I thought the worm was set to start the DDOS on February 1. So why is SCO showing a DDOS right now?
Was the February 1 thing made up? I've not yet received the virus in my email so I can't check the code for myself.
Or (I consider this more plausible) has SCO taken their own site down with the intention of blaming the "Linux terrorists", but they stupidly took it down 3 days too early.
These sorts of requirements have always been silly to me - mostly because I attended a good school. A lot of computer science departments realize that the language that is in style changes, so they teach a good amount of theory, rather than specific languages. What this means is that their students can basically pick up a new language by grabbing and book and be useful in a day or two - and be proficient in probably a week or two.
I agree and disagree.
I agree that universities teach theory first and this ports well to any language. An algorithm is an algorithm. A design is a design. A functional language is a functional language, no matter what the syntax.
I disagree that you can be proficient in any language in "a week or two". You can perhaps pick up the syntax. If you know similar languages with similar strengths and weaknesses then that might be enough. But some languages are so different to each other that it requires reeducation to fully master, eg Forth vs Java. And some languages have so many boobytraps (*cough*C++*cough*) that you really have to spend years learning how to avoid them all.
Beyond that, unless you have a really big head, the difference in arrival time to each ear is less than a microsecond. That is surely too small for your brain to comprehend.
That's assuming that the brain measures the timing delays.
I recall reading somewhere - I forget where - that the shape of the cochlea helps determine frequency. Higher frequencies tickle the hairs further along the cochlea.
I could easily see similar tricks being done "in hardware" to get accurate measures of timing delays rather than relying on the brain's processing power.
For instance: I used to own an Alfa Romeo 164S that, like many "metric" cars, had a climate control system that "thought" in Celsius degrees. The problem is, they're just too big to allow fine enough control for comfort: setting an AC system at 72 degrees and letting it try to stay within a degree of that works fine with Fahrenheit degrees, but doing the same thing, with a one-degree tolerance in Celsius degrees results in a temperature swing that is almost *twice* (9/5, actually) as large, so the system cannot really keep things comfortable.
Hah! But we only have to press the button half as many times to change temperature! Efficiency. Efficiency. Efficiency. This is why we're beating the Americans in production!
Why would you spend obscene amounts of money on an Apple laptop just so you can run Linux on it?
Because the Apple iBooks are better value for money than the PC equivalents. I recently bought a laptop and didn't care which CPU I went with because everything I run these days comes with source code and works on both PPC and x86. The iBook came out as the best value for money. The PC equivalents seemed cheaper until you threw in all the extras you need to buy, just to get up to the same level as the entry-model iBook.
I even considered the no-name laptops but the price difference was a mere $200 (AUD, about $130 USD) between the iBook and the equivalent no-name PC. That's not enough of a saving to win me over.
I have an Apple 12" PowerBook. Never tried running Linux on it, though.
I'm running Linux on a 12" iBook G4. Works well. Very happy with it. Though as you say, no modem, no bluetooth, no airport, no sleep. I can live without the first three but the last one sucks. But I'll grin and bear it until support appears; shutdown and restart is pretty quick anyway.
Everything else works great. Firewire, USB, video (radeon framebuffer and DRI accelerated OpenGL), audio, CD-writer, DVD-player, ethernet, backlight, fan/thermal control, etc.
Admittedly you need to track the very latest LinuxPPC kernels straight out of BitKeeper. Not something I'd recommend for the casual user.
In that I have been modded down as a "troll" and responded to as "Not staying on the fucking topic" because I decided to talk about other movies in a LotR post.
It is off-topic to talk about other movies in a LotR post. In the same way it'd be off-topic to talk about VMS in a MacOSX post. If you're comparing other movies to LotR, or if you're setting historical perspective (eg, Peter Jackson's earlier movies like Meet The Feebles), then that's OK. But if you're just interjecting to show-off your broader knowledge of films then damn right you deserved to be moderated off-topic.
And you notice that this is a discussion about Movies? This isn't me going into the latest MER discussion and talking shit like "Well since I've seen the bulk of Akira Kurosawa's work, I know exactly why Spirit broke down, you clods!"
