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Slashback: Aptitude, Consolation, Security
apt-get install common.sense According to this message from Pixel in the apt-rpm mailing list, Linux-Mandrake is the second RPM-based distro to use APT, after Conectiva's own distro. So, despite the existance of non-free similar products recently covered in /., APT is gaining acceptance to be the unified package manager front-end for Linux.
Can your parents install Debian?
Now there's some smidgeon of Justice for ya Foggy Tristan writes "
According to Wired news story, Uzi Nissan has won a battle, but not the war, against Nissan in a domain name dispute over nissan.com.
For now, however, Uzi Nissan must display a prominent banner on his site that tells people he has nothing to do with the car company and where people can find Nissan.
" You knew this was going to happen ... RobM9999 writes: "The BugTraq mailing list over at SecurityFocus is reporting what appears to be the first vulnerability in the NSA's Security-Enhanced Linux that was originally written about here. The original post to the BugTraq mailing list is here."What would have been more surprising is if no security bugs were found when a project like this has its source opened to the world. Best to get that laundy clean, eh?
Could be they're just serious gamers tech81 writes "Here's an article on MSNBC that has an update to this story previously posted on Slashdot concerning Iraq possibly buying and stockpiling PS2's for military purposes. Looks like they weren't able to get an PS2's, so they grabbed the originals. . ."
So that's why the bidding on eBay went so high, eh?
Read 'em and weep The next part of our continuing reprint of Jon Katz' Hellmouth series is up.
Mandrake Cooker (rpmfind link here) tends to be right on top of all the latest software releases. They usually have an RPM within a week of a new release.
- Have a picture
Both of the other replies are wrong (Advanced Packaging Technology and Another Package Tool).
But both got it half right.
According to 'man apt', it's "Advanced Package Tool".
"We registered nissancomputer.com and offered it to him for free," Schindler said. "But he has no interest in being Nissan Computer -- his real name -- because he wants to exploit the substantial confusion.... If Ui Nissan was using nissancomputer.com, there would not be a lawsuit."
Ok, so Nissan Motor Co Ltd wants Nissan.Com, when it hasn't registered NissanMotorCoLtd.com and NissanMotor.com and NissanMotors.com isn't good enough? I think Uzi's got a good case.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
A book such as "Nineteen eighty-four", by George Orwell would be highly elucidative for the case in point.
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
The thing to remember about newbies is that everyone who uses Linux at some point was a newbie. You don't sit down, and all of a sudden are an expert at it.
BigCat79
BigCat79
"The dead have risen and are voting Republican!" --Bart Simpson
Like the above would involve any combination of intelligence and skill and not, as it turns out in real life, of selective patience applied to intolerably monotonous tasks and a huge amount of time to waste waiting for things to compile.
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
cuba is not a dictatorship? And I suppose you belive joseph stalin was a humanitarian?
There is no spork.
Er, no. We just sold him arms when he was fighting Iran in the late Eighties. He seized power quite well on his own, and the Soviets provided him with arms and military advisors for his first fifteen years or so.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
A little while ago I wrote for a slash based site about politics and social issues called www.wehavenoproduct.com. It was taken down due mainly to lack of interest. I liked it. Check www.slashcode.com for new slashsites.
"The poet presents his thoughts festively, on the carriage of rhythm; usually because they could not walk" Nietzsche
*.tar.gz
Oh, so just like Slackware then?
installpkg foo.tgz
--
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
Slapped with a talking Boogie Bass, actually.
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
People would assume from that article that Sadam could take a Gameboy, put the right cartridge in it and fly to the moon.
He could if was playing Lunar Lander on his Gameboy!!
cpeterso
Both PS/1 and PS/2 are general purpose computers, albeit with less open architectures than a PC. Everything they render is most certainly not pre-built into them, although the video hardware has a lot of iron streamlined for turning 3D abstractions into 2D views which would be wasted if you're doing something else.
The physics in these games is always coded by the game programmer in the general-purpose CPU, because it's different for every game. While we may laugh at these consoles being used to control military hardware, it's no sillier than many of the impromptu hardware hacks which are performed during any war -- especially if you have a couple of talented hacker types who are familiar with the hardware and software environment.
While I think the whole embargo is silly, it seems possible that there is some specific project for which the Iraqis may have adapted this cheap and importable hardware. I am sure I've read of Linux being booted on the Dreamcast and think I remember seeing that it had been ported to PS/1; this indicates that the specs are out there for anyone who wants to use these as general purpose computing engines.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
What I'd really like to know is what the hell Iraq would have done with a bunch of PS2s - much less what they'll do with the PS1. The machine are designed specifically for graphics rendering. [...] They can now use them to map the trajectory of their missiles! Of course, it all has to fit on a PlayStation disk...
Not if you take it apart. The PS and PS2 hardware, like that of most other game consoles, can easily be adapted to other uses; see, for example, Linux on the Dreamcast. Now, whether the Iraqis have enough smarts to reverse-engineer the hardware and wire it up for their own purposes, I don't know--but just because these are game machines, don't assume they can't do anything except graphics.
