You would like to live in a world where "nation state" is a dead concept. Regardless of whether I think this is a good aim or not, a simple look at the facts will show you it is not a practical aim.
There are very few states in the world which are not "nation states". Most of those are binational states or multi-national states. They don't fare very well. In the best case end of the spectrum you have Canada and Finland, where it sort-of works, but is very far from the ideal you're trying to paint. On the worst end of the spectrum you have Czechoslovakia and, in particular, Lebanon (which has spent about half of the past century in civil wars).
Then there are non-national states. America is, formally, one. A simple look at a dollar bill will show you just how much it isn't. While it did start out as immigrants' land, we now have an "American nationality", with typical religion, language, and a way of thought that is an American as apple pie.
The only non-national state I can think of which is successful in being one is Australia, in fact. It only does so by celebrating and enshrining the differences. This is something most people are not easily up to.
People tend to group around people who are like them. It's a human thing. I think it is pointless to fight it.
Rockets fired since 2001. Blockade started in 2007.
What I wonder is, if the Palestinian have a time machine (which is the only explanation to this, as well as many other, rationalization of their actions), how come they are not rich enough to buy the allegedly pro-Israeli media?
Pick any place in the world where a "genocide" accusation was levied, and you get a death count in the hundreds of thousands at least. Over the past decade, less than ten thousand Palestinian were killed by Israel (this number includes Palestinian killed while holding and using a weapon, which would not, normally, be counted in the "genocide" statistics). If Israel is committing genocide, why is the death toll so low?
Either Israel is attempting genocide, but is being completely incompetent about it, or the genocide accusation is pure bullshit.
I live in Israel, in an area which is inside the "green line" (i.e. - it was Israel since 1948). All around the town I live in are Arab cities, all of them also inside the green line, all of their inhabitants Israeli citizens with equal rights to me (though some missing obligations). If a two state solution is scheduled to go through (and unless "areas exchange" change that), all of those currently Israeli citizens are scheduled to remain so.
I suggest you get your facts straight when claiming separation on ethnicity. I am literally[1] holding my breath waiting for your apology for wrongly using "apartheid".
As for the area being small: I'm anxiously waiting to hear your proposed solution. I'm sure it is going to be enlightened, grounded on facts and peaceful.
Shachar
1 - Obviously, I'm not literally holding my breath. Since, however, I don't expect you to apologies either, the two parts of the sentence are equally true.
I think Linus should respect the community. Just because Linus thought a certain compromise was okay doesn't mean he is allowed to make that compromise in the name of the entire community.
Tridge owed Linus nothing, and Linus' entitled response was arrogant and out of place.
I have no idea why you brought the GPL into it. It doesn't matter which free software license the Linux revision control would be under, so long as it is free software. Going proprietary for such infrastructure opens the community up for precisely the sort of danger that actually did end up happening. You cannot yank your software if it's free, regardless of what license it's under.
I don't. I'm guessing, based on the fact that I am doing something I'm presuming is similar, and based on the fact that, were I a student today, I'd be joining in.
Mind you, the anti-Israel crowed is similarly motivated. The people spewing party lines accusing Israel of everything and anything (can be seen here on Slashdot whenever the word "Israel" is mentioned) aren't given instructions or coordinated by some central entity. They are giving us their honest opinion, misguided though it is.
This is similar to all of the above, but it being done with a political rather than an economic agenda. I don't think I know a word for organized political rants over the internet. This doesn't mean they don't happen, and aren't even rather common. But spam isn't the right word.
How about "freedom of speech"?
Someone suggested the word is "propaganda". This word has a severe negative context, because propaganda usually involves lies. At its core, however, the word merely means actively working to spread an idea (see definition no. 2). I definitely consider what I'm doing to match that narrow meaning.
Linus's decision to go with a proprietary solution for such a central free software project was wrong to begin with. Linus took a huge presumption, agreeing to a EULA on behalf of the entire community. As such, it was Linus's own mess he had to clean up. I think the passage of time only shows that more clearly.
Linus blowing up at Andrew Tridgdell for "reverse engineering" the bitkeeper protocol comes to mind.