If you had just discussed the movies then that would have been a valuable contribution and I wouldn't have said a word. But you instead chose to vent your spleen about Slashdot being populated by (in your opinion) movie-cretins. I didn't have a problem with you talking about movies, or even talking about other Globe winners than Return of the King (you know, the topic of this article), I just had a beef with you turning your knowledge of movies into a "/. people are all dumber than me" rant. Maybe that wasn't your intention, but read what you wrote in a dispassionate light and it's difficult to avoid that impression.
That being a Film Nerd isn't a part of the/. Nerd culture.
....
And so heated conversation about the nuances of Linux 2.6 multiprocessing is kosher but talking about cinema (in a post about movies no less) is bullshit.
I disagree. Slashdot articles about movies always get a huge number of responses. I think movies are very much part of the geek/nerd culture. I think there are many film-nerds on Slashdot.
That's why I responded as I did when you said the/. readers are ignorant of movies outside the niches of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I don't have that perception at all. My perception is that/. is populated by film-nerds, photography-nerds, lego-nerds, starwars-nerds, startrek-nerds, d&d-nerds... and guess what, I don't have an interest in any of those things. But I wouldn't have the nerve to tell people off for not caring about my hobbies.
Shit, I'm sorry if I offended you.
You didn't offend me. If you had offended me I wouldn't have bothered replying.
When people start doing illegal things such as writing viruses to get back at SCO, on the other hand, the Linux community loses much of its innocence.
The "Linux community" did not write this virus. At least, I don't recall seeing the "Let's Write Viruses" thread on LKML. There's no "Anti-SCO DDOS Virus" project on Sourceforge.
This DDOS virus was probably written by a lone individual. The Linux community is not responsible for the actions of individuals.
I consider it just as likely that the virus was written by SCO to garner sympathy. Their stock is in decline (again) and they need something to talk about in their next stock-pumping press release.
Of course our opinions don't seem to mesh with the standard/. line of "If I haven't seen/heard of it, it must not be good."
Eh? What sort of condescending tripe is that? So the "standard/. line" is a dismissive attitude and an illogical conclusion? Can you support this claim with any evidence at all? A single story? A single comment? Anything at all?
Or is this just another example of/.-bashing. Suddenly it's trendy to sneer at/. and everybody who is "cool" has been bashing/. since forever! Oh sure, you're posting on/., but I bet in your heart of hearts you think you're better than 99% of the people here. How else can you explain your condescending attitude?
When the Gamecube-Linux project was reported on Slashdot a few weeks back, I was skeptical. It sounded too much like one of those "we've got a plan and a roadmap and a committee and a logo... now we just need people who can write code" projects.
But if those screenshots are for real (ie, not faked) then I'm impressed. Linux now boots on all the latest generation consoles (DC, PS2, XBOX, GC). That means the hardware that can run Linux is both pervasive (50 million PS2s? 10 million XBOXs? 10 million GCs?) and cheap (starting from $99!).
Linux everywhere. It's no longer a pipe dream. Congratulations to the GC-Linux team for taking Linux one step closer towards world domination.
Well I think your mod was pretty neat. It's a nifty portable case for a decent LAN party puter. Surely beats the boring "neon lights case with perpsex sides" that you can buy for $100.
Only thing I would have done different is mounting the DVD on the side with a slot-loading drive. That way the front facing appearance would have been more "natural".
That's not heretical - it's ignorant [1]. It's been said time and time again, here and elsewhere, that the networking code in XFree86 is not a bottleneck and replacing it would not speed up the display.
Repeat: removing the networking code would not make X any faster
Actually it would. Just not significantly. The XFree86 guys have experimented with different transports including a SHM transport (btw: that's not the same thing as MIT-SHM). They could achieve 5% speed improvements with SHM transports for some (limited) operations. The performance improvement wasn't considered worth the effort and the loss of networking functionality.
It's more correct to say that the socket transport in XFree86 doesn't significantly impact the performance. And the benefits greatly outweigh the costs; my home setup involves three computers running GNOME applications displaying on my laptop. I was most impressed to find that GNOME handles widget-theme changes across all computers automagically. Cut and paste works, etc. The only annoying thing is when I save a file to/tmp then try to load it in another app. I need to remember that it's $HOME/tmp if I want it shared between my apps.