--
BACKNEXTFINISHCANCEL
Furthermore, both Greenstein and Mr. Nissan are now looking into a 1992 lawsuit in which the shoe was on the other foot. They both noted that Nissan Motors was the defendant in a trademark lawsuit when the automaker introduced the Altima line of cars and an identically-named computer firm claimed infringement. If the car company's defense in 1992 was that Altima as a computer product and Altima as a brand of cars do not overlap, the defendants in Nissan v. Nissan can make a simple argument: As with "Altima," so with "Nissan."
Yet the court records on this trial are mysteriously sealed. IMO Nissan Motors totally shot themselves in the foot. Heh heh heh.
all the United States has succeeded in doing is punishing the Iraqi people it says it's trying to protect.
Er, no, we aren't trying to protect the Iraqi people. We are trying to keep Saddam from building up enough forces to threaten the regional balance of power again by cutting off his money. It's old-fashioned balance-of-power politics, and its working exactly as intended.
Now, admittedly, U.S. politicians have been spouting lots of moralistic rhetoric about it. Hussein spouted lots of moralistic rhetoric about the justice of his invasion of Kuwait. In both cases, the rhetoric not only has nothing to do with what's happening, but never did and never will.
Frankly, we want Hussein to remain in charge of Iraq. If he falls, there's a good chance that the Kurds break off into their own country in the north, destabilizing our long-time ally Turkey. And there's a good chance the Shi'ite south also breaks off and becomes part of or an ally of Iran, putting the Iranians on the Kuwait border. Democracy is nice, but democracy in Iraq carries a severe risk to several long-term U.S. allies and to the economies of the democracies in North America, East Asia, and Europe.
Instead, the embargo leaves Saddam with enough power to keep his country united and defend itself from invasion, while rendering it unable to invade neighbors. Which is exactly what the U.S., EU, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Israel want.
There's no "we" in team, only "me"
Perhaps, slightly less completely and utterly insanely, they could simple put up a video monitor and broadcast a live video feed? You know...like we do?
-David T. C.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
The effect of the embargo on Saddam Hussein has been to INCREASE his power. If you stop and think about it, you'll realize why... Saddam already has the wealth, power and contacts necessary to procure basically whatever he wants on the black market. The effect is, if you're an Iraqi and you want access to imported goods - i.e., the Good Life - you will be beholden to Saddam Hussein. If you are part of the middle-class group that Saddam provides for, then what's good for Saddam is good for you.
If there were no embargo, the Good Life incentive to keep Saddam in power would be at least diluted.
At the very, very least, it should be quite clear that if you want to get rid of Saddam, then the sanctions method is, uh, not exactly producing sparkling results yet. In fact, the sanctions only make the ruling class stronger while punishing everyone else.
So ask yourself this... the US is not ignorant of these facts. Why do they work so hard to keep the embargo in place?
There is a reason... but if you think it's all the propaganda you rattled off in your post, you're not using your head. The answer is in plain sight.
no. i was thinking more along the lines of
...
...
...
#tar -zxf foo.tar.gz
#cd foo
#configure
#make
#make install
#echo Precompiled binaries are for the weak.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I maintain a list of web sites that use the infamous right-click trap[?]. Nissan.com goes into the shitlist in the next site update.
Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Washington knows this, and is just fine. If you begin too look at the amount of "architecting" that the US does in the Middle East, it's just downright creepy.
Consider this possibility: look at the enormous advantage the states is given if they have a "rogue state" who's dictator is impossible to shake because of sanctions, but also as a result of the sanctions can for the most part be kept under control. Tbe US loses a lot of credibility and public approval rating for it's Middle East actions if it doesn't have a readily available enemy.
And that's what Saddam is, and the US government knows that as long as the sanctions stay in place, so does he. How is a citizenry supposed to reject a leader when they are cut off from the outside world? They have no access to foreign media, and for the most part they live in squalour and poverty.
Here's two more meme's for y'all: 1. Why doesn't the principle of mutual destruction apply to Saddam? (and don't answer because he's crazy).
And 2. Why was it not ok for Iraq to take over othe countries, but it was ok for Israel to do it? (and don't answer with jewish conspiracy shit on that one either)
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
perhaps I meant "percieved dictatorships"... or what is identified as "rogue states" (ie. any state that could threaten the major western powers)
however, I would be interested in how one-party democracy works... is it that the voters choose representatives within the party? It surely can't be that there is only one option, can it?
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
APT is A language designed for programming numerically controlled machine tools. blade
http://www.ohlssonvox.com
I only registered so I did not have see his name. Now your popping it into the quickies.
;-)
I'm not usually given to sudden rises in blood pressure but his name triggers some sort of flight or fight response which I can't respond to.
So please, please no more quickies for Jon
One possibility that might not occur to a citizen of a democracy is that Iraq is an effective monarchy, and monarchs have to give good presents to keep their subordinates happy. Maybe it's really the face-value explanation.
If you write your Occam's Razor[?] essay, please post it on Everything 2.
I'm looking for a few good [noders]Tetris on drugs, NES music, and GNOME vs. KDE Bingo.
Will I retire or break 10K?
You have obviously not been following the sanctions very closely over the past several years... otherwise you'd note that the majority of the industrial world, and even other Arab states, do not actually agree with or help the US stance. They did at first, but that support eroded away years ago.
In fact, if you do the research - and it's not difficult, as there isn't anything secret about it - you may be surprised to learn exactly what has been in the US interest, and how US interest has been managed, and how the US media reports it.
