The standard desktop at the company I work for used to be a Sun Ultra 5, and when the company imploded I picked an Ultra 5 with a fast processor (400 MHz), put some more memory in it, took it home and put Debian on it. It worked fine. Entirely decent interactive performance, like a fast Pentium 2. Not a box for video editing or other high-CPU/bandwidth activities, but fine otherwise.

I was amused to note that it wasn't a Windows box, so it was immune to Windows attacks. It wasn't an x86 box, so it was immune to x86 attacks. I guess I amuse easily. :-)

We had a pile of 32 bit SparcStations. We (literally) couldn't give them away.

...laura

>He's a loonie

No he isn't. His line of politics has kept him employed for decades. He's been banging the pan for these issues (universal healthcare, raised minimum wage, education, energy independence, ecology, etc) consistently and it gets traction. Because those are things people want and he's not saying it for show.

He's saying it because it matters.

Unlike Hillary.

>and so far the only candidate I actually want to vote for.

Then you should vote for him.

--
BMO

>solar, wind, and other sources of cleaner energy
>ending reliance on foreign oil and domestic coal

It's funny how Hillary is repeating things Sanders has been talking about for 40 years. All except for the things that really matter, like bringing back Glass-Steagall.

I vote D most of the time and she can fuck right off.

And no, I won't settle for Hillary because Bernie is "too radical" (all his policies are supported by the majority of people if you ask them) and that if he wins the nomination he might lose to a Republican. No, no he wont. The Republicans have people who appeal to the Idiocracy (seriously listen to Rubio or Cruz, they talk like they know what they're doing, but they're really empty suits) but that only gets them through the Primaries. Against Bernie in a national election, they fail.

Hillary is in such a bind it's hilarious. She's positioned herself as a "centrist" which is far right of what people actually want. She sees what Bernie is saying is getting the crowds to come out and she wants some of that. The funny thing is, she has all this baggage (She's quite the warmonger and Wall Street "woman of the street." which she has to discard in order to do that. It's not going to go away, and the more she tries to appropriate his messages, the more of a hypocrite she looks, and all Bernie has to say is "where were you when I was saying this stuff ten years ago?"

She thinks it's "her turn" and that she should just be anointed, especially if you talk to the Hillary supporters and read between the lines. She thought that in 2008 against Obama, too. She's going to be so disappointed.

Popcorn. I'm buying a truckload.

--
BMO

Modded informative

Just barely. Your message simply repeats the official line, which in this case is worthless.

This isn't about censorship of violent lyrics

I agree. it's about completely mindless censorship.

Freedom of speech isn't about "speech we like."

There was no incitement to violence. This was the establishment shutting up someone they don't like. Oh sure, they have a "reason" for shutting him up, but then reasons can always be found for anything. Spurious or not, "the man" wants you to know that these reasons are "for your own good" and "for the children."

Because reasons.

Your cop-sucking is duly noted.

--
BMO

My employers pay me to do cool shit, and we use Linux to do it. Company standard is CentOS, but my personal research/playpen box is Slackware.

FWIW, I've run Linux on x86, 68k, ARM and UltraSPARC. My home computer, the one I actually spend my own money on, is a Mac. It shares desk space with an x86 Linux box and a Raspberry Pi.

...laura

Prior to the IBM PC there was enormous diversity in computing. I have some early issues of Byte and the hardware in the ads is all over the place. Most of the names are long forgotten now.

The BBC did Micro Men, a cute (and mostly historically accurate) program about the rise and fall of Acorn, which happened in the same time period. They too got broadsided by IBM, but managed to develop the ARM processor before they imploded.

...laura

I have every reason to believe that Romney would have gathered the same group of advisers around him that had encouraged W to go too far and pushed their propagandizing of the Red states to new heights in hopes of dragging a few trillion more dollars out of the American public while turning the odometer over from IRAQ to IRAN, as a popular poster in US military sites so proudly proclaimed

He actually did this. Basically his foreign policy during his campaign was PNAC alumni and FPI members. It wasn't any kind of mistake or coincidence that he titled his foreign policy page "New American Century". This wasn't a dog-whistle. It was a shout with a bullhorn.

