Actually, I have the original 20 MB drive, from 'my' (read "my dad's but he didn't know how to use it") PC XT from approximately 1984, and it still works (if you can find a controller). The 135 MB drive from my (read my) Compudyne 386/33 from ca. 1990 still works as well. The 386 mobo continued as a server well into the late 90's so be careful...not all old tech is as ephemeral as the cheap, disposable modern stuff.
As a content producer vice a content consumer, SSD's are about 'tits ona bull' useless. I need fast, fast write. I only care about fast, fast read when I'm playing back, and the real-world playback advantage of SSD drives in a production environment is not so great as to counteract the write disadvantage.
For the record, SSD's will have to reduce themselfes in price to about $.10/GB before I'm willing to swallow the performance his caused by slow NAND writes, and I think I'm not the only one tht thinks this way.
Apple, however, is playing smart by combining the advantages of the two drive types in a single form factor. The "OS/application SSD drive" + mass storage HDD is a very smart combination, it's just too damned expensive. The rent is too damned high!!!
Wait....I'm supposed to AVOID the cos-playing female types in Tokyo? Why the hell else did I go all the way to Japan, then? To buy electronics hardware that I can get way cheaper in Shanghai? I think not!
Next think you know, you're going to be telling me not to go to a ramen shop because you can get packaged stuff cheaper at the conbini.
*DOES NOT COMPUTE!* *DOES NOT COMPUTE!*
For the record, the "cosplaying female-equivalents in Akiba" are pretty and they smell nice...even the dudes...(Don't ask, it was a confusing summer.)
And walking through herds of "herbivore men" that swarm Akiba gives you this sudden feeling that for the first time in your life you could actually kick someone's ass at something more than Mario Kart or a Halo death match.
If you read the Governor's other tweets, you can see that he clearly was making a difficult decision to take a man's life. The fact that he used new technology to let us see the process should be lauded, not decried. Now the people will have to face the results of their votes for politicians who are "tough on crime". Thankfully Gov. Herbert has put a human face on the debate.
Although the squeamish and European out there find it 'barbaric' or 'unfeeling', a multiple murderer got his. This man was not some "poor wretch" who was "wrongfully convicted". He was on trial for murder when he MURDERED ANOTHER PERSON. If ever there's an argument for capital punishment, this guy was it. So no-one should shed a tear for him, save his family.
As for the firing squad, Mr. Gardner CHOSE to be executed that way. If the criminal chose the means despite less painful options, then whether you consider a firing squad humane is irrelevant. It was his choice, and it's a somewhat free-ish country.
you know, If we could muster enough methane, the right catalyst, and a gallon of vermouth we could have a martini almost half a light-year across.......
Since there seems to be a large base of RISK fans in the Slashdot user-base, why don't we (as a group) try to get Hasbro to rescind their cease-and-desist, and maybe even sponsor the developer? It seems logical, right? The RISK IP has not been properly exploited in many years, save an OK PS1 game, and a lackluster PS2 outing. So why not encourage the owner of the IP in question to follow the grassroots lead and let homeboy fully develop his idea. I'm not saying they should SPONSOR him, although that would be a BRILLIANT step on their part, but to see where it goes. It may lead to greater interest in their board game, and might also lead to a new and more usable computer based version.
I guess I really missed the train on this one as far a karma points are concerned, but here it goes, anyway.
In the current data center design paradigms that I have seen, the raised floor is about as useful as tits on a boar pig. Most of the data centers I have seen have consisted of a raised floor topped by a server rack that is either sealed at the top for security, or open to the room as a whole for cooling. The whole mess being punctuated by overhead cable racks whose sole purpose is to cause contusions and the rapid ejection of expletives from the over-tall. The net result is a server room that is too eff-ing cold for the average human to tolerate, while being only partially effective in its' intended design purpose.
However, The raised floor can be useful if the design is correctly laid out. Use the principles of "Naval Damage Control and Firefighting" your advantage.
