Still in beta, isn't it? I'll have to stick with vmware 2.0, which runs just fine, until then.
I'm fairly sure free trial keys are no longer available for vmware 2.0. 2.0 was in final release for months before it was finally ported to FreeBSD. Even then it didn't run well at all for another few months. This was probably the #1 reason why I kept sticking with Windows. Well, I've since moved to linux so the problem has gone away. YMMV, but I've never found FreeBSD usable on the desktop. Used to love it for servers, but I've since switched to Linux for that too, because they've for the most part caught up.
How? In what situation would a complete stranger on slashdot want to send a secure message to a pseudonym who trusts all points between herself and slashdot, but not all points between herself and the location of the recipient?
https or not, you're still going to have to validate a key by either checking the fingerprint with that person in a "secure" way, or by validating it through your web of trust.
Not if all you want to do is validate that the person is indeed "aozilla", whatever that is.
So yeah, it doesn't do much good technically, but I think it does social good since it eliminates that first "what's your key" email, and lets you get right to the validation part.
I could see it as potentially useful for some, but I certainly wouldn't go far as to call anyone who doesn't have it as lame. Those people who know my identity know my public key. I see no reason whatsoever to publish it on slashdot. In fact, for the truly paranoid it probably makes sense to never release your public key to the public in the first place.
So when my ISP goes down, how do you call someone to get it fixed? Joking somewhat, but there are advantages to having different services over different lines.
So, you're accepting it as given that this national ID card system was NOT designed to stop plane hijacking terrorist acts. What the FUCK is it designed to stop then??
I don't think it's really designed to stop anything as much as save money rather than tracking people through completely unintegrated DMV records in the individual states. Could a national ID card system stop some terrorist acts? Yes. Will it stop all of them? No. Nothing will. What I don't understand is what the problem is with it. Assume it's only given to people who already have ID anyway, such as a drivers licence or non-driver ID card.
The fingerprinting part I think is bad though, because that's not already out there.
You'll be searched while honest people will be waiting in line for hours. That's one of the reasons I rarely take a plane, I hate waiting.
Right, and personally I think you should be able to sue for such inappropriate detainment. If you think I'm a threat and you don't have probable cause, you can pay me a nice $200/hr for my detainment. Not the way it is, but the way I think it should be.
You do realise that the ticket will cost you more, don't you?
As long as the ticket costs everyone more (not just on the flight, but across the entire airline), I'm fine with this. It's this whole bail-out shit that Bush is proposing which bothers me. Let the airlines raise prices to cover their costs. If fewer people fly, that is a good thing. I don't want my tax money going to subsidize those CEOs and baseball players and whoever else flies around the country all the time. If the government wants to give loans to some airlines to temporarily help them until the extra revenues from prices kick in, that's fine, but this corporate welfare nonsense bothers me to no end.
What if Bush decided to become a criminal tomorrow and press the big red button? Who's stopping him? Who?
At some point there are levels of trust, and in general you would give higher levels of trust to those citizens who have law abiding citizens for longer periods of time. It's just the way human nature tends to work.
The important part is that no one is unjustly inconvenienced for mere suspicion, at least without some form of compensation. If I happen to like reading books on terrorism, I shouldn't be forced to strip searches when I get on an airplane, unless I agree voluntarily based on some form of compensation. OTOH, if the airline wants to put 3 extra armed air marshalls on the flight whenever I fly, I have no problem with that.
You'll need to show your ID for booze, cigs or pr0n just as you do now, but they won't run it through the computer for something as simple as that, they'll just check the printed age. This is no different from buying booze et cetera now.
Last time I bought booze my driver's license number was entered into the cashier's computer. I don't think this is yet mandatory (as in not all stores have to comply), but it isn't much of a leap for it to become so.
As any teenager can tell you, fake IDs are fairly easy to obtain, and I doubt that those who currently provide fake drivers' licenses will have a moral problem with providing fake national ID cards.
A national ID card would greatly reduce the number of fakes. For one thing, it would be easier to recognize a fake, because there wouldn't be 50+ different versions to memorize. Secondly, some states are harder to forge than others, and presumably a national card would be as good or better than the best state, since it would have better economies of scale in production.
