Ahh, a problem eh? How many Macs have been compromised this year by worms? Oh yeah that would be zero.
Lie #1.
Well how many were compromised by viruses, umm zero.
Lie #2.
Sure I could switch my laptop to OpenBSD or SELinux.
Do you even know what SELinux is? It's not a distribution like OpenBSD. You can't switch your laptop to SELinux.
When macs are compromised in an automated fashion, regularly, the platform will have a problem. Ideally Apple will be proactive and introduce features to keep it from ever getting to that state, which they have so far.
Lie #3. I even quoted the MOAB guys who said Apple was given one month's notice on several bugs. Apple is not being proactive.
You complain that they haven't introduced MAC and it is not on the feature list.
No, you claimed Apple had proactively introduced mandatory access controls and I refuted your bogus claim. Lie #4.
Don't implement a project that is irresponsible by all security industry standards and which maximizes the risk to users in the hopes that can manufacture a problem that does not currently exist.
Lie #5. Fulll public disclosure is not "irresponsible by all security industry standards". No security expert would ever make that claim. Take for example one of the MOAB bugs that was already in the wild. Actual boxes had been exploited by this hole well before MOAB announced it. The MOAB guys gave details that the average home user could follow to workaround the problem until Apple does fix the fault.
You claim I'm attacking the messenger, but this particular messenger was trampling on people in order to try to gain publicity. They can rot and you need to take a course on ethics.
The day I take ethics advice from a liar is the day hell freezes over.
I have. And my estimation of your worth has diminished considerably.
I blame the MOAB guys because their disclosure is about as irresponsible as you can get. Intentionally providing a vendor who acts in good faith with no advance notice
Your factiness is compelling. Unfortunately the facts disagree with you. Despite your claim that these guys aren't notifying Apple of these bugs in advance, they claim that they have, and I find them a whole lot more convincing than you.
"Don't attempt to mount untrusted DMG files, disable Safari 'Open safe files' in it's preferences dialog, wait for Apple to release a fix (this issue has been reported to them circa a month ago)." -- http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/MOAB-09-01-2007.html
And from another of the MOAB bugs.
"Don't attempt to mount untrusted DMG files, disable Safari 'Open safe files' in it's preferences dialog, wait for Apple to release a fix (this issue was confirmed to them via e-mail after public availability of the MoKB FreeBSD issues, > month ago)." -- http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/MOAB-10-01-2007.html
Some of the other bugs stem from problems that were reported to Apple over 2 years ago. For example, why is Safari still shipping with "Open Safe Files" enabled by default? There have been continuous reports of exploits due to that default option. Apple refuses to use the sensible default of disabled. Here's another of your bogus claims.
The framework file is installed by a third party application, which sets the permissions.
Absolutely false. The permissions on/Library/Frameworks are broken out of the box before APE is even installed. The MOAB guys have this to say:
"The approach for fixing the MoAB issues is actually making Apple boost it's vulnerability handling process, and not leveraging the work to a jackass third-party which has no security background at all... -- http://projects.info-pull.com/moab/MOAB-08-01-2007.html
Those guys are right on the money yet again. Creating a secure OS is not about setting the permissions roughly correct - and even that is a relatively recent concept for Apple - and then trusting every third party to do the right thing. It's about making it difficult or impossible for a third party to make a mistake. It's impossible for every third party to be an expert; Apple is supposed to create frameworks and tools to do that work. Allowing third parties to install setuid binaries in/Library/Frameworks is the perfect example of Apple dropping the ball; the installer should have simply denied the action. And this whole problem could even be avoided if the default account wasn't in the admin group because that's yet another fault that was reported to Apple several years ago, still without resolution.
Here's another of your bogus claims. Fedora took a bold step back in Fedora Core 2 when they introduced MAC. You claim that Apple will one day perhaps do something similar:
They're also proactive doing security audits and introducing new features like workable encryption for user accounts, mandatory access controls
But why has Apple silently dropped MAC from their list of supported features in the upcoming Leopard? Hopefully the feature will still be there when Leopard does finally hit the streets - the removal from the website might just be because most Mac users don't know what it mean
The security hole is in APE. The fact that you disagree with Apple's permission choices is pretty irrelevant.
