A month or so ago, I picked up a Compaq LTE Lite/25 with a 200Mb HD, 20MB RAM, and a 9600-baud modem, and Win95; the seller threw in a second full machine (which needs a bit of tinkering to get working), plus an 800Mb HD, for free.
The total cost? A flat CAN$100, or about US$65.
This li'l thing does everything I need a computer to do, with two exceptions: 1. I don't have the right set of solar panels and adapters, so it's still tied to power sockets, and 2. Similarly, I don't have the right adapters to connect the modem to my cell phone, so I have to attach it to a phone outlet to connect to the 'net (my ISP being, of course, the local freenet).
This isn't an entirely new phenomena - back in the days of the Commodore 64, there was a program available that would knock the heads of the 1541 disk drive to the tune of "Daisy, Daisy". And now, in the days of emulators and MP3's, you can get both the program and hear the music at The amazing disk drive music page.
> Do you think that the poor schmuck on the street gets the same medical > attention you do when HE has a heart attack? Where do you live? Canada. And although some politicians are trying to institute a "two-tier" system of medicare, when I need an ambulance, or medication, or pretty much any other medical service, I pay exactly the same as any local millionaires.
Given that there are so many bugs which permit random hackers and crackers to gain root access to the ZD linux box... what's keeping a hacker from exploiting one of those bugs and using their new-gained access to actually patch them? Isn't that part of 'the hacker spirit'?
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A month or so ago, I picked up a Compaq LTE Lite/25 with a 200Mb HD, 20MB RAM, and a 9600-baud modem, and Win95; the seller threw in a second full machine (which needs a bit of tinkering to get working), plus an 800Mb HD, for free.
The total cost? A flat CAN$100, or about US$65.
This li'l thing does everything I need a computer to do, with two exceptions: 1. I don't have the right set of solar panels and adapters, so it's still tied to power sockets, and 2. Similarly, I don't have the right adapters to connect the modem to my cell phone, so I have to attach it to a phone outlet to connect to the 'net (my ISP being, of course, the local freenet).
This isn't an entirely new phenomena - back in the days of the Commodore 64, there was a program available that would knock the heads of the 1541 disk drive to the tune of "Daisy, Daisy". And now, in the days of emulators and MP3's, you can get both the program and hear the music at The amazing disk drive music page.
> Do you think that the poor schmuck on the street gets the same medical > attention you do when HE has a heart attack? Where do you live? Canada. And although some politicians are trying to institute a "two-tier" system of medicare, when I need an ambulance, or medication, or pretty much any other medical service, I pay exactly the same as any local millionaires.
Given that there are so many bugs which permit random hackers and crackers to gain root access to the ZD linux box... what's keeping a hacker from exploiting one of those bugs and using their new-gained access to actually patch them? Isn't that part of 'the hacker spirit'?