Having worked with the Centurion cluster at UVa for a few years, I feel your pain. And this was before we added 10 such cabinets of rack-mounted PCs.:)
A group here at Duke has just started to collaborate with the Emulab people on a similar area of research. We're pretty excited, since we think our group has a lot to share with the Utah group. It's just kind of weird to load Slashdot and find your collaborators on the front page. Here I was thinking I'd take a break from research and read Slashdot, but noooooo.....
And to respond to another poster, maybe if Emulab had Muse-like resource management of their web server, they could handle the web load.:) It would be nice if someone could work on merging the two, getting the two to leverage the best parts of both, work on.... uh, maybe I should get back to work before my advisor sees me posting on Slashdot.:)
Merely reading the executive summary, it seems that the commission has already sided in favor of software patents. This is probably a combination of the influence of the pro-patent side, the somewhat neutral or negative view of open source advocates, and potentially immature responses on the part of open source and free software advocates. We could definitely learn some lessons on how not to advocate our position in the future.
At the same time the review appears to have a very negative view of the anti-patent side. Opposition is limited to a three or four word summary (at best), and the Eurolinux coalition's work is somewhat summarily dismissed as a "petition" (quotes from original document). And for chrissake's people, when writing to an important review like this, don't resort to childish tactics like "Micro$oft"; it just gives the other side opportunity to point out (possibly correctly, at times) what a childish bunch those open source freaks are.
Overall, I'd like to applaud EuroLinux for organizing the petition. In the grand scheme of things it may not have made that much of a difference, but we do need to keep trying.
-jdm
The most amusing part of this ...
on
Napster Reprieve
·
· Score: 2
Napster immediately sought relief from the appeals court, which overturned Patel in a two-sentence order.
Two sentences? This must have set a record for brevity in a court case. Now if only the DMCA could get overturned in such a concise manner:
"We find the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to be a vile piece of underhanded manipulation designed to screw over the average consumer for the benefit of record, movie execs, and - indirectly - corrupt or incompetent congresscritters; DeCSS for all!!
"(P.S. We'd like to see Judge Kaplan in our offices post haste for a severe beat down.)"
Yes, a rot13-based encryption scheme is mentioned in Skylarov's talk, is covered by his decryption software, and is mentioned in the court papers. But the main reason he's being arrested is because Adobe filed a complaint about their own PDF-locking software being defeated, and Adobe's system is more sophisticated than rot13.
But the simple fact that ROT13 can even be listed as an "encryption technology" should be setting off huge warning alarms. "Ecryption" should be a bit more extensive than "can be decoded in a few minutes by a five-year-old with a Cocoa Puffs Secret Agent Decoder Ring."
-jdm
PS. Apologies to whatever company made the ROT13 encryption; I didn't mean to imply a five year-old could decrypt the eBook on their own. They may need their seven-year-old sister's help with some of the bigger words.
I dislike Microsoft as much as the next person, but Judge Jackson's behavior probably crossed the line. Judges aren't supposed to be giving interviews during a trial they're presiding over.
Except the interview that raised so much furor was done after the trial was over and the verdict had been handed down. And the bias I was referring to (at least in the 2600 case, regardless of who was right or wrong) was very blatantly done from the bench. The MS comments were made after the trial, IIRC.
What amazes me is the double standard we seem to have here about what the courts are "allowed" to be biased towards. Judges often gloat about or cite their "tough record" on crime, occasionally singling out their record of sentencing minorities to harsher penalties than caucasians (*cough*Philadelphia*cough*).
Or what about the 2600 DeCSS case? For anyone who has even read a few minutes of any of the preceedings, it is blatantly obvious that the Judge is severely biased against the defendants. Yes, I know that may get 2600 somewhere in the appeals court, but I can't possibly see a unanimous vote to remand a majority of the case to a lower court.
Yes, *gasp* god forbid we actually say bad things about a corporation or businessmen!! Even if they did blatantly lie on the stand and even bring forth false evidence. MS essentially admitted to perjury (sp?) with their false demos. But how dare we say this aloud?
