This sort of practice is some of the worst stuff that you can do. The problem with all of this data collection isn't always what they get right, it's what they get wrong. Just imagine the fallout you would get if someone with the same name as you, not very unlikely, was mistaken for you? Sure you can compare email addresses etc. But why would you want to trust that the people doing these sorts of searches will get it right? Stuff like this is just plain dangerous...
Re:The other books ain't so bad.
on
New Ender Sequel
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· Score: 1
In the sequels the biology is that of a alien world. Why should it be anything like our biology?
But would it make a good book? Most novels leave things untold once everything has been said and done. But I'll bet that if they didn't you would be essentially reading a historical account, interesting but not really that good.
In chapter 3 there is a reference to "standard 2-byte format" as the standard character code. Unicode uses 2 bytes per letter doesn't it? Looks like Orson Scott Card has been doing quite a bit of research...
Notice how all the email addresses look like normal email addresses, but not quite? Such as Carlotta%agape@vatican.net/orders/sisters/ind? I wonder what sort of systems are they running in the book...
I've done a quick look at the latest version of glibc. It looks pretty well thought out (everything cleanly seperated by architecture with default backups should a feature not exist) but I only spent 10 minutes on it so I really can't comment much.
I've spent about 4 hours studying the bison parser in GCC. (I'm working on a very simple compiler as part of another project, Corporate Raiders) While I've never made a compiler, or really any advanced programming before, I still could follow the general gist of how the parser worked, enough that I was able to use some of the way it worked in my compiler.
I've never seen GCC crash in all the time I've used it. If it's a mess then it sure is well working mess!
One example of some very well designed software is the Shuttle OS that powers NASA's Space Shuttle. In 420k lines of code each revision has only had 1 bug each that wasn't caught by testing. If we *really* want to make some good software it wouldn't be a bad idea to take these lessons to heart. OpenSource software is already good, lets make it better. Full artical here.
The vast majority *is* crap. But the stuff that is important, libc, the Linux kernel, GCC etc. isn't. If you look at Windows there is lots of third party software that is complete junk. The case is the same with Linux. But the "big stuff" is all big *because* it's good, well designed software. OpenSource can produce crap, anyone armed with a compiler (standard on most UNIX's) can produce utter junk. But will that junk be used? Will anyone even know it exists? Of course not.
Both OpenSource and Closed Source development can produce junk software. And both can produce great software.
Why do I get the feeling this problem isn't just found in OpenSource projects? Zillions of programms, both free and commercial, are badly designed from the start. Many more could be well designed if only they didn't have to worry about backward compatibility. (probably one of the biggest problems for Windows right now...) The Big Ball of Mud architecture isn't uncommon by any means. And it's not a problem that only OpenSource faces.
More reason for choice...
on
Fighting UCITA
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· Score: 3
Don't buy stuff from UCITA bound companies eh? Good luck! The advantages that using UCITA laws give are so great that we're going to be lucky if companies don't at least try to release their software under UCITA provisions. Are best bet is to hope that for comercial software some companies will recognise a market for non-UCITA software and provide for that market. But with the current state of the computer industry that seems unlikly. There just aren't that many software companies for critical stuff.
All the more reason to use OpenSource... Maybe this could end up being a big boost to OpenSource? Lets hope so...
The Internet Worm is a lot more fuzzy. Robert Morris could arguably not have intended the damage that he caused by his programmign mistakes. Basically border-line criminal negligence causing death vs. first-degree murder. Mitnick did intend to break in and cause trouble, it's far harder to justify stealing passwords. OTOH in both cases the "criminal" can still become a productive member of society. Robert Morris has, IMO it's only a matter of time before Mitnick does.
Now it is my belief that anyone who engages in any criminal acts should not be praised for what they did, and they certainly shouldn't be allowed to make any money from it. After all, look at the outrage when a serial killer or murderer writes a book and publishes it. But when it's Kevin Mitnick, "information hero",/.ers are full of outrage when he's not allowed to make money from his infamy.
And when exactly do you draw the line? Should we not allow criminals to write books about their experiences? Those books may be very insightfull, interesting, valuable. But those criminals will profit from them. So what should we do? Force them to not write those books? Take away any money they make from them? Give them a fair share? Mitnick is making quite a lot of money from his lectures. But why should his punishment preclude that sort of activity? Again he is providing insightfull, interesting etc. lectures. After all if he's being payed so much they've got to be good!
Actions such as these can only serve to prevent criminals from getting their lives back. These lectures provide Mitnick a source of money and the ability to do something good with his experiences. Why shouldn't we allow this?
These sorts of actions are quite common. Here in Canada there was a big fuss over criminals being allowed to publish, and profit, from books that they had written about their experiences. Mitnick being forced off the lecture circuit in just another example of that sort of thing. Already Mitnick isn't even allowed to use such basic technology as cellphones, bank machines, etc. Let alone computers. This sort of action seems designed to do one thing, distroy his life. These days more and more people are crying out for "kill the basterd" sentencing. This is just another example of this trend.
During the trial the judge was often visibly angry at MS due to falsified evidence and other lies. If anything this may be one of the biggest reasons almost all of the DOJ's case was found to be true.