Do you get upset if an RHCE uses the word engineer? Or is that different because it is Linux?
I don't get upset. As I said, I just think it's funny. I agree it's equally stupid when RedHat does it, and when Novell does it for that matter.
By the way - CCNA = Associate not Architect.
Yes... I know that CCNA means associate, it says so on my little card here that I got when I passed the CCNA exam, but the dolts around here still put "architect" in their sig.
but being Slashdot, I guess only Microsoft is in the wrong here.
Well isn't that nice of you. You didn't even wait for my response before deciding my guilt. I suppose there's nothing better than make-believe when it suits your own personal agenda.
But nowhere in the GPL does it say that you should link in or otherwise include proprietary code; that's not the goal, the goal is to create BETTER code that does the same thing, and also happens to be free.
Actually the goal is, and always has been, to create free software that also happens to be better.
BUT I have seen some engineers who can equally make you think twice about what schools are teaching and how they even got those degrees.
I agree that the title means nothing. I also know of engineers who aren't worth the paper their degrees are printed upon. Similarly I know several high-school dropouts who have incredible skill and intelligence. IMO a degree is next to worthless; it simply proves you could afford to waste several years in academia.
But that said, I still have an issue who claim to have the qualifications when they do not.
Besides, I stand by my original assertion - "the proper tool for the job" - is free software always the proper tool for the job,
In my experience, not yet. Is there any technical reason why free software couldn't always be the best tool for the job? Nope. The reasons why non-free tools are sometimes better are economical, political and historical. Given enough time, I think those reasons will cease to be relevant.
or is this a case where, to the man with just a hammer, every problem looks like a nail?
If all you have is a hammer, then you simply make sure all your jobs involve driving nails.
P.S. - Yes, I have mine, in NT4, Windows 2000, and a Red Hat Linux RHCE (and about six years working in both Microsoft server and Linux OSs). Repeat after me: The Proper Tool for the Job...
Repeat after me: Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
If using the tool involves giving up my freedom then I'll manage to do without.
How is it that Microsoft gets away with using this phrase when the certification is not recognized by the association of professional engineers?
I have had the same problem at my work. I got very annoyed with every trumped up MCSE or CCNA declaring themselves either an "engineer" or an "architect". So I now have a rotating set of sigs to poke fun at their made up qualifications. For example,
Master of Space and Time
Doctor of Nematodalogy
Professor of Smartification
Our Gracious Lord High Mucky Muck
Director of Choreography at the Wangaratta School of Ballet For Men
Leader of the Free World
I think perhaps 10% of the people here got the joke. The remaining 90% chastised me for claiming credentials I didn't really have. Yet those same people still have "architect" and/or "engineer" in their sigs. I find that highly amusing but I keep it to myself. It's funnier when they don't get it.
"I would also predict that the people who watch sports tend to be fit."
Why hasn't this been modded up to +5, Funny, yet?
There's simply no justice!
But I was being serious. I don't know about the USA, but over here in Australia pretty much everybody I know participates in some form of weekend sport. The people who watch football tend to play amateur football. The people who watch cricket tend to play amateur cricket (often indoor cricket). It's not the case that spectators over here are fat unfit slobs.
Maybe Australia is simply better suited for healthy pursuits. In my experience, the sports enthusiasts watch lots of sports and they play lots of sports. They tend to be fairly fit as a result.
the demographic which watches sci fi tends to be smarter and more critical than the general populous.
And way less pretentious, right? Show me the data regarding your little pet theory. Oh there is none? Well don't let the facts get in the way of your beliefs.
I don't have any data either, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. I would also predict that the people who watch sports tend to be fit. The people who watch dragcar racing tend to be revheads. The people who watch ballet tend to be educated. The people who watch Oprah tend to be women.
I don't think it's a pretentious claim. He's not saying "if you watch Star Trek then you are smart". Nor is he saying "if you don't watch Star Trek then you are dumb". He's saying that the people who tend to watch nerdy shows like Star Trek are... wait for it... nerds! Nerds are into computers and maths and reading and getting good grades in school. They're attracted to Star Trek like flies to a turd. That shifts the demographic towards smarter people.