It's a sad, sad, day when libertarian actually whole-heartedly supports the DOJ is a case against a corporation. Bah.
Apparently the trolls are not only posting, but moderating, as well. Feeding time, I guess (I'm bored).
But why do people still find Monty Python funny today?
Because many of the themes that Python used back then are still valid targets of parody, mockery, and general silliness. The sheer range of targets over the four years of TV episodes guarantee that almost everyone can, on some level, relate to and find humor in the situations of the television show.
Yes, people (mis)quoting the movie(s) gets old after a while, but how many people have actually seen the TV shows? The Python-a-thon was probably the coolest thing Comedy Central ever did (for New Year's 94-95), and I absolutely loved the German TV shows.
The show operates on two levels; not only is it filled with one-liners and sight gags, but the intelligence of the creators comes through in the simple concepts of the skits. C'mon, do you really see shows nowadays making skits about German and Greek philosophers playing soccer? Do you really see most of America getting the humor in such a skit?
So, yes, the Holy Grail in theaters may be something to pass on. Just don't assume the movies are the sole (noticeable) creation by Python. And if you still don't accept this, please remove the pole from your arse before you consider posting anymore flamebait like this.
As a UVa grad, let me point out that the class in question here is generally regarded as a complete "gut" class. The large majority of students taking it are either athletes or people who just need a basic physics class to get their degree. It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that a large number of students got buster in that class.
Oh, and the honor system is regarded by many to be much of a joke, too. This really sucks for the students that got busted, but if they're going to cheat that blatantly in what's essentially a "gimme" class, they deserve every little bit that's coming to them. And it's always nice to see the honor code coming under scrutiny instead of simply being exhaulted as the greatest thing since sliced bread.:)
-jdm, (I'm not a bitter grad... why do you ask?):)
[school spirit ON]
I can't really blame the server. If I were stuck at UNC I'd drywall myself in, too, and pray that no one found me. With no arms or legs, tho... that was one motivated server.
You have to take a lot of what he said with a grain of salt. This guy was screwed. It would be paranoia to say everyone with an interest in writing their own software would be equally as screwed.
Wow, this sounds exactly like me about two years ago... oh, right, right before I got screwed over by the nice employer I was working for "on the side" as I finished college.
Not to sound too bitter or paranoid, but the bottom line is that unless you have it in writing, odds are they will try to screw you over. And even if the people you trust don't screw you over, what happens if the company changes hands or hires new management? The new owners have no obligations to you that aren't in writing, and the old owners can (and probably will) take a very hands-off approach to your problems.
I loved my workplace, I was working with friends who trusted the company, too, etc, etc. I left for 8 weeks to write my thesis, and everyone at the company knew this and told me (but didn't write down and sign anything) it was ok; when I got back I found that I had all but lost my job (they were about a week away from firing me), had lost my stock options -- which were verbal agreement only -- and got paid $500 to finish my project, basically as a going away payoff.
Side note: a family member who is an accountant said the $500 was suspicious; for amounts $600 or higher (at least in my state) the employer has various obligations to the contractor. Less than that, it's just money thrown to the wind, essentially.
Bottom line: I was naive and stupid enough not to get it in writing, and got screwed over. When money is involved (especially now that the dot-com economy is going through a harsh Darwinian stage) you're just another number in the end. Are you 100% sure that your bottom line is that important to the employer?
The simple solution to all this is to post all possible private information about the owners of the site. If they want the first amendment, they can have it, just as long as they realize the consequences.
NOTE: I consider myself to be a big advocate of the Bill of Rights. I think even the KKK should be able to adopt a highway or hold a rally, regardless of the hate, provided the hate is not a direct call to arms with specific wheres and hows. It's one thing to post the postal (or even home) addresses of congressmen if you want a bill to pass or not. It's another thing to get a child's school schedule and address, and praise people when that kid's parent is killed on the way to pick up that child. The site was a clear "Here's where you need to go and when" for attackers.