It's not a disagreement. Apple's default permissions on that directory are plain wrong. APE is just an example application that proves the point. The actual fault lies with Apple.
I think the real problem here is that the MOAB deniers are woefully ignorant of the problems. They think they can make up for their woeful ignorance with chest-beating. I've been nothing but disgusted with the Mac community's treatment of the MOAB and their collective denial of the problems. I use a Mac. I think it's great. I also work in the security field and I have done so for the past 5 years. I've been aware for the past 2 years that OS X is a horrendously insecure OS. Fedora is much better. OpenBSD is much better. OS X is below par. The best OS X can claim is that it's better than Windows - BFD. If the Mac pundits just admitted the problem exists and took steps to secure their OS they'd get the two thumbs up. Instead they stick their heads in the sand and pretend that it's all somebody else's fault. They blame the MOAB guys, or they start from an ignorant understanding of the issues and claim that the faults aren't faults. Part of fixing the problem is admitting that the problem exists.
I'm extremely surprised that nobody has released a security manager or lockdown tool for OS X. I suppose because the Mac community is in a collective denial there is no demand for such an application.
Going from 12mpg to 30 mpg will save more gasoline than 30 to 40 mpg.
These trucks won't improve from 12mpg to 30mpg. They'll improve from 12mpg to 15mpg. Your comparison is fundamentally broken because you've used an unrealistic 200% improvement for the truck and a 30% improvement for the lighter car.
I can't imagine somebody who doesn't love Ramen though...
I can't stand the stuff. It's oily and salty and plain nasty. I'd rather cook something fresh than eat the freeze-dried instant carbohydrate disaster that is instant ramen.
Is he trying to improve his own records? Isn't this just a case of an idiot who tries to get people to hack their educational stuff for them? I mean, it probably will lead to a congressional scandal, but it doesn't really have much to do with the aide's aide-ness or republican-ness.
Don't worry. When Fox News reports this story the closed captioning will reveal he's become a Democrat overnight.
Well, cutthroat razor-thin margins generally aren't bad, but it's hard to imagine how it would be profitable to sink billions of dollars and 20 years into developing a drug, when someone can compete with you when they're already billions of dollars and 20 years ahead, merely by using your published formula.
Sounds to me like the problem is that a fixed length of time for all patents can't make everybody happy. Drugs that require billions of dollars and 20 years to develop aren't going to be served by a 1 year patent. But 20 year patent protection is inappropriate for trivial inventions, even if they do deserve some sort of protection.
Seems to me the solution would be for the patent office to assign varying patent lifetimes depending on the complexity/cost of the invention. You get 6 months for that trivial invention - one-click purchasing - but you enjoy 50 years patent protection for inventing the cure for (one of the many variants of) cancer.
There's even a precedent. The judiciary assigns sentences based on the circumstances of a crime. There are guidelines they must follow but the length of time or size of the fine is variable.
Mac OS X is a far more secure general purpose desktop operating system for most users than any viable alternative.
With all those caveats what you're really saying is that OS X is more secure than Windows. Because Windows is the only viable alternative for most users as a general purpose desktop OS.
Well duh. More secure than Windows; that's not exactly an achievement.
The problem is that OS X and Windows are both at the bottom of the pile for security. OS X is marginally better than Windows but they're both woefully inadequate. For a litany of faults look no further than the preferred language (Obj-C), the hardware platform (no NX), the OS design itself (UNIX without caps or privs), etc. Linux is hardly the model of security either but even Fedora/Debian/SuSe leaves OS X in the dust. The only problem is that thanks to your caveats we can't compare OS X to Linux because Linux isn't a viable alternative for most users.
Make no bones about it: OS X is not secure. It is better than Windows. That's very mild praise indeed.
