You forgot one: DSL usually has a better feature set. For instance, with SDSL (now non-existent) and ISDN (expensive in Cincinnati), I was able to get real Internet address space (a/27). With cable, I have to pay through the nose to get addresses, and they can't/won't assign me a portion of their address space, so I have to NAT the too-few addresses I do get.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
One of the reasons I love IE so much is it's "security zones" feature. I default to browsing with everything disabled except non-encrypted form submissions, file and font downloads, and prompts for safe/signed ActiveX controls. No pop ups, no annoying Java-based auto-refreshes, no stupid cookies to a million and one sites. The "Restricted Sites" zone is basically "High" with cookies and a few other things set to "prompt", and "Trusted Sites" and "Local Intranet" are low and medium-low respectively.
If there's a site that requires Java or whatever to even view, I drop it in "Restricted Sites" temporarily. If it's a site I hit daily or hourly (like slashdot), it goes into "Trusted Sites" (because I know Rob Malda is basically Good).
Believe me, this is the only way to browse. Especially when one's showing off astalavista.box.sk to one's female superiors and a pr0n ad pops up after clicking on some 37337 exploit or crack.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Where and when are your 2600 meetings? I have lots of questions about implementing generational GC in a multi-threaded environment. Do you think there will be someone there who can help me?
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Even worse is the "insightful" score this article managed to get. Go figure, eh? Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Basically what you want is a system for hierarchical distribution of resource data, right? So use DNS! It's already set up to do caching, and bringing up secondary servers is as simple as doing zone transfers. Each CD hash could be it's own sub-domain, and individual tracks would be hosts within the sub-domain (same goes for title/author/etc.) Instead of everything having "A" records, liberally apply the use of "TXT" records.
Setting long TTLs on records would cache queries on your local name server, so if you listen to CDs a lot on your computer, they might live in your resolver's cache for a long time. Or if you're really hard core, like a school, just set up a secondary for data.freedb.org (or even individual sub-domains to mirror your personal CD collection) and stuff will be cached and updated automagically.
They'd still need to operate a HTTP server to get around l4m3 firewalls, but if the majority of CDDB users are academic (dunno anything about demographics) or home users, DNS would be very available.
Heck, you wouldn't even need to actually make changes to FreeDB to get this to work, one would just have to write a pump that would extract the relevant data and create the BIND data files.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Re:end of pay phones?!?
on
Paper Phones
·
· Score: 1
<sarcasm> So what? It's not like the homeless matter to anybody. I mean, they're pathetic, mindless drunkards, right? </sarcasm>
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Inbreeding is bad because of the risk of re-inforcing recessive degenerative genes. Some of these "bad genes" will kill the off-spring immediately when expressed, where others would introduce subtle defects in the successive generations. The best empirical evidence for this negative re-inforcement is the breeding experiment otherwise known as European Royalty, which produced more than its fair share of morons, criples, and other such genetic neer-do-wells.
Of course, everything I know about "modern" genetics I read in Time Enough for Love, so you should go out and get a book on breeding animals and read up on the subject for yourself.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
You are entirely correct, there is no proof. I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that Windows 2000 used FreeBSD's IP stack because of nmap OS fingerprint results.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I know this seems paranoid, but I really think we're living in the golden age of unlimited real IP connectivity.
You may be correct. Many dialups already block outbound at least SMTP traffic because of spammers, and I know for a fact that the local aDSL provider (ZoomTown) blocks GRE and PPTP (and they specifically offer a SOHO service that turns those back on for telecommuters). And "cheap" DSL service, even for businesses, is so unreliable and difficult to manage as to make old school frame relay solutions (e.g. ISDN, frac-T1, on up) much more attractive for the serious telecomms professional, as my recent experience with Cable and Wireless (good idea) and Northpoint Communications (bad idea) seems to indicate.
But rant mode off already.;)
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
You should take a look at some Goedel's or Popper's or Kuhn's writings. Basically, what we call "Natural Laws" are more accurately called "Best Guesses Given Current Assumptions and Experimental Data", which is to say that every so-called scientific or natural law is at best an approximation of what really is going on. Sometimes, we are good and goddamned sure that we're right about some kind of event, e.g. Newtons Laws of Motion, only to find out that there is some bit of data that our "laws" don't predict, e.g. relativistic effects when moving at a sizable fraction of c.
Also take a look at the Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem.