Now whether those smart people have discerning taste is totally open to debate. I personally think Star Trek is a load of shit. It's lousy sci-fi and lousy drama. I refuse to sit through an entire episode.
For its part, Provo, Utah-based Novell was caught unawares.
"We can't comment because we haven't seen the filing yet," said spokesman Bruce Lowry. "But we can certainly say we will be defending our interests."
In other words, SCO is issuing press releases within hours (maybe minutes) of filling lawsuits. Certainly before even discussing these matters with Novell. Surely that's not normal behaviour.
There's a running joke on Groklaw that SCO is using press releases and lawsuits as a foul form of free advertising. Unfortunately I'm not finding the joke very funny anymore.
Higher sampling rates do capture more accurate detail particularly on the phase accuracy.
No, you get EXACT reproduction without having to use higher sampling rates.
In fact, if sampling a 1kHz sine wave at 2kHz, one has to sample at the peaks or get a magnitude error. If the samples happen at the zero crossing (out of phase sample), one gets no signal samples at all:
That's because you mistakenly think Nyquist's theorem is Fn = 2Fmax. Nyquist's theorem is Fn > 2Fmax. So what you're seeing is aliasing when Fn = 2Fmax. This causes an attenuation in the amplitude proportional to cosine of the phase difference between the sampling frequency and the signal. If you have Fn < 2Fmax then you get a "beating volume" effect as the phase difference shifts over time.
Don't get all excited. You haven't proven Nyquist wrong. You just didn't understand what Nyquist said.
If you would explain, I would be happy to read it.
I'm not entirely sure I could explain. I can do the mathematics but putting it into layman's terms is beyond me. My textbooks couldn't state the idea in layman's terms, and those books were written by people who really know the material.
Attacking the least relevant part of my post really looks like a strawman argument anyway.
Slashdot Mirror
I thought the worm was set to start the DDOS on February 1. So why is SCO showing a DDOS right now?
Was the February 1 thing made up? I've not yet received the virus in my email so I can't check the code for myself.
Or (I consider this more plausible) has SCO taken their own site down with the intention of blaming the "Linux terrorists", but they stupidly took it down 3 days too early.
I agree and disagree.
I agree that universities teach theory first and this ports well to any language. An algorithm is an algorithm. A design is a design. A functional language is a functional language, no matter what the syntax.
I disagree that you can be proficient in any language in "a week or two". You can perhaps pick up the syntax. If you know similar languages with similar strengths and weaknesses then that might be enough. But some languages are so different to each other that it requires reeducation to fully master, eg Forth vs Java. And some languages have so many boobytraps (*cough*C++*cough*) that you really have to spend years learning how to avoid them all.
That's assuming that the brain measures the timing delays.
I recall reading somewhere - I forget where - that the shape of the cochlea helps determine frequency. Higher frequencies tickle the hairs further along the cochlea.
I could easily see similar tricks being done "in hardware" to get accurate measures of timing delays rather than relying on the brain's processing power.
Hah! But we only have to press the button half as many times to change temperature! Efficiency. Efficiency. Efficiency. This is why we're beating the Americans in production!
Because the Apple iBooks are better value for money than the PC equivalents. I recently bought a laptop and didn't care which CPU I went with because everything I run these days comes with source code and works on both PPC and x86. The iBook came out as the best value for money. The PC equivalents seemed cheaper until you threw in all the extras you need to buy, just to get up to the same level as the entry-model iBook.
I even considered the no-name laptops but the price difference was a mere $200 (AUD, about $130 USD) between the iBook and the equivalent no-name PC. That's not enough of a saving to win me over.
I'm running Linux on a 12" iBook G4. Works well. Very happy with it. Though as you say, no modem, no bluetooth, no airport, no sleep. I can live without the first three but the last one sucks. But I'll grin and bear it until support appears; shutdown and restart is pretty quick anyway.
Everything else works great. Firewire, USB, video (radeon framebuffer and DRI accelerated OpenGL), audio, CD-writer, DVD-player, ethernet, backlight, fan/thermal control, etc.
