This is an excellent point that wasn't handled as well as possible in both last year's movies. Actually, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Meteor, and NBC's Asteroid all depicted so-called 'calving' of the object so that there are lots of smaller impacts, but none of them specifically blamed the efforts of humans for this.
In fact, the best way to handle an incoming asteroid is to deflect it into a non-Earth-crossing orbit. Note that the best such orbit is off the solar system plane, so "up" or "down" is better than "left" or "right" deflections. And the earlier you do this deflection, the less energy required for it to be successful. If we find an asteroid early enough (and yes, we are talking on a multi-decade scale here), it's possible that a modest ion engine like on the Deep Space 1 mission could do everything required, with no blasting at all.
But you have to start early, so no complaining about this being yadda years in the future.
Seriously... I don't see this "scenario" having any effect on the already considerable momentum Linux and Open Source have within the niche they are destined to own.
Unless we, or someone, imagine we're a doppelGates and need a product like "OpenSource Linux 2000" to take over the market, what's to worry about? Linux is certainly due to challenge Microsoft for a certain niche in ways that other Unix variants never had a chance to, but that niche is all we should care about. Believing, wrongly, that Linux "wuzza contendah" to be a doppelWindoze insults both Linux and its advocates. There was never, repeat never, any doubt that Microsoft would do everything in its power to retain its market share. The few products that have gone up against them have either found their market niche (PalmPilot, Quicken) or fallen by the wayside as M$ introduced market equivalents (often substandard in either features or quality, but nemmind). Novell (remember them?) is fighting right now to find its own niche in a Microsoft world.
We don't need to dilute Linux to fight Windows. Nor need we worry about our good work (and works) being "subverted"... marginalized perhaps, but not subverted. What, are we gonna let M$ have a seat on the Open Source board and force changes in the GPL to suit itself? Of course not. THAT would be subversion.
QUAKEing like this merely validates M$ FUD. Seek our own path.
I believe that Microsoft may open up their source code, if the state attorneys general want to wring an amicable settlement out of this thing -- but I'm not sure it's going to matter one whit. M$ won't allow competing "Windows XX" products, for certain -- and will retain its de facto market share.
That aside, I'm not sure what effect there is from their using the term "open source" to mean whatever they like. It certainly won't affect the dominance of Windows vs. Linux in the market (viz. above). It certainly doesn't affect the "trademark" of the term "Open Source" -- they can't legally SELL it using that term ("Open Source Windows"), but they can certainly chit chat about it in any terms they like.
So neither their doing "open source" under their chosen terms, nor their use of the term, threatens the Open Source organization or its control of that term in any reasonable way. It's just more FUDging from the M$ higher-ups, trying to spin a favorable DOJ decision. Linux/Open Source has just unwittingly[1] become a pawn in this game.
[1] I say unwittingly, but that's disingenuous -- Linux has aggressively inserted itself into the debate, aided and abetted by Compaq, HP, et al. And yes, now Linux is a victim of its own recent success, and will receive less rah-rah press and more pooh-pooh. Again, just media folderol. Linux will continue to be a success, on its own terms. We do not need to measure up to the Microsoft marketshare/mindshare standard.
I hate to sound like an RMS-phobe. He had some terrific ideas and over time those ideas were used to build up an important software library -- the GNU utilities.
But the way I see it, the major achievement of the FSF until the 90s was a) some standardization of these utilities, and b) making them available on non-Unix platforms. Until Linus came along, there was (practically) no free Unix!
Linus has done more for the cause of "free software" by far than RMS. I don't know exactly why he was able to work the magic that RMS et alii could not, and in far less time build up a complete corporate-ready operating system that rivals the market leaders for reliability and features, whereas after years of obscure toil the FSF managed to throw together free versions of extant utility software -- in many cases, the kind of thing that students do as programming exercises. Not nearly as impressive as it could be, or should have been. RMS had some good ideas, but Linus made them work, and far exceeded the goals and grasp of the FSF.
I view this attempt to paste the GNU label on Linux as a latter-day release of a video with the latest Oscar winner billed as the star, when they were actually a bit player (e.g. starring GWYNETH PALTROW as Cab Passenger #3).