And by the way, Saddam hasn't been removed from power in one way or another not because of any laws (it didn't stop us from removing Noriega, if you recall)... Saddam hasn't been removed from power because we have no reason to WANT Saddam removed from power. In fact, Saddam is doing a damn fine job just where he is. If Saddam does leave power and is replaced with someone more overtly friendly to the US, here's a clue: start worrying.
This a nearly perfectly incorrect assessment of the geopolitical reality surrounding Iraq, and is a fine example of how the mass-market US media completely fails to educate people.
The real story is fascinating, man. Take some time to educate yourself. Start with this question: what was the United States' chief concern in the Gulf in 1989-1990? What were they worried about?
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
Didn't you read the AMD/Transmeta story? It won't be long at all before you can do an apt-get *insert favorite processor instruction set*.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yu Suzuki
Yu Suzuki
Deamcast. It's thinking.
If you're really interested in reading up on this stuff, here's an interesting article written by Noam Chomsky. It's at the very least an interesting read for opposing opinions: http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/articles/z9804-rogue.h tml
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
There is a very clear distinction between the identity of the American people and their government, and most people know it. Generally, people are aware that often their governments are acting without their knowledge, or their approval.
And I know I'm not wrong. I know the majority of Americans don't want their government overthrowing democratically elected presidents in Chile, or imposing poverty on the people of Cuba, or essentially veto-ing the first real steps towards implementing the Kyoto protocol.
Not many Americans really want these things, but at the same time, not many Americans are plugged into what is really happening. And it's not their fault, it's the fault of the leadership class.
But I'll stop here, cause it's not like anyone's going to be reading this. But perhaps a plea to not use moderation as a means to keep political opinions from the eyes of slashdot readers. I don't think that's what it's for.
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
between the actual files and apt should go rpm (the program) and dpkg, which actually do the work on the packages.
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
I'm no military expert, but it seems to me that hardware optimized for converting data into 3D images (console games) is NOT the best harware to use for converting 3D images into models of the real world (optical recognition/computer vision systems mentioned above). What good is rapid pixel fill rates, texel rates, polygon rates etc. when you're not trying to generate pictures, but rather decompose pictures into atomic components, which is pretty much the reverse process. So either a) I'm an idiot. b) The "miltary experts" are idiots, or c) Jim Miklaszewski and the MSNBC editorial staff are idiots. Which is it?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
umm... i track sid (unstable) on 4 boxes (since mid-december) and # apt-get update&&apt-get upgrade obsessive/compulsively (at least once per day) and have yet to see anything break.
definitely a degree of uncertainty though with the knowledge that any weirdness could be either fucked configuration or a broken package.
Last time I looked the amazingly user-friendly Windoze also presented an identical list, but when I tried to pick my monitor it insisted I insert a disk which I did not have (I then picked generic and it worked).
Heh. And let's not forget "slipstreaming", the entertaining practice of providing updated code in DLLs and not changing the version number. We once had some code that wouldn't work on a user's machine because he hadn't installed the latest version of Excel, even though he had the right version of the DLLs. And of course the "improved" version was only a couple hundred bytes larger, so since Windows Explorer displays file sizes to the nearest K, they looked identical. Not that I'm frustrated and bitter, mind you...
Just junk food for thought...
They used water to extinguish the fires, not explosives. There was a PBS special or something on it and the quote I remember was "throw enough water at ANY fire and it will eventually go out."
Yeah, I want to sit on my Pentium 75 and wait HOURS for things to compile.
In regards to some of the replies to this, I'd like to say that while the PS2 has the power to be an decent regular computer, it's not so much as other people have said. Its only general processor is a 128 bit 300 Mhz chip, all the coprocessors are meant for graphics (that's where the REALLY stuning visuals come from). It's also proprietary and was meant only for that machine. They'd be better off to grab some G4s instead - easier to use, more generalized, already has accompanying parts...
Like Karma doesn't matter...
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
SIG: HUP
Wasn't it the U.S. that put Sadam in power to start with.
heh. actually, to compile things "correctly" takes a good deal of knowledge about the system you're working on and what features of the package you want to install.
it comes down to this. a computer is a tool. i've often tried to reflect on why i feel a bit of disdain for products like MS Windows and MacOS. Or online services like AOL and the MSN. It's simply a matter of the laziness of the user. People are inherently lazy. they use products like the aformentioned because they don't want to know what makes their computer tick. they just want to get their little beige box on that internet they've heard so much about and look for porn, or how to make a fluffier quiche.
that just doesn't cut it in my book. and i realize, the disdain i feel is for those people that are supporting these services because they don't have a ravenous desire to learn anything and everything they can. They don't care what is going on in their computer. And that usually translates into almost every facet of their lives. that doesn't give me a lot of confidence in my species.
ok. anyway....end of rant. rpm and apt-get a poor utilities because they isolate the user from the machine that much more. It's the same as the GNOME vs. KDE argument. there are other, more intelligent and elegant choices, it's just that no one talks about them because they're not for the lazy (default install) people in this world.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
'cause the Palestinians don't sell the US any oil...
Define for me please what a rogue nation is exactly. One that does not abide by U.S. desires? Technically, all nations are "rogue" in that they are all sovereign...rogue implies that there is some international government dictating thier actions. (The U.N. doesn't count, because it rules by consent: you don't /have/ to be a member).