... I was very impressed by was his willingness to admit that he didn't know the answer to one of the questions, and that he'd have to research it more before answering it properly. Many politicians (democrat, republican, even independents) would have simply tried to create a response appropriate for the target audience. While I did get the impression that the Congressman was kind of glossing over some of the finer points presented to him, I was glad to see he actually has an interest in exploring the issues.
I was also very pleased by his statements about needing to educate other congressmen about the internet and technology. I get the impression that a lot of politicians gain support for their measures either by PR manuevering or by interesting backroom tactics (witness some of the trickery surrounding campaign finance reform). Education is power, especially in issues surrounding technology. We just need to "empower" more reps.
Even though he may be a politician, I get the impression there's at least one person on the Hill that's slightly clued in. Good luck, Congressman.
Morpheus: "I mean to say that when time comes, when you have your PhD in nuclear engineering and you want to put a cow on the dome, you won't have to."
Actually the cow on the dome was a University of Virginia prank, pulled off by the current President of NASDAQ back in the late 60's, I believe. It was placed on the roof of the Rotunda, but didn't make it down alive. Unfortunately UVa tends to overlook fraternity-ish pranks, but would most likely crack down severely on MIT-ish pranks. Blah.
First of all, they are written in their own special language "patentese", which is a dialect of "lawyerese" with some suspicious sci-jargon thrown in. They are desinged to be read and written be specially trained individuals who can properly encode/decode them.
Does this mean that if I file a patent on a stunningly obvious technology the MPAA or RIAA use I can sue them under the DMCA if they come after me? After all, I took measures to make sure my data was properly encoded and they obviously violated the DMCA if they were able to read it.
I think what I like best about this comment is the fact that it got modded up under the reasoning "Insightful" and not "Funny". Not that I disagree. If we could ship all the boy bands up north (or maybe even to France) I would laud this comment as "Visionary.":)
... try and think about what his priorities are. I admit that when I read over the interview my first reaction was "What an ass! People are trying to give him serious questions and he's blowing them off!" Which is half true. Subscribers to Bugtraq will be a bit more familiar with Theo's, uhm, interpersonal style.:) In reality I suspect Theo just wants to write, maintain, and release good, bug-free, secure code and not be hassled with feature creep or random things a good number of his users won't care about or really use.
And what's wrong with that?
OK, he's no "Dear Abby", but neither is RMS. I know many here aren't big RMS fans, but are you insecure enough about your own little world that when someone says, "Quit bothering me with stupid details, just write the code" you start flipping out? I attended Supercomputing '99 and went to a talk by Thomas Sterling, one of the original Beowulf pioneers at NASA. A good chunk of his talk was spent complaining about "Linux cruftiness" and "why are you people here when you could be writing code"? I admit I was somewhat pissed coming out of it, but it did have the effect of motivating me to start programming again. I think sometimes we just need a swift kick in the arse from someone (hi Greg!) to get motivated.
Bottom line: ignore the stupid "Are you mad?" comments from someone whose ego is a bit too big to take the time to be polite, and focus on the "learn your APIs, understand your APIs, and stop writing shitty code." Learn the message, ignore the messenger.
One man's 'human rights violation' is another man's 'justice'.
... unless some examples of that "justice" has been declared to be a "human rights violation" by organizations such as the U.N. or the E.U. Do you realize how sickened many parts of Europe (such as Italy and Sweden) are by the conduct of states such as Texas and Virginia WRT the liberal use of the death penalty?
I'm not defending democrats. This election was essentially between two ideologically near-identical candidates, and thus they got near-identical votes. I'm just saying you may want to consider what the rest of the civilized world has to say about your opinions before you continue espousing them so self-righteously.
Let me preface this by saying that I like Linux, I run it on all my desktop machines, and have admin'ed a cluster of 300 Linux boxen and loved it. However...