I will agree that this time around, the complaints are grounded. It does, indeed, seem like a compiler bug. Whether that is a reason to be so critical of gcc 4.9.0, I don't know. It's obvious a serious problem for the kernel.
This is not spam. They are doing, essentially, what I'm also doing (on a smaller scale). Essentially, find the misguided ignorant comments and try to enlighten them. Nothing there is automated, which automatically means this is not spam.
Yes, it is what I'm saying. However, I don't think even if the balance turned out to be positive on Akamai's side, even that would count as "asking ISP to pay for access".
Imagine a small ISP. Not a lot of hosted content. In order to boost local content, this ISP provides co-location services at lower than usual costs. Due to the same considerations, the ISP pays a lot of peering costs (mostly incoming traffic, not a lot of outgoing traffic).
And then this ISP has an idea: I'll contact Akamai. The Akamai network accounts for over 25% of web traffic. If I have a local Akamai presence, this will greatly reduce my peering costs. Akamai's sales people are aware of this equation, of course. As a result, the deal finally negotiated mean that the ISP is paying Akamai for the privilege of hosting Akamai servers!
And the ISP is ecstatic. Yes, they are hosting a commercial server for free AND paying for the privilege, but they are saving a bundle on their peering costs. This is a straight bandwidth for bandwidth money-equivalent transaction. If Akamai started asking for too much, the ISP could tell them to take a hike. Presumably, for that to happen Akamai would have to ask more than the bandwidth costs it is saving!
Should Akamai choose to play dirty (as far as I know, they never do), they would be in a stronger position than Netflix. After all, you can get Netflix content elsewhere. Conversely, you cannot get to, e.g., apple.com without going through an Akamai server. If Akamai isn't doing it, I don't think there is any danger of Netflix doing it.
To be fair, Akamai does charge some ISPs for its service. At least according to someone who actually went over the financial reports, Akamai doesn't get actual money from this, but rather a reduction in the cost to co-locate the servers.
Still, this is not the same thing as TFA. The thing that Akamai charges ISPs for is the peering traffic saved, not access to the content. If an ISP says "no", then no local Akamai cache, and the service is as good as the ISP's bandwidth to other providers that do have an Akamai presence. Neither availability nor performance are hindered by refusing to do business with Akamai, except losing the obvious advantage of a local cache.
Disclaimer: I (currently) works for Akamai. This post, however, is not affiliated with Akamai in any way or form. The opinions do not represent those of my employer, nor does the information employed come from any data not publicly available.
Israel is a racist, fascist little hole, promoting genocide and ethnic cleansing.
I always wonder about people who say that. Can you, please, explain, if Israel is after genocide, how come there are so few Palestinian casualties? I mean, the number, while indeed extremely high for warfare, don't even begin to threaten even natural growth.
Either Israel is completely incompetent at performing genocide, or genocide was never the intention, and you (and your ilk) just made it up to make Israel sound bad.
Because: A. No place in Israel is truely safe. During the second Lebanon war, the most safe place was around where I live (maximal distance from both Gaza and Lebanon). I live 5 Kilometers from the green line. If the Palestinians around my area decide to join in, my house will be in more danger than Dotan's.
B. Not living in Israel is not really an option. Obviously, for some, it is. Long term, however, history showed that Jews don't fare well when not under self government. Thankfully, antisemitism suffered a major blow back after the Nazies lost WWII, and so people who grew up in western countries don't think of it as something real. It is illegitimate, and still fairly rare. That is a good thing. Sadly, it is also very far from non-existing. Jews in many western European countries don't wear external religious signs, and if they do, experience daily harassement. What's more, the current trends are not promising.
Maintaining Israel is a survival need. The fact that Israel's current strength pushes the danger back quite a bit is proof that the need is real, not vice versa.
Indeed. They claim, and you have to agree that there is some substance to that claim, that giving the victims prior notice will allow them to delete the pirated software from their computer, thus destroying evidence.
I hate the BSA and their way of operation, but within the framework they work in, I cannot refute that claim.
Its not the judges problem to collect any evidence but to judge based on written laws. NO-IP was a no show that's evidence enough for me and its law they can be ruled against. Honest people show up in court dishonest don't.