We already know that MS gave SCO a significant amount of money through various channels with absolutely no visible return (the licenses, the PIPE funding, underwriting the EV1 deal, etc.). It certainly seems more reasonable to assume that Microsoft is paying SCO to do exactly what SCO is doing rather than assuming that they've decided to start just giving away money for no particular reason.
Conspiracy and conjecture. Exactly the sort of nonsense I was ridiculing. You don't know why the investment was made, or whether there was a return, so you invent the most overwrought and implausible story that it was a mercenary payment for SCO to attack Linux even though that would eventually mean SCO's demise.
we have no right to call someone stupid based on their faith.
Sure we do. It's called the right to free speech. I think you're an idiot because you've taken political correctness to the stupid extreme that deserves ridicule. I also think your religion sucks and you smell bad. I have every right to say all of that.
Welcome to the real world. Sometimes people say hurtful things. Suck it up and deal with it.
As a creationist, I'd be content with a statement saying that evolution isn't proven, with no specific reference to creationism...most of us just have a problem with it being taught as a fact instead of a theory.
Evolution is both a fact and a theory.
Evolution - defined as a change in alleles frequency in a population - has been observed in the lab and in the wild. Evolution is a fact.
The theory of human evolution has strong corroborating evidence. And predictions that are successful. It's an extremely successful theory. But it is only a theory.
The theory of evolution by natural selection has strong corroborating evidence. And predictions that are successful. It's an extremely successful theory. But it is only a theory.
The theory of speciation by evolutionary change has strong corroborating evidence. And predictions that are successful. It's an extremely successful theory. But it is only a theory.
Half the noise seems to be from people who don't understand the facts, but are annoyed or frightened by one of the theories.
If we were to believe Tom then there is some sort of dark sinister plot unwinding with steely eyed CEOs plotting the downfall of their rival companies. The CEO of Novell is sitting back in his leather chair, surrounded by bikini clad girly girls and hired goons with steel brimmed bowler hats, cackling madly in glee as his plan to use SCO's hubris to destroy Microsoft has finally comes to fruition.
That's fiction. The real world is much simpler. Novell is doing what all IT companies eventually do; realise that you can't fight Microsoft, so you might as well make sure your software interoperates. I don't give a shit what conspiracy theories are flying around Slashdot about the Novell/Microsoft deal; the ability for OpenOffice to read Word documents is farking awesome and I'll gladly pay money to Novell if necessary to get in on that. Sun did the same thing (identity software). IBM and HP and Apple as well. The money that changes hands and the lawsuits just serve to obscure the benficial outcomes for you and I; software from multiple vendors that works together. Sometimes (you might say always) the business relationship with Microsoft works to their eventual detriment (R.I.P SGI) but there's no business sense in taunting the 800lb gorilla. You give it a banana as a peace offering and hope it doesn't sit on you.
SCO isn't a pawn of Microsoft. That's a fiction invented by Groklaw and it's the worst kind of conjecture and conspiracy imaginable. SCO's CEO convinced himself that they owned UNIX, that Linux stole from UNIX, and that SCO deserved a piece of the action. "Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence". There is no doubt that Darl is incompetent, so there's no need to paint him as a malicious figure. It was a stupid lawsuit initiated by a desperate CEO to save a pathetic, dying company. The 1000s of articles generated by The Site Whose Name Makes Even Cthulu Cringe has made an echo chamber, where conjecture is used as proof for the next piece of conjecture. It's like the fishing story where the fish keeps getting bigger with each telling.
This is just business. There's no conspiracy. It must be a slow news day when "journalists" start inventing Tom Clancy plotlines and making stupid analogies with trapdoor spiders.
Atheists believe the only consequence to actions in life is if you get caught
Nonsense. Atheism just means you lack belief in the existence of gods. Either actively "I believe gods don't exist" or passively "I don't believe gods exist". Atheists can still believe in an after life, reincarnation, ghosts, witchcraft, judgement, or any number of kooky things.
