and when they (assuming they are in fact sentient like us as seems to be the case presented by our senses) lose their sentient minds they also lose everything they have.
Death, in other words, is so complete a negation that the dead may as well have never existed so utter is their loss.
From this it follows that death is to be avoided at all costs where possible. The primary goal of existence then, would (assuming what we perceieve is true) seem to be to do everything we can to not die.
It also follows that the next worst thing that can happen is for another of these sentient minds to cessate.
Thus I hold individuals somewhat sacro sanct, though my own self moreso. The next obvious question someone reading this is going to ask is something silly about Extropy, and I'll reply preemptively that I have similar goals for different reasons.
It's 4:43AM but my insomnia is raging - pardon my hideous grammar/spelling errors.
My entire philosophy/ethics system - and it is possible to build one in the following manner - grows forth logically from 'I think, therefore I am' (basically the first three chapters of Meditations) and attempts to move to useful conclusions from there while making as few assumptions as possible. I'm not certain you'd call me a Dualist, though.
Assuming nothing and simply stating 'cogito, ergo sum' gets us a few facts:
1. Self exists 2. Self is capable of cognition 3. From this, and the fact that cognition of any kind other than self-recognition exists, we can logically derive that not-self in some form - be it a giant universe of floating green balls translating silently in space - exists.
Taking the next step forward and avoiding the Cartesian circle - my concept of God may come about because of false data I am receiving afterall (I honestly think all of Meditations post-chapter 3 is essentially one giant 'don't burn me at the stake for inventing a concept bigger than God' note written for the Jesuits' benefit) we are left with the task of determining what the nature of the universe is in order that we might truly interact with it. Any explanation - literally an infinite number of explanations - might be correct. Therefore until a better explanation than the ones our senses present us with is provided, we must accept the explanation from our senses because evidence of any sort is better than no evidence.
However, while one knows the three facts above, one is only tolerating - grudgingly at that - the explanation of the universe as 'more or less how we perceive' until a better explanation comes along.
Thus, everything from here on out is going to be a belief, not a fact. There are only three facts (actually, fully, there's seven I know of but I'm not going to go that indepth here), but there are a lot of beliefs and most of them are false because only one of many possible explanations of the state of the universe is true.
So. We have our facts, our beliefs, and for now we're treating the world filtering in through our eyes - including Slashdot - as real. The truth is, we assume, more or less what we observe. One of the first things readily observable is that there appear to be other, also sentient, beings out there and rather a lot of them. What to make of this information? Well, it's obvious that since everything outside of those three facts - including the entire world one perceives - is just belief, the only thing one can be truly said to possess is one's own sentient mind. Losing it, then, is to lose everything - and when they
As to why, the truth - and I say this is as an American - is because we're fat (statistically speaking we are becoming grossly obese), greedy (statistically the hardest workers the world while in a nation with one of the highest incomes - yes I know about Luxembourg) swine (check out our popular media sometime) so drunk on our own stupid swill (see that popular media again, or how about Britney's absolutely perfect perfect quote below her picture) that we no longer care (elections typically drawing in 30-40% of voters).
It isn't as if any other humans would do any better though, so foreigners shouldn't think themselves superior - we're all born with pleasure centers, and predictable outcomes to them, and this results in addictions, etc. It isn't our fault as Americans because humans are penultimately mere deterministic ongoing molecular processes, or parsed down to English - we're all just ongoing (complicated) chemical reactions. Chemical reactions don't have faults - they just execute like computer programs. Yes Mr. Smarty-pants in the front row, I just denied the existence of free will.
So 'how could we allow this to happen'? I'll describe the process, if you wish. The corporations, macro-human entities that exist only to acquire resource regardless of all other matters, catered to us in exchange for resource. They catered so well we stopped caring. Now that we've stopped caring the corporations have learned that they can modify the rules of the environment they exist in - that is, change the government in their favor - and they have so that the environment now allows them to gather yet MORE resource free of traditional limitations.