Default passwords are a security hole. Users will forget to change them and when you are installing a system with 5 bazillion different software packages on them (not a good idea in it'self but people will do that) you'll never find all of the default passwords lieing around.
Blaming the user won't help. Like it or not not everyone using Linux is a expert. And the experts will still make mistakes anyway, why tempt fate?
Read the MSNBC artical. If want a look at MS spin-doctoring this is a perfect example of it! Many of MS's apps have default passwords too. Recently a bunch of ecommerce sites were found to have not reset the default passwords on all of their MS software. If a default password is called a backdoor then MS has 5 times as many!
Why support the Tivo at all then? If they aren't going to be nice then they can forget my business. By spending the time to reverse engineer a closed platform you will could up just supporting it if there are alternatives. Isn't there another more open device that could fufill your needs? If so why not use it.
The big reason for the declining crime rate is that the 60's and 70's were a period of social unrest. *Of course* they had a big spike in crime rates then. What do you expect with all of that and lots of younger people to boot?
You're dad may not have shot anyone. But what about general effects? You have to do proper controlled and scientific studies designed to find cause and effect relationships to be able to say that.
Those studies BTW have never been done on smoking due to ethical reasons. This is one of the main beefs the tabacco industry has had... Of course the fact that getting rats to smoke always game them cancer didn't deter them!
The first study just found a link between violent games and violent behavoir. However a link doesn't mean that violent games cause violent behavoir. It's quite common for people to confuse these two. Just because something is associated with something else doesn't mean that that something caused something else. Floods and rain are linked, but you wouldn't say that floods caused rain!
The second study looks at very short term effects that lasted a matter of minutes. No-one has done any proper studies to look at this. IE you get a two groups of kids, encourage one group to play violent games, watch violent TV etc. while do nothing with the other group. Then as they grow up watch their behavoir. Unfortunatly these sort of studies cost huge amounts of money and take a very long time to complete. But they are the gold standard.
Now what would happen if such a study was done and showed a definit cause and effect between violent games and TV and violent behavoir? Well I'll put it this way, good luck keeping Doom legal!
I'll make a guess that friction isn't implemented. After all how many times does a big, fat, explosives filled space ship hit another big, fat and explosives filled space ship and servive?
If you closed your average downtown New York highschool for a week to remove aspestos the kids there would have a higher chance of being injured or killed from simply being out on the streets of New York then from the aspestos. Of course this has been done before, but what did ya expect?
Slashdot Mirror
This sort of practice is some of the worst stuff that you can do. The problem with all of this data collection isn't always what they get right, it's what they get wrong. Just imagine the fallout you would get if someone with the same name as you, not very unlikely, was mistaken for you? Sure you can compare email addresses etc. But why would you want to trust that the people doing these sorts of searches will get it right? Stuff like this is just plain dangerous...
In the sequels the biology is that of a alien world. Why should it be anything like our biology?
But would it make a good book? Most novels leave things untold once everything has been said and done. But I'll bet that if they didn't you would be essentially reading a historical account, interesting but not really that good.
In chapter 3 there is a reference to "standard 2-byte format" as the standard character code. Unicode uses 2 bytes per letter doesn't it? Looks like Orson Scott Card has been doing quite a bit of research...
Notice how all the email addresses look like normal email addresses, but not quite? Such as Carlotta%agape@vatican.net/orders/sisters/ind? I wonder what sort of systems are they running in the book...
First note that most kernels, Linux espessially, use lots of goto's for performence reasons.
Secondly the Linux networking code has been completely rewritten 2 or 3 times now. If it's spaghetti it's very quickly eaten spaghetti. :)
I've done a quick look at the latest version of glibc. It looks pretty well thought out (everything cleanly seperated by architecture with default backups should a feature not exist) but I only spent 10 minutes on it so I really can't comment much.
I've spent about 4 hours studying the bison parser in GCC. (I'm working on a very simple compiler as part of another project, Corporate Raiders) While I've never made a compiler, or really any advanced programming before, I still could follow the general gist of how the parser worked, enough that I was able to use some of the way it worked in my compiler.
I've never seen GCC crash in all the time I've used it. If it's a mess then it sure is well working mess!
One example of some very well designed software is the Shuttle OS that powers NASA's Space Shuttle. In 420k lines of code each revision has only had 1 bug each that wasn't caught by testing. If we *really* want to make some good software it wouldn't be a bad idea to take these lessons to heart. OpenSource software is already good, lets make it better. Full artical here.
The vast majority *is* crap. But the stuff that is important, libc, the Linux kernel, GCC etc. isn't. If you look at Windows there is lots of third party software that is complete junk. The case is the same with Linux. But the "big stuff" is all big *because* it's good, well designed software. OpenSource can produce crap, anyone armed with a compiler (standard on most UNIX's) can produce utter junk. But will that junk be used? Will anyone even know it exists? Of course not.
Both OpenSource and Closed Source development can produce junk software. And both can produce great software.
