"Actually, it would evaporate before it could even encounter another particle. In fact, even if it did encounter another particle, it couldn't encounter more at a rate faster than it evaporates. Hawking radiation is inversely proportional to mass. The distance it would fall before radiating into nothingness is on the order of a proton radius."
But isn't that exactly the theory they are trying to prove experimentally here? What I mean is that, if the theory is correct, this experiment will prove it and nothing will be problematic, much rejoice etc etc. If the theory is wrong however, this experiment may show that with some problematic effects...
We are talking about different "orbits" here. The post I was responding to seemed to indicate that for some reason the black hole would stop orbiting the sun "with the earth."
I was merely trying to point out that there isn't anything special about a black hole. It will "continue orbiting with the earth" just like anything else with mass. It's a singularity, but it isn't magic.
Furthermore, why wouldn't it "continue orbiting with the earth?" Black holes obey the laws of gravity just like everything else with mass.
It will only orbit if created at orbital velocity, for example if the machine making the thing is in geostationary orbit, or on the ISS, or something. If it's made on earth on a fixed location on earth, then it will fall (e.a. try to hit the surface on earth, but fall (eat) right through it).
"What if you are only in the US for 3 or 4 months, a J-1 visa has an 18 month limit."
3 or 4 months is not enough to build up much of a credit history... But anyway, you get started by finding a bank that will give you a secured credit card when you open a checking account there, deposit cash, and get paid by direct deposit into it. For many banks, that should suffice.
But I have to say that J-visa's are extra difficult, because of the return requirement. Many banks will know that and refuse to give you a card. If everything else fails, I'd suggest to try a store card, because even if they deny you, it results in a log entry in the database. A credit record with a store card denial more than 6 months old is better than no credit record at all.
"The car loan is what did it - not the secured credit card. Get a car loan (even at a rip-off rate), pay it for 1 year, and you can get a mortgage at prime."
Note that I'm talking about 'no credit history', which is different than bankruptcy. No history means you don't exist, even for a car dealer. A bank will give you a secured card to get you some history, but a car dealer won't talk to you without a history (I tried, really).
The car loan was absolutely necessary to get a good mortgage, but if you have no credit history, you don't get the car loan (if the credit check comes up 'empty', then you dont exist). The secured credit card is used to get you a record in the database (plus to start the flood of offers of regular cards).
Solaris always had that crazyness. Solaris boxes were nice because they were rock solid stable, but things like that made them a pain to use. I remember the first, and last time I ever gave Solaris x86 a chance. Standard PC, standard setup, login on console, tap the backspace, and there it was : "^H".
My Solaris x86 test failed less than a minute after installation. Back to Linux.
"So-called "secured credit cards" don't improve your credit rating."
I'll call bull based on my own experience. Although some secured cards may be that way (because of how the cc company reports them), many are not.
Going from no credit history at all to getting the best rate for a mortgage takes about two years if you do it right (and if you don't live beyond your means):
While paying all your bills on time and not moving (keep the same address):
1) get a secured credit card from the bank where you have your checking account. Use it and pay the bill in full (pay early if the bill would be more than 1/3 of your credit limit).
2) 6 months later, get a car on a loan (cheap car, or use a big downpayment, because they will give you a loan, but the interest rate will be high). Don't borrow too much on this either, keep an eye on your debt-to-income ratio (go for less than 15% debt). Choose a short term loan or make sure there is no prepayment penalty, because soon you will get a better interest rate elsewhere.
3) Give the car loan some time to show up on your report, then call the cc company to convince them to convert the secured card to a normal one (get your 'safety deposit' money back) if they have not already done that automatically.
4) Some time during the next 6 months, also accept one of the credit card offers they're sending you to establish your 3rd credit line, you need 3 lines for a good mortgage rate).
5) 6-14 months after than: Apply for mortgage. Enjoy your good mortgage rate.
