Ok, so let me get this straight... The US government wants some way to be able to penetrate any encryption scheme that is devised.
Fine, us Canadians would likely go along with that, same for many friendly countries.
However, what is to say that terrorist groups won't then hire their own cryptography experts, get them to devise a new method, and then use that?
The end result is that we've given one government carte blanche to snoop into our private affairs (I believe in privacy, but am not a fanatic), and the bad guys still get to hide their stuff. Doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm just naive about cryptography, but I dont' see how this will help.
It's sad to say that anyone who is sufficiently resourceful cannot be stopped by sacrificing everyone's right to privacy. We have to put pressure on governments world-wide to stop harboring terrorists. period. Cryptography is not the problem, countries who don't recognize these criminals against humanity are.
It's not like @Home (in my area) is doing *anything* to stop this. I really think that they should be policing for such disruptive activities and informing their customers when unsecured machines on their network are comprimised.
Actually, interestingly enough, we did get a call from someone at @Home. Someone had foolishly left IIS running on the gateway machine that connects us to the 'net, and Code Red had infected it (and all of our local machines).
Since we're in the middle of a Corporate take-over, our IT dept. has kinda gone to hell, and we didn't know about it for a few weeks ('cause no one was in charge of our stuff, and when they swept the rest of the network forgot about our little remote office). Oops!
Re: A Few Observations -- Offtopic
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A New Kind of War
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Eh? Eh? No, I'm not Canadian.
Obviously not. Because if you were, you first of all wouldn't mind saying eh? once in a sentence, but you sure wouldn't say it twice. And secondly, only a non-Canadian would assume that by merely saying eh? one might think you are.
Re:How do you remove the motivation from kamazis?
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A New Kind of War
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Otherwise the Taliban wouldn't have banned any music and TVs and other frivilous sources of western entertainment.
I'd suggest the word entertainment should be switched with IDEOLOGY. Despots/Dictators, etc often keep technologies which provide access to the outside world into their countries more to keep out IDEAS than amusements.
If money/capitalism matters so little to these folks, then why do they look to BILLIONAIRES to fund their terrorism campaigns? I think they're less afraid of DVD players than TVs, because TV allows access to the 'wrong' viewpoint. (Well, I suppose DVD players are also somewhat useless without a TV, but hey, you get the idea). They still need money, amassed by some of the best capitalists in the World (Oil Billionaires play the game pretty well, IMHO). Which is why it is hard to understand why their followers don't see the irony of their position -- 'Capitalists are wrong. We are right, take your shiny new machine gun and go shoot some capitalists'. No one points out that the price of a gun or airline ticket and some C4 is likely enough money to feed several of these people for a year.
You may want to re-read the article (or point me to a better one if I'm mistaken).
This article only has a veteran pilot admit "they knew what they were doing.", the reporter is embellishing this to claim that they had plenty of skill and experience... Which is not what the pilot said IMHO.
Either way, someone with a few hours in a good simulator (commerical grade) or an hour or two of stick time in any type of jet craft (very common commerically, again) could pull this off. I've flown Cessna style 172 models, and its very easy to pickup basic flight dynamics.
My roommate is trying to obtain his commercial license (a fairly expensive process up here). We discussed this for a few hours last night, and while the pilot didn't seem to be an absolutely untrained pilot, anyone with experience in flying other aircraft, and a few hours in a real/simulated commercial plane could easily accomplish this.
To attack innocent civilians is absolutely outrageous and beyond justification. To condone the killing of innocent men, women, and children is positively fucking wrong
I know this is obviously a sensitive issue. What has happened is a terrible thing. However, if you re-read the post you are replying to, you will see that the poster is saying exactly what you are saying. It IS wrong to kill innocent civilians, and condone it.
Continuing to support the Israel's genocide is WRONG. Yes, as another poster pointed out, the hatred runs far too deep to simplify things down to the point where you can say "The US deserved this", but the US does routinely supply arms to Israel, implicitly condoning their genocide. Although I believe the original post is too strong in sentiment, there is some food for thought here.
I don't believe that the victims of genocide are entitled to point out their displeasure by blowing up innocent people (of any nation), but I also don't believe that any country should support their persecutors with arms either.
Again, to re-iterate, I believe that no-one deserves to be the victim of a terrorist attack.
However, I also believe that the leader of a powerful nation has a responsibility to periodically evaluate what their support of their 'allies' is doing to the people of the country they support. And, like previous posters, I have never approved of what the US (and the rest of the World) has been turning a blind eye to in Israel. Regardless, no end justifies the means when the means is terrorism (to misquote Nixon).