They were not told of the hearing. How could they possibly show?
Ex parte petitions should only be used in the most extreme of circumstances and there should be a high burden of proof before a court grants them.
Again, IANAL.
Still, how can you have a high burden of proof? In an adverserial system, the only things you can prove need two opposing parties to present their case. As such, an ex-parte request does not contain proof at all (how can it?)
Instead, it contains claims backed by sworn testimony. The judge examines these claims in the light most favorable to the non-present party, but otherwise within the context of the claims presented by the moving party.
In other words, you cannot second guess the judge's decision without looking at what MS actually wrote in its TRO request. If (as likely happened) MS wrote that no-ip do not remove the offending domains, and that these domains are used on a daily basis to cause huge harm, then a reasonable judge (who, I might remind you, is not technically savvy, and may not realize the implications of granting this order are disrupting no-ip's business) might conclude that granting this Temporary Restraining Order is reasonable.
So, once again, I think MS were acting like douches. I have no idea whether the judge acted reasonably, and cannot know without looking at MS's petition.
Also, apparently No-ip didn't appear when summoned. Apparently, that's kinda of a big no-no. Maybe next time they will buy their domains somewhere with proper laws.
IANAL. All of this is from following legal procedures.
Not showing up is a big no-no. A judge can, usually, assume that the party not showing up has nothing to say in the matter, and just accept the petition as is. This is, however, not what happened here. From the first link:
On June 19, Microsoft filed for an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) from the U.S. District Court for Nevada against No-IP.
Emphasis mine.
An Ex-Parte petition is filed without the other side being given a chance to answer. This is outrageous act by Microsoft. You ask for an ex-part hearing when there is danger that the other side, if given prior warning of your requested subpoena, will destroy evidence. Since Microsoft is claiming that no-ip are unknowingly hosting malware, this simply wrong.
Before you go to blame the judge, however, please bear in mind that he can only rule based on the petitions before him. Presumably, a two-party hearing will be held soon, and then things can, and should, go differently. Also, the judge should have ordered Microsoft to place some money in escrow, which no-ip will automatically get in case the temporary restraining order is found to be unjustified.
What I'm saying is that we don't have enough information so far to conclude that the judge did anything wrong, but the first link, written by Microsoft, clearly shows MS to be douche bags in this case.
The -- end of options option is a GNU getopt extension. It is, if memory serves me correctly, not part of any standard. This means that program that were not compiled with glibc, or programs that do not use getopt/getopt_long, may or may not honor it.
Even by simply looking at the man page, it is easy to spot programs that don't use getopt. Any program that accept multi-letter options with one minus sign is, obviously, not using getopt (e.g. gcc, find).
Then there is git. Git uses -- to mean "no revisions after this point. Any remaining argument must be a file name". This is almost, but not quite, what -- means for getopt. I don't even know what underlying parsing engine they are using (could be getopt with the "no options after first argument" option set).
The "./*" feature is a more global workaround, if it is applicable.
On my system (Debian GNU/Linux Jessie with Bash version 4.3.11), ls -lad *.* does not return either "." or "..". This is unlike ".*", which return both.
I have not found the precise rules of how * is expanded, but it seems pretty universal that if the pattern doesn't begin with a dot, files beginning with a dot are not matched.
Other systems (and, more to the point, shells) might behave differently, of course.
While I agree with a lot of what you said, it is not completely true.
Jerusalem now has an (above ground, so not technically a subway) train throughout the city. It did take longer than planned, (and I believe was over budget too), but did, finally, happen. It definitely took more than one mayoral tenure to complete.
Yes, the Tel Aviv subway is now a running joke, and has been for about two decades. Then again, so was the Tel Aviv central bus station (took 40 years to complete and is under utilized, but complete it, eventually, did).
Just because something is a running joke doesn't mean it will not, eventually, happen. See "Duke Nukem Forever".
Your drivel shows a remarkably consistent level of insightfulness. As anyone who has ever done ISO-9000 knows, consistency is a vital first step. Only once that is achieved, can one also aim for quality. Congratulations! You are half way there!
