When you get right down to it, power corrupts, and an organization eventually takes 'perpetuation of self' as it's overriding goal; I expect the founding fathers would want another revolution if they saw America today.
Liberty, and safety, however, are, at many times, opposite goals. Where's my 'liberty' to detonate bombs in my back yard? Oh, it's superceded by the public need for safety. Where's my 'liberty' to drive drunk? Oh, it's superceded by the public need for safety. AS IT SHOULD BE.
Now, of course, my liberty to not have my library book checkouts scrutinized by the FBI shouldn't be at question here; things in America are getting out of control. America, however, as in 'We the People,' seems very unwilling to actually do anything about it.
The viruses that have been going around lately, until the very latest variants (which, I'll point out, exploit problems patched YEARS AGO) REQUIRED THE USER TO VOLUNTARILY GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO RUN THE WORM. They're not viruses, they're destructive programs pretending to be nice ones.
Blaming Microsoft for USERS THINKING THEIR ISP HAS SENT THEM AN AV PROGRAM AND RUNNING IT is like blaming Ford when SOME IDIOT DRIVES HIS CAR INTO A TREE.
I understand the issues perfectly; having been dealing with end users who, even after advisory emails, links to the worm descriptions, and so on, STILL BLINDLY RUN THE DAMN ATTACHMENTS LIKE TRUSTING LITTLE SHEEP. The OS in question has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. I could have put each and every one onto Linux, and the SAME DAMN THING WOULD HAPPEN. Or MacOS. Or Solaris. Or whatever.
Correct. Legally, Windows is a generic term, in common usage, and should not be considered a trade mark.
In reality, however, I think we can all agree that they picked 'Lindows' as a mixture of 'Linux' and 'Windows,' and we all know which 'Windows' they're referring to. They make no bones about trying to be a replacement for 'Windows' as in Microsoft Windows.
So, although they're legally in the right, as far as I'm concerned, and as far as you're concerned, but the fact remains that they're making a deliberate effort to capitalize on another product's success, market penetration, and reputation. The only saving grace is that the product name in question isn't very defensable.
These are the same founding fathers who warned against 'too much democracy,' who envisioned the President as being a figurehead, designed to fill in as King, and who, by and large, supported slavery, yes?
I'm not saying that they wern't great men, or that they didn't do an amazing thing. I *am* saying, however, that to blindly quote them, most likely out of context, and to hold those quotes up as religious symbols, not to be questioned, but to be blindly obeyed, is, well, rather sheep-like and frightening.
Or, you could look at it from the other perspective.
Microsoft has sunk a shitload of money, time and effort into the Windows brand. And, like it or not, it's Windows that worked in the marketplace; not VisiOn, not Desqview, not OS/2, not MacOS, not BeOS, and so on.
Then, some little bugger comes along, and tries to capitalize, specifically and willfully, on your name and effort to sell their product. That's a problem.
Was Lindows a logical name? Sure, it describes exactly what it is; a fusion of Windows and Linux. Unfortunately, it takes advantage of Microsoft's heavy investments.
Or, put another way, if MS finishes making the CLI programs required to admin Win2000/XP (and they're pretty damn close) and markets a GUI-less version of the NT5 kernel as 'Microsoft Linux,' becuase, after all, Linux has become synonimous with 'user level UNIX like operating system,' would you still think that was OK?
Shary: Hello, I'm Shary Bobbins.
Homer: Did you say Mary Po...
Shary: No, I definitely did not. I'm an original creation, like Rickey Rouse, or Monald Muck.
You know, looking back on things I'd do even, oh, ten years ago, I can't believe I'm still alive.
A few weeks back, the wife and I took our gaggle of kids (6, 4 and 2, agewise) tubing at a local pit, used every winter for such things.
Standing at the top of one run, gazing down, down, down through the clouds towards the bottom, at the launch ramp lovingly created by insane teenagers, which, I'll point out, was nestled between a pair of giant ice walls, and listening to my daughter exclaim how she wants to go first, all by her self, I thought to myself 'no way in HELL I'm going down there; I enjoy life, dammit!'