Wow, Metallica finally learned? Took them long enough. Remember, they were the original artists FOR DRM based music and FOR strict control over their music and even FOR the RIAA. It would seem somebody has changed their tunes. Finally...
That's a misrepresentation of Metallica's position. Metallica has always had a relaxed attitude towards bootlegs. They even allowed people to plug their tape recorders into the mixing desk at concerts. They just asked that nobody copied their studio recorded music - you know, the recordings that are an expense to Metallica and their primary means of income. I considered it a reasonable request at the time; they weren't saying you couldn't make your own MP3s, or even trade their bootlegs, only that you didn't trade the studio recordings.
Metallica was one of the first bands to offer high quality digital content to their fans, as a bonus download off their website when you bought their CDs. They have made available video and music files recorded at their concerts, all for free. They publish a huge quantity of material; a balance of music, video, movies and other paraphenalia that rewards those fans who want to know more about Metallica. Their concerts are amazing value for money; high energy and extremely well produced. Metallica treat their fans very well. In return they ask that you don't rip them off.
The meme that "Metallica is anti MP3" is up there with "Gore invented the Internet" and "sue McDonalds for making coffee". It's a stupid lie that just won't die.
even if they did it on purpose I think the customer is a jerk:.002 cents is 500 kbytes for 1 cent, 1 megabyte for 2 cents, 5 megabytes for 10 cents. That's outrageously cheap and obviously not correct.
Huh? I'm currently paying 2cents AUD for a megabyte. There's nothing spectacular about 2cents USD for a megabyte.
Far from being outrageously cheap, that's more than I'd expect to pay. What the hell are you paying for a megabyte?
Jon Camfield went on to say "And don't get me started about Christmas. Every year my family gives me these so-called 'gifts' but the training and running costs are crippling. Last year I spent several hours reading manuals and the electricity isn't free you know. The true cost of last year's presents is approximately $870 so this year I sent an invoice to my wife."
When asked to comment, Mrs Camfield responded "Jon can go f**k himself" as she carried a suitcase and two children into a waiting cab.
They didn't expect Americans to be fit enough to smash a television, and even should the unthinkable happen, the player would surely die of the shock of destroying his God.
Great, now I don't believe in television either, thank you very much >:-(
You cannot divide by zero [wikipedia.org] by definition. It's the property.
That's why he's defined a new arithmetic - he calls it transreal - where division by zero is defined. The PDFs on his website clearly explain what he's done.
It isn't rubbish. In second year high school mathematics they had us "invent" our own arithmetic. We could define whatever operations we like (eg, a funny symbol that would multiple the left hand value by 2 and add it to the inverse of the right hand value) and then we had to prove whether the operation was commutative, distributive, etc. This guy has done the same thing but with a new "number" he calls nullity. He has defined what happens when you add a real to nullity, when you multiply a real by nullity, when you divide nullity by nullity, etc. It's an internally consistent number system.
It's interesting for grade schoolers because it gets them thinking about number theory. Instead of thinking "you can't divide by zero" they instead think "oh, well that's just a law for the real numbers, but I'm not constrained by real numbers, I can invent a number system where division by zero is allowed". That is far more insightful and creative than "you can't divide by zero". A child who grasps that concept has the potential to become a great mathematician. A child who merely parrots "you can't divide by zero" will become a bus driver or a computer programmer:-P
It's hard to explain abstract concepts such as number theory. Congratulations to him for making it look like fun.
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Lie #1.
Lie #2.
Do you even know what SELinux is? It's not a distribution like OpenBSD. You can't switch your laptop to SELinux.
Lie #3. I even quoted the MOAB guys who said Apple was given one month's notice on several bugs. Apple is not being proactive.
No, you claimed Apple had proactively introduced mandatory access controls and I refuted your bogus claim. Lie #4.