If you should lose your wallet or purse, your SSN
would make it easier for a thief to apply for credit in your name or
otherwise fraudulently use your number.
Bill Gates' Social Security Number is 539-60-5125. I'd like to see you get credit in his name now.
The solution to social security numbers is to make them completely public, publish them all in a huge list, and stop once and for all this nonsense about a publically available number being used for security purposes.
A NATIONAL ID CARD SYSTEM WOULD NOT HAVE PREVENTED THE ACTS OF SEPTEMBER 11th!
I think you're the one missing the major point here. The purpose of this is not to stop the acts of September 11th. Nothing can stop the acts of September 11th, they already happened. Feel free to discuss this on its own merits, but don't throw up some strawman about something that this wasn't designed to stop.
I've always wanted to do this as well, except I wanted to do it in reverse writing (mirror writing, whatever it's called) in the front of the car. "KEEP RIGHT UNLESS YOU'RE PASSING" comes to mind...
This is one of the reasons that Netscape pissed me off with 6.0. It's a totally unusable browser branched of a Mozilla release that wasn't too usable itself. Then it was crudded down with Netscape's own crap. I think that this turned a lot of people off, and Netscape will pay for it down the road.
Hell, if I ran AOL, this would be my intention. Why waste money on an open source browser when you don't make any products for any platforms which can't use IE? They probably had committments to continue to release products, so they release a piece of shit as 6.0, so what? 99% of the world was using IE already anyway, and the other 1% were either on platforms that didn't have IE or were too anti-microsoft to use IE no matter how shitty netscape is. Netscape doesn't make AOL any significant money, why not leave it to the pie-in-the-sky dreamers to do all the work for them, for free.
7.0 is a marketing number. It is by no means a major release. In fact, if you have 6.0 you can upgrade to 7.0 online without downloding the whole new program. Needless to say, they still use IE (which they will almost certainly always do).
Well, "enum" seems kind of handy as an idiom, but exactly the same kind of effect can be gotten with an explicit integrity check in Postgresql.
Hmm, I'll definately have to look into that. Last time I tried to migrate over (as a trial, at first) that was one of the things which wound up stopping me. I wonder what the storage requirements would be for enums done in this way. I'd imagine 10 bytes (however long your string is) vs. 1 byte would be rather significant if it's used heavily.
As far as "integers with specified storage sizes" go, I know that postgresql has int2 (same as smallint), int4 (same as int), int8 (aka bigint). Did you mean something else?
Hmm, I swear that wasn't there last time I checked. Well, I guess it's time to look into migrating to Postgresql, once again. May or may not be a permanent move, but it's worth a try again, anyway. Thanks for the info.
I've heard this said over and over again, but it's simply not true. You are buying a CD with an installer on it. As long as you obtained that CD legally you have the right to install it on your computer and use it, unless you give up that right some other way. You do not need a license to install and run software, just like you don't need a license to read a book. You only need a license to copy, distribute, or create a derivitive work. While installation involves copying, it is exempted by copyright law as long as you follow certain rules (basically, you have to have purchased the copy legally and cannot install it on more than one computer at a time).
If I'm a small business owner, can I depreciate the MS software that I purchase and thereby offset income and capital gains on my tax return?
Umm, why in the world would you want to do that? When you purchase the software you should take the entire cost off as an expense. Depreciation only spreads that cost refund over a number of years, which would be a fairly stupid thing to want to do (I guess if you plan to be in a higher tax bracket in the coming years you could try though. Ask you tax advisor if you really care. Chances are you'd only save a couple dollars and would risk an increased chance of an audit, though).
What would be a free ISP application for Linux? What would be a free web based mail application which also lets you use client based access like Outlook Express and Hotmail? What would be an AIM program for linux which lets you send files?
This is currently being written in Win2k on Vmware on Linux, because of the above problems (namely the first one).
Slashdot Mirror
Still in beta, isn't it? I'll have to stick with vmware 2.0, which runs just fine, until then.
I'm fairly sure free trial keys are no longer available for vmware 2.0. 2.0 was in final release for months before it was finally ported to FreeBSD. Even then it didn't run well at all for another few months. This was probably the #1 reason why I kept sticking with Windows. Well, I've since moved to linux so the problem has gone away. YMMV, but I've never found FreeBSD usable on the desktop. Used to love it for servers, but I've since switched to Linux for that too, because they've for the most part caught up.
