Major General Lord, I've served in the United States Navy and I left in disgust after six years because I saw the military is being subverted by evangelical Christians at every level.
My question to you is this: How does the US Air Force expect to recruit intelligent, free-thinking computer security experts into an organization that has been thoroughly corrupted by religious fanatics bent on bringing about the apocalypse?
Mikey Weinstein describes my concern in this quote: "Every single time radicalized Christianity has engaged the machinery of the state and the armed forces, we have ended up not with puddles and little streams, but with oceans and oceans of blood," he says. "I'm not just talking about the Holocaust or the Inquisition or the four Crusades, I'm not just talking about the Black Plague; it's the transition from Plan A to Plan B.
"In Plan A, evangelical Christians with a smile on their face will ask you to please, please, please accept their biblical worldview of Jesus. The problem with that is, inevitably, Plan A morphs into Plan B. They stop asking so nicely, and then you have the Holocaust, the pogroms, the Inquisition..."
Seing as they are the first to exit the atmosphere in the way that they did it. Its not entirely unexpected that the ship would encounter things that it had not previous to this. The stresses (and lack of conversely as atmospheric pressure lessens) required to do what it did are hard to calculate and test.
Despite it's name, SpaceShipOne is not the first high altitude release rocket plane to exceed a 100km altitude. The Air Force's X-15 already did that. I would agree that this is reason for pause for the Rutan team, another attempt right away to claim the X-Prize could end in disaster.
The X-prize doesn't require carrige of passengers, only the weight of two passengers. Test pilots know the risks involved with doing what has never been done before. Flying a rocket plane into space from a high altitude release has of course been done before: The Air Force's X-15 project did exactly that. This project is merely funded by a different organization.
From wikipedia:
Twelve X-15 flights went higher than 50 miles (80 km) and two of these reached over 100 km.
I'm sure Mike Melvill is well aware that Michael James Adams died after losing attitude control upon reentry in an X-15 on November 15, 1967. I'd still take one of those passenger seats on the SpaceShip-1.1, though!
"Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)" Piracy Pi"ra*cy, n.; pl. Piracies. Cf. LL. piratia, Gr. ?. See Pirate. 1. The act or crime of a pirate.
2. (Common Law) Robbery on the high seas; the taking of property from others on the open sea by open violence; without lawful authority, and with intent to steal; -- a crime answering to robbery on land.
Note: Robbery, in a strict sense, differs from theft, as it is effected by force or intimidation, whereas theft is committed by stealth, or privately.
Please stop whoring that word out to those who would change it's meaning.
I can see the blue lightning of patent law crackling under Bill's fingernails now.
Will the rebel coders crack the TCPA shield in time to save the OSS fleet? Will Linus turn to the Dark Side of the Source? Will Ballmer throw Bill off the board of directors when their stock starts to drop due to unsucessful lawsuits? Tune in next time for another thrill packed episode of Slashdot!
I think that the idea of a Perpetual Gift Computer System would also be an expression of this new paradigm. The Simputer is designed for community ownership and would be an ideal candidate for becoming a PerpetualGift.
I posted just after you in this thread on the same subject. We both posted at 2004.03.30 7:32. How's that for synchronicity?
I just started a discussion on the DebianWiki about the legal and technical implementation of making a computer system into a perpetual gift. That would be a more personal and specific way of making hardware free for the user, although not for the first owner of the system.
IANAL so I need help on wording the legal contract. For you lawyers, paralegals and armchair philosophers out there; If you feel like doing some constructive legal work for the Debian project I welcome your advice. I think this idea has a lot of potential not only for a gift between friends but as a way of donating computer systems to charity and ensuring that they will remain gifts after they are no longer useful to the recipient organization.
This brings to mind the vision of an admin staying up late and GPG signing the contracts for a one kilobox donation. *shudder*
That's a good point, Jeremy. Running in single user mode would strictly comply with SCO's license for a "Desktop System".
