If UNIX was built wrong from the ground up, why has it survived for the base, oh, 30 years?!?
My maxim about antiques is: "It's not good because it's old, It's old because it's good."
UNIX did a lot of things right. If you look at what Martin had to say, he's looking for more code reusability. Unix did it at the program level, now he's asking for it to be done at the functionality (sub-application) level. He's actually asking for an extension/deepening of a core UNIX principle to where we could/should have been working it a long time ago.
It just got a bit stagnated because of the closed-sourcing of UNIX back in the '80s.
It's kinda like when I figured out that FORTH implemented on a 6809 assembly could be 'faster' than native Assembler -- It's not that you could (oxymoronically) do something faster than it could be done -- It's that the "standard way" of doing things is slower than a well designed special implementation.
For the FORTH case, the 'faster' result would come where you had a program that consisted almost entirely of lots of calls to short subroutines That's what FORTH (as a threaded language) is all about. In standard assembler it would normally be implemented as:
call sub1
call sub2 call sub3 ....
In forth, as a threaded language, it would be implemented as a list: ( &sub1, &sub2, &sub3....) In 'standard' assembly, each subroutine would return to the main routine which would then call the next subN. In forth, each subroutine would simply Jump to the next subroutine in the list: JMP [REG:Call_list++] On the 6809, this would be implemented by pointing the secondary stack pointer at the threaded list, and doing a RET SP2 (secondary stack) This effectively saves the one instruction per subroutine call (!!!!). Not much of a savings, but if you're calling lots of short subroutines, it can add up.
Similarly, perl does lots of string manipulation-type work in ways that are fundamentally different than the way that 'standard' C does them. Just like the 6809 example, there's nothing to stop you from doing things the PERL way, it would simply take
a rethinking of the way you do things,
being willing to risk confusing any maintainer who looked at your code.
a willingness to abandon all/much of the standard code base built up over time
a willingnes/ability to train everybody who came after you.
As somebody else said -- by the time you do all that, you'd be programming perl in C. In that case, why bother to do it in C at all?
It looks like there are about as many reasons for cheating as there are for hacking.
There are people, like the aforementioned, who just like to confuse and confound.
Some want to 'bring down' the hotshot a notch (especially if it's an egotistical hotshot).
Some are interested in the technical issue of just how far they can push things, and what happens when you do it. (I remember selling a Godly Plate of the Whale just to figure out how much it would cost to buy one (more than you could fit in your backpack)).
Some want to win at all costs.
Some are just tired of dying and want to see what happens next.
There are ways of testing for cheated rendering. Every once in a while, send a relatively well-defined frame, and ask back for some information that depends on the (partial?) frame being rendered in a relatively sane way. If you get back an 'obviously wrong' answer, then start doing something insidiously nasty to the cheater -- or just mark his score 'cheat'. I figure it's better to not let a player know as soon as you've detected a cheat -- because then it'll be easier for him to find and fix the counter-cheat.
Well... other than the fact that she's apparently Israeli born and USA raised, I guess that she could make a good Kiwi. -- But don't be too greedy. NZ has enough babes as it is.
They check the referring site. If you come from any other domain you don't get the Natalie Portman reference or the "Slashdot rules!". A minimum raw HTTP request seems to be:
GET/news/tvnewsdaily.html?10220 HTTP/1.0
Referer: http://slashdot.org/
Host: tv.zap2it.com
It looks like you can put anything after the slashdot.org/ part. Replacing slashdot.org with another domain results in the 'stock' text.
I guess it depends on whether you're talking about repeats by the offender or repeats by the person convicted. Nothing off the top of my head, but I'm sure you could find cases where the wrong person was executed for a murder and the actual murderer went on to kill again.
Most of the squatting problems are because of bulk squatters going around and registering {`cat/usr/dict/words`}.com. If we limit the purchase of *.somethings to one or two per person and a half dozen or so per registered company/org, then life would get a little bit easier for 'legitimate' users.
It wouldn't completely eliminate squatting, but it would eliminat the statistical value of bulk squatting (one $100K and ten $10K sales pay for 2000 unsold domains and $50K in legal fees, vs very few domains and pray that nobody sues and somebody buys).
www.* should also be banned for purchase. (i.e. www.computers should not be allowed, since it is pretty much like having.computers in the consumer space).
If an online 'White Power' organization were to be established, that posted lists of Websites they objected to, for itemized specific reasons, would that be considered legitimate?