Iraq, lest you forget, invaded another sovereign nation with every intention of keeping it. Overwhelming force from a large coalition of nations forced them to abandon Kuwait. Not content to have their parade rained on, the Iraqis systematically set fire to many of the oil fields in Kuwait. These require explosives to quench -- not a simple task.
But then, you also forget that Iraq didn't always used to be the "bad guys". Prior to the whole Kuwait thing, we had actually told (our close ally) Saddam Hussein that we (the U.S.) would look the other way when Iraq moved to retake the disputed territory that Kuwait held at the time. We told them to go ahead and take it. This was taken, however, by Saddam Hussein to mean we wouldn't care if he took /all/ of Kuwait...which was a mistake. If Hussein had bothered to notice that Bush's ranking in the opinion polls in the U.S. had been slipping, he might have forseen that his actions provided a convienent excuse for Bush to try to make himself look good...
The only reason Hussein was ever vilified was because the Bush family was getting antsy about thier chances for re-election.
We won't even go into the Bush family's ties with the Texas (vs. Iraqi) oil industry...
Since Saddam was, unfortunately, not removed from power during the war, it is not unreasonable to assume he might be a little bitter. Imposing an embargo helps contain him and his ability to threaten other nations. No it isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than letting him freely buy any military hardware he needs.
He wasn't removed from power because of treaties the U.S. is party to that prevent us from directly interfering with another /sovereign/ nation's government.
Iraq has shown the capacity to use weapons of mass destruction (nuclear / biological / chemical), just ask some of their own people. Additionally, it has shown it has, and is willing to use missiles to attack other nations (Scuds on Israel during the Gulf War).
Hiroshima. Nagasaki. Don't forget the U.S. is the only nation to have ever used atomics on another nation. Don't see any embargoes being put on us...because we won. These embargoes have nothing to do with Hussein or what he's done: they are not punishment; they are poltics. Cheap Oil. Texas versus OPEC. We are trying to force Iraq's oil prices down, at the expense of the civilian population.
enough rambling. I await your repsonse. =)
have fun
dongoodman
dogs, sheep, cats, and knot holes in trees do not count! ;)
Then again neither does rosie
By the way what do you use to see.
Your 5 cent hoe Mom told she had to use a microscope.
Elephant: a mouse built to government specs
Amen. I really love linux, but the one thing I really miss from Windoze is not having to deal with all the library dependencies like I do under linux. Anyone who says the DLL hell under Windoze is worse is a few cards short of a deck.
Now that the rant is out... I have a question. Does the RPM apt really solve all the dependency issues? I installed KDE2 recently, and there was two ways to go as far as I could tell.
rpm -i --force or --nodeps every package
uninstall every KDE 1.x package I had ,and anything that depended on them(like kpackage) and then install the new version.
I ended up doing the latter. Would apt automate all of this? If so, would it auto-replace all of the packages that depended on the old packages it had to get rid of (like the aforementioned kpackage)? I'm doubtful (but hopeful ;-)
apt-get install redhat please god - Me (take it easy, I love Debian)
as a user, i think i may have found a solution to the whole apt-get vs. rpm argument that has been boiling over for ever so long. this package management system could possibly change the world:
*.tar.gz
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
So does this mean Mandrake uses Apt and RPM?
becasue that would just kick A$$!!!!
I tried 7.2, but my soundcard couldn't seem to be installed right, but I want to try a newer version and see if the problem cleared up, as it we probably something simple. Becasue I'm no Linux Guru (I still haven't figured out exactly what cat does and similar other commands, I'm just lost.)
I just use it becasue its "Cool" and I enjoy tinkering with stuff, but don't have the most up to date computer equipment.
People would assume from that article that Sadam could take a Gameboy, put the right cartridge in it and fly to the moon
I just.. don't see ANYONE on here being quite THAT stupid.
(although, it would make for a nifty short story or comic book)
Poor little no puppy toe!
http://quiz.ravenblack.net/blood.pl?3357354385
Oh my god, a 1 byte buffer overflow!!! How devastating. To make it even worse its when reading a variable from /etc/security/default_type. So lets see.. to make an exploit all we need to do is get root and modify that /etc/security file, then figure out a way of forcing a root process to do something nasty when faced with a single byte of arbitrary data on the heap. It all sounds a little too easy...
I agree. The ports system takes all the hard work out of installing/removing programs. It seems that just about every program in ports is available for Linux.
The way you beat a bully is you knock him down, wait for him to stand up, knock him down again and keep at it till he stays down and cries uncle. That means you kick him out of kuwait and say don't do it again. You ever trained an animal? Same thing. If you beat a dog the day after he pees on the carpet, he forgets what it was for, and eventually will bite. ps. he never made a nuke. But its really easy to put an embargo on enriched uranium and atari 2600s without restricting food and medicine.
There are way more palistinians in Israeli occupied territory than there was in 1968. & in Israel proper.
The average news story always dumbs down to talk to the people. It is an insult to our collective intelligence, but it keeps us dumb, fat, and happy, ya know?
n i. pdf#xml=http://search.atomz.com/search/pdfhelper.t k?sp-o=3,100000,0
Plus there may be security issues here, and they are forbidden from telling more. Then again, what more could they say? You can tell to what audience a given article is intended by the title.
