"... using the word 'free' to describe any Apple products in a prominent manner."
Why would anyone do such a thing? Apple's seems to have put extreme effort into their proprietary products and services with the express purpose of keeping the idea of freedom furthest from my mind. Why anyone would attribute to them the honorable designation of "free" is beyond my ability to comprehend.
I encourage all in my home to be brave, and teach them all how to live under the full freedom afforded them in this land of free. Truly, to sign away any freedoms via Apple's EULA for a bit of entertainment or convenience is not the American way.
I live by the words, "Live free or die," It's clear to me that Apple does not -- otherwise the choice they have made is obvious and grim.
No. I know perfectly well how networks work. I know that 1000 to 1500 bytes of data is a mere fraction of a movie or a song. I know that I would be able to take this fractional part of such a copyrighted work and use it under the fair-use provisions, including the distribution of it to my neighbors. I know that following this logic, a bittorrent file sharing system should be able to simply claim fair use on any movie or song download (following the letter of the law), especially if only a single packet (1000 to 1500 bytes in length), or a very small portion of the whole is obtained via each peer. I know that the copyright lawmakers could not have foreseen this technology. I know that if more people had "printing presses" in their homes than did not (as we do now in the US) that the copyright laws would have been written very very differently.
I know that this bittorrent example is ridiculous because it does not follow the spirit of the current copyright laws.
I know that Monarchies and Dictatorships predate copyright law. I know that slavery was once legal. I know that Jim Crow was once a law. I also know that copyright laws do exist, and yet any oppressive law can be abolished because they are merely allowed not required. Furthermore, I know that laws themselves are simply mental machines that exert no force and have no power other than that which we allow them to exert.
I also know that those ancient laws no longer make sense -- That publishers have extracted a high penalty from the common man who allegedly infringes, yet when a the publishers themselves are sued they call such high penalties "outrageous", "impossibly high", and seek a much lower penalty for themselves -- the very ones the laws should most restrict and penalize, since they have the most power and actually seek to monetize their infringements.
I know that as an author and artist and creator of software, it is not necessary to wield suits of alleged copyright infringement in order to make money. I know that the works I've created under licenses that nullify the copyright laws have earned me more wealth than those produced under a strict "all rights reserved" license have.
I know that when I build a house or fix a car, I am only paid for my labors, not for the effects my labors have upon others' continued use. I know that being paid only when you work is even more rewarding than working once and trying to get people to pay for that labor multiple times via threat of copyright and DRM infringement lawsuits.
I know that basic economic principals reduce prices to zero as they become infinitely available. I know that many people see artificial scarcity as artificial as it is. I know that an electronic copy has many properties above and beyond that of the physical world, and that it is foolish to restrict them as if they did not. I know that free flowing of ideas, communication, knowledge and culture is the foundation of the human race -- to which we owe our very society and laws. I know that to outlaw or restrict the flow of information, knowledge, communication, ideas or culture is to deny our human natures, and that laws which provide such restrictions are the tools of a police state!
What I do not know is if you have any experience publishing your own works sans copy restrictions. What I do not know is how a scientists, or any rational being for that matter, would call you qualified to make the argument for copyright, if you have never lived without it.
As a 6 year old boy I black-mailed my parents into subscribing to scientific journals and magazines (discovered via articles referencing them I read in the library). Ethics be damned, I knew all about many of their embarrassing secrets, esp. their gossip of others -- Someone had to take charge of my learning. In their ignorance, they couldn't see the value in feeding a young mind's thirst for knowledge with anything other than Sesame Street, Legos and 3-2-1 Contact. Money was not the issue, I saw many purchases attributed to leisure, and offered to give up my own current & future toys in exchange for knowledge.
I eventually came to respect my parents, but not until they had respected me as sentient member of the family (not an unquestionably obedient pet to be amused with mere toys). "Because I told you to, and I'm your Parent!", was never a logical argument -- It was tyrannical, and I revolted as any free-thinker would to tyranny. They eventually learned that respectfully explained commands worked far better: "Go to bed early so that you'll be refreshed, we have an earlier schedule than normal tomorrow morning." or "Go to your room, I'm upset enough to be irrational!" or "Mom and Dad need some alone time -- could you go play outside or at the neighbors?"
Perhaps having to explain yourself to a child is outrageous -- I say that to do otherwise is to foster ignorance, misunderstanding and thus irrational anger.
