Dear G*d in heaven. Nevermind that I'm a diehard Linux fan, that ad was the worst thing I've seen in a long time - I mean, what exactly are they trying to say? Was there some product in there they were trying to sell?
No matter how much the powers-that-be want it to be false, good encryption will probably be enough to stop even the biggest would-be snoops, so long as the implementation is reasonably secure (i.e. not riddled with bugs), and you don't do stupid shit like putting your private key on a public server someplace.
The simple fact of the matter is that there is WAY TOO MUCH data flowing around the 'net for any entity, no matter how big, to try to archive and search through all of it. Even if an attacker were "on the inside" and could keep up with the data flow, actually indexing/searching that data is probably not a trivial task for such a massive data set. Start encrypting a significant part of that traffic, with trustworthy software at both ends, and even big bad Uncle Sam will be stymied.
What was it I read somewhere? A supercomputer (or a large distributed project) would need 25+ years to brute-force just one plain-text message encoded with a modern encryption algorithm. Assuming that's the case, even if an attacker could dedicate enough CPU to the project, and they manage to start getting results, they'll be getting data that was only valid a couple of decades prior.
Sure, there's the dream of quantum computing, but if that fabled machine that can decrypt anything in an instant is ever built, then who's to say we won't eventually just invent a better scheme that can account for that?
Long comment short: just pick a good open source scheme and start using it. Tell your friends to use it. Keep your software up to date. If the authorities demand your decryption keys, tell them to go screw themselves (if you can legally and safely do so). If you're paranoid, encrypt your data twice with two completely unrelated algorithms. Speak using some kind of code. Hell, salt your messages with gibberish.
Protect your right to privacy.
(Yeah, I use my real name as my user ID. Big deal. An attacker could gather more info from my car's license plate and VIN.)
So that's when you ask "Are you a cop?" or words to that effect. If the answer isn't anything other than a yes, tell the guard to take a flying leap. As soon as he touches you, that's assault, and you're probably within your right to give him a knuckle sandwich. DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS, regardless of how "insignificant" they may seem.
It is everyone's (mine and his included) legal right to drive however fast or slow is necessary to in order to drive safely. If everyone but me is doing 10 over the limit, I better be too if I want to avoid getting TICKETED. Yeah, that's right - in some states (my husband gives Maryland as an example) the cop can write you a ticket for impeding normal traffic flow if you're going unreasonably slow relative to everyone else, regardless of what the minimum and maximum posted speeds are.
At the very least, they'll pull you over just to make sure you're sober, just because you're driving slow.
Personally, I have no problem with the presence of idle.* here - I actually drop by there on rare occasion...only to have my eyes burned out by that page's *horrible* motif. Oh, and for G*d sakes, fix the javascript so the discussion control bar can actually dock into the top of the comments section like it does everywhere else. Putting it at the top of the page makes scrolling the page terribly sluggish (yeah I know, that's Firefox's problem, but it's still a bug in Slashdot's code too).
Right.. So the presence of that 30% has given us a website full of Crazy Frog Brothers, rickroll, various less-than-pleasant Elmo vs. Barney videos, babies that laugh their heads off for no reason... well you get the point. (It's amazing the kind of stuff you run across when you have a few neighborhood kids who like to browse Youtube on your box).
I don't know which is worse - how bad of a pun that was, or the fact that I had to sit there and re-read it a few times before it no longer said "I used to pour Chlorate in my coffee...", as though it were some fictional brand of creamer.
So why can't programs like Synaptic (or Adept, my preference) have, instead of the main window, an add/remove wizard that pops up a single, friendly dialog box along these lines to get the user off to a good start:
------ Please enter your password and click one of the buttons below to get started.
Password: ____________________
[ Add ] Install new programs onto your computer. [ Remove ] Uninstall unwanted programs. [ Expert ] Skip this wizard and go to Expert mode. [ Cancel ] I changed my mind, get me out of here! ------
Where expert mode will take the user to the usual interface we're all familiar with.
Such a wizard should never, EVER present the user with lists of mundane libraries or other dependencies unless they explicitly ask for that information - the average user doesn't want to see that stuff. The user doesn't know what GTK does or why the program he or she wants needs Avahi, and they don't care if the system uses binutils 2.18.1.some-random-number. They can probably tell you what something like OpenOffice will do, and that's all they care about.