"Report on Gaming-Related US Exports to Foreign Countries in Violation of Operation Exodus"
is intended for a different audience than
"War Games" (snort! snort!)
Puns, the lowest form of humor is all too often the device of choice for headline editors.
Anyway, the customs dept may have to revise its guidelines contained in its Gemini literature contained here
http://www.customs.gov/enforcem/gemini/pdf/gemi
Someday I'm a gonna learn me how to make that there linky thing blue and clickable...
SDMI: Finally! Music that won't rip or burn! Brought to you by the fine folks at RIAA.
Daemon: "Maybe. As long as the numbers aren't very big."
Professor: "That shouldn't be a problem for this instance. "When can you have it done?"
Daemon: "Well, um..."
Professor: "Nevermind. What's critical is that you can process large amounts of data."
Daemon: "I can serve up small amounts as fast as you can ask for them."
Professor: "Moreover, it is vital that this information not fall into the wrong hands."
Daemon: "You can count on me there."
Professor: "Got any games?"
Sorry, but the USA went to aid Kuwait only because of oil. If you look at Africa, they can kill and fight all they want there, unless they're sitting on top of 10 % of the world's oil reserves like Kuwait.
Okay, you can call me a cynic...
Pretty silly comment from someone begging us not to trust the US Government, but to take every word that comes from the Cuban government. Something certainly makes all those refugees flee from there in ragtag rafts, doesn't it? I've tried reading some books about Cuba-- all of them say that it's a tolitarian dictatorship hellhole created by Castro.
of course not. But they could give it a good go. Unfortunately they would be stuck on a command line because when the question comes up "What are the vrefresh and vsync rates for your monitor?" they would have no clue. Am I the only one who doesn't immediately scramble for the monitor manual on the first day that I buy a new monitor and write these numbers above the screen? WTF is with that?
How we know is more important than what we know.
So let me know if you find a site that tolerates both technology and social discourse on the human condition... cos it aint Slashdot. Look at all the slagging Katz gets for talking about things that don't require tech knowledge.
Actually, you are right. This Uzi guy is a known spammer who has been stealing computer time on computers worldwide (by sending spam) and people's time (by wasting it with spam). Someone should really teach this guy a lesson. Anyone want to let him know what Slashdot thinks about spam?
Iraq, lest you forget, invaded another sovereign nation with every intention of keeping it. Overwhelming force from a large coalition of nations forced them to abandon Kuwait. Not content to have their parade rained on, the Iraqis systematically set fire to many of the oil fields in Kuwait. These require explosives to quench -- not a simple task.
Iraq has shown the capacity to use weapons of mass destruction (nuclear / biological / chemical), just ask some of their own people. Additionally, it has shown it has, and is willing to use missiles to attack other nations (Scuds on Israel during the Gulf War).
Since Saddam was, unfortunately, not removed from power during the war, it is not unreasonable to assume he might be a little bitter. Imposing an embargo helps contain him and his ability to threaten other nations. No it isn't perfect, but it is certainly better than letting him freely buy any military hardware he needs.
One of the biggest complaints I hear is that the Iraqi people are starving -- the oil for food program doesn't work. On closer examination you'll find that Iraq is rarely selling up to its capacity under this program because Saddam refuses to rebuild / upgrade / maintain his oil refineries. He would rather redirect this money to his elite forces. So don't you dare accuse Americans of "starving poor Iraqis". Their own government got them into this situation and keeps them in it.
Don't get me wrong - in no way am I condoning the actions of loose cannons like Oliver North or other corrupt individuals who were in power positions in the U.S. Criminals should be punished. But you are trying to make an embargo sound criminal, when in fact it IS the punishment. Don't confuse the two.
Clock speed aint all that counts however. Look at a G4 / Xeon / Alpha / other chips like that. Clock for Clock they outperform 16 and 32 bit platforms. I seem to recall reading that a G4 400 was roughly as powerful as a pentium III 650 or so. PS2s run at around 300 mhz, and they have 32 megs of ram. Not too impressive specs by look alone. However, what they are is basically a dedicated graphics machine, akin to a SGI cobalt or something along those lines, and as we all know from looking at our video cards clock speeds dont mean much. My voodoo 3 is clocked at 167, my GeForce II at I think 175 (could be wrong, but not by much). Now which would you rather play QuakeIII on? ;-) The PS2 is insanely powerful as a gpu. So much so that I seem to recall reading that one of the sony PS2 cubes (like 32 of them clustered) was able to render Toy Story in real time.
Toy Story took nearly 2 years to render when they first did it.
Soooo... yes, the 1GHz athlon is "faster" than a PS2.. but that doesnt mean that it can render a 3d scene, a weather pattern, or an atomic blast projection any faster. Though I doubt the iraqi's really need PS2's for that, I'm sure enough of them could easily whip out some nice Cray level projections. (I have a friend in the Gov't, and yes, he renders atomic blast projections on Crays).
not that that means much, cause like I said, I dont think PS2 is _that_ good. Hell, if they where that interested, they could probably smuggle in some G4's. Those are illegal there cause they're "too powerful" as well ;-)
Those people who moderated posts up must be in the majority. It probably wasn't obvious to them, because they modded it up. Since they're a good crossection of the majority, that probably means that the majority doesn't think it's obvious, and it then became worth saying :)
Dave
P.S.: I don't mind constructive critisism - no need to post anonymously when replying to one of my posts.
