I didn't think so. I'm formally trained in niether psychology nor psychiatry, nor have I met Eric Yang; but I am a member of MENSA and a student of human behavior. I think I know a sociopath [slashdot.org] when I see one.
And DAMN you know how to pound your dick on the table to try and convince everyone you are right!
Being a student of behavior doesn't really make you any more qualified than anyone else to make the observation of if someone is a sociopath or not. And a MENSA membership doesn't qualify you either - which kinda makes me question your wisdom of posting that you are a MENSA member. Plus, anyway - 2% of the world can be a MENSA member. If you would have said you were a IQuadrivium member, I might have been more impressed;-) (only.1% of the world can qualify for that one. And there's ones with even more stringent restrictions on IQ - of course, there's certain problems with quantifying extremely high IQ's in the first place!)
In other words - please, if you are going to try and use something to prove your point, how about I dunno... use the wonderful ability to hyperlink to relavant information instead of trying to turn this into an "I'm smarter than you" style contest. More people listen when relevant information is presented, while attempting to make people believe you have a bigger dick really doesn't do anything but make people scoff at you, and totally disreguard your statements completely.
What's really IRONIC (damned if I'm not havin' some fun now!) about this is that you've claimed Eric Yang to be a sociopath. However, you've already exhibited at least one sign of a sociopath - excessive boasting. More likely than not based on your MENSA comment, you could also potentially have a second problem that's commonly exhibited: Grandiose sense of self-worth.
So quit callin' people names and flingin' terms when you think the ignorant masses don't really follow what you are saying. You might be surprised - a really large number of us are actually somewhat intellectual ourselves, and do know the definition and meaning of large words.
(Ok, I SWEAR - that's the only time I've ever used the term 'intellectual' attached to a group of people that includes myself. Sheesh.)
Yeah, let's look at the pilot for TOS. The very first one. Then the second one. Then we'll look at TNG's pilot.
Them people damned near had broom handles where ther spines were. The acting was INCREDIBLY stiff. No one knew their characters yet. In TOS, there wasn't even a 'mold' for that type of character yet (yes, there was Sci-fi stuff done before that, but just LOOK at it. EEEKS! Most of it was so bad it wasn't even worth it.) TNG they had something they could look towards for a model, but, none of the characters were really easily translated (Picard, for instance, couldn't be a remodled Kirk.) It wasn't until the second Season that TNG got to be very good, and continued to improve. TOS managed to 'get it' a little quicker, IMHO (Why? Dunno.) Give it time... they will grow into thier rolls, and make the characters live (heck, even the Voyager group managed THAT MUCH eventually. It took them almost the entier series to do it;-)
The vulcan was a hissing bitch during the first half, I thought count bakula wanted to cry several time, the plot was mediocre even by the standards of the crew that brought us voyager.
Well, considering that Archer already told her at thier first meeting he'd love to knock her on her ass, can you BLAME HER?;-)
On the Count Bakula comment, I've got no clue WTF you are talking about. Heck, he probably gave the best performance in the show. Which other actor showed much emotion on thier faces during the whole show? Not many, since they really don't know the character enough yet to really know what the character is thinking.
As for the plot - Ok, I'll give you a point for it being 'mediocre'. Comparied to the V word, naw - they already set the standard for what mediocre episodes are, and for bad episodes. ('Cept possibly "Spock's Brain" from TOS;-) It could have been better. I think alot of it was time spent trying to prove "Hey, this isn't the Trek Universe you are used to", and trying to set the stage for where the series is going to head in the future.
What amazes me is that no one seems to have gone back to the original ST series to see what made it great. It was daring culturally for its time and tried to present a complex cast of characters. Was it perfect? No. But the Berman vision of the future is a piece of plasticine crap undistinguished by any character motivation or deep emotion.
You say Scott Bakula looked like he was going to cry, but, then say there wasn't any emotion? Sheesh.
TOS didn't have much of a complex cast. It had 3 primary characters, and 5 lesser characters. Heck, Friends has almost that many characters. So far, Enterprise hasn't even had much of a chance to explore these characters.
And of course - when all else fails when flaming Trek, pull out the Berman card. Fine, I'll trump ya with a... shoot. Ok, I gotta admit - most of what Berman touches turns to shit. He's got the Septic Tank touch. But he's finally way from the V word - he's got the chance to break free. With ST:Borager, there was a trap - once it started a direction, it was DAMNED HARD (IMHO) to change that direction. Here he's got the chance at a clean slate to work from. Given the start here, it might actually work out. Personally, I think Enterprise is gonna ROCK starting about second season, once the writers, the actors, etc., finally get in tune with thier characters and the job at hand. But I could be wrong - it's too damned hard to tell just from one episode. Give it a season to work out the kinks, then check it out again if you don't like it so far.
If nothing else, tune in for time to time just to check out the latest advances in Vulcan anatomy...;-)
Second, didn't anyone else hear them say, "Polarize the hull plates!"? It's not the steel that's offline, but the polarization (early shield technology?) that was breaking down.
Forget it. Yer wasting your breath - some of the first people to start slammin' it were people who didn't really care in the first place. Some just WANT to hate this Trek as much as they hated Voyager (And, can ya blame 'em after that damned show? It almost got decent in the last season. Almost.) I heard exactly the same thing you did. So did everyone else, but some just gotta have something to bitch about.
Remember how it was supposedly the Vulcans that made First Contact with Earth after the first warp drive test? From the bit I saw (missed the first 1/2 hour:-/), it's the primitive race (Humans) chaifing under to tutalige of the advanced race (Vulcans). Not sure how much they'l be able to stretch out of that one, but it might make for some fresh material.
I agree - it's a much different perspective on things than the normal Trek setting for the last 3 shows where Humans and Vulcans are considered 'equal'. Plus, I see something very cool about this - while the Vulcans seem to have tried to protect us from ourselves based on what we've seen so far, we aren't beyond going off half cocked, and really screwing things up. I really expect to see this happen a couple of times within the series.
The other thing I see comming is how the Prime Directive finally gets created. So far, it doesn't exist. Humans can't really understand how come the Vulcans would hold back technology from us. We finally break free of the yoke somewhat, and go out on our own. Eventually, we're gonna find another species that is SO CLOSE to making it to warp technolgy, and we'll hand it to them. Then watch them have it blow up in thier face (yes, there was a Voyager a bit like that in the last season. One of the few almost likable episodes, but, it was too easily resolved for my tastes. Like most Voyager episodes. A hangnail is more of a problem than most of thier moral delimas.) After we see that happen, we'll probably start to understand the Vulcan mindset concerning the subject, and the Prime Directive will eventually created.