As for rights being stripped away (the Patriot Act - and yes, they actively are being stripped away, ask a certain former employee of Intel or webmaster of raisethefist.org) the framers of the Constitution, being good legal engineers, built a defense in depth to prevent the system from completely running out of control. Over a long enough timeline, the probability of just about anything approaches one, including multiple simultaneous failures. 9/11 was but one breach. Another was an attorney general (who lost his senatorial race to a corpse, technically) with little understanding (or at least concern if he did understand) of the Constitution. Another element was a conservative administration headed by the members of the thinktank Project for a New American Century, who back in the Clinton administration openly advocated the US taking down Iraq to use as a base from which to topple many various Middle Eastern nations in succession like so many dominos. That there would be collusion between their oil-centric corporate interests here, as well, is simply gravy on top for them. You might have heard of some of the members of PNAC - they include Dick Cheney our Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld our Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz his righthand man, formerly Richard Perle, his much nastier lefthand man, Steve Forbes, Jeb Bush - the list goes on. I encourage you to at least read that last link so as to ascertain that I am certainly not a conspiracy theorist of any kind.
There's your why and how. Shouldn't this be changed? Yes if you choose to believe in the sanctity of individuals, which as a strict Cartesian I do. Will it? I doubt it. I encourage you to vote for Howard Dean, as he's a step in the not-wrong direction regardless of your view of things like gun-control/abortion/gay marriage/healthcare.
Any other questions? It's 3AM here in the west coast of the US and I'd like to go to bed.
Speaking as a representative for seial killers everywhere, I for one find the wording of this post offensive. No mere simple biological 'machine' could replicate the beauty and artistry of my vast bodies of work in the field of serial killing.
I for one hope Slashdot's editors issue an apology and a retraction.
Actually it's the 20mm component of the former Objective Individual Combat Weapon program, part of the Small Arms Master Plan, now dubbed XM29. Essentially this weapon combines a variation on the G36C for underbody (almost a submachinegun) with an overslung semi-automatic 20mm explosive round (grenade, really) that can be set to burst at a given range by pointing at the object to burst upon, then increasing the range up a meter or down a meter.
There are some problems with this when compared to the M16A2 / M203 40mm underslung grenade launcher combination currently in use (or increasingly the less successful M4/M203 combo).
First of all, the 'normal' rifle portion (the G36C) sports a barrel so ridiculously short that the rounds do not exhibit the fragmentation behavior desired. A 10" barrel is insufficient for accelerating a 5.56x45mm round to the point where it can be truly effective in outdoor combat. The M16 family used a 16" barrel for a good reason - there's a full 75~100m/s muzzle velocity advantage over the 11" Colt Commando. Many sections of the Armed Forces have refused to or have been extremely reluctant to adopt the 14" barreled M4 for this same reason. Size does matter here, because longer barrels mean the bullet is in a sealed chamber being accelerated by explosive gases for a longer period of time and 10" is simply not enough.
Beyond this, there are many questions regarding the utility of the 20mm explosive round component itself. Everything from fears regarding any failure of the electronics system to, again, lethality. The single-shot breach loading M203 40mm grenade launchers currently in use provide an effective fatality radius of approximately 5m, and will wound most individuals within 15 meters of impact. The 20mm grenade, however, is the minimum size of projectile which can carry a useful explosive load and is loaded with circuitry to boot. The fatality radius is 1~2m with a 5m wounding radius. On the other hand it is far more accurate than the M203, but US soldiers are nothing if not well trained.
Current plans are for 45,000 units at a cost of $10,000 each (several times the cost of an M16/M203 combo) by 2009, and the general idea currently is to outfit active squads with one such weapon each.
The SAMP also includes a potential replacement for the Mark 19 Automatic Grenade Launcher (uses special high-power 40mm grenades) called the Objective Crew Served Weapon that utilizes 25mm grenades. This one may show significant merit as the possibility of an infantry-portable automatic grenade launcher is simply too good to pass up.
One of my best friends works as a trader (not sure of actual title but something roughly equivalent) at one of America's top three brokerages. Believe I'll be teaching him how to use Remote Desktop shortly (sorry, no X11 over SSH tunneling, he's not exactly a 'real' geek).