Admittedly you need to track the very latest LinuxPPC kernels straight out of BitKeeper. Not something I'd recommend for the casual user.
It is off-topic to talk about other movies in a LotR post. In the same way it'd be off-topic to talk about VMS in a MacOSX post. If you're comparing other movies to LotR, or if you're setting historical perspective (eg, Peter Jackson's earlier movies like Meet The Feebles), then that's OK. But if you're just interjecting to show-off your broader knowledge of films then damn right you deserved to be moderated off-topic.
If you had just discussed the movies then that would have been a valuable contribution and I wouldn't have said a word. But you instead chose to vent your spleen about Slashdot being populated by (in your opinion) movie-cretins. I didn't have a problem with you talking about movies, or even talking about other Globe winners than Return of the King (you know, the topic of this article), I just had a beef with you turning your knowledge of movies into a "/. people are all dumber than me" rant. Maybe that wasn't your intention, but read what you wrote in a dispassionate light and it's difficult to avoid that impression.
I disagree. Slashdot articles about movies always get a huge number of responses. I think movies are very much part of the geek/nerd culture. I think there are many film-nerds on Slashdot.
That's why I responded as I did when you said the /. readers are ignorant of movies outside the niches of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. I don't have that perception at all. My perception is that /. is populated by film-nerds, photography-nerds, lego-nerds, starwars-nerds, startrek-nerds, d&d-nerds... and guess what, I don't have an interest in any of those things. But I wouldn't have the nerve to tell people off for not caring about my hobbies.
You didn't offend me. If you had offended me I wouldn't have bothered replying.
The "Linux community" did not write this virus. At least, I don't recall seeing the "Let's Write Viruses" thread on LKML. There's no "Anti-SCO DDOS Virus" project on Sourceforge.
This DDOS virus was probably written by a lone individual. The Linux community is not responsible for the actions of individuals.
I consider it just as likely that the virus was written by SCO to garner sympathy. Their stock is in decline (again) and they need something to talk about in their next stock-pumping press release.
Eh? What sort of condescending tripe is that? So the "standard /. line" is a dismissive attitude and an illogical conclusion? Can you support this claim with any evidence at all? A single story? A single comment? Anything at all?
Or is this just another example of /.-bashing. Suddenly it's trendy to sneer at /. and everybody who is "cool" has been bashing /. since forever! Oh sure, you're posting on /., but I bet in your heart of hearts you think you're better than 99% of the people here. How else can you explain your condescending attitude?
When the Gamecube-Linux project was reported on Slashdot a few weeks back, I was skeptical. It sounded too much like one of those "we've got a plan and a roadmap and a committee and a logo... now we just need people who can write code" projects.
But if those screenshots are for real (ie, not faked) then I'm impressed. Linux now boots on all the latest generation consoles (DC, PS2, XBOX, GC). That means the hardware that can run Linux is both pervasive (50 million PS2s? 10 million XBOXs? 10 million GCs?) and cheap (starting from $99!).
Linux everywhere. It's no longer a pipe dream. Congratulations to the GC-Linux team for taking Linux one step closer towards world domination.
Well I think your mod was pretty neat. It's a nifty portable case for a decent LAN party puter. Surely beats the boring "neon lights case with perpsex sides" that you can buy for $100.
Only thing I would have done different is mounting the DVD on the side with a slot-loading drive. That way the front facing appearance would have been more "natural".
Actually it would. Just not significantly. The XFree86 guys have experimented with different transports including a SHM transport (btw: that's not the same thing as MIT-SHM). They could achieve 5% speed improvements with SHM transports for some (limited) operations. The performance improvement wasn't considered worth the effort and the loss of networking functionality.
It's more correct to say that the socket transport in XFree86 doesn't significantly impact the performance. And the benefits greatly outweigh the costs; my home setup involves three computers running GNOME applications displaying on my laptop. I was most impressed to find that GNOME handles widget-theme changes across all computers automagically. Cut and paste works, etc. The only annoying thing is when I save a file to /tmp then try to load it in another app. I need to remember that it's $HOME/tmp if I want it shared between my apps.
I don't get upset. As I said, I just think it's funny. I agree it's equally stupid when RedHat does it, and when Novell does it for that matter.