Yeah, except that could be considered a circumvention device...
If you're referring to the DMCA you obviously have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.
What's available for linux and not bsd?
VMWare 3.0
It's better than nothing.
How? In what situation would a complete stranger on slashdot want to send a secure message to a pseudonym who trusts all points between herself and slashdot, but not all points between herself and the location of the recipient?
https or not, you're still going to have to validate a key by either checking the fingerprint with that person in a "secure" way, or by validating it through your web of trust.
Not if all you want to do is validate that the person is indeed "aozilla", whatever that is.
So yeah, it doesn't do much good technically, but I think it does social good since it eliminates that first "what's your key" email, and lets you get right to the validation part.
I could see it as potentially useful for some, but I certainly wouldn't go far as to call anyone who doesn't have it as lame. Those people who know my identity know my public key. I see no reason whatsoever to publish it on slashdot. In fact, for the truly paranoid it probably makes sense to never release your public key to the public in the first place.
Attention Slashdot: If you do not have your public key on your userpage, you are lame.
Since your userpage is not accessible via https, having your public key there doesn't exactly do much good.
Welp folks, it's time we built our own network...
Why? Just use encryption to build a virtual network on top of the existing one.
So when my ISP goes down, how do you call someone to get it fixed? Joking somewhat, but there are advantages to having different services over different lines.
So, you're accepting it as given that this national ID card system was NOT designed to stop plane hijacking terrorist acts. What the FUCK is it designed to stop then??
I don't think it's really designed to stop anything as much as save money rather than tracking people through completely unintegrated DMV records in the individual states. Could a national ID card system stop some terrorist acts? Yes. Will it stop all of them? No. Nothing will. What I don't understand is what the problem is with it. Assume it's only given to people who already have ID anyway, such as a drivers licence or non-driver ID card.
The fingerprinting part I think is bad though, because that's not already out there.
You'll be searched while honest people will be waiting in line for hours. That's one of the reasons I rarely take a plane, I hate waiting.
Right, and personally I think you should be able to sue for such inappropriate detainment. If you think I'm a threat and you don't have probable cause, you can pay me a nice $200/hr for my detainment. Not the way it is, but the way I think it should be.
You do realise that the ticket will cost you more, don't you?
As long as the ticket costs everyone more (not just on the flight, but across the entire airline), I'm fine with this. It's this whole bail-out shit that Bush is proposing which bothers me. Let the airlines raise prices to cover their costs. If fewer people fly, that is a good thing. I don't want my tax money going to subsidize those CEOs and baseball players and whoever else flies around the country all the time. If the government wants to give loans to some airlines to temporarily help them until the extra revenues from prices kick in, that's fine, but this corporate welfare nonsense bothers me to no end.
What if Bush decided to become a criminal tomorrow and press the big red button? Who's stopping him? Who?
At some point there are levels of trust, and in general you would give higher levels of trust to those citizens who have law abiding citizens for longer periods of time. It's just the way human nature tends to work.
The important part is that no one is unjustly inconvenienced for mere suspicion, at least without some form of compensation. If I happen to like reading books on terrorism, I shouldn't be forced to strip searches when I get on an airplane, unless I agree voluntarily based on some form of compensation. OTOH, if the airline wants to put 3 extra armed air marshalls on the flight whenever I fly, I have no problem with that.
You'll need to show your ID for booze, cigs or pr0n just as you do now, but they won't run it through the computer for something as simple as that, they'll just check the printed age. This is no different from buying booze et cetera now.
Last time I bought booze my driver's license number was entered into the cashier's computer. I don't think this is yet mandatory (as in not all stores have to comply), but it isn't much of a leap for it to become so.
As any teenager can tell you, fake IDs are fairly easy to obtain, and I doubt that those who currently provide fake drivers' licenses will have a moral problem with providing fake national ID cards.
A national ID card would greatly reduce the number of fakes. For one thing, it would be easier to recognize a fake, because there wouldn't be 50+ different versions to memorize. Secondly, some states are harder to forge than others, and presumably a national card would be as good or better than the best state, since it would have better economies of scale in production.