Lie #5. Fulll public disclosure is not "irresponsible by all security industry standards". No security expert would ever make that claim. Take for example one of the MOAB bugs that was already in the wild. Actual boxes had been exploited by this hole well before MOAB announced it. The MOAB guys gave details that the average home user could follow to workaround the problem until Apple does fix the fault.
The day I take ethics advice from a liar is the day hell freezes over.
What a load of crap. I cut and pasted your comments directly from the Slashdot reply window. You are a liar.
Take away copyright and there wouldn't be any need for the GPL because we could copy software freely.
I have. And my estimation of your worth has diminished considerably.
Your factiness is compelling. Unfortunately the facts disagree with you. Despite your claim that these guys aren't notifying Apple of these bugs in advance, they claim that they have, and I find them a whole lot more convincing than you.
And from another of the MOAB bugs.
Some of the other bugs stem from problems that were reported to Apple over 2 years ago. For example, why is Safari still shipping with "Open Safe Files" enabled by default? There have been continuous reports of exploits due to that default option. Apple refuses to use the sensible default of disabled. Here's another of your bogus claims.
Absolutely false. The permissions on /Library/Frameworks are broken out of the box before APE is even installed. The MOAB guys have this to say:
Those guys are right on the money yet again. Creating a secure OS is not about setting the permissions roughly correct - and even that is a relatively recent concept for Apple - and then trusting every third party to do the right thing. It's about making it difficult or impossible for a third party to make a mistake. It's impossible for every third party to be an expert; Apple is supposed to create frameworks and tools to do that work. Allowing third parties to install setuid binaries in /Library/Frameworks is the perfect example of Apple dropping the ball; the installer should have simply denied the action. And this whole problem could even be avoided if the default account wasn't in the admin group because that's yet another fault that was reported to Apple several years ago, still without resolution.
Here's another of your bogus claims. Fedora took a bold step back in Fedora Core 2 when they introduced MAC. You claim that Apple will one day perhaps do something similar:
But why has Apple silently dropped MAC from their list of supported features in the upcoming Leopard? Hopefully the feature will still be there when Leopard does finally hit the streets - the removal from the website might just be because most Mac users don't know what it mean
You're right, you don't know. OS X has software RAID and it's trivial to configure.
You can. Out of the box OS X supports NFS, AFP, FTP, HTTP, CUPS and Samba. GUI configuration tools for all of them.
It's not a disagreement. Apple's default permissions on that directory are plain wrong. APE is just an example application that proves the point. The actual fault lies with Apple.
I think the real problem here is that the MOAB deniers are woefully ignorant of the problems. They think they can make up for their woeful ignorance with chest-beating. I've been nothing but disgusted with the Mac community's treatment of the MOAB and their collective denial of the problems. I use a Mac. I think it's great. I also work in the security field and I have done so for the past 5 years. I've been aware for the past 2 years that OS X is a horrendously insecure OS. Fedora is much better. OpenBSD is much better. OS X is below par. The best OS X can claim is that it's better than Windows - BFD. If the Mac pundits just admitted the problem exists and took steps to secure their OS they'd get the two thumbs up. Instead they stick their heads in the sand and pretend that it's all somebody else's fault. They blame the MOAB guys, or they start from an ignorant understanding of the issues and claim that the faults aren't faults. Part of fixing the problem is admitting that the problem exists.
I'm extremely surprised that nobody has released a security manager or lockdown tool for OS X. I suppose because the Mac community is in a collective denial there is no demand for such an application.
No 3G. Less standby than a Nokia E71.
These trucks won't improve from 12mpg to 30mpg. They'll improve from 12mpg to 15mpg. Your comparison is fundamentally broken because you've used an unrealistic 200% improvement for the truck and a 30% improvement for the lighter car.
I can't stand the stuff. It's oily and salty and plain nasty. I'd rather cook something fresh than eat the freeze-dried instant carbohydrate disaster that is instant ramen.
Say no more.
Don't worry. When Fox News reports this story the closed captioning will reveal he's become a Democrat overnight.