For my initial "insolence" and "ungrateful" attitude I suffered copious amounts of corporal punishment (it had little to no effect on my mind -- only reasoning did), but my unlucky parents suffered too under the burden of psychological warfare as I pitted one side against the other; Eg. placing Dad's porno under Mom's pillow, or putting things from Dad's wallet into Mom's purse -- there are so many little things that irritate adults.
My parents finally came to realize that they should also be grateful that they didn't have to talk down to me, or worry about censoring the world for me -- I knew what not to say and when not to say it, and right from wrong because they told me these things. They became grateful that they could simply say: "Sorry, that's too expensive, or dangerous I won't change my mind", and I would understand -- instead of arguing, whining, or throwing a temper-tantrum in public as other children sometimes do.
If you are of a strong scientific mind and high intellect: Toss out everything you know of the parent / child roles. Treat your children as you would like them to treat you, or as adults treat each other -- With respect. If they disrespect you, discipline them, but if you disrespect them, they will discipline you (what do you think an embarrassing fit of kicking and screaming is?).
A wife would be outraged at being sent to her room by a Husband, or vise versa. -- Indeed it may be best at times to calm down after a bit of distance and time, tell your children this, they will be less prone to irritate you if they can tell what's irritating. Oft times the whole issue can be avoided with a bit of communication: "Please stop that, I don't like it when you do that." You do not have to abandon your role as parent -- "Trust me, son, I can't explain why but you shouldn't do that" or "I need you to do this for me..."
Scientists beware -- Your genes may cause you to spawn a "monster" such as me -- A thirsty mind frustrated by its role as a child.
The apps were not "Infected" by the droid dream malware -- This would mean that malware was wandering around, infiltrating developer machines and the Marketplace itself... No. Instead, said malware payload was purposefully introduced to innocuous looking apps -- similar to the gift of a poison apple, or a Statuesque Wooden Horse Gift.
Hint: Legit app with "malware dropped into them." describes a malware infection about as well as Stigmata describes the actions of a depressed wrist slitter.
Apparently, the sex-censors have illegalized the word: Trojans. Either that, or the submitter is a moron.
I suspect rather that Oracle didn't have the ability, willingness, or the guts to revise the source code licensing/assignment restrictions put in place by Sun Microsystems. And maybe they would have liked to, but could not legally resolve the assignments with a change to a more open license.
No. Contributors to OO.org had to assign their copyright to Sun/Oracle, EXPRESSLY SO THEY COULD EASILY change the source code license at will...
LibreOffice does not require any copyright assignment, so if they want to switch licenses they better do it before it becomes infeasible to request permission from all the copyright holding contributors.
FTFAQ:
Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to developers?
A: The Document Foundation sets out deliberately to be as developer friendly as possible. We do not demand that contributors share their copyright with us. People will gain status in our community based on peer evaluation of their contributions - not by who their employer is.
Source code can only flow one way, from OO.org to LibreOffice / Document foundation, not vise versa. OO.org has a disadvantage: Their competitor (LO) can gobble up their codebase, but OO.org can not -- Well, depending on if you can get the developer to assign copyright. (Haven't cared to read the new Apache license for OO.org, but if it still requires assignment, they're toast).
"Vortex Cortex told Slashdot 'There's a problem with the Doctor. He is the most famous character of the Doctor Who series and the most frequent, which means he is the most reliably triumphant protagonist in the universe.' "
If predictable story lines and characters are right out, then Who is left in?!
Heh, to me, this just looks like More of the same from MS: Standards!? We don't need no stinking standards! We don't have to be compatible with anyone! Everyone should be compatible with us!
You know why it's so damn hard to just make standards compliant websites / webapps, MICROSOFT's penchant for bucking the standards.
Fortunately there is a standard for OSs -- Posix. Get on board MS, or kill your hosts like the cancer you are.
FYI: So long as you have a C compiler for the platform, you can tweak it to make your programs run (I even have programs that utilize 64bit math and they run on 16 bit processors thanks to my compiler -- It's an abstraction layer), well, so long as you have source code...
MS wants to push out as few software releases as possible to support the most devices.
However, the only way you can do that in today's diverse market is if you A) stifle innovation and enforce hardware vendor lock-in. B) Your binaries are byte-code for a VM, and you release a native VM for each hardware platform, or C) The code is open source in order to support any arbitrary hardware via recompilng.
The most effective/managable strategy is if both B and C are true, and A is false. See: Android. FLOSS base with a VM to run the apps...
No need to produce a binary for each hardware platform if the hardware vendors can do it themselves.
Take note of MS's stance on this issue -- It is the path that all sufficiently complex closed source / proprietary software inevitably takes.