After seeing how airflow is controlled on ships at sea, you will come to understand that the proper design is to have a positive pressure ventilation system under the raised floor, and a negative pressure ventilation system in the overhead. (ceiling, above the drop tiles, whatever you land lubbers call that stuff over your collective, office-bound heads.) The raised floor should be joined to the overhead by a simple ducting system consisting of sealing the top of the server rack to the ceiling using whatever is available (sheet metal, cardboard, left-over swag from E3 1996 or Sci-fi-con-whatever-1992). This way, the cooled air from the chillers can be forced under the floor, through the racks, and up into the overhead where it is exhausted. Hell, if you're an efficiency freak, use the exhausted server air the A/C source for the human occupied portions of the data center. A constant flow of 50-degree air makes 'puters happy, and it makes CBLFs shiver. The "too many corners in a raised floor" thing is a red herring.
Although an ornately designed under-floor ducting system can and will lead to un necessary inefficiencies in the cooling of server racks, by using the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), the same basic logic that works on every commercial transport, pleasure craft, or military ship in the world can work in a server room too. Two simple plenum spaces connected by the duct of the server rack is in fact, the MOST efficient way to cool a room full of number-crunching toaster ovens.
The USAPATRIOT act may not have affected me in any material way, but it has affected me in some very serious ways, namely a loss of faith in some of the basic principles that make up my idea of what America IS.
By allowing expanded powers to the investigative branches of the government with only minimal oversight by the judicial branch, the act undermines my protections under the 4th amendment. Sneak-and-peak warrants have been allowed under the FISA and criminal statutes since the late 60's, with probable cause, and with bench approval.
Now, however, the standards have been lowered to a point that the average citizen can have their private records and personal affects searched (and bugged) for, what would have been in the past, only minimally suspicious behaviors. Imagine, for instance, that you are a student researching a paper for a comparative religion class that takes you into the realm of researching reasons, justifications, and methods used by suicide bombers/terrorists. With only the barest of oversight, the government now has the right to partake of surveillance that would have been considered "beyond the pale" only 3 years ago.
My biggest complaint, however, has nothing to do with the above. It has to do with the "Enemy Combatant" detainments that have been an ongoing problem in the judicial system. Under the 6th amendment, we have the right to a speedy and public trial. By right, we have for the last 200+ years enjoyed this protection under the bill of rights. Now, though, if the government can come up with a reason to label you an enemy combatant, they can hold you for an indefinite time in an undisclosed location, with no access to legal counsel.
At one point in the past, I was a Muslim. I frequented a mosque that I discovered (many years after the fact) was frequented by "unsavory" types that were recruiting people to fight in one of the earlier Palestinian Intifada's. Do I now have to forever look o'er my shoulder to see if I am being followed? Maybe.
Both of the above situations are also are protected by the 14th amendment (due process), but this due process has been undermined by the USA Patriot act.
How can we truly call ourselves the land of the free when we allow our constitutional freedoms to be circumvented by acts of congress?
It seems that the author of the paper ignored completely the effect of the constant cascade of charged particled that stream out of the sun on a second to second basis. The effect of these particles is vastly greater than the photonic pressure that seems to be the basis for his argument against the usefullness of the sail.
In addition, the author's use of examples ignores the effect as well. A Crookes radiometer rotating backward is doing so inside a protected environment completely sheltered from the effects of a stream of ionized gas. Although we consider this space "vacuum", it is actually wuite full of high velocity (and therefore high inerta) particles. So, the solar sail is not a heat engine at all. In some ways, it operates similarly to the way a sailing ship works, with the exception that a sailship is actually driven by the aerodynamic force of the wind moving AROUND the sails, rather than impacting the sails. Will the decrease in vacuum pressure on the shadow side of the solar sail be enough to effect the acceleration of the craft? I dunno, only experimentation will tell for sure. (just theorizing here, but the mechanics of solar sails and sailing vessels may be more closely related that we know right now.)
Inside the earth's magnetosphere, the solar sail may have some difficulty gaining momentum. However, once outside, in the full solar wind, the efficiency should increase.
Was this article originally published in one of the first issues of Mondo 2000??? (Dammit where's that box of magazines!!!) I know I've read this somewhere before, but I can't remeber where...DARNIT!!!!