Amazing what a few years does to the old self-preservation instincts....
Those who would quote random people dead for hundreds of years, rather than objectively consider a viewpoint and form their own ideas, deserve neither attention nor response.
-- Me
Osmium Tetroxide can severely irritate and burn the eyes causing redness and swelling of the eyes, blurred vision, and may lead to permanent vision loss.
I'd say you owe your teacher a big 'thank you' there, Skippy.
Well, when you consider the 'dictionary code' style of: get some copies of an old dictionary, and the page/column/paragraph numbers of word entries are the codes you want, and when you then consider all of those 'bayes poisoning' strings of 'random' words in spam messages....
How is the software vendor at fault for a virus that says 'Hey, I'm not a virus! Really! Click me!' which people then proceed to click?
Is an auto manufacturer at fault when some idiot drives into a tree and kills himself? Hell no. Even if somebody puts up a big sign pointing at the tree, saying 'NOT A TREE!'? Hell no.
A supercomputer is designed to perform a shitload of math on a dataset. Want to calculate what happens to each and every atom in a pound of plutonium when you trigger nuclear fission in it? Supercomputer will do that.
So, math skills. Generally, you load a set of data, start the calcs, walk away, come back, and it's done.
Mainframes are for transactions; databases. The thing about a mainframe, though, is that you can do things like yank a processor out, while the machine is running, and you will lose *no* data, *no* programs/processes will quit, and so on. Mainframes are all about the 'five nines' 99.999 percent uptime (in other words, down for no more than five minutes per year) and crazy data throughput; going through large amounts of data quickly.
You don't currently have a legal right to use somebody else's network to perform illegal acts. Therefore, as long as I let you know you might be monitored, I'm fine.
Hence the 'this call may be monitored for quality assurance' messages on phone queues, and 'Wal-Mart uses CCT and video recorders to help cut down on shoplifters, have a nice day' in, well, Wal-Mart, and 'Internet activity may be monitiored to help ensure quality of service blah blah blah' in Internet cafes.
And have they not had >1 remote rooting in over 7 years because:
a) they're the be all/end all of security
b) the sort of people who use OpenBSD are more intelligent
c) there are so few OBSD boxes, it's not worth rooting them to produce zombies.
In reality? All of the above. But when the worm de jour involves the user typing in zip passwords just to experience the privilege of running the virus, you can't blame the OS, you can only blame the user.
Exactly; it's about maximizing ROI while minimizing risk. And you get a greater return with a 1 percent success rate on the 90 percent market share than a 1 percent success rate on the 10 percent market share.
Internet servers are like highways; you're not going to automatically get your car searched just for travelling, but if you're speeding, or driving erratically, well, you're getting pulled over.
One well regarded one is called something like deepfreeze; I'm too lazy to google for a link at the moment.
What it does, though, is return to a static state at each reboot; supposedly no matter what you do to it, just reboot, and you're back to your blessed state.
Well, if you have to sign some forms for a membership, stating that you won't be using the service to do anything illegal, and that you accept the fact that your activities might be logged and monitored....
Isn't RMS the fellow who refused to password his account for a while, because it showed a terrible lack of trust in one's fellow man, but later recanted when (gasp) his account got terribly abused?
No, but the scene of the Enterprise flying through the debris was wonderfully done.
TNG was always pretty good about that sort of thing; I remember the Riker from an alternate dimension where the Borg were conquering anything, screaming that he wouldn't go back...
I remember watching Robotech on TV, as a kid, and being absoultely stunned by the fact that, unlike Transformers, or GI Joe, or other 'war' stories, people died.
They were not being quiet because they were afraid of having noise detected.
They were being quiet because, when a human being knows he is being stalked or searched for, they tend to try to hide. It's a subconcious thing, and I, for one, thought it was a wonderful touch.
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When you get right down to it, power corrupts, and an organization eventually takes 'perpetuation of self' as it's overriding goal; I expect the founding fathers would want another revolution if they saw America today.
