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how exactly do you access a kernel from the network without going via an application?

Hrm, I'd guess you're probably twenty-five or younger, given that question. You missed some good times.

Back in the day the TCP/IP stacks had quite a few bugs in them. Just about everyone lifted code from BSD 4.x (yeah, the original BSD). Once exploits for those started coming out, it was a race to see who could fix them the fastest. Linux (and I assume the BSDs, although I didn't follow them then) usually had a fix out within hours - Microsoft usually didn't have a fix for months, which did a lot for their poor security reputation back then.

The funny bit was when Microsoft released a fix for one of the exploits, which opened up another exploit, so you were guaranteed any Windows machine could be brought down by one or the other. I used that against IRC trolls back in the day. One little ping o' death would lock their machines hard. Not that I'd do that these days...

Anyway, check out this page for more info on it. Nowdays, of course, most of the TCP/IP bugs have been worked out, so this type of thing hasn't really been much of an issue for a while now. However, it's still possible there's bugs that haven't been found.

As an aside, my roomates and I discovered that NT 4.0 on Alpha would just stop if you flood pinged it. We called it the "remote pause button," because it would go on as if nothing had happened as soon as you stopped pinging it. Our friend who had the Alpha on the network was not amused.

John Companies http://www.johncompanies.com/ and Tektonic http://www.tektonic.net/ for unmanaged VPS, ServInt http://www.servint.net/ for managed VPS and NetAccess http://www.nac.net/ for colo.

http://www.users.nac.net/falken/annoying/main.html

These people should watch South Park, episode 313.

MARK: ...public schools may be a bit lacking in education, but it's the main place where children learn all of their social skills. You can't teach a child social skills; they have to learn them themselves, and the only place to do that is on the playground, in the cafeteria, and so on...

Rank Performance graph Company site OS

1. www.fasthosts.co.uk FastHosts Windows 2000
2. www.level3.net Level 3 Windows 2000
3. www.aruba.it www.aruba.it Windows 2000
4. www.nac.net www.nac.net Windows 2000
5. www.interland.net Interland Windows 2000
6. www.easynet.net www.easynet.net Windows 2000
7. www.energis.com Energis Windows 2000
8. www.datapipe.net DataPipe Windows 2000
9. www.chinanetcenter.com China NetCenterWindows 2000
10. www.expresstech.net Express TechnologiesWindows 2000
11. myhosting.com myhosting.com Windows 2000
12. www.btglobalservices.com British TelecomWindows 2000

The advisory announcing the flaws:
http://www.nextgenss.com/advisories/mssql-udp.txt Various disassemblies and discussions: http://www.snafu.freedom.org/tmp/1434-probe.txt http://www.digitaloffense.net/worms/mssql_udp_worm / http://www.boredom.org/~cstone/worm-annotated.txt

Writeups:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/internet/01/25/intern et.attack.ap/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2693925.stm
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/ 20030125/ap_wo_en_po/na_gen_internet_attack_2
http://bvlive01.iss.net/issEn/delivery/xforce/aler tdetail.jsp?oid=21824

And here we have yet another Slashdotter doesn't know what they're talking about. They seem to come crawling out of the woodwork every time the "vinyl is better" boobs start slinging their BS around.

> FACT: most people can hear up to at least 30 kHz.

FACT: Nobody can hear up to 30kHz. People *might* be able to hear harmonics of sounds above 20kHz, provided those harmonics fall within the range of human hearing, but they won't be able to hear the actual pure tones themselves (as you yourself indicated). Since any medium - such as CD - that records sounds up to 20kHz will also record the harmonics of tones above 20kHz, provided they fall within the range of human hearing, what exactly would we be missing? And apart from percussion or certain electronic instruments, what instruments are out there generating gobs of ultrasonic information, anyhow? And what microphones are capable of picking up such information? And what analog tape decks are capable of recording such information? And - here's the kicker - how many speakers are capable of reproducing such information? The answer to each of these questions is, vanishing few. Many tape decks filter out or fail to record tones much beyond 20kHz. Few microphones can pick them up to begin with. And most speakers are lucky to maintain a flat frequency response even out to 20kHz, let alone to 25 or 30kHz. You'd practically have to live in a laboratory to record and then accurately reproduce ultrasonic information. A 50-year-old format like the vinyl LP certainly isn't ideal for such a thing, given its noise, distortion, dynamic range, separation and phase issues. Only the high quality analog tape decks found in professional studios or digital recording formats utilizing higher sampling rates than 44.1kHz could hope to accurately record and reproduce such audio.