That doesn't mean a breakup won't happen, because in the end, it is the judge hearing the case who gets to decide what action is necessary to restore competition to the marketplace. If the judge in question thinks a breakup is called for, well, it doesn't matter a damn what the Bush administration or the states want--Microsoft will be broken up.
While this is 100% correct in theory, the practice is more like this:
Judge orders breakup
Microsoft, having ample financial resources, fires off yet another appeal
Supreme court sends back down to lower court due to technicality
repeat.
The problem that the DOJ is trying to resolve is that M$ has ample resources to force the judicial system to issue a remedy they can live with by tying the matter up in appeals for a long, long time.
At least, if I interpret their statements correctly, that's what they mean by 'better for consumers'.
They're not saying that breaking them up wouldn't be good for consumers, they're saying it will take too long to do it, and waiting is what's bad for consumers.
Also, the productivity packages don't have the maturity of the MS or Corel offerings, but for most people that doesn't matter. The kind of people who would buy and be happy with Microsoft Works should find that OpenOffice meets their needs quite nicely.
What is interesting is that we somehow consider MS Word 2000 a 'mature' product. Yes, it's been around for a while, but with the constant feature creep between versions, they've moved from a useful tool in early versions (2.0 or 6.x), to a product that includes many features which actually interfere with certain types of users' productivity.
I'm currently working on a project which requires I copy and paste text from an intranet site. Bloody Word 2000 thinks that it's sensible to past the text as html. I have to stop what I'm doing, pick up the bloody mouse, and select 'paste special' in order to paste text as text into the document. Not very productive IMHO.
Why do you believe that you have a right to privacy while employed and paid by someone else, and while using their equipment, internet connection, etc?
This is precisely (sp?) what I don't understand about issues like this. If I supply you with a computer to do your job, then it should be my perogative to assume that you are not using it for anything but doing the job for which you are paid.
If, as is seemingly the case today, I can't trust that this is the case (for example, history has given us reason to be concerned about employees downloading virus laden files to our network), then employers may monitor them... Yeah, I wouldn't like it either, but my not liking it is for purely emotional reasons, not rational ones.
As well, if I am foolish enough to expect privacy on someone else's gear, then I should have my head examined. It's their machine, I'd never even consider putting a file on it that I didn't assume was read by every pimple-faced MCSE in the building.
Let's set aside such trivial non-issues, and worry about invasions of privacy where we have a right to one (like carnivore reading our PERSONAL email on home email accounts, etc.).
Look at it this way: When I was in college, as a physics major, I had to take
14 physics and science courses
10 math courses
2 computer science courses
2 literature courses
4 philsophy courses
4 religion courses
4 social science courses (econ, soc, history)
Wow! Impressive. I have a biology degree, and I took stuff like this by choice, not requirement.
However, what I found completely stupid initially was that I needed 2 arts credits, should be easy right? At my school, that excluded some of the philosophy courses I was interested in (all Logic courses), and even a couple of other ones that I can't recall off the top of my head. Still, I just took the stuff that interested me, and figured it'd all work out at graduation.
What I thought stupid about it was that for any Arts degree at my university, you only needed a 'science' credit. That usually amounted to a history of science course, which while interesting perhaps is a HISTORY course, and teaches nothing of science or technology.
The problem isn't that we teach children and omit science in the curriculum, the problem is that we actively encourage so called educated people to actually despise science. I'm sorry, but you can't consider yourself educated and have no clue about this many areas of modern thought/knowledge.
Being a Elementary teacher is primarily socio-psychological: you're attempting to impart some basic knowledge of how things work, and how to function in a society. Without a foundation of solid skills and (rather rote) knowledge to build on, there isn't any hope of producing a free-thinking, creative, explorative mind. Middle-school and high-school is where we need to focus on taking the student on new paths and move away from rote-learning. Elementary school is for making you a basically-functional citizen.
I pretty much agree, however, I do have a counter example that scared the heck out of me. I consider myself to have a fairly well rounded education, including science, philosophy, and have self educated myself about some types of literature (didn't read it at school, but 8 years was long enough for my first degree). I would like to see somewhat similar diversity in the education of our teachers.
My little brother was born very, very bright. He was reading and doing some computation from just about age 3.5.