If fact, that Humans CAN and WILL totally screw up from time to time in this show is going to be one of my favorite things about it. 'Bout time we show ourselves for what we really are - flawed beings, who learn to adapt and overcome our problems eventually. (Ok, that's the rose colored glasses version;-)
The theme song....well, it's better then most other tv shows, but PALES when you compare it to DS9 or Voyager or any other Star Trek. Also, I feel there's too much past stuff being show in the opening sequence and not enough stuff from that 100 years since First Contact. Yeah the history is important, but not for this show. They need a different opening with more beauty shots of the NX-01.
I liked the theme song. I'm not a huge Rod Stewart fan, but, it's a song that I've liked from before the series. I do think it matches the situation perfectly. However, I do hope that after the first season or so, they ditch it for something else instead (else, I'm gonna get reallllly sick of it.;-) Something like B5's evolving intro would be nice over the next couple of seasons.
Anyway - the real point of my post. I did see where they were going with the intro, and it's pretty cool when you think about it. This series is supposed to be closer to where we are now, so, they show us a very very quick synopsis of how we got to where we are now, and showed something very pivitol from our currend day setting - the ISS being built, piece by piece. Then they show ISS being used as a launching platform for something that familiar to those of us who follow space development (and still familiar enough to those who don't, but have seen the shuttle.) From there, it's only three more images to the shot of the Enterprise flashing past the screen. They showed us how far we've come, and made it seem like that from this perspective, we've got a very short distance left to make it to where 'There' (the show) is. It's no longer deeply removed from us, like TNG or Voyager is.
And for the record - I hated Voyager. But I think this show is gonna friggin' ROCK when it gets past the first season!
The intro song has, for the first time, WORDS! This was startling and disappointing, until I found myself liking the song. Anyone heard it before?
I haven't seen the show yet (I'll be watching it in the theater tonight. Yes, theater - one of the local stations made a deal with a local place to show it on the big screen - COOL!), but, I've seen the intro - the song is Rod Stewart's "Faith Of The Heart". Not typically my style, but, it fits the concept of Enterprise fairly well, and is one of his better works.
The odd thing is that many fans feel the third season of TOS is best, which was after Gene backed off a little and had help.
Third season has some good episodes, but it also contains some of the worst. Does "Spock's Brain" ring a bell? (I can HEAR the groans of most TOS fans from here just at the mention of the episode!) But I kinda wonder if it was Gene letting go of his baby a bit, or if it had more to do with the character development occuring naturally (as with TNG, etc.), and with the writers finally learning a bit of what worked, and taking the time to get some consistency and deeper work into it.
I thought other slashdotter's would like to see the opposite, a site short on promise and long on potential, and heck, even has video of rocket platform crashes and stuff. Content-free Carmack's site is not.
I'll absolutely agree with you on this point. Carmack's site doesn't have much for fancy graphics, etc - but, then again, Carmack's site doesn't have to deal with something very important to TransOrbital, Inc. Investors, and even more importantly, Customers. JC has quite a bit of money to start with, and they are taking what could be considered a somewhat low-tech approach. (BTW: Thanks to the pointer to Carmack's site - I've never looked at it before. Spent about 10 minutes reading the various reports from the site before I responded to your first post.) Thier group really doesn't HAVE to post what they've been up to online, and do it mainly to tell people what they've been up to, etc. It's not a heavily commercial venture (but, if they start tossing people into orbit, that might change;-).
TransOrbital has got to do everything possible to impress investors and potential customers. They litterally have to promise them the moon. Comparing the two is almost, but not quite, comparing apples and oranges.
I thought other slashdotter's would like to see the opposite, a site short on promise and long on potential, and heck, even has video of rocket platform crashes and stuff. Content-free Carmack's site is not. I guess my thing is: which advances commercial spacetravel -- which is the real point here -- more; some CGI pictures of an unmanned lunar lander, or real people working on real rocketry that aren't burning money on press-releases and pretty pictures. And the pictures aren't even that pretty.
Much appreciated for the alternate point of view. But your original post come across more as a troll than a serious "Hey guys - take a look at this. These guys are actually getting somewere." Sometimes it's in the presentation:-) (Speaking of presentation - damn you are right about thier CG pictures. Those could use some serious improvement.)
There's more than one road to the stars right now. All three have players now. There's government - NASA, and agencies in other countries. There's groups like the RocketMan and JC's group. Then there's commercial groups. Each has to conduct themselves according to how thier missions are geared - for instance, JC & Co. don't have to worry about glossy press releases, while TransOrbital has to spend the money on them to sell products and services. Personally, I'm happy to see players in all three fields. It's a good sign that commericalization of space is gonna happen. The interest level is there, and there's now enough people trying different things to actually make shit happen.
One more thought - ya know, after reading JC's page, I hope some of the TransOrbital people read this thread. I'd like to see pictures, and log entries like JC's group does. I can see where someone might question where constructions of the modules are at when you can't actually SEE any progress.
So the question becomes: if someone is in the race for the moon, but never even makes it to orbit, is the race really that interesting to follow? I guess we'll see come '4th quarter 2001'...
They never said THEY were launching it themselves with thier own technology. They just said they were going to be the first to the moon. That changes the race considerably - it's not that hard just to slap that puppy up there with someone else's tech, then depend on your own to get it the rest of the way.:-)
I was about to respond to this article, but Slashdot broke and wouldn't accept any postings and wouldn't let me log in for several minutes. Then, it continually timed out. Apache? Ha!
Don't blame it on Apache - it's more likely that it's either the database server, or Slashcode throwing a fit again (probably the former, not the later.) Ever since thier last upgrade, the system seems to be a bit flakey at times - sometimes for hours, sometimes for a couple o' minutes.
And if it WAS Apache - well, why would it still be serving webpages?:-)
Forget these losers. I think JC will beat slick marketing anytime. If anybody is going into orbit first, my money is on him. Check out Carmack's rocket site:
That's nice, but, Transorbital isn't doing the race to orbit - they have thier sights set higher. Instead, they are shooting for the first commercial landing on the moon. I should put the obligatory RTFA comment here, but, instead I'll give ya a quick rundown - instead of trying to put someone in orbit, they are shooting for putting a lander on the moon. Unmanned, and you can do things like get pictures of your business card setting on the moon, plus they are planning on shooting some video, etc. Not what I'd call high-excitement stuff, but, at least someone is doing something with the moon:-)
So, in this case, Carmack isn't competing with them, unlike the $10 million prize...
