What was that quote? Oh, I can't remember it exactly...been years since I set foot in a church and all, but it goes a little something like this:
"It is harder for a rich man to enter the gates of Heaven than to pass a camel through the eye of a needle."
It was said by that Jesus fellow. Same guy who went on about treating folks like you'd want them to treat you. Nice guy...pity they went and nailed him to a tree. It'd be nice if more Christians actually paid attention to what the man said...but then again, most "Christians" aren't. Of course, neither am I, so what'm I griping about?;)
They decided not to send a large force because the success of the mission relied upon stealth; the entire Elvish army would more than likely fail to breach the gates of Mordor in a direct attack, so the only real option was to sneak the Ring in. Add to that that such a large force would very likely clue Sauron in to the exact location of the Ring, and their chances of failure grew even further -- Sauron would only have to send in the likes of the Nazgul to take the Ring unless the Bearer was willing to wield it in his defense, since they would be unlikely to have sufficiently powerful defenders to fend off such an attack on watch every moment of every day. The option of sending a large force was out of the question.
So why send an untried and untravelled Frodo to do the job? Because Bilbo had shown that hobbits were unusually resistant to the Ring's power, while Elves and Men would have had a very high chance of succumbing to the temptation to try and use the Ring to defeat Sauron. (Examples: Boromir atempts to steal the Ring from Frodo, Galadriel refusing Frodo's offer to give her the Ring because she knew se would be unable to resist using it which would eventually lead to her ultimate corruption.) Since Frodo was of a species well suited to resist the Ring's siren call to power, and he was already the Ringbearer, they decided it best that he should be the one sent, but included the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn in the Fellowship to make up for Frodo's lack of experience.
--WhiskyJack
PS> Also, the Ents would never have entered the War were it not for Pippin and Meriadoc's jaunt into Fangorn and their fortuitous meeting of Treebeard.
PPS> No, I'm not a fan. Not at all. *insert innocent look here*;)
Like I said, Katz' heart is in approximately in the right place[1], and (despite the ending of the little story I posted earlier), I really wouldn't wish the man any harm.
--WhiskeyJack
[1] Behind the ribs and a little left, of course. [2]
Am I the only one who read this and wished we could pick some other ambassador than Mr. Katz? No offense -- afterall, the man's intentions are good and more or less in the right place -- but I usually find Mr. Katz a little too...strident, I guess, to picture him doing any real good in this meeting, and he often fails to grasp the realities of the situation he's discussing which could lead to misunderstandings which might in turn work against dismantling this abominable WAVE absurdity.
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when the stars were young and the world was new, dragons roamed the earth and men feared them. And it came to be that one dragon did come to dominate the land and roam freely upon it, pillaging and burning as it went, yet those that never saw the beast's depredations called it admirable and came to worship it.
But there were those who saw the damage it wreaked, and the shear evil of the beast, and they banded together to try and destroy it. And slowly they were able to build strongholds against the monster, and on occasion inflict small cuts and scrapes and other indignities upon it, but they could only weaken it little and never slay it, and its depredations continued. And then a giant came down from the north and began battling the dragon, and the battle lasted long and was fought hard, and those banded against it gathered around to witness the terrible struggle.
And then, at last, the giant pinned the dragon, lashing and gnashing its teeth, to the ground and a cheer resounded amongst the gathered throng.
And that's when Jon Katz lept atop a nearby barrel and started to write the dragon's epitaph and loudly proclaim its death....
"But...", said the crowd.
"It's dead!" proclaimed Katz jubilantly.
"Um..." the crowd answered, pointing toward the beast as it trashed in the giant's precarious grip.
"Dead as a doornail! Dead as a tree stump! Dead!" crowed Katz.
"Er..." the crowd attempted to interject.
"It is _sooooooo_ dead....." Katz attempted to continue, interrupted by a loud *THWAP* as the lashing dragon's tail pulped the poor deluded man with an errant flick.
The crowd shrugged. "We _tried_ to tell you!"
The End
In short, Katz, rumours of Microsoft's demise are greatly exagerated, and you are quite premature in writing the company's epitaph. It still holds a monopoly on the desktop market, and there still isn't a clear path to breaking that monopoly. It has been struck a heavy blow by Judge Jackson's ruling, and the class-action lawsuit hounds are gathering to take their respective chunks of flesh, but the fight is far from over and only time will tell if Microsoft's dominance of the market will be more than temporarily staggered by this ruling. I regrettably can't write them off just yet.