What I meant to say was that SCO appears to be basing their marketing strategy on the unfamiliarity people have with their computers. Both in the sense that nearly every GNU/Linux machine in use is (or could somehow be) a server to another machine and more importantly that many users have only a vauge understanding of the precepts of Free Software. SCO is certainly not the first company to use FUD as a marketing strategy, nor are they likely the last. They make a good example of how merely having the freedoms of open access to source code is not enough. People must understand why this freedom is important, or they may willingly relinquish it for some temporary security (or the illusion thereof).
The SCO corporation has violated the public trust and should have their corporate charter revoked forthwith. Then they should be sued and often and by someone who knows how.
There is some twisted logic to this: If just one person is using the computer at a time, then the low cost license properly compensates SCO. However if multiple users are allowed over a network then more money is required to make things right.
Any hacker knows that GNU/Linux (and UNIX) are MULTI-USER systems by design. Whoever wrote this EULA was obviously the worst breed of mutant-lawyer-suit-marketroid-pigopolist-idiot and deserves nothing but contempt and derision.
Yes, the server at shop.sco.com is poor, tortured and somewhat out of date. SCO doesn't seem like a technically apt software company. I really wish people gnu the truth of this matter.
From Netcraft: The site shop.sco.com is running unknown on Linux.
What they probably mean is that shop.sco.com is thrashing horribly under the load of a deliberate and malicious slashdotting.
When does the slashdot effect become a denial of service attack? I guess it's a question of intent, but there is no way to average the intent of every participant and come up with some sort of DoS malice scalar. A click is a click is a click.
"Desktop System" means a single user computer workstation controlled by a single instance of the Operating System. It may provide personal productivity applications, web browsers and other client interfaces (e.g., mail, calendering, instant messaging, etc). It may not host services for clients on other systems.
Running sshd or Samba makes your computer a server. Between those two applications, I'd say that nearly no one qualifies for the "Desktop" license. How is SCO planning to enforce that, anyway? Does each license come with a free portscan?
The library system bears a greater burden of administering old and out of date data. Users can easily throw out old discs, while the library has to extricate them from their inventory.
This being said, I wish it were possible to recycle CD's. I abhor the idea of all that waste being created.
Yes they have a website, with contact information: http://www.beagle2.com/resources/con tact.htm
Insightful quote from beagle2.com
on
Linux Goes to Mars
·
· Score: 3, Funny
Extensive use of a 32-bit processor is made as obviously software is lighter than logic circuits and more flexible.
That may not be obvious to the segment of the population who believe that computers are powered by gnomes.
BTW I love this picture of Prof. Colin Pillinger. Can you say Mad Professor?
http://speakeasy.org/~lcolleton/beagle2_fiend.jp g
Incorrectly titled article
on
Linux Goes to Mars
·
· Score: 5, Informative
The Beagle 2 is going to Mars. Linux is merely being used to run the SCOS program. If Linux were being used aboard the Beagle 2, then the title would be accurate. I think it's an important "mission critical" application though.
Airlines are supposedly worried about the interference from passenger's cell phones. Contrast that with a targeted high power EMP weapon. It seems the latter would cause more of a worry.
To any airline geeks who might be reading: Are you getting this? Do you copy?? Over.
Read?/.ers reading the article before posting? That would make a/.ing so much more severe if everyone even clicked on the relevant links (let alone paging through that site). I'm kind of glad that only an intelligent fraction actually opens their eyes before they go into rant mode; It makes it much easier to discriminate signal from noise.
I find that hillarious because the power windows on my bimmer broke about a year ago and I am just now soldering on switches because I'm too cheap (read: broke) to buy replacements from the dealer.
> Yes, having a wifi CF card and a 256mb SD card is the high life.If you can afford them and can live with the limited battery lifetime of your PDA as a consequence.
Many CF cards have an appetite for power. But the secure digital card has a hardly noticible effect on battery life (even if mounted as the home and tmp directories!)
In my recent unsuccessful attempt to purchase a ThinkPad sans OS I learned that IBM is planning to reinstate it's policy of offering notebooks with Linux installed. Apparently the ruling of Judge Kollar-Kotelly is starting to have some impact, loosening the stranglehold Microsoft has on the laptop market. IBM said it will be an option Real Soon Now, however..