Why do I get the feeling this problem isn't just found in OpenSource projects? Zillions of programms, both free and commercial, are badly designed from the start. Many more could be well designed if only they didn't have to worry about backward compatibility. (probably one of the biggest problems for Windows right now...) The Big Ball of Mud architecture isn't uncommon by any means. And it's not a problem that only OpenSource faces.
Don't buy stuff from UCITA bound companies eh? Good luck! The advantages that using UCITA laws give are so great that we're going to be lucky if companies don't at least try to release their software under UCITA provisions. Are best bet is to hope that for comercial software some companies will recognise a market for non-UCITA software and provide for that market. But with the current state of the computer industry that seems unlikly. There just aren't that many software companies for critical stuff.
All the more reason to use OpenSource... Maybe this could end up being a big boost to OpenSource? Lets hope so...
The Internet Worm is a lot more fuzzy. Robert Morris could arguably not have intended the damage that he caused by his programmign mistakes. Basically border-line criminal negligence causing death vs. first-degree murder. Mitnick did intend to break in and cause trouble, it's far harder to justify stealing passwords. OTOH in both cases the "criminal" can still become a productive member of society. Robert Morris has, IMO it's only a matter of time before Mitnick does.
Now it is my belief that anyone who engages in any criminal acts should not be praised for what they did, and they certainly shouldn't be allowed to make any money from it. After all, look at the outrage when a serial killer or murderer writes a book and publishes it. But when it's Kevin Mitnick, "information hero", /.ers are full of outrage when he's not allowed to make money from his infamy.
And when exactly do you draw the line? Should we not allow criminals to write books about their experiences? Those books may be very insightfull, interesting, valuable. But those criminals will profit from them. So what should we do? Force them to not write those books? Take away any money they make from them? Give them a fair share? Mitnick is making quite a lot of money from his lectures. But why should his punishment preclude that sort of activity? Again he is providing insightfull, interesting etc. lectures. After all if he's being payed so much they've got to be good!
Actions such as these can only serve to prevent criminals from getting their lives back. These lectures provide Mitnick a source of money and the ability to do something good with his experiences. Why shouldn't we allow this?
These sorts of actions are quite common. Here in Canada there was a big fuss over criminals being allowed to publish, and profit, from books that they had written about their experiences. Mitnick being forced off the lecture circuit in just another example of that sort of thing. Already Mitnick isn't even allowed to use such basic technology as cellphones, bank machines, etc. Let alone computers. This sort of action seems designed to do one thing, distroy his life. These days more and more people are crying out for "kill the basterd" sentencing. This is just another example of this trend.
During the trial the judge was often visibly angry at MS due to falsified evidence and other lies. If anything this may be one of the biggest reasons almost all of the DOJ's case was found to be true.
portman grits ninja
blah!
Default passwords are a security hole. Users will forget to change them and when you are installing a system with 5 bazillion different software packages on them (not a good idea in it'self but people will do that) you'll never find all of the default passwords lieing around.
Blaming the user won't help. Like it or not not everyone using Linux is a expert. And the experts will still make mistakes anyway, why tempt fate?
Read the MSNBC artical. If want a look at MS spin-doctoring this is a perfect example of it! Many of MS's apps have default passwords too. Recently a bunch of ecommerce sites were found to have not reset the default passwords on all of their MS software. If a default password is called a backdoor then MS has 5 times as many!
Why support the Tivo at all then? If they aren't going to be nice then they can forget my business. By spending the time to reverse engineer a closed platform you will could up just supporting it if there are alternatives. Isn't there another more open device that could fufill your needs? If so why not use it.
The big reason for the declining crime rate is that the 60's and 70's were a period of social unrest. *Of course* they had a big spike in crime rates then. What do you expect with all of that and lots of younger people to boot?
It's only natural for crime rates to fall.
You're dad may not have shot anyone. But what about general effects? You have to do proper controlled and scientific studies designed to find cause and effect relationships to be able to say that.
Those studies BTW have never been done on smoking due to ethical reasons. This is one of the main beefs the tabacco industry has had... Of course the fact that getting rats to smoke always game them cancer didn't deter them!
The first study just found a link between violent games and violent behavoir. However a link doesn't mean that violent games cause violent behavoir. It's quite common for people to confuse these two. Just because something is associated with something else doesn't mean that that something caused something else. Floods and rain are linked, but you wouldn't say that floods caused rain!
The second study looks at very short term effects that lasted a matter of minutes. No-one has done any proper studies to look at this. IE you get a two groups of kids, encourage one group to play violent games, watch violent TV etc. while do nothing with the other group. Then as they grow up watch their behavoir. Unfortunatly these sort of studies cost huge amounts of money and take a very long time to complete. But they are the gold standard.
Now what would happen if such a study was done and showed a definit cause and effect between violent games and TV and violent behavoir? Well I'll put it this way, good luck keeping Doom legal!
I'll make a guess that friction isn't implemented. After all how many times does a big, fat, explosives filled space ship hit another big, fat and explosives filled space ship and servive?
If you closed your average downtown New York highschool for a week to remove aspestos the kids there would have a higher chance of being injured or killed from simply being out on the streets of New York then from the aspestos. Of course this has been done before, but what did ya expect?