There's a problem with your idea that they should have taken "more risk" in finding people. To start off with, as horible it is to say this, most of the people in the main buildings were instant pancakes - they had a 5,000 ton building fall on them. Most of the rescue workers seem to know this, based on reports (but that doesn't mean they give up looking.) There's very little hope of having found survivors - even finding an intact body is rather difficult most of the time (again, basing this on stuff comming out of there that I've read.) But, it's something they are risking thier lives to do - it's bad enough that some rescuers took to doing things like writing thier name and SSN# on thier arms, in case they do get killed. If they take any more risks, the loss of life gets even higher for the rescuers. There have already been a couple of incidents (firemen falling down into a deep pit is a good example - luckly, none were injured to badly.) There's just too little hope of survivors. As for citequing thier methods - well, when you go down there and start picking up concrete and steel looking for survivors, I'll be more impressed with your expertise.
The underground areas are already being worked on. There's also been some reports from that area that I've read - yes, they are trying the underground areas already, and have been since the first day. Fucking gruesom. The stench alone would be enough to make most people incapable of working in there.
Or any other form of auto-updater. Remember, Code Red and Nimda used holes that were patched months ago.
No way - this is a very bad solution for security. While at first this would seem to be an absolutely good idea, in reality there's a number of really nasty security problems here.
First, it convinces you to be lax about security. I mean, if the Auto-updater is handling the job, you probably won't check it out too closely since it's not nessisary. But with patches sometimes comes new holes, and new procedures for properly securing a box. These are jobs that require human intervention.
Second, a new class of exploit comes along - using whatever proceedure you can make work, upload a new patch to the ftp server with some less than obvious holes in it. Sure, someone is going to spot it - maybe hours, maybe a couple of days, but it WILL get spotted. As admin, will you know if your box was one that grabbed the bad stuff? (Note, I said upload it to the ftp server, that's not the only exploit - various redirection techniques could be used too.) If tons of people moved to the auto-update idea, there'd be the potential for a lot of exploited boxen quickly.
And third, there's the issue of reviewing patches / updates. Sure, lots of people have viewed them. If it's security related, you should be viewing them too, or at minimum the 'readme' or equivalant.
Fourth, what update time are you planning? Once a month? Once a week? Daily? If it's less than daily, then you've got a problem - of you do grab a buggy version, that gives someone time to attack. And if it's a week before you check again, that means they've got pleanty of time to use your machine as a base to launch more attacks from. Plus, once they have the machine, you may only THINK you are still doing updates;-) (It's always better from the attacker's standpoint to make things seem just fine and dandy:-P )
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be added to this list - this is just the problems off the top of my head. But those problems alone are enough to really screw things up.
maybe that should be a standard service? add the ports exploited to tarpit.rc..
of course that wouldn't solve much but it would be something to start with.
You are right - next time, the worm author might do something different just to make sure LaBrea isn't nearly as effective. For instance, by keeping track of how long it's taken to do it's job, the worm may just abort the thread if it takes, say, 20 seconds to send over part one of the exploit. LaBrea becomes a small slowdown then.
There's not a 'real' answer to stoping worms and the sort, except for administrator vigilance. No matter what OS you use as a server platform (or a mix of things, like my network), ya gotta be quick with the patches and vigilant with security.
As for reversing attacks, etc - there's some severe problems there. You are attacking someone else's hardware - even if the script kiddie may be controling it, they may be on someone else's machine doing it remotely. screw up that person's box, and you might have a problem. (Of course, there's other ethical issues here - I'd really like to just view it all as 'self defense' when you throw an attack back at an attacker online. Unluckly, there's no real presidence for that, I'm not sure there should be!)
This virus isn't affecting just IIS servers.. it's being spread by all Windows computers.
This is correct, really. After a machine either: a) visits a webserver that's been infected or b) reads an email that was infected it then becomes an infection vector it's self. No, there's no admin.dll - that's only on NT/2K servers, not user workstations.
One I got had the subject "ware\Microsoft\Windo,b4 ü4desktopdesktop". It looks like it (the virus) has a pointer error and their subject isn't what they were expecting it to be.
That, or it just grabs something at almost random and tosses it out there. I've had one today that says "desktopdesktopdesktopdesktopdesktop..." etc.
I've been hit by more than a dozen servers starting this morning. My little 1.2MB adsl line is hurting:(
Yer ADSL line - jesus, I'm running a small corporate network with an ISDN line (no DSL available), and this poor thing has been just saturated with incomming traffic (of course, the machines here aren't vulnerable, but still...)
After reading the results of the interview, I really like Chuck Moore. Why? Simple - he's got a language he likes and develops further for his needs when nessisary, and when it comes to what everyone else thinks, he doesn't care!
That's not nessiarily a bad thing, in some ways. How different would colorFourth be if, for instance, he stopped to consider the effect on color blind or blind people trying to use the langauge? What about if he stopped to concern himself deeply with how to get colorFourth to become accepted as a mainstream language?
Instead, he concentrated on creating something he felt was the perfect language for him - not really for anyone else. There's something very admirable about that. Seems like projects these days (I mean Open Source projects in particular - commercial projects obviously tailor to as many people as possible) end up giving up part of thier original focus to instead appeal to a much broader audience within thier application style grouping. He doesn't care about how (x) implemented (y) - if it doesn't fit the applications he's been working on, then he ain't adding it in.
On the flip side, that means that colorFourth, for instance, isn't going to get a whole lotta acceptance. His comment about blind programmers struck me as callous, but, what the hell - it pretty much comes down to being 'his personal language'. If that's how he treats is, then yeah, to program in colorFourth (Chucks personal language) then you have to either learn to adapt it yourself (font changes for color blind people, or possibly tonal changes for those who have the source read to them by text to speach programs.)
But the one comment that struck me as wrong was his thinking that the reason more people don't use it is a matter of conspiracy. *SIGH* No, Chuck - if you build a language and tailor it pretty much completely for yourself, well... who the heck is gonna really care that much since you dont?
I know the feeling. Here in Wichita, KS we've got a couple of little airports, McConnel AFB, and two semi-decent sized airports. And, of course - Beech Aircraft (er - Raytheon now), Boeing, Cessna, and some smaller aircraft companies. Normally, it's so busy that when Cessna wanted to expaned, they decided on a different site - there's just too much normal air traffic here!
But today - after they grounded commercial traffic, there was nada. It's so normal to hear the comming and going of commerical aircraft that you never really notice it, until now when it's completely gone.