Just think...for all those passive/agressive 5up3r-1337 h4x0r5 out there that can never seem to find a girlfriend, this is the perfect answer!!! You can serenade her with spam! Entice her with your smooth and witty turn of phrase..."limited time offer" becomes "I pledge my undying love to you and your fuzzy knee socks!" "Senate bill 1234, title 6" becomes "let me cover you in chocloate syrup and write out the entire source of my new killer r00t k1t on your nether regions in portable ANSI C!"
For almost 18 months I was the lead technician at a small startup broadband ISP called (of all things) "BroadbandNOW". (If you're a current- or ex-customer, please don't flame me...) Speaking from experience having to deal with @Home on a semi-regular basis, I can tell you that @Home's L2 and L3 support are only marginally brighter than their L1 support.
Of course, as someone above said, it's not easy to get good support techs with the job market like it is. I had one tech that worked for me whose favorite thing to do was to tell the customer to reinstall windows, and if they didn't have their Win CD, he wouldn't help them....I couldn't fire him because there was no-one else to hire. Whaddaya do?? (He was fired eventually, but not for being incompetent....)
Speaking of @Home, though I have had some less than stellar conversations with their support organization. For example - It took me almost an hour to explain to one of their L2 techs why there was 'excessive' latency (85ms) between one of our customers and one of their customers that were only 3 blocks from each other.............. um... hello??? Ummmm...different networks??? ummm...not excessive @ 85ms... Duh...
At the same time, it's not really easy to detemine which of your customers are experienced sysadmins or network admins, and which are idiots that just know the WORD sysadmin. I have also run into a lot of customers that CLAIM to have all sorts of certs. (CCNA's that don't know a router from a switch, MCSE's that can't figure out how to set NT up for DHCP, and one particular IRIX user ("well I'm not a user, I'm a sysadmin dammit!") who couldn't get proclaim (IRIX DHCP client) to work.....even with step-by-step instructions, and I mean BABY steps.) Again, whaddaya do?
To be honest though, when you're supporting a customer over the phone with a Cablemodem, you really have to start from scratch every time (until, that is the customer knows the drill well enough to tell you exactly what they did before calling). This is due to one simple fact....CUSTOMERS LIE! All the time...daily...hourly...especially when they don't want support to know that they're running a NAT box connected to 5 or 6 other machines. Even better are the ones that will lie to you WITHOUT the NAT box.
Tech: "how many computers do you have attached to your modem?"
Customer: "Um......one"
Tech: "really?"
Cust: "Yup, just the one."
Tech: "Wow, that's cool, because the ARP cache on your modem shows 6 separate machines!!!"
Cust: "Doh!!!!!"
In all cases like the aforementioned, I like the idea of the "remote slapper", or even better, a small device that will deliver a taser-like blast of electricity to the end-user's ear when support determines that the problem is a PEBCAK error (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard).
One 'tiny' more thing.....if @Home is using DMCA as justification, then IMHO shouldn't the ACLU work PDQ to get the SCoUSA to overturn this BS law ASAP??? Just asking...
=====
The.gif that was posted here of the license looks like it's just the standard Corel beta test N.D.A. kind of thing. Comments were made right after the public beta that the Corel site was requiring "Wndows 95/98" to do the Linux beta test.
What does that say?? It says that I think it was all just a case of Corel using the stock forms that saying, "We [Corel] use them for all our betas." I don't really think it's some insidious Dr. Evil like plan to copyright Linux and take it away, which, if you consider the fact that Linus keeps the source, isn't possible.
I think it wass more of an unintentional error made by somebody in Corel's marketing department when they put together the mailers for the Linux Beta Test. If anyone out there works in the same area of the building as their marketing department (as I do), you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that a lot of the people in the marketing department have about the same brightness as a 2-watt light bulb....
I would just as much assume to give them a break on this one due to their ignorance more than anything else, and the fact that they are trying to INCREASE the market and mind share for Linux, not damage it....
That's not to say that it wasn't a stupid mistake tho....