But read the philosophy, don't just take my word for it. I'm a poor substitute for Popper, et al, and my memory isn't usually the best.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Speaking of traffic analysis, I wonder what a cable or DSL company's take on IPSEC is. One could operate a VPN with several friends, host services, even play games, without the cable or DSL company able to tell (other than time of day or bandwidth utilization). In fact, I've used IPSEC over aDSL as cheap inter-office connectivity. It's a pain in the ass to set up (requiring some way to trade IPs when they change, e.g. when a DHCP lease expires), but it's definitely doable and much cheaper than "biz DSL" or whatever the cable/DSL co. calls static IPs/VPN.
With a hardware accelerator, video games over a VPN might even be feasable!
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
One of the best web user authentication systems I've seen implements a token system kind of like Kerberos. User IDs and passwords are sent via encrypted forms submission to the web server, which responds with an encrypted cookie. The cookie is digitally signed package that verifies the user's credentials and includes a timeout value. SiteMinder is a pretty slick piece of work (albeit access rules configuration is a complete bear).
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Heh, the AC has a good point. Linux stateful inspection? Ho-hum, FireWall-1 has been doing that for a while, too, and it has a programmable virtual machine that lets you program your own inspection code for protocols that aren't supported out of the box.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
A bunch of these articles seem to imply that UUnet has the largest Internet network around, but I was always under the impression that Cable and Wireless was the "biggest". So who has the largest network around? I'm curious.:)
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
If you have an open relay (like so many of the Exchange sites I've encountered), your mail server can be exploited. Period. Both Sendmail 8.11 and Exchange 5.5SP3 support SMTP AUTH. Turn it on and force your users to authenticate to the mail server as well as POP. They'll still be able to send their mail from the corporate server, but you'll at least have some protection against paying for someone else's advertising.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
In "What's in a Name?," Kent Pitman makes the case that the notions of identity and intent to extend are at the core of object-oriented programming, not some check-list of features. But read the paper, not just my poor paraphrasing, as Mr. Pitman always has an interesting point to make.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
When I'm out crusing in my '74 Caddy (driving at least 15 miles-an-hour under the speed limit), I am almost crushed by the immensity of protection that solid American steel and fine Detroit automotive craftsmanship provide.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Not to be pedantic or anything, but on some models of CD-ROM readers, it is possible to insert a CD without power to the drive. I have three SCSI CD-ROM readers that use caddys, and all three have a spring-based mechanical loading mechanism similar to that in common 3.5-inch floppy disk drives. Of course, on one of these CD-ROM readers, the drive must be powered on in order to eject the disk....
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Laziness: Inability to concentrate on meaningless work (e.g. arithmetic exercises).
Impatience: Argumentative with teaching staff, especially over technical minutae (e.g. arguing that "3-4=-1" is correct in second grade, when the stupid teacher marked it off on a test).
Hubris: Prideful attitude that causes student to be the butt of jokes and snide remarks.
I don't know where those morons got their material for Hackers, but all the Real Hackers I know (e.g. people who munch on protocol analysis and machine code for a living) aren't yuppie hipster wannabes. Get a clue. *plonk*
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
MILO is Alpha-specific firmware that supports only Linux, and only on certain models of the Alpha. The least inaccurate analogy would be to compare MILO to the PC ROM BIOS. While MILO's shell would be a convenience, most of its guts (e.g. the PALcode and the boot-loader proper) would have to be written from scratch to make it work on PCs. With that much effort, it's probably a better idea to work on improving GRUB or the Flux OSKit, etc.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Have you played around with CLX or Garnet at all? Both are for Common Lisp, and both run (I think) on CMUCL. Some folks in comp.lang.lisp have said that they like CLX better than Xlib, so you might want to take a look at it whenever you get around to hacking on Xlib. It is my understanding that CLX talks the X protocol directly to the X server, so it isn't an FFI for Xlib. I think CLX will run on other Lisps as well, probably also Clisp and Allegro CL at the very least.
Can anyone recommend a good book on Xlib/Xt programming? It's something I've always wanted to take a closer look at, but I've never really had the time.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
It's one thing to block a site or cancel postings based on spam volume (ala the Briedbart index of netnews, or refusing to carry alt.binaries.*), but to block/cancel because one doesn't like what another is saying/selling/etc., that is obviously not content-neutral and is, in my mind, a Bad Thing.
Blackholing an ISP is something that requires both extraordinary abuse and extraordinary evidence. I see neither here, so in this case I'm having a difficult time supporting MAPS.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
The Internet is designed as a communications medium, so putting one's contact information on-line seems to me to be a logical thing to do, much like listing one's phone number in Real Life. Do you think that listing one's phone number is "just asking for abuse"? I, personally, am on the net because I *want* people to be able to get a hold of me, by phone or fax or email or instant message. If I don't want to be bothered, I can do what I do in real life, and yank my network connection for a while.
