I have a POTS line, but I still use Asterisk plus some home-brewed programming to implement some nifty features:
Telemarketer Deterrence: Any call coming from a non-local area code (except for a few hand-whitelisted numbers) goes to a recording asking the caller to press "1" to prove he/she is not a telemarketer. This completely kills automatic diallers. Based on my logs, I see that it stops between 3 and 7 calls per week.
Number Recall: All my call records are logged to a PostgreSQL database. If I forget someone's number, I dial a special extension and a little AGI app I wrote prompts me to enter as much of the person's name as I can remember. It then rummages through the call log looking for matches and reads them out to me using the Festival voice synthesizer.
Blocking of 1-900 numbers. That's a no-brainer; I don't want people in my house to be able to call a 1-900 number.
Automatic prefix for long-distance calls. I don't have to remember to dial the magic prefix to get cheaper long distance; Asterisk remembers for me.
7-digit dialling. Our area code now requires 10-digit dialling. I hate it. So if I dial a 7-digit number, Asterisk automatically prepends our area code.
These are small features, but I find them really handy. Our work Asterisk
setup is a lot more sophisticated (PDF slides)
Totally untrue. We have 8 employees and run Asterisk. We hired a consultant to set it up, and then maintained it ourselves. It was much cheaper to set up and run than our former proprietary PBX from NEC.
I liked Asterisk so much I even run it at home. I have implemented countermeasures to avoid telemarketers and I love it.
Looking at your average Linux distribution, I'd say the average geek - certainly anyone who's prepared to use Linux on the desktop for any extended period of time - is some sort of masochist.
I really don't know what you're talking about. I use Linux. My parents use Linux. My kids use Linux. And it's basically the same experience as using MacOS. Mouse: Check. Windows: Check. Web browser: Check. Email program: Check.
What's so wonderful about MacOS that differentiates it from any other modern WIMP interface?
Of course it's just the marketing and the brand. MacOS has a WIMP interface, just like Linux, just like Windows, just like everything. It works a little differently from its competitors, but it's not some fantastic intuitive interface that blows everything else out of the water.
Apple has successfully built a brand image and that's what it's selling.
Not for Oracle. If you're writing an app meant to be used by consumers or artists, then you may need to worry about Apple users. If you're writing databases or "enterprise" applications, Apple is irrelevant.
My company produces software that runs on Linux and UNIX-like servers. We had one customer running it on Mac OS, but after fighting with all the weird differences between Mac OS X and all other UNIX-like systems, we said "screw it" and dropped support for Apple.
Apart from that one customer, no one has ever asked about our software on Apple.
IMO, Apple is in danger of losing even the artistic community. If enough critical creative apps also have Windows equivalents, it'll only take one killer app to go Windows-only to hurt Apple badly. I think artists use Apple because it has all the creative applications, not because Mac OS is so wonderful.
The side-effects are that Java developers won't use Macs. (Since I use neither Java nor Apple products, I don't really care that mcuh, but I think Apple might be shooting itself in the foot.)
Of much more concern is the App store for Mac OS X idea. Apple is turning Mac OS X into a closed iPhone-like system. I guess my anti-Apple rant will soon apply to Mac OS X as well as the iP* systems.
Whatever the mechanism by which asbestos damages your lungs, this is the real hypocrisy: Asbestos is strictly regulated in Canada, but Canada exports the stuff for use in countries with lax or no regulation.
So, our wonderful government declares BPA toxic, while at the same time continuing to deny asbestos's toxicity and exporting asbestos to the rest of the world.
It's all domestic politics. Banning asbestos would annoy Quebec, the major producer...
Or else DNS will have to be re-architected so that it returns not only IP's but port numbers, so when you go to www.somewhere.com, it resolves to x.y.z.w:n, and the host x.y.z.w has port n forwarded to the right server.
That's called a SRV record (RFC 2782) and is a really terrific idea that seems to have gone nowhere.