I think this was a very insightful article, however I think Jon missed the REAL reason that the net won't begin to truly change politics for several more years. That reason is "Political Inertia". Despite the fact that 'cybergeeks' have grown as a force, we're still a very TINY fraction of the population. Mom and pop in Iowa, while happily taking their place in the digital revolution, will still not give up what they see as one of the fundamental facts of American life easily. That fact? Pulling the lever in a voting booth at a polling place. It's a semi-sacred tradition to middle America, and we would all do well to remember that the revolutionary ideas of today do not become matter-of-fact for about 20 years...
The other real issue is the technological hurdle. Well, there are inherent problems in trying to keep anything associated with the Internet "secret". You won't be able to convince the populace that their campaign contributions will be kept confidential if they're transmitted over the Web. Granted, contributions are public record in the first place, but do you think your secretly gay Uncle Roy would be more willing to give to a gay frienly candidate, knowing that his contribution date, time and amount can be instantly displayed for the world to see?? What about the politician's reaction to having it publicly displayed that the Grand Dragon of the KKK just made a MAJOR contribution??
Again, This was a great article, a real thought provoker, but it missed the mark slightly... IMHO:)
I work at an ISP, and since about 9:00 AM, most of our routers have been freaking out. We've already had to reset a couple of the internal switches, and some of the reouters as well. I'm not convinced that the problems with the routers and switches are related to 9999, but it's a kinda funny, no?
Okay, let's be logical here...since SGI is going to sell machines with Linus pre-installed AND support them, it would be REALLY dumb of them not to have a custom made X server for their graphics chipset. Come on, they made a custom HAL for the NT implementation, why would they not build custom drivers and such for Linux? As has been remarked several times before, these boxes are quite pricey, and meant for graphic artists, so one would have to assume that when the machine is purchased from SGI (with whatever distro they want to use...I'll still buy one), they would have thought of all the nice little features like a custom kernel config & coding, a special X server, the GL libs, and the whole 9 yards. You don't actually think that there's going to be more than $100 price difference between the NT models and the Linux models do you?
I wasn't just high when I read that SGI was going to be shipping Linux versions as well, was I?
This does not make sense...what would an 8 foot tall wookie from Kishi be doing living on Endor with a bunch of 2 foot tall Ewoks? It does not make sense!!! (Thanks Johnny Cochran...:)
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I have the original 20 MB drive, from 'my' (read "my dad's but he didn't know how to use it") PC XT from approximately 1984, and it still works (if you can find a controller). The 135 MB drive from my (read my) Compudyne 386/33 from ca. 1990 still works as well. The 386 mobo continued as a server well into the late 90's so be careful...not all old tech is as ephemeral as the cheap, disposable modern stuff.
As a content producer vice a content consumer, SSD's are about 'tits ona bull' useless. I need fast, fast write. I only care about fast, fast read when I'm playing back, and the real-world playback advantage of SSD drives in a production environment is not so great as to counteract the write disadvantage.
For the record, SSD's will have to reduce themselfes in price to about $.10/GB before I'm willing to swallow the performance his caused by slow NAND writes, and I think I'm not the only one tht thinks this way.
Apple, however, is playing smart by combining the advantages of the two drive types in a single form factor. The "OS/application SSD drive" + mass storage HDD is a very smart combination, it's just too damned expensive. The rent is too damned high!!!
Wait....I'm supposed to AVOID the cos-playing female types in Tokyo? Why the hell else did I go all the way to Japan, then? To buy electronics hardware that I can get way cheaper in Shanghai? I think not!
Next think you know, you're going to be telling me not to go to a ramen shop because you can get packaged stuff cheaper at the conbini.
*DOES NOT COMPUTE!* *DOES NOT COMPUTE!*
For the record, the "cosplaying female-equivalents in Akiba" are pretty and they smell nice...even the dudes...(Don't ask, it was a confusing summer.)
And walking through herds of "herbivore men" that swarm Akiba gives you this sudden feeling that for the first time in your life you could actually kick someone's ass at something more than Mario Kart or a Halo death match.
SHEESH!
I have to agree with your disagreement.
