Imagine that in 1930, somebody said that the controls presented to drivers don't map well enough to the function of cars, and that in the future people would have to know how every drivetrain component works in order to drive or face losing the ability to use public roads.
Am I missing something here?
Yes, you are. People don't have to know the function of every part of the drive train, but it sure helps to know why the car just stalled, or why you got in a skid going around a corner without slowing down. Sure, you can tell the driver not to exceed a certain speed going around that corner, but what happens in winter? Some basic understanding of physics at the instinctive level (at least, training to the instinctive level) is necessary for safe operation of the car. The UI of the car is just an abstraction and has nothing to do with the underlying physics.
I know some turns where you can safely exceed the speed limit by 50% (except when there's a cop 'round that corner;-)) ), but I also know some turns where you cannot exceed the speed limit by more than 5% without leaving the road... both values for dry road, average car.
I had it happen to me that I got in a skid (wet tram tracks tend to be slippery, I should have gone slower) in a left turn at some traffic lights. Most drivers would have panicked, slammed the brakes and possibly hit something or blocked the crossroads. Myself, I saw my mistake: rear-wheel-drive, too much power, so the back wheels lost traction. Solution: Correct with the steering, reduce power slightly. Effect: Got the car back under control, no lasting effects, except that some other driver that had been trying to crawl into my exhaust stopped doing that...;-))
Normal driving school doesn't teach you stuff like that, but you can book training sessions where you get explained the physics and get to practise getting a skidding car back under control. There they also train you to release the brake if you want to go around an obstacle instead of hitting it, or how to get the maximum out of your brakes...
I should stop rambling now, this article is offtopic enough...;-))
Really... some legal group should get a cease and desist order put on SCO and their frivolous claims to IP infringement until 1 of two conditions are met..
Happened in Germany. SCO Germany put these claims on their website, some German company issued a cease and desist for damaging their business, SCO didn't react, company sued and won some damages... (AFAIR)
Maybe some kind of statistical tool can be added to Apache (perhaps as a module) that can be optionally loaded that allows netcraft and similar sites to poll Apache and get interesting information like: hits, max load, throughput, type of machine it's running on...
No way! At least, an admin worth his salt would definitely disable it - type of machine would help a potential attacker, hits etc. would provide a competitor with business intelligence...
Enabling that option IMHO really could get that admin fired...
So? Swap the tags. With "improved inventory controls", no one is going question that your surplus MRE looks rather large and tank-like.
Better yet, reprogram the computer so it says "MRE, over the best before date". When it's capable to move on its own, you better get rid of it. - When it makes the ground shake slightly when moving, better get rid of it QUICKLY! - "Here, let me help you... "
Max_DNS_entry_size is AFAIR 64, number_of_allowed_characters is something on the order of 28 (chars in alphabet + special chars).
About the number of registered domains I have no idea, but I'll assume 15 Million per TLD, so that's about 30 million. Running these numbers through my trusty HP48, I get about 4.15*10^92.
At $20 per domain and year, that is a bill of 8.3*10^93 dollars - not even M$ has that much money!;-)
Actually, probably a rather good idea, IMHO. Imagine a surround sound system telling the pilot the direction of a threat, encoding type and distance into frequency and volume of the sound.
Or imagine a radar system encoding direction, distance and speed of a target into some surround sound system...
To me, especially the threat warning system looks interesting, because you can hear something even if it's behind you, while your eyes only see stuff in front of you. Imagine, the advantage if you can hear at once that that radar site that just started chirping seems to be in the direction of the depression in the ridge you just passed so you can do something about it, or the fighter radar that just started chirping is at your 6 o'clock - that guy is in a bad position... wait, now he's switched from search to attack mode - now you're in trouble...;-]
Or if you could hear the drone of your wingman - you'd definitely hear if he gets out of position...
The capsules are fine for moving people, but space planes would be better as "trucks" hauling materials into space to build upon the ISS.
Definitely not. There is only one thing a shuttle is good for: Getting large pieces of equipment that weren't meant for reentry from orbit to ground. Everything else is better handled by smaller, specialised craft.