They don't need to know that their boot loader is GRUB rather than LILO, and they don't give a shit about what version of the kernel they're using.
If they want or need to know the gory details, the wizard should give them an option to see it, again presented in a clear and friendly manner. Otherwise, just tell the user how much stuff needs to be downloaded and maybe give them an estimate of how long it will take to finish the job. And FFS, clean up after yourself - don't leave 47 different libraries behind after the removal of a program if nothing needs them.
Yeah, I realize it's not that easy to design that type of interface, but it can't be all that hard, either. The user will feel a little better on seeing a silly "cancel" message like "get me out of here!", because stuff like that is mildly amusing to most people.
A lot of people have mentioned how this would warm your lap unacceptably. So why not put the warm side of the heat pump somewhere in the display section? I don't know of too many reasons why one need to keep their hands on the display, let alone hold the laptop by it.
Better yet, skip the fridge idea altogether, use something passive, and turn the entire backside of the display section into a giant heat sink. I'm sure someone can figure out how to make a flexible heat pipe to pass across the hinges.
You could even get fancy and have everything covered by exhaust vents/louvers that automatically close when you shut down or put the machine to sleep, and a small turbine-style fan on each side, to move the air without wasting a lot of space.
Just make sure you deal with any excess heat from the display panel.
I'm sure APC is good, but they're not the only one. Powercom also makes some decent ones, and they come with a very simple userspace Linux driver and control scripts on the CD. Mine's a Black Knight BNT-800AP (800VA) line interactive type with a serial cable for the data connection. Like any decent UPS, it can order the computer to do a proper shutdown after the time limit you give it, and then it will even shut itself off a few minutes after that if you want it to. Surge protection for power and my DSL feed, power step up/down (-13% to +15%) as needed, etc. etc. I believe even the battery is user-replaceable. The documentation claims about an hour of runtime at typical loads, though I've never tested this. It claims a spike handling of 480 joules over 2ms, though I've thankfully never tested that. Power-off, low-battery, and overload alarms, soft on/off, etc etc. Seems to have everything one should need in a UPS, really. The only thing I found lacking is the grammar as found in the driver's messages and the manual - someone needs to learn proper English (as if mine's any better).
.
Er.. Can you tell I'm pleased with it?
If someone is an expert in their field, and they're not posting something like an ad or promotional material, Wikipedia has guidelines to allow for that material to be added. No one in their right mind would, for example, deny Stephen Hawking adding to a physics article, even one that discusses Hawking Radiation.
Ok. So who is going to buy and recycle my old gas guzzler and turn around and subsidize the cost of a new EV for me? No one? Well then I guess I'm stuck with using gasoline until cheap, used EV's start to flood the market in about 30 years. I sure as hell can't afford a new EV (Tesla Motors, I'm looking at you!)... Just like 80% or so of the rest of the population.
So this will magically boost the speed of my LAN beyond the usual 10/100 without hardware changes? Sign me u... what? Optical? Bah. Wake me up when they come up with something for those of us that still use apparently obsolete copper wires.
In all seriousness... Did anyone else notice how the article goes from picosecond switching of this device to switching "a million times" in one second? When did science redefine micro- and pico-? And the public demands "instant" web gratification? Somehow I don't buy into that either. Fast, sure, even to the point of nearly instant, but I doubt anyone cares whether a web page loads in 0.001 seconds versus 0.1. Think bigger, people - there's more to the Internet than just web pages, and there's far more to the web than just static load-it-once content. Think Youtube on steroids (and anti-psychotics, please!), VoIP that doesn't fail under heavy load (where QoS isn't practiced), faster data delivery for SETI/Folding/etc.. Hell, getting certain ISP's to give up on throttling while giving everyone a generic 20/5 or similar connection, without them bitching about network load, would be nice.
(And did anyone else notice Slashdot's first-paragraph-break bug just got worse?)
In Niniane's defense, I have to say that for those of us who have strong emotions, something as simple as an animated smiley really does hold more significance than *hug* or similar; it really *is* more meaningful. Just because it means nothing to you doesn't imply the same for everyone.