There are competitors... just without the "stylish" part. Browse your local Best Buy or whatever -- you'll find a quarter-of-a-dozen models of cheapie PC made by various vendors. Most of them are locked-down non-upgradeable machines, with a bunch of options stuck in already (sound, CDrom), and an inexpensive 15" monitor.
The iMac is just the next logical step in integrated systems like this.
Get a grip. #1, you're posting in a public space. #2, public reactions are news (unless you're saying that ZDNet should write everything off press releases?). #3, quotes are fair use. Especially in a news story.
The ability of geeks to get up in arms about this sort of thing is really, really, not attractive.
Yeah, but how many people actually use copy-protection dongles, as opposed to "pig-tails"?
I think the term is doomed.
[Side note: at my last job, doing an NT rollout, we upgraded a 486 system with a new box. After two or three weeks we got word that the user was missing a dongle. The approximate value of this dongle was allegedly $18,000. We looked for days. We didn't find it.]
What's the point of grouping people like this ?
on
Jargon File v4.1.0
·
· Score: 1
Keep in mind the "hacker profile" was originally written when there were, maybe, no more than a few thousand hackers around the country. Things are different now. It's even cool to be a hacker (which is sort of at odds with the whole idea of being one).
Plus, you ought to have a sense of humor about such things. The essence of the jargon file is found under the definition "ha ha only serious".... so, are you an outsider, a larval stage hacker, or just a wannabe?
The story never used the word "invented". It clearly states that they read about the concept in Wired and then came up with "a variation on MIT's wearable prototype". Then there are five links to other wearable computing sites.
I think you're reading things into the article that aren't there.
I dunno. I was completely addicted to Wolfenstein, also, but I loved Doom/DoomII. Quake single-player did very little for me after the initial rush of "true" 3d (versus Doom's 2.5d). Even deathmatch wasn't all that fun (I'm no god). But I was instantly addicted to Capture-the-Flag and subsequently to Team Fortress. It's all about certain styles of gameplay.
Wolf was much more of an arcade game. Nazis hiding behind columns wasn't very realistic -- exciting, perhaps, but not realistic. Doom's AI made things a bit more interesting but you could still figure out the patterns after a while and outmaneuver even the scary boss barons. That makes it more of a maneuvering-skills test than a mental game. Deathmatch, and for different styles, Team Fortress, are games for the mind.
Salon is an independent company started by several ex-print journalists.
Slate is a wholly owned venture of Microsoft (actually, MSN, iirc).
Slate is infamous for misjudging the net, e.g. believing they could charge "bo koo" subscription rates to end-users the way a print mag does. (Just one more Redmond misstep.) Salon, OTOH, has been pretty good at keeping its fingers on the zeitgeist of the net.
Yeah, it's overused, and in pointless, obvious ways -- but that happens with a lot of new things. (Remember that 10cc video from the 80s that was the first big video morphing project? It ran on MTV's medium rotation schedule for *months*. And the song was completely forgettable.)
Next year it'll be something else. I don't think it will distract from this film -- I give the Wachowskis a lot of latitude after Bound!
Let's not be too hasty to isolate Microsoft... after all, the '89 worm exploited a hole in sendmail.
Whether we're talking Microsoft, Linux, or whatever, the mere fact that something is widespread makes it an attack target. Microsoft should be more responsible about these issues, particularly since Melissa built on prior art in the virus "industry" that's been around for as much as two years. Don't they even pay attention to what's going on over there? There should be someone at Microsoft salaried for the specific purpose of spending 40 hours a week watching these guys!
The anti-virus companies didn't fare too much better in this one. There was a nice responsive activity but again, little prior problem-avoidance. Not that they can predict everything, but this one seems to have been obvious to at least a subset of virus writers.
The real worry is what's gonna happen when somebody finds a similar way to exploit the next generation of software -- MS Office 2000, or whatever -- and actually make the virus do something malicious. Like deliver a server killer, or print money. I hope security is in place before that one is released.
Among other things, depending on your installation of MS Office, you may not receive the warning dialog.
Whether or not you receive the dialog does not mean you legally consent to whatever happens next, particularly since it exploits security holes most people barely understand.
The virus was deliberately created to disrupt e-mail networks. I don't think a Robert Morris "oops" will work here. Even an "oops" didn't prevent him from prosecution! This was a virus writer who had full knowledge of prior art and was intentionally exploiting security holes with no possible legal foundation to his actions. I'm not surprised he's been charged with about ten crimes (not all may stick).