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Man, if Iraq is buying up PlayStations for weapons guidance systems, we better not let them get their hands on the Macintosh G4.
Refrag
I have a website. It's about Macs.
So I can use my television set as a video camera then? Great!
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
and yet another reason BSD users are able to talk shit ;-)
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
...but current versions of APT do no longer work on Debian GNU/hurd because the maintainer does not want to apply some patches. That's the downside of opensource programs which are lead by 1 person (like the Linux kernel), and not a group (like GNU Compiler Collection GCC).
xer.xes -- 4181
Don't worry. I metamodded as "unfair" the guy who labelled the original comment as flamebait. I agree completely with your point about political opinions; a pity that a few bigots don't.
You're the only one, and the rest of us runs XF4 :)
xer.xes -- 4181
That SELINUX bug is already fixed ... go to http://www.nsa.gov/selinux, go to download page, and there's new stuff...
Off the mailing list:
Date: Tue, 2 Jan 2001 17:28:48 -0500 (EST)
From: pal@epoch.ncsc.mil (Pete Loscocco)
To: selinux@tycho.ncsc.mil
Subject: Updated release
Sender: owner-selinux@tycho.nsa.gov
An updated release of Security-enhanced Linux that corrects some of the minor problems in the original release has been posted on the NSA web site (www.nsa.gov/selinux).
Changes include:
- moving the numbers of the new system calls to avoid conflicts
- fixing the buffer overflow problem discovered in the find_default_type function in libsecure
- removed extra ';' in policy grammar
- minor adjustments in kernel/flask/Makefile
...
of course iraq is stock piling ps2's , have a look at the desert it must be a very boring place with nothing more than lauging at camels to do , the solidiers need something to do all day and night , and chances are ps2's are easy to get to the troops than whores and dancing girls, i would worry more about if they have any good games on electricity and tv's to run the ps2's on
I guess the amount of reluctance to post stories about the US election is a pretty good indicator of the problem here.
I don't think there's anything wrong with focusing on technology news, I think it's great, I love slashdot, read it everyday.
But to believe that discussion should end there, with technology, is horribly ignorant. It helps to create yet another professional class that cannot properly communicate with the other professions.
This is a far cry from the consilience of knowledge that should perhaps be held as an ideal. It's no secret that the world does not begin and end with technology.
And the technology professionals risk further segmentation if they persist in their ideal tech news should not relate to anything else. Because it's all interconnected and related, and proper interpretation of technology stories cannot come with the proper context.
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
Red Hat, Mandrake, and friends usually don't update packages after a distribution has released.
Sure, if there's a security bug found, they'll release an update, but that's pretty much it.
True, true.
That's my biggest beef with Mandrake. I'm running 7.2, and there are dozens of little glitches and bugs in the system and in various applications. Although I'm grateful to have easy access to security updates through MandrakeUpdate, I'd really like a way to use it to keep my system on the latest stable package releases. Cooker is too development-oriented, as I use my workstation for heavy PHP development and office-management type stuff, and can't afford to have it start flaking out.
I would happily shell out $5/month for a subscription version of MandrakeUpdate that would allow me to keep my system on the leading (but not bleeding) edge as easy as pointing and clicking. I have the ability to download and compile packages, or ferret out update RPMS, but I don't time to deal with that. Some people enjoy mucking around with the internals of their system all day, but I just want mine to work with as little fuss as possible, so I can use it to get my work done.
I wonder if the Eazel system updater thingy will fit the bill.
--
"Buffers can be overflowed, and by overwriting critical data stored in the target process's address space, we can modify its execution flow. This is old news. This article is not much about how to exploit buffer overflows, nor does it explain the vulnerability itself. It just demonstrates it is possible to exploit such a vulnerability even under the worst conditions, like when the target buffer can only be overflowed by one byte."
-- first four sentences of The Frame Pointer Overwrite, Phrack 55
So lets see.. to make an exploit all we need to do is get root and modify that /etc/security file...
You don't need to write the file. In theory, if you can read that byte, you know the know the incorrect address at which code will be executed. When the program that you're exploiting takes input from you, give it input that puts the code you want executed in the location in the buffer that will be jumped to.
So, no, it's not trivially exploitable. But, no, it's probably not something to be summarily ignored.
Mandrake is very up to date, as said above, but another thing that should be noted is that apt-rpm has the ability to only install packages that are signed. this should cut down in the bad quality issue substiantially.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Mandrake is up-to-date in Cooker. Would they release Cooker? Will Cooker eventually be on CD as Mandrake 8 or somesuch? That's the question.
The entire point of 'apt' is two things:
1) Easy installation of package x.
2) Easy upgrade of package x to the latest version.
In order for the easy installation of package x, it has to be available in a place where 'apt' can find it. You mentioned that you'll only be able to download packages that are signed? Does that mean Mandrake will devote 3-4 developers, full time, to package all the various 10000+ utilities/applications/etc that are available for Linux? That's where my doubts lie. Debian's package maintainers do have the time an efforts - there are hundreds of them, all working on their own little packages. So, sure, if you can only download signed packages the quality can have some guarantee, but that's only if the package you want is available from a certified source(like your distribution maker's computers). But as soon as they don't have something packaged, all that guarantee goes out the window. If it was there in the first place.