I was not actually at SC this year, but have attended the two previous ones and have actually had a chance to speak with Todd Needham and other people from MS Research. The legal and marketing department there may be full of idiots, but never think that if someone is an MS employee they're automatically and idiot; they may have misplaced loyalties, but they are not stupid. I have to admit that Todd Needham from MS had one or two good points in the panel discussion. Open Source is not the magic "pixie dust" that automatically fixes everything (*snicker* Todd quoted jwz). As someone who's worked in a business environment, I can say with confidence that some level of heirarchical organization is necessary. The Cathedral/Bazaar analogy may be good, but it is not a black-or-white issue; projects can fall somewhere in-between, and those that strike the right balance will be successful.
With respect to security, many eyes may make all bugs shallow, provided some of those eyes are willing to partake in a formal security analysis. A compiler researcher as OSDI this year revealed that in the Linux kernel there are ~80 places where interrupts are disabled and never reenabled. How did he discover this? By modifying a compiler to be a little "smarter" and read a formal specification tailored to the application you're compiling, thus performing more rigorous static anaylsis on your code. It's pretty interesting reading. Many eyes are not a substitute for formal analysis, but something to augment it; conversely, formal analysis of software is still a young field, and many eyes are still a necessity for improving robustness in large projects.
The bottom line: seek the middle ground. Just because "their" ways doesn't work doesn't mean everything was wrong with it. And yes, I'm ready to be moderated down as "flamebait".:)
... that boob is the intellectual property of the broadcasting station...
I'm outraged!! The fact that the person to whom that boob is attached does not own the IP and/or the patent for the "combination sexual enhancement/infant nourishment device" is more evidence that the RIAA and MPAA are trampling our rights!! Why is this not front-page news?!?!
Read-only was a throwaway phrase. Not everything has to be taken in the strictest CS security terms. Ok, fine, it's not read-only, it'll be buried in the Windows FS somewhere. Good enough?
That's nice that Gore wants it to be law. I already said I don't agree entirely with him. I don't think it should be law, it could be something a self-regulating industry promotes within itself.
Yes, some parents are psycho. And some parents do drug testing of their children. Guess what? They're in the minority! Most parents just want to have some idea of what their kids are looking at. This provides them with some way to do this without being unconstitutional or overly invasive.
Ok, most kids saw porno before they were 14. Goodferthem. That still doesn't mean that pornographic material is simply inappropriate for kids. And that doesn't mean parents don't have a right to have some idea of what their kids are up to.
I'm glad you're using the Slashdot crowd as a litmus test for the rest of the world. Because, as you know, we are so representative of the nation (or world) as a whole.
That last part was sarcasm, BTW. Just because you seem to have serious issues with this whole "shades of gray" thing. Dig the pole outta your ass and try and listen to someone else's opinion for once.
-jdm
You don't mandate it. Not everything has to be a law. Point out to the companies that for relatively little work they can put "New Parent-Friendly Viewing History" on their product and market it as the next family-friendly product. Yay free market.
Not everything has to be solved in software! If you don't know which child did it, get them together and talk to them about it. When something in the house gets broken like a vase or picture, you don't go fingerprinting the scene and looking for concrete evidence, you ask your kids.
-jdm
I see it the other way around. You claim it's ok for the government to require filters on computer purchased with public money. Those computers should be the last ones to have -- much less require -- filters. The First Amendment adresses issues like this indirectly. The government cannot stifle free speech or place conditions on financial aid for others to promote (or require) that same stifling of free speech. Yes, there are certain restrictions on speech -- i.e., clear and present danger as established in Schneck v. United States (1919) -- but filters pre-emptively violate this by assuming the danger is where it isn't. Even if most people want such filters, the Constitution won't allow it, and was specifically created to protect the public against the so-called "tyranny of the majority."
Now that I've preached to the converted, let's look at (part of) Gore's plan.