It's not all good news, I'm afraid. While I can sort of see which (or is that "whose"?) ass you pulled most of your incorrect assumptions from, I am dumbfounded in trying to figure out where you got the assumption that my current wife is a trophy wife.
This assumption is completely incorrect, but, as I said, that is no different than the rest of your comment. What is worse, and reflects really badly on your potential as a truly effective troll, is that there is nothing to suggest it.
Your comment started so well, casting doubt on my ability to be happy (at least I think that's what you said. The missing word is actually important there), my ability as a father, fear of mortality and of being insignificant. Those are universal fears, and you can't really go wrong by pushing those buttons. And then you had to put that "trophy wife" in there.
Not only is this unlikely to be true, reducing the likely hurt I'm likely to feel from your troll, but it also hurts your logic. If my wife is a trophy wife, then the age difference between her and my kid isn't so big.
Please take this comment as the constructive criticism it is meant to be. Trolling, like any other art form, requires practice to get right. Judging from your comments on other threads, I'm sure you're well on your way to perfection. Keep at it. You'll get it in the end!
Oh, and thanks for the sig comment. I've been meaning to do something about it for quite some time, but was not sure what. I just removed it altogether for the time being.
A LOT of very stupid people are waiting until they are in their late 30's or 40's to have kids.. Oh boy, the joy of having to raise children until retirement age.. I'll instead enjoy the money and spare time of being 45 and my kids gone...
As one such stupid person, I can tell you. Oh, how I wish I had the smarts to to go ahead and make a child with my !@#%!@#$ crazy first wife, instead of divorcing her, spending time looking for a right one that will be, well, right, and only then having a child.
I'm sure me, my first wife, and my hypothetical children would have been so much happier for having a younger dad. Obviously, a younger dad is preferrable to growing up in a happy family.
Slashdot Mirror
You would like to live in a world where "nation state" is a dead concept. Regardless of whether I think this is a good aim or not, a simple look at the facts will show you it is not a practical aim.
There are very few states in the world which are not "nation states". Most of those are binational states or multi-national states. They don't fare very well. In the best case end of the spectrum you have Canada and Finland, where it sort-of works, but is very far from the ideal you're trying to paint. On the worst end of the spectrum you have Czechoslovakia and, in particular, Lebanon (which has spent about half of the past century in civil wars).
Then there are non-national states. America is, formally, one. A simple look at a dollar bill will show you just how much it isn't. While it did start out as immigrants' land, we now have an "American nationality", with typical religion, language, and a way of thought that is an American as apple pie.
The only non-national state I can think of which is successful in being one is Australia, in fact. It only does so by celebrating and enshrining the differences. This is something most people are not easily up to.
People tend to group around people who are like them. It's a human thing. I think it is pointless to fight it.
Shachar
Rockets fired since 2001. Blockade started in 2007.
What I wonder is, if the Palestinian have a time machine (which is the only explanation to this, as well as many other, rationalization of their actions), how come they are not rich enough to buy the allegedly pro-Israeli media?
Shachar
I always find the "genocide" mantra strange.
Pick any place in the world where a "genocide" accusation was levied, and you get a death count in the hundreds of thousands at least. Over the past decade, less than ten thousand Palestinian were killed by Israel (this number includes Palestinian killed while holding and using a weapon, which would not, normally, be counted in the "genocide" statistics). If Israel is committing genocide, why is the death toll so low?
Either Israel is attempting genocide, but is being completely incompetent about it, or the genocide accusation is pure bullshit.
Shachar
I live in Israel, in an area which is inside the "green line" (i.e. - it was Israel since 1948). All around the town I live in are Arab cities, all of them also inside the green line, all of their inhabitants Israeli citizens with equal rights to me (though some missing obligations). If a two state solution is scheduled to go through (and unless "areas exchange" change that), all of those currently Israeli citizens are scheduled to remain so.
I suggest you get your facts straight when claiming separation on ethnicity. I am literally[1] holding my breath waiting for your apology for wrongly using "apartheid".
As for the area being small: I'm anxiously waiting to hear your proposed solution. I'm sure it is going to be enlightened, grounded on facts and peaceful.
Shachar
1 - Obviously, I'm not literally holding my breath. Since, however, I don't expect you to apologies either, the two parts of the sentence are equally true.