However, there's the sounds of aircraft again now - we've got the B1B's, Kansas Air National Guard, and even more importantly, the refuling wing just a couple miles from the house. There's a fairly good amount of traffic comming from ther for the last couple hours, probably mostly from the refuling wing.
I'm a GPL advocate, and I agree with you. I will always argue that the GPL is the better license. But I will also alway agree that it's your choice, as a developer, to choose your own license.
Nice ta' meet you. You are the type of GPL advocate that I like to talk to! (In fact, you are the type of GPL Advocate that I talked to in the first place that explained the GPL to me fairly completly, pros and cons included. That got me into supporting projects like Alliance OS Project, Crystal Space 3D, PHPSlash, and a couple others that I've thrown my hat in with, either by using them or being and active member. Now could ya convince others to become 'good' advocates?:-)
It might seem rather Orwellian, but my great fear is that these sometime unruly discussions about software licensing may, in fact, wend their way to the Senate floor. They have, in fact: witness the DMCA. To anyone who has stinking rightious bug up their ass (which, ahem, includes me), I'd just like to say: let's remember which principles matter most. Good life, health, and happiness. Let's keep these cauldrons of principled "screw-you" stew from boiling over into misguided legislation. Really. Legislation, by definition, defines what is and isn't criminal . Let's not go there.
I totally agree. This should never become an issue of legislation, and the DMCA should have never happened (jees, I can't remember talking to anyone yet that actually even so much as plays Devil's Advocate for DMCA in a discussion!), and most certainly it should never get any more draconian than it is now!!!!!
And if we're not going there, then let's not get so uptight about disagreements about software licensing. I mean really. What are people afraid of?
Religion.:-) It's like anything else - when someone suggests that thier believe system may be flawed in any way, some people go on the attack. Then there are those that take thier system of beliefs and automatically apply it to others (I've been guilty of that one before - but, as I got older and started traveling alot, I saw the light. Live and let live.) But in all honesty, to some people the GPL isn't an issue of rights, but an almost full blown religious issue, no less powerful than some overzealous Christians views of other religions! (Luckly, not all 'bad' GPL advocates are that way. A very small (but vocal;-) percentage is that way.)
Oh, and add one more group to my list of people who piss me off - people who say there aren't any over zealous GPL advocates out there! (Just kidding...)
Really? I see a more serious problem - that copyright does not confer upon the copyright holder the ability to dictate the use of a work after it has been distributed to a member of the public.
You are correct - copyright doesn't. A license does. Which was the discusson here - licensing possibilities. A license is a contract between the developer (or distributor, depending on how things are done) and the end user. (Think Microsoft ELU - End User License) In fact, this is what the GPL does - you, the end user are entering a contractual agreement that determines what rights you as an end user have.
If they've got the source already, you can't compel them to pay if they want to execute it. (generally - compiling might be a sufficient change to require permission, but if it were run-time interpreted, that's a different kettle of fish)
That depends - again, this comes down to licensing. For instance, entering a contract that states "Hey, if you compile this, and use it for more than 45 days, you have to send a check to (x) for $(y) amount, or quit using it and delete the compiled version..." means if you compiled it, you need to comply with that contract. Same as with the GPL - you download a GPL'ed program and modify the source, and resell or redistribute a binary of it, you have to make the source available. Would people do it? Only a percentage. There are those that pirate software now as it is, why would things be any different with a license like that? The biggest difference between people breaking the GPL and someone breaking a license like this is one is fairly visible, the other isn't. Which goes back to the original enforcement argument.
You say "forget" as if it were a fact that they knew once. In fact, GPL advocates and others *deny* that you have a right to restrict what other people do in the privacy of their own homes.
Hope you weren't saying that as a blanket statement for all GPL Advocates:-( I know my statement against over-zealous, under educated about the GPL advocates wasn't meant to point at ALL GPL Advocates. Some of them are well educated in the ways of the GPL. Heck, I've even had one reasonable conversation with RMS about proprietary programs in the Industrial Automation field running on GPL or LGPL'ed software. (Of course, a year later, I had a totally unreasonable discussion with him on a similar subject.) I really hope no one took what I said to mean EVERYONE who is GPL follower is an idiot. That's not the case. And when it comes to the rights of me as a developer, even RMS seems to understand the choice is mine, even if he doesn't agree with it.
One of the huge problems I've got with some GPL advocates anymore is that they don't even UNDERSTAND the GPL. For instance, I've had to speak up to defend someone who build up an online package where you can get a news site setup in minutes, software and all. It used a semi-popular GPL'ed weblogger. Well, someone got REALLY offended, and said he was violating the GPL, blahblahblah both to the mailing list and to the person who built up the package.
I then explained, chapter and verse quotes from the horse's mouth, that the GPL implicitly allows someone to sell a GPL licensed software package, even if it's not the original author doing the selling. In the end, the guy who was selling the package moved to a different weblogger entirely, which took away some of the potential popularity (not that it matters THAT much.)
There's a lot of people out there that advocate something that just plain haven't read and understood completely. If you are a GPL advocate, or are involved in a GPL project - please, read the entire GPL (or LGPL if you use it) and read all the supplementary stuff at GNU.ORG that explains what all the rights that are granted really are, and what it really means for the projects you support or are involved in.
Note - I'm not saying all advocates of the GPL are like that. Just a growing number of them are.
The other problem I have is some people are under the opinion that GPL grants users certain rights. That's fine - but I don't have to agree with those rights, just like in real life we don't HAVE to agree on moral standards by which we live our lives. There are laws that set a minimum standard for our moral conduct (not that I agree with them) and there are laws that set a minimum standard for our rights as software developers and software users (not that I agree with them either:-) The GPL advocates that tend to piss me off the most are the ones who forget that I, as a software developer, have the right to choose what rights I grant to a user. The user makes the ultimate choice in the end - do they agree with the rights that I grant them and buy my software, or, do they disagree an not purchase the software I create and sell? In the end, it's the users that make the rules for how I conduct my business (which, oddly enough, is part of the reason why I'm writing my own license that I mentioned in another post that fits what I feel are the rights I should be granting to my users, while still meeting my financial obligations. GPL doesn't fit either of them, and neither does current us Copyright laws ('specially post DMCA!))
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I didn't think so. I'm formally trained in niether psychology nor psychiatry, nor have I met Eric Yang; but I am a member of MENSA and a student of human behavior. I think I know a sociopath [slashdot.org] when I see one.
And DAMN you know how to pound your dick on the table to try and convince everyone you are right!