I erroneously attributed the quotes from the Time-Warner comment to David Carson, when in fact they were actually written by Bernard Sorkin on Time-Warner's behalf; Mr. Carson, who represents the Copyright GC/I&R, was the person that the comment was addressed to.
In my anger at the Time-Warner remarks, I hastily misattributed them. Mea culpa, and my apologies to all involved.
I've just been browsing Time-Warner's comment, and I'm appalled at the flawed thinking in this document!
For example, Mr. Carson writes:
For one thing, Section 1201(a)(1) prohibits circumvention of technological measures that effective control
access to copyrighted works. The Copyright Office, in its summary of the DNCA, said the the section "...does not prohibit the act of circumventing a technological protection measure that prevents copying. By contrast, since the fair use doctrine is not a defense to the act of gaining unauthorized access to a work, the act of circumventing a technological measure in order to gain access is prohibited". To put it in less technical terms, a fair use defense might allow a user to quote a passage from a book but it does not follow that the user is allowed to break into a bookstore and steal a book.
The problem here is that when I buy a DVD (for instance) I am buying the right to access the material stored on it, as well as the media it is stored on. This means that I am by and large entitled to do anything I want to it, whether it be to copy that DVD for my own personal use or to just toss it into the microwave and watch the pretty sparks. To use Mr. Carson's analogy above, I have for all intents and purposes bought the bookstore the book resides in, and therefore I am within my rights to smash the locks and get inside any time I darn well please, and if someone else happens to have a decent crowbar I can use (DeCSS), all the better.
Mr. Carson goes on to argue that such access controls don't hinder anyone's ability to access the controlled work, as they "need only follow the same steps as [they] would in the absence of technological protections...". Unfortunately, those steps currently force me to buy a product that I don't want in order to gain access to content that I've bought the right to view. This is like saying "Okay, you've paid me for this nice hotel room, but you can't actually get in to use it until you go buy one of our special keys from George over there"; ridiculous! Afterall, I've already bought the access rights, but I'm not allow to excercise them until I pay for them twice.
Mr. Carson further argues that since there are alternative means of distributing content other than DVDs, I as a consumer can freely choose to use the non-access controlled media if I disapprove of the restrictions DVDs might impose on me in order to view them. Admittedly, he has a point here....for now. The problem arises that these alternatives aren't guaranteed to be around in the future (in fact, I strongly suspect that if the current model of access control holds up in court, VHS and other freely accessible media will quickly disappear). Since access controlled media is inherently more profitable (you get the money paid for the access rights plus the licensing for the media reader; on top of that, if the current model holds, then it's only a tiny step to impose a pay-per-view model ala Divex, which we wouldn't be able to do a thing to legally circumvent), the media publishers will have every reason to embrace strong access controls if the DMCA actually holds up.
Provided the mainframe is set up correctly (and you can bet it will be;) the best a system cracker can hope to do is compromise an individual VM or two. To take the entire thing down, they'd need access to the system console, and if the bad guy has gained physical access to your server room, one mainframe v. 40000 PC boxes makes little difference (as he can just take an ax to the power mains....)
First let me say IANAL...but in my defense, I have to point out that I made that statement based on one of the copyright lawyers' quotes in the article.
Here's the situation as I understand it:
Mattel may be able to rescind the GPL licensing applied to cphack because copyright law requires a "signed instrument" to transfer ownership (to, say, the FSF) in order for that license to be irrevocable, regardless what the text of the license says.
Unfortunately for Mattel, in order to rescind the licenses already granted (not ownership rights but licenses), they need to contact the current license holders to notify them of the change. In the case of cphack, this means that the GPL will still apply to it until Mattel gets the word out to all the licensees (i.e. everyone whose downloaded it) that the GPL no longer applies. During that window, one could arguably rewrite cphack and redistribute the new version even after the original cphack license is rescinded, because it was derived from then-GPLed software.
Again, IANAL; this is just my reading of the article.