I don't agree with all of it. I do agree with your stance that some of his measures place an overly high burden on ISPs in addition to the pressures they're already facing with the DMCA and similarly bad legislation. But what's wrong with having web browsers incorporate a read-only history of the last 100 sites visited? This doesn't place a burden on ISPs or any other large entity, and no speech is being restricted. Want to surf porn? Go right ahead! But if you're a kid, keep in mind that your click trail is being recorded. It doesn't pre-emptively stop children from viewing "bad things" (like Slashdot trolls) but it does give parents a tool to help raise their children.
Granted this does have issues with the fact that doubleclick would be drooling over ways to get this information, and no doubt some large software companies would have bugs in their software that would allow servers to get this info. But if you don't want this info, use a different browser! This gives parents a tool while giving everyone a choice. It also results in A) fewer lawsuits, and the government can't supeona the ISPs for anything more than they already can.
Personally this is to see if the Slashdot crowd is willing to actually stand behind some of the values they claim to be for (parental control, etc). And I've got some karma to burn.:)
-jdm
Slashdot Mirror
-jdm
A group here at Duke has just started to collaborate with the Emulab people on a similar area of research. We're pretty excited, since we think our group has a lot to share with the Utah group. It's just kind of weird to load Slashdot and find your collaborators on the front page. Here I was thinking I'd take a break from research and read Slashdot, but noooooo .....
And to respond to another poster, maybe if Emulab had Muse-like resource management of their web server, they could handle the web load. :) It would be nice if someone could work on merging the two, getting the two to leverage the best parts of both, work on .... uh, maybe I should get back to work before my advisor sees me posting on Slashdot. :)
-jdm
Merely reading the executive summary, it seems that the commission has already sided in favor of software patents. This is probably a combination of the influence of the pro-patent side, the somewhat neutral or negative view of open source advocates, and potentially immature responses on the part of open source and free software advocates. We could definitely learn some lessons on how not to advocate our position in the future.
At the same time the review appears to have a very negative view of the anti-patent side. Opposition is limited to a three or four word summary (at best), and the Eurolinux coalition's work is somewhat summarily dismissed as a "petition" (quotes from original document). And for chrissake's people, when writing to an important review like this, don't resort to childish tactics like "Micro$oft"; it just gives the other side opportunity to point out (possibly correctly, at times) what a childish bunch those open source freaks are.
Overall, I'd like to applaud EuroLinux for organizing the petition. In the grand scheme of things it may not have made that much of a difference, but we do need to keep trying.
-jdm
... was on the CNN story ( http://www.cnn.com/2001/TECH/internet/07/19/napste r.offline.ap/index.html ):
Napster immediately sought relief from the appeals court, which overturned Patel in a two-sentence order.
Two sentences? This must have set a record for brevity in a court case. Now if only the DMCA could get overturned in such a concise manner:
"We find the Digital Millenium Copyright Act to be a vile piece of underhanded manipulation designed to screw over the average consumer for the benefit of record, movie execs, and - indirectly - corrupt or incompetent congresscritters; DeCSS for all!!
"(P.S. We'd like to see Judge Kaplan in our offices post haste for a severe beat down.)"
Ahhhhhhhh ....
-jdm
But the simple fact that ROT13 can even be listed as an "encryption technology" should be setting off huge warning alarms. "Ecryption" should be a bit more extensive than "can be decoded in a few minutes by a five-year-old with a Cocoa Puffs Secret Agent Decoder Ring."
-jdm
PS. Apologies to whatever company made the ROT13 encryption; I didn't mean to imply a five year-old could decrypt the eBook on their own. They may need their seven-year-old sister's help with some of the bigger words.
Except the interview that raised so much furor was done after the trial was over and the verdict had been handed down. And the bias I was referring to (at least in the 2600 case, regardless of who was right or wrong) was very blatantly done from the bench. The MS comments were made after the trial, IIRC.