I can only hope that Anonymous exceeds their expectations. Right now, it looks like they think Anonymous is a threat they can crush. I dearly hope that it isn't. My government should be quaking in its boots at the thought of angering a significant minority of those it governs. "Government by consent of the governed." has meant far too little for far too long.
Don't worry, it's not a threat they can crush. It's a hydra. Cut off the head, two more angst filled teenagers replace them.
Well, considering cyber attack is now an act of war, HBGary, an unrelated 3rd party, attacks the privacy of Anonymous, they have every right to retaliate.
Does an obese cat in a giant hamster wheel count as a flywheel? No? What if I just hooked up a DC generator to it and dangled some liver on a stick? How many Watts could I get?
In my experience, 2.21 jigga-watts (depending on the viciousness of the large dog behind the cat).
After reaching an angular velocity of 88mph, you can send the device back in time to double your energy output -- The process yields unlimited Infinite energy (well, except for the limits of the world's production of meow-mix and cat-litter).
Dumber question: if one imagines a vast number of these flywheels buffering intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar at enough scale to power the US, will the flywheels slow the rotation of the Earth significantly?
... or speed it up depending on the direction of spin? Alternating directions in different units (turn every other unit upside-down?!) should combat this effect.
Just a quick Note: You only need the id=___ and pg=___ (book Id & page number) parameters to link to Google books (usually just everything before the second & character.
The discs do appear to be parallel to the ground so keep in mind that depending on which way they are spinning and which hemisphere they are in, the Coriolis effect will either help or hurt them.
Uhhhg. Depending on the direction of the disks' spin they are slowing or speeding our planet's rotation!
Look at all those copies. It's no wonder that our outdated copyright laws can't possibly keep up in the Information Age.
We couldn't obey those laws if we tried... How many copies traverse routers without license -- I've yet to see a web page that says:
Copyright (c) 2001, 2008-2010 Someone
Duplication of this content is expressly permitted via intermediary routers and information caching servers for the sole purpose of distributing this work to visitors of this website so long as these intermediary duplications are temporary -- destroyed after a period having a duration no longer than 72 hours.
Every last one of us commits contributory infringement via inducing the breach of copyright on our behalf...
Ironically, it seems that only works produced under the Free Software, Creative Commons, and Open Source copyright licenses can be legally transmitted simply because these licenses seek to reverse or nullify the restrictions granted by copyright. ("Copyleft -- all rights reversed.")
The founding fathers wrote that we should uphold the spirit of the laws they set forth -- Thus allowing old laws to remain relevant and sever their purpose instead of being twisted by time and interpretations of the letter of the law.
Copyright was allowed to exist for the benefit of the society as a whole. Now that it can not be upheld, and the society suffers its weight it should be abolished. How do you know the web page's copyright notice until you've already copied the page many times?!.
Copyright was intended to allow artists & authors to keep the greedy publishers at bay -- Now the greedy publishers use the law to harm the general public and the authors/artists. Additionally, with our own computers we are all elevated to the status of "publisher" or "distributor" when we should not have been, thus allowing the harsh law to ensnare us all when it was intended to restrict only a few.
The spirit of the law has been violated; We ignored the foresight of the founding fathers. Now we suffer in our arrogance.
Phone numbers (like 867-5309), IO.Com, Chat account numbers (like IRC, Skype, ICQ), Slashdot uid's; they all have something in common:
jurisdiction.
When you register something, you have no control over it but to administer it for a short while in the influence of the registrar perview.
All these registration systems build a false sense of commerce and security.
Tor, Meshnet, and Peer-to-peer networks are hated because they are devoid of the impulses that cause a registration to be necessary: and those are the limiting of your activities through regulation.
Thus says the person registered with the most famous of Slashdot handles.
It's lonely in no-where land... You can see the world but no one can see you. If anyone wanted to send you some data that you didn't first request, no one would know where to send it. I'd PM you on IRC, but you've no handle to speak of. I'd pick up the phone and ring you up from time to time, but you're unlisted. I'd invite you to my private server, but you've no email address to receive it. I'd ask around if anyone has heard how you're doing these days, but no one knows your name...
My mom refuses to ditch Windows despite nearly everyone else in my family (including grandparents) using Linux...
She's the only one that still gets malware -- the answer was simple: Windows Steady State -- Restores the state of the machine each boot!
...but, MS discontinued it. So, now the answer is simple: Run it in a VM. When a virus/malware/spyware "event" occurs ("I don't know how it happened, I didn't install ANYTHING" -- Yes you did Mom...), I pull the data into a duplicate of a known clean VM image, update the system, scan data for viruses and it's good as new.