Being a student of behavior doesn't really make you any more qualified than anyone else to make the observation of if someone is a sociopath or not. And a MENSA membership doesn't qualify you either - which kinda makes me question your wisdom of posting that you are a MENSA member. Plus, anyway - 2% of the world can be a MENSA member. If you would have said you were a IQuadrivium member, I might have been more impressed ;-) (only .1% of the world can qualify for that one. And there's ones with even more stringent restrictions on IQ - of course, there's certain problems with quantifying extremely high IQ's in the first place!)
In other words - please, if you are going to try and use something to prove your point, how about I dunno... use the wonderful ability to hyperlink to relavant information instead of trying to turn this into an "I'm smarter than you" style contest. More people listen when relevant information is presented, while attempting to make people believe you have a bigger dick really doesn't do anything but make people scoff at you, and totally disreguard your statements completely.
What's really IRONIC (damned if I'm not havin' some fun now!) about this is that you've claimed Eric Yang to be a sociopath. However, you've already exhibited at least one sign of a sociopath - excessive boasting. More likely than not based on your MENSA comment, you could also potentially have a second problem that's commonly exhibited: Grandiose sense of self-worth.
So quit callin' people names and flingin' terms when you think the ignorant masses don't really follow what you are saying. You might be surprised - a really large number of us are actually somewhat intellectual ourselves, and do know the definition and meaning of large words.
(Ok, I SWEAR - that's the only time I've ever used the term 'intellectual' attached to a group of people that includes myself. Sheesh.)
None of the "actors" could perform.
Yeah, let's look at the pilot for TOS. The very first one. Then the second one. Then we'll look at TNG's pilot.
Them people damned near had broom handles where ther spines were. The acting was INCREDIBLY stiff. No one knew their characters yet. In TOS, there wasn't even a 'mold' for that type of character yet (yes, there was Sci-fi stuff done before that, but just LOOK at it. EEEKS! Most of it was so bad it wasn't even worth it.) TNG they had something they could look towards for a model, but, none of the characters were really easily translated (Picard, for instance, couldn't be a remodled Kirk.) It wasn't until the second Season that TNG got to be very good, and continued to improve. TOS managed to 'get it' a little quicker, IMHO (Why? Dunno.) Give it time... they will grow into thier rolls, and make the characters live (heck, even the Voyager group managed THAT MUCH eventually. It took them almost the entier series to do it ;-)
The vulcan was a hissing bitch during the first half, I thought count bakula wanted to cry several time, the plot was mediocre even by the standards of the crew that brought us voyager.
Well, considering that Archer already told her at thier first meeting he'd love to knock her on her ass, can you BLAME HER? ;-)
On the Count Bakula comment, I've got no clue WTF you are talking about. Heck, he probably gave the best performance in the show. Which other actor showed much emotion on thier faces during the whole show? Not many, since they really don't know the character enough yet to really know what the character is thinking.
As for the plot - Ok, I'll give you a point for it being 'mediocre'. Comparied to the V word, naw - they already set the standard for what mediocre episodes are, and for bad episodes. ('Cept possibly "Spock's Brain" from TOS ;-) It could have been better. I think alot of it was time spent trying to prove "Hey, this isn't the Trek Universe you are used to", and trying to set the stage for where the series is going to head in the future.
What amazes me is that no one seems to have gone back to the original ST series to see what made it great. It was daring culturally for its time and tried to present a complex cast of characters. Was it perfect? No. But the Berman vision of the future is a piece of plasticine crap undistinguished by any character motivation or deep emotion.
You say Scott Bakula looked like he was going to cry, but, then say there wasn't any emotion? Sheesh.
TOS didn't have much of a complex cast. It had 3 primary characters, and 5 lesser characters. Heck, Friends has almost that many characters. So far, Enterprise hasn't even had much of a chance to explore these characters.
And of course - when all else fails when flaming Trek, pull out the Berman card. Fine, I'll trump ya with a... shoot. Ok, I gotta admit - most of what Berman touches turns to shit. He's got the Septic Tank touch. But he's finally way from the V word - he's got the chance to break free. With ST:Borager, there was a trap - once it started a direction, it was DAMNED HARD (IMHO) to change that direction. Here he's got the chance at a clean slate to work from. Given the start here, it might actually work out. Personally, I think Enterprise is gonna ROCK starting about second season, once the writers, the actors, etc., finally get in tune with thier characters and the job at hand. But I could be wrong - it's too damned hard to tell just from one episode. Give it a season to work out the kinks, then check it out again if you don't like it so far.
If nothing else, tune in for time to time just to check out the latest advances in Vulcan anatomy... ;-)
Second, didn't anyone else hear them say, "Polarize the hull plates!"? It's not the steel that's offline, but the polarization (early shield technology?) that was breaking down.
Forget it. Yer wasting your breath - some of the first people to start slammin' it were people who didn't really care in the first place. Some just WANT to hate this Trek as much as they hated Voyager (And, can ya blame 'em after that damned show? It almost got decent in the last season. Almost.) I heard exactly the same thing you did. So did everyone else, but some just gotta have something to bitch about.
Remember how it was supposedly the Vulcans that made First Contact with Earth after the first warp drive test? From the bit I saw (missed the first 1/2 hour :-/), it's the primitive race (Humans) chaifing under to tutalige of the advanced race (Vulcans). Not sure how much they'l be able to stretch out of that one, but it might make for some fresh material.
I agree - it's a much different perspective on things than the normal Trek setting for the last 3 shows where Humans and Vulcans are considered 'equal'. Plus, I see something very cool about this - while the Vulcans seem to have tried to protect us from ourselves based on what we've seen so far, we aren't beyond going off half cocked, and really screwing things up. I really expect to see this happen a couple of times within the series.
The other thing I see comming is how the Prime Directive finally gets created. So far, it doesn't exist. Humans can't really understand how come the Vulcans would hold back technology from us. We finally break free of the yoke somewhat, and go out on our own. Eventually, we're gonna find another species that is SO CLOSE to making it to warp technolgy, and we'll hand it to them. Then watch them have it blow up in thier face (yes, there was a Voyager a bit like that in the last season. One of the few almost likable episodes, but, it was too easily resolved for my tastes. Like most Voyager episodes. A hangnail is more of a problem than most of thier moral delimas.) After we see that happen, we'll probably start to understand the Vulcan mindset concerning the subject, and the Prime Directive will eventually created.