Getting people into space and back - fine, do it with a capsule (actually, the shuttle would be good for that, too, but only if you want to move lots of people - say, 30 or so...)
Putting a large module into orbit - fine, use an existing heavy lifter (or design a new, bigger one if you need). Why shoot 230.000 pounds of stuff into orbit and have it come back down if you could use these 230.000 pounds for payload? Ok, I have to admit, that weight consists in part of engines, computers and stuff, but if the payload stays up anyway, what do you need a landing gear and wings for? What do you need all the structure for, designed to withstand the stresses of a reentry?
Surely this doesn't rise to the level of a felony or anything do you think?
It's contempt of court. Period. Someone does that, he should have to face the consequences, regardless of the fact if it is a murder trial or a copyright or patent case.
That's the same decision as the one against windows - if it's not secure enoug for your needs, don't use it. Throw sendmail out, use qmail. What was your problem again?;-)
Really, I have had the "pleasure" of dabbling with some (old, I admit it) 64 bit sun boxes and got the first hand impression of the absence of correlation between n-bitness and performance.
It's funny: S(l)o(w)laris feels slow even when idle. But if the machine is under quite a load, it tends to feel exactly the same. I think the big iron feels similar: 2 seconds to reply, without any indication if there's one user or 5000 on the system...
Or were you talking about searching for cracked copies of Reader Rabbit Kindergarten?
I'm talking about things like MS Project, MS Visio, Hummingbird Exceed, Symantec PC Anywhere etc.
If you need a software that costs that much or more (say, HP OpenView, at >$8000) you can use the time to research Open Source alternatives.
Myself, I tend to look for OS alternatives at even lower prices - if I spend 2 hours to research an alterntive to Visio (Dia, xfig, what else?) I get the money and the company gets unlimited copies of the software, without ever becoming illegal!
Actually, I'm currently building an environment where Symantec Procomm is replaced by Filezilla and Putty.:-)
(And No, I'm not a windoze weenie, I'm just trying to keep my job - if that means supporting Windows while the Solaris and Linux boxes are just humming along, so be it... If there is someone around here looking for a Linux admin in the Munich, Germany area, give me a call...:-) )
What is IBM to do, run TV ads that say "Be different! Use Linux!"? IBM doesn't want to pick a particular 'brand' of Linux to push, to remain neutral about distributors, although they do seem to prefer SuSe and to a lesser degree RedHat.
IBM did exactly that. They produced about half a dozen different TV commercials about Linux and ran them on German TV, on all channels, for weeks! (At least one Commercial per channel per hour...)
If that's not what you mean, what is?:-)
(unfortunately, I don't have a link to rips of these TV ads..)
But as far as I know, I never heard of the big guys (think HP, IBM, GE, P&G etc) got raided. Why is that?
I'm currently a contractor for a very big company (>300k people) and I can tell you, as far as I know, there are almost zero unlicensed copies of a software floating around, at least in the department where I work. OK, some employees do some copying, but it's a firing offense! (I know of one case where exactly that has happened!)
If you need some software and can make the case to your boss, it gets bought, without further discussion. OTOH, if you spend 2 hours to hunt the software down and install it, it costs the company about the same in wages as if they'd just bought it...
It's part of the job of a sysadmin to be paranoid WRT his users. That post may largely be FUD, but the social problems he's facing are real. A large percentage of cracking comes from people within the company.
What he's painting wrong are the non-standard systems being an extra source for breakins. I'd rather think that installing a completely different OS on a machine for work, to do work better (even if it's only subjective) is a sign for superior dedication to the company, because much of that install and maintenance time gets done after hours.
Then stomping that install might very well *breed* behaviour the grand-parent-post described...
One problem with NiMH cells is that they don't hold a charge very well on the shelf - in other words, if you charge up a set, set them aside, then pick them up weeks or months later, you're likely to find that they've lost much of their charge (can't recall how fast that "shelf-drain" occurs)
The s(h)elf-discharge rate of Sanyo NiMH AA cells is about 1% per day - so, after 3 months most of the charge is gone. No, not 90, but more 80-ish (99% of 99% of something is a bit more than 98% of the thing... remember?;-))
You seem to be overlooking the fact that the X-Prize guys have not really achieved anything substantial at this point in time, and by substantial I mean compared to NASA'a achievements.
