Slashback: Documentary, Directory, FUD 204
I goof, therefore I am sorry. Many readers submitted rebuttals to the claim I repeated that an Israeli web portal was the first to give users 1GB email accounts; Protein Shake, for one, writes that Spymac has them beat. "Forget Google, forget Israel's web portal... 1 GB e-mail is already out there. At least a few weeks ago. From their site '1 GB e-mail account, 350 MB combined storage, personal blog, forum, gallery, auctions and more...'"
"And this was back when phone lines were just strings painted to resemble copper ..." Jason Scott writes "The BBS Documentary, announced on Slashdot nearly three years ago, has wrapped up filming. With over TWO HUNDRED interviews in the can, I've been spending a lot of my spare time (and not-so-spare time) editing, but I decided to put out the first of what will likely be a few trailers for it. Stop by and check out how I've spent the last few years. The Documentary will be released as a 3-DVD set later this year."
It's like Who's Who, only different. Another gargantuan effort completed on a different front: Tony Stanco writes with word that "The 910-page Open Source Reference Book is available for download."
The project was announced just over a year ago; considering the contents that's not a bad turnaround.
It's nearly enough to make one cynical. Alex Wolfe writes "In a move worthy of the Luddites, the New York City Council is quietly trying to ban the Segway . The Council has proposed a law that's technically a ban on motorized scooters, but Harris Siliver, founder of Citystreets, an urban improvement organization, says the NYC Department of Transportation is specifically targeting the electric, non-polluting Segway. Silver is joined in his opposition to the bill by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak."
Get out much? If you just can't get enough random flamebait, here's a small fix to follow the anti-Linux FUD spread earlier this month by Green Hills CEO Dan O'Dowd. InfoSec writes "This morning's Security Focus page had an article about Consumer Grade *nix. The writer of the article slams Linux for not having free automated updates, enabling services in default installations, and not warning users when they are using 'root'. Uhmm, I could be wrong, but hasn't Mandrake been doing that for quite some time?"
apt-get update seems to count as free updates to me (though those folks do take donations), and root-use warnings may not be perfectly applied, but they are found in various forms (depending on distro) at OS, WM, and application levels, including notices that certain tasks can only be run as root or other superuser. (I think it's Xchat that calls me "an idiot" when I've tried to run it as root.)
Funny. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Funny. (Score:5, Funny)
Funny. (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, this is the secret. I really must stop using Flamebait, Overrated and Troll as subjects!
Re:Funny. (Score:3, Funny)
No, those are best used in the first sentence your post. As in, "This will probably get modded flamebait, but..." or "I'm not trying to troll here but..."
Re:Funny. (Score:2)
Score;5, Funny)_________ (Score:5, Funny)
1GB Email Portal Goof (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why not use GNU/webmail? (Score:3, Informative)
I honestly can't figure out if you're a troll, illinformated, or what... but nonetheless you really need to check out OpenBSD [openbsd.org].
"non-poluting segway" (Score:4, Informative)
Generating electricity still causes pollution, it just causes a lot less polution than a car.
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:5, Insightful)
I doubt the ban on Segways has anything to do with being Luddites. Those things take up at least 2-3x as much ground space as a person. The sidewalks can often be packed in NYC, and the street is full of cars. There's nowhere for Segways to go when it's busy, other than "on everybody else's feet."
I think when Steve Jobs said that it would change the way we build cities, he was right. We HAVE to change the way we buld cities because it won't fit in any current cities. We'd need extra lanes to handle the traffic.
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:3, Interesting)
Nah, i dont want to sound flamebaiting and trolling but really, maybe we should just not change the way we build cities and instead just forget about this fad, im sure it could find a niche market in the circus and maybe as a novelty for tourists to rent, but really, as a revolutionary trans
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:5, Insightful)
However in more suburban areas it could fill a legitimate niche.
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not rebuilding my city just to accomedate a segway.
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:5, Informative)
I think existing bike pathways, which you will find in a lot of European cities, will easily handle segway traffic.
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:5, Interesting)
Having said that, Segways are cool technology, and for those with the brass balls to do so can travel fast enough to cause minimal problems to cyclists, it's just on the rare occasions I've seen them in use here (in the UK) people have been beetling along at snails-pace. It's a shame that they're so expensive. Of course, you could always build your own [tlb.org]. That is, until Segway's lawyers get to you and take your house...