He went to his Kindergarten(sp?) teacher one day, and showed her how to do exponents (simple ones, but he could explain the idea behind it to her, he just didn't know the multiplication tables well enough to do bigger ones). The problem I had with her reaction was that she didn't have a clue what he was doing! That's scary. I agree that Elementary school is as much about sociological development as it is about the three R's, but I would like to see people teaching it who are not completely ignorant also. (And I hope this teacher was an exception not a rule).
I'd rather see teachers take a couple years of well rounded studies, then start into the education courses. It's absolutely vital that you learn what it is to teach, but if you're a virtually uneducated person who lacks the skills to even show their pupils how to look further into areas that interest them, maybe you should go back to school yourself.
how can the same system of education that produced all those talented writers also have produced all that abominable Slashdot grammar?
What I find really ironic is that most of the aspiring writers/poets I know have abysmal spelling and grammar. Often I find myself correcting their work, to the point that some won't even let me see it anymore...
What, the computer geek can spell, and compose a sentence? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The United States by any conceivable measure has the finest scientists in the world.
Sorry, after reading an idiotic opening statement like this, I couldn't continue with the rest of the article.
While there have been great scientists in the US, I can't think of anyone who's at all objective that wouldn't consider this completely ridiculous.
There are also equally great scientists all over the world, European countries, Japan, Canada (and others) have produced an equal number of equally talented scientists. Just because you don't receive our media in your country does not mean these people do not exist.
Perhaps the author should read some published work by real working scientists, to see what I mean.
And yes, I'll likely be squashed like a bug, but if you read and understand this, I'm not saying anything Anti-American here. I'm trying to point out that while you're great, don't assume that there your equals do not exist in a quieter fashion (unless you're actually a scientist, then you read about everyone's stuff on an equal footing, but the popular media would have you think otherwise).
"I wouldn't call it policing, we're just trying to comply with the law and by highlighting the issue to customers, its putting us in a better position as acting as a responsible Netizen on the Internet," the spokesperson said. "
Ok, so does that mean I can give you a parking ticket, because I'm trying to be a good citizen? Sorry folks, enforcing laws is generally held to be 'policing'.
While they clearly stipulate in the T&C that they have a right to monitor the network, that IMHO at least generally means they can watch for abusive use (using too much bandwidth, or attacking their servers).
To my knowledge, standard practice in the industry extends this to monitoring their own network performance, QUANTITY of what people are up/downloading (e.g. bytes), but this wouldn't be news if they weren't trying to figure out what files you're getting and from where...
... I believe this is a very different organization that's learned a lot in the last 15 years.
Not only that, but whether we like it or not from an ethical standpoint, the ultimate sign of success for any business is a near monopoly position.
We can hate and bash M$ et al, but the fact is that they are where they are today due to consistent focus on their goal -- out sell or buy their competitors.
Easily, my non-tech-savvy friends could get used to KDE and become comfortable in it, but I don't think they could set it up to be usable (nor do they care, and rightly so, they shouldn't have to). They could actually install easily--the Redhat install was exquisitley easy--but as far as installing programs, setting things up the way they like, etc., I don't think they could.
I'm about to shack up with two computer illiterates... They've both expressed an interest in using my computers for things like school work, or writing. The thing I'm realizing is that as long as I do all the administration, and show them how to use the Apps they need, I may as well install a Linux machine for them to use. The thing that most of us forget is that Windows is no more user friendly than Linux to people like this, who forget how to do anything every time they sit down. And if they need to re-install the OS, they call me regardless..
So is ANY OS inherently easier to use because the administration is less tricky? No. The end users anywhere could care less what OS is on their machine (what's an OS?), so long as we can enable them to do their jobs/play on a daily basis, they're happy.
My point is this: We can write all the pro-Linux articles we want on all the pro-Linux websites we want, and it's not going to do a DAMN bit of good because the information is not getting out to the...people who need it. You wanna rant and rave about how great Linux is because it saves time and money? Great. Go out there into the real world and try selling that to a company who relies on NT for their technology.
If you can change their views and switch them over to Linux, then and only then can you claim some sort of victory.
While I easily coulda modded this down, I read it a second time (I always wait 'til after cup of jo#2 to moderate). In some ways I agree with your basic premise: Raving about Linux here won't convince those who don't use Linux to try it.
However, this site is also read by IT people who are not necessarily charged with running Linux networks. I for one work for a company that is tied heavily to M$ products, but often wonder if at some point using Linux on the desktop will be practical. I tried it a couple years ago, but unfortunately, in order to earn a living, I have to have Visual C++/Basic (ugh!!) installed on my system at home as well as at work -- unless I don't ever want to work at home.