And you know something? Had it actually come in those versions alongside the regular version, half of the people here would have complained. What do you do to make it "premium"? Add some new themes and enable the multiverse repositories by default?:-)
Of course it does - haven't you heard of doppler shift? There is a reason that train whistle rises and then falls as the train blows by, even when you're standing 50 feet from the tracks.
Or perhaps he means 'intelligence' in the normal international sense? Why does "gather intelligence and track down terrorists" necessarily have to mean "wiretapping American citizens" and in general taking away our civil liberties? Is it not possible that he has some idea how to do these things without encroaching on our rights? You know...like properly-issued search/wiretap warrants, espionage, and *gasp* ECONOMIC SANCTIONS against the countries from which these terrorists originate and the businesses that support them?
What happened? Did our government forget how to effectively deal with misbehaving countries after Reagan left office?
This leaves out one critical thing: With billions of people having access to the 'net, it's conceivable that millions of people might want the same song at the same time. Who is going to pay for those million copies? Not the users, because by that point, they may as well be buying copies of said song, and then you're back to square one. It works for movies because you're talking about hours of content that is generally watched by any given person once before it is returned. Same for a book. A song is only a few minutes long and the user will want to listen to it far more often than with a movie or a book.
As far as I'm concerned, the height of Technic was set 8880, the original Super Car set. Made almost entirely with "standard" parts, took me all day to build it and it's built in such a way that one can easily add swinging doors and a hood, body panels, a V-12 engine, etc.
Done and Done. The lady I spoke with already knew which bill I was referring to before I could even look up the number, which tells me they're already at least partially aware of the public's opinion on the matter. I strongly encourage everyone else here to call and make their opinion known, and tell those you know, please!
I *do* have things to hide, like every other person on this planet - and no one but the person I expect to find on the other end of the phone line has any right to hear what I have to say. PERIOD.
I'd say that's not it. I'm already going the speed limit, maybe even 5 over (rarely - I'm a little paranoid about speeding tickets). I *still* get the occasional hemorrhoid driver. No, people tailgate because they're too stubborn, stupid, or just in too damn much of a hurry to just back off a couple of car-lengths, wait for a passing zone, and then pass me up. Makes me want to slam on the brakes (claiming I was avoiding something, let's say), let the cops charge them for driving too close, and then sue them for the damage and injuries.
Note that I have *never* done this, and I'm probably too much of a chickenshit to ever actually do so. But G*d, I want to. The most I have ever done is to slow down suddenly (but not hard braking), just enough for the idiot behind me to get the hint. They usually do, and they back off.
Slashdot Mirror
Dear G*d in heaven. Nevermind that I'm a diehard Linux fan, that ad was the worst thing I've seen in a long time - I mean, what exactly are they trying to say? Was there some product in there they were trying to sell?
No matter how much the powers-that-be want it to be false, good encryption will probably be enough to stop even the biggest would-be snoops, so long as the implementation is reasonably secure (i.e. not riddled with bugs), and you don't do stupid shit like putting your private key on a public server someplace.
The simple fact of the matter is that there is WAY TOO MUCH data flowing around the 'net for any entity, no matter how big, to try to archive and search through all of it. Even if an attacker were "on the inside" and could keep up with the data flow, actually indexing/searching that data is probably not a trivial task for such a massive data set. Start encrypting a significant part of that traffic, with trustworthy software at both ends, and even big bad Uncle Sam will be stymied.
What was it I read somewhere? A supercomputer (or a large distributed project) would need 25+ years to brute-force just one plain-text message encoded with a modern encryption algorithm. Assuming that's the case, even if an attacker could dedicate enough CPU to the project, and they manage to start getting results, they'll be getting data that was only valid a couple of decades prior.
Sure, there's the dream of quantum computing, but if that fabled machine that can decrypt anything in an instant is ever built, then who's to say we won't eventually just invent a better scheme that can account for that?
Long comment short: just pick a good open source scheme and start using it. Tell your friends to use it. Keep your software up to date. If the authorities demand your decryption keys, tell them to go screw themselves (if you can legally and safely do so). If you're paranoid, encrypt your data twice with two completely unrelated algorithms. Speak using some kind of code. Hell, salt your messages with gibberish.