I only wish I were joking.
Sounds to me like the problem is that a fixed length of time for all patents can't make everybody happy. Drugs that require billions of dollars and 20 years to develop aren't going to be served by a 1 year patent. But 20 year patent protection is inappropriate for trivial inventions, even if they do deserve some sort of protection.
Seems to me the solution would be for the patent office to assign varying patent lifetimes depending on the complexity/cost of the invention. You get 6 months for that trivial invention - one-click purchasing - but you enjoy 50 years patent protection for inventing the cure for (one of the many variants of) cancer.
There's even a precedent. The judiciary assigns sentences based on the circumstances of a crime. There are guidelines they must follow but the length of time or size of the fine is variable.
Quiet, you.
With all those caveats what you're really saying is that OS X is more secure than Windows. Because Windows is the only viable alternative for most users as a general purpose desktop OS.
Well duh. More secure than Windows; that's not exactly an achievement.
The problem is that OS X and Windows are both at the bottom of the pile for security. OS X is marginally better than Windows but they're both woefully inadequate. For a litany of faults look no further than the preferred language (Obj-C), the hardware platform (no NX), the OS design itself (UNIX without caps or privs), etc. Linux is hardly the model of security either but even Fedora/Debian/SuSe leaves OS X in the dust. The only problem is that thanks to your caveats we can't compare OS X to Linux because Linux isn't a viable alternative for most users.
Make no bones about it: OS X is not secure. It is better than Windows. That's very mild praise indeed.
Conspiracy and conjecture. Exactly the sort of nonsense I was ridiculing. You don't know why the investment was made, or whether there was a return, so you invent the most overwrought and implausible story that it was a mercenary payment for SCO to attack Linux even though that would eventually mean SCO's demise.
Go back to reading Tom Clancy novels.
Sure we do. It's called the right to free speech. I think you're an idiot because you've taken political correctness to the stupid extreme that deserves ridicule. I also think your religion sucks and you smell bad. I have every right to say all of that.
Welcome to the real world. Sometimes people say hurtful things. Suck it up and deal with it.
Evolution is both a fact and a theory.
Evolution - defined as a change in alleles frequency in a population - has been observed in the lab and in the wild. Evolution is a fact.
The theory of human evolution has strong corroborating evidence. And predictions that are successful. It's an extremely successful theory. But it is only a theory.
The theory of evolution by natural selection has strong corroborating evidence. And predictions that are successful. It's an extremely successful theory. But it is only a theory.
The theory of speciation by evolutionary change has strong corroborating evidence. And predictions that are successful. It's an extremely successful theory. But it is only a theory.
Half the noise seems to be from people who don't understand the facts, but are annoyed or frightened by one of the theories.
If we were to believe Tom then there is some sort of dark sinister plot unwinding with steely eyed CEOs plotting the downfall of their rival companies. The CEO of Novell is sitting back in his leather chair, surrounded by bikini clad girly girls and hired goons with steel brimmed bowler hats, cackling madly in glee as his plan to use SCO's hubris to destroy Microsoft has finally comes to fruition.
That's fiction. The real world is much simpler. Novell is doing what all IT companies eventually do; realise that you can't fight Microsoft, so you might as well make sure your software interoperates. I don't give a shit what conspiracy theories are flying around Slashdot about the Novell/Microsoft deal; the ability for OpenOffice to read Word documents is farking awesome and I'll gladly pay money to Novell if necessary to get in on that. Sun did the same thing (identity software). IBM and HP and Apple as well. The money that changes hands and the lawsuits just serve to obscure the benficial outcomes for you and I; software from multiple vendors that works together. Sometimes (you might say always) the business relationship with Microsoft works to their eventual detriment (R.I.P SGI) but there's no business sense in taunting the 800lb gorilla. You give it a banana as a peace offering and hope it doesn't sit on you.