-jdm
What amazes me is the double standard we seem to have here about what the courts are "allowed" to be biased towards. Judges often gloat about or cite their "tough record" on crime, occasionally singling out their record of sentencing minorities to harsher penalties than caucasians (*cough*Philadelphia*cough*).
Or what about the 2600 DeCSS case? For anyone who has even read a few minutes of any of the preceedings, it is blatantly obvious that the Judge is severely biased against the defendants. Yes, I know that may get 2600 somewhere in the appeals court, but I can't possibly see a unanimous vote to remand a majority of the case to a lower court.
Yes, *gasp* god forbid we actually say bad things about a corporation or businessmen!! Even if they did blatantly lie on the stand and even bring forth false evidence. MS essentially admitted to perjury (sp?) with their false demos. But how dare we say this aloud?
It's a sad, sad, day when libertarian actually whole-heartedly supports the DOJ is a case against a corporation. Bah.
-jdm
Apparently the trolls are not only posting, but moderating, as well. Feeding time, I guess (I'm bored).
But why do people still find Monty Python funny today?
Because many of the themes that Python used back then are still valid targets of parody, mockery, and general silliness. The sheer range of targets over the four years of TV episodes guarantee that almost everyone can, on some level, relate to and find humor in the situations of the television show.
Yes, people (mis)quoting the movie(s) gets old after a while, but how many people have actually seen the TV shows? The Python-a-thon was probably the coolest thing Comedy Central ever did (for New Year's 94-95), and I absolutely loved the German TV shows.
The show operates on two levels; not only is it filled with one-liners and sight gags, but the intelligence of the creators comes through in the simple concepts of the skits. C'mon, do you really see shows nowadays making skits about German and Greek philosophers playing soccer? Do you really see most of America getting the humor in such a skit?
So, yes, the Holy Grail in theaters may be something to pass on. Just don't assume the movies are the sole (noticeable) creation by Python. And if you still don't accept this, please remove the pole from your arse before you consider posting anymore flamebait like this.
-jdm
As a UVa grad, let me point out that the class in question here is generally regarded as a complete "gut" class. The large majority of students taking it are either athletes or people who just need a basic physics class to get their degree. It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that a large number of students got buster in that class.
Oh, and the honor system is regarded by many to be much of a joke, too. This really sucks for the students that got busted, but if they're going to cheat that blatantly in what's essentially a "gimme" class, they deserve every little bit that's coming to them. And it's always nice to see the honor code coming under scrutiny instead of simply being exhaulted as the greatest thing since sliced bread. :)
-jdm, (I'm not a bitter grad ... why do you ask?) :)
Now when a citizen requests a banned page, all that will show on their screen will be:
Dear Mary,
A.T. Tappman, Chaplain, Chinese ArmyCensoring Officer: Washington Irving
-jdm
I can't really blame the server. If I were stuck at UNC I'd drywall myself in, too, and pray that no one found me. With no arms or legs, tho
ducks and runs ...
-jdm
[school spirit OFF]
Wow, this sounds exactly like me about two years ago ... oh, right, right before I got screwed over by the nice employer I was working for "on the side" as I finished college.
Not to sound too bitter or paranoid, but the bottom line is that unless you have it in writing, odds are they will try to screw you over. And even if the people you trust don't screw you over, what happens if the company changes hands or hires new management? The new owners have no obligations to you that aren't in writing, and the old owners can (and probably will) take a very hands-off approach to your problems.
I loved my workplace, I was working with friends who trusted the company, too, etc, etc. I left for 8 weeks to write my thesis, and everyone at the company knew this and told me (but didn't write down and sign anything) it was ok; when I got back I found that I had all but lost my job (they were about a week away from firing me), had lost my stock options -- which were verbal agreement only -- and got paid $500 to finish my project, basically as a going away payoff.
Side note: a family member who is an accountant said the $500 was suspicious; for amounts $600 or higher (at least in my state) the employer has various obligations to the contractor. Less than that, it's just money thrown to the wind, essentially.