Protect your right to privacy.
(Yeah, I use my real name as my user ID. Big deal. An attacker could gather more info from my car's license plate and VIN.)
So that's when you ask "Are you a cop?" or words to that effect. If the answer isn't anything other than a yes, tell the guard to take a flying leap. As soon as he touches you, that's assault, and you're probably within your right to give him a knuckle sandwich. DEFEND YOUR RIGHTS, regardless of how "insignificant" they may seem.
It is everyone's (mine and his included) legal right to drive however fast or slow is necessary to in order to drive safely. If everyone but me is doing 10 over the limit, I better be too if I want to avoid getting TICKETED. Yeah, that's right - in some states (my husband gives Maryland as an example) the cop can write you a ticket for impeding normal traffic flow if you're going unreasonably slow relative to everyone else, regardless of what the minimum and maximum posted speeds are. At the very least, they'll pull you over just to make sure you're sober, just because you're driving slow.
Personally, I have no problem with the presence of idle.* here - I actually drop by there on rare occasion...only to have my eyes burned out by that page's *horrible* motif. Oh, and for G*d sakes, fix the javascript so the discussion control bar can actually dock into the top of the comments section like it does everywhere else. Putting it at the top of the page makes scrolling the page terribly sluggish (yeah I know, that's Firefox's problem, but it's still a bug in Slashdot's code too).
Right.. So the presence of that 30% has given us a website full of Crazy Frog Brothers, rickroll, various less-than-pleasant Elmo vs. Barney videos, babies that laugh their heads off for no reason ... well you get the point. (It's amazing the kind of stuff you run across when you have a few neighborhood kids who like to browse Youtube on your box).
.
I don't know which is worse - how bad of a pun that was, or the fact that I had to sit there and re-read it a few times before it no longer said "I used to pour Chlorate in my coffee...", as though it were some fictional brand of creamer.
Serves me right for reading Slashdot at 2:39 am.
So why can't programs like Synaptic (or Adept, my preference) have, instead of the main window, an add/remove wizard that pops up a single, friendly dialog box along these lines to get the user off to a good start:
------
Please enter your password and click one of the buttons
below to get started.
Password: ____________________
[ Add ] Install new programs onto your computer.
[ Remove ] Uninstall unwanted programs.
[ Expert ] Skip this wizard and go to Expert mode.
[ Cancel ] I changed my mind, get me out of here!
------
Where expert mode will take the user to the usual interface we're all familiar with.
Such a wizard should never, EVER present the user with lists of mundane libraries or other dependencies unless they explicitly ask for that information - the average user doesn't want to see that stuff. The user doesn't know what GTK does or why the program he or she wants needs Avahi, and they don't care if the system uses binutils 2.18.1.some-random-number. They can probably tell you what something like OpenOffice will do, and that's all they care about.
They don't need to know that their boot loader is GRUB rather than LILO, and they don't give a shit about what version of the kernel they're using.
If they want or need to know the gory details, the wizard should give them an option to see it, again presented in a clear and friendly manner. Otherwise, just tell the user how much stuff needs to be downloaded and maybe give them an estimate of how long it will take to finish the job. And FFS, clean up after yourself - don't leave 47 different libraries behind after the removal of a program if nothing needs them.
Yeah, I realize it's not that easy to design that type of interface, but it can't be all that hard, either. The user will feel a little better on seeing a silly "cancel" message like "get me out of here!", because stuff like that is mildly amusing to most people.
A lot of people have mentioned how this would warm your lap unacceptably. So why not put the warm side of the heat pump somewhere in the display section? I don't know of too many reasons why one need to keep their hands on the display, let alone hold the laptop by it.
Better yet, skip the fridge idea altogether, use something passive, and turn the entire backside of the display section into a giant heat sink. I'm sure someone can figure out how to make a flexible heat pipe to pass across the hinges.
You could even get fancy and have everything covered by exhaust vents/louvers that automatically close when you shut down or put the machine to sleep, and a small turbine-style fan on each side, to move the air without wasting a lot of space.
Just make sure you deal with any excess heat from the display panel.