You have not thought this through.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Slashdot Mirror
You forgot one: DSL usually has a better feature set. For instance, with SDSL (now non-existent) and ISDN (expensive in Cincinnati), I was able to get real Internet address space (a /27). With cable, I have to pay through the nose to get addresses, and they can't/won't assign me a portion of their address space, so I have to NAT the too-few addresses I do get.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
One of the reasons I love IE so much is it's "security zones" feature. I default to browsing with everything disabled except non-encrypted form submissions, file and font downloads, and prompts for safe/signed ActiveX controls. No pop ups, no annoying Java-based auto-refreshes, no stupid cookies to a million and one sites. The "Restricted Sites" zone is basically "High" with cookies and a few other things set to "prompt", and "Trusted Sites" and "Local Intranet" are low and medium-low respectively.
If there's a site that requires Java or whatever to even view, I drop it in "Restricted Sites" temporarily. If it's a site I hit daily or hourly (like slashdot), it goes into "Trusted Sites" (because I know Rob Malda is basically Good).
Believe me, this is the only way to browse. Especially when one's showing off astalavista.box.sk to one's female superiors and a pr0n ad pops up after clicking on some 37337 exploit or crack.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Where and when are your 2600 meetings? I have lots of questions about implementing generational GC in a multi-threaded environment. Do you think there will be someone there who can help me?
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Even worse is the "insightful" score this article managed to get. Go figure, eh?
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Correct.
To keyboard-reset a VMware session, you must use C-M-Ins, instead of C-M-Del.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Basically what you want is a system for hierarchical distribution of resource data, right? So use DNS! It's already set up to do caching, and bringing up secondary servers is as simple as doing zone transfers. Each CD hash could be it's own sub-domain, and individual tracks would be hosts within the sub-domain (same goes for title/author/etc.) Instead of everything having "A" records, liberally apply the use of "TXT" records.
Setting long TTLs on records would cache queries on your local name server, so if you listen to CDs a lot on your computer, they might live in your resolver's cache for a long time. Or if you're really hard core, like a school, just set up a secondary for data.freedb.org (or even individual sub-domains to mirror your personal CD collection) and stuff will be cached and updated automagically.
They'd still need to operate a HTTP server to get around l4m3 firewalls, but if the majority of CDDB users are academic (dunno anything about demographics) or home users, DNS would be very available.
Heck, you wouldn't even need to actually make changes to FreeDB to get this to work, one would just have to write a pump that would extract the relevant data and create the BIND data files.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
<sarcasm> So what? It's not like the homeless matter to anybody. I mean, they're pathetic, mindless drunkards, right? </sarcasm>
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Inbreeding is bad because of the risk of re-inforcing recessive degenerative genes. Some of these "bad genes" will kill the off-spring immediately when expressed, where others would introduce subtle defects in the successive generations. The best empirical evidence for this negative re-inforcement is the breeding experiment otherwise known as European Royalty, which produced more than its fair share of morons, criples, and other such genetic neer-do-wells.
Of course, everything I know about "modern" genetics I read in Time Enough for Love, so you should go out and get a book on breeding animals and read up on the subject for yourself.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
You are entirely correct, there is no proof. I was under the (apparently mistaken) impression that Windows 2000 used FreeBSD's IP stack because of nmap OS fingerprint results.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
You may be correct. Many dialups already block outbound at least SMTP traffic because of spammers, and I know for a fact that the local aDSL provider (ZoomTown) blocks GRE and PPTP (and they specifically offer a SOHO service that turns those back on for telecommuters). And "cheap" DSL service, even for businesses, is so unreliable and difficult to manage as to make old school frame relay solutions (e.g. ISDN, frac-T1, on up) much more attractive for the serious telecomms professional, as my recent experience with Cable and Wireless (good idea) and Northpoint Communications (bad idea) seems to indicate.
But rant mode off already. ;)
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
You should take a look at some Goedel's or Popper's or Kuhn's writings. Basically, what we call "Natural Laws" are more accurately called "Best Guesses Given Current Assumptions and Experimental Data", which is to say that every so-called scientific or natural law is at best an approximation of what really is going on. Sometimes, we are good and goddamned sure that we're right about some kind of event, e.g. Newtons Laws of Motion, only to find out that there is some bit of data that our "laws" don't predict, e.g. relativistic effects when moving at a sizable fraction of c.
Also take a look at the Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem.