If fact, that Humans CAN and WILL totally screw up from time to time in this show is going to be one of my favorite things about it. 'Bout time we show ourselves for what we really are - flawed beings, who learn to adapt and overcome our problems eventually. (Ok, that's the rose colored glasses version ;-)
The theme song....well, it's better then most other tv shows, but PALES when you compare it to DS9 or Voyager or any other Star Trek. Also, I feel there's too much past stuff being show in the opening sequence and not enough stuff from that 100 years since First Contact. Yeah the history is important, but not for this show. They need a different opening with more beauty shots of the NX-01.
I liked the theme song. I'm not a huge Rod Stewart fan, but, it's a song that I've liked from before the series. I do think it matches the situation perfectly. However, I do hope that after the first season or so, they ditch it for something else instead (else, I'm gonna get reallllly sick of it. ;-) Something like B5's evolving intro would be nice over the next couple of seasons.
Anyway - the real point of my post. I did see where they were going with the intro, and it's pretty cool when you think about it. This series is supposed to be closer to where we are now, so, they show us a very very quick synopsis of how we got to where we are now, and showed something very pivitol from our currend day setting - the ISS being built, piece by piece. Then they show ISS being used as a launching platform for something that familiar to those of us who follow space development (and still familiar enough to those who don't, but have seen the shuttle.) From there, it's only three more images to the shot of the Enterprise flashing past the screen. They showed us how far we've come, and made it seem like that from this perspective, we've got a very short distance left to make it to where 'There' (the show) is. It's no longer deeply removed from us, like TNG or Voyager is.
And for the record - I hated Voyager. But I think this show is gonna friggin' ROCK when it gets past the first season!
The intro song has, for the first time, WORDS! This was startling and disappointing, until I found myself liking the song. Anyone heard it before?
I haven't seen the show yet (I'll be watching it in the theater tonight. Yes, theater - one of the local stations made a deal with a local place to show it on the big screen - COOL!), but, I've seen the intro - the song is Rod Stewart's "Faith Of The Heart". Not typically my style, but, it fits the concept of Enterprise fairly well, and is one of his better works.
The odd thing is that many fans feel the third season of TOS is best, which was after Gene backed off a little and had help.
Third season has some good episodes, but it also contains some of the worst. Does "Spock's Brain" ring a bell? (I can HEAR the groans of most TOS fans from here just at the mention of the episode!) But I kinda wonder if it was Gene letting go of his baby a bit, or if it had more to do with the character development occuring naturally (as with TNG, etc.), and with the writers finally learning a bit of what worked, and taking the time to get some consistency and deeper work into it.
I thought other slashdotter's would like to see the opposite, a site short on promise and long on potential, and heck, even has video of rocket platform crashes and stuff. Content-free Carmack's site is not.
I'll absolutely agree with you on this point. Carmack's site doesn't have much for fancy graphics, etc - but, then again, Carmack's site doesn't have to deal with something very important to TransOrbital, Inc. Investors, and even more importantly, Customers. JC has quite a bit of money to start with, and they are taking what could be considered a somewhat low-tech approach. (BTW: Thanks to the pointer to Carmack's site - I've never looked at it before. Spent about 10 minutes reading the various reports from the site before I responded to your first post.) Thier group really doesn't HAVE to post what they've been up to online, and do it mainly to tell people what they've been up to, etc. It's not a heavily commercial venture (but, if they start tossing people into orbit, that might change ;-).
TransOrbital has got to do everything possible to impress investors and potential customers. They litterally have to promise them the moon. Comparing the two is almost, but not quite, comparing apples and oranges.
I thought other slashdotter's would like to see the opposite, a site short on promise and long on potential, and heck, even has video of rocket platform crashes and stuff. Content-free Carmack's site is not. I guess my thing is: which advances commercial spacetravel -- which is the real point here -- more; some CGI pictures of an unmanned lunar lander, or real people working on real rocketry that aren't burning money on press-releases and pretty pictures. And the pictures aren't even that pretty.
Much appreciated for the alternate point of view. But your original post come across more as a troll than a serious "Hey guys - take a look at this. These guys are actually getting somewere." Sometimes it's in the presentation :-) (Speaking of presentation - damn you are right about thier CG pictures. Those could use some serious improvement.)
There's more than one road to the stars right now. All three have players now. There's government - NASA, and agencies in other countries. There's groups like the RocketMan and JC's group. Then there's commercial groups. Each has to conduct themselves according to how thier missions are geared - for instance, JC & Co. don't have to worry about glossy press releases, while TransOrbital has to spend the money on them to sell products and services. Personally, I'm happy to see players in all three fields. It's a good sign that commericalization of space is gonna happen. The interest level is there, and there's now enough people trying different things to actually make shit happen.
One more thought - ya know, after reading JC's page, I hope some of the TransOrbital people read this thread. I'd like to see pictures, and log entries like JC's group does. I can see where someone might question where constructions of the modules are at when you can't actually SEE any progress.
So the question becomes: if someone is in the race for the moon, but never even makes it to orbit, is the race really that interesting to follow? I guess we'll see come '4th quarter 2001'...
They never said THEY were launching it themselves with thier own technology. They just said they were going to be the first to the moon. That changes the race considerably - it's not that hard just to slap that puppy up there with someone else's tech, then depend on your own to get it the rest of the way. :-)
I was about to respond to this article, but Slashdot broke and wouldn't accept any postings and wouldn't let me log in for several minutes. Then, it continually timed out. Apache? Ha!
Don't blame it on Apache - it's more likely that it's either the database server, or Slashcode throwing a fit again (probably the former, not the later.) Ever since thier last upgrade, the system seems to be a bit flakey at times - sometimes for hours, sometimes for a couple o' minutes.
And if it WAS Apache - well, why would it still be serving webpages? :-)
Forget these losers. I think JC will beat slick marketing anytime. If anybody is going into orbit first, my money is on him. Check out Carmack's rocket site:
That's nice, but, Transorbital isn't doing the race to orbit - they have thier sights set higher. Instead, they are shooting for the first commercial landing on the moon. I should put the obligatory RTFA comment here, but, instead I'll give ya a quick rundown - instead of trying to put someone in orbit, they are shooting for putting a lander on the moon. Unmanned, and you can do things like get pictures of your business card setting on the moon, plus they are planning on shooting some video, etc. Not what I'd call high-excitement stuff, but, at least someone is doing something with the moon :-)
So, in this case, Carmack isn't competing with them, unlike the $10 million prize...