I only have one issue with it: My problem with Microsoft (and I suspect the problem several other/.ers have) has little to do with their functional monopoly on the desktop OS market, but how they are using that stranglehold to leverage their way into other markets without having to compete fairly.
Splitting their OS division from applications and hardware would make it more difficult from them to use "embrace and extend" tactics outside of the OS arena...which would be a good thing. Unfortunately, it would only partially sove the problem, because it isn't really clear what is part of the OS proper and what is not, making all sorts of loopholes MS could use to leverage other markets. Also, within the desktop and networking market itself, MS would still be able to wreak havoc. For these reasons, a split must be accompanied by rigid oversight (or some other method of hobbling) of (at least) the OS division in order to be effective.
Apparently not if it's done before Mattel notifies the holder of the current license (namely, everyone who has downloaded cphack) of a change in the licensing that bars them from doing that.
Unless, of course, that person is demonstrably making the copies for their own personal use and not for resale. In that case, they should have the right to make as many copies as they want using whatever means they want because they own the media and they've bought the rights to view its contents.
The one case I remember most vividly from my abnormal psych class back in college was that of Phineas P. Gage, a railroad construction foreman who had a four foot iron tamping rod blown clear through his head while blasting bedrock. He survived the injury (much to everyone's astonishment) but underwent a massive personality change because of the resulting brain damage. This helped prove the link between brain structures and human behavior (particularly) in the area of emotional control). An utterly fascinating case.
You're right in one regard: Shit does happen and good people get hurt. But you are gravely wrong elsewhere.
Everyone is something special. Every single person that dies needlessly makes each of us that much poorer. Every single person has inherent worth, if not for what they are now, for what they might become. Maybe one day you'll understand; I just hope you don't have to go through something similar to what Jason is before you start to get it.
Your inability to show compassion for a stranger who has been hurt speaks poorly for you. Try looking beyond your immediate surroundings at the bigger picture, hey? There's more to the world than your immediate circle of friends.
Would you start caring if this Jason fellow had just figured out how to cure your mother's cancer just before the drunk driver scrambled his mind? In order for you to care, his continued health has to have a direct beneift to you personally? That's just the thing -- it does benefit you, only you're too blind to see it. His health benefits you, if for no other reason than his existence increases the number of minds out there working on the problems that affect you daily.
Even the bag lady on the street corner just down the road from your place benefits you. How? She inspires people who care to seek solutions to the problems that put her on that corner....problems that might have a bearing on your life as well.
-- WhiskeyJack, who sees no greater tragedy than wasted potential.
The grizzled veteran stood with a sigh, eying his son with quiet dignity.
"Lad, you don't know what you're getting into", he said quietly.
"I do, Dad", the young man returned. "I just want to do my part for the Coalition. Emperor Joy...."
"...never intended for us to fight this war", interrupted the old man. "When he wrote vi, it was for the betterment of all mankind, not this... this....atrocity we commit in his name. Same with RMS and emacs...they both had different visions of enlightenment, that's all."
"You're talking heresy, Dad" the young man siad, his voice dropping low. "Don't..."
"Heresy? Aye...but I learned that way of thinking on the front lines. You don't understand the horror, son! You won't, until you've seen it! Code rent to its component subroutines, mass find-and-deletes...." the old vet's voice trailed off, his hands shaking. "Son....don't go" he adds quietly. "For your own sake...."
"It's for the good of the Coalition, Dad, the betterment of the ideals set forth by Emperor Joy, embodied in the 'do one thing and do it well' philosophy of vi. Not this bastardized 'do everything' emacs dogma. Simple, elegant...."
"That's just what they tell you at the war camps, Son!", the old man broke in. "Both ways have their place!"
"Sorry, Dad....I have to go", the young man said, voice filled with quiet resolve. "It's what I believe in. It's what you believed in once, too. I have to go...."
The old man's shoulders sagged, and he sighed. "Guess there's no arguing with religion" he murmured. His son nodded, and walked out of the room, uniform neatly pressed and shoes shined to a brilliant gloss.
The old man watched his son leave, eyes sad, and murmured, "Just be careful otu there, son. It's a dangerous world...."
Easy. Unlike the lucky folks who live in larger populous centers, those of us in the north woods have no other options for internet connectivity from home, and we won't have them for a while yet. Heck, I can't even get a cable modem because the local cable company doesn't support them....and a lot of the folks up in The County don't even have cable to begin with, because their neighborhoods haven't been wired for it yet (population isn't dense enough to make it profitable). Dish Network et al. are big sellers up this way.