But read the philosophy, don't just take my word for it. I'm a poor substitute for Popper, et al, and my memory isn't usually the best.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Speaking of traffic analysis, I wonder what a cable or DSL company's take on IPSEC is. One could operate a VPN with several friends, host services, even play games, without the cable or DSL company able to tell (other than time of day or bandwidth utilization). In fact, I've used IPSEC over aDSL as cheap inter-office connectivity. It's a pain in the ass to set up (requiring some way to trade IPs when they change, e.g. when a DHCP lease expires), but it's definitely doable and much cheaper than "biz DSL" or whatever the cable/DSL co. calls static IPs/VPN.
With a hardware accelerator, video games over a VPN might even be feasable!
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
One of the best web user authentication systems I've seen implements a token system kind of like Kerberos. User IDs and passwords are sent via encrypted forms submission to the web server, which responds with an encrypted cookie. The cookie is digitally signed package that verifies the user's credentials and includes a timeout value. SiteMinder is a pretty slick piece of work (albeit access rules configuration is a complete bear).
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Did you ever stop and think that truly alien aliens might not have facial expressions that are at all recognizable to humans?
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Heh, the AC has a good point. Linux stateful inspection? Ho-hum, FireWall-1 has been doing that for a while, too, and it has a programmable virtual machine that lets you program your own inspection code for protocols that aren't supported out of the box.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
A bunch of these articles seem to imply that UUnet has the largest Internet network around, but I was always under the impression that Cable and Wireless was the "biggest". So who has the largest network around? I'm curious. :)
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
If you have an open relay (like so many of the Exchange sites I've encountered), your mail server can be exploited. Period. Both Sendmail 8.11 and Exchange 5.5SP3 support SMTP AUTH. Turn it on and force your users to authenticate to the mail server as well as POP. They'll still be able to send their mail from the corporate server, but you'll at least have some protection against paying for someone else's advertising.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
In "What's in a Name?," Kent Pitman makes the case that the notions of identity and intent to extend are at the core of object-oriented programming, not some check-list of features. But read the paper, not just my poor paraphrasing, as Mr. Pitman always has an interesting point to make.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
When I'm out crusing in my '74 Caddy (driving at least 15 miles-an-hour under the speed limit), I am almost crushed by the immensity of protection that solid American steel and fine Detroit automotive craftsmanship provide.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Not to be pedantic or anything, but on some models of CD-ROM readers, it is possible to insert a CD without power to the drive. I have three SCSI CD-ROM readers that use caddys, and all three have a spring-based mechanical loading mechanism similar to that in common 3.5-inch floppy disk drives. Of course, on one of these CD-ROM readers, the drive must be powered on in order to eject the disk....
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
The true signs of a proto-hacker are:
I don't know where those morons got their material for Hackers, but all the Real Hackers I know (e.g. people who munch on protocol analysis and machine code for a living) aren't yuppie hipster wannabes. Get a clue. *plonk*
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
MILO is Alpha-specific firmware that supports only Linux, and only on certain models of the Alpha. The least inaccurate analogy would be to compare MILO to the PC ROM BIOS. While MILO's shell would be a convenience, most of its guts (e.g. the PALcode and the boot-loader proper) would have to be written from scratch to make it work on PCs. With that much effort, it's probably a better idea to work on improving GRUB or the Flux OSKit, etc.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
Have you played around with CLX or Garnet at all? Both are for Common Lisp, and both run (I think) on CMUCL. Some folks in comp.lang.lisp have said that they like CLX better than Xlib, so you might want to take a look at it whenever you get around to hacking on Xlib. It is my understanding that CLX talks the X protocol directly to the X server, so it isn't an FFI for Xlib. I think CLX will run on other Lisps as well, probably also Clisp and Allegro CL at the very least.
Can anyone recommend a good book on Xlib/Xt programming? It's something I've always wanted to take a closer look at, but I've never really had the time.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
It's one thing to block a site or cancel postings based on spam volume (ala the Briedbart index of netnews, or refusing to carry alt.binaries.*), but to block/cancel because one doesn't like what another is saying/selling/etc., that is obviously not content-neutral and is, in my mind, a Bad Thing.
Blackholing an ISP is something that requires both extraordinary abuse and extraordinary evidence. I see neither here, so in this case I'm having a difficult time supporting MAPS.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
The Internet is designed as a communications medium, so putting one's contact information on-line seems to me to be a logical thing to do, much like listing one's phone number in Real Life. Do you think that listing one's phone number is "just asking for abuse"? I, personally, am on the net because I *want* people to be able to get a hold of me, by phone or fax or email or instant message. If I don't want to be bothered, I can do what I do in real life, and yank my network connection for a while.
You have not thought this through.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16