Bottom line: I was naive and stupid enough not to get it in writing, and got screwed over. When money is involved (especially now that the dot-com economy is going through a harsh Darwinian stage) you're just another number in the end. Are you 100% sure that your bottom line is that important to the employer?
-jdm
The simple solution to all this is to post all possible private information about the owners of the site. If they want the first amendment, they can have it, just as long as they realize the consequences.
NOTE: I consider myself to be a big advocate of the Bill of Rights. I think even the KKK should be able to adopt a highway or hold a rally, regardless of the hate, provided the hate is not a direct call to arms with specific wheres and hows. It's one thing to post the postal (or even home) addresses of congressmen if you want a bill to pass or not. It's another thing to get a child's school schedule and address, and praise people when that kid's parent is killed on the way to pick up that child. The site was a clear "Here's where you need to go and when" for attackers.
-jdm
I was also very pleased by his statements about needing to educate other congressmen about the internet and technology. I get the impression that a lot of politicians gain support for their measures either by PR manuevering or by interesting backroom tactics (witness some of the trickery surrounding campaign finance reform). Education is power, especially in issues surrounding technology. We just need to "empower" more reps.
Even though he may be a politician, I get the impression there's at least one person on the Hill that's slightly clued in. Good luck, Congressman.
-jdm
It's out of UHF:
Raul: Today, we teach poodles how to fly!!
-jdm
Actually the cow on the dome was a University of Virginia prank, pulled off by the current President of NASDAQ back in the late 60's, I believe. It was placed on the roof of the Rotunda, but didn't make it down alive. Unfortunately UVa tends to overlook fraternity-ish pranks, but would most likely crack down severely on MIT-ish pranks. Blah.
Does this mean that if I file a patent on a stunningly obvious technology the MPAA or RIAA use I can sue them under the DMCA if they come after me? After all, I took measures to make sure my data was properly encoded and they obviously violated the DMCA if they were able to read it.
Well, I can hope .... :)
I think what I like best about this comment is the fact that it got modded up under the reasoning "Insightful" and not "Funny". Not that I disagree. If we could ship all the boy bands up north (or maybe even to France) I would laud this comment as "Visionary." :)
-jdm
And what's wrong with that?
OK, he's no "Dear Abby", but neither is RMS. I know many here aren't big RMS fans, but are you insecure enough about your own little world that when someone says, "Quit bothering me with stupid details, just write the code" you start flipping out? I attended Supercomputing '99 and went to a talk by Thomas Sterling, one of the original Beowulf pioneers at NASA. A good chunk of his talk was spent complaining about "Linux cruftiness" and "why are you people here when you could be writing code"? I admit I was somewhat pissed coming out of it, but it did have the effect of motivating me to start programming again. I think sometimes we just need a swift kick in the arse from someone (hi Greg!) to get motivated.
Bottom line: ignore the stupid "Are you mad?" comments from someone whose ego is a bit too big to take the time to be polite, and focus on the "learn your APIs, understand your APIs, and stop writing shitty code." Learn the message, ignore the messenger.
-jdm
(I'm ready for my big Mod-down, Mr. Director :)).
... unless some examples of that "justice" has been declared to be a "human rights violation" by organizations such as the U.N. or the E.U. Do you realize how sickened many parts of Europe (such as Italy and Sweden) are by the conduct of states such as Texas and Virginia WRT the liberal use of the death penalty?
I'm not defending democrats. This election was essentially between two ideologically near-identical candidates, and thus they got near-identical votes. I'm just saying you may want to consider what the rest of the civilized world has to say about your opinions before you continue espousing them so self-righteously.
-jdm
Let me preface this by saying that I like Linux, I run it on all my desktop machines, and have admin'ed a cluster of 300 Linux boxen and loved it. However ...