If you should lose your wallet or purse, your SSN would make it easier for a thief to apply for credit in your name or otherwise fraudulently use your number.
Bill Gates' Social Security Number is 539-60-5125. I'd like to see you get credit in his name now.
The solution to social security numbers is to make them completely public, publish them all in a huge list, and stop once and for all this nonsense about a publically available number being used for security purposes.
A NATIONAL ID CARD SYSTEM WOULD NOT HAVE PREVENTED THE ACTS OF SEPTEMBER 11th!
I think you're the one missing the major point here. The purpose of this is not to stop the acts of September 11th. Nothing can stop the acts of September 11th, they already happened. Feel free to discuss this on its own merits, but don't throw up some strawman about something that this wasn't designed to stop.
I've always wanted to do this as well, except I wanted to do it in reverse writing (mirror writing, whatever it's called) in the front of the car. "KEEP RIGHT UNLESS YOU'RE PASSING" comes to mind...
I don't like MS corporate tactics, thus I don't use their products.
And you like AOL's corporate tactics, so you use their products instead?
This is one of the reasons that Netscape pissed me off with 6.0. It's a totally unusable browser branched of a Mozilla release that wasn't too usable itself. Then it was crudded down with Netscape's own crap. I think that this turned a lot of people off, and Netscape will pay for it down the road.
Hell, if I ran AOL, this would be my intention. Why waste money on an open source browser when you don't make any products for any platforms which can't use IE? They probably had committments to continue to release products, so they release a piece of shit as 6.0, so what? 99% of the world was using IE already anyway, and the other 1% were either on platforms that didn't have IE or were too anti-microsoft to use IE no matter how shitty netscape is. Netscape doesn't make AOL any significant money, why not leave it to the pie-in-the-sky dreamers to do all the work for them, for free.
7.0 is a marketing number. It is by no means a major release. In fact, if you have 6.0 you can upgrade to 7.0 online without downloding the whole new program. Needless to say, they still use IE (which they will almost certainly always do).
Well, "enum" seems kind of handy as an idiom, but exactly the same kind of effect can be gotten with an explicit integrity check in Postgresql.
Hmm, I'll definately have to look into that. Last time I tried to migrate over (as a trial, at first) that was one of the things which wound up stopping me. I wonder what the storage requirements would be for enums done in this way. I'd imagine 10 bytes (however long your string is) vs. 1 byte would be rather significant if it's used heavily.
As far as "integers with specified storage sizes" go, I know that postgresql has int2 (same as smallint), int4 (same as int), int8 (aka bigint). Did you mean something else?
Hmm, I swear that wasn't there last time I checked. Well, I guess it's time to look into migrating to Postgresql, once again. May or may not be a permanent move, but it's worth a try again, anyway. Thanks for the info.
In other news, PostgreSQL [postgresql.org] announced that it has all the features that MySQL 4.0 has
Really? When did they add sets and enums, as well as integers with specified storage sizes?
Yeah, spend $20/month so you can save $100 every few years. That makes a ton of sense.
what is an 'ISP application'?
Something like netzero.
I've heard this said over and over again, but it's simply not true. You are buying a CD with an installer on it. As long as you obtained that CD legally you have the right to install it on your computer and use it, unless you give up that right some other way. You do not need a license to install and run software, just like you don't need a license to read a book. You only need a license to copy, distribute, or create a derivitive work. While installation involves copying, it is exempted by copyright law as long as you follow certain rules (basically, you have to have purchased the copy legally and cannot install it on more than one computer at a time).
If I'm a small business owner, can I depreciate the MS software that I purchase and thereby offset income and capital gains on my tax return?
Umm, why in the world would you want to do that? When you purchase the software you should take the entire cost off as an expense. Depreciation only spreads that cost refund over a number of years, which would be a fairly stupid thing to want to do (I guess if you plan to be in a higher tax bracket in the coming years you could try though. Ask you tax advisor if you really care. Chances are you'd only save a couple dollars and would risk an increased chance of an audit, though).
What would be a free ISP application for Linux? What would be a free web based mail application which also lets you use client based access like Outlook Express and Hotmail? What would be an AIM program for linux which lets you send files?
This is currently being written in Win2k on Vmware on Linux, because of the above problems (namely the first one).