You don't know the half of that place. Unbelievable hellhole full of absolute morons or a few trapped college CS undergrads scrambling like hell to get out- the only nice thing was that as someone with some BSD admin experience I got job offers from nearly every local ISP CEO/CTO who walked through the store. Monster.com and the want-ads don't have a thing on a good twenty minute geek discussion - it's like a job interview where you actually form a sort of bond with the interviewer, and that's an insidious thing.
Honor the warrantie? PLEASE. Those fucking warranties are about one thing: taking extra money from your pocket and putting a small fraction of it in the salesman's - on Sundays the store manager often offers triple bonuses. One of our better guys pulled off a 6-computer order the top warranties on each on such a Sunday, that's $300 bonus on his next $500 paycheck right there.
--Ryv
HE WORKED FOR THE COMPANY, MAYBE?
on
Aimee Deep Interview
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Please note he mentions in his journal holding the source for the Mac version of Aimster/Madster hostage in PGP encrypted form because John Deep won't pay him? Is that a clue?
Nevermind that Mr. Deep has been quoted several times here on Slashdot when Aimster/Madster finds itself in another lawsuit.
Personally, I met the guy while working at their local CompUSA a few years back. He didn't seem like a tool (though his daughter looked like a cheap whore) but after reading Evro's journal (Evro would you do another update? Good read) I'm fairly convinced.
Back when her father was just starting Madster I met him and Aimee while the guy working behind their local CompUSA's Upgrades (read: Help) Desk (Albany NY region) - got to chatting about filesharing and some of the finer legal points (particularly the differences between what we do see and ought to see) of it with them.
I dunno, she just wasn't that hot in person . . . a little too much makeup. I honestly think her father encourages it - he seemed quite proud of her being all tarted up (and I say this as a completely amoral individual - it was a bit ridiculous).
In fact, the quality of the transmission was so good, so much like being there, that Telus engineers added a bit of noise to make the call sound, well, more normal.
Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!
I was going to use a modem over VoIP! Curse you, Telus!
Superbad's just a site I thought was sort of a creative 'web as art form' project. My site's yet another typical game review site with yet another 'dark, angsty, hateful of most games and their developers so we say 'fuck' and 'cunt' a lot' propped-up teeny-bopper edginess to it. It sucks pretty hard but we seem to get a lot of traffic *shrug* - overall I think it's better for the Internet if people go to superbad.
Re:OpenBSD just makes sense...
on
OpenBSD 3.3 Released
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
FreeBSD 5.0 seems superior to Linux in the role of webserver when it comes to scaling, and Linux to all other open source OSes (but in overall ranking I'd still put Win2k Pro over it, sadly) for desktop.
While OpenBSD is certainly the leader in the security and frontline realm, the guys at FreeBSD really have a slew of interesting ideas as far as what directions they want to go in are.
Can't wait to see what the OpenBSD 3.4 release looks like, though. That's supposed to be an even bigger release than 3.3 - here's hoping the DARPA-snuffing didn't can that. In any case, looks like I'll be busy upgrading the firewalls tonight:)
--Ryv
Re:OpenBSD = Coordinated Innovation
on
OpenBSD 3.3 Released
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
OpenBSD, while a capable desktop, isn't primarily intended as such. It's strengths are in the realm of the firewall, gateway - the commandline leftover Pentium 200 that makes a nice mailserver. It's focus as security, and security demands a 'disabled by default' approach.
There isn't much there to begin with when compared to FreeBSD or Linux because of this philosophy. While it's not exactly politically correct to say so within the OBSD community, it's sort of an accepted truism that 'less is more', and you're better serviced by one of the former two OSes if you're for ease of use and a desktop OS. GUIs and user friendliness = reams of unaudited code = lots of bugs. That said, the GOBIE project IS looking to overhaul the OpenBSD setup process, at least, so hopefully things will be easier for everybody in the future.