Other family members using Linux still have loads of "free" stuff installed that they don't need (from the repositories), but at least it's not malware.
Hint: People want free stuff -- Give them an OS that has it easily available.
A Windows system can be set up to have the same security model as a Unix system, and this has been recommended by Microsoft for years. However, so many legacy applications expect "administrator" privileges in Windows that this is not the easiest thing to do.
OS X's Mandatory Access Controls are a port of TrustedBSD. They are used to sandbox selected services in OS X to improve security, but not widely deployed yet for userspace software. You can configure them yourself using the CLI or using a third party application like "Sandbox".
MS can not be secured to the same degree -- a simple.reg file can disable UAC without warning, disable 64bit driver signing, and install a root Certificate Authority. This Java Applet exploit (A variant of which I've found on US machines attacking US bank accounts) shows windows security for what it is -- an after thought, easily disabled.
Both OSX and Linux security are far superior IMO than Windows, but I do have working "root" level proof of concept exploits for all 3 -- reported, and unpatched (except Linux, it was patched less than 3 weeks after I notified the devs...)
Sometimes security is about diligence, not just forethought.
Wait till it has the popularity / market share of Windows... Then we'll talk.
It's a well known fact that crackers only crack what crackers own. As a white-hat hacker/cracker I had never discovered any exploit vectors on Mac OS or iOS -- I also never owned an under-powered/over-priced piece of Apple hardware... (Yes, I just bought a machine that has higher specs than any notebook Apple sells, for less than half the price of their inferior model... Quality? Major components are the same brand Apple uses.)
Now that I have a cross platform application to support, I have a couple of Apple development machines with OSX on them -- I find just as many "oops OS/App crashed" bugs for OSX than for Linux or Windows simply due to the fact that both Linux & OSX have many tools/libs in common, so any bug I find when coding that affects the external Linux libs may exist in the OSX libs too... The number of Windows vs Linux bugs I discover is about the same, maybe a smidge higher on the MS side.
Only difference is that when I report a Linux bug, I can (and usually do) submit proof of concept exploit code (for testing) and a patch that prevents it (unlike Apple or Microsoft OS specific bugs -- I only occasionally create proof of concept exploits, but can not submit any patch without source code).
Without fail the lib will be patched in a month or less (typically 1-2 weeks -- days!) or the Linux kernel is patched in the very next release (for binary distros -- for the source based distro I use the fix is working IMMEDIATELY). With MS, the average is 6 months to a year or never for a patch.
Of the 31 bugs I've reported to MS in the course of 9 years, 18 are still exploitable (even though they "rewrote everything" when they made Vista/7). Of the 25 bugs I've discovered in Linux over the past 10 years (4 of which also affect libs on OSX), 23 have been patched (one no longer applies, and with 3.0 kernel, I suspect the last exploit will be avoided too). Of the 10 bugs I've reported to Apple in the past two years, 6 are still exploitable (4 of which were FLOSS libs that were patched w/o Apple's input -- that's right, Apple hasn't fixed a single bug).
Others are not as scrupulous as myself -- I've been offered thousands of dollars by black-hats/script-kiddies for just a few of my OSX exploits, only hundreds for the Windows exploits (high supply & demand), and none for the Linux exploits (they get patched too soon to be worth much -- Yes some of these do apply to servers where Linux has a large market share, so the "no one uses Linux" argument does not apply, esp in Sony's case).
Clearly there is demand for OSX exploits, and it is only a matter of time they approach MS like levels: Every OS is exploitable! -- Let's hope they adopt a good update policy (more like Linux than Windows), but at this point I wouldn't hold my breath...
We are screening for automatons when we should be screening for thinkers.
Please tell me how you can efficiently screen for this.
Simple, Take a page from software development. When I've interviewed applicants I ask them to write a bit of code -- so, of course, to screen for medical skills we just ask them to perform the duties required in their craft: Namely: pack as many patients into a schedule as possible, spend as little time with each patient as possible, prescribe the drugs the pharmasalesman just raved about in their pitch, and rape patients' insurance companies to help pay for their own insurance against costly malpractice suits.
If they can do this, and also have the "next-please" speed handwriting that results in pure hen-scratch on prescription pads & charts -- They're a shoe in!
Slashdot Mirror
"... using the word 'free' to describe any Apple products in a prominent manner."