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:4, Informative)
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:4, Informative)
WalkSF.org [walksf.org]
The sidewalks are no place for a vehicle that goes as fast as a Segway. This means Bikes also.
For more information on why WalkSF helped get this law enacted check out
Walk SF's Segway Page [walksf.org]
Good Site (Score:3, Insightful)
- I think the Segway has an important place - or rather I think that low-impact electric vehicles have an important place.
Its hard to imagine mass transit solving the last mile effectively, and the segway (small electric etc . . . ) Is most certainly a better solution that hydrocarbon convertors.
I salute Dean Kamens creative idea - and let's not forget or pretend that the segway is anything other than the logical extension of the electric wheelchair - perfect for resto
Re:Good Site (Score:3, Interesting)
That's fine. Neighborhood electric vehicles have a place, but segways do not. Cars like the GEM have actual safety devices built-in, can be driven legally on the streets, and can be found as cheap as Segways. They also have more power, higher speed, etc.
Re:Good Site (Score:2)
Re:Good Site (Score:2)
But let's make a couple of basic assumptions, and then we'll realize why progress means improving on the default of walking.
Assume people do not want to live in a cubicle the size of a bread truck. Now assume that people need to interact with a population which affords them the benefits of scale - restaurants, opera, decent employeement etc - all these things require a large number of people. You can improve both side of the density conundrum simultaneously only by imp
Its not about sidewalks. (Score:2)
"The United States Consumer Product Safety Commission reported 4,390 emergency room-treated injuries associated with motorized scooters in the year 2000. Thirty-nine percent of those injured were under 15 years of age."
Compare this with figures for bicycles [cpsc.gov]:
"The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission estimates that over 600,000 persons suffered bicycle
Re:"non-poluting segway" (Score:2)
Trailers in wma and quicktime?? (Score:4, Funny)
so the trailers for The open source documentary are in a closed format???
Re:Trailers in wma and quicktime?? (Score:5, Informative)
SUSE (Score:5, Informative)
SUSE gives me free updates via YAST, comes with all services disabled in the "minimal graphical install" default that I use (well, networkable services are not enabled, but things like cron are), and when I log in via root, the desktop is a red graphic with a pattern of large bombs all over it. Sound fairly perfect to me. The only other thing would be a warning at the command line for a non-GUI root login, and in fact I sorta get that, because the default for the root shell prompt is different.
Re:SUSE (Score:3, Insightful)
And given that, on my parents' machine for example, they don't even have root in the list of users when they login, I'm not sure how they'd ever be running anything as root anyway.
There has to be a fairly small set of people manually doing security updates, and who are ever running things as root without realising it.
Re:SUSE (Score:2)
kind of reminds me of You are full of bombs and/or keys [errorwear.com] from that old game Gauntlet [klov.com]. Now your computer really can be full of bombs!
1 Gb is possible right now (Score:5, Informative)
Until now.. it has been pretty good.. at least for me..
Re:1 Gb is possible right now (Score:4, Informative)
When you're selected they show a pretty invitation when you login
Spymac 1GB email is not so desirable (Score:3, Insightful)
reeddavid.com [reeddavid.com]
"spy" in the name.... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'd like to try google's, especially if they had created a huge wall of spam-be-not around their service. Coolguys and non spammers inside, everyone else outside. Google is big enough to pull off a system like that, and has the smarts to make it work.
Talking Penguin (Score:5, Funny)
"It looks like you're trying to delete a file. Would you like to free up more disk space?"
"You are running as root. Running as root can be bad for your computer. Would you like to change users?"
Re:Talking Penguin (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Talking Penguin (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Talking Penguin (Score:3, Funny)
Poor fella..
Re:Talking Penguin (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Talking Penguin (Score:5, Funny)
Sidewalk Utilization Quotas (Score:3, Funny)
This will allow use when the sidewalk is empty (which can yield a registration fee that goes towards sidewalk maintenance).
For rush hour, a square footage quota will incent R&D for the scooter-pooling version of Segway.