Not doing business in the US is not the same as deciding never to step foot in it, ever.
Shachar
I think Linus should respect the community. Just because Linus thought a certain compromise was okay doesn't mean he is allowed to make that compromise in the name of the entire community.
Tridge owed Linus nothing, and Linus' entitled response was arrogant and out of place.
I have no idea why you brought the GPL into it. It doesn't matter which free software license the Linux revision control would be under, so long as it is free software. Going proprietary for such infrastructure opens the community up for precisely the sort of danger that actually did end up happening. You cannot yank your software if it's free, regardless of what license it's under.
Shachar
How do you know?
I don't. I'm guessing, based on the fact that I am doing something I'm presuming is similar, and based on the fact that, were I a student today, I'd be joining in.
Mind you, the anti-Israel crowed is similarly motivated. The people spewing party lines accusing Israel of everything and anything (can be seen here on Slashdot whenever the word "Israel" is mentioned) aren't given instructions or coordinated by some central entity. They are giving us their honest opinion, misguided though it is.
This is similar to all of the above, but it being done with a political rather than an economic agenda. I don't think I know a word for organized political rants over the internet. This doesn't mean they don't happen, and aren't even rather common. But spam isn't the right word.
How about "freedom of speech"?
Someone suggested the word is "propaganda". This word has a severe negative context, because propaganda usually involves lies. At its core, however, the word merely means actively working to spread an idea (see definition no. 2). I definitely consider what I'm doing to match that narrow meaning.
Shachar
Yes. That's the one I mean.
Linus's decision to go with a proprietary solution for such a central free software project was wrong to begin with. Linus took a huge presumption, agreeing to a EULA on behalf of the entire community. As such, it was Linus's own mess he had to clean up. I think the passage of time only shows that more clearly.
Shachar
Not that discussion again....
Linus blowing up at Andrew Tridgdell for "reverse engineering" the bitkeeper protocol comes to mind.
I will agree that this time around, the complaints are grounded. It does, indeed, seem like a compiler bug. Whether that is a reason to be so critical of gcc 4.9.0, I don't know. It's obvious a serious problem for the kernel.
Shachar
This is not spam. They are doing, essentially, what I'm also doing (on a smaller scale). Essentially, find the misguided ignorant comments and try to enlighten them. Nothing there is automated, which automatically means this is not spam.
Shachar
Yes, it is what I'm saying. However, I don't think even if the balance turned out to be positive on Akamai's side, even that would count as "asking ISP to pay for access".
Imagine a small ISP. Not a lot of hosted content. In order to boost local content, this ISP provides co-location services at lower than usual costs. Due to the same considerations, the ISP pays a lot of peering costs (mostly incoming traffic, not a lot of outgoing traffic).
And then this ISP has an idea: I'll contact Akamai. The Akamai network accounts for over 25% of web traffic. If I have a local Akamai presence, this will greatly reduce my peering costs. Akamai's sales people are aware of this equation, of course. As a result, the deal finally negotiated mean that the ISP is paying Akamai for the privilege of hosting Akamai servers!
And the ISP is ecstatic. Yes, they are hosting a commercial server for free AND paying for the privilege, but they are saving a bundle on their peering costs. This is a straight bandwidth for bandwidth money-equivalent transaction. If Akamai started asking for too much, the ISP could tell them to take a hike. Presumably, for that to happen Akamai would have to ask more than the bandwidth costs it is saving!
Should Akamai choose to play dirty (as far as I know, they never do), they would be in a stronger position than Netflix. After all, you can get Netflix content elsewhere. Conversely, you cannot get to, e.g., apple.com without going through an Akamai server. If Akamai isn't doing it, I don't think there is any danger of Netflix doing it.
Shachar
To be fair, Akamai does charge some ISPs for its service. At least according to someone who actually went over the financial reports, Akamai doesn't get actual money from this, but rather a reduction in the cost to co-locate the servers.
Still, this is not the same thing as TFA. The thing that Akamai charges ISPs for is the peering traffic saved, not access to the content. If an ISP says "no", then no local Akamai cache, and the service is as good as the ISP's bandwidth to other providers that do have an Akamai presence. Neither availability nor performance are hindered by refusing to do business with Akamai, except losing the obvious advantage of a local cache.