But if I were him, I'd be contemplating a future paying back a multi-million dollar judgement from the civil suits that will inevitably follow. And if there's any justice, New Jersey will hastily enact a law (if they don't have one already) preventing him from profiting -- by selling his story or becoming a highly-paid "security consultant".
>I think I like this idea, making a distro specifically for the >home user. But then I think about it some more, and I like the fact >that your standard Linux distro does whatever you want it to.
Well, yes -- but the point is that the standard Linux user can't do whatever they want to. And doesn't want to have the choice.
As long as there is a commoditization of Linux from a kernel standpoint, the individual distributions must achieve some kind of unique quality to survive. And if Linux is to continue growing at an appreciable rate, it has to move beyond the sysadmin/engineer/geek market.
Yep, the lamented (but not late!) DR DOS coming on the market and actually being sold to end-users as an installable DOS finally led to M$ releasing MS-DOS 5... in a box!... for end-users!... with a real install program!... with useful enhancements like DEFRAG and COMPRESS!... with modest plug and play capability!... with a [GASP] manual!...
If you ask me, this was as important an insight as any of the pages of pap I've read about this book so far: >Gates dispenses nearly 500 pages of digital wisdom without ever once >mentioning the remarkable challenges, dramas and successes of his own >company. Whether you're a friend or foe, hardly anybody would disagree >with the idea that the company Gates built is at a crossroads, under >pressure from everything from the federal government to IBM >and Apple to Linux.
If Gates has so much wisdom to dispense about business, where the hell did he get it? Presumably from Microsoft -- but Microsoft is curiously absent from this book, which seems to be full of generalities, truisms, the obsolete and the obvious.
I don't know why Warren Buffett seems to get along with him so well. Buffett is as transparent as they come; Gates is as translucent as tar.
Here's my take on the matter. As others have noted, you need a better policy.
It's insane to consider that while each department has responsibility for maintaining its own systems, YOU and your central organization have responsibility for security for those systems. No. Can't work. Impossible. Insane.
As the central unit, you DO have responsibility for setting policies, for communicating them, and for following some certification procedures. But unless you have the brass cojones to start telling them what they can and can't use (not exclusive to Linux distributions), you shouldn't have the responsibility of ensuring their data is safe.
They go off-standard, THEY get to deal with the consequences. It's how the business world runs; just because you're off in sleepy academialand doesn't mean you can't take some cues from us...
The first is a "want". I want to pull up my user info page and see the scores for my articles. Is there a way to do that already that I've missed? Is there a reason it can't be done? It would be terrific feedback.
The second is a "should". I believe that I should be able to SEE all my articles automatically. Right now, you can't, unless you scoot your threshold down temporarily. As a corollary, it would be *really* nice if you could see the replies to your own articles, either a) regardless of threshold, or b) with a score increase that only you see. This way, you have a way to at least see IF people are replying to you, and how it's received. Obviously, the ideal would make this user configurable.
Third, which is a "doh!" that I hope Rob has simply overlooked, if you drop threshold to read comments and THEN hit a button to see replies, you get an empty page. That is, the threshold drop should be "sticky" within a thread. I think it's nuts to change your threshold, see an interesting comment, and have to navigate the thread by dropping the threshold EVERY time you get a new page. There must be a way to grab it from the page draw and add it to the URL, right?
I OWN THE SLASHDOT CHANNEL! Bwahahaha! *** Buzz's Friend sets threshold: -10 *** Everyone else who dislikes sets threshold: -10 *** MwE's friends set threshold: +20
Upshot: everyone continues to use the channel. But the "snobs" don't see what they don't want to. And people who are pissed off at the moderator(s) can always set their threshold lower.
I think a lot of people still want slashdot to be a democracy, but it's not. I'm gonna set my threshold at maybe 2 and leave it there for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
This is an excellent point that wasn't handled as well as possible in both last year's movies. Actually, Armageddon, Deep Impact, Meteor, and NBC's Asteroid all depicted so-called 'calving' of the object so that there are lots of smaller impacts, but none of them specifically blamed the efforts of humans for this.
