forca

I agree. As a veteran myself, I often wondered about the decisions to move from the proven 7.62 to the not-so-effective 5.56. Back in WWII, if a German soldier took at .30-06 in the chest from an M1, he wasn't getting up from it. Even the British Enfield and Vickers guns using the venerable old .303 (7mm) would put a man down reliably with a solid hit.

I personally know troops who have shot insurgents several times with M4s at lethal ranges (less than 200') and they took the hits and kept fighting long enough to return fire. Those same insurgents hit with a 7.62 slug would be DRT. Full stop. There is a reason quite a few Marines and soldiers carried .357 revolvers in Vietnam. The reason was the stopping power. The 125 grain .357 traveling at 1400 FPS boasts 96% one shot stops on human torsos that are not armoured. The .357 is still the gold standard for handgun stopping power. Like you with your 1911, I'm a .357 guy. If I cannot do it with six, I need something belt fed. Plus, like a lot of guys I know, I favour a New York reload anyway.

Stay safe.

Cannot say I don't welcome Uber getting curtailed in all these places. Like many people have said, I doubt the drivers have the insurance to cover their passengers should something really bad happen whilst a passenger is in the car. Something to consider. Taxis are required by law to be insured in certain ways, as are bus companies and limo services.

Also, I like the traditional taxis and bus systems.

I really miss the "old days" of programming. Things were simpler then. I fondly remember the early 80s programming on a Commodore 64, then moving to the early IBM machines and DOS.

Even though I favour a nix environment, there is more sanity in Windows programming circles methinks. I have been thinking about getting into some .NET development these days and moving away from doing nix stuff, altho I really love the BSDs.

Depends.

If you install Ubuntu, for example, and do nothing but be an end user, no. If you install Debian or Slackware or Fedora, or CentOS and actually learn how the internals work by installing software, setting up networks, firewalls, proxy server, Web servers, then yes.

I started with Linux back in 1998 and it's still my primary desktop flavour (Debian). I prefer BSDs for servers being they are arguably more stable and nothing beats ZFS, the BSD notion of jails, and the TCP/IP stack.

Gentoo is a good learning experience, but only if you have a full weekend to start it. Last time I ran a stage 1 Gentoo tarball, it took 12 hours to bootstrap. Never again.

Slackware or CRUX Linux are great learning flavours. As is Debian if you do the expert install and make mistakes.

Go to a Linux Users Group when they have installfests. Have an experienced Linux sysadmin "break" your installation and try to fix it. This is how I learned. Going to my LUG and getting jobs where Linux and UNIX were prevalent. I'm making inroads with bosses where I work now to displace Windows. Slowly but surely. They see the savings and they see the stability. Win.

No. Go away. Nerd culture needs to be cultivated and rewarded. Full stop.

We, at least in the US and in Western Europe are no longer making anything. We are no longer makers. Sure, a few places make stuff, but the risk/reward idealism from being a nerd is now discouraged in favour of simply accepting what is by people who "know better than us". Sorry, most of what I know in life is because I cared enough to learn and grok stuff. I'm curious by nature and so are most nerds/geeks. If the sheeple want it easy, let them subscribe to those ideas, but never ever discourage those of us who want to be nerds/geeks to give that up.

I use *nix precisely because I don't want it to just "work". That's boring. This is why my kids are getting Raspberry Pi sets and Lego Mindstorm sets. They need to think it out and do something. Make mistakes. Learn along the way. Who knows. Maybe one of my kids will invent the warp drive or cure cancer. The nerd culture is what encourages the risk takers and the outliers with the ability to think for themselves. This is a gift and should be cultivated to the highest extent possible. Education today, sadly is delivered to the lowest common denominator in the class. This is why the West is losing... kids that cannot hang need to go to remedial learning like they used to, not drag the smart kids down. Damned liberals running the education the West.

Yes. I hate receiving documents in .docx or any other proprietary format, especially if I have not agreed to that format prior to receiving them. I like plain text if at all possible. I'll happily receive PDFs because I can view them under Linux/BSD, but others piss me off. People THINK MS Word is the de facto business standard. It isn't. Text and PDF are the standards. Never had issues with either.

