You weren't paying attention to my post: I didn't say I didn't care. What I said was that it is really too late to put the lid on what is basically 50 year old technology. The fix is not to stop people knowing how to make them but to see that they don't.
Now everyone agrees that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing. However, the idea that it's some big secret that you can keep locked up in a lab died in the 50's.
Not really: building nukes is not really that hard. It was done with 1940's technology by some very smart guys. Obtaining the materials, and doing so covertly is hard. The Genie is well and truly out of the bottle though, and the only real solution is everyone submitting to Iraq style weapons inspections.
BTW this is the Internet: why should I care especially about American deaths? I find your "it's dangerous for anyone else to have the bomb" attitude about as worrying as the original news.
I know some guys in Los Alamos whose homes have been reduced to scrap metal and ashes. Give them a break if they mislaid a few bits of kit in the process.
As the original article notes, were it to be a British plane, you would quite likely end up in jail. Rightly, IMHO, the courts tend to view 'endangering the safety of an aircraft' as a serious offence.
IANAL either but there are lots of things that a court might consider illegal that aren't specifically against the law. Many things that put others at risk fall into this category.
My copy of Numerical Recipes shows the Metropolis algorithm used as a method for solving the Travelling Salesman problem.
As for the FORTRAN compiler: it would hard to deny that it wasn't one of the most influential algorithms. The fact that so many other high-level languages and implementations have grown up since only serve to reinforce this point.
Anyone claiming that it's an implementation of an algorithm rather than an algorithm itself is just splitting hairs. I know Fortran is an unfashionable language these days but it deserves not to be airbrushed out of the history of computing.
Don't take it personally: Compaq don't want to talk to (almost) anyone. They use resellers for just about everybody - even a medium sized university doesn't rate a Compaq sales rep these days.
However, if you want to go cheap, then don't buy branded machines from the Q. Pick up an Alpha motherboard from a third party.
The only useful thing OSF ever came up with was motif, but it was never open.
Of course it was - it's just you have a strange definition of open. In the days when Motif was being developed nobody would have used 'open' in such a way that it excluded all commercial UNIXes.
Actually, starting from the assumption that NFS is great, in spite of its many security and portability issues is part of the problem.
It should have been junked in the/bin years ago, along with X and a few other culprits. However, development of a lot of the fundamentals seems to have stagnated.
Maybe, it's the much reduced margins that workstation vendors have that is to blame. If so, things are not likely to improve. How do we fund blue-skies R&D in the free software world?
who among us likes paying upwards of $2 per gallon of gas?
If only! It's more than than twice that in the UK. Lucky I don't drive;)
Re:Dead? It depends on your point of view
on
Motif's Not Dead
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· Score: 1
One needs only examine some of his comments to see how badly out of touch Fountain is with the open source world:
And this is a problem because? I know it's fashionable on/. to pretend that one can ignore Sun, HP, IBM and co. and pretend that *BSD and Linux are the only game in town, or even the best tools for every job. Frankly, if I had a choice between knowing something about commercial software development and the open source world, I'd choose the former; that's what pays my wages. And if in my spare time I can hack something 'pro bono publicio', it's a bonus.
It does not matter how cool a toolkit is if I can't obtain it.
It's easy. There's this thing called buying. If closed source software fits the bill at work, I use it. I really don't think: 'Open Source is intrinsically so good, I never look at anything else' is a healthy attitude, especially on the firm's time.
This is a tired argument - MS apologists at work try this on me this all the time. If you read the findings of fact carefully, you will see that the bundling is only a tiny part of the case.
You have to take into account the tactics MS used to stop distributors preloading Netscape, when the customers had asked for it. Also, the pressure on developers to write to the MS JVM etc. etc.
Despite what MS would have you believe, the case isn't mostly (or even mainly) about the software MS make, it's about the dubious business practices they resort to when the open market comes up with the wrong answer.
Makes sense to me - probation is about putting the past behind you and getting on with your life, with checks to keep you out of bad habits.
Now the probation board seem to believe, not entirely unreasonably, that the best way for Mitnick to avoid offending habits is to stay away from computers.
They're probably right but it ain't going to happen that way.
Considering the main competition near where I live are NTL, who are offering a completely free cable modem service for their subscribers, I don't really see BT making much of an impression at those prices.