What is comforting to see is that some day we may have an install base of Linux desktops large enough that some of us may be able to earn a living writing software for Linux, and I can begin installing it not only on my webservers but also on my desktop.
So this may not change the minds of the complete un-believer, but show me any argument that has ever succeeded in convincing a true non-believer in anything. I'm guessing that for those of us who believe in Open Source, but can't work with it day in and day out due to needing to feed ourselves, this will be confidence inspiring at least...
In 8 years in the Army I've been from Korea, to Saudi Arabia, Africa and Europe. Everywhere we went we were told by our chain of command to respect local laws and customs. I think we need to do that with the Interenet too.
Absolutely. We need to remember that the Internet is not only about public services anymore. If you are doing business on the Internet (and that implies in other countries), then you should consider investigating the laws of the countries that you will be doing business in. ANY company that approaches foreign entities to do business on any scale do this research. Being a.com does not absolve you of responsibility.
I'm all for the having a web site be subject to the laws of the land where it is LOCATED.
But by its very nature, the Internet is not located anywhere. Yes, a server sits humming in some little back office in some country. But by definition, the content of the site is available world wide.
The Internet should not be subject to the laws of ANY country (yes, I include US law that has of late reached far beyond its authority). Instead, international law should apply. Sadly, as the legal system here (North America) tend to lag so far behind the rest of society, no one responsible for dealing with International law has jumped onto the bandwagon and suggested that they try to start regulating it.
Instead, we (the rest of the World) are going to be over and over subject to US law, because US legislators are the first to do anything about it.
They've coded themselves into a hole where people don't want to upgrade their software to new versions every year or two
Actually, this is so true it hurts. I work for a company with customers all over the world. Unfortunately, we decided to switch our Unix based software to NT several years ago (we maintain both versions, but I'm stuck working with the NT shit).
We just completed testing to see if our stuff runs on Win2K a little while ago, and are talking about XP testing soon.
The ironic thing is, I'm only aware of one of our customers who is even running win2K, and that's for the improved terminal server version (based on Citrix if memory serves). The vast majority of our international customer base isn't going to switch away from NT for years (unless we stupidly force them to).
We're prediciting very poor sales of XP server whenever it's due to ship, at least to customers in our industry. Microshaft should really look into expanding beyond the 'sell, sell, sell' mentality that worked for them in the 80's.
Ok, first of all, let's get through the lie that this guy had no idea what DeCSS did when he posted it on his website. Unless he was just a reactionary sheep who mirrors stuff whenever Slashdot tells him to, he had a pretty good idea of what DeCSS could do and why other website operators were having it taken down by the MPAA. He knew what he was doing.
Ok, fine, a law somewhere was broken. No arguments there...
Secondly, the court did the right thing in declaring his actions illegal. It is not the job of the courts to make the laws (as any first year poli-sci major, or, for that matter, almost anyone who's taken US History will tell you). The job of the courts is to enforce the laws, and under the DMCA, the actions of Mr. Pavlovich were unquestionably illegal.
Not really. The defendant committed a crime according to laws in California, outside the borders of the State of California. So whether his actions are illegal in California or not, he cannot be tried there. That's like giving all returning US residents from Holland a blood test, and arresting anyone with Cannabis metabolites in their blood. If you travel to another country, and commit a crime, expect to be tried there and abide by local law (there are Canadians on death row, we have never had a death penalty, but they chose to murder in jurisdictions that do).
I'm sorry, but we have yet to give California power to exercise the law all over the world, and even your own US constitution is supposed to protect you from this kind of crap, isn't it??
And I have to say I agree that if you wish to protest unjust laws by breaking them, go ahead, but expect to be tried for it. I believe that's why you have an appeals court and supreme court to 'test' the validity of current laws, and occaisionally, go against them.
I personally believe that laws prohibiting the injestion of certain chemicals are unjust, but I don't walk into police stations and across border crossings carrying them, because I know that the 'reward' for my protest will not be worth trying to swing the tide of public opinion in my favour.
Pong Was the first, making it's debut in 1958 according to this article
The article seems rather confused.. PONG was produced in 1973, not 1958. Atari wasn't even founded until 1972, when Nolan Bushnell left another job. The guys at classic gaming should maybe do some research. I think they were referring to the game created by Willy Higinbottom at the Brookhaven national Lab. The game was a tennis type game. (looked like Pong turned sideways) game played on an Ocilliscope (sp?).
...representing an increase of over 890%. This increase may be affected by modifications to the Snort IDS configuration file...