I had a friend tell me my CV should be in PDF and locked down to prevent recruiters and others from changing it to something other than the original. I know recruiters are fond of changing things up without informing you.

Yes, I know about this, and thank you for reminding me, but in the end, I just don't trust software.

I really do like old school and I stick with it. I write most of my docs as text in either vi or nano. I neither want nor need formatting beyond the basics. My CV is the only document I own that has formatting, and I used LibreOffice for it. It's a single page.

This is a very good reason to never use software in the so-called "cloud". I also remember years ago when someone showed me "Track Changes" in MS Word and other programs and how you could go back and look at, say, a bid offer and see if everything was on the up and up. You could see, esp. if the document was a form letter or canned response, to which other companies were offered different terms, you name it.

I dislike revision-able software for a number of reasons. Privacy is the foremost reason. Yes, yes, "if you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear..." That old chestnut gets trotted out every time someone worries about security or privacy.

Since about 2000, I keep my documents in plain text only on an encrypted drive backed up several times over -- none of the backups are online, but I'm still good if my house burns down, my machines get stolen, you name it.

No, just no.

I don't use the software in question. I only use AdBlock Plus and some creative OS-side tweaks under Linux to accomplish what I need. I don't need to use the software to go after ad companies.

It's a big deal because it's disingenuous.

I wonder what the viability of setting up a subscription service proxy that mobile users (and others) could point their mobile phones to that strips out all the dreck? I know there are VPS offerings that do this. Webhosting companies do offer unlimited bandwidth, so theoretically, bandwidth is not a problem.

Sites love to view user history. It helps them build up a profile to sell to marketers. You want to deny sites access to this info if you can, In FF, you can do this by toggling to "false" layout.css.visited_links_enabled under about:config

The sites don't always know the ad servers have been compromised. A person visits a site, allows ads/3rd-party cookies, is surfing with admin rights, the ad servers gladly push their drive-by malware and ta-da... infected user. It's that simple...

Blocking ads, disallowing cookies (whitelisting), blocking the general ad industry is the only safe way. It's like sex: use protection.

No one is advocating anything except not tracking users. I already block ads like most people here. They are a vector for malware, they track users, they sell that data.

Make money by charging for content. I miss the old days when people had to pay for stuff with tangible money, not with their anonymity. I would gladly pay to access content I found useful, just no tracking. Be content with the money and move on. No need to profile me, sell my profile to make more money. I pay to use several sites. I also block ads on these site, because the third parties don't respect privacy.

Desktop generally. Also iPhone users frequently are quoted higher prices than Android users. I've seen this with my own eyes.

I actually have a subscription in my AdBlock Plus that also kills these "requests". It's called Adblock Warning Removal List.

I glady pay for Internet access, cable TV, the cinema, magazines, other content I view. The problem I have is with tracking. Ads should never do anything save show an ad. There should be no attempt to learn about me or track me or sell my data. Magazines I buy don't track me. I ignore ads in the cinema by whiling away that time on my mobile, I FF thru DVRd programs at home. I've paid already. I'm not viewing your dreck.

Not even close with the analogy. Unless the content is behind a paywall, it's "free". Want to make money? Charge access. If your content is THAT compelling, people will line up and hand you money. Using a backhanded revenue machine like ads that track me and violate my "anonymity" is beyond the pale. So, yes. If I arrive on your site and there is no paywall, I will gladly view said content without allowing ads. If there is a paywall and your CONTENT, not ads, is good, I will gladly pay. There are sites I do pay for. Willingly. Because there is nothing better. I still block ads on these sites.

There is something also mean-spirited about tracking users. Yeah, yeah, I've heard it's all anonymous, but I've been in the IT industry for a very long time, and I know for a fact they can identify the users with enough time. Because all of this is bought and sold behind the scenes.

I would be OK with ads that went straight to the site selling an item with no tracking other than click-thru stats but not using the IP address, not fingerprinting the browsers, etc.

It's sick that sites show one price to mobile users and another to desktop users. I've seen this by testing it myself. It's a sham. It's the seedy side of capitalism. Everyone should get the same price. Another reason to block ads, since allowing them means you're buying into the way they do business.