For how long has the X-Prize been around? For how long has the NASA been around? How much had the NASA achieved when they were around as long as the X-Prize has been right now?
I think, the X-Prize contestants did achieve quite a lot in a fairly short time...
Who here has ever heard of SLP and PKG packages? And even then, who here knows of any major applications which distribute their software using those package systems? Sure, SLP and PKG might be a dream to use, but without any actual packages to install, they're (possibly sadly?) not really of any value.
Well - If there aren't 2 different "PKG" formats out there, everyone that has ever installed a package on a Sun system has heard of pkg. So, yes, there are a *lot* of pkg files around, even commercial software and freeware (check www.sunfreeware.com)...
Short facts are: The actual vote will occur on wednesday, but the SPD and Green party hold 43 out of 80 seats and have both committed to vote in favour of Linux to be used in the government of Munich, a city of about 2 million inhabitants.
In short: the vote is over, Linux won.:-) story, Babelfish
Not in my experience. I've seen sysadmins break software by installing security patches, changing server passwords, changing firewall rules, restarting servers at the wrong time, swapping hardware, tinkering with network topology, failing to follow proper startup or shutdown proceedures, failing to perform necessary maintenance, etc. DBAs can cause just as much trouble tinkering with optimization, DB parameters, passwords, etc.
Probably you should fire your sysadmin. OTOH, *all* the changes should be tested first on the test environment, even security patches!
Server Passwords being changed and resulting in breakage are a sure sign of bad software (server *not* being the db-access-password), changing firewall rules can be both - the firewall should provide the *minimum* of access necessary, but the app shouldn't be unreasonable about access - rpc is usually bad, CORBA can often be configured to use less ports, etc. All ports used by the application must be documented in advance, otherwise they *will* be closed on the firewall!
A restarted server at the wrong time should be a temporary problem - just until it's come back up, otherwise you have a software problem (that's one of the reasons many people call MySQL crap!). Swapping hardware resulting in breakage - what the hell!?? Tinkering with network topology - see firewall. Startup and shutdown: if a machine doesn't shut down properly on an init 5 (for Solaris), that's a software problem. Startup and shutdown should be automated via init.d scripts that get called automatically, in the right order. I a setup with multiple machines, order of shutdown of shutdown should result in data loss at worst, but *never* in software breakage!
Failing to perform maintenance should be closely looked into, if that sysadmin is just lazy he should be fired. (OTOH, if he's just overworked, or the maintenance was delayed because some people talked him into it, it's not necessarily his fault...)
DB changes, again, first *only* on the test env.!
I'm a sysadmin myself, i know sometimes you have to restart all servers in a setup because one of them failed, but that's a software problem. The order of shutting down doesn't matter there, but the order of startup.
I saw on TV a few weeks ago where a car shop somewhere installs MOD chips that turns kittens into tigers.
The chips apparently modify the fuel injection system, pollutionI don't see the car companies invoking DMCA to stop that..
What the hell is the difference?? mod chipping a car to run better vs. mod chipping the xbox to run better (replace M$ w/ Linux) ?????
control, timing, etc.
It used to be to hot rod a car you installed goodies like NOS injectors, turbo chargers, Holly four barrel, etc..
Now you replace the factory chip with a "HOT" mod chip..
The difference is, they don't sell the cars at a loss, and you don't get a factory warranty for a modded car. To them, a car modified is still one more car on the road (think mindshare); a car modified and damaged is one more car sold...
"Chip-tuning" your car is just a quick and cheap way to get a bit more performance out of your car, partly because some manufacturers intentionally limit the performance/torque of an engine for political reasons ("An Audi A4 can't have more power than an A6!") or because they think the drivetrain can't take the additional load of a more powerful engine. Case in point, the 2.5 l TDi engine in the A4 gave (in the last model) 150hp, 280Nm (~208 ft-lbs), the *same* engine in the A6 gave 180 hp (I don't remember the torque). The torqe curve also showed a suspicious nonlinearity; near the maximum torque it went almost flat (280 Nm at 1800 rpm). Quite soon, there was a Mod Chip for the A4, which gave you a more "normal" torque curve, 280 Nm at 1800, but 380 Nm at 2500, as well as 180-190 hp...