The modem market isn't going to dry up entirely until these more remote regions get more thoroughly wired. Will it decline? Of course... but there will be a niche for good old fashioned modems for several years to come.
-- WhiskeyJack, from the deepest, darkest wilds of Maine.;)
Actually, I was avoiding reference to locksmiths...if you want security, you don't expose your design to the folks that make locks, as they really aren't going to teach you any new tricks; you reveal the design to the folks that break locks.
As for picking nits about exactly what a cat burglar is...you have to gain access before you can burgle, now don't you? And the successful cat burglar not only gains access, but gains access stealthily....in other words, they have to know some tricks indeed to get into that house without waking anyone up. Got it?
You want to design a secure lock? Take your design and throw it to the cat burglars of the world and see what they do with it.
You want a secure server? Give the source to the system crackers to play with...same thing. You go through a time when exploits are showing up left and right (and getting patched), but soon you'll have a hardened server.
Afterall, who do you trust more to find the holes in your security? A couple of hired security experts? Or a few thousand people with direct experience slipping into places they don't belong?
...is that Sledgehammer will continue to tie us to the (seriously stretched to its limits) x86 architecture, warts and all. I for one had hopes that IA-64 would give us a clean break in processor architectures, but Sledgehammer, if successful, will likely lead us into another decade chained to the x86 legacy. Hooray.
Maybe the moderator was aiming at a nearby post and missed?:)
Seriously though, there's a lot of reasons this might've been modded the way it was:
The moderator was an utter Tux zealot who can't comprehend anyone preferring an Apple product over Linux....
The moderator accidentally scrolled down one or two choices in the mod menu without realizing it (easy to do if you're forced to use IE and you're in the habit of using the arrow keys to scroll -- it's happened to me before, but I've always caught it before hitting the "moderate" button).
The moderator actually _was_ intending to moderate another post and got this one by mistake.
The moderator was actually the/. Troll, looking to score a point for Natalie Portman and hot grits by showing how the moderation system can be abused.
....
Oh, waitasec...I guess you're right. There really is no !lame excuse for bad moderation.:)
--WhiskeyJack, who's been a moderator twice in the past month....eeee! And no, I didn't moderate this one!
Slashdot Mirror
You will need the following:
Combine ingredients with an assortment of average people dissatisfied with their average lives, and shake.
Oh, yeah, and a catchy name (like, oh, "Scientology") doesn't hurt.
-- WhiskeyJack
What was that quote? Oh, I can't remember it exactly...been years since I set foot in a church and all, but it goes a little something like this:
It was said by that Jesus fellow. Same guy who went on about treating folks like you'd want them to treat you. Nice guy...pity they went and nailed him to a tree. It'd be nice if more Christians actually paid attention to what the man said...but then again, most "Christians" aren't. Of course, neither am I, so what'm I griping about? ;)
-- WhiskeyJack
I wonder what a Beowulf cluster of 100THz computers could do?
The answer is..... "Anything it wants."
-- WhiskeyJack
They decided not to send a large force because the success of the mission relied upon stealth; the entire Elvish army would more than likely fail to breach the gates of Mordor in a direct attack, so the only real option was to sneak the Ring in. Add to that that such a large force would very likely clue Sauron in to the exact location of the Ring, and their chances of failure grew even further -- Sauron would only have to send in the likes of the Nazgul to take the Ring unless the Bearer was willing to wield it in his defense, since they would be unlikely to have sufficiently powerful defenders to fend off such an attack on watch every moment of every day. The option of sending a large force was out of the question.
So why send an untried and untravelled Frodo to do the job? Because Bilbo had shown that hobbits were unusually resistant to the Ring's power, while Elves and Men would have had a very high chance of succumbing to the temptation to try and use the Ring to defeat Sauron. (Examples: Boromir atempts to steal the Ring from Frodo, Galadriel refusing Frodo's offer to give her the Ring because she knew se would be unable to resist using it which would eventually lead to her ultimate corruption.) Since Frodo was of a species well suited to resist the Ring's siren call to power, and he was already the Ringbearer, they decided it best that he should be the one sent, but included the likes of Gandalf and Aragorn in the Fellowship to make up for Frodo's lack of experience.