Disclaimer:
I (currently) works for Akamai. This post, however, is not affiliated with Akamai in any way or form. The opinions do not represent those of my employer, nor does the information employed come from any data not publicly available.
Shachar
Israel is a racist, fascist little hole, promoting genocide and ethnic cleansing.
I always wonder about people who say that. Can you, please, explain, if Israel is after genocide, how come there are so few Palestinian casualties? I mean, the number, while indeed extremely high for warfare, don't even begin to threaten even natural growth.
Either Israel is completely incompetent at performing genocide, or genocide was never the intention, and you (and your ilk) just made it up to make Israel sound bad.
Shachar
I have to admit I did wonder about it.
Shachar
Because:
A. No place in Israel is truely safe.
During the second Lebanon war, the most safe place was around where I live (maximal distance from both Gaza and Lebanon). I live 5 Kilometers from the green line. If the Palestinians around my area decide to join in, my house will be in more danger than Dotan's.
B. Not living in Israel is not really an option.
Obviously, for some, it is. Long term, however, history showed that Jews don't fare well when not under self government. Thankfully, antisemitism suffered a major blow back after the Nazies lost WWII, and so people who grew up in western countries don't think of it as something real. It is illegitimate, and still fairly rare. That is a good thing. Sadly, it is also very far from non-existing. Jews in many western European countries don't wear external religious signs, and if they do, experience daily harassement. What's more, the current trends are not promising.
Maintaining Israel is a survival need. The fact that Israel's current strength pushes the danger back quite a bit is proof that the need is real, not vice versa.
Shachar
Indeed. They claim, and you have to agree that there is some substance to that claim, that giving the victims prior notice will allow them to delete the pirated software from their computer, thus destroying evidence.
I hate the BSA and their way of operation, but within the framework they work in, I cannot refute that claim.
This is irrelevant to this case.
Shachar
Its not the judges problem to collect any evidence but to judge based on written laws. NO-IP was a no show that's evidence enough for me and its law they can be ruled against. Honest people show up in court dishonest don't.
They were not told of the hearing. How could they possibly show?
Shachar
Ex parte petitions should only be used in the most extreme of circumstances and there should be a high burden of proof before a court grants them.
Again, IANAL.
Still, how can you have a high burden of proof? In an adverserial system, the only things you can prove need two opposing parties to present their case. As such, an ex-parte request does not contain proof at all (how can it?)
Instead, it contains claims backed by sworn testimony. The judge examines these claims in the light most favorable to the non-present party, but otherwise within the context of the claims presented by the moving party.
In other words, you cannot second guess the judge's decision without looking at what MS actually wrote in its TRO request. If (as likely happened) MS wrote that no-ip do not remove the offending domains, and that these domains are used on a daily basis to cause huge harm, then a reasonable judge (who, I might remind you, is not technically savvy, and may not realize the implications of granting this order are disrupting no-ip's business) might conclude that granting this Temporary Restraining Order is reasonable.
So, once again, I think MS were acting like douches. I have no idea whether the judge acted reasonably, and cannot know without looking at MS's petition.
Shachar
Also, apparently No-ip didn't appear when summoned. Apparently, that's kinda of a big no-no. Maybe next time they will buy their domains somewhere with proper laws.
IANAL. All of this is from following legal procedures.
Not showing up is a big no-no. A judge can, usually, assume that the party not showing up has nothing to say in the matter, and just accept the petition as is. This is, however, not what happened here. From the first link:
On June 19, Microsoft filed for an ex parte temporary restraining order (TRO) from the U.S. District Court for Nevada against No-IP.
Emphasis mine.
An Ex-Parte petition is filed without the other side being given a chance to answer. This is outrageous act by Microsoft. You ask for an ex-part hearing when there is danger that the other side, if given prior warning of your requested subpoena, will destroy evidence. Since Microsoft is claiming that no-ip are unknowingly hosting malware, this simply wrong.
