Let's say for a moment it is confirmed that the thing will hit. Then we will have to determine where its going to hit. We know that damages will only be localized
Not so! Most of the Earth's surface is OCEAN. That means there's a 2/3 probability it will hit the ocean. This means large tidal waves that could affect massive areas of coastline. If it hit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean it ould be enough to submerge the UK, New York City, Florida, Boston, D.C.
The way I see it, we've got about 24 years to party before the world ends. Have another glögg!
Seriously, if it hits 5 or greater on the scale, then we'll have reason to really worry. In the meantime, it's sufficient to just watch and see what happens. As phreakuencies pointed out, right now there's a 97.8% chance of absolutely nothing happening.
Re:I for one welcome our new SCO overlords.
on
SCO Targets UK Firms
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· Score: 2, Informative
IANAL, and therefore I wonder, can parties that paid their $699 teabagging fee ask for a refund from SCO, or perhaps sue them to get it back?
It wouldn't be cost effective for each company to sue SCO individually. But a class-action lawsuit could be quite effective.
I for one welcome our new SCO overlords.
on
SCO Targets UK Firms
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Since SCO has basically been told to put up or shut up, and has absolutely no proof whatsoever that anything in Linux contains their IP, because it doesn't, they're moving on to other countries. It's an act of desperation. Few in the U.S. bought it, and those that did I am sure feel like complete idiots now for wasting their $699. I expect the situation to be roughly the same in the U.K., except for the £ sign.
The MPAA stated, under penalty of perjury, that in 2001 www.InternetMovies.com made available for illegal download the third installment of "The Lord of the Rings," which was not actually finished until 2003. The MPAA issued a cease and desist order to InternetMovies.com's ISP to shut down the site.
No, it's worse than that. They made a patently false allegation in order to get the site shut down.
According to Rossi, "MPAA communications with my ISP were unreasonable and outrageous and without just cause or excuse and beyond all bounds of decency -- violating the DMCA. The courts must have overlooked that I could not have made a movie downloadable 3 years in the future, which shows that the MPAA was not within the boundaries of decency and that the court should not have ruled in favor of the MPAA."
He raises a good question. How could he make a movie available for download before it was even made?
How did they come up with their numbers? I can easily see the US leading because of zombified Windows machines, but where are the ISP mail relays those zombies are using?
You don't need to send mail through a relay. Just take your domain, look up the MX record, and send directly to the recipient's SMTP server. An extremely minimal SMTP implementation could probably be done in 20 lines of code or less, making it well within reach of worm/virus writers. Who cares about error checking if 95% of the messages get through.
Switch to GRUB. No more annoying reinstalling your bootloader everytime you change your kernel. Just edit the configuration file and off you go.
Ooops, forgot to edit the config file? AND removed your old kernel? No problem. GRUB will give you a command line where you can locate and boot off your new kernel. With lilo you'd have to go figure out where you stashed that rescue CD...
RMS: The Hurd runs, but not reliably. The developers are working on it slowly now, although one is arranging to get funds to work on it a substantial fraction of his time. The developers have concluded that Mach is unreliable as a microkernel and that they need to transplant the Hurd to L4 instead. But this requires substantial rewrites.
I was going to make a comment on the Hurd, but rms beat me to it.
This is because, like Zeitgeist, Google Suggest is based on things people have actually searched for. OK, so that's a wild guess, but it doesn't make sense any other way.
This instant messaging service has been in use for a couple of years now. However it was limited to military and contractors. Now it's open to family members. The airman has to sponsor you by entering in your email address, and then you receive login instructions.
China
Migrating from Socialism to a Capitalistic Republic.
America
Migrating from a Democracy to a Capitalistic Republic.
I'm afraid one of those is a little backward. Try this instead:
America
Migrating from a Republic to a Capitalistic Democracy
If you think America was ever intended to be a democracy, you are sadly mistaken. The founding fathers considered democracy to be the most vile thing they could think of, even worse than the Crown from which they separated. That's why they didn't set one up here.