>Yes, such transients are reproduced on vinyl.

Maybe on audiophile grade, quarter-speed mastered vinyl played back on a $5,000 turntable equipped with a $1,500 cartridge run through a $2,000 preamp they are. Poorly. With oceans of harmonic distortion and waves of crashing high-frequency noise. Assuming, of course, the original performance was picked up using microphones and mic preamps capable of dealing with much of anything beyond 20kHz (such mics cost in excess of $2,000, and the preamps aren't much cheaper) onto tape decks capable of recording much of anything beyond 20-25kHz. None of which is likely, outside of studiously recorded audiophile sessions.

>Your final star'ed points are just dumb. You don't give any references,
>because of course you don't have any.

You must really enjoy looking like a boob. Hey, if you want to play the (in your case, irrelevant and apparently unavailable on the web) references game, I'd love to! (Actually, one "reference" you posted is available on the web - marketing material from a stereo company plugging their overpriced audiophile gear. You should have provided us with a link to the guy selling $10,000 tinfoil hats to protect us from government mind control rays, too.) Here are my bullet points, plus any references I could dig up (though much of this should be obvious to anyone with a brain in their skull):

* Loud tics and pops caused by stray dust and wear, resulting in a *negative* signal to noise ratio - i.e. the noise can become louder than the music! (with N'Stynk, I suppose this would be a blessing in disguise . . . or simply redundant.)

Well, this one is obvious. Whenever a tick or pop is louder than the music (happens a lot with vinyl, and even with tape during quiet passages), the signal to noise ratio goes negative.

* Rumbling caused by the turntable's motor and the friction of the stylus as it passes through the groove

Another obvious point. Many turntables even include rumble measurements in their specifications, though that's for the platter only and doesn't take into account additional noise caused by the friction of the stylus dragging through the groove.

* Wow and flutter, caused by speed irregularities in the turntable's drive system and by any imperfections in the geometry of the disc.

Another spec that's included for most turntables and even analog tape decks. Hard to see how this one is, "just dumb", unless you're so ignorant you've never looked at the specs for a turntable or tape deck.

* Phase irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization and the subsequent need for the preamp to de-equalize the signal.

Another obvious point. Anytime you process the signal to emphasize or de-emphasize certain frequencies, you're going to introduce phase discrepancies. Here's a $2,000 preamp from Daniels Audio that attempts to compensate for the phase issues. Notice I say "attempts". Even a manufacturer of $2,000 stereo components won't claim to be able to eliminate such issues. And who knows what issues all that additional processing is going to introduce.

* Frequency response irregularities caused by the RIAA equalization / de-equalization process

Again, a no-brainer. If the frequency response curve used to produce the wax master doesn't precisely match the frequency response curve in your preamp (and it never will), certain frequencies are going to be emphasized upon playback while others will be de-emphasized. Here's a big page detailing the design issues faced by folks trying to build the RIAA de-equalization circuits for a preamp. Notice the difficulties he's having making the response curve come close to the RIAA ideal. Even by the end, he's off by more than a quarter dB at many frequencies, including some smack dab in the middle of the most sensitive range of human hearing.

* The inability to reproduce loud bass accurately (the cutter making the wax master would pop out of its groove if it tried to reproduce the kind of bass CDs can handle effortlessly)

For references, please see this, this, this, or this.