If they posted my address so that people knew to avoid me, that's completely legitimate. If they posted my address and told people to burn down my house and lynch me, that would be a different case -- arson and murder are illegal. They would be advocating and aiding the commission of felonies. Similarly, If they put me on a list of people who agreed with, and supported the white-power movement, that would be slander.
Rejecting your email is legal. Giving me a list of people that you're rejecting because I might want to reject their email for the same purposes would also be legal.
These people are not suing RBL because it is improper for them to be on the list. They are suing RBL because they disagree with the criteria for being added to the list. Vixie & Co. don't say "these people are spammers". They say "These people do one or more of these N things that we really disagree with -- mostly because they cause us problems. ============ As to the question of legislative vs technical solutions: Theft is illegal. There's already legislation against it. A couple of weeks ago I left my window open. Some bastard snuck in through the open window and stole my laptop. Locks are a technical solution to a problem that already has a legislated solution.
Even if CAUCE is successful in getting effective legislation against SPAM, prosecutions and lawsuits are expensive and slow (often taking years). If only for that reason, RBL will remain as at least a stopgap solution.
"Ever notice how MAPS spelled backwards is SPAM? I wonder why...:P" Because SPAM spelled backwards is MAPS.:-|
I believe that MAPS' inclusion of them into the RBL may cause some collateral damage to that. It is imperative to point out that this is the design and function of MAPS -- to provide an effective deterrant against errant mailing practices and to companies that provide spammer support services
Our goals in doing this are to stop spam and educate relay operators.
(emphasis theirs). The primary purpose of the RBL is to stop SPAM. If there were a more precise method of doing so with similar effectiveness and effort, I think that they would do so. Their site includes reference to the problem of throwing out the baby with the bathwater in their cautions to people considering using the list. Collateral damage is, I think, part of the reason why they they waited so long before adding, for example MSN to their list.
Collertal damage does provide some 'carrot and stick' incentive to spammer allies, but it is a double-edged sword. If the RBL were able to provide true 'smart bomb' accuracy, I expect that more people would be willing to use it. Remember: They originally generated it for themselves, and then made it available to others.
Being able to vote doesn't do much if there isn't a decent candidate to vote for. Part of the process is the nomination process. We should make sure that some decent-minded people are nominated so that we have someone to vote for.
Internal combustion is not the most efficient way of powering transport. The oil companies encouraged the car companies to use it because it locked people into using gasoline (as opposed to , say, steamers which were capable of burning almost anything). Once they monopolized the fuel delivery systems, it became pretty much irrelevant. The big companies pretty much stopped developing other motive power methods.
5) in a limited - distribution, boring-by-design press release, state that the requirements have been met.
Eh. Why even issue the second press release. In this scenario, I'd expect them to quietly knowtow and 'forget' to publicly announce it.
My guess as to why Earthlink is willing to do this is that they looked at what Carnivore does and realized that it went beyond what the law mandated. If it does goes beyond what is allowed, I think that they know that the FBI isn't going to push the issue too much.
The performance issue may just be an excuse for them to refuse or it may really be the reason why they're balking. It's kinda hard to get inside their head on that aspect of the issue. -------------- Then there is the paranoid interpretation: This is a smokescreen. They're working with the FBI. Carnivore is in place and already eating. They're announcing the rejection of carnivore because they're hoping that the criminal element will flock to their service where the FBI can do a promiscuous snoop of EVERYBODY's email (with a pleasant concentration of 'interesting' traffic).
Be paranoid. Be Very paranoid. BTW: IANAL (My sister is a lawyer but she doesn't talk to me).
Although it's possible that your packets may route through the US, they probably won't go near a US box (which is where it looks like carnivore should be posted). The only reason for foreign to foreign email to end up on a US box would be if the US box was a secondary MX for the destination. foreign to foreign packets should get filtered out for security+volume reasons long before they get to local-only servers.
That having been said, if the email gets 'accidently' intercepted by the FBI, there may not be a whole lot you could do. Although it's the CIA that normally does spying on foreigners, my understanding is that the CIA is specifically prohibited from spying on Yanks, but there is no such restriction against the FBI snooping around foreigners.
It gets worst because (Imigration based) precedents seem to indicate that constitutional rights only apply to people legally in the states. (or something like that). This may mean that, as a foreigner, your rights may be less than US residents would expect.
IANAL (My sister's a lawyer, but she doesn't talk to me).
Corporations aren't much more than governments with opaque control structures. Like governments, some will do whatever works to serve the ends of their masters. Some corporations will kill you (eg. Tobacco) if they figure that it'll make them a net profit. Other corporations, such as Shell Oil are willing to use terrorist tactic including the death of a Nobel Laurate to achieve their goals.