Actually under the GPL, the other guy doesn't have to make his changes available if he never plans to distribute the new project in any way.
The guy obviously is distributing; he's running a public CVS server and making public releases every so often. Each of those is distribution under the GPL. But your point deserves to be modded up; people sometimes forget that you don't have to distribute at all.
Is it unethical? No way, it's GPL code, you have every right to take the code and put it back in the original project. Access to, and reuse of, the source is, after all, why the project is under the GPL in the first place. If somebody forks, he has to release under the GPL. And don't let him confuse the issue. If he's got a CVS repository open to the public, that's "distributed" code under the GPL.
If the idiot who forked from you really wants to go closed source with it, he's going to have to change the license, and I bet most of that code was written by people on your side of the camp. I wish him lots of luck getting them to agree to license it to him under closed terms. If he just wants to close the CVS repository, or obscure the changelog, that's up to him, and the GPL permits this, but that would seriously hurt his fork, as people would be far less willing to get involved with it.
So in short, it's not at all unethical. But is it rude?
Again, I'm going to say no. It is, after all, a GPL project. You have to expect your code is going to wind up reused in other GPL projects sooner or later. That's a sign that you're writing good code. He should be flattered, not offended.
In the long term, the politics are likely going to wind up killing one or both projects, so I'd suggest you try to keep the moral high ground, as it were, and let this guy run his fork into the ground. It sounds like he's well on his way there already.
Asteroids this small, if they were to enter the atmosphere, would break up and the pieces would burn up on entry. Little or none of it would reach the ground in any form you could recover it.
The asteroids that are large enough to do damage can be seen far away enough that the cosmic blind spot is irrelevant. The article mentions a 2.9 mile wide asteroid (which would quickly wipe out all life on the planet if it hit) which scientists have known about for years. It won't come anywhere close.
See, you're not the only one that can screw up an election! And I'm not just talking about Ohio, either. Nossir, we'll be in the record books for good. Or until the next guys come along.
This is what happens when you mix up Microsoft software with anything important. Mod me troll if you want, but it doesn't make it any less true. Microsoft Windows (especially CE!!) is not intended for anything mission critical, such as medical equipment, etc., and shouldn't be used at all in something as critical as an election. This disclaimer has since been removed from the EULA, but that's not because the software got any better. It was scaring customers away.
Man, I really hope we have a governor soon.
What would you do with a governor if you had one? Why not just shut down the state government for a while. I'm sure your wallet could use the tax break.
If automatic updates is on, XP will reboot spontaneously once it's finished installing your updates. It does put a pop-up window on the screen with a countdown timer, and if you don't hit the button, blammo. The solution is to have it download, but not install, the updates. You can then install (and reboot) when it's convenient for you.
Mod parent up Was:Of course he doesn't care about
on
Firefox vs. SP2's IE?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Of course he doesn't care about security...
... because whenever something bad happens, he'll expect you to fix it!
If you actually provide technical support for this computer, then you should be concerned, even if he isn't. SP2 isn't the end of IE vulnerabilities, MS security holes, trojans, etc. You are just having a temporary reprieve while the virus writers catch up and find the new holes.
If you have to support this box, get IE off it now, before it causes your grandfather grief. He may not care about the web browser now, but when it's changed his homepage to http://goatse.cx/ and loads 37 popups with different porn, spyware and spam sites for every valid page he manages to load, then he will care. But by then it will be too late.
I am sure there are some inaccuracies in my posting, as it was several years ago. The employee in question recently left Microsoft to go start a family. And it's not unreasonable to drive across the lake if you have to make a really quick stop near downtown Seattle before getting out of the country...
Being the only person I know to walk into a Microsoft building and out of same carrying CD-R's stamped "Microsoft Confidential" all over them, without actually being there to do any work for the company, I think I should comment on what MS building security was like.