After trying many avenues of sales and tech support I finally purchased a ThinkPad with Windows XP Home (95$US) from a rep who was willing to discount the price of the machine 100$US when I pressed on the matter of not wanting to pay for the OS. Commissioned sales rock! Another (semi-)satisfied customer.
I thought reality was something with which you could interact. Even a virtual reality must have some sort of I/O or it's just a movie, no matter how many gimmicks are thrown in. Smoke and mirrors may prepare soldiers for some of the confusion of being in combat, but the ability to think on one's feet and react to a rapidly changing scenario won't come from looking at a movie screen.
Slashdot Mirror
Major General Lord, I've served in the United States Navy and I left in disgust after six years because I saw the military is being subverted by evangelical Christians at every level.
..."
My question to you is this: How does the US Air Force expect to recruit intelligent, free-thinking computer security experts into an organization that has been thoroughly corrupted by religious fanatics bent on bringing about the apocalypse?
Mikey Weinstein describes my concern in this quote:
"Every single time radicalized Christianity has engaged the machinery of the state and the armed forces, we have ended up not with puddles and little streams, but with oceans and oceans of blood," he says. "I'm not just talking about the Holocaust or the Inquisition or the four Crusades, I'm not just talking about the Black Plague; it's the transition from Plan A to Plan B.
"In Plan A, evangelical Christians with a smile on their face will ask you to please, please, please accept their biblical worldview of Jesus. The problem with that is, inevitably, Plan A morphs into Plan B. They stop asking so nicely, and then you have the Holocaust, the pogroms, the Inquisition
-- 1099-07-15 -- never forget
Seing as they are the first to exit the atmosphere in the way that they did it. Its not entirely unexpected that the ship would encounter things that it had not previous to this. The stresses (and lack of conversely as atmospheric pressure lessens) required to do what it did are hard to calculate and test.
Despite it's name, SpaceShipOne is not the first high altitude release rocket plane to exceed a 100km altitude. The Air Force's X-15 already did that. I would agree that this is reason for pause for the Rutan team, another attempt right away to claim the X-Prize could end in disaster.
There's plenty of info about the X-15.
From wikipedia:
I'm sure Mike Melvill is well aware that Michael James Adams died after losing attitude control upon reentry in an X-15 on November 15, 1967. I'd still take one of those passenger seats on the SpaceShip-1.1, though!
Please stop whoring that word out to those who would change it's meaning.
IllegalCopying != Piracy
I can see the blue lightning of patent law crackling under Bill's fingernails now.
Will the rebel coders crack the TCPA shield in time to save the OSS fleet?
Will Linus turn to the Dark Side of the Source?
Will Ballmer throw Bill off the board of directors when their stock starts to drop due to unsucessful lawsuits?
Tune in next time for another thrill packed episode of Slashdot!
I think that the idea of a Perpetual Gift Computer System would also be an expression of this new paradigm.
The Simputer is designed for community ownership and would be an ideal candidate for becoming a PerpetualGift.
I posted just after you in this thread on the same subject. We both posted at 2004.03.30 7:32. How's that for synchronicity?
Ah, synchronicity..
I just started a discussion on the DebianWiki about the legal and technical implementation of making a computer system into a perpetual gift. That would be a more personal and specific way of making hardware free for the user, although not for the first owner of the system.
IANAL so I need help on wording the legal contract. For you lawyers, paralegals and armchair philosophers out there; If you feel like doing some constructive legal work for the Debian project I welcome your advice. I think this idea has a lot of potential not only for a gift between friends but as a way of donating computer systems to charity and ensuring that they will remain gifts after they are no longer useful to the recipient organization.
This brings to mind the vision of an admin staying up late and GPG signing the contracts for a one kilobox donation. *shudder*
PerpetualGift
That's a good point, Jeremy. Running in single user mode would strictly comply with SCO's license for a "Desktop System".
What I meant to say was that SCO appears to be basing their marketing strategy on the unfamiliarity people have with their computers. Both in the sense that nearly every GNU/Linux machine in use is (or could somehow be) a server to another machine and more importantly that many users have only a vauge understanding of the precepts of Free Software. SCO is certainly not the first company to use FUD as a marketing strategy, nor are they likely the last. They make a good example of how merely having the freedoms of open access to source code is not enough. People must understand why this freedom is important, or they may willingly relinquish it for some temporary security (or the illusion thereof).