Before you go to blame the judge, however, please bear in mind that he can only rule based on the petitions before him. Presumably, a two-party hearing will be held soon, and then things can, and should, go differently. Also, the judge should have ordered Microsoft to place some money in escrow, which no-ip will automatically get in case the temporary restraining order is found to be unjustified.
What I'm saying is that we don't have enough information so far to conclude that the judge did anything wrong, but the first link, written by Microsoft, clearly shows MS to be douche bags in this case.
Shachar
At most, this will delete one directory above the one you're in. If you're in e.g. /home/shachar, this will delete /home, but not /usr or /etc.
Shachar
The -- end of options option is a GNU getopt extension. It is, if memory serves me correctly, not part of any standard. This means that program that were not compiled with glibc, or programs that do not use getopt/getopt_long, may or may not honor it.
Even by simply looking at the man page, it is easy to spot programs that don't use getopt. Any program that accept multi-letter options with one minus sign is, obviously, not using getopt (e.g. gcc, find).
Then there is git. Git uses -- to mean "no revisions after this point. Any remaining argument must be a file name". This is almost, but not quite, what -- means for getopt. I don't even know what underlying parsing engine they are using (could be getopt with the "no options after first argument" option set).
The "./*" feature is a more global workaround, if it is applicable.
Shachar
On my system (Debian GNU/Linux Jessie with Bash version 4.3.11), ls -lad *.* does not return either "." or "..". This is unlike ".*", which return both.
I have not found the precise rules of how * is expanded, but it seems pretty universal that if the pattern doesn't begin with a dot, files beginning with a dot are not matched.
Other systems (and, more to the point, shells) might behave differently, of course.
Shachar
While I agree with a lot of what you said, it is not completely true.
Jerusalem now has an (above ground, so not technically a subway) train throughout the city. It did take longer than planned, (and I believe was over budget too), but did, finally, happen. It definitely took more than one mayoral tenure to complete.
Yes, the Tel Aviv subway is now a running joke, and has been for about two decades. Then again, so was the Tel Aviv central bus station (took 40 years to complete and is under utilized, but complete it, eventually, did).
Just because something is a running joke doesn't mean it will not, eventually, happen. See "Duke Nukem Forever".
Shachar
Your drivel shows a remarkably consistent level of insightfulness. As anyone who has ever done ISO-9000 knows, consistency is a vital first step. Only once that is achieved, can one also aim for quality. Congratulations! You are half way there!
It's not all good news, I'm afraid. While I can sort of see which (or is that "whose"?) ass you pulled most of your incorrect assumptions from, I am dumbfounded in trying to figure out where you got the assumption that my current wife is a trophy wife.
This assumption is completely incorrect, but, as I said, that is no different than the rest of your comment. What is worse, and reflects really badly on your potential as a truly effective troll, is that there is nothing to suggest it.
Your comment started so well, casting doubt on my ability to be happy (at least I think that's what you said. The missing word is actually important there), my ability as a father, fear of mortality and of being insignificant. Those are universal fears, and you can't really go wrong by pushing those buttons. And then you had to put that "trophy wife" in there.
Not only is this unlikely to be true, reducing the likely hurt I'm likely to feel from your troll, but it also hurts your logic. If my wife is a trophy wife, then the age difference between her and my kid isn't so big.
Please take this comment as the constructive criticism it is meant to be. Trolling, like any other art form, requires practice to get right. Judging from your comments on other threads, I'm sure you're well on your way to perfection. Keep at it. You'll get it in the end!
Oh, and thanks for the sig comment. I've been meaning to do something about it for quite some time, but was not sure what. I just removed it altogether for the time being.
Shachar
A LOT of very stupid people are waiting until they are in their late 30's or 40's to have kids.. Oh boy, the joy of having to raise children until retirement age.. I'll instead enjoy the money and spare time of being 45 and my kids gone...
As one such stupid person, I can tell you. Oh, how I wish I had the smarts to to go ahead and make a child with my !@#%!@#$ crazy first wife, instead of divorcing her, spending time looking for a right one that will be, well, right, and only then having a child.
I'm sure me, my first wife, and my hypothetical children would have been so much happier for having a younger dad. Obviously, a younger dad is preferrable to growing up in a happy family.
Shachar