19790509 in hex is 0x12DFAAD, though. So I think it refers to an Iranian secret agent named "Faad" who created the worm in room 12D of his hotel.
But actually, 19790509 has only two largish prime factors (1759 and 11251), so it's probably the sooper-secret 25-bit public key of the Iranian Consipiracy Ministry.
In an even more stunning coincidence, 19790509 is precisely the height of Ayatollah Khomeni in tenths of a micron. Wow! (Well, actually, he wasn't quite that tall... but if you could add platform shoes...)
You are kidding, right? The PostgreSQL documentation is the finest documentation I've seen for a free software project, and among the best I've seen for any software, free or proprietary.
~200,000 citizens did not fill out the long form of the census
That number was actually 168,000 and represents a bit over 1.2% of the 13,576,855 private residences counted in the census. One in five people received the long form, so the non-compliance rate was about 6.2%, meaning 93.8% of people complied with the law.
I agree that the Government of Canada should have fined those who did not comply with the law. However, I very much doubt that 93.8% of people will fill in the new voluntary form, so even the threat of the penalty probably had a significant effect.
This is the same government that has destroyed the accuracy of the Census under the smokescreen of "privacy rights." (We all know why the Conservatives don't like accurate census data; it makes it harder to spend money based on ideology rather than on real need.)
The Canadian government has always been notoriously non-transparent; even the Liberals have muzzled a scientist in the past.
Not just murder, also genocide. I'm not defending any religious text here. I just picked the Qu'ran for my original post because that was the subject of discussion. But later, you wrote something very salient:
Judging any living religion outside the context of modern interpretations and practices (as there's never only one) is unreasonable and unfair.
And there's the rub. I'm not aware of a large-scale movement in Judaism or Christianity that inflames repressed, testosterone-filled young men to acts of violence by quoting religious passages at them. Unfortunately, Al-Qaeda does exactly that: It preys on disaffected, not-too-smart young men and fills them with religious fervor and extremism by indoctrinating them with nonsense from the Qu'ran.
So although most religious texts are pretty hateful, today the Qu'ran has the dubious distinction of motivating the highest number of egregious actions.
You misunderstood my post. I don't think Rackspace should shut down a site that publishes the Qu'ran. My point is that if Rackspace applied the hate-speech policy consistently, then it would have to shut down the Qu'ran (and yeah, probably the Bible and most religious texts as well as some of the more extreme atheist screeds.)
... so I hope that Rackspace would be fair-minded and shut down any site that publishes the Qu'ran. For example, see Wikipedia
To be clear: I utterly despise book-burning and I think the guy who wants to burn the Qu'ran is doing it solely to incite anger. But at the same time, the Qu'ran itself contains many inflammatory passages and should be criticized just as roundly as the wing-nut in Florida.
have mail going back to 1991 archived as mbox files. Some of it is pretty disorganized, but since 2000 I've organized mail into Sent-Archived and Received-Archived directories with the mbox files named YYYY-MM.
It's a pain to search. But on the other hand, I hardly ever need to search the really old stuff, so grep and friends are good enough.
I may eventually split it out into maildir format and use a full-text indexing engine such as Xapian to make searching easier. But I'll probably keep the master mbox archive; the format is incredibly simple and it's easy to munge into other formats as necessary.
Also, drawing with actual crayons is a more sensual experience than drawing on a computer. You also can't fix "mistakes" as easily, so the drawings are more natural.
Why my daughter was that age, I gave her an old PC keyboard that wasn't connected to anything else. She loved banging on it and pretending to work with Dad.
Give your kids something simple that will make them use their imagination. You don't want to kill off appreciation of simple toys by the time they're 4.
On Linux, you could compile kernels without support for USB mass storage devices. But I'm not sure that would be sufficient; maybe user-level USB access could be (ab)used to manipulate flash drives. Still, it'd make things a lot harder for the average attacker than a Windoze box.