Personally, I came to OpenBSD three years ago after having used RedHat for only six months and having gotten my box owned *HARD* - while it took a bit to figure everything out for a relative *nix newb, I can vouch that the payoff is worth it if you're willing to invest the time into making sure you never get owned again (not that there are any 100% guarantees with any software).
While I certainly can't say that "this is ALWAYS the best way to run things", I find it helpful to do split up tasks according to what I view as the respective strengths of each OS.
Firewall, Mail, and DNS I handle with OpenBSD (running Postfix and DJB's tinyDNS), and my actual website gets run on FreeBSD 5.0 in order to take advantage of SMP - a very, very stripped down FreeBSD, I might add. Looking at my loads, I'm considering setting up a secondary OpenBSD machine strictly for the apache processes, and leaving the FreeBSD machine as an ultra-stripped down DB box.
For the small business network this seems like a fairly optimal way to handle it.
When OpenBSD gets SMP (if ever), they'll effectively run my network - although a software monoculture has as many weaknesses as it does strengths (plus side: everybody uses Mozilla mail instead of OE, minus side: the first OpenBSD root exploit and you've lost the entire network).
I don't mean to sound cynical, but this seems to come across to me as a very nicely written:
Ne3D H3lp WIt M4H H4x0RiN!!!!!
I mean, let's face it, much of what modern hacking closed-sourced software consists of is throwing a variety of shit against a variety of programs in a variety of configurations and seeing what breaks and then following up to make an exploit out of it.
While this probably isn't the case here, it's very hard to read that note and not snicker just a tiny, tiny bit . . .
I use FreeBSD on both my server and gateway, but am going to switch my server back to OpenBSD with the release of 3.3, simply because of the features OpenBSD offers. However, I would never move my workstation over from FreeBSD, as the ports make it much a very nice match for those looking for a workstation.
My suggestion, as an OpenBSD afficianado, is to keep your server and workstation running FreeBSD and to shift your gateway/firewall to OpenBSD.
Gateways, firewalls, NATs - these are the things Open excels at. The firewall it offers is quite honestly second to none as of this point in time. As of 3.4, Open will have quite a lead in this realm. FreeBSD kicks the unholy shnikey out of Open on the performance and user front, however, and there's no denial nor excuse otherwise from the team nor the hardcore following of Open.
Just a suggestion, though. Alternatively, you might consider doing what I what I do . . . Open on the gateway and 'insecure/screw-around' server, Free on the heavy traffic webserver for performance, and Gentoo Linux on the workstation. This is just my personal approach, however.
Of course, the fact that you're using BSD on multiple machines suggests you're wise enough to make your own decisions, heh.
If everyone switches to BSD then most of the vulnerabilities found will be for BSD. No OS is flawless, not OpenBSD nor any other - OpenBSD gets more attention than the other BSDs as far as security is concerned in all probability because of their security stance, but there's still a hojillion (I use that term strictly in the technical sense) bugs in there.
That's not to deride Theo & crew's accomplishments - they've done amazing work, look at how few bugs are found in OpenSSH relative to how incredibly widespread it is - but it is practically impossible to write perfectly secure code that operates at anything like a reasonable speed for the x86.
There's been a ton of back and forth on the forums over whether it's authentic and the final conclusion is that yes, through multiple proofs Salem has demonstrated - while staying mostly anonymous - that he is indeed a citizen of Baghdad. An architect with a good bit of techie knowledge, and his friend Raed is missing:(
Definitely a much better read than anything the mainstream media has, although fairly one-sided for obvious reasons.
Work together or die seperately. It's that simple. A solid common platform needs to be developed, BSD licensed (YES BSD in this case - actual real money needs to be made selling it).
The biggest problem, though, is artwork. The best solutions I've seen are a) a creative commons-like approach and b) an entirely parametric object mesh/texture-definition approach with an open library. I don't hold out much hope for the former and the latter is another generation or two off in technology.
Slashdot Mirror
Here's the rest:
and when they (assuming they are in fact sentient like us as seems to be the case presented by our senses) lose their sentient minds they also lose everything they have.
Death, in other words, is so complete a negation that the dead may as well have never existed so utter is their loss.