I have a little trouble believing the statistical analysis made by someone who would even print such a statement without recognizing how it weakens the credibility of the entire article.
That being said, there are a couple people involved with the project that have put out good information in the past, and maybe I just had to 'bitch slap' someone for such a ridiculous comment;)
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, so let me get this straight... The US government wants some way to be able to penetrate any encryption scheme that is devised.
Fine, us Canadians would likely go along with that, same for many friendly countries.
However, what is to say that terrorist groups won't then hire their own cryptography experts, get them to devise a new method, and then use that?
The end result is that we've given one government carte blanche to snoop into our private affairs (I believe in privacy, but am not a fanatic), and the bad guys still get to hide their stuff. Doesn't make sense to me. Maybe I'm just naive about cryptography, but I dont' see how this will help.
It's sad to say that anyone who is sufficiently resourceful cannot be stopped by sacrificing everyone's right to privacy. We have to put pressure on governments world-wide to stop harboring terrorists. period. Cryptography is not the problem, countries who don't recognize these criminals against humanity are.
That's my little opinion anyway
It's not like @Home (in my area) is doing *anything* to stop this. I really think that they should be policing for such disruptive activities and informing their customers when unsecured machines on their network are comprimised.
Actually, interestingly enough, we did get a call from someone at @Home. Someone had foolishly left IIS running on the gateway machine that connects us to the 'net, and Code Red had infected it (and all of our local machines).
Since we're in the middle of a Corporate take-over, our IT dept. has kinda gone to hell, and we didn't know about it for a few weeks ('cause no one was in charge of our stuff, and when they swept the rest of the network forgot about our little remote office). Oops!
Eh? Eh? No, I'm not Canadian.
Obviously not. Because if you were, you first of all wouldn't mind saying eh? once in a sentence, but you sure wouldn't say it twice. And secondly, only a non-Canadian would assume that by merely saying eh? one might think you are.
Otherwise the Taliban wouldn't have banned any music and TVs and other frivilous sources of western entertainment.
I'd suggest the word entertainment should be switched with IDEOLOGY. Despots/Dictators, etc often keep technologies which provide access to the outside world into their countries more to keep out IDEAS than amusements.
If money/capitalism matters so little to these folks, then why do they look to BILLIONAIRES to fund their terrorism campaigns? I think they're less afraid of DVD players than TVs, because TV allows access to the 'wrong' viewpoint. (Well, I suppose DVD players are also somewhat useless without a TV, but hey, you get the idea). They still need money, amassed by some of the best capitalists in the World (Oil Billionaires play the game pretty well, IMHO). Which is why it is hard to understand why their followers don't see the irony of their position -- 'Capitalists are wrong. We are right, take your shiny new machine gun and go shoot some capitalists'. No one points out that the price of a gun or airline ticket and some C4 is likely enough money to feed several of these people for a year.
If you are referring to this link:
/
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/hijackers.skills
You may want to re-read the article (or point me to a better one if I'm mistaken).
This article only has a veteran pilot admit "they knew what they were doing.", the reporter is embellishing this to claim that they had plenty of skill and experience... Which is not what the pilot said IMHO.
Either way, someone with a few hours in a good simulator (commerical grade) or an hour or two of stick time in any type of jet craft (very common commerically, again) could pull this off. I've flown Cessna style 172 models, and its very easy to pickup basic flight dynamics.
My roommate is trying to obtain his commercial license (a fairly expensive process up here). We discussed this for a few hours last night, and while the pilot didn't seem to be an absolutely untrained pilot, anyone with experience in flying other aircraft, and a few hours in a real/simulated commercial plane could easily accomplish this.
Very, very scary...
To attack innocent civilians is absolutely outrageous and beyond justification. To condone the killing of innocent men, women, and children is positively fucking wrong
I know this is obviously a sensitive issue. What has happened is a terrible thing. However, if you re-read the post you are replying to, you will see that the poster is saying exactly what you are saying. It IS wrong to kill innocent civilians, and condone it.
Continuing to support the Israel's genocide is WRONG. Yes, as another poster pointed out, the hatred runs far too deep to simplify things down to the point where you can say "The US deserved this", but the US does routinely supply arms to Israel, implicitly condoning their genocide. Although I believe the original post is too strong in sentiment, there is some food for thought here.
I don't believe that the victims of genocide are entitled to point out their displeasure by blowing up innocent people (of any nation), but I also don't believe that any country should support their persecutors with arms either.