* The tendency for the turntable, platter and even the disc to function as microphones, picking up room reverberations and - particularly - the sound being produced by the speakers, smearing and distorting the audio in numerous ways

I should think this one would be obvious. Lots of turntable manufacturers sell heavy weights to sit on top of a record while it's playing. If you don't believe this is true, jump up and down next to your turntable while it's playing, or set it on top of a speaker pumping out a lot of bass. You'll get an "extreme" demonstration of the effect, but the truth is it's happening all the time.

* Cartridge / tonearm misalignments, causing inaccurate stylus pickup, accelerated record wear, or both.

Again, an obvious issue. Good luck getting it right!

* 30dB of stereo separation, vs. CD's 70+dB of separation

See this, or the specs for the cartridges themselves here. You'll be lucky to find a preamp that can come close to the 70-90dB of separation even a cheap CD player can provide, let alone a pickup.

* A theoretical maximum of 60dB of dynamic range for virgin vinyl of the highest quality (and only at certain frequencies - obviously, not in the low bass) vs. around 90dB of dynamic range from even the cheapest CD players, across the entire spectrum.

References to this abound. If you don't believe me, take it from an expert.

* In practice, roughly 40dB of usable dynamic range across the majority of the spectrum

See the reference above.

* A relatively flat frequency response from only around 60 Hz to 15 kHz, with severe rolloffs beyond those limits.

This one has been covered already.

* The need for mastering engineers to severely compress and re-equalize the signal in order to steer clear of the format's limitations relative to CD, which requires no such distortion-educing compensation.

Again, see the references above.

* Pitch and frequency errors caused by the speed difference between the cutter used to produce the wax master and your turntable.

That's another obvious fact to anyone but a blithering idiot.

* The tendency of the media itself to wear out as its played, and to be damaged during routine handling with audible results

Well, duh. On to dissect the remainder of your post:

>The reverse of most of what you say is true. E.g. your claim
>of 60dB dynamic range is nuts: the range is over 100 dB.
>You are confusing the noise floor of a high-hiss record with
>dynamic range--but you can hear 20 dB into that noise, and a
>good record need not have high hiss. Vinyl has poor bass???
>It's much better than CD. And so on.

Oh my. There doesn't seem to be anything left to dissect. I've already covered these points up above. Vinyl is *lucky* to hit 60dB of dynamic range with audiophile pressings played back on incredibly expensive equipment. No "confusion" with vinyl's truly outrageous noise floor is necessary. And the dynamic range decreases drastically as the length of the record increases - a problem digital formats don't suffer from. And as for vinyl's bass performance, I think half the links I posted up above note how crappy vinyl is at capturing loud, low bass.

Next time, you might want to learn something about a subject before you proceed to open your mouth and cram your foot down your throat.

just name them all Marklar

KYLE (speaking in Marklar's language): ...I think I can explain this whole thing. Marklar, these marklars want to change your marklar. They don't want this marklar or any of these marklars to live here, because it's bad for their marklar. They use marklar to try and force marklars to believe their marklar. If you let them stay here, they will build marklars and marklars. They will take all your marklars and replace them with marklar. So, they must come here, to Marklar. Please, let these marklars stay where they can grow and prosper, without any marklars, marklars, or marklars!
MARKLAR: Young marklar, your marklars are wise and true.
References

When I first heard of the Phatnoise, I couldn't wait for it to come out. But I did. I waited, and waited, and waited. I have a very popular Pioneer headunit, but they still don't support it, and probably won't for a while. Also, I realized that due to CD Changer limitations, I would only be able to create 99 playlists. That seems like a lot, but I have more than 99 CDs. Furthermore, my headunit doesn't do the best text scrolling, so I wouldn't be able to have the full ID3 tag info.

With the RioCar, however, I can see Artist, Album, song title...even year. Plus the menu interface COMPLETELY blows away the Phatnoise box. And now that the RioCar has been discontinued, the price for the 10GB dropped to $699. That's cheaper than the Phatnoise. Oh, and don't think that since it's discontinued that you shouldn't buy it. There's a huge underground community that is continuing software development.

Anyways, you should definitely check it out before deciding on the Phatbox.

And just to help make up your mind, I highly recommend checking out the demo movie here.

Muslim flag over the White House by 2010