Nothing mean-spirited about blocking a very strong vector for malware, which we all know ad networks have become. I have a moral imperative to protect machines under my control, so we block all ads, disallow all tracking, use Disconnect, Ad Block Plus, and HTTPS Everywhere, along with other in-place tools to allow users a clean Internet experience. Let's not even mention how much bandwidth is saved by adblocking... That alone makes it worth it.

I realize this won't be popular, but I really have no feelings for ad networks.

- They allow shoddy security on their servers

- They track users against their will

- Info on me is sold w/o my knowledge or consent

- Ads are a poor business model since they can be blocked

- There is no moral imperative for me to view ads since I've paid to access the Interwebs

I block all ads, tracking cookies, beacons, all of it... I whitelist my bank and my email provider. Everyone else gets nothing from me. I lie about my browser agent, I disallow scripts, CSS history, I disallow HTTP/S referrer, DOM storage, I use a European proxy where I need to. This all works great for me, as I have the right to move around the Internet as a customer, not a product.

I think if anything, this extension makes ad companies sit up and take notice. I won't be installing it, as I don't need it, but kudos to the authors for throwing the cat in among the pigeons. Ad revenue from most of these sites is based on tracking people and this is something I am against 100%.

This. God transcends His creations as well as time (also a creation).

Mandrake made Linux exciting immediately w/o having to do Slackware-like config file nightmares.

What do you think of Midori as a daily browser (assuming you didn't apt-get something else)?

I think it's a decent browser, it's only drawback is it's single-threaded.

I rather like the notion of Ubuntu's Unity interface. It reminds me of my favourite window manager, Window Maker, which I'm running at the moment. I recommend Ununtu to those who don't want to muck about much. Like you, I don't have time or the inclination to mess with the config files anymore. Server, yes. Desktops? They need to work pretty much out of the box anymore. This is 2014 afterall, and modern laptops and desktop boxes have support in the latest kernels, either in Linux or FreeBSD.

Linux Mint is even more friendly than Ubuntu if I'm honest. It has all the codecs, various desktop flavours, and is generally what my wife and kids prefer these days.

No flame war intended; just calling out what I've seen in my work in the past.

I have noticed over the last ten or so years that FreeBSD in particular is ridiculously stable -- far more so than any Linux distro I have tried, including Red Hat, CentOS, and Debian.

I have stable Linux machines running Debian and I have FreeBSD test machines running the same software. FreeBSD uses less resources (exact same HW), tends to be slightly faster, and is arguably easier to admin on a daily basis. Let's not even mention ZFS, which is remarkable in its own right. I'm impressed. I once ran an OpenBSD pf firewall that supported almost 200 users on some seruously underpowered HW. This thing's load average was always ridiculously low. Ditto FreeBSD now. What will cause the Debain machines to peak out sometimes, FreeBSD doesn't seem to notice. Interesting and a bit impressive.

I purchased a Virgin Mobile handset and associated activation card. The phone is not tied to my name at all since I paid cash for it and I pay cash for the $35 top-up cards monthly. I activated the phone as "Prepaid Caller". I use no apps, only text and phone. My needs are basic. I have unlimited data for $35, so I never use Wi-Fi, and when I'm home, I use a laptop.

People should not be tracked. Full stop. Even with their permission. We are headed for worse than Orwell ever imagined. I cannot believe some people consent to this.

There will come a time and soon whereby people will not be able to do a thing without someone tracking it.

Please... leave your PC stance at the door. Really. Grown men are never offended at stuff like this...

I'm talking devs and sysadmins. I agree with you that NetBSD is the friendliest of the bunch.

Theo de Raadt is a great guy. He gets a bad rap when it's undeserved. What the OBSD guys is very serious stuff. He gets a lot of flak but running an OS and security software project as successfully as he does takes a strong personality. He has that, and in the real, he's a nice, friendly guy. He simply has no tolerance for people with no merit and nothing to add. Anyone would be the same.

I've met a couple of snarky FreeBSD admins, but they were also Linux and Windows admins at the same time. These two guys were full of themselves regardless of platform.

BSD (in general) tends to be more polished than Linux and suffers fewer bugs out of the box. Again, this is what I've noticed. I've yet, in almost 20 years of using FreeBSD off and on, ever had an issue with it that was a deal breaker. I cannot say this of the various Linux distros.