Again, to re-iterate, I believe that no-one deserves to be the victim of a terrorist attack.
However, I also believe that the leader of a powerful nation has a responsibility to periodically evaluate what their support of their 'allies' is doing to the people of the country they support. And, like previous posters, I have never approved of what the US (and the rest of the World) has been turning a blind eye to in Israel. Regardless, no end justifies the means when the means is terrorism (to misquote Nixon).
While this is 100% correct in theory, the practice is more like this:
The problem that the DOJ is trying to resolve is that M$ has ample resources to force the judicial system to issue a remedy they can live with by tying the matter up in appeals for a long, long time.
At least, if I interpret their statements correctly, that's what they mean by 'better for consumers'.
They're not saying that breaking them up wouldn't be good for consumers, they're saying it will take too long to do it, and waiting is what's bad for consumers.
Also, the productivity packages don't have the maturity of the MS or Corel offerings, but for most people that doesn't matter. The kind of people who would buy and be happy with Microsoft Works should find that OpenOffice meets their needs quite nicely.
What is interesting is that we somehow consider MS Word 2000 a 'mature' product. Yes, it's been around for a while, but with the constant feature creep between versions, they've moved from a useful tool in early versions (2.0 or 6.x), to a product that includes many features which actually interfere with certain types of users' productivity.
I'm currently working on a project which requires I copy and paste text from an intranet site. Bloody Word 2000 thinks that it's sensible to past the text as html. I have to stop what I'm doing, pick up the bloody mouse, and select 'paste special' in order to paste text as text into the document. Not very productive IMHO.
Why do you believe that you have a right to privacy while employed and paid by someone else, and while using their equipment, internet connection, etc?
This is precisely (sp?) what I don't understand about issues like this. If I supply you with a computer to do your job, then it should be my perogative to assume that you are not using it for anything but doing the job for which you are paid.
If, as is seemingly the case today, I can't trust that this is the case (for example, history has given us reason to be concerned about employees downloading virus laden files to our network), then employers may monitor them... Yeah, I wouldn't like it either, but my not liking it is for purely emotional reasons, not rational ones.
As well, if I am foolish enough to expect privacy on someone else's gear, then I should have my head examined. It's their machine, I'd never even consider putting a file on it that I didn't assume was read by every pimple-faced MCSE in the building.
Let's set aside such trivial non-issues, and worry about invasions of privacy where we have a right to one (like carnivore reading our PERSONAL email on home email accounts, etc.).
Wow! Impressive. I have a biology degree, and I took stuff like this by choice, not requirement.
However, what I found completely stupid initially was that I needed 2 arts credits, should be easy right? At my school, that excluded some of the philosophy courses I was interested in (all Logic courses), and even a couple of other ones that I can't recall off the top of my head. Still, I just took the stuff that interested me, and figured it'd all work out at graduation.
What I thought stupid about it was that for any Arts degree at my university, you only needed a 'science' credit. That usually amounted to a history of science course, which while interesting perhaps is a HISTORY course, and teaches nothing of science or technology.
The problem isn't that we teach children and omit science in the curriculum, the problem is that we actively encourage so called educated people to actually despise science. I'm sorry, but you can't consider yourself educated and have no clue about this many areas of modern thought/knowledge.
Being a Elementary teacher is primarily socio-psychological: you're attempting to impart some basic knowledge of how things work, and how to function in a society. Without a foundation of solid skills and (rather rote) knowledge to build on, there isn't any hope of producing a free-thinking, creative, explorative mind. Middle-school and high-school is where we need to focus on taking the student on new paths and move away from rote-learning. Elementary school is for making you a basically-functional citizen.
I pretty much agree, however, I do have a counter example that scared the heck out of me. I consider myself to have a fairly well rounded education, including science, philosophy, and have self educated myself about some types of literature (didn't read it at school, but 8 years was long enough for my first degree). I would like to see somewhat similar diversity in the education of our teachers.
My little brother was born very, very bright. He was reading and doing some computation from just about age 3.5.
He went to his Kindergarten(sp?) teacher one day, and showed her how to do exponents (simple ones, but he could explain the idea behind it to her, he just didn't know the multiplication tables well enough to do bigger ones). The problem I had with her reaction was that she didn't have a clue what he was doing! That's scary. I agree that Elementary school is as much about sociological development as it is about the three R's, but I would like to see people teaching it who are not completely ignorant also. (And I hope this teacher was an exception not a rule).
