Apple Dead?" headlines. I agree that Steve Jobs is a focused and determined CEO, not shy about making drastic and sometimes unpopular decisions for the sake of his company.
I am glad that the company is doing better, that they seem to selling a lot of iMacs. I bought my parents a G3 last year, figuring that it'd be easiest for my brother to support since he desktop publishes on macs.
But there was a certain seige mentality in the Mac community: When the cloners got killed off, I recall the pundits in MacWorld saying that it was harsh but necessary, that if Apple went under, the Mac ecosystem would too. I parrotted that line, too. Repeated it to my friends. Told them *years* ago, that the hardball moves were unfortunate, but Apple would recover, and had great things waiting to show us.
I got tired, though. Too many crashes. Too many Apple boxes purchased at a premium. Too long waiting for a decent OS. Too much money spent getting basic software utilities. Too little freedom.
That's why I walked. I got tired of the "Mac Ecosystem". It was like being a loyal citizen of a run down country run by a dictator. Jobs just seems the most successful.
We're not that intolerant. We've been offered a nice hot slice of, um, apple pie. And we're checking it for fishhooks.
Hmmm?
Oh, because so many previous slices of pie have had something unpleasant inside them, that's why...
I appreciate Bruce Peren's criticism of Apple's license, since I care about what Open Source means. I don't want to accept something possibly tainted, only to be stuck at a later date when things go sour. If there are problems with the APSL, I want to hear what they are, and hope that Apple will fix them.
As an ex-MacOS user, I'm real familiar with getting screwed by Apple. In the past, they've been a monopoly in a little niche: A single company sells you the hardware and the OS that works with it. Expensive. Flighty. Closed.
Remember when Apple, hoping to increase the Mac marketshare, opened up to letting other companies make clone Mac hardware? When the cloners ate into the low end of the market at Apple's expense, Apple stopped licensing the OS to them and put them all out of business.
Doesn't that sound familiar: "If your actions displease us, we'll put you out of business by refusing to sell you our OS..." ?
Now, imagine if the Open Source community came to rely on some almost-open-but-not-really code. If Apple felt like it, they could yank the rug out of under us:
"If your success threatens our business, we'll throw your development efforts into chaos by pulling your license."
Bruce is right to raise issues of freedom...
Let's see how many examples of "they shoulda used some kind of encryption" we can come up with...
l etters.asp . There, someone from a human rights group talks about police trying to get information.
Newt Gingrich probably wishes that he was using at least a digital cell phone with minimal encryption when he got scannered down in Florida some years back. He was discussing with GOP leaders how to dodge an ethics charge over a course he taught. It was a mild scandal, both for the political content of the call and for the accusations of illegal (wireless) wiretapping.
I think one of the British royals had an analog cordless phone conversation with his girlfriend taped too. It showed up in the tabloids.
Then there's the Reagan administration's email trail that came up during the Iran/Contra hearings. I think I recall this coming up when Ollie North was in front of congress.
There were the break-ins of liberal/left organizations in the US, where nothing was taken except the disks and address lists. The Central America group at least.
...The best argument for crypto I've seen, is in the user feedback section of Zimmerman's site:
http://www.nai.com/products/security/phil/phil-
Personally, I've had my email snooped by an unethical sysadmin once.
Other examples?
Well, I don't know if it has improved or not, but you'd probably do well to avoid East Palo Alto. Ten years back, my friend's parents used to greet him with:
"We're glad you're home safe! There was automatic weapons fire in the neighborhood tonight..."
I hope that's changed since then...
Okay, I should have looked harder. Here's the URL:
http://www.cafebabylon.com/
Food review: I had a sandwich there a month ago. It was alright. But this is a coffeehouse with typical coffeehouse speed service.
Food alternatives:
Original Joes - First street + San Pablo? Open late.
Iguana's Taqueria - 3rd + San Pablo. Open late.
Ptor
Heh-heh.
I'll run over to the cafe, if only to see the Slashdot effect in non-virtual form. Cafe Babylon will probably be swamped.
Damn. Can't find them on the web. Babylon is the place that used to be Kismet, right? Tall double doors with art gallery in the back?
Ptor