--WhiskyJack
PS> Also, the Ents would never have entered the War were it not for Pippin and Meriadoc's jaunt into Fangorn and their fortuitous meeting of Treebeard.
PPS> No, I'm not a fan. Not at all. *insert innocent look here* ;)
Like I said, Katz' heart is in approximately in the right place[1], and (despite the ending of the little story I posted earlier), I really wouldn't wish the man any harm.
--WhiskeyJack
[1] Behind the ribs and a little left, of course. [2]
[2] Sorry, I couldn't resist. [3]
[3] Obligatory recursive footnote. [2]
Am I the only one who read this and wished we could pick some other ambassador than Mr. Katz? No offense -- afterall, the man's intentions are good and more or less in the right place -- but I usually find Mr. Katz a little too...strident, I guess, to picture him doing any real good in this meeting, and he often fails to grasp the realities of the situation he's discussing which could lead to misunderstandings which might in turn work against dismantling this abominable WAVE absurdity.
--WhiskeyJack
Once upon a time, a long time ago, when the stars were young and the world was new, dragons roamed the earth and men feared them. And it came to be that one dragon did come to dominate the land and roam freely upon it, pillaging and burning as it went, yet those that never saw the beast's depredations called it admirable and came to worship it.
But there were those who saw the damage it wreaked, and the shear evil of the beast, and they banded together to try and destroy it. And slowly they were able to build strongholds against the monster, and on occasion inflict small cuts and scrapes and other indignities upon it, but they could only weaken it little and never slay it, and its depredations continued. And then a giant came down from the north and began battling the dragon, and the battle lasted long and was fought hard, and those banded against it gathered around to witness the terrible struggle.
And then, at last, the giant pinned the dragon, lashing and gnashing its teeth, to the ground and a cheer resounded amongst the gathered throng.
And that's when Jon Katz lept atop a nearby barrel and started to write the dragon's epitaph and loudly proclaim its death....
"But...", said the crowd.
"It's dead!" proclaimed Katz jubilantly.
"Um..." the crowd answered, pointing toward the beast as it trashed in the giant's precarious grip.
"Dead as a doornail! Dead as a tree stump! Dead!" crowed Katz.
"Er..." the crowd attempted to interject.
"It is _sooooooo_ dead....." Katz attempted to continue, interrupted by a loud *THWAP* as the lashing dragon's tail pulped the poor deluded man with an errant flick.
The crowd shrugged. "We _tried_ to tell you!"
The End
In short, Katz, rumours of Microsoft's demise are greatly exagerated, and you are quite premature in writing the company's epitaph. It still holds a monopoly on the desktop market, and there still isn't a clear path to breaking that monopoly. It has been struck a heavy blow by Judge Jackson's ruling, and the class-action lawsuit hounds are gathering to take their respective chunks of flesh, but the fight is far from over and only time will tell if Microsoft's dominance of the market will be more than temporarily staggered by this ruling. I regrettably can't write them off just yet.
-- WhiskeyJack
I erroneously attributed the quotes from the Time-Warner comment to David Carson, when in fact they were actually written by Bernard Sorkin on Time-Warner's behalf; Mr. Carson, who represents the Copyright GC/I&R, was the person that the comment was addressed to.
In my anger at the Time-Warner remarks, I hastily misattributed them. Mea culpa, and my apologies to all involved.
--WhiskeyJack
I've just been browsing Time-Warner's comment, and I'm appalled at the flawed thinking in this document!
For example, Mr. Carson writes:
The problem here is that when I buy a DVD (for instance) I am buying the right to access the material stored on it, as well as the media it is stored on. This means that I am by and large entitled to do anything I want to it, whether it be to copy that DVD for my own personal use or to just toss it into the microwave and watch the pretty sparks. To use Mr. Carson's analogy above, I have for all intents and purposes bought the bookstore the book resides in, and therefore I am within my rights to smash the locks and get inside any time I darn well please, and if someone else happens to have a decent crowbar I can use (DeCSS), all the better.