Marco Rubio has taken the same slogan. It's not a coincidence either.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-...

Notice that this isn't MSNBC pointing this out.

What Breitbart doesn't do is fully explain what it means and who it is. They certainly do link to Sourcewatch, but people hardly click through.

American Enterprise Institute -> PNAC ->FPI

They're not going away and their modus is to find a stooge to manipulate. And they've found at least one.

BTW, I just discovered the Library of Congress has archived the PNAC site.

It's never going away or going to be scrubbed. How cool is that?

http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/...

--
BMO

Interesting, but nonsense. There is little chance we would have had "boots on the ground" in Tehran

Dan Senor said on Meet The Press that we'd go to war at the behest of Israel if they bothered to ask.

It's one of Bibi's wet dreams. Of course he'd ask.

Did Romney walk it back? No. No he did not. At all. Don't even bother to try to dispute this, it's googleable.

"Perpetual war" driven by business is a load of bull.

Then explain the trillions we pissed away in Iraq and Afghanistan. They went somewhere. Certainly not in the pockets of the Iraquis or you or me. Maj Gen Smedley Butler is laughing at you from beyond the grave.

re: your implication that the rate of equipment replacement is the same in war as it is in peacetime because it will happen "one way or another"

Blatantly, laughably false.

Ok, you're just a loonie. I should have known better than attempt rational discussion with you.

--
BMO

Romney was a tool of W's neocon backers that needed a new stooge.

As a candidate, he even had his web page for foreign policy titled New American Century and hired people like Dan Senor as the foreign policy brain trust.

We would have had boots on the ground in Tehran a month after his inauguration. Because perpetual war is good for (war) business, dontchaknow.

--
BMO

deliberately understate it
he may be completely clueless

whynotboth.jpg

Obama has absolutely refused to use the bully pulpit to stand up for principles and what is right.

Because I think he assumes that everyone is dealing in good faith and that somehow giving away the store at the beginning of a debate is good compromising. Or something. I don't know. I don't care anymore.

He's only slightly better than W and not the effin' disaster we would have had with Romney.

[rant]

Speaking of which, is there not a single Republican left with any principles at all that aren't straight out of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and Anton LaVey's COS? Trump seems to have gotten his philosophy from the Three Stooges.

I'm not looking forward to a Hillary presidency but at this rate the Republicans are just going to hand it to her if she doesn't lose to Bernie in the primaries because she took her position for granted.

[/rant]

--
BMO

Why would anybody, in their right mind, get a CS or IT degree if they knew how shitty the environment was?

Microsoft and every other tech company: We want talent, but we don't want to pay for it. Give us more H1-B workers to cut the average salary, please.

Game corps: We slave-drive our workers, because it's better to take young talent and burn them out so they leave before they get too expensive. Which is why we're always re-inventing wheels.

IT: Dealing with really ungrateful idiots every day, all week, all year. The higher-up the chain, the stupider (with tech) they are.

Why would anyone, male or female, bother to get into this?

Fuck it. Play soccer.

--
BMO

Yup. There are some examples of good AI in tv shows. Data and the hubots in Real Humans stand out in my mind.

I remember the scene in The Offspring where Data's daughter Lal was complaining about not being able to feel emotions. While doing an awfully good imitation of anger and frustration...

...laura

"C&C"

I always read that as "coffee and cats."

Pawn Storm Group Makes Trend Micro IP Address a Coffee and Cats Server

YMMV.

--
BMO

You do. Just as I, a Canadian citizen, have the right to enter Canada. I do not have the legal right to enter the United States, but can do so with official permission. Which usually amounts to the Customs agent at the border or airport telling me to have a nice day.

If the government want to be difficult, your citizenship must be verified. Then Customs can give you the once over: yes, you can enter the country, but they want to know what you're bringing with you.

...laura

It won't work. I don't think you can reasonably claim this will change the actions of the Iranians at all.

Brilliant logic. Then why try to do anything at all that's difficult?

What a dark miserable little world you live in.

--
BMO