I'd rather see teachers take a couple years of well rounded studies, then start into the education courses. It's absolutely vital that you learn what it is to teach, but if you're a virtually uneducated person who lacks the skills to even show their pupils how to look further into areas that interest them, maybe you should go back to school yourself.
how can the same system of education that produced all those talented writers also have produced all that abominable Slashdot grammar?
What I find really ironic is that most of the aspiring writers/poets I know have abysmal spelling and grammar. Often I find myself correcting their work, to the point that some won't even let me see it anymore...
What, the computer geek can spell, and compose a sentence? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
The United States by any conceivable measure has the finest scientists in the world.
Sorry, after reading an idiotic opening statement like this, I couldn't continue with the rest of the article.
While there have been great scientists in the US, I can't think of anyone who's at all objective that wouldn't consider this completely ridiculous.
There are also equally great scientists all over the world, European countries, Japan, Canada (and others) have produced an equal number of equally talented scientists. Just because you don't receive our media in your country does not mean these people do not exist.
Perhaps the author should read some published work by real working scientists, to see what I mean.
And yes, I'll likely be squashed like a bug, but if you read and understand this, I'm not saying anything Anti-American here. I'm trying to point out that while you're great, don't assume that there your equals do not exist in a quieter fashion (unless you're actually a scientist, then you read about everyone's stuff on an equal footing, but the popular media would have you think otherwise).
"I wouldn't call it policing, we're just trying to comply with the law and by highlighting the issue to customers, its putting us in a better position as acting as a responsible Netizen on the Internet," the spokesperson said. "
Ok, so does that mean I can give you a parking ticket, because I'm trying to be a good citizen? Sorry folks, enforcing laws is generally held to be 'policing'.
While they clearly stipulate in the T&C that they have a right to monitor the network, that IMHO at least generally means they can watch for abusive use (using too much bandwidth, or attacking their servers).
To my knowledge, standard practice in the industry extends this to monitoring their own network performance, QUANTITY of what people are up/downloading (e.g. bytes), but this wouldn't be news if they weren't trying to figure out what files you're getting and from where...
... I believe this is a very different organization that's learned a lot in the last 15 years.
Not only that, but whether we like it or not from an ethical standpoint, the ultimate sign of success for any business is a near monopoly position.
We can hate and bash M$ et al, but the fact is that they are where they are today due to consistent focus on their goal -- out sell or buy their competitors.
Easily, my non-tech-savvy friends could get used to KDE and become comfortable in it, but I don't think they could set it up to be usable (nor do they care, and rightly so, they shouldn't have to). They could actually install easily--the Redhat install was exquisitley easy--but as far as installing programs, setting things up the way they like, etc., I don't think they could.
I'm about to shack up with two computer illiterates... They've both expressed an interest in using my computers for things like school work, or writing. The thing I'm realizing is that as long as I do all the administration, and show them how to use the Apps they need, I may as well install a Linux machine for them to use. The thing that most of us forget is that Windows is no more user friendly than Linux to people like this, who forget how to do anything every time they sit down. And if they need to re-install the OS, they call me regardless..
So is ANY OS inherently easier to use because the administration is less tricky? No. The end users anywhere could care less what OS is on their machine (what's an OS?), so long as we can enable them to do their jobs/play on a daily basis, they're happy.
My point is this: We can write all the pro-Linux articles we want on all the pro-Linux websites we want, and it's not going to do a DAMN bit of good because the information is not getting out to the ...people who need it. You wanna rant and rave about how great Linux is because it saves time and money? Great. Go out there into the real world and try selling that to a company who relies on NT for their technology.
If you can change their views and switch them over to Linux, then and only then can you claim some sort of victory.
While I easily coulda modded this down, I read it a second time (I always wait 'til after cup of jo#2 to moderate). In some ways I agree with your basic premise: Raving about Linux here won't convince those who don't use Linux to try it.
However, this site is also read by IT people who are not necessarily charged with running Linux networks. I for one work for a company that is tied heavily to M$ products, but often wonder if at some point using Linux on the desktop will be practical. I tried it a couple years ago, but unfortunately, in order to earn a living, I have to have Visual C++/Basic (ugh!!) installed on my system at home as well as at work -- unless I don't ever want to work at home.
What is comforting to see is that some day we may have an install base of Linux desktops large enough that some of us may be able to earn a living writing software for Linux, and I can begin installing it not only on my webservers but also on my desktop.
So this may not change the minds of the complete un-believer, but show me any argument that has ever succeeded in convincing a true non-believer in anything. I'm guessing that for those of us who believe in Open Source, but can't work with it day in and day out due to needing to feed ourselves, this will be confidence inspiring at least...