The SCO corporation has violated the public trust and should have their corporate charter revoked forthwith. Then they should be sued and often and by someone who knows how.
There is some twisted logic to this: If just one person is using the computer at a time, then the low cost license properly compensates SCO. However if multiple users are allowed over a network then more money is required to make things right.
Any hacker knows that GNU/Linux (and UNIX) are MULTI-USER systems by design. Whoever wrote this EULA was obviously the worst breed of mutant-lawyer-suit-marketroid-pigopolist-idiot and deserves nothing but contempt and derision.
Yes, the server at shop.sco.com is poor, tortured and somewhat out of date. SCO doesn't seem like a technically apt software company. I really wish people gnu the truth of this matter.
From Netcraft:
The site shop.sco.com is running unknown on Linux.
What they probably mean is that shop.sco.com is thrashing horribly under the load of a deliberate and malicious slashdotting.
When does the slashdot effect become a denial of service attack? I guess it's a question of intent, but there is no way to average the intent of every participant and come up with some sort of DoS malice scalar. A click is a click is a click.
Running sshd or Samba makes your computer a server. Between those two applications, I'd say that nearly no one qualifies for the "Desktop" license. How is SCO planning to enforce that, anyway? Does each license come with a free portscan?
The library system bears a greater burden of administering old and out of date data. Users can easily throw out old discs, while the library has to extricate them from their inventory.
This being said, I wish it were possible to recycle CD's. I abhor the idea of all that waste being created.
Yes they have a website, with contact information:n tact.htm
http://www.beagle2.com/resources/co
That may not be obvious to the segment of the population who believe that computers are powered by gnomes.
BTW I love this picture of Prof. Colin Pillinger. Can you say Mad Professor?
http://speakeasy.org/~lcolleton/beagle2_fiend.j
The Beagle 2 is going to Mars. Linux is merely being used to run the SCOS program. If Linux were being used aboard the Beagle 2, then the title would be accurate. I think it's an important "mission critical" application though.
Airlines are supposedly worried about the interference from passenger's cell phones. Contrast that with a targeted high power EMP weapon. It seems the latter would cause more of a worry.
To any airline geeks who might be reading: Are you getting this? Do you copy?? Over.
Read? /.ers reading the article before posting? That would make a /.ing so much more severe if everyone even clicked on the relevant links (let alone paging through that site). I'm kind of glad that only an intelligent fraction actually opens their eyes before they go into rant mode; It makes it much easier to discriminate signal from noise.
All your elemental web services are belong to us.
I find that hillarious because the power windows on my bimmer broke about a year ago and I am just now soldering on switches because I'm too cheap (read: broke) to buy replacements from the dealer.
If they make this into a yearly event there will come a day when the computers will say that they don't want to be destroyed.
That will make it much more entertaining.
> Yes, having a wifi CF card and a 256mb SD card is the high life. If you can afford them and can live with the limited battery lifetime of your PDA as a consequence. Many CF cards have an appetite for power. But the secure digital card has a hardly noticible effect on battery life (even if mounted as the home and tmp directories!)
In my recent unsuccessful attempt to purchase a ThinkPad sans OS I learned that IBM is planning to reinstate it's policy of offering notebooks with Linux installed. Apparently the ruling of Judge Kollar-Kotelly is starting to have some impact, loosening the stranglehold Microsoft has on the laptop market. IBM said it will be an option Real Soon Now, however..
After trying many avenues of sales and tech support I finally purchased a ThinkPad with Windows XP Home (95$US) from a rep who was willing to discount the price of the machine 100$US when I pressed on the matter of not wanting to pay for the OS. Commissioned sales rock! Another (semi-)satisfied customer.
"Virtually Identical"
I thought reality was something with which you could interact. Even a virtual reality must have some sort of I/O or it's just a movie, no matter how many gimmicks are thrown in. Smoke and mirrors may prepare soldiers for some of the confusion of being in combat, but the ability to think on one's feet and react to a rapidly changing scenario won't come from looking at a movie screen.