Slashdot Mirror
Check out http://www.northcountrygazette.org/2010/10/21/sexy_emails/ (but use Firefox, Chrome or Konqueror.)
I have a POTS line, but I still use Asterisk plus some home-brewed programming to implement some nifty features:
These are small features, but I find them really handy. Our work Asterisk setup is a lot more sophisticated (PDF slides)
Totally untrue. We have 8 employees and run Asterisk. We hired a consultant to set it up, and then maintained it ourselves. It was much cheaper to set up and run than our former proprietary PBX from NEC.
I liked Asterisk so much I even run it at home. I have implemented countermeasures to avoid telemarketers and I love it.
Looking at your average Linux distribution, I'd say the average geek - certainly anyone who's prepared to use Linux on the desktop for any extended period of time - is some sort of masochist.
I really don't know what you're talking about. I use Linux. My parents use Linux. My kids use Linux. And it's basically the same experience as using MacOS. Mouse: Check. Windows: Check. Web browser: Check. Email program: Check.
What's so wonderful about MacOS that differentiates it from any other modern WIMP interface?
Of course it's just the marketing and the brand. MacOS has a WIMP interface, just like Linux, just like Windows, just like everything. It works a little differently from its competitors, but it's not some fantastic intuitive interface that blows everything else out of the water.
Apple has successfully built a brand image and that's what it's selling.
The apple audience is just too big to ignore.
Not for Oracle. If you're writing an app meant to be used by consumers or artists, then you may need to worry about Apple users. If you're writing databases or "enterprise" applications, Apple is irrelevant.
My company produces software that runs on Linux and UNIX-like servers. We had one customer running it on Mac OS, but after fighting with all the weird differences between Mac OS X and all other UNIX-like systems, we said "screw it" and dropped support for Apple.
Apart from that one customer, no one has ever asked about our software on Apple.
IMO, Apple is in danger of losing even the artistic community. If enough critical creative apps also have Windows equivalents, it'll only take one killer app to go Windows-only to hurt Apple badly. I think artists use Apple because it has all the creative applications, not because Mac OS is so wonderful.
The side-effects are that Java developers won't use Macs. (Since I use neither Java nor Apple products, I don't really care that mcuh, but I think Apple might be shooting itself in the foot.)
Of much more concern is the App store for Mac OS X idea. Apple is turning Mac OS X into a closed iPhone-like system. I guess my anti-Apple rant will soon apply to Mac OS X as well as the iP* systems.
Is someone a "hypocrite" for exporting explosives to countries with lax regulation for use in demolitions?
Yes, absolutely.
If Canada refused to export to countries without strict regulation, how well do you think that's going to go over diplomatically?
People's health and wellbeing is more important than diplomacy, and if countries with lax regulation feel "insulted", well... too bad.
Whatever the mechanism by which asbestos damages your lungs, this is the real hypocrisy: Asbestos is strictly regulated in Canada, but Canada exports the stuff for use in countries with lax or no regulation.
So, our wonderful government declares BPA toxic, while at the same time continuing to deny asbestos's toxicity and exporting asbestos to the rest of the world.
It's all domestic politics. Banning asbestos would annoy Quebec, the major producer...
Or else DNS will have to be re-architected so that it returns not only IP's but port numbers, so when you go to www.somewhere.com, it resolves to x.y.z.w:n, and the host x.y.z.w has port n forwarded to the right server.
That's called a SRV record (RFC 2782) and is a really terrific idea that seems to have gone nowhere.
19790509 in hex is 0x12DFAAD, though. So I think it refers to an Iranian secret agent named "Faad" who created the worm in room 12D of his hotel.
But actually, 19790509 has only two largish prime factors (1759 and 11251), so it's probably the sooper-secret 25-bit public key of the Iranian Consipiracy Ministry.