Mr. Carson goes on to argue that such access controls don't hinder anyone's ability to access the controlled work, as they "need only follow the same steps as [they] would in the absence of technological protections...". Unfortunately, those steps currently force me to buy a product that I don't want in order to gain access to content that I've bought the right to view. This is like saying "Okay, you've paid me for this nice hotel room, but you can't actually get in to use it until you go buy one of our special keys from George over there"; ridiculous! Afterall, I've already bought the access rights, but I'm not allow to excercise them until I pay for them twice.
Mr. Carson further argues that since there are alternative means of distributing content other than DVDs, I as a consumer can freely choose to use the non-access controlled media if I disapprove of the restrictions DVDs might impose on me in order to view them. Admittedly, he has a point here....for now. The problem arises that these alternatives aren't guaranteed to be around in the future (in fact, I strongly suspect that if the current model of access control holds up in court, VHS and other freely accessible media will quickly disappear). Since access controlled media is inherently more profitable (you get the money paid for the access rights plus the licensing for the media reader; on top of that, if the current model holds, then it's only a tiny step to impose a pay-per-view model ala Divex, which we wouldn't be able to do a thing to legally circumvent), the media publishers will have every reason to embrace strong access controls if the DMCA actually holds up.
-- WhiskeyJack, too disgusted to continue.
Provided the mainframe is set up correctly (and you can bet it will be ;) the best a system cracker can hope to do is compromise an individual VM or two. To take the entire thing down, they'd need access to the system console, and if the bad guy has gained physical access to your server room, one mainframe v. 40000 PC boxes makes little difference (as he can just take an ax to the power mains....)
--WhiskeyJack
First let me say IANAL...but in my defense, I have to point out that I made that statement based on one of the copyright lawyers' quotes in the article.
Here's the situation as I understand it:
Again, IANAL; this is just my reading of the article.
--WhiskeyJack
Good post, very well argued.
I only have one issue with it: My problem with Microsoft (and I suspect the problem several other /.ers have) has little to do with their functional monopoly on the desktop OS market, but how they are using that stranglehold to leverage their way into other markets without having to compete fairly.
Splitting their OS division from applications and hardware would make it more difficult from them to use "embrace and extend" tactics outside of the OS arena...which would be a good thing. Unfortunately, it would only partially sove the problem, because it isn't really clear what is part of the OS proper and what is not, making all sorts of loopholes MS could use to leverage other markets. Also, within the desktop and networking market itself, MS would still be able to wreak havoc. For these reasons, a split must be accompanied by rigid oversight (or some other method of hobbling) of (at least) the OS division in order to be effective.
--WhiskeyJack
Apparently not if it's done before Mattel notifies the holder of the current license (namely, everyone who has downloaded cphack) of a change in the licensing that bars them from doing that.
--WhiskeyJack
....the MPAA sues Sony to take the PS2 off the market while pressuring Japanese police to arrest the head of their engineering department?
-- WhiskeyJack
Unless, of course, that person is demonstrably making the copies for their own personal use and not for resale. In that case, they should have the right to make as many copies as they want using whatever means they want because they own the media and they've bought the rights to view its contents.
-- WhiskeyJack
-- WhiskeyJack
The one case I remember most vividly from my abnormal psych class back in college was that of Phineas P. Gage, a railroad construction foreman who had a four foot iron tamping rod blown clear through his head while blasting bedrock. He survived the injury (much to everyone's astonishment) but underwent a massive personality change because of the resulting brain damage. This helped prove the link between brain structures and human behavior (particularly) in the area of emotional control). An utterly fascinating case.
-- WhiskeyJack
You're right in one regard: Shit does happen and good people get hurt. But you are gravely wrong elsewhere.
Everyone is something special. Every single person that dies needlessly makes each of us that much poorer. Every single person has inherent worth, if not for what they are now, for what they might become. Maybe one day you'll understand; I just hope you don't have to go through something similar to what Jason is before you start to get it.
Your inability to show compassion for a stranger who has been hurt speaks poorly for you. Try looking beyond your immediate surroundings at the bigger picture, hey? There's more to the world than your immediate circle of friends.
Would you start caring if this Jason fellow had just figured out how to cure your mother's cancer just before the drunk driver scrambled his mind? In order for you to care, his continued health has to have a direct beneift to you personally? That's just the thing -- it does benefit you, only you're too blind to see it. His health benefits you, if for no other reason than his existence increases the number of minds out there working on the problems that affect you daily.