If you read the Governor's other tweets, you can see that he clearly was making a difficult decision to take a man's life. The fact that he used new technology to let us see the process should be lauded, not decried. Now the people will have to face the results of their votes for politicians who are "tough on crime". Thankfully Gov. Herbert has put a human face on the debate.
Although the squeamish and European out there find it 'barbaric' or 'unfeeling', a multiple murderer got his. This man was not some "poor wretch" who was "wrongfully convicted". He was on trial for murder when he MURDERED ANOTHER PERSON. If ever there's an argument for capital punishment, this guy was it. So no-one should shed a tear for him, save his family.
As for the firing squad, Mr. Gardner CHOSE to be executed that way. If the criminal chose the means despite less painful options, then whether you consider a firing squad humane is irrelevant. It was his choice, and it's a somewhat free-ish country.
you know, If we could muster enough methane, the right catalyst, and a gallon of vermouth we could have a martini almost half a light-year across.......
And who says there's no God...
Since there seems to be a large base of RISK fans in the Slashdot user-base, why don't we (as a group) try to get Hasbro to rescind their cease-and-desist, and maybe even sponsor the developer? It seems logical, right? The RISK IP has not been properly exploited in many years, save an OK PS1 game, and a lackluster PS2 outing. So why not encourage the owner of the IP in question to follow the grassroots lead and let homeboy fully develop his idea. I'm not saying they should SPONSOR him, although that would be a BRILLIANT step on their part, but to see where it goes. It may lead to greater interest in their board game, and might also lead to a new and more usable computer based version.
Just an idea.
I guess I really missed the train on this one as far a karma points are concerned, but here it goes, anyway.
In the current data center design paradigms that I have seen, the raised floor is about as useful as tits on a boar pig. Most of the data centers I have seen have consisted of a raised floor topped by a server rack that is either sealed at the top for security, or open to the room as a whole for cooling. The whole mess being punctuated by overhead cable racks whose sole purpose is to cause contusions and the rapid ejection of expletives from the over-tall. The net result is a server room that is too eff-ing cold for the average human to tolerate, while being only partially effective in its' intended design purpose.
However, The raised floor can be useful if the design is correctly laid out. Use the principles of "Naval Damage Control and Firefighting" your advantage.
After seeing how airflow is controlled on ships at sea, you will come to understand that the proper design is to have a positive pressure ventilation system under the raised floor, and a negative pressure ventilation system in the overhead. (ceiling, above the drop tiles, whatever you land lubbers call that stuff over your collective, office-bound heads.) The raised floor should be joined to the overhead by a simple ducting system consisting of sealing the top of the server rack to the ceiling using whatever is available (sheet metal, cardboard, left-over swag from E3 1996 or Sci-fi-con-whatever-1992). This way, the cooled air from the chillers can be forced under the floor, through the racks, and up into the overhead where it is exhausted. Hell, if you're an efficiency freak, use the exhausted server air the A/C source for the human occupied portions of the data center. A constant flow of 50-degree air makes 'puters happy, and it makes CBLFs shiver. The "too many corners in a raised floor" thing is a red herring.
Although an ornately designed under-floor ducting system can and will lead to un necessary inefficiencies in the cooling of server racks, by using the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), the same basic logic that works on every commercial transport, pleasure craft, or military ship in the world can work in a server room too. Two simple plenum spaces connected by the duct of the server rack is in fact, the MOST efficient way to cool a room full of number-crunching toaster ovens.
The USAPATRIOT act may not have affected me in any material way, but it has affected me in some very serious ways, namely a loss of faith in some of the basic principles that make up my idea of what America IS.
By allowing expanded powers to the investigative branches of the government with only minimal oversight by the judicial branch, the act undermines my protections under the 4th amendment. Sneak-and-peak warrants have been allowed under the FISA and criminal statutes since the late 60's, with probable cause, and with bench approval.
Now, however, the standards have been lowered to a point that the average citizen can have their private records and personal affects searched (and bugged) for, what would have been in the past, only minimally suspicious behaviors. Imagine, for instance, that you are a student researching a paper for a comparative religion class that takes you into the realm of researching reasons, justifications, and methods used by suicide bombers/terrorists. With only the barest of oversight, the government now has the right to partake of surveillance that would have been considered "beyond the pale" only 3 years ago.