From this it follows that death is to be avoided at all costs where possible. The primary goal of existence then, would (assuming what we perceieve is true) seem to be to do everything we can to not die.
It also follows that the next worst thing that can happen is for another of these sentient minds to cessate.
Thus I hold individuals somewhat sacro sanct, though my own self moreso. The next obvious question someone reading this is going to ask is something silly about Extropy, and I'll reply preemptively that I have similar goals for different reasons.
Does that answer your question fully?
It's 4:43AM but my insomnia is raging - pardon my hideous grammar/spelling errors.
My entire philosophy/ethics system - and it is possible to build one in the following manner - grows forth logically from 'I think, therefore I am' (basically the first three chapters of Meditations) and attempts to move to useful conclusions from there while making as few assumptions as possible. I'm not certain you'd call me a Dualist, though.
Assuming nothing and simply stating 'cogito, ergo sum' gets us a few facts:
1. Self exists
2. Self is capable of cognition
3. From this, and the fact that cognition of any kind other than self-recognition exists, we can logically derive that not-self in some form - be it a giant universe of floating green balls translating silently in space - exists.
Taking the next step forward and avoiding the Cartesian circle - my concept of God may come about because of false data I am receiving afterall (I honestly think all of Meditations post-chapter 3 is essentially one giant 'don't burn me at the stake for inventing a concept bigger than God' note written for the Jesuits' benefit) we are left with the task of determining what the nature of the universe is in order that we might truly interact with it. Any explanation - literally an infinite number of explanations - might be correct. Therefore until a better explanation than the ones our senses present us with is provided, we must accept the explanation from our senses because evidence of any sort is better than no evidence.
However, while one knows the three facts above, one is only tolerating - grudgingly at that - the explanation of the universe as 'more or less how we perceive' until a better explanation comes along.
Thus, everything from here on out is going to be a belief, not a fact. There are only three facts (actually, fully, there's seven I know of but I'm not going to go that indepth here), but there are a lot of beliefs and most of them are false because only one of many possible explanations of the state of the universe is true.
So. We have our facts, our beliefs, and for now we're treating the world filtering in through our eyes - including Slashdot - as real. The truth is, we assume, more or less what we observe. One of the first things readily observable is that there appear to be other, also sentient, beings out there and rather a lot of them. What to make of this information? Well, it's obvious that since everything outside of those three facts - including the entire world one perceives - is just belief, the only thing one can be truly said to possess is one's own sentient mind. Losing it, then, is to lose everything - and when they
As to why, the truth - and I say this is as an American - is because we're fat (statistically speaking we are becoming grossly obese), greedy (statistically the hardest workers the world while in a nation with one of the highest incomes - yes I know about Luxembourg) swine (check out our popular media sometime) so drunk on our own stupid swill (see that popular media again, or how about Britney's absolutely perfect perfect quote below her picture) that we no longer care (elections typically drawing in 30-40% of voters).
It isn't as if any other humans would do any better though, so foreigners shouldn't think themselves superior - we're all born with pleasure centers, and predictable outcomes to them, and this results in addictions, etc. It isn't our fault as Americans because humans are penultimately mere deterministic ongoing molecular processes, or parsed down to English - we're all just ongoing (complicated) chemical reactions. Chemical reactions don't have faults - they just execute like computer programs. Yes Mr. Smarty-pants in the front row, I just denied the existence of free will.
So 'how could we allow this to happen'? I'll describe the process, if you wish. The corporations, macro-human entities that exist only to acquire resource regardless of all other matters, catered to us in exchange for resource. They catered so well we stopped caring. Now that we've stopped caring the corporations have learned that they can modify the rules of the environment they exist in - that is, change the government in their favor - and they have so that the environment now allows them to gather yet MORE resource free of traditional limitations.