Shells would be so much better (Score:5, Funny)
admin@local host #su
Password:
WARNING YOU ARE NOW ROOT!
#adduser fred
WARNING YOU ARE ROOT, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? (Y/N) Y
#passwd fred
WARNING YOU ARE ROOT, ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DO THIS? (Y/N) Y
Changing password for user fred.
New password:
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, like when Java applets pop up windows that need user input.
It wouldn't break any existing tools, and IMHO it wouldn't be too much of an inconvenience, only your console would be 1 row shorter.
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:2)
(I don't know why there are extra speces in some of the lines but the only space should be at the end of the PS1 line between the "\W]" and the quote)
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:2, Informative)
Better yet: be portable (Score:5, Interesting)
Using the tput command, you can be portable and get great results every time! [linux.com]
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:4, Funny)
I do agree that some warning is a good idea for novices, which is why I like the standard Mandrake root setup - log in via GUI and you have a glaring red background.
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Shells would be so much better (Score:2)
That is only in Windows XP Home. And you can reach the administrator account if you boot XP Home into safe mode. XP Pro doesn't try to hide the administrator account.
If you speak Russian (Score:5, Informative)
Basically, they will just keep buying more hard drives as you grow your message store.
Re:If you speak Russian (Score:3, Funny)
Re:If you speak Russian (Score:3, Interesting)
That's already TWO Russian webmail providers which offer unlimited email storage... Take that, Yankee imperialists!
Odd mail providers (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I just have my own egomaniacal domain name, and no matter what happens, short of a change in the domain name system, I'm guaranteed I can keep my e-mail and web addresses.
I could trust Yahoo! or Google, but it's an unfortunate fact of the lovely web that, when it comes to something like e-mail, with someone like Spymac I'd always be waiting for them to close shop, or charge some silly fee, or relocate to Uganda and only run their web site in a few obscure tribal dialects.
Re:Odd mail providers (Score:2)
Then get your own domain and forward the e-mail to whatever @yahoo or @google you happened to be.
Some (most?) domain registrars will even do such forwarding for free for you...
Biased wibbles... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe that could have read "...but Harris Siliver, founder of Citystreets, an urban improvement organization, says the NYC Department of Transportation is specifically targeting the electric scooter that uses an unconventional method of control and is much faster than pedestrians and frequently piloted by speed demons. Silver is joined in his opposition to the bill by Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak."
I'm all for ways to get rid of cars and pollution. But these scooters travel at a good speed, much faster than pedestrians. They have separate lanes for bikes, or they make bikes ride in the street. They do this because biking amongst pedestrians is often dangerous at high speeds. Doesn't it make sense that segwaying at high speeds among pedestrians is dangerous too? I'm not saying ban the segway. But getting it off the sidewalk is probably not a bad thing. Sidewalks are for people. Bike lanes are for bikes. Where does the segway go? The bike lanes? The street? I don't know, but I would be scared every time a scooter bore down on me with a person on it at 12MPH. As Marty McFly Jr. said, "Hey, I'm walking here!"
Re:Biased wibbles... (Score:3, Insightful)
Regulate the behavior not the device (kind of like the general slashdot opinion of DeCSS).
Re:Biased wibbles... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Biased wibbles... (Score:2)
How can a segway be used, in New York, safely and responsibly? They aren't allowed in public, so what are you going to do with them? Spend several thousand dollars on them so you can drive around your apartment?
I am a bit torn on the subject. I see powered scooters sold on the streets here all the time, and you know that practically the only use for them is kids driving down the street. They can't be used of
Re:Biased wibbles... (Score:2)
Re:Biased wibbles... (Score:2)
Where does this newspeak lunacy end? If siliver wants to argue that segways are safe, and should be allowed to mingle -- I disagree -- but so be it, he is perfectly within his rights to bring his argument. But to try and frame and cripple the debate by purposefully polluting language is f'ing sad.
Segways belong on the street like other motor vehicles
Re:Biased wibbles... (Score:2)
I don't know anything about this "pedestrian advocacy group', but this seems really backward
OSS Reference: add your gov-relevant project (Score:5, Informative)
WOW! (Score:5, Interesting)
This is such an awe-inspiring effort. Logging 200 hours of footage over 3 years...I can imagine the amount of dedication, effort, logistics & scheduling that went into making this possible.