In order to get into the building, I had to use the phone outside the door to call upstairs to my friend who then came down and let me in. (Five-digit extensions starting with 2.) Or you could just follow somebody in, but watch out, the building I went into has double sets of doors, and you have to swipe your card at both sets. And there's a receptionist inside who had to be distracted...
Once you're in, you're in. If you look vaguely like you belong there, nobody's going to raise a stink. It helps a LOT to wear an old T-shirt and jeans, the standard MS business suit. Wander in and out of offices nobody's in, load up your backpack with cool stuff lying around. Stop by the kitchen and pick up some free soda. (Well they don't have that anymore, I guess...) Play a game of pool or Donkey Kong.
If someone does challenge you, tell them the connector you're writing is driving you insane, and do they want to pop out for Chinese?
And definitely swipe 50 of those "Microsoft Confidential" CD-R's.
Sometime that evening, I notice the building seems a lot dimmer than it was before. When I got outside I noticed Microsoft Security driving around, stopping in front of a building, and pointing some sort of remote control at it. He pushed something, and most of the lights in the building shut off. I STILL want one of those remotes.
I got in my car, drove back across the lake, and hightailed it up I-5 to Canada...
Slashdot Mirror
Not so! Most of the Earth's surface is OCEAN. That means there's a 2/3 probability it will hit the ocean. This means large tidal waves that could affect massive areas of coastline. If it hit in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean it ould be enough to submerge the UK, New York City, Florida, Boston, D.C.
Wait, D.C.? I welcome our asteroid overlords!
The way I see it, we've got about 24 years to party before the world ends. Have another glögg!
Seriously, if it hits 5 or greater on the scale, then we'll have reason to really worry. In the meantime, it's sufficient to just watch and see what happens. As phreakuencies pointed out, right now there's a 97.8% chance of absolutely nothing happening.
It wouldn't be cost effective for each company to sue SCO individually. But a class-action lawsuit could be quite effective.
Since SCO has basically been told to put up or shut up, and has absolutely no proof whatsoever that anything in Linux contains their IP, because it doesn't, they're moving on to other countries. It's an act of desperation. Few in the U.S. bought it, and those that did I am sure feel like complete idiots now for wasting their $699. I expect the situation to be roughly the same in the U.K., except for the £ sign.
No, it's worse than that. They made a patently false allegation in order to get the site shut down.
He raises a good question. How could he make a movie available for download before it was even made?
You don't need to send mail through a relay. Just take your domain, look up the MX record, and send directly to the recipient's SMTP server. An extremely minimal SMTP implementation could probably be done in 20 lines of code or less, making it well within reach of worm/virus writers. Who cares about error checking if 95% of the messages get through.
Linux is already on millions of desktops, just waiting to be taken advantage of.
Ooops, forgot to edit the config file? AND removed your old kernel? No problem. GRUB will give you a command line where you can locate and boot off your new kernel. With lilo you'd have to go figure out where you stashed that rescue CD...
Not to mention the good, clean fun you can have shooting old Macs, dead keyboards, and Microsoft executives.
That's because nobody can spell Britney Spears correctly.
I was going to make a comment on the Hurd, but rms beat me to it.
This is because, like Zeitgeist, Google Suggest is based on things people have actually searched for. OK, so that's a wild guess, but it doesn't make sense any other way.
This instant messaging service has been in use for a couple of years now. However it was limited to military and contractors. Now it's open to family members. The airman has to sponsor you by entering in your email address, and then you receive login instructions.
I'm afraid one of those is a little backward. Try this instead:
America Migrating from a Republic to a Capitalistic DemocracyIf you think America was ever intended to be a democracy, you are sadly mistaken. The founding fathers considered democracy to be the most vile thing they could think of, even worse than the Crown from which they separated. That's why they didn't set one up here.
The guy obviously is distributing; he's running a public CVS server and making public releases every so often. Each of those is distribution under the GPL. But your point deserves to be modded up; people sometimes forget that you don't have to distribute at all.