However, the regulators have the local loop monopoly in their sights: currently it must be opened up by July '01 but there is pressure to bring that date forward. Expect to see interesting developments over the next year or so.
Libraries are not generally liable but publishers and distributors are. If someone with no money libels you, the person that gets sued is the one who makes the copies. That's not so disimilar from suing the manufacturers rather than the designer.
Now, someone hosting a web site is usually considered a publisher. The courts will usually decide how much responsibility they have over content, and will take into account what action they took when they received a complaint.
I also ask you to consider what happens when such libels are posted anonymously. Is it just that the person libelled has no legal redress against anyone?
Now the right to free speech is an important one. It's just that in Europe, we don't tend to see things as such absolutes as some folk do in the US. Suppose personal details about you were published on the web? Are you so keen now that the web host has legal immunity?
I couldn't actually tell you what my ideal solution would be. But I don't think things are anything near as black and white as you believe.
Three points: firstly, the NASDAQ went up when the Findings of Fact came out. Secondly, the break up of MS may well be of benefit in the long run - the alternative is that they are in the courts indefinitely. If the DOJ wimps out, the EU commission is likely to be on them like a ton of bricks. Thirdly, your financial security is your problem: if you are heavily into overvalued stocks that are going to come crashing down when anyone sneezes then get the hell out and into something more secure.
I disagree. Faster, cheaper, works most of the time is exactly where modern 'computer science' is taking us. Using RAD tools as a substitute for proper design and testing seems to be the way of the world.
Suggesting that NASA could improve their systems by going to VB, is a contemptible insult to some very talented people. Since there is no true support in NT for hard realtime or fault tolerance, it's also a complete non-starter.
I've found that kind of funny, as Cisco have been getting very bad press lately. The London Internet Exchange - the major networking hub in the UK has got totally fed up with them. Story here.
The sense of the original paper seemed to have got mangled. There is no such thing as 'a different sort of Helium 3'; Helium 3 has a nucleus made of two protons and one neutron, rather than the more usual two of each. That's it. You can't have a slightly different sort.
Most helium around comes from fusing hydrogen in stars, and ends up as Helium 4. 'Stardust' as Joni Mitchell would have it. Helium 3 on the other hand, has been lurking around since the big bang. Like, 'cosmic', man.
I agree entirely with the first point. However, on the second, you've described fairly well what we should be doing. In general we probably don't but yes, we should be checking signatures of files we download, and using an intrusion system like Tripwire to protect our configuration.
I think this goes to prove the point - we know what to do to improve our security but we don't always do it. And so far, most of the time we get away with it.
If so, how come it's illegal for others to export personal data on me from the UK to the US, because the poor controls on its use there are deemed to infringe my right to privacy?
I'm not saying all the legislation we pass is good news, as this law demonstrates. Do try to keep a sense of proportion though.
I would not recommend sending pro-forma letters to MPs. It just gives the impression that there are a few activists that are really interested, and others are joining in.
If you can't be bothered to spend a little while thinking about the issues, what makes you think that they will take much attention? If I was FAX-bombed with dozens of identical letters, I would be more annoyed than anything else.
Slashdot Mirror
Too late! Activestate are doing it for them: Visual Perl and Visual Python will leverage Visual Studio 7.0.
The Islington one was the original: DA saw the name, thought it was cool and used it (with permission).
Now everyone agrees that nuclear proliferation is a bad thing. However, the idea that it's some big secret that you can keep locked up in a lab died in the 50's.
BTW this is the Internet: why should I care especially about American deaths? I find your "it's dangerous for anyone else to have the bomb" attitude about as worrying as the original news.
I know some guys in Los Alamos whose homes have been reduced to scrap metal and ashes. Give them a break if they mislaid a few bits of kit in the process.
IANAL either but there are lots of things that a court might consider illegal that aren't specifically against the law. Many things that put others at risk fall into this category.
As for the FORTRAN compiler: it would hard to deny that it wasn't one of the most influential algorithms. The fact that so many other high-level languages and implementations have grown up since only serve to reinforce this point.
Anyone claiming that it's an implementation of an algorithm rather than an algorithm itself is just splitting hairs. I know Fortran is an unfashionable language these days but it deserves not to be airbrushed out of the history of computing.