Liberty, and safety, however, are, at many times, opposite goals. Where's my 'liberty' to detonate bombs in my back yard? Oh, it's superceded by the public need for safety. Where's my 'liberty' to drive drunk? Oh, it's superceded by the public need for safety. AS IT SHOULD BE.
Now, of course, my liberty to not have my library book checkouts scrutinized by the FBI shouldn't be at question here; things in America are getting out of control. America, however, as in 'We the People,' seems very unwilling to actually do anything about it.
The viruses that have been going around lately, until the very latest variants (which, I'll point out, exploit problems patched YEARS AGO) REQUIRED THE USER TO VOLUNTARILY GO OUT OF THEIR WAY TO RUN THE WORM. They're not viruses, they're destructive programs pretending to be nice ones.
Blaming Microsoft for USERS THINKING THEIR ISP HAS SENT THEM AN AV PROGRAM AND RUNNING IT is like blaming Ford when SOME IDIOT DRIVES HIS CAR INTO A TREE.
I understand the issues perfectly; having been dealing with end users who, even after advisory emails, links to the worm descriptions, and so on, STILL BLINDLY RUN THE DAMN ATTACHMENTS LIKE TRUSTING LITTLE SHEEP. The OS in question has NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. I could have put each and every one onto Linux, and the SAME DAMN THING WOULD HAPPEN. Or MacOS. Or Solaris. Or whatever.
Correct. Legally, Windows is a generic term, in common usage, and should not be considered a trade mark.
In reality, however, I think we can all agree that they picked 'Lindows' as a mixture of 'Linux' and 'Windows,' and we all know which 'Windows' they're referring to. They make no bones about trying to be a replacement for 'Windows' as in Microsoft Windows.
So, although they're legally in the right, as far as I'm concerned, and as far as you're concerned, but the fact remains that they're making a deliberate effort to capitalize on another product's success, market penetration, and reputation. The only saving grace is that the product name in question isn't very defensable.
These are the same founding fathers who warned against 'too much democracy,' who envisioned the President as being a figurehead, designed to fill in as King, and who, by and large, supported slavery, yes?
I'm not saying that they wern't great men, or that they didn't do an amazing thing. I *am* saying, however, that to blindly quote them, most likely out of context, and to hold those quotes up as religious symbols, not to be questioned, but to be blindly obeyed, is, well, rather sheep-like and frightening.
Or, you could look at it from the other perspective.
Microsoft has sunk a shitload of money, time and effort into the Windows brand. And, like it or not, it's Windows that worked in the marketplace; not VisiOn, not Desqview, not OS/2, not MacOS, not BeOS, and so on.
Then, some little bugger comes along, and tries to capitalize, specifically and willfully, on your name and effort to sell their product. That's a problem.
Was Lindows a logical name? Sure, it describes exactly what it is; a fusion of Windows and Linux. Unfortunately, it takes advantage of Microsoft's heavy investments.
Or, put another way, if MS finishes making the CLI programs required to admin Win2000/XP (and they're pretty damn close) and markets a GUI-less version of the NT5 kernel as 'Microsoft Linux,' becuase, after all, Linux has become synonimous with 'user level UNIX like operating system,' would you still think that was OK?
Ah, the carefree days of youth.
You know, looking back on things I'd do even, oh, ten years ago, I can't believe I'm still alive.
A few weeks back, the wife and I took our gaggle of kids (6, 4 and 2, agewise) tubing at a local pit, used every winter for such things.
Standing at the top of one run, gazing down, down, down through the clouds towards the bottom, at the launch ramp lovingly created by insane teenagers, which, I'll point out, was nestled between a pair of giant ice walls, and listening to my daughter exclaim how she wants to go first, all by her self, I thought to myself 'no way in HELL I'm going down there; I enjoy life, dammit!'
Amazing what a few years does to the old self-preservation instincts....
Those who would quote random people dead for hundreds of years, rather than objectively consider a viewpoint and form their own ideas, deserve neither attention nor response.
-- Me
What one side calls terrorists, the other side tends to call 'freedom fighters' or 'patriots.'