Is that vmyths.com WON'T be slashdotted today!! ;)
In 8 years in the Army I've been from Korea, to Saudi Arabia, Africa and Europe. Everywhere we went we were told by our chain of command to respect local laws and customs. I think we need to do that with the Interenet too.
.com does not absolve you of responsibility.
Absolutely. We need to remember that the Internet is not only about public services anymore. If you are doing business on the Internet (and that implies in other countries), then you should consider investigating the laws of the countries that you will be doing business in. ANY company that approaches foreign entities to do business on any scale do this research. Being a
I'm all for the having a web site be subject to the laws of the land where it is LOCATED.
But by its very nature, the Internet is not located anywhere. Yes, a server sits humming in some little back office in some country. But by definition, the content of the site is available world wide.
The Internet should not be subject to the laws of ANY country (yes, I include US law that has of late reached far beyond its authority). Instead, international law should apply. Sadly, as the legal system here (North America) tend to lag so far behind the rest of society, no one responsible for dealing with International law has jumped onto the bandwagon and suggested that they try to start regulating it.
Instead, we (the rest of the World) are going to be over and over subject to US law, because US legislators are the first to do anything about it.
They've coded themselves into a hole where people don't want to upgrade their software to new versions every year or two
Actually, this is so true it hurts. I work for a company with customers all over the world. Unfortunately, we decided to switch our Unix based software to NT several years ago (we maintain both versions, but I'm stuck working with the NT shit).
We just completed testing to see if our stuff runs on Win2K a little while ago, and are talking about XP testing soon.
The ironic thing is, I'm only aware of one of our customers who is even running win2K, and that's for the improved terminal server version (based on Citrix if memory serves). The vast majority of our international customer base isn't going to switch away from NT for years (unless we stupidly force them to).
We're prediciting very poor sales of XP server whenever it's due to ship, at least to customers in our industry. Microshaft should really look into expanding beyond the 'sell, sell, sell' mentality that worked for them in the 80's.
Ok, first of all, let's get through the lie that this guy had no idea what DeCSS did when he posted it on his website. Unless he was just a reactionary sheep who mirrors stuff whenever Slashdot tells him to, he had a pretty good idea of what DeCSS could do and why other website operators were having it taken down by the MPAA. He knew what he was doing.
Ok, fine, a law somewhere was broken. No arguments there...
Secondly, the court did the right thing in declaring his actions illegal. It is not the job of the courts to make the laws (as any first year poli-sci major, or, for that matter, almost anyone who's taken US History will tell you). The job of the courts is to enforce the laws, and under the DMCA, the actions of Mr. Pavlovich were unquestionably illegal.
Not really. The defendant committed a crime according to laws in California, outside the borders of the State of California. So whether his actions are illegal in California or not, he cannot be tried there. That's like giving all returning US residents from Holland a blood test, and arresting anyone with Cannabis metabolites in their blood. If you travel to another country, and commit a crime, expect to be tried there and abide by local law (there are Canadians on death row, we have never had a death penalty, but they chose to murder in jurisdictions that do).
I'm sorry, but we have yet to give California power to exercise the law all over the world, and even your own US constitution is supposed to protect you from this kind of crap, isn't it??
And I have to say I agree that if you wish to protest unjust laws by breaking them, go ahead, but expect to be tried for it. I believe that's why you have an appeals court and supreme court to 'test' the validity of current laws, and occaisionally, go against them.
I personally believe that laws prohibiting the injestion of certain chemicals are unjust, but I don't walk into police stations and across border crossings carrying them, because I know that the 'reward' for my protest will not be worth trying to swing the tide of public opinion in my favour.
Pong Was the first, making it's debut in 1958 according to this article
The article seems rather confused.. PONG was produced in 1973, not 1958. Atari wasn't even founded until 1972, when Nolan Bushnell left another job. The guys at classic gaming should maybe do some research. I think they were referring to the game created by Willy Higinbottom at the Brookhaven national Lab. The game was a tennis type game. (looked like Pong turned sideways) game played on an Ocilliscope (sp?).
...representing an increase of over 890%. This increase may be affected by modifications to the Snort IDS configuration file...
;)
I have a little trouble believing the statistical analysis made by someone who would even print such a statement without recognizing how it weakens the credibility of the entire article.
That being said, there are a couple people involved with the project that have put out good information in the past, and maybe I just had to 'bitch slap' someone for such a ridiculous comment