However, if you want to go cheap, then don't buy branded machines from the Q. Pick up an Alpha motherboard from a third party.
http://www.alphalinux.org/ would be a good place to start looking.
Of course it was - it's just you have a strange definition of open. In the days when Motif was being developed nobody would have used 'open' in such a way that it excluded all commercial UNIXes.
Admittedly, things have moved on since then.
It should have been junked in the /bin years ago, along with X and a few other culprits. However, development of a lot of the fundamentals seems to have stagnated.
Maybe, it's the much reduced margins that workstation vendors have that is to blame. If so, things are not likely to improve. How do we fund blue-skies R&D in the free software world?
If only! It's more than than twice that in the UK. Lucky I don't drive ;)
And this is a problem because? I know it's fashionable on /. to pretend that one can ignore Sun, HP, IBM and co. and pretend that *BSD and Linux are the only game in town, or even the best tools for every job. Frankly, if I had a choice between knowing something about commercial software development and the open source world, I'd choose the former; that's what pays my wages. And if in my spare time I can hack something 'pro bono publicio', it's a bonus.
It does not matter how cool a toolkit is if I can't obtain it.
It's easy. There's this thing called buying. If closed source software fits the bill at work, I use it. I really don't think: 'Open Source is intrinsically so good, I never look at anything else' is a healthy attitude, especially on the firm's time.
You have to take into account the tactics MS used to stop distributors preloading Netscape, when the customers had asked for it. Also, the pressure on developers to write to the MS JVM etc. etc.
Despite what MS would have you believe, the case isn't mostly (or even mainly) about the software MS make, it's about the dubious business practices they resort to when the open market comes up with the wrong answer.
Now the probation board seem to believe, not entirely unreasonably, that the best way for Mitnick to avoid offending habits is to stay away from computers.
They're probably right but it ain't going to happen that way.
However, the regulators have the local loop monopoly in their sights: currently it must be opened up by July '01 but there is pressure to bring that date forward. Expect to see interesting developments over the next year or so.
Now, someone hosting a web site is usually considered a publisher. The courts will usually decide how much responsibility they have over content, and will take into account what action they took when they received a complaint.
I also ask you to consider what happens when such libels are posted anonymously. Is it just that the person libelled has no legal redress against anyone?
Now the right to free speech is an important one. It's just that in Europe, we don't tend to see things as such absolutes as some folk do in the US. Suppose personal details about you were published on the web? Are you so keen now that the web host has legal immunity?
I couldn't actually tell you what my ideal solution would be. But I don't think things are anything near as black and white as you believe.
Three points: firstly, the NASDAQ went up when the Findings of Fact came out. Secondly, the break up of MS may well be of benefit in the long run - the alternative is that they are in the courts indefinitely. If the DOJ wimps out, the EU commission is likely to be on them like a ton of bricks. Thirdly, your financial security is your problem: if you are heavily into overvalued stocks that are going to come crashing down when anyone sneezes then get the hell out and into something more secure.
Just keep hacking the code and let the market look after itself. Hell, if your company is ridiculously underpriced buy some more shares.
Suggesting that NASA could improve their systems by going to VB, is a contemptible insult to some very talented people. Since there is no true support in NT for hard realtime or fault tolerance, it's also a complete non-starter.
I've found that kind of funny, as Cisco have been getting very bad press lately. The London Internet Exchange - the major networking hub in the UK has got totally fed up with them. Story here.
Most helium around comes from fusing hydrogen in stars, and ends up as Helium 4. 'Stardust' as Joni Mitchell would have it. Helium 3 on the other hand, has been lurking around since the big bang. Like, 'cosmic', man.
I think this goes to prove the point - we know what to do to improve our security but we don't always do it. And so far, most of the time we get away with it.
I'm not saying all the legislation we pass is good news, as this law demonstrates. Do try to keep a sense of proportion though.
If you can't be bothered to spend a little while thinking about the issues, what makes you think that they will take much attention? If I was FAX-bombed with dozens of identical letters, I would be more annoyed than anything else.
Definitely a heads-up for anyone looking for a quick technical fix to the problem.
Something tells me that you wouldn't get away with that argument though.