My biggest complaint, however, has nothing to do with the above. It has to do with the "Enemy Combatant" detainments that have been an ongoing problem in the judicial system. Under the 6th amendment, we have the right to a speedy and public trial. By right, we have for the last 200+ years enjoyed this protection under the bill of rights. Now, though, if the government can come up with a reason to label you an enemy combatant, they can hold you for an indefinite time in an undisclosed location, with no access to legal counsel.
At one point in the past, I was a Muslim. I frequented a mosque that I discovered (many years after the fact) was frequented by "unsavory" types that were recruiting people to fight in one of the earlier Palestinian Intifada's. Do I now have to forever look o'er my shoulder to see if I am being followed? Maybe.
Both of the above situations are also are protected by the 14th amendment (due process), but this due process has been undermined by the USA Patriot act.
How can we truly call ourselves the land of the free when we allow our constitutional freedoms to be circumvented by acts of congress?
It seems that the author of the paper ignored completely the effect of the constant cascade of charged particled that stream out of the sun on a second to second basis. The effect of these particles is vastly greater than the photonic pressure that seems to be the basis for his argument against the usefullness of the sail.
In addition, the author's use of examples ignores the effect as well. A Crookes radiometer rotating backward is doing so inside a protected environment completely sheltered from the effects of a stream of ionized gas. Although we consider this space "vacuum", it is actually wuite full of high velocity (and therefore high inerta) particles. So, the solar sail is not a heat engine at all. In some ways, it operates similarly to the way a sailing ship works, with the exception that a sailship is actually driven by the aerodynamic force of the wind moving AROUND the sails, rather than impacting the sails. Will the decrease in vacuum pressure on the shadow side of the solar sail be enough to effect the acceleration of the craft? I dunno, only experimentation will tell for sure. (just theorizing here, but the mechanics of solar sails and sailing vessels may be more closely related that we know right now.)
Inside the earth's magnetosphere, the solar sail may have some difficulty gaining momentum. However, once outside, in the full solar wind, the efficiency should increase.
Was this article originally published in one of the first issues of Mondo 2000??? (Dammit where's that box of magazines!!!) I know I've read this somewhere before, but I can't remeber where...DARNIT!!!!
Just think...for all those passive/agressive 5up3r-1337 h4x0r5 out there that can never seem to find a girlfriend, this is the perfect answer!!! You can serenade her with spam! Entice her with your smooth and witty turn of phrase..."limited time offer" becomes "I pledge my undying love to you and your fuzzy knee socks!" "Senate bill 1234, title 6" becomes "let me cover you in chocloate syrup and write out the entire source of my new killer r00t k1t on your nether regions in portable ANSI C!"
The possibilities are almost endless....
For almost 18 months I was the lead technician at a small startup broadband ISP called (of all things) "BroadbandNOW". (If you're a current- or ex-customer, please don't flame me...) Speaking from experience having to deal with @Home on a semi-regular basis, I can tell you that @Home's L2 and L3 support are only marginally brighter than their L1 support.
Of course, as someone above said, it's not easy to get good support techs with the job market like it is. I had one tech that worked for me whose favorite thing to do was to tell the customer to reinstall windows, and if they didn't have their Win CD, he wouldn't help them....I couldn't fire him because there was no-one else to hire. Whaddaya do?? (He was fired eventually, but not for being incompetent....)
Speaking of @Home, though I have had some less than stellar conversations with their support organization. For example - It took me almost an hour to explain to one of their L2 techs why there was 'excessive' latency (85ms) between one of our customers and one of their customers that were only 3 blocks from each other.............. um... hello??? Ummmm...different networks??? ummm...not excessive @ 85ms... Duh...