There's a problem with your idea that they should have taken "more risk" in finding people. To start off with, as horible it is to say this, most of the people in the main buildings were instant pancakes - they had a 5,000 ton building fall on them. Most of the rescue workers seem to know this, based on reports (but that doesn't mean they give up looking.) There's very little hope of having found survivors - even finding an intact body is rather difficult most of the time (again, basing this on stuff comming out of there that I've read.) But, it's something they are risking thier lives to do - it's bad enough that some rescuers took to doing things like writing thier name and SSN# on thier arms, in case they do get killed. If they take any more risks, the loss of life gets even higher for the rescuers. There have already been a couple of incidents (firemen falling down into a deep pit is a good example - luckly, none were injured to badly.) There's just too little hope of survivors. As for citequing thier methods - well, when you go down there and start picking up concrete and steel looking for survivors, I'll be more impressed with your expertise.
The underground areas are already being worked on. There's also been some reports from that area that I've read - yes, they are trying the underground areas already, and have been since the first day. Fucking gruesom. The stench alone would be enough to make most people incapable of working in there.
Or any other form of auto-updater. Remember, Code Red and Nimda used holes that were patched months ago.
No way - this is a very bad solution for security. While at first this would seem to be an absolutely good idea, in reality there's a number of really nasty security problems here.
First, it convinces you to be lax about security. I mean, if the Auto-updater is handling the job, you probably won't check it out too closely since it's not nessisary. But with patches sometimes comes new holes, and new procedures for properly securing a box. These are jobs that require human intervention.
Second, a new class of exploit comes along - using whatever proceedure you can make work, upload a new patch to the ftp server with some less than obvious holes in it. Sure, someone is going to spot it - maybe hours, maybe a couple of days, but it WILL get spotted. As admin, will you know if your box was one that grabbed the bad stuff? (Note, I said upload it to the ftp server, that's not the only exploit - various redirection techniques could be used too.) If tons of people moved to the auto-update idea, there'd be the potential for a lot of exploited boxen quickly.
And third, there's the issue of reviewing patches / updates. Sure, lots of people have viewed them. If it's security related, you should be viewing them too, or at minimum the 'readme' or equivalant.
Fourth, what update time are you planning? Once a month? Once a week? Daily? If it's less than daily, then you've got a problem - of you do grab a buggy version, that gives someone time to attack. And if it's a week before you check again, that means they've got pleanty of time to use your machine as a base to launch more attacks from. Plus, once they have the machine, you may only THINK you are still doing updates ;-) (It's always better from the attacker's standpoint to make things seem just fine and dandy :-P )
I'm sure there's a lot more that could be added to this list - this is just the problems off the top of my head. But those problems alone are enough to really screw things up.
maybe that should be a standard service? add the ports exploited to tarpit.rc ..
of course that wouldn't solve much but it would be something to start with.
You are right - next time, the worm author might do something different just to make sure LaBrea isn't nearly as effective. For instance, by keeping track of how long it's taken to do it's job, the worm may just abort the thread if it takes, say, 20 seconds to send over part one of the exploit. LaBrea becomes a small slowdown then.
There's not a 'real' answer to stoping worms and the sort, except for administrator vigilance. No matter what OS you use as a server platform (or a mix of things, like my network), ya gotta be quick with the patches and vigilant with security.
As for reversing attacks, etc - there's some severe problems there. You are attacking someone else's hardware - even if the script kiddie may be controling it, they may be on someone else's machine doing it remotely. screw up that person's box, and you might have a problem. (Of course, there's other ethical issues here - I'd really like to just view it all as 'self defense' when you throw an attack back at an attacker online. Unluckly, there's no real presidence for that, I'm not sure there should be!)
(Damn the subject line sounds a bit... well, dirty!)
For a daily dose of quickies, hit: Memepool.com Most of the time it's better than what Slashdot's quickies were back when they posted them :-)
This virus isn't affecting just IIS servers.. it's being spread by all Windows computers.
This is correct, really. After a machine either: a) visits a webserver that's been infected or b) reads an email that was infected it then becomes an infection vector it's self. No, there's no admin.dll - that's only on NT/2K servers, not user workstations.
(Though, someone may correct me if I'm wrong ;-)
One I got had the subject "ware\Microsoft\Windo,b4 ü4desktopdesktop". It looks like it (the virus) has a pointer error and their subject isn't what they were expecting it to be.
That, or it just grabs something at almost random and tosses it out there. I've had one today that says "desktopdesktopdesktopdesktopdesktop..." etc.
I've been hit by more than a dozen servers starting this morning. My little 1.2MB adsl line is hurting :(
Yer ADSL line - jesus, I'm running a small corporate network with an ISDN line (no DSL available), and this poor thing has been just saturated with incomming traffic (of course, the machines here aren't vulnerable, but still...)
My first log entry for this attack is at 8:08 AM. Just FYI.
I didn't see Lynard Skynard's Tuesdays Gone on the list.
It's on the list of banned songs, right between Edwin Starr's "War" and Lip Bizkit "Break Stuff".
Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh.
Good work back in the 70's and 80's, but - what have you done for us lately? ;-)
(Yes, that was a joke. When a dual G5 hit's the shelves with MacOS 10.1, I'm probably buying one!)
After reading the results of the interview, I really like Chuck Moore. Why? Simple - he's got a language he likes and develops further for his needs when nessisary, and when it comes to what everyone else thinks, he doesn't care!
That's not nessiarily a bad thing, in some ways. How different would colorFourth be if, for instance, he stopped to consider the effect on color blind or blind people trying to use the langauge? What about if he stopped to concern himself deeply with how to get colorFourth to become accepted as a mainstream language?
Instead, he concentrated on creating something he felt was the perfect language for him - not really for anyone else. There's something very admirable about that. Seems like projects these days (I mean Open Source projects in particular - commercial projects obviously tailor to as many people as possible) end up giving up part of thier original focus to instead appeal to a much broader audience within thier application style grouping. He doesn't care about how (x) implemented (y) - if it doesn't fit the applications he's been working on, then he ain't adding it in.
On the flip side, that means that colorFourth, for instance, isn't going to get a whole lotta acceptance. His comment about blind programmers struck me as callous, but, what the hell - it pretty much comes down to being 'his personal language'. If that's how he treats is, then yeah, to program in colorFourth (Chucks personal language) then you have to either learn to adapt it yourself (font changes for color blind people, or possibly tonal changes for those who have the source read to them by text to speach programs.)
But the one comment that struck me as wrong was his thinking that the reason more people don't use it is a matter of conspiracy. *SIGH* No, Chuck - if you build a language and tailor it pretty much completely for yourself, well... who the heck is gonna really care that much since you dont?
I know the feeling. Here in Wichita, KS we've got a couple of little airports, McConnel AFB, and two semi-decent sized airports. And, of course - Beech Aircraft (er - Raytheon now), Boeing, Cessna, and some smaller aircraft companies. Normally, it's so busy that when Cessna wanted to expaned, they decided on a different site - there's just too much normal air traffic here!