You'd rather have corporations than governments control the web, eh? SO who would you rather turn your web site over to: The MPAA, Microsoft, or CyberCop?
It seems like this is the question that the courts will have to decide. Is eBay considered a public or private place? .... For instance, if I want to petition in front of a grocery store, I have to ask permission because it is considered to be a private area. On the other hand, I can petition at any mall because they are considered public (since they sell more than one type of item or something like that).
On the other hand, (were It not probably illegal) I would give 2-1 odds on his being neither in Oregon nor petitioning people. (It sounds to me like petitioners are given special dispensation under Oregon law.).
Unless this dweeb is willing (and rich enough) to invest enough money into his defense to find some strange loophole, Ebay probably only needs to prove that they've been adversely affected by his actions and that they've made reasonable private attempts to get him to go (and stay) away.
Oh, yeah, the porn industry is just going to LOVE Dosanj and company for this I mean, just imagine: All these young, undersexed computer geeks being FORCED to root through the underbelly of their neighbourhood sex shop just to buy the latest video games.
We are talking upsell city. Fresh meat for their marketing machines.
Oh, no! I just come here for the video games. -- well, I used to. Disclaimer: I ran for the Green Party in the last BC election.
We have nothing even close to the Reform.. err Alliance party in Quebec if you want an example.
If you're talking about a bunch of xenophobic racists who try and candy their comments with claims of patriotism, I think that that would be The PQ.
Note that neither the PQ nor Reform (now Aliance) are made entirely of people like that, but both groups have shown a willingness to publicly expound such views. If anything, I would say that Reform is far more acceptive of 'others' than the PQ is.
Way Back in 1997 Vanouver, BC hosted the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) conference. In many ways this was the mother of the WTO conference in Seattle.
In an attempt to avoid "embarrassing" various of the Dictators who would be showing up for the conference, the Canadian government attempted to place all sorts of operational restrictions on protest at the conference. This was rather problematic given that the main leaders' conference was going to be at the University of British Columbia.
Despite some questions in RCMP ranks, about the legality of these restrictions, some very constitutionaly questionable actions were taken. Among the most questionable were the pepper-spraying of protestors, and the MOST questionable of those was when staff seargent Stewart walked up to a group of protesters in an area which, up until then, they had been allowed and -- on about 9 seconds warning -- sprayed the whole group including a CBC reporter.
In response to complaints about RCMP overreaction at the event, Cretien made a couple of comments, including one that "At least it was better than using Baseball Bats". At a later protest, when Cretien returned to Vancouver, police DID use baseball bats on protestors.
I worked at a medical imaging company and some of the advantages of online X-rays include the ability to bring up file images quickly, view them anywhere/anywhen (including remotely -- Units were installed in places like Bosnia for remote diagnostics). It's also possible to do things like false-color images.
There are also monetary benefits like film costs and manpower spent hunting and transporting film. And storage: consider how many images you can fit on a raid array, then calculate how much space that would take up in plastic and paper files.
I have a friend who, when he left high school, he performed math at about a grade 3 level. Although he was generally smart, he was diverted by family and personal problems and did very poorly in school.
What happened to him is that someone befriended him and mentored him. With that person's help he was able to increase both his math skills and his sellf-image to the point where he worked his way through university by tutoring math. He is now a registered engineer.
I think that the rule in the commercial world is "all's fare in war and benchmarks. Love is irrelevant".
That having been said, my guess is that the Open Software community is a little less likely to invest time in unusable 'improvements' that do little more than give better benchmark results.
OK, so it's not a perfect vacuum -- then again intersteller space still has a couple of molecules per cubic centimetre. Nontheless, it's still well under 1PSI. If I opened up a 6" wormhole from mars to the front of your monitor, you'd probably still recieve trauma as your face was bashed into the hole by the force of air being sucked out of the room to fill the 'non-vacuum' on the other side.
Slashdot Mirror
UNIX did a lot of things right. If you look at what Martin had to say, he's looking for more code reusability. Unix did it at the program level, now he's asking for it to be done at the functionality (sub-application) level. He's actually asking for an extension/deepening of a core UNIX principle to where we could/should have been working it a long time ago.
It just got a bit stagnated because of the closed-sourcing of UNIX back in the '80s.