Even the bag lady on the street corner just down the road from your place benefits you. How? She inspires people who care to seek solutions to the problems that put her on that corner....problems that might have a bearing on your life as well.
-- WhiskeyJack, who sees no greater tragedy than wasted potential.
The grizzled veteran stood with a sigh, eying his son with quiet dignity.
"Lad, you don't know what you're getting into", he said quietly.
"I do, Dad", the young man returned. "I just want to do my part for the Coalition. Emperor Joy...."
"...never intended for us to fight this war", interrupted the old man. "When he wrote vi, it was for the betterment of all mankind, not this... this....atrocity we commit in his name. Same with RMS and emacs...they both had different visions of enlightenment, that's all."
"You're talking heresy, Dad" the young man siad, his voice dropping low. "Don't..."
"Heresy? Aye...but I learned that way of thinking on the front lines. You don't understand the horror, son! You won't, until you've seen it! Code rent to its component subroutines, mass find-and-deletes...." the old vet's voice trailed off, his hands shaking. "Son....don't go" he adds quietly. "For your own sake...."
"It's for the good of the Coalition, Dad, the betterment of the ideals set forth by Emperor Joy, embodied in the 'do one thing and do it well' philosophy of vi. Not this bastardized 'do everything' emacs dogma. Simple, elegant...."
"That's just what they tell you at the war camps, Son!", the old man broke in. "Both ways have their place!"
"Sorry, Dad....I have to go", the young man said, voice filled with quiet resolve. "It's what I believe in. It's what you believed in once, too. I have to go...."
The old man's shoulders sagged, and he sighed. "Guess there's no arguing with religion" he murmured. His son nodded, and walked out of the room, uniform neatly pressed and shoes shined to a brilliant gloss.
The old man watched his son leave, eyes sad, and murmured, "Just be careful otu there, son. It's a dangerous world...."
-- WhiskeyJack
Easy. Unlike the lucky folks who live in larger populous centers, those of us in the north woods have no other options for internet connectivity from home, and we won't have them for a while yet. Heck, I can't even get a cable modem because the local cable company doesn't support them....and a lot of the folks up in The County don't even have cable to begin with, because their neighborhoods haven't been wired for it yet (population isn't dense enough to make it profitable). Dish Network et al. are big sellers up this way.
The modem market isn't going to dry up entirely until these more remote regions get more thoroughly wired. Will it decline? Of course... but there will be a niche for good old fashioned modems for several years to come.
-- WhiskeyJack, from the deepest, darkest wilds of Maine. ;)
Actually, I was avoiding reference to locksmiths...if you want security, you don't expose your design to the folks that make locks, as they really aren't going to teach you any new tricks; you reveal the design to the folks that break locks.
As for picking nits about exactly what a cat burglar is...you have to gain access before you can burgle, now don't you? And the successful cat burglar not only gains access, but gains access stealthily....in other words, they have to know some tricks indeed to get into that house without waking anyone up. Got it?
-- WhiskeyJack
You want to design a secure lock? Take your design and throw it to the cat burglars of the world and see what they do with it.
You want a secure server? Give the source to the system crackers to play with...same thing. You go through a time when exploits are showing up left and right (and getting patched), but soon you'll have a hardened server.
Afterall, who do you trust more to find the holes in your security? A couple of hired security experts? Or a few thousand people with direct experience slipping into places they don't belong?
What part of this doesn't make sense?
-- WhiskeyJack
...is that Sledgehammer will continue to tie us to the (seriously stretched to its limits) x86 architecture, warts and all. I for one had hopes that IA-64 would give us a clean break in processor architectures, but Sledgehammer, if successful, will likely lead us into another decade chained to the x86 legacy. Hooray.
-- WhiskeyJack
Maybe the moderator was aiming at a nearby post and missed? :)
Seriously though, there's a lot of reasons this might've been modded the way it was:
Oh, waitasec...I guess you're right. There really is no !lame excuse for bad moderation. :)
--WhiskeyJack, who's been a moderator twice in the past month....eeee! And no, I didn't moderate this one!
Hmmm....MCSE.....?
-- WhiskeyJack, tossing out whatever came to mind in ten minutes....