If you now added "classic" tuning, like a better gearbox, a polished air intake, NOS injectors, etc., (the TDi is already turbo charged, but you could increase the pressure...) you would end up with a really hot, and probably really unique car... imagine a diesel engine, with great fuel efficiency (think <15l/100km) and the performance of a hot rod, combined with the 4 wheel drive of an Audi (last 3 times winner of the 24h of Le Mans)...
Very true. It's one of the odd curiosities I've always seen between security issues for Linux and Windows. Linux has the exploits published against applications, and Windows has them published against the OS when an application is exploited.
Well, as long as MS keeps claiming IE, IIS etc. are part of the operating system and can not be separated, exploits against those parts should be filed against the OS. In Linux, when an application gets exploited, well you don't have to run that application, you don't even have to install it, it *is* separable from the OS! Especially as there are alternatives to (almost) everything...
Slashdot Mirror
Am I missing something here?
Yes, you are. People don't have to know the function of every part of the drive train, but it sure helps to know why the car just stalled, or why you got in a skid going around a corner without slowing down. Sure, you can tell the driver not to exceed a certain speed going around that corner, but what happens in winter? Some basic understanding of physics at the instinctive level (at least, training to the instinctive level) is necessary for safe operation of the car. The UI of the car is just an abstraction and has nothing to do with the underlying physics.
I know some turns where you can safely exceed the speed limit by 50% (except when there's a cop 'round that corner ;-)) ), but I also know some turns where you cannot exceed the speed limit by more than 5% without leaving the road... both values for dry road, average car.
I had it happen to me that I got in a skid (wet tram tracks tend to be slippery, I should have gone slower) in a left turn at some traffic lights. Most drivers would have panicked, slammed the brakes and possibly hit something or blocked the crossroads. Myself, I saw my mistake: rear-wheel-drive, too much power, so the back wheels lost traction. Solution: Correct with the steering, reduce power slightly. Effect: Got the car back under control, no lasting effects, except that some other driver that had been trying to crawl into my exhaust stopped doing that... ;-))
Normal driving school doesn't teach you stuff like that, but you can book training sessions where you get explained the physics and get to practise getting a skidding car back under control. There they also train you to release the brake if you want to go around an obstacle instead of hitting it, or how to get the maximum out of your brakes...
I should stop rambling now, this article is offtopic enough... ;-))
Regards, Ulli
Happened in Germany. SCO Germany put these claims on their website, some German company issued a cease and desist for damaging their business, SCO didn't react, company sued and won some damages... (AFAIR)
Cheers, Ulli
No way! At least, an admin worth his salt would definitely disable it - type of machine would help a potential attacker, hits etc. would provide a competitor with business intelligence...
Enabling that option IMHO really could get that admin fired...
Regards, Ulli
Better yet, reprogram the computer so it says "MRE, over the best before date". When it's capable to move on its own, you better get rid of it. - When it makes the ground shake slightly when moving, better get rid of it QUICKLY! - "Here, let me help you... "
Cheers, Ulli
Well, it didn't. ;-)
Cheers, Ulli
Whimp! ;-)
I read the story - it's a story that was posted sometime in 1991 to usenet...
Cheers, Ulli
No, it would be:
amount = ((number_of_allowed_characters^max_DNS_entry_size) *2-registered_dot_com_domains)-registered_dot_net_ domains
Max_DNS_entry_size is AFAIR 64,
number_of_allowed_characters is something on the order of 28 (chars in alphabet + special chars).
About the number of registered domains I have no idea, but I'll assume 15 Million per TLD, so that's about 30 million. Running these numbers through my trusty HP48, I get about 4.15*10^92.
At $20 per domain and year, that is a bill of 8.3*10^93 dollars - not even M$ has that much money! ;-)
Regards, Ulli
Or imagine a radar system encoding direction, distance and speed of a target into some surround sound system...