I was not actually at SC this year, but have attended the two previous ones and have actually had a chance to speak with Todd Needham and other people from MS Research. The legal and marketing department there may be full of idiots, but never think that if someone is an MS employee they're automatically and idiot; they may have misplaced loyalties, but they are not stupid. I have to admit that Todd Needham from MS had one or two good points in the panel discussion. Open Source is not the magic "pixie dust" that automatically fixes everything (*snicker* Todd quoted jwz). As someone who's worked in a business environment, I can say with confidence that some level of heirarchical organization is necessary. The Cathedral/Bazaar analogy may be good, but it is not a black-or-white issue; projects can fall somewhere in-between, and those that strike the right balance will be successful.
With respect to security, many eyes may make all bugs shallow, provided some of those eyes are willing to partake in a formal security analysis. A compiler researcher as OSDI this year revealed that in the Linux kernel there are ~80 places where interrupts are disabled and never reenabled. How did he discover this? By modifying a compiler to be a little "smarter" and read a formal specification tailored to the application you're compiling, thus performing more rigorous static anaylsis on your code. It's pretty interesting reading. Many eyes are not a substitute for formal analysis, but something to augment it; conversely, formal analysis of software is still a young field, and many eyes are still a necessity for improving robustness in large projects.
The bottom line: seek the middle ground. Just because "their" ways doesn't work doesn't mean everything was wrong with it. And yes, I'm ready to be moderated down as "flamebait". :)
-jdm
I'm outraged!! The fact that the person to whom that boob is attached does not own the IP and/or the patent for the "combination sexual enhancement/infant nourishment device" is more evidence that the RIAA and MPAA are trampling our rights!! Why is this not front-page news?!?!
-jdm
Read-only was a throwaway phrase. Not everything has to be taken in the strictest CS security terms. Ok, fine, it's not read-only, it'll be buried in the Windows FS somewhere. Good enough?
That's nice that Gore wants it to be law. I already said I don't agree entirely with him. I don't think it should be law, it could be something a self-regulating industry promotes within itself.
Yes, some parents are psycho. And some parents do drug testing of their children. Guess what? They're in the minority! Most parents just want to have some idea of what their kids are looking at. This provides them with some way to do this without being unconstitutional or overly invasive.
Ok, most kids saw porno before they were 14. Goodferthem. That still doesn't mean that pornographic material is simply inappropriate for kids. And that doesn't mean parents don't have a right to have some idea of what their kids are up to.
I'm glad you're using the Slashdot crowd as a litmus test for the rest of the world. Because, as you know, we are so representative of the nation (or world) as a whole.
That last part was sarcasm, BTW. Just because you seem to have serious issues with this whole "shades of gray" thing. Dig the pole outta your ass and try and listen to someone else's opinion for once.
-jdm
Not everything has to be solved in software! If you don't know which child did it, get them together and talk to them about it. When something in the house gets broken like a vase or picture, you don't go fingerprinting the scene and looking for concrete evidence, you ask your kids.
-jdm
Now that I've preached to the converted, let's look at (part of) Gore's plan.
I don't agree with all of it. I do agree with your stance that some of his measures place an overly high burden on ISPs in addition to the pressures they're already facing with the DMCA and similarly bad legislation. But what's wrong with having web browsers incorporate a read-only history of the last 100 sites visited? This doesn't place a burden on ISPs or any other large entity, and no speech is being restricted. Want to surf porn? Go right ahead! But if you're a kid, keep in mind that your click trail is being recorded. It doesn't pre-emptively stop children from viewing "bad things" (like Slashdot trolls) but it does give parents a tool to help raise their children.
Granted this does have issues with the fact that doubleclick would be drooling over ways to get this information, and no doubt some large software companies would have bugs in their software that would allow servers to get this info. But if you don't want this info, use a different browser! This gives parents a tool while giving everyone a choice. It also results in A) fewer lawsuits, and the government can't supeona the ISPs for anything more than they already can.
Personally this is to see if the Slashdot crowd is willing to actually stand behind some of the values they claim to be for (parental control, etc). And I've got some karma to burn. :)
-jdm