In fact, the best way to handle an incoming asteroid is to deflect it into a non-Earth-crossing orbit. Note that the best such orbit is off the solar system plane, so "up" or "down" is better than "left" or "right" deflections. And the earlier you do this deflection, the less energy required for it to be successful. If we find an asteroid early enough (and yes, we are talking on a multi-decade scale here), it's possible that a modest ion engine like on the Deep Space 1 mission could do everything required, with no blasting at all.
But you have to start early, so no complaining about this being yadda years in the future.
"Open Source" is a marketable product only in the Microsoft sense (mindshare).
The best marketing tool that we have right now is the end result which is Linux.
Trying to argue a violation of trademark for a statement in an interview is hogwash. Talk to an int-property lawyer about that one.
Seriously ... I don't see this "scenario" having any effect on the already considerable momentum Linux and Open Source have within the niche they are destined to own.
... marginalized perhaps, but not subverted. What, are we gonna let M$ have a seat on the Open Source board and force changes in the GPL to suit itself? Of course not. THAT would be subversion.
Unless we, or someone, imagine we're a doppelGates and need a product like "OpenSource Linux 2000" to take over the market, what's to worry about? Linux is certainly due to challenge Microsoft for a certain niche in ways that other Unix variants never had a chance to, but that niche is all we should care about. Believing, wrongly, that Linux "wuzza contendah" to be a doppelWindoze insults both Linux and its advocates. There was never, repeat never, any doubt that Microsoft would do everything in its power to retain its market share. The few products that have gone up against them have either found their market niche (PalmPilot, Quicken) or fallen by the wayside as M$ introduced market equivalents (often substandard in either features or quality, but nemmind). Novell (remember them?) is fighting right now to find its own niche in a Microsoft world.
We don't need to dilute Linux to fight Windows. Nor need we worry about our good work (and works) being "subverted"
QUAKEing like this merely validates M$ FUD. Seek our own path.
I believe that Microsoft may open up their source code, if the state attorneys general want to wring an amicable settlement out of this thing -- but I'm not sure it's going to matter one whit. M$ won't allow competing "Windows XX" products, for certain -- and will retain its de facto market share.
That aside, I'm not sure what effect there is from their using the term "open source" to mean whatever they like. It certainly won't affect the dominance of Windows vs. Linux in the market (viz. above). It certainly doesn't affect the "trademark" of the term "Open Source" -- they can't legally SELL it using that term ("Open Source Windows"), but they can certainly chit chat about it in any terms they like.
So neither their doing "open source" under their chosen terms, nor their use of the term, threatens the Open Source organization or its control of that term in any reasonable way. It's just more FUDging from the M$ higher-ups, trying to spin a favorable DOJ decision. Linux/Open Source has just unwittingly[1] become a pawn in this game.
[1] I say unwittingly, but that's disingenuous -- Linux has aggressively inserted itself into the debate, aided and abetted by Compaq, HP, et al. And yes, now Linux is a victim of its own recent success, and will receive less rah-rah press and more pooh-pooh. Again, just media folderol. Linux will continue to be a success, on its own terms. We do not need to measure up to the Microsoft marketshare/mindshare standard.
I hate to sound like an RMS-phobe. He had some terrific ideas and over time those ideas were used to build up an important software library -- the GNU utilities.
But the way I see it, the major achievement of the FSF until the 90s was a) some standardization of these utilities, and b) making them available on non-Unix platforms. Until Linus came along, there was (practically) no free Unix!
Linus has done more for the cause of "free software" by far than RMS. I don't know exactly why he was able to work the magic that RMS et alii could not, and in far less time build up a complete corporate-ready operating system that rivals the market leaders for reliability and features, whereas after years of obscure toil the FSF managed to throw together free versions of extant utility software -- in many cases, the kind of thing that students do as programming exercises. Not nearly as impressive as it could be, or should have been. RMS had some good ideas, but Linus made them work, and far exceeded the goals and grasp of the FSF.
I view this attempt to paste the GNU label on Linux as a latter-day release of a video with the latest Oscar winner billed as the star, when they were actually a bit player (e.g. starring GWYNETH PALTROW as Cab Passenger #3).
There are competitors ... just without the "stylish" part. Browse your local Best Buy or whatever -- you'll find a quarter-of-a-dozen models of cheapie PC made by various vendors. Most of them are locked-down non-upgradeable machines, with a bunch of options stuck in already (sound, CDrom), and an inexpensive 15" monitor.