Hats off to you!
I'm into my 4th month of filmmaking right now. Logged 20+ hours so far, a dozen interviews under my belt, lots of travel, caffeine, sleepless nights...and I've barely begun. By the time I hope to be finished, I hope to have about 50 hours of footage. Just sifting thru all that, deciding which segment will make the cut & which won't...gigantic effort. I can't even imagine what you're going thru, narrowing down 200 hours into 3 DVDs. I wish you luck & lots & lots of patience.
There was this one documentary I watched recently - "Begging Naked" - that tracked this prostitute thru 7 yeas of her life. 7 years!!! In those 90 minutes of footage, you can practically see the person aging in front of you. The prostitute goes from being a young sexy hooker making pots of money in a Manhattan apartment to an old haggard woman living under a tree in Central Park out of a cardboard box. The person who made this film started filming in her 20s & is now in her 30s & the film still hasn't gotten a theatrical release. And she keeps plugging away. That's motivation for you!
Project Outsourced - the film [projectoutsourced.com]
Re:WOW! (Score:5, Funny)
Hats off to you!"
Re:WOW! (Score:2)
Actually, if he'd used the floor sweepings, they would've been much better movies. Hell, had he used just the floor sweepings and trashed 90% of the footage he did use, it couldn't have been worse than Phantom Menace
Tony Stanco - SELinux project leader? (Score:3, Interesting)
with the sentence "The Government Open Source Advisory Committee is a group of
Open Source project leaders...", there is this line:
"For the SELinux Chair Tony Stanco...... Tony@egovos.org"
What does this mean?
Turing Test (Score:5, Funny)
It's nice to see that we finally have chatbots which pass the Turing test.
Re:Turing Test (Score:3, Funny)
-
I've been doing that for 29 years, (Score:2)
Free, but not automatic (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, they're free, but they're not automatic. This may be spurious, hairsplitting FUD, but what the hell... let's get rid of it:
In the default installation, have the installer create a tool to run the update from a random server chosen from a list of approved servers for the distro. Assign it to run at a random time, then repeat it weekly as a cron job called something obvious like weeklyupdate.
Do this for all free *nix distros. Move on.
Re:Free, but not automatic (Score:3, Informative)
nuts, auto is a bad idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of free software is user control. Free software is big enough for you and I to agree to dissagree about it, you do things your way and I'll do them mine.
Here are some situations where you don't want auto updates:
The above constitutes a majority of installations. Most people still have dial up. Most people prefer the hottest software around. It is difficult to get upgrades over a modem unless you scale back to stable and only take what security.debian.org offers.
How does Microsoft do the same thing, you might ask. Obviously, they don't.
Re:nuts, auto is a bad idea. (Score:3, Informative)
Fair enough, but I'm talking about default behavior, not required behavior.
Anyone running a development branch of anything can be assumed to know enough to disable the automatic updater. So can administrators of qualified systems. A new user of a free *nix cannot be assumed to know enough to get updates at all, so it seems to me it'd be r
Re:nuts, auto is a bad idea. (Score:2)
Windows update keeps my Windows (R) Operating System up-to-date by automatically downloading and installing critical security patches at a time that suits me! So fuck off!
Microsoft releases patches for it's stable branches, just like everyone else. There is no use of an unstable branch outside Microsoft's own beta runs, and even then auto-update still functions.
Also, why not visit windowsupdate.com to scan for and download th
Re:nuts, auto is a bad idea. (Score:2)
Everyone of the ones mentioned provide an easy way of checking and downloading updates for your distro.
Several provide automatic tools. Perhaps all do, but I am not positive for some. Even if they don't, it would be possible to script you
Re:Free, but not automatic (Score:2)
What's wrong with that?
This author is obviously an idiot for saying Linux should have automatic updates. Windows only recently got automatic updates, and it's disabled by default.
I know a lot of OSes, and I can't think of any other one that automatically updates. It's a stupid idea to give people less control. Maybe it could be a setup option on Mandrake or something, but other than that, it's a terrible idea.
Come in one day, your computer has crashed, se
Re:Free, but not automatic (Score:3, Informative)
This is default behavior.