SCO isn't a pawn of Microsoft. That's a fiction invented by Groklaw and it's the worst kind of conjecture and conspiracy imaginable. SCO's CEO convinced himself that they owned UNIX, that Linux stole from UNIX, and that SCO deserved a piece of the action. "Never ascribe to malice what can be explained by incompetence". There is no doubt that Darl is incompetent, so there's no need to paint him as a malicious figure. It was a stupid lawsuit initiated by a desperate CEO to save a pathetic, dying company. The 1000s of articles generated by The Site Whose Name Makes Even Cthulu Cringe has made an echo chamber, where conjecture is used as proof for the next piece of conjecture. It's like the fishing story where the fish keeps getting bigger with each telling.
This is just business. There's no conspiracy. It must be a slow news day when "journalists" start inventing Tom Clancy plotlines and making stupid analogies with trapdoor spiders.
Nonsense. Atheism just means you lack belief in the existence of gods. Either actively "I believe gods don't exist" or passively "I don't believe gods exist". Atheists can still believe in an after life, reincarnation, ghosts, witchcraft, judgement, or any number of kooky things.
Don't confuse secularism with atheism.
That's a misrepresentation of Metallica's position. Metallica has always had a relaxed attitude towards bootlegs. They even allowed people to plug their tape recorders into the mixing desk at concerts. They just asked that nobody copied their studio recorded music - you know, the recordings that are an expense to Metallica and their primary means of income. I considered it a reasonable request at the time; they weren't saying you couldn't make your own MP3s, or even trade their bootlegs, only that you didn't trade the studio recordings.
Metallica was one of the first bands to offer high quality digital content to their fans, as a bonus download off their website when you bought their CDs. They have made available video and music files recorded at their concerts, all for free. They publish a huge quantity of material; a balance of music, video, movies and other paraphenalia that rewards those fans who want to know more about Metallica. Their concerts are amazing value for money; high energy and extremely well produced. Metallica treat their fans very well. In return they ask that you don't rip them off.
The meme that "Metallica is anti MP3" is up there with "Gore invented the Internet" and "sue McDonalds for making coffee". It's a stupid lie that just won't die.
Huh? I'm currently paying 2cents AUD for a megabyte. There's nothing spectacular about 2cents USD for a megabyte.
Far from being outrageously cheap, that's more than I'd expect to pay. What the hell are you paying for a megabyte?
Jon Camfield went on to say "And don't get me started about Christmas. Every year my family gives me these so-called 'gifts' but the training and running costs are crippling. Last year I spent several hours reading manuals and the electricity isn't free you know. The true cost of last year's presents is approximately $870 so this year I sent an invoice to my wife."
When asked to comment, Mrs Camfield responded "Jon can go f**k himself" as she carried a suitcase and two children into a waiting cab.
Great, now I don't believe in television either, thank you very much >:-(
That's why he's defined a new arithmetic - he calls it transreal - where division by zero is defined. The PDFs on his website clearly explain what he's done.
It isn't rubbish. In second year high school mathematics they had us "invent" our own arithmetic. We could define whatever operations we like (eg, a funny symbol that would multiple the left hand value by 2 and add it to the inverse of the right hand value) and then we had to prove whether the operation was commutative, distributive, etc. This guy has done the same thing but with a new "number" he calls nullity. He has defined what happens when you add a real to nullity, when you multiply a real by nullity, when you divide nullity by nullity, etc. It's an internally consistent number system.
It's interesting for grade schoolers because it gets them thinking about number theory. Instead of thinking "you can't divide by zero" they instead think "oh, well that's just a law for the real numbers, but I'm not constrained by real numbers, I can invent a number system where division by zero is allowed". That is far more insightful and creative than "you can't divide by zero". A child who grasps that concept has the potential to become a great mathematician. A child who merely parrots "you can't divide by zero" will become a bus driver or a computer programmer :-P
It's hard to explain abstract concepts such as number theory. Congratulations to him for making it look like fun.
Rich people pay disproportionately less income tax than middle-income earners. For example, Murdock last year paid 2% tax from his gross.