If the idiot who forked from you really wants to go closed source with it, he's going to have to change the license, and I bet most of that code was written by people on your side of the camp. I wish him lots of luck getting them to agree to license it to him under closed terms. If he just wants to close the CVS repository, or obscure the changelog, that's up to him, and the GPL permits this, but that would seriously hurt his fork, as people would be far less willing to get involved with it.
So in short, it's not at all unethical. But is it rude?
Again, I'm going to say no. It is, after all, a GPL project. You have to expect your code is going to wind up reused in other GPL projects sooner or later. That's a sign that you're writing good code. He should be flattered, not offended.
In the long term, the politics are likely going to wind up killing one or both projects, so I'd suggest you try to keep the moral high ground, as it were, and let this guy run his fork into the ground. It sounds like he's well on his way there already.
The asteroids that are large enough to do damage can be seen far away enough that the cosmic blind spot is irrelevant. The article mentions a 2.9 mile wide asteroid (which would quickly wipe out all life on the planet if it hit) which scientists have known about for years. It won't come anywhere close.
At the moment, we have no defense against a planet-killing asteroid, but the European Space Agency is studying the issue, and NASA's Deep Impact project is also working on it.
This is what happens when you mix up Microsoft software with anything important. Mod me troll if you want, but it doesn't make it any less true. Microsoft Windows (especially CE!!) is not intended for anything mission critical, such as medical equipment, etc., and shouldn't be used at all in something as critical as an election. This disclaimer has since been removed from the EULA, but that's not because the software got any better. It was scaring customers away.
What would you do with a governor if you had one? Why not just shut down the state government for a while. I'm sure your wallet could use the tax break.
SpaceShipOne only went up 63 miles.
If automatic updates is on, XP will reboot spontaneously once it's finished installing your updates. It does put a pop-up window on the screen with a countdown timer, and if you don't hit the button, blammo. The solution is to have it download, but not install, the updates. You can then install (and reboot) when it's convenient for you.
If you actually provide technical support for this computer, then you should be concerned, even if he isn't. SP2 isn't the end of IE vulnerabilities, MS security holes, trojans, etc. You are just having a temporary reprieve while the virus writers catch up and find the new holes.
If you have to support this box, get IE off it now, before it causes your grandfather grief. He may not care about the web browser now, but when it's changed his homepage to http://goatse.cx/ and loads 37 popups with different porn, spyware and spam sites for every valid page he manages to load, then he will care. But by then it will be too late.
I am sure there are some inaccuracies in my posting, as it was several years ago. The employee in question recently left Microsoft to go start a family. And it's not unreasonable to drive across the lake if you have to make a really quick stop near downtown Seattle before getting out of the country...
Hey, I got a bunch of free postage from stamps.com, may as well put it to good use.
In order to get into the building, I had to use the phone outside the door to call upstairs to my friend who then came down and let me in. (Five-digit extensions starting with 2.) Or you could just follow somebody in, but watch out, the building I went into has double sets of doors, and you have to swipe your card at both sets. And there's a receptionist inside who had to be distracted...
Once you're in, you're in. If you look vaguely like you belong there, nobody's going to raise a stink. It helps a LOT to wear an old T-shirt and jeans, the standard MS business suit. Wander in and out of offices nobody's in, load up your backpack with cool stuff lying around. Stop by the kitchen and pick up some free soda. (Well they don't have that anymore, I guess...) Play a game of pool or Donkey Kong.
If someone does challenge you, tell them the connector you're writing is driving you insane, and do they want to pop out for Chinese?
And definitely swipe 50 of those "Microsoft Confidential" CD-R's.
Sometime that evening, I notice the building seems a lot dimmer than it was before. When I got outside I noticed Microsoft Security driving around, stopping in front of a building, and pointing some sort of remote control at it. He pushed something, and most of the lights in the building shut off. I STILL want one of those remotes.
I got in my car, drove back across the lake, and hightailed it up I-5 to Canada...
At the rates PayPal charges for credit card transactions it would be cheaper for me to mail each of them a dollar bill.