As far as easy upgrades, it doesn't matter that Mandrake has Cooker. Ever tried to get a Cooker RPM to work on a regularily installed Mandrake 7.1 distribution? Never went well for me. So not only do they have to have it packaged, but it has to be packaged for all the various versions of their distributions.
A lot of work.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Slashdot promised to publish Hellmouth electronically, and they are indeed doing so.
The first few chapters were on the front page. Then they became links in Slashbacks, at the very bottom, in two liners. And now, he mentions part 7, but no link?!?!?
I have to search for "Hellmouth" in order to read the latest part? I'm starting to get a strong feeling that there's some sort of conspiracy going on here!!
Thanks, you hit the nail on the head with that one :)
:) I'd rather contribute my fair share of effort than pay. Feels better that way :)
And Eazel will eventually be charging for their services, keep in mind. Of course you're willing to pay, so that's all right
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Guilty myself as well. Tsk, tsk. Here it is:
Hellmouth Part 7
I think your post was completly ON topic and relevant.
A discussion about those problems cannot be bound to technologie .
To Have a secure version of linux, or to have a secure version of a Free OS.
Because if it's the latter, linux was the wrong choice.... any of the BSD's would have been ten times a better choice.
ALL the BSD's, OpenBSD being the most adiment about it, audit their code, and the code they put into their OS's, NO linux distribution that i know of does this ( not counting this one)
I would have made much more sense, and produced far better results if they would have started from one of the BSD's...
Just my opinion, flame as you please....
I've been using Debian for too long. Somebody told me to get a life, so in my infinite* wisdom, I tried the following:
.*life
apt-get install life
and then it told me that it couldn't find one. So I thought that any life could do, so I tried:
apt-get install
and it gave me two options (calife and xlife). I couldn't decide what kind of life I wanted, so I just forgot about it. It's too hard to get this life. (Oh wait. Maybe they meant like a LIFE not as in a program called 'life'). Hmm. Odd.
* Infinite = limited.
----
Toora Loora Toora Loo Rye Aye
There must be an Iraqi moderator on the loose tonight...
Screw apt-get. FreeBSD's ports system owns. It'd be nice if someone would port the ports to Linux.. ie: Slackware.
-kidlinux.
Just a bit of background:
;). Well, that's a lie. I got to the "fdisk" part of the install, and promptly lost 230M that I never got back :)
Four/five years ago I installed Linux on a *huge* 730MB hard drive(yeah, nifty, eh?
A year or two ago, I installed Caldera 1.3. Then I installed Caldera 2.2. Then I installed RedHat version 5.2, then Mandrake 6.2, then Red Hat 6.2, and now Debian. In each case, I had the distribution installed for a minimum of a month or two.
So, while I'm no guru, I have used a reasonable number of Linux distributions(and I'm not counting the dozens of "mini-distributions" that I've tried out and tweaked[plug: ramf, available at ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/recovery , is my current favorite]).
Anyways, you can add all the automation to package management you want, but it all comes down the the package maintainers. Generally, when you're using Debian packages made by Debian maintainers, a certain quality can be expected. Packages will be dependant on what they need - and they will suggest packages that allow for full functionality. You can be reasonably sure that you'll get a man page for most commands, even if it's a simple "please refer to online documentation available at: http://www.foobar.com/foo/bar.html".
So, while I'm glad that other distributions are adopting 'apt', and the ability to automatically install packages and automatically update ones available, it will all come down to maintainer commitment. Commitment to quality, commitment of time. Red Hat, Mandrake, and friends usually don't update packages after a distribution has released. Sure, if there's a security bug found, they'll release an update, but that's pretty much it. I was never able to go to Red Hat's site and download the latest set of GNOME packages for my Red Hat 6.2 install.
However, when you run the Debian 'testing' or 'unstable' distributions(neither are as bad as their names suggest), when a new app is released, it'll generally be packaged and available through regular Debian mirrors within a few weeks. The Debian 'stable' distribution is targetted at a different audience, and is updated much less frequently.
Ok, so, enough of this. My point is that unless these distribution makers are willing to invest considerable time and money in keeping their packages up-to-date and well done, then 'apt' is probably just overkill.
Dave
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)
The article say there are no export controls on toys. Anyone know the details on this law? Just seems kinda strange. Does this include software?
Maybe a couple years ago before the relaxed controls on encryption a PGP game should have been marketed.
Jason
Technical Review MiddleEast
A Job Well Done
"It is estimated that Kuwait was losing six million barrels of oil per day immediately after the liberation. The basic piece of firefighting equipment is the "flare stack" which is a 30-40 ft high steel chimney connected to a crane. Once the area has been cooled down by high-pressure water monitors, the flare stack is put in position over the blazing well. Resulting in the flame being "kicked" 40 ft into the air thereby allowing the drilling engineers to work on the well head, again after being cooled off. Once the blaze has been extinguished and the area cleared of coke. the drilling engineers can place the blow out preventer (BOP) and cut off the oil flow, thus successfully killing the well. Another approach was taken by the Hungarians and Romanians. who used ex MIG jet engines, reversed and fitted onto T54 tanks, thereby sucking all the oxygen from the blazing blow out. Therefore, no oxygen, no fire! This proved very simple and effective, much to the amazement of the other teams in Kuwait."