I'm sure APC is good, but they're not the only one. Powercom also makes some decent ones, and they come with a very simple userspace Linux driver and control scripts on the CD. Mine's a Black Knight BNT-800AP (800VA) line interactive type with a serial cable for the data connection. Like any decent UPS, it can order the computer to do a proper shutdown after the time limit you give it, and then it will even shut itself off a few minutes after that if you want it to. Surge protection for power and my DSL feed, power step up/down (-13% to +15%) as needed, etc. etc. I believe even the battery is user-replaceable. The documentation claims about an hour of runtime at typical loads, though I've never tested this. It claims a spike handling of 480 joules over 2ms, though I've thankfully never tested that. Power-off, low-battery, and overload alarms, soft on/off, etc etc. Seems to have everything one should need in a UPS, really. The only thing I found lacking is the grammar as found in the driver's messages and the manual - someone needs to learn proper English (as if mine's any better).
.
Er.. Can you tell I'm pleased with it?
If someone is an expert in their field, and they're not posting something like an ad or promotional material, Wikipedia has guidelines to allow for that material to be added. No one in their right mind would, for example, deny Stephen Hawking adding to a physics article, even one that discusses Hawking Radiation.
Ok. So who is going to buy and recycle my old gas guzzler and turn around and subsidize the cost of a new EV for me? No one? Well then I guess I'm stuck with using gasoline until cheap, used EV's start to flood the market in about 30 years. I sure as hell can't afford a new EV (Tesla Motors, I'm looking at you!)... Just like 80% or so of the rest of the population.
In all seriousness... Did anyone else notice how the article goes from picosecond switching of this device to switching "a million times" in one second? When did science redefine micro- and pico-? And the public demands "instant" web gratification? Somehow I don't buy into that either. Fast, sure, even to the point of nearly instant, but I doubt anyone cares whether a web page loads in 0.001 seconds versus 0.1. Think bigger, people - there's more to the Internet than just web pages, and there's far more to the web than just static load-it-once content. Think Youtube on steroids (and anti-psychotics, please!), VoIP that doesn't fail under heavy load (where QoS isn't practiced), faster data delivery for SETI/Folding/etc.. Hell, getting certain ISP's to give up on throttling while giving everyone a generic 20/5 or similar connection, without them bitching about network load, would be nice.
(And did anyone else notice Slashdot's first-paragraph-break bug just got worse?)
<speech voice="quake">THREE frags left.</speech>
(Where the other three are the RIAA, MPAA, and Microsoft)
In Niniane's defense, I have to say that for those of us who have strong emotions, something as simple as an animated smiley really does hold more significance than *hug* or similar; it really *is* more meaningful. Just because it means nothing to you doesn't imply the same for everyone.
One word: Gentoo.
And you know something? Had it actually come in those versions alongside the regular version, half of the people here would have complained. What do you do to make it "premium"? Add some new themes and enable the multiverse repositories by default? :-)
Of course it does - haven't you heard of doppler shift? There is a reason that train whistle rises and then falls as the train blows by, even when you're standing 50 feet from the tracks.
What happened? Did our government forget how to effectively deal with misbehaving countries after Reagan left office?
This leaves out one critical thing: With billions of people having access to the 'net, it's conceivable that millions of people might want the same song at the same time. Who is going to pay for those million copies? Not the users, because by that point, they may as well be buying copies of said song, and then you're back to square one. It works for movies because you're talking about hours of content that is generally watched by any given person once before it is returned. Same for a book. A song is only a few minutes long and the user will want to listen to it far more often than with a movie or a book.
As far as I'm concerned, the height of Technic was set 8880, the original Super Car set. Made almost entirely with "standard" parts, took me all day to build it and it's built in such a way that one can easily add swinging doors and a hood, body panels, a V-12 engine, etc.
I *do* have things to hide, like every other person on this planet - and no one but the person I expect to find on the other end of the phone line has any right to hear what I have to say. PERIOD.
Note that I have *never* done this, and I'm probably too much of a chickenshit to ever actually do so. But G*d, I want to. The most I have ever done is to slow down suddenly (but not hard braking), just enough for the idiot behind me to get the hint. They usually do, and they back off.