Why would anyone do such a thing? Apple's seems to have put extreme effort into their proprietary products and services with the express purpose of keeping the idea of freedom furthest from my mind. Why anyone would attribute to them the honorable designation of "free" is beyond my ability to comprehend.
I encourage all in my home to be brave, and teach them all how to live under the full freedom afforded them in this land of free. Truly, to sign away any freedoms via Apple's EULA for a bit of entertainment or convenience is not the American way.
I live by the words, "Live free or die," It's clear to me that Apple does not -- otherwise the choice they have made is obvious and grim.
No. I know perfectly well how networks work. I know that 1000 to 1500 bytes of data is a mere fraction of a movie or a song. I know that I would be able to take this fractional part of such a copyrighted work and use it under the fair-use provisions, including the distribution of it to my neighbors. I know that following this logic, a bittorrent file sharing system should be able to simply claim fair use on any movie or song download (following the letter of the law), especially if only a single packet (1000 to 1500 bytes in length), or a very small portion of the whole is obtained via each peer. I know that the copyright lawmakers could not have foreseen this technology. I know that if more people had "printing presses" in their homes than did not (as we do now in the US) that the copyright laws would have been written very very differently.
I know that this bittorrent example is ridiculous because it does not follow the spirit of the current copyright laws.
I know that Monarchies and Dictatorships predate copyright law. I know that slavery was once legal. I know that Jim Crow was once a law. I also know that copyright laws do exist, and yet any oppressive law can be abolished because they are merely allowed not required. Furthermore, I know that laws themselves are simply mental machines that exert no force and have no power other than that which we allow them to exert.
I also know that those ancient laws no longer make sense -- That publishers have extracted a high penalty from the common man who allegedly infringes, yet when a the publishers themselves are sued they call such high penalties "outrageous", "impossibly high", and seek a much lower penalty for themselves -- the very ones the laws should most restrict and penalize, since they have the most power and actually seek to monetize their infringements.
I know that as an author and artist and creator of software, it is not necessary to wield suits of alleged copyright infringement in order to make money. I know that the works I've created under licenses that nullify the copyright laws have earned me more wealth than those produced under a strict "all rights reserved" license have.
I know that when I build a house or fix a car, I am only paid for my labors, not for the effects my labors have upon others' continued use. I know that being paid only when you work is even more rewarding than working once and trying to get people to pay for that labor multiple times via threat of copyright and DRM infringement lawsuits.
I know that basic economic principals reduce prices to zero as they become infinitely available. I know that many people see artificial scarcity as artificial as it is. I know that an electronic copy has many properties above and beyond that of the physical world, and that it is foolish to restrict them as if they did not. I know that free flowing of ideas, communication, knowledge and culture is the foundation of the human race -- to which we owe our very society and laws. I know that to outlaw or restrict the flow of information, knowledge, communication, ideas or culture is to deny our human natures, and that laws which provide such restrictions are the tools of a police state!
What I do not know is if you have any experience publishing your own works sans copy restrictions. What I do not know is how a scientists, or any rational being for that matter, would call you qualified to make the argument for copyright, if you have never lived without it.
"We're Broke, what should we do?!"
"Hmm, how about we 'extend' taxes online and piss off silicone valley?"
"OK, we'll extend the taxes, but you are not urinating on my tits!"
Why not just combat it with science? Stopping a storm or a tornado is simple, you just assume it's frame of reference.
My first word was "Light", not Mama or Dada.
As a 6 year old boy I black-mailed my parents into subscribing to scientific journals and magazines (discovered via articles referencing them I read in the library). Ethics be damned, I knew all about many of their embarrassing secrets, esp. their gossip of others -- Someone had to take charge of my learning. In their ignorance, they couldn't see the value in feeding a young mind's thirst for knowledge with anything other than Sesame Street, Legos and 3-2-1 Contact. Money was not the issue, I saw many purchases attributed to leisure, and offered to give up my own current & future toys in exchange for knowledge.
I eventually came to respect my parents, but not until they had respected me as sentient member of the family (not an unquestionably obedient pet to be amused with mere toys). "Because I told you to, and I'm your Parent!", was never a logical argument -- It was tyrannical, and I revolted as any free-thinker would to tyranny. They eventually learned that respectfully explained commands worked far better: "Go to bed early so that you'll be refreshed, we have an earlier schedule than normal tomorrow morning." or "Go to your room, I'm upset enough to be irrational!" or "Mom and Dad need some alone time -- could you go play outside or at the neighbors?"
Perhaps having to explain yourself to a child is outrageous -- I say that to do otherwise is to foster ignorance, misunderstanding and thus irrational anger.