I think it would be wrong to suggest that enough water will put any fire out. Depends on whats driving it. Six million barrels of oil per day would boil alot of water.
apt-get install common.sense
Well, I'm still waiting for
apt-get install athlon-1GHz
Hmmm... doesn't seem to work - Must be a bug. I'll see what I can do... look out for my patch (any day now...)
KUWAIT OIL FIRES
"In some cases, explosives were set to blow off the tubing head bonnet as shown here. "
Maybe just bitched out by a talking boogie bass.
erik
I have seen people buy other such stories on slashdot (some that didn't even have real articles ;) ).
I am more woried about soccer moms and deadbeat dads that vote than the geeky slashdot users (some or most of which are to young to vote or maybe just too apathetic... or... all of that could just be my view of things...)
I think it would make an interesting game... maybe a quake mod.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
PS2 seriously outperforms these friggin things too. they cost about the same though.....
.brad
Drink more tea
organicgreenteas.com
flesh eating ants records
As a friend of mine pointed out, the funniest thing about the U.S. government wanting to put export control on PS2s, is that the machine is Japanese.
CUBA IS NOT A DICTATORSHIP - YOU COMMIE-CRAZED MCARTHYITE.
Your government intends to convicnce people that Cuba is a dictatorship - it is NOT! The people of Cuba support their Communist leader. The people of Cuba support their Communist revolution. Why dont you read a fucking book instead of repeating the mess your TV tells you.
See, this is what's called a "clever media diversion".
end communication
What I'd really like to know is what the hell Iraq would have done with a bunch of PS2s - much less what they'll do with the PS1. The machine are designed specifically for graphics rendering. Everything they render is pre-built into them...oh wait - yeah - physics...so now we're getting somewhere. OK, they want to use the PlayStations for physics modeling. Sounds pretty damned cool. They can now use them to map the trajectory of their missiles! Of course, it all has to fit on a PlayStation disk...
Who the hell are we kidding here? Unless people start encrypting documents in photographic form (which would be VERY interesting), IRAQ CAN'T DO SHIT WITH THESE MACHINES! About the only thing they'll find useful is the enjoyment that SSX and Dynasty Warriors 2 brings to the owners of the machine. So stop posting comments on Iraq stockpiling Playstations, and let's get on with our lives :)
Moving on: The Security Enhanced Linux thing that the NSA is doing is nothing but good news. They're releasing software that is supposed to be unbreakable, and now we get to play with it. The great thing is that both of us benefit (us being the NSA and Joe-Linux-user). We're finally on the fast-track to an openly available Lexan-encased operating system. You can see everything that you're trying to get to, but you just can't break through. It's strong, it's light, and it just kicks some ass. A pat on the back for the NSA - good move!
Like Karma doesn't matter...
Moderators: -1, nested, oldest first!
SIG: HUP
I found the article to be poorly worded. The author, I assume, intended to express that the PS2 is more powerfull than many home computers, not the Playstation.
Also, telling people that a Gameboy has more computing ability than all of what sent the Astronauts to the moon is a bad example. It is apples and oranges.
People would assume from that article that Sadam could take a Gameboy, put the right cartridge in it and fly to the moon.
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
Hussein does not suffer due to lack of food, medicine, or a real economy. In fact, embargoes like this only serve to make the dictator stronger. It's very easy to point a finger of blame at the US for all of Iraq's problems. Creating an embargo weakens the public and allows the dictator to villify the developed nations (read USA), further securing his base of power.
If free-trade is supposed to lead to the democratization of the whole world, then what's wrong with Iraq?
Jeremy McNaughton
------ Live simply so that others may simply live.
APT is gaining acceptance to be the unified package manager front-end for Linux.
More like the middle-end (?). You've got your RPM or DEB at the very end, then APT which does the updating and transferring as the middle man, finally you use front ends like Helix Red Carpet doing the GUI thing and sharing the updating burden. All at the touch of a button.... desktop domination, here we come. And the first person to bitch about GUI vs. Console get's slapped with a trout. Welcome to the 21st century, Xterms are still available.
And I am a certified middle-aged mom with a son in his 20's who was good enough to push me into Linux. I use it on my laptop, and it's really quite nifty. Why not just try giving your folks good software? You might be surprised at the response.
with the consoles, networking, & the SDK's the miltary can develop their own 3D Arena's.
Very handy for exercises invovling buildings you want to storm or defend.
Variations on this use hanger sized buildings with
floor to ceiling back projected screens.
Honestly, even poor old Saddam could get his hands on some better hardware than a PS2 for military purposes. What would he do, strap PS2's to the side of SCUD missles for better aiming?
bun-fhuinneog agam!
sig:
sig:
See the "..for smart people" banners Wired runs here? Look elsewhere guys.
How about reading The Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois, Nicholas Werth, and others. I've read plenty of books about Cuba. It is certainly a dictatorship.
I think that the Iraqi administration has been watching WarGames too much lately.
What can they do with a PSX? Play FF7 and get ideas from the evil Shinra corporation? Play Command & Conquer: Red Alert for kicks and pretend that the Allies represent the US?
It'll actually have network support & an HD built in. They could probably hack it into fast graphics and simulation computers.