The iMac is just the next logical step in integrated systems like this.
That is so not funny.
We wouldn't vote anymore. We'd govern by flame.
Get a grip. #1, you're posting in a public space. #2, public reactions are news (unless you're saying that ZDNet should write everything off press releases?). #3, quotes are fair use. Especially in a news story.
The ability of geeks to get up in arms about this sort of thing is really, really, not attractive.
Yeah, but how many people actually use copy-protection dongles, as opposed to "pig-tails"?
I think the term is doomed.
[Side note: at my last job, doing an NT rollout, we upgraded a 486 system with a new box. After two or three weeks we got word that the user was missing a dongle. The approximate value of this dongle was allegedly $18,000. We looked for days. We didn't find it.]
Keep in mind the "hacker profile" was originally written when there were, maybe, no more than a few thousand hackers around the country. Things are different now. It's even cool to be a hacker (which is sort of at odds with the whole idea of being one).
.... so, are you an outsider, a larval stage hacker, or just a wannabe?
Plus, you ought to have a sense of humor about such things. The essence of the jargon file is found under the definition "ha ha only serious"
The story never used the word "invented". It clearly states that they read about the concept in Wired and then came up with "a variation on MIT's wearable prototype". Then there are five links to other wearable computing sites.
I think you're reading things into the article that aren't there.
I dunno. I was completely addicted to Wolfenstein, also, but I loved Doom/DoomII. Quake single-player did very little for me after the initial rush of "true" 3d (versus Doom's 2.5d). Even deathmatch wasn't all that fun (I'm no god). But I was instantly addicted to Capture-the-Flag and subsequently to Team Fortress. It's all about certain styles of gameplay.
Wolf was much more of an arcade game. Nazis hiding behind columns wasn't very realistic -- exciting, perhaps, but not realistic. Doom's AI made things a bit more interesting but you could still figure out the patterns after a while and outmaneuver even the scary boss barons. That makes it more of a maneuvering-skills test than a mental game. Deathmatch, and for different styles, Team Fortress, are games for the mind.
Salon is an independent company started by several ex-print journalists.
Slate is a wholly owned venture of Microsoft (actually, MSN, iirc).
Slate is infamous for misjudging the net, e.g. believing they could charge "bo koo" subscription rates to end-users the way a print mag does. (Just one more Redmond misstep.) Salon, OTOH, has been pretty good at keeping its fingers on the zeitgeist of the net.
Yeah, it's overused, and in pointless, obvious ways -- but that happens with a lot of new things. (Remember that 10cc video from the 80s that was the first big video morphing project? It ran on MTV's medium rotation schedule for *months*. And the song was completely forgettable.)
Next year it'll be something else. I don't think it will distract from this film -- I give the Wachowskis a lot of latitude after Bound!
Let's not be too hasty to isolate Microsoft ... after all, the '89 worm exploited a hole in sendmail.
Whether we're talking Microsoft, Linux, or whatever, the mere fact that something is widespread makes it an attack target. Microsoft should be more responsible about these issues, particularly since Melissa built on prior art in the virus "industry" that's been around for as much as two years. Don't they even pay attention to what's going on over there? There should be someone at Microsoft salaried for the specific purpose of spending 40 hours a week watching these guys!
The anti-virus companies didn't fare too much better in this one. There was a nice responsive activity but again, little prior problem-avoidance. Not that they can predict everything, but this one seems to have been obvious to at least a subset of virus writers.
The real worry is what's gonna happen when somebody finds a similar way to exploit the next generation of software -- MS Office 2000, or whatever -- and actually make the virus do something malicious. Like deliver a server killer, or print money. I hope security is in place before that one is released.
Among other things, depending on your installation of MS Office, you may not receive the warning dialog.
Whether or not you receive the dialog does not mean you legally consent to whatever happens next, particularly since it exploits security holes most people barely understand.
The virus was deliberately created to disrupt e-mail networks. I don't think a Robert Morris "oops" will work here. Even an "oops" didn't prevent him from prosecution! This was a virus writer who had full knowledge of prior art and was intentionally exploiting security holes with no possible legal foundation to his actions. I'm not surprised he's been charged with about ten crimes (not all may stick).