For my initial "insolence" and "ungrateful" attitude I suffered copious amounts of corporal punishment (it had little to no effect on my mind -- only reasoning did), but my unlucky parents suffered too under the burden of psychological warfare as I pitted one side against the other; Eg. placing Dad's porno under Mom's pillow, or putting things from Dad's wallet into Mom's purse -- there are so many little things that irritate adults.
My parents finally came to realize that they should also be grateful that they didn't have to talk down to me, or worry about censoring the world for me -- I knew what not to say and when not to say it, and right from wrong because they told me these things. They became grateful that they could simply say: "Sorry, that's too expensive, or dangerous I won't change my mind", and I would understand -- instead of arguing, whining, or throwing a temper-tantrum in public as other children sometimes do.
If you are of a strong scientific mind and high intellect: Toss out everything you know of the parent / child roles. Treat your children as you would like them to treat you, or as adults treat each other -- With respect. If they disrespect you, discipline them, but if you disrespect them, they will discipline you (what do you think an embarrassing fit of kicking and screaming is?).
A wife would be outraged at being sent to her room by a Husband, or vise versa. -- Indeed it may be best at times to calm down after a bit of distance and time, tell your children this, they will be less prone to irritate you if they can tell what's irritating. Oft times the whole issue can be avoided with a bit of communication: "Please stop that, I don't like it when you do that." You do not have to abandon your role as parent -- "Trust me, son, I can't explain why but you shouldn't do that" or "I need you to do this for me..."
Scientists beware -- Your genes may cause you to spawn a "monster" such as me -- A thirsty mind frustrated by its role as a child.
The apps were not "Infected" by the droid dream malware -- This would mean that malware was wandering around, infiltrating developer machines and the Marketplace itself... No. Instead, said malware payload was purposefully introduced to innocuous looking apps -- similar to the gift of a poison apple, or a Statuesque Wooden Horse Gift.
Hint: Legit app with "malware dropped into them." describes a malware infection about as well as Stigmata describes the actions of a depressed wrist slitter.
Apparently, the sex-censors have illegalized the word: Trojans. Either that, or the submitter is a moron.
I suspect rather that Oracle didn't have the ability, willingness, or the guts to revise the source code licensing/assignment restrictions put in place by Sun Microsystems. And maybe they would have liked to, but could not legally resolve the assignments with a change to a more open license.
No. Contributors to OO.org had to assign their copyright to Sun/Oracle, EXPRESSLY SO THEY COULD EASILY change the source code license at will...
LibreOffice does not require any copyright assignment, so if they want to switch licenses they better do it before it becomes infeasible to request permission from all the copyright holding contributors. FTFAQ:
Q: What difference will The Document Foundation make to developers?
A: The Document Foundation sets out deliberately to be as developer friendly as possible. We do not demand that contributors share their copyright with us. People will gain status in our community based on peer evaluation of their contributions - not by who their employer is.
Source code can only flow one way, from OO.org to LibreOffice / Document foundation, not vise versa. OO.org has a disadvantage: Their competitor (LO) can gobble up their codebase, but OO.org can not -- Well, depending on if you can get the developer to assign copyright. (Haven't cared to read the new Apache license for OO.org, but if it still requires assignment, they're toast).
It's value level is OVER 9000!!!
At first, I thought the headline meant that the US Government was going to launch into thermonuclear world war...
"Vortex Cortex told Slashdot 'There's a problem with the Doctor. He is the most famous character of the Doctor Who series and the most frequent, which means he is the most reliably triumphant protagonist in the universe.' "
If predictable story lines and characters are right out, then Who is left in?!
Heh, to me, this just looks like More of the same from MS: Standards!? We don't need no stinking standards! We don't have to be compatible with anyone! Everyone should be compatible with us!
You know why it's so damn hard to just make standards compliant websites / webapps, MICROSOFT's penchant for bucking the standards.
Fortunately there is a standard for OSs -- Posix. Get on board MS, or kill your hosts like the cancer you are.
FYI: So long as you have a C compiler for the platform, you can tweak it to make your programs run (I even have programs that utilize 64bit math and they run on 16 bit processors thanks to my compiler -- It's an abstraction layer), well, so long as you have source code...
MS wants to push out as few software releases as possible to support the most devices.
However, the only way you can do that in today's diverse market is if you A) stifle innovation and enforce hardware vendor lock-in. B) Your binaries are byte-code for a VM, and you release a native VM for each hardware platform, or C) The code is open source in order to support any arbitrary hardware via recompilng.