For the FORTH case, the 'faster' result would come where you had a program that consisted almost entirely of lots of calls to short subroutines That's what FORTH (as a threaded language) is all about. In standard assembler it would normally be implemented as:
In forth, as a threaded language, it would be implemented as a list:( &sub1, &sub2, &sub3
In 'standard' assembly, each subroutine would return to the main routine which would then call the next subN. In forth, each subroutine would simply Jump to the next subroutine in the list:
JMP [REG:Call_list++]
On the 6809, this would be implemented by pointing the secondary stack pointer at the threaded list, and doing a
RET SP2 (secondary stack)
This effectively saves the one instruction per subroutine call (!!!!). Not much of a savings, but if you're calling lots of short subroutines, it can add up.
Similarly, perl does lots of string manipulation-type work in ways that are fundamentally different than the way that 'standard' C does them. Just like the 6809 example, there's nothing to stop you from doing things the PERL way, it would simply take
- a rethinking of the way you do things,
- being willing to risk confusing any maintainer who looked at your code.
- a willingness to abandon all/much of the standard code base built up over time
- a willingnes/ability to train everybody who came after you.
As somebody else said -- by the time you do all that, you'd be programming perl in C. In that case, why bother to do it in C at all?- There are people, like the aforementioned, who just like to confuse and confound.
- Some want to 'bring down' the hotshot a notch (especially if it's an egotistical hotshot).
- Some are interested in the technical issue of just how far they can push things, and what happens when you do it. (I remember selling a Godly Plate of the Whale just to figure out how much it would cost to buy one (more than you could fit in your backpack)).
- Some want to win at all costs.
- Some are just tired of dying and want to see what happens next.
I'm sure that there are lots of other reasons.There are ways of testing for cheated rendering.
Every once in a while, send a relatively well-defined frame, and ask back for some information that depends on the (partial?) frame being rendered in a relatively sane way. If you get back an 'obviously wrong' answer, then start doing something insidiously nasty to the cheater -- or just mark his score 'cheat'.
I figure it's better to not let a player know as soon as you've detected a cheat -- because then it'll be easier for him to find and fix the counter-cheat.
Well... other than the fact that she's apparently Israeli born and USA raised, I guess that she could make a good Kiwi. -- But don't be too greedy. NZ has enough babes as it is.
A minimum raw HTTP request seems to be:
- GET
/news/tvnewsdaily.html?10220 HTTP/1.0 - Referer: http://slashdot.org/
- Host: tv.zap2it.com
It looks like you can put anything after the slashdot.org/ part. Replacing slashdot.org with another domain results in the 'stock' text.WINdows Emulator is an Emulator. WINElib is more of a hybred.
I guess it depends on whether you're talking about repeats by the offender or repeats by the person convicted. Nothing off the top of my head, but I'm sure you could find cases where the wrong person was executed for a murder and the actual murderer went on to kill again.
It wouldn't completely eliminate squatting, but it would eliminat the statistical value of bulk squatting (one $100K and ten $10K sales pay for 2000 unsold domains and $50K in legal fees, vs very few domains and pray that nobody sues and somebody buys).
www.* should also be banned for purchase. (i.e. www.computers should not be allowed, since it is pretty much like having .computers in the consumer space).
Rejecting your email is legal. Giving me a list of people that you're rejecting because I might want to reject their email for the same purposes would also be legal.
These people are not suing RBL because it is improper for them to be on the list. They are suing RBL because they disagree with the criteria for being added to the list. Vixie & Co. don't say "these people are spammers". They say "These people do one or more of these N things that we really disagree with -- mostly because they cause us problems.
============
As to the question of legislative vs technical solutions:
Theft is illegal. There's already legislation against it. A couple of weeks ago I left my window open. Some bastard snuck in through the open window and stole my laptop. Locks are a technical solution to a problem that already has a legislated solution.
Even if CAUCE is successful in getting effective legislation against SPAM, prosecutions and lawsuits are expensive and slow (often taking years). If only for that reason, RBL will remain as at least a stopgap solution.
Because SPAM spelled backwards is MAPS.
The primary purpose of the RBL is to stop SPAM. If there were a more precise method of doing so with similar effectiveness and effort, I think that they would do so. Their site includes reference to the problem of throwing out the baby with the bathwater in their cautions to people considering using the list. Collateral damage is, I think, part of the reason why they they waited so long before adding, for example MSN to their list.
Collertal damage does provide some 'carrot and stick' incentive to spammer allies, but it is a double-edged sword. If the RBL were able to provide true 'smart bomb' accuracy, I expect that more people would be willing to use it. Remember: They originally generated it for themselves, and then made it available to others.
Being able to vote doesn't do much if there isn't a decent candidate to vote for. Part of the process is the nomination process. We should make sure that some decent-minded people are nominated so that we have someone to vote for.