But if I were him, I'd be contemplating a future paying back a multi-million dollar judgement from the civil suits that will inevitably follow. And if there's any justice, New Jersey will hastily enact a law (if they don't have one already) preventing him from profiting -- by selling his story or becoming a highly-paid "security consultant".
RFC 1149 is cute, but pretty short. And it WAS official as of 1990 (not "just recently"), although it may have been around before then.
...
RFD 2549 is longer, funnier, and quite well thought out. I even hesitantly call it an improvement over the earlier, um, technology
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2549.html
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2550.html
http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2551.html
>I think I like this idea, making a distro specifically for the
>home user. But then I think about it some more, and I like the fact
>that your standard Linux distro does whatever you want it to.
Well, yes -- but the point is that the standard Linux user can't do whatever they want to. And doesn't want to have the choice.
As long as there is a commoditization of Linux from a kernel standpoint, the individual distributions must achieve some kind of unique quality to survive. And if Linux is to continue growing at an appreciable rate, it has to move beyond the sysadmin/engineer/geek market.
Don't force every distribution to be identical.
Yep, the lamented (but not late!) DR DOS coming on the market and actually being sold to end-users as an installable DOS finally led to M$ releasing MS-DOS 5 ... in a box! ... for end-users! ... with a real install program! ... with useful enhancements like DEFRAG and COMPRESS! ... with modest plug and play capability! ... with a [GASP] manual! ...
Yep, competition was clearly bad for the market.
If you ask me, this was as important an insight as any of the pages of pap I've read about this book so far:
>Gates dispenses nearly 500 pages of digital wisdom without ever once
>mentioning the remarkable challenges, dramas and successes of his own
>company. Whether you're a friend or foe, hardly anybody would disagree
>with the idea that the company Gates built is at a crossroads, under
>pressure from everything from the federal government to IBM
>and Apple to Linux.
If Gates has so much wisdom to dispense about business, where the hell did he get it? Presumably from Microsoft -- but Microsoft is curiously absent from this book, which seems to be full of generalities, truisms, the obsolete and the obvious.
I don't know why Warren Buffett seems to get along with him so well. Buffett is as transparent as they come; Gates is as translucent as tar.
Here's my take on the matter. As others have noted, you need a better policy.
...
It's insane to consider that while each department has responsibility for maintaining its own systems, YOU and your central organization have responsibility for security for those systems. No. Can't work. Impossible. Insane.
As the central unit, you DO have responsibility for setting policies, for communicating them, and for following some certification procedures. But unless you have the brass cojones to start telling them what they can and can't use (not exclusive to Linux distributions), you shouldn't have the responsibility of ensuring their data is safe.
They go off-standard, THEY get to deal with the consequences. It's how the business world runs; just because you're off in sleepy academialand doesn't mean you can't take some cues from us
The first is a "want". I want to pull up my user info page and see the scores for my articles. Is there a way to do that already that I've missed? Is there a reason it can't be done? It would be terrific feedback.
The second is a "should". I believe that I should be able to SEE all my articles automatically. Right now, you can't, unless you scoot your threshold down temporarily. As a corollary, it would be *really* nice if you could see the replies to your own articles, either a) regardless of threshold, or b) with a score increase that only you see. This way, you have a way to at least see IF people are replying to you, and how it's received. Obviously, the ideal would make this user configurable.
Third, which is a "doh!" that I hope Rob has simply overlooked, if you drop threshold to read comments and THEN hit a button to see replies, you get an empty page. That is, the threshold drop should be "sticky" within a thread. I think it's nuts to change your threshold, see an interesting comment, and have to navigate the thread by dropping the threshold EVERY time you get a new page. There must be a way to grab it from the page draw and add it to the URL, right?
You need to add a bit to that "IRC log":
I OWN THE SLASHDOT CHANNEL! Bwahahaha!
*** Buzz's Friend sets threshold: -10
*** Everyone else who dislikes sets threshold: -10
*** MwE's friends set threshold: +20
Upshot: everyone continues to use the channel. But the "snobs" don't see what they don't want to. And people who are pissed off at the moderator(s) can always set their threshold lower.
I think a lot of people still want slashdot to be a democracy, but it's not. I'm gonna set my threshold at maybe 2 and leave it there for a while.