At the same time, it's not really easy to detemine which of your customers are experienced sysadmins or network admins, and which are idiots that just know the WORD sysadmin. I have also run into a lot of customers that CLAIM to have all sorts of certs. (CCNA's that don't know a router from a switch, MCSE's that can't figure out how to set NT up for DHCP, and one particular IRIX user ("well I'm not a user, I'm a sysadmin dammit!") who couldn't get proclaim (IRIX DHCP client) to work.....even with step-by-step instructions, and I mean BABY steps.) Again, whaddaya do?
To be honest though, when you're supporting a customer over the phone with a Cablemodem, you really have to start from scratch every time (until, that is the customer knows the drill well enough to tell you exactly what they did before calling). This is due to one simple fact....CUSTOMERS LIE! All the time...daily...hourly...especially when they don't want support to know that they're running a NAT box connected to 5 or 6 other machines. Even better are the ones that will lie to you WITHOUT the NAT box.
Tech: "how many computers do you have attached to your modem?"
Customer: "Um......one"
Tech: "really?"
Cust: "Yup, just the one."
Tech: "Wow, that's cool, because the ARP cache on your modem shows 6 separate machines!!!"
Cust: "Doh!!!!!"
In all cases like the aforementioned, I like the idea of the "remote slapper", or even better, a small device that will deliver a taser-like blast of electricity to the end-user's ear when support determines that the problem is a PEBCAK error (Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard).
One 'tiny' more thing.....if @Home is using DMCA as justification, then IMHO shouldn't the ACLU work PDQ to get the SCoUSA to overturn this BS law ASAP??? Just asking...
=====
The .gif that was posted here of the license looks like it's just the standard Corel beta test N.D.A. kind of thing. Comments were made right after the public beta that the Corel site was requiring "Wndows 95/98" to do the Linux beta test.
What does that say?? It says that I think it was all just a case of Corel using the stock forms that saying, "We [Corel] use them for all our betas." I don't really think it's some insidious Dr. Evil like plan to copyright Linux and take it away, which, if you consider the fact that Linus keeps the source, isn't possible.
I think it wass more of an unintentional error made by somebody in Corel's marketing department when they put together the mailers for the Linux Beta Test. If anyone out there works in the same area of the building as their marketing department (as I do), you'll know what I'm talking about when I say that a lot of the people in the marketing department have about the same brightness as a 2-watt light bulb....
I would just as much assume to give them a break on this one due to their ignorance more than anything else, and the fact that they are trying to INCREASE the market and mind share for Linux, not damage it....
That's not to say that it wasn't a stupid mistake tho....
I think this was a very insightful article, however I think Jon missed the REAL reason that the net won't begin to truly change politics for several more years. That reason is "Political Inertia". Despite the fact that 'cybergeeks' have grown as a force, we're still a very TINY fraction of the population. Mom and pop in Iowa, while happily taking their place in the digital revolution, will still not give up what they see as one of the fundamental facts of American life easily. That fact? Pulling the lever in a voting booth at a polling place. It's a semi-sacred tradition to middle America, and we would all do well to remember that the revolutionary ideas of today do not become matter-of-fact for about 20 years...
:)
The other real issue is the technological hurdle. Well, there are inherent problems in trying to keep anything associated with the Internet "secret". You won't be able to convince the populace that their campaign contributions will be kept confidential if they're transmitted over the Web. Granted, contributions are public record in the first place, but do you think your secretly gay Uncle Roy would be more willing to give to a gay frienly candidate, knowing that his contribution date, time and amount can be instantly displayed for the world to see?? What about the politician's reaction to having it publicly displayed that the Grand Dragon of the KKK just made a MAJOR contribution??
Again, This was a great article, a real thought provoker, but it missed the mark slightly... IMHO
I work at an ISP, and since about 9:00 AM, most of our routers have been freaking out. We've already had to reset a couple of the internal switches, and some of the reouters as well. I'm not convinced that the problems with the routers and switches are related to 9999, but it's a kinda funny, no?
I wasn't just high when I read that SGI was going to be shipping Linux versions as well, was I?
This does not make sense...what would an 8 foot tall wookie from Kishi be doing living on Endor with a bunch of 2 foot tall Ewoks? It does not make sense!!! (Thanks Johnny Cochran... :)