The most effective/managable strategy is if both B and C are true, and A is false. See: Android. FLOSS base with a VM to run the apps...
No need to produce a binary for each hardware platform if the hardware vendors can do it themselves.
Take note of MS's stance on this issue -- It is the path that all sufficiently complex closed source / proprietary software inevitably takes.
I can only hope that Anonymous exceeds their expectations. Right now, it looks like they think Anonymous is a threat they can crush. I dearly hope that it isn't. My government should be quaking in its boots at the thought of angering a significant minority of those it governs. "Government by consent of the governed." has meant far too little for far too long.
Don't worry, it's not a threat they can crush. It's a hydra. Cut off the head, two more angst filled teenagers replace them.
1. This is ridiculous.
2. They are next.
Well, considering cyber attack is now an act of war, HBGary, an unrelated 3rd party, attacks the privacy of Anonymous, they have every right to retaliate.
Look at it this way -- PEARL HARBOR. WWII.
Does an obese cat in a giant hamster wheel count as a flywheel? No? What if I just hooked up a DC generator to it and dangled some liver on a stick? How many Watts could I get?
In my experience, 2.21 jigga-watts (depending on the viciousness of the large dog behind the cat).
After reaching an angular velocity of 88mph, you can send the device back in time to double your energy output -- The process yields unlimited Infinite energy (well, except for the limits of the world's production of meow-mix and cat-litter).
Dumber question: if one imagines a vast number of these flywheels buffering intermittent energy sources such as wind and solar at enough scale to power the US, will the flywheels slow the rotation of the Earth significantly?
... or speed it up depending on the direction of spin? Alternating directions in different units (turn every other unit upside-down?!) should combat this effect.
Just a quick Note: You only need the id=___ and pg=___ (book Id & page number) parameters to link to Google books (usually just everything before the second & character.
http://books.google.com/books?id=kgEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA41
Also you can make a link like this by doing this:
<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=kgEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA41"> this </a>
The discs do appear to be parallel to the ground so keep in mind that depending on which way they are spinning and which hemisphere they are in, the Coriolis effect will either help or hurt them.
Uhhhg. Depending on the direction of the disks' spin they are slowing or speeding our planet's rotation!
I feel obligated to link you here.
Look at all those copies. It's no wonder that our outdated copyright laws can't possibly keep up in the Information Age.
We couldn't obey those laws if we tried... How many copies traverse routers without license -- I've yet to see a web page that says:
Every last one of us commits contributory infringement via inducing the breach of copyright on our behalf...
Ironically, it seems that only works produced under the Free Software, Creative Commons, and Open Source copyright licenses can be legally transmitted simply because these licenses seek to reverse or nullify the restrictions granted by copyright. ("Copyleft -- all rights reversed.")
The founding fathers wrote that we should uphold the spirit of the laws they set forth -- Thus allowing old laws to remain relevant and sever their purpose instead of being twisted by time and interpretations of the letter of the law.
Copyright was allowed to exist for the benefit of the society as a whole. Now that it can not be upheld, and the society suffers its weight it should be abolished. How do you know the web page's copyright notice until you've already copied the page many times?!.
Copyright was intended to allow artists & authors to keep the greedy publishers at bay -- Now the greedy publishers use the law to harm the general public and the authors/artists. Additionally, with our own computers we are all elevated to the status of "publisher" or "distributor" when we should not have been, thus allowing the harsh law to ensnare us all when it was intended to restrict only a few.
The spirit of the law has been violated; We ignored the foresight of the founding fathers. Now we suffer in our arrogance.
Phone numbers (like 867-5309), IO.Com, Chat account numbers (like IRC, Skype, ICQ), Slashdot uid's; they all have something in common: jurisdiction.
When you register something, you have no control over it but to administer it for a short while in the influence of the registrar perview.
All these registration systems build a false sense of commerce and security.
Tor, Meshnet, and Peer-to-peer networks are hated because they are devoid of the impulses that cause a registration to be necessary: and those are the limiting of your activities through regulation.
Thus says the person registered with the most famous of Slashdot handles.
It's lonely in no-where land... You can see the world but no one can see you. If anyone wanted to send you some data that you didn't first request, no one would know where to send it. I'd PM you on IRC, but you've no handle to speak of. I'd pick up the phone and ring you up from time to time, but you're unlisted. I'd invite you to my private server, but you've no email address to receive it. I'd ask around if anyone has heard how you're doing these days, but no one knows your name...