In an even more stunning coincidence, 19790509 is precisely the height of Ayatollah Khomeni in tenths of a micron. Wow! (Well, actually, he wasn't quite that tall... but if you could add platform shoes...)
I run a bunch of Drupal sites back-ended on PostgreSQL with no problems whatsoever. It's a great combination.
You are kidding, right? The PostgreSQL documentation is the finest documentation I've seen for a free software project, and among the best I've seen for any software, free or proprietary.
So put down "Canadian" as your ethnicity. No big deal.
~200,000 citizens did not fill out the long form of the census
That number was actually 168,000 and represents a bit over 1.2% of the 13,576,855 private residences counted in the census. One in five people received the long form, so the non-compliance rate was about 6.2%, meaning 93.8% of people complied with the law.
I agree that the Government of Canada should have fined those who did not comply with the law. However, I very much doubt that 93.8% of people will fill in the new voluntary form, so even the threat of the penalty probably had a significant effect.
This is the same government that has destroyed the accuracy of the Census under the smokescreen of "privacy rights." (We all know why the Conservatives don't like accurate census data; it makes it harder to spend money based on ideology rather than on real need.)
The Canadian government has always been notoriously non-transparent; even the Liberals have muzzled a scientist in the past.
the Old Testament contains incitements to murder.
Not just murder, also genocide. I'm not defending any religious text here. I just picked the Qu'ran for my original post because that was the subject of discussion. But later, you wrote something very salient:
Judging any living religion outside the context of modern interpretations and practices (as there's never only one) is unreasonable and unfair.
And there's the rub. I'm not aware of a large-scale movement in Judaism or Christianity that inflames repressed, testosterone-filled young men to acts of violence by quoting religious passages at them. Unfortunately, Al-Qaeda does exactly that: It preys on disaffected, not-too-smart young men and fills them with religious fervor and extremism by indoctrinating them with nonsense from the Qu'ran.
So although most religious texts are pretty hateful, today the Qu'ran has the dubious distinction of motivating the highest number of egregious actions.
You misunderstood my post. I don't think Rackspace should shut down a site that publishes the Qu'ran. My point is that if Rackspace applied the hate-speech policy consistently, then it would have to shut down the Qu'ran (and yeah, probably the Bible and most religious texts as well as some of the more extreme atheist screeds.)
... so I hope that Rackspace would be fair-minded and shut down any site that publishes the Qu'ran. For example, see Wikipedia
To be clear: I utterly despise book-burning and I think the guy who wants to burn the Qu'ran is doing it solely to incite anger. But at the same time, the Qu'ran itself contains many inflammatory passages and should be criticized just as roundly as the wing-nut in Florida.
have mail going back to 1991 archived as mbox files. Some of it is pretty disorganized, but since 2000 I've organized mail into Sent-Archived and Received-Archived directories with the mbox files named YYYY-MM.
It's a pain to search. But on the other hand, I hardly ever need to search the really old stuff, so grep and friends are good enough.
I may eventually split it out into maildir format and use a full-text indexing engine such as Xapian to make searching easier. But I'll probably keep the master mbox archive; the format is incredibly simple and it's easy to munge into other formats as necessary.
for drawing you can't beat the iPad
Maybe, but I would never buy an Apple product..
Also, drawing with actual crayons is a more sensual experience than drawing on a computer. You also can't fix "mistakes" as easily, so the drawings are more natural.
The best devices I've found have been both input and output. To wit:
18 months? Are you serious?
Why my daughter was that age, I gave her an old PC keyboard that wasn't connected to anything else. She loved banging on it and pretending to work with Dad.
Give your kids something simple that will make them use their imagination. You don't want to kill off appreciation of simple toys by the time they're 4.
On Linux, you could compile kernels without support for USB mass storage devices. But I'm not sure that would be sufficient; maybe user-level USB access could be (ab)used to manipulate flash drives. Still, it'd make things a lot harder for the average attacker than a Windoze box.