As for rights being stripped away (the Patriot Act - and yes, they actively are being stripped away, ask a certain former employee of Intel or webmaster of raisethefist.org) the framers of the Constitution, being good legal engineers, built a defense in depth to prevent the system from completely running out of control. Over a long enough timeline, the probability of just about anything approaches one, including multiple simultaneous failures. 9/11 was but one breach. Another was an attorney general (who lost his senatorial race to a corpse, technically) with little understanding (or at least concern if he did understand) of the Constitution. Another element was a conservative administration headed by the members of the thinktank Project for a New American Century, who back in the Clinton administration openly advocated the US taking down Iraq to use as a base from which to topple many various Middle Eastern nations in succession like so many dominos. That there would be collusion between their oil-centric corporate interests here, as well, is simply gravy on top for them. You might have heard of some of the members of PNAC - they include Dick Cheney our Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld our Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz his righthand man, formerly Richard Perle, his much nastier lefthand man, Steve Forbes, Jeb Bush - the list goes on. I encourage you to at least read that last link so as to ascertain that I am certainly not a conspiracy theorist of any kind.
There's your why and how. Shouldn't this be changed? Yes if you choose to believe in the sanctity of individuals, which as a strict Cartesian I do. Will it? I doubt it. I encourage you to vote for Howard Dean, as he's a step in the not-wrong direction regardless of your view of things like gun-control/abortion/gay marriage/healthcare.
Any other questions? It's 3AM here in the west coast of the US and I'd like to go to bed.
CRUCIFY!
AIIIIIIEEEE NOOOOOOOOO! *continues to move mouth soundlessly for several minutes afterward*
--Ryv
Speaking as a representative for seial killers everywhere, I for one find the wording of this post offensive. No mere simple biological 'machine' could replicate the beauty and artistry of my vast bodies of work in the field of serial killing.
I for one hope Slashdot's editors issue an apology and a retraction.
Cue rant . . .
Actually it's the 20mm component of the former Objective Individual Combat Weapon program, part of the Small Arms Master Plan, now dubbed XM29. Essentially this weapon combines a variation on the G36C for underbody (almost a submachinegun) with an overslung semi-automatic 20mm explosive round (grenade, really) that can be set to burst at a given range by pointing at the object to burst upon, then increasing the range up a meter or down a meter.
There are some problems with this when compared to the M16A2 / M203 40mm underslung grenade launcher combination currently in use (or increasingly the less successful M4/M203 combo).
First of all, the 'normal' rifle portion (the G36C) sports a barrel so ridiculously short that the rounds do not exhibit the fragmentation behavior desired. A 10" barrel is insufficient for accelerating a 5.56x45mm round to the point where it can be truly effective in outdoor combat. The M16 family used a 16" barrel for a good reason - there's a full 75~100m/s muzzle velocity advantage over the 11" Colt Commando. Many sections of the Armed Forces have refused to or have been extremely reluctant to adopt the 14" barreled M4 for this same reason. Size does matter here, because longer barrels mean the bullet is in a sealed chamber being accelerated by explosive gases for a longer period of time and 10" is simply not enough.
Beyond this, there are many questions regarding the utility of the 20mm explosive round component itself. Everything from fears regarding any failure of the electronics system to, again, lethality. The single-shot breach loading M203 40mm grenade launchers currently in use provide an effective fatality radius of approximately 5m, and will wound most individuals within 15 meters of impact. The 20mm grenade, however, is the minimum size of projectile which can carry a useful explosive load and is loaded with circuitry to boot. The fatality radius is 1~2m with a 5m wounding radius. On the other hand it is far more accurate than the M203, but US soldiers are nothing if not well trained.
Current plans are for 45,000 units at a cost of $10,000 each (several times the cost of an M16/M203 combo) by 2009, and the general idea currently is to outfit active squads with one such weapon each.
The SAMP also includes a potential replacement for the Mark 19 Automatic Grenade Launcher (uses special high-power 40mm grenades) called the Objective Crew Served Weapon that utilizes 25mm grenades. This one may show significant merit as the possibility of an infantry-portable automatic grenade launcher is simply too good to pass up.
--Ryv
One of my best friends works as a trader (not sure of actual title but something roughly equivalent) at one of America's top three brokerages. Believe I'll be teaching him how to use Remote Desktop shortly (sorry, no X11 over SSH tunneling, he's not exactly a 'real' geek).