Wrong illumni, you want aluminaughty; Just follow the metallic crinkling sound -- down the hall, too the left, first door into your own mind.
My mom refuses to ditch Windows despite nearly everyone else in my family (including grandparents) using Linux...
She's the only one that still gets malware -- the answer was simple: Windows Steady State -- Restores the state of the machine each boot!
Other family members using Linux still have loads of "free" stuff installed that they don't need (from the repositories), but at least it's not malware.
Hint: People want free stuff -- Give them an OS that has it easily available.
A Windows system can be set up to have the same security model as a Unix system, and this has been recommended by Microsoft for years. However, so many legacy applications expect "administrator" privileges in Windows that this is not the easiest thing to do.
OS X's Mandatory Access Controls are a port of TrustedBSD. They are used to sandbox selected services in OS X to improve security, but not widely deployed yet for userspace software. You can configure them yourself using the CLI or using a third party application like "Sandbox".
MS can not be secured to the same degree -- a simple .reg file can disable UAC without warning, disable 64bit driver signing, and install a root Certificate Authority. This Java Applet exploit (A variant of which I've found on US machines attacking US bank accounts) shows windows security for what it is -- an after thought, easily disabled.
Both OSX and Linux security are far superior IMO than Windows, but I do have working "root" level proof of concept exploits for all 3 -- reported, and unpatched (except Linux, it was patched less than 3 weeks after I notified the devs...)
Sometimes security is about diligence, not just forethought.
Wait till it has the popularity / market share of Windows... Then we'll talk.
It's a well known fact that crackers only crack what crackers own. As a white-hat hacker/cracker I had never discovered any exploit vectors on Mac OS or iOS -- I also never owned an under-powered/over-priced piece of Apple hardware... (Yes, I just bought a machine that has higher specs than any notebook Apple sells, for less than half the price of their inferior model... Quality? Major components are the same brand Apple uses.)
Now that I have a cross platform application to support, I have a couple of Apple development machines with OSX on them -- I find just as many "oops OS/App crashed" bugs for OSX than for Linux or Windows simply due to the fact that both Linux & OSX have many tools/libs in common, so any bug I find when coding that affects the external Linux libs may exist in the OSX libs too... The number of Windows vs Linux bugs I discover is about the same, maybe a smidge higher on the MS side.
Only difference is that when I report a Linux bug, I can (and usually do) submit proof of concept exploit code (for testing) and a patch that prevents it (unlike Apple or Microsoft OS specific bugs -- I only occasionally create proof of concept exploits, but can not submit any patch without source code).
Without fail the lib will be patched in a month or less (typically 1-2 weeks -- days!) or the Linux kernel is patched in the very next release (for binary distros -- for the source based distro I use the fix is working IMMEDIATELY). With MS, the average is 6 months to a year or never for a patch.
Of the 31 bugs I've reported to MS in the course of 9 years, 18 are still exploitable (even though they "rewrote everything" when they made Vista/7). Of the 25 bugs I've discovered in Linux over the past 10 years (4 of which also affect libs on OSX), 23 have been patched (one no longer applies, and with 3.0 kernel, I suspect the last exploit will be avoided too). Of the 10 bugs I've reported to Apple in the past two years, 6 are still exploitable (4 of which were FLOSS libs that were patched w/o Apple's input -- that's right, Apple hasn't fixed a single bug).
Others are not as scrupulous as myself -- I've been offered thousands of dollars by black-hats/script-kiddies for just a few of my OSX exploits, only hundreds for the Windows exploits (high supply & demand), and none for the Linux exploits (they get patched too soon to be worth much -- Yes some of these do apply to servers where Linux has a large market share, so the "no one uses Linux" argument does not apply, esp in Sony's case).
Clearly there is demand for OSX exploits, and it is only a matter of time they approach MS like levels: Every OS is exploitable! -- Let's hope they adopt a good update policy (more like Linux than Windows), but at this point I wouldn't hold my breath...
We are screening for automatons when we should be screening for thinkers.
Please tell me how you can efficiently screen for this.
Simple, Take a page from software development. When I've interviewed applicants I ask them to write a bit of code -- so, of course, to screen for medical skills we just ask them to perform the duties required in their craft: Namely: pack as many patients into a schedule as possible, spend as little time with each patient as possible, prescribe the drugs the pharmasalesman just raved about in their pitch, and rape patients' insurance companies to help pay for their own insurance against costly malpractice suits.
If they can do this, and also have the "next-please" speed handwriting that results in pure hen-scratch on prescription pads & charts -- They're a shoe in!