Yes... I know that CCNA means associate, it says so on my little card here that I got when I passed the CCNA exam, but the dolts around here still put "architect" in their sig.
Well isn't that nice of you. You didn't even wait for my response before deciding my guilt. I suppose there's nothing better than make-believe when it suits your own personal agenda.
Actually the goal is, and always has been, to create free software that also happens to be better.
I agree that the title means nothing. I also know of engineers who aren't worth the paper their degrees are printed upon. Similarly I know several high-school dropouts who have incredible skill and intelligence. IMO a degree is next to worthless; it simply proves you could afford to waste several years in academia.
But that said, I still have an issue who claim to have the qualifications when they do not.
In my experience, not yet. Is there any technical reason why free software couldn't always be the best tool for the job? Nope. The reasons why non-free tools are sometimes better are economical, political and historical. Given enough time, I think those reasons will cease to be relevant.
If all you have is a hammer, then you simply make sure all your jobs involve driving nails.
Left my parent's home after finishing high school. Held two jobs while putting myself through university. Now own my own home.
Have absolutely no tolerance for people like you who think idealism is only held by people who have not experienced life.
This is RIAA maths... so was it actually 27 lawsuits but some of them were really serious?
Repeat after me: Better to die on your feet than live on your knees.
If using the tool involves giving up my freedom then I'll manage to do without.
I have had the same problem at my work. I got very annoyed with every trumped up MCSE or CCNA declaring themselves either an "engineer" or an "architect". So I now have a rotating set of sigs to poke fun at their made up qualifications. For example,
I think perhaps 10% of the people here got the joke. The remaining 90% chastised me for claiming credentials I didn't really have. Yet those same people still have "architect" and/or "engineer" in their sigs. I find that highly amusing but I keep it to myself. It's funnier when they don't get it.
There's simply no justice!
But I was being serious. I don't know about the USA, but over here in Australia pretty much everybody I know participates in some form of weekend sport. The people who watch football tend to play amateur football. The people who watch cricket tend to play amateur cricket (often indoor cricket). It's not the case that spectators over here are fat unfit slobs.
Maybe Australia is simply better suited for healthy pursuits. In my experience, the sports enthusiasts watch lots of sports and they play lots of sports. They tend to be fairly fit as a result.
I don't have any data either, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was true. I would also predict that the people who watch sports tend to be fit. The people who watch dragcar racing tend to be revheads. The people who watch ballet tend to be educated. The people who watch Oprah tend to be women.
I don't think it's a pretentious claim. He's not saying "if you watch Star Trek then you are smart". Nor is he saying "if you don't watch Star Trek then you are dumb". He's saying that the people who tend to watch nerdy shows like Star Trek are... wait for it... nerds! Nerds are into computers and maths and reading and getting good grades in school. They're attracted to Star Trek like flies to a turd. That shifts the demographic towards smarter people.
Now whether those smart people have discerning taste is totally open to debate. I personally think Star Trek is a load of shit. It's lousy sci-fi and lousy drama. I refuse to sit through an entire episode.
From internetnews.com.
In other words, SCO is issuing press releases within hours (maybe minutes) of filling lawsuits. Certainly before even discussing these matters with Novell. Surely that's not normal behaviour.
There's a running joke on Groklaw that SCO is using press releases and lawsuits as a foul form of free advertising. Unfortunately I'm not finding the joke very funny anymore.
No, you get EXACT reproduction without having to use higher sampling rates.
That's because you mistakenly think Nyquist's theorem is Fn = 2Fmax. Nyquist's theorem is Fn > 2Fmax. So what you're seeing is aliasing when Fn = 2Fmax. This causes an attenuation in the amplitude proportional to cosine of the phase difference between the sampling frequency and the signal. If you have Fn < 2Fmax then you get a "beating volume" effect as the phase difference shifts over time.
Don't get all excited. You haven't proven Nyquist wrong. You just didn't understand what Nyquist said.
I'm not entirely sure I could explain. I can do the mathematics but putting it into layman's terms is beyond me. My textbooks couldn't state the idea in layman's terms, and those books were written by people who really know the material.
That's not what a strawman argument is.