Internal combustion is not the most efficient way of powering transport. The oil companies encouraged the car companies to use it because it locked people into using gasoline (as opposed to , say, steamers which were capable of burning almost anything). Once they monopolized the fuel delivery systems, it became pretty much irrelevant. The big companies pretty much stopped developing other motive power methods.
My guess as to why Earthlink is willing to do this is that they looked at what Carnivore does and realized that it went beyond what the law mandated. If it does goes beyond what is allowed, I think that they know that the FBI isn't going to push the issue too much.
The performance issue may just be an excuse for them to refuse or it may really be the reason why they're balking. It's kinda hard to get inside their head on that aspect of the issue.
--------------
Then there is the paranoid interpretation:
This is a smokescreen. They're working with the FBI. Carnivore is in place and already eating. They're announcing the rejection of carnivore because they're hoping that the criminal element will flock to their service where the FBI can do a promiscuous snoop of EVERYBODY's email (with a pleasant concentration of 'interesting' traffic).
Be paranoid. Be Very paranoid.
BTW: IANAL (My sister is a lawyer but she doesn't talk to me).
- Although it's possible that your packets may route through the US, they probably won't go near a US box (which is where it looks like carnivore should be posted). The only reason for foreign to foreign email to end up on a US box would be if the US box was a secondary MX for the destination. foreign to foreign packets should get filtered out for security+volume reasons long before they get to local-only servers.
- That having been said, if the email gets 'accidently' intercepted by the FBI, there may not be a whole lot you could do. Although it's the CIA that normally does spying on foreigners, my understanding is that the CIA is specifically prohibited from spying on Yanks, but there is no such restriction against the FBI snooping around foreigners.
IANAL (My sister's a lawyer, but she doesn't talk to me).It gets worst because (Imigration based) precedents seem to indicate that constitutional rights only apply to people legally in the states. (or something like that). This may mean that, as a foreigner, your rights may be less than US residents would expect.
You'd rather have corporations than governments control the web, eh? SO who would you rather turn your web site over to: The MPAA, Microsoft, or CyberCop?
Unless this dweeb is willing (and rich enough) to invest enough money into his defense to find some strange loophole, Ebay probably only needs to prove that they've been adversely affected by his actions and that they've made reasonable private attempts to get him to go (and stay) away.
We are talking upsell city. Fresh meat for their marketing machines.
Oh, no! I just come here for the video games. -- well, I used to. Disclaimer: I ran for the Green Party in the last BC election.
Note that neither the PQ nor Reform (now Aliance) are made entirely of people like that, but both groups have shown a willingness to publicly expound such views. If anything, I would say that Reform is far more acceptive of 'others' than the PQ is.
In an attempt to avoid "embarrassing" various of the Dictators who would be showing up for the conference, the Canadian government attempted to place all sorts of operational restrictions on protest at the conference. This was rather problematic given that the main leaders' conference was going to be at the University of British Columbia.
Despite some questions in RCMP ranks, about the legality of these restrictions, some very constitutionaly questionable actions were taken. Among the most questionable were the pepper-spraying of protestors, and the MOST questionable of those was when staff seargent Stewart walked up to a group of protesters in an area which, up until then, they had been allowed and -- on about 9 seconds warning -- sprayed the whole group including a CBC reporter.
In response to complaints about RCMP overreaction at the event, Cretien made a couple of comments, including one that "At least it was better than using Baseball Bats". At a later protest, when Cretien returned to Vancouver, police DID use baseball bats on protestors.
Numerous CBC articles on apec here. and Here .
Some comments from the protestors' point of view
OH, and while I'm at it: some video on the Soldier of Fortune story. (to stay on topic).
There are also monetary benefits like film costs and manpower spent hunting and transporting film. And storage: consider how many images you can fit on a raid array, then calculate how much space that would take up in plastic and paper files.
What happened to him is that someone befriended him and mentored him. With that person's help he was able to increase both his math skills and his sellf-image to the point where he worked his way through university by tutoring math. He is now a registered engineer.
That having been said, my guess is that the Open Software community is a little less likely to invest time in unusable 'improvements' that do little more than give better benchmark results.
One sentence:
Intel -- Just short of intelligent.
If I opened up a 6" wormhole from mars to the front of your monitor, you'd probably still recieve trauma as your face was bashed into the hole by the force of air being sucked out of the room to fill the 'non-vacuum' on the other side.
From www.dictionary.com
- a.Absence of matter.
- b.A space empty of matter.
- c.A space relatively empty of matter.
- d.A space in which the pressure is significantly lower than atmospheric pressure.
Beware of absolutes when you're speaking of english word meanings.