To me, especially the threat warning system looks interesting, because you can hear something even if it's behind you, while your eyes only see stuff in front of you. Imagine, the advantage if you can hear at once that that radar site that just started chirping seems to be in the direction of the depression in the ridge you just passed so you can do something about it, or the fighter radar that just started chirping is at your 6 o'clock - that guy is in a bad position... wait, now he's switched from search to attack mode - now you're in trouble... ;-]
Or if you could hear the drone of your wingman - you'd definitely hear if he gets out of position...
Cheers, Ulli
Definitely not. There is only one thing a shuttle is good for: Getting large pieces of equipment that weren't meant for reentry from orbit to ground. Everything else is better handled by smaller, specialised craft.
Getting people into space and back - fine, do it with a capsule (actually, the shuttle would be good for that, too, but only if you want to move lots of people - say, 30 or so...)
Putting a large module into orbit - fine, use an existing heavy lifter (or design a new, bigger one if you need). Why shoot 230.000 pounds of stuff into orbit and have it come back down if you could use these 230.000 pounds for payload? Ok, I have to admit, that weight consists in part of engines, computers and stuff, but if the payload stays up anyway, what do you need a landing gear and wings for? What do you need all the structure for, designed to withstand the stresses of a reentry?
Just some thoughts...
Cheers, Ulli
It's contempt of court. Period. Someone does that, he should have to face the consequences, regardless of the fact if it is a murder trial or a copyright or patent case.
At least, he should.
Regards, Ulli
That's the same decision as the one against windows - if it's not secure enoug for your needs, don't use it. Throw sendmail out, use qmail. What was your problem again? ;-)
Regards, Ulli
It's funny: S(l)o(w)laris feels slow even when idle. But if the machine is under quite a load, it tends to feel exactly the same. I think the big iron feels similar: 2 seconds to reply, without any indication if there's one user or 5000 on the system...
Regards, Ulli
I'm talking about things like MS Project, MS Visio, Hummingbird Exceed, Symantec PC Anywhere etc.
If you need a software that costs that much or more (say, HP OpenView, at >$8000) you can use the time to research Open Source alternatives.
Myself, I tend to look for OS alternatives at even lower prices - if I spend 2 hours to research an alterntive to Visio (Dia, xfig, what else?) I get the money and the company gets unlimited copies of the software, without ever becoming illegal!
Actually, I'm currently building an environment where Symantec Procomm is replaced by Filezilla and Putty. :-)
(And No, I'm not a windoze weenie, I'm just trying to keep my job - if that means supporting Windows while the Solaris and Linux boxes are just humming along, so be it... If there is someone around here looking for a Linux admin in the Munich, Germany area, give me a call... :-) )
Regards, Ulli
IBM did exactly that. They produced about half a dozen different TV commercials about Linux and ran them on German TV, on all channels, for weeks! (At least one Commercial per channel per hour...)
If that's not what you mean, what is? :-)
(unfortunately, I don't have a link to rips of these TV ads..)
Cheers, Ulli
I'm currently a contractor for a very big company (>300k people) and I can tell you, as far as I know, there are almost zero unlicensed copies of a software floating around, at least in the department where I work. OK, some employees do some copying, but it's a firing offense! (I know of one case where exactly that has happened!)
If you need some software and can make the case to your boss, it gets bought, without further discussion. OTOH, if you spend 2 hours to hunt the software down and install it, it costs the company about the same in wages as if they'd just bought it...
Regards, Ulli
What he's painting wrong are the non-standard systems being an extra source for breakins. I'd rather think that installing a completely different OS on a machine for work, to do work better (even if it's only subjective) is a sign for superior dedication to the company, because much of that install and maintenance time gets done after hours.
Then stomping that install might very well *breed* behaviour the grand-parent-post described...
Regards, Ulli
The s(h)elf-discharge rate of Sanyo NiMH AA cells is about 1% per day - so, after 3 months most of the charge is gone. No, not 90, but more 80-ish (99% of 99% of something is a bit more than 98% of the thing... remember? ;-))
Cheers, Ulli
For how long has the X-Prize been around? For how long has the NASA been around? How much had the NASA achieved when they were around as long as the X-Prize has been right now?
I think, the X-Prize contestants did achieve quite a lot in a fairly short time...