Re:Free, but not automatic (Score:2)
In the default installation, have the installer create a tool to run the update from a random server chosen from a list of approved servers for the distro. Assign it to run at a random time, then repeat it weekly as a cron job called something obvious like weeklyupdate.
Fedora does this. It's not on by default (you need to symbolically link it into your rc.d) but it runs yum nightly to download and install updates.
Don't know how they do it now.... (Score:3, Interesting)
A little hard to miss that much blinding backcrap.
"Ship it now, fix it once it's sold" (Score:4, Insightful)
That credo was invented by greedy, proprietary corporations.
I used to post a sign over my desk which said "If you haven't the time to do it right the first time, how will you ever find the time to do it over?"
It always pissed off the powers when they stopped by.
Re:"Ship it now, fix it once it's sold" (Score:2, Interesting)
But also a useful strategy for other businesses as well. Your funding runs out in three days. It will take three weeks to fix that last remaining nasty bug. Do you:
A) Fire all the employees and wistfully remark, "well, we tried"?
B) Release the software with that bug in it, issue a 1.1 version later, and retain your employees?
Now... (Score:4, Interesting)
That's the Wintel press for you. (Score:4, Insightful)
That's true, but there are some very encouraging signs too.
The problem is that some people are producing magazines that pretend to be news, but are really advertisements. These magazines will continue to ignore everything but their patron's wares and will always be clueless. They also continue to offer FUD to reassure clueless administrators their money was well spent. Microsoft planned to spend more than a billion dollars promoting XP and that kind of money feeds an entire ecosystem of shills and quacks. "Computer" magazines that don't cover free software but instead encourage you to purchase eXPensive junk are not worth reading.
The good news is that reputable news outlets are catching on. They are specifying what OS and software are effected by what they used to call "computer viruses". Most have penetrated the SCO FUD machine and reported it for what it is. Microsoft can shake their advertising budget at them still, but reputable news sources are going to pick credibility over the wishes of an advertiser.
Another anti-fud website (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Another anti-fud website (Score:2)
For a good comparison, check out the following two articles:
If you're gonna debunk the shills,
Torrent Please! (Score:2, Funny)
warning: /. post is inaccurate (Score:2, Informative)
The article specifically talks about Lindows (Linspire), not Linux distros in general.
Donald Duck using open source? (Score:5, Funny)
Seems like a reliable source of information ...
Re:Donald Duck using open source? (Score:2)
The corect translation is probably "Duckville"[troll mode off]
BBS documentary (Score:3, Interesting)
It's the reason people love 'blogs, it's the reason they love IRC, and it's the reason they love sites like mine (see sig) that still follow the traditional BBS format. In some ways it's even better now, with the ability to have lots of people on at once.
Why is NYC wasting their time? (Score:2)
They are neat to watch, I saw one at a college I was selling at. A radio station had it and it was plastered with ads. That's why I think that the Segway will never be that popular, it's too expensive and only the super rich and those that have advertising revenue streams will be able to use it.
It's Not Really the Segway (Score:3, Insightful)
The Segway is just getting caught in the crossfire and there probably some people who want to ban them as well, but the real problem is these scooters.
Uprise in commercial trolling? (Score:2)
I think more of the mainstream media is catching on to the commercial potential of trolling the linux crowd. Just make an unf
Re:Uprise in commercial trolling? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ran into a couple drunks on Segways in Orlando (Score:2, Interesting)
Mandrake (Score:3, Funny)
You forgot the "must not be French" clause ;-)
SpyMac is not that great (Score:3, Interesting)
I had to sign up 3 times before it would take my information.
I've tried uploading my avatar for forums 7 times in 3 days and it still has yet to work. The same thing for selecting one of there a predefined picture.
The e-mail page itself takes up 5 minutes to load.
I sent a message from one of my accounts(www.2d.com) and it took 12 hours before it showed up in my inbox.
This service seems more like a beta products then a production ready system. A couple of suggestions:
-Cut back on the mac-esc graphics. They're killing your server.
- Maybe turn your storage down to 100 megs until you can scale to meet the demands of what you have.
- Give POP3/SMTP access to your system. See above 2 points.