--Ryv
Next they'll be getting the U.N. involved!
DO NOT GIVE THEM ANY IDEAS, THANK YOU
Signed,
Everyone sick to death of this FUD
that company that went to hell in the early 90's that had the crappiest Unix on the market?
You're thinking HP (HP-UX). Otherwise, yeah.
--Ryvar
You don't know the half of that place. Unbelievable hellhole full of absolute morons or a few trapped college CS undergrads scrambling like hell to get out- the only nice thing was that as someone with some BSD admin experience I got job offers from nearly every local ISP CEO/CTO who walked through the store. Monster.com and the want-ads don't have a thing on a good twenty minute geek discussion - it's like a job interview where you actually form a sort of bond with the interviewer, and that's an insidious thing.
Honor the warrantie? PLEASE. Those fucking warranties are about one thing: taking extra money from your pocket and putting a small fraction of it in the salesman's - on Sundays the store manager often offers triple bonuses. One of our better guys pulled off a 6-computer order the top warranties on each on such a Sunday, that's $300 bonus on his next $500 paycheck right there.
--Ryv
Please note he mentions in his journal holding the source for the Mac version of Aimster/Madster hostage in PGP encrypted form because John Deep won't pay him? Is that a clue?
Nevermind that Mr. Deep has been quoted several times here on Slashdot when Aimster/Madster finds itself in another lawsuit.
Personally, I met the guy while working at their local CompUSA a few years back. He didn't seem like a tool (though his daughter looked like a cheap whore) but after reading Evro's journal (Evro would you do another update? Good read) I'm fairly convinced.
Back when her father was just starting Madster I met him and Aimee while the guy working behind their local CompUSA's Upgrades (read: Help) Desk (Albany NY region) - got to chatting about filesharing and some of the finer legal points (particularly the differences between what we do see and ought to see) of it with them.
I dunno, she just wasn't that hot in person . . . a little too much makeup. I honestly think her father encourages it - he seemed quite proud of her being all tarted up (and I say this as a completely amoral individual - it was a bit ridiculous).
In fact, the quality of the transmission was so good, so much like being there, that Telus engineers added a bit of noise to make the call sound, well, more normal.
Damnit! Damnit! Damnit!
I was going to use a modem over VoIP! Curse you, Telus!
Superbad's just a site I thought was sort of a creative 'web as art form' project. My site's yet another typical game review site with yet another 'dark, angsty, hateful of most games and their developers so we say 'fuck' and 'cunt' a lot' propped-up teeny-bopper edginess to it. It sucks pretty hard but we seem to get a lot of traffic *shrug* - overall I think it's better for the Internet if people go to superbad.
FreeBSD 5.0 seems superior to Linux in the role of webserver when it comes to scaling, and Linux to all other open source OSes (but in overall ranking I'd still put Win2k Pro over it, sadly) for desktop.
:)
While OpenBSD is certainly the leader in the security and frontline realm, the guys at FreeBSD really have a slew of interesting ideas as far as what directions they want to go in are.
Can't wait to see what the OpenBSD 3.4 release looks like, though. That's supposed to be an even bigger release than 3.3 - here's hoping the DARPA-snuffing didn't can that. In any case, looks like I'll be busy upgrading the firewalls tonight
--Ryv
OpenBSD, while a capable desktop, isn't primarily intended as such. It's strengths are in the realm of the firewall, gateway - the commandline leftover Pentium 200 that makes a nice mailserver. It's focus as security, and security demands a 'disabled by default' approach.
There isn't much there to begin with when compared to FreeBSD or Linux because of this philosophy. While it's not exactly politically correct to say so within the OBSD community, it's sort of an accepted truism that 'less is more', and you're better serviced by one of the former two OSes if you're for ease of use and a desktop OS. GUIs and user friendliness = reams of unaudited code = lots of bugs. That said, the GOBIE project IS looking to overhaul the OpenBSD setup process, at least, so hopefully things will be easier for everybody in the future.