After all, it's only terrible when it's our people getting killed.
I'd say you owe your teacher a big 'thank you' there, Skippy.
Well, when you consider the 'dictionary code' style of: get some copies of an old dictionary, and the page/column/paragraph numbers of word entries are the codes you want, and when you then consider all of those 'bayes poisoning' strings of 'random' words in spam messages....
I could have sworn that the hand gets knifed in the book as well; there's just more explanation about it.
Well, now I have an excuse to go re-read.
How is the software vendor at fault for a virus that says 'Hey, I'm not a virus! Really! Click me!' which people then proceed to click?
Is an auto manufacturer at fault when some idiot drives into a tree and kills himself? Hell no. Even if somebody puts up a big sign pointing at the tree, saying 'NOT A TREE!'? Hell no.
Lots of other responses, but here you go.
A supercomputer is designed to perform a shitload of math on a dataset. Want to calculate what happens to each and every atom in a pound of plutonium when you trigger nuclear fission in it? Supercomputer will do that.
So, math skills. Generally, you load a set of data, start the calcs, walk away, come back, and it's done.
Mainframes are for transactions; databases. The thing about a mainframe, though, is that you can do things like yank a processor out, while the machine is running, and you will lose *no* data, *no* programs/processes will quit, and so on. Mainframes are all about the 'five nines' 99.999 percent uptime (in other words, down for no more than five minutes per year) and crazy data throughput; going through large amounts of data quickly.
You're right; you can't sign away legal rights.
You don't currently have a legal right to use somebody else's network to perform illegal acts. Therefore, as long as I let you know you might be monitored, I'm fine.
Hence the 'this call may be monitored for quality assurance' messages on phone queues, and 'Wal-Mart uses CCT and video recorders to help cut down on shoplifters, have a nice day' in, well, Wal-Mart, and 'Internet activity may be monitiored to help ensure quality of service blah blah blah' in Internet cafes.
And have they not had >1 remote rooting in over 7 years because:
a) they're the be all/end all of security
b) the sort of people who use OpenBSD are more intelligent c) there are so few OBSD boxes, it's not worth rooting them to produce zombies.
In reality? All of the above. But when the worm de jour involves the user typing in zip passwords just to experience the privilege of running the virus, you can't blame the OS, you can only blame the user.
Exactly; it's about maximizing ROI while minimizing risk. And you get a greater return with a 1 percent success rate on the 90 percent market share than a 1 percent success rate on the 10 percent market share.
Internet servers are like highways; you're not going to automatically get your car searched just for travelling, but if you're speeding, or driving erratically, well, you're getting pulled over.
One well regarded one is called something like deepfreeze; I'm too lazy to google for a link at the moment.
What it does, though, is return to a static state at each reboot; supposedly no matter what you do to it, just reboot, and you're back to your blessed state.
Well, if you have to sign some forms for a membership, stating that you won't be using the service to do anything illegal, and that you accept the fact that your activities might be logged and monitored....
Why would that matter? In the 80s, all of the worms, viruses and exploits were for UNIX machines, becuase that's what the Internet was.
Now, the Internet is Windows boxen, so that's what the virus writers are targeting.
Pointing out that 'all those worms are targeted at windows!' is like pointing out that thieves target rich people.
Isn't RMS the fellow who refused to password his account for a while, because it showed a terrible lack of trust in one's fellow man, but later recanted when (gasp) his account got terribly abused?
No, but the scene of the Enterprise flying through the debris was wonderfully done.
TNG was always pretty good about that sort of thing; I remember the Riker from an alternate dimension where the Borg were conquering anything, screaming that he wouldn't go back...
I remember watching Robotech on TV, as a kid, and being absoultely stunned by the fact that, unlike Transformers, or GI Joe, or other 'war' stories, people died.
They were not being quiet because they were afraid of having noise detected.
They were being quiet because, when a human being knows he is being stalked or searched for, they tend to try to hide. It's a subconcious thing, and I, for one, thought it was a wonderful touch.