But today - after they grounded commercial traffic, there was nada. It's so normal to hear the comming and going of commerical aircraft that you never really notice it, until now when it's completely gone.
However, there's the sounds of aircraft again now - we've got the B1B's, Kansas Air National Guard, and even more importantly, the refuling wing just a couple miles from the house. There's a fairly good amount of traffic comming from ther for the last couple hours, probably mostly from the refuling wing.
I'm a GPL advocate, and I agree with you. I will always argue that the GPL is the better license. But I will also alway agree that it's your choice, as a developer, to choose your own license.
Nice ta' meet you. You are the type of GPL advocate that I like to talk to! (In fact, you are the type of GPL Advocate that I talked to in the first place that explained the GPL to me fairly completly, pros and cons included. That got me into supporting projects like Alliance OS Project, Crystal Space 3D, PHPSlash, and a couple others that I've thrown my hat in with, either by using them or being and active member. Now could ya convince others to become 'good' advocates? :-)
It might seem rather Orwellian, but my great fear is that these sometime unruly discussions about software licensing may, in fact, wend their way to the Senate floor. They have, in fact: witness the DMCA. To anyone who has stinking rightious bug up their ass (which, ahem, includes me), I'd just like to say: let's remember which principles matter most. Good life, health, and happiness. Let's keep these cauldrons of principled "screw-you" stew from boiling over into misguided legislation. Really. Legislation, by definition, defines what is and isn't criminal . Let's not go there.
I totally agree. This should never become an issue of legislation, and the DMCA should have never happened (jees, I can't remember talking to anyone yet that actually even so much as plays Devil's Advocate for DMCA in a discussion!), and most certainly it should never get any more draconian than it is now!!!!!
And if we're not going there, then let's not get so uptight about disagreements about software licensing. I mean really. What are people afraid of?
Religion. :-) It's like anything else - when someone suggests that thier believe system may be flawed in any way, some people go on the attack. Then there are those that take thier system of beliefs and automatically apply it to others (I've been guilty of that one before - but, as I got older and started traveling alot, I saw the light. Live and let live.) But in all honesty, to some people the GPL isn't an issue of rights, but an almost full blown religious issue, no less powerful than some overzealous Christians views of other religions! (Luckly, not all 'bad' GPL advocates are that way. A very small (but vocal ;-) percentage is that way.)
Oh, and add one more group to my list of people who piss me off - people who say there aren't any over zealous GPL advocates out there! (Just kidding...)
Really? I see a more serious problem - that copyright does not confer upon the copyright holder the ability to dictate the use of a work after it has been distributed to a member of the public.
You are correct - copyright doesn't. A license does. Which was the discusson here - licensing possibilities. A license is a contract between the developer (or distributor, depending on how things are done) and the end user. (Think Microsoft ELU - End User License) In fact, this is what the GPL does - you, the end user are entering a contractual agreement that determines what rights you as an end user have.
If they've got the source already, you can't compel them to pay if they want to execute it. (generally - compiling might be a sufficient change to require permission, but if it were run-time interpreted, that's a different kettle of fish)
That depends - again, this comes down to licensing. For instance, entering a contract that states "Hey, if you compile this, and use it for more than 45 days, you have to send a check to (x) for $(y) amount, or quit using it and delete the compiled version..." means if you compiled it, you need to comply with that contract. Same as with the GPL - you download a GPL'ed program and modify the source, and resell or redistribute a binary of it, you have to make the source available. Would people do it? Only a percentage. There are those that pirate software now as it is, why would things be any different with a license like that? The biggest difference between people breaking the GPL and someone breaking a license like this is one is fairly visible, the other isn't. Which goes back to the original enforcement argument.
You say "forget" as if it were a fact that they knew once. In fact, GPL advocates and others *deny* that you have a right to restrict what other people do in the privacy of their own homes.
Hope you weren't saying that as a blanket statement for all GPL Advocates :-( I know my statement against over-zealous, under educated about the GPL advocates wasn't meant to point at ALL GPL Advocates. Some of them are well educated in the ways of the GPL. Heck, I've even had one reasonable conversation with RMS about proprietary programs in the Industrial Automation field running on GPL or LGPL'ed software. (Of course, a year later, I had a totally unreasonable discussion with him on a similar subject.) I really hope no one took what I said to mean EVERYONE who is GPL follower is an idiot. That's not the case. And when it comes to the rights of me as a developer, even RMS seems to understand the choice is mine, even if he doesn't agree with it.
One of the huge problems I've got with some GPL advocates anymore is that they don't even UNDERSTAND the GPL. For instance, I've had to speak up to defend someone who build up an online package where you can get a news site setup in minutes, software and all. It used a semi-popular GPL'ed weblogger. Well, someone got REALLY offended, and said he was violating the GPL, blahblahblah both to the mailing list and to the person who built up the package.
I then explained, chapter and verse quotes from the horse's mouth, that the GPL implicitly allows someone to sell a GPL licensed software package, even if it's not the original author doing the selling. In the end, the guy who was selling the package moved to a different weblogger entirely, which took away some of the potential popularity (not that it matters THAT much.)
There's a lot of people out there that advocate something that just plain haven't read and understood completely. If you are a GPL advocate, or are involved in a GPL project - please, read the entire GPL (or LGPL if you use it) and read all the supplementary stuff at GNU.ORG that explains what all the rights that are granted really are, and what it really means for the projects you support or are involved in.
Note - I'm not saying all advocates of the GPL are like that. Just a growing number of them are.
The other problem I have is some people are under the opinion that GPL grants users certain rights. That's fine - but I don't have to agree with those rights, just like in real life we don't HAVE to agree on moral standards by which we live our lives. There are laws that set a minimum standard for our moral conduct (not that I agree with them) and there are laws that set a minimum standard for our rights as software developers and software users (not that I agree with them either :-) The GPL advocates that tend to piss me off the most are the ones who forget that I, as a software developer, have the right to choose what rights I grant to a user. The user makes the ultimate choice in the end - do they agree with the rights that I grant them and buy my software, or, do they disagree an not purchase the software I create and sell? In the end, it's the users that make the rules for how I conduct my business (which, oddly enough, is part of the reason why I'm writing my own license that I mentioned in another post that fits what I feel are the rights I should be granting to my users, while still meeting my financial obligations. GPL doesn't fit either of them, and neither does current us Copyright laws ('specially post DMCA!))