Cheers, Ulli
Well - If there aren't 2 different "PKG" formats out there, everyone that has ever installed a package on a Sun system has heard of pkg. So, yes, there are a *lot* of pkg files around, even commercial software and freeware (check www.sunfreeware.com)...
Regards, Ulli
Having been on a rather long vacation, haven't you? ;-)
Cheers, Ulli
If I'm in Karlsruhe on that weekend, I'll grab my digicam and photograph the event... :-)
The pub in question has a capacity of about 50-100 seats...
Cheers, Ulli
In short: the vote is over, Linux won. :-) story, Babelfish
Cheers, Ulli
Probably you should fire your sysadmin. OTOH, *all* the changes should be tested first on the test environment, even security patches!
Server Passwords being changed and resulting in breakage are a sure sign of bad software (server *not* being the db-access-password), changing firewall rules can be both - the firewall should provide the *minimum* of access necessary, but the app shouldn't be unreasonable about access - rpc is usually bad, CORBA can often be configured to use less ports, etc. All ports used by the application must be documented in advance, otherwise they *will* be closed on the firewall!
A restarted server at the wrong time should be a temporary problem - just until it's come back up, otherwise you have a software problem (that's one of the reasons many people call MySQL crap!). Swapping hardware resulting in breakage - what the hell!?? Tinkering with network topology - see firewall. Startup and shutdown: if a machine doesn't shut down properly on an init 5 (for Solaris), that's a software problem. Startup and shutdown should be automated via init.d scripts that get called automatically, in the right order. I a setup with multiple machines, order of shutdown of shutdown should result in data loss at worst, but *never* in software breakage!
Failing to perform maintenance should be closely looked into, if that sysadmin is just lazy he should be fired. (OTOH, if he's just overworked, or the maintenance was delayed because some people talked him into it, it's not necessarily his fault...)
DB changes, again, first *only* on the test env.!
I'm a sysadmin myself, i know sometimes you have to restart all servers in a setup because one of them failed, but that's a software problem. The order of shutting down doesn't matter there, but the order of startup.
Regards, Ulli
The chips apparently modify the fuel injection system, pollutionI don't see the car companies invoking DMCA to stop that.. What the hell is the difference?? mod chipping a car to run better vs. mod chipping the xbox to run better (replace M$ w/ Linux) ????? control, timing, etc.
It used to be to hot rod a car you installed goodies like NOS injectors, turbo chargers, Holly four barrel, etc.. Now you replace the factory chip with a "HOT" mod chip..
The difference is, they don't sell the cars at a loss, and you don't get a factory warranty for a modded car. To them, a car modified is still one more car on the road (think mindshare); a car modified and damaged is one more car sold...
"Chip-tuning" your car is just a quick and cheap way to get a bit more performance out of your car, partly because some manufacturers intentionally limit the performance/torque of an engine for political reasons ("An Audi A4 can't have more power than an A6!") or because they think the drivetrain can't take the additional load of a more powerful engine. Case in point, the 2.5 l TDi engine in the A4 gave (in the last model) 150hp, 280Nm (~208 ft-lbs), the *same* engine in the A6 gave 180 hp (I don't remember the torque). The torqe curve also showed a suspicious nonlinearity; near the maximum torque it went almost flat (280 Nm at 1800 rpm). Quite soon, there was a Mod Chip for the A4, which gave you a more "normal" torque curve, 280 Nm at 1800, but 380 Nm at 2500, as well as 180-190 hp...
If you now added "classic" tuning, like a better gearbox, a polished air intake, NOS injectors, etc., (the TDi is already turbo charged, but you could increase the pressure...) you would end up with a really hot, and probably really unique car... imagine a diesel engine, with great fuel efficiency (think <15l/100km) and the performance of a hot rod, combined with the 4 wheel drive of an Audi (last 3 times winner of the 24h of Le Mans)...
Regards, Ulli
Well, as long as MS keeps claiming IE, IIS etc. are part of the operating system and can not be separated, exploits against those parts should be filed against the OS. In Linux, when an application gets exploited, well you don't have to run that application, you don't even have to install it, it *is* separable from the OS! Especially as there are alternatives to (almost) everything...
Regards, Ulli