Personally, I came to OpenBSD three years ago after having used RedHat for only six months and having gotten my box owned *HARD* - while it took a bit to figure everything out for a relative *nix newb, I can vouch that the payoff is worth it if you're willing to invest the time into making sure you never get owned again (not that there are any 100% guarantees with any software).
--Ryv
While I certainly can't say that "this is ALWAYS the best way to run things", I find it helpful to do split up tasks according to what I view as the respective strengths of each OS.
Firewall, Mail, and DNS I handle with OpenBSD (running Postfix and DJB's tinyDNS), and my actual website gets run on FreeBSD 5.0 in order to take advantage of SMP - a very, very stripped down FreeBSD, I might add. Looking at my loads, I'm considering setting up a secondary OpenBSD machine strictly for the apache processes, and leaving the FreeBSD machine as an ultra-stripped down DB box.
For the small business network this seems like a fairly optimal way to handle it.
When OpenBSD gets SMP (if ever), they'll effectively run my network - although a software monoculture has as many weaknesses as it does strengths (plus side: everybody uses Mozilla mail instead of OE, minus side: the first OpenBSD root exploit and you've lost the entire network).
--Ryv
We are having major server problems at the moment. Something is up - we will fix this ;)
Mind if I copy your post and claim credit?
--Ryvar
I don't mean to sound cynical, but this seems to come across to me as a very nicely written:
Ne3D H3lp WIt M4H H4x0RiN!!!!!
I mean, let's face it, much of what modern hacking closed-sourced software consists of is throwing a variety of shit against a variety of programs in a variety of configurations and seeing what breaks and then following up to make an exploit out of it.
While this probably isn't the case here, it's very hard to read that note and not snicker just a tiny, tiny bit . . .
I use FreeBSD on both my server and gateway, but am going to switch my server back to OpenBSD with the release of 3.3, simply because of the features OpenBSD offers. However, I would never move my workstation over from FreeBSD, as the ports make it much a very nice match for those looking for a workstation.
My suggestion, as an OpenBSD afficianado, is to keep your server and workstation running FreeBSD and to shift your gateway/firewall to OpenBSD.
Gateways, firewalls, NATs - these are the things Open excels at. The firewall it offers is quite honestly second to none as of this point in time. As of 3.4, Open will have quite a lead in this realm. FreeBSD kicks the unholy shnikey out of Open on the performance and user front, however, and there's no denial nor excuse otherwise from the team nor the hardcore following of Open.
Just a suggestion, though. Alternatively, you might consider doing what I what I do . . . Open on the gateway and 'insecure/screw-around' server, Free on the heavy traffic webserver for performance, and Gentoo Linux on the workstation. This is just my personal approach, however.
Of course, the fact that you're using BSD on multiple machines suggests you're wise enough to make your own decisions, heh.
--Ryv
If everyone switches to BSD then most of the vulnerabilities found will be for BSD. No OS is flawless, not OpenBSD nor any other - OpenBSD gets more attention than the other BSDs as far as security is concerned in all probability because of their security stance, but there's still a hojillion (I use that term strictly in the technical sense) bugs in there.
That's not to deride Theo & crew's accomplishments - they've done amazing work, look at how few bugs are found in OpenSSH relative to how incredibly widespread it is - but it is practically impossible to write perfectly secure code that operates at anything like a reasonable speed for the x86.
There's been a ton of back and forth on the forums over whether it's authentic and the final conclusion is that yes, through multiple proofs Salem has demonstrated - while staying mostly anonymous - that he is indeed a citizen of Baghdad. An architect with a good bit of techie knowledge, and his friend Raed is missing :(
Definitely a much better read than anything the mainstream media has, although fairly one-sided for obvious reasons.
Work together or die seperately. It's that simple. A solid common platform needs to be developed, BSD licensed (YES BSD in this case - actual real money needs to be made selling it).
The biggest problem, though, is artwork. The best solutions I've seen are a) a creative commons-like approach and b) an entirely parametric object mesh/texture-definition approach with an open library. I don't hold out much hope for the former and the latter is another generation or two off in technology.