"If you have the Expose stuff turned on, press F11 and all the Windows will scootch to the sides. Do whatever you have to do and F11 pulls them back in."
Unless you do it in Firefox, where F11 means full-screen? Or did they screw up Firefox too?
By automatic source scanners, the code below most likely will be flagged as a potential security issue because it doesn't use strncpy(), but it isdn't because 'const s1' guarantees s2 can not be overflown. Sure, if somebody can poke around and change s1 using some other real security problem, using strncpy() here might help hide the real problem, but this code itself is not a security risk Actually, many compilers will see that the source is a const string and change it into a memcpy() anyway, removing even that.
"Why mix the units like that? It's either 33 meters a side, or its 12,100 square feet. Mixing units is the sort of thing that can only lead to errors."
'Non-metric people' are used to units being mixed up... The solution taken by many is to either give up and think that 'math is difficult', or to only use rounding/approximations for 'quick calculations': '5000 feet per mile' (instead of 5280)...
Rounding like that is what results in allowing space for the 4 interns... Hurrah for rounding: Where would the interns sit otherwise?;-)
For example, how many ounces does a cubic foot of water weigh, and how many gallons is that by the way? It's not trivial, you'd have to memorize or calculate it from other numbers you memorized. So a cubic foot of water weighs 62.31 pounds, or 996.96 ounces, which is 7.78875 gallons of fluid, oh no 7.48051945 gallons because there are two meanings of 'ounce'.
Allways there is either an apparently random number to memorize, or maybe one that is easier to memorize if you give up on being exact and round it, and there is more confusion wherever possible. In the metric world, it's much simpler: A cubic meter of water weighs a (metric) tonne (1000 Kg), and is 1000 Liters. You still have to memorize relationships, but the numbers are nicely rounded. It's easier because all metrics more easily related.
"Why change? I love Linux, and if it changed to suit "the ipod generation," I would probably like it less."
Those were my thought, plus 'where does this ipod generation come from, and what happened to joe sixpack whom historically we were supposed to convince to switch to Linux?'...
Hey, they can buy Linux from RedHat/Novell at $300 a pop, and then RedHat/Novell can do the licensing dance. We need not change, we are not RedHat, Novell, IBM, etc...
Who bought ESR? I thought he was better than that.
I'm not an economist, but when somebody argues that adding a 33% tax will stave off economic problems, I can't help but doubt their credentials (short summary: it won't have the effect the author thinks it will, in neither of both intended ways (simplification and taxation on spending versus earning)).
I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy, but the article does not contain the answer.
"Also, ever looked at the maximum value of an IEEE single precision float? It's 3.40282347e+38."
Now try counting with that. Add one to that and see if it changed. It won't be.
log(1e38)/log(2) = 126.23
Floats are still only 32 bits, even doubles are only 64 bits, and long doubles only 96 bits. You can't suddendly store 127 bits worth of information in them.
"or if they want to do something *really* neat, tell you if that product is available for considerably less (or on sale!) at a different store nearby."
They will find a unique solution to making that feature utterly useless, such as not telling the user that the price is after a Mail-In-Rebate that expired yesterday.
"Nah, they used the term 'religious', which means that Linux users (like us) who actually enjoy Linux are now unofficially zealots."
Hmm...
Zealot \Zeal"ot\, n. [F. z['e]lote, L. zelotes, Gr. ?. See
{Zeal}.]
One who is zealous; one who engages warmly in any cause, and
pursues his object with earnestness and ardor; especially,
one who is overzealous, or carried away by his zeal; one
absorbed in devotion to anything; an enthusiast; a fanatical
partisan.
[1913 Webster]
Nah, I just really don't like the alternative to Linux.
In that case, it's not the RAM that hurts things, it's the algorithm. That page just shows that FIFO is not the best (an algorithm that would not be so stupid to erase #3 two frames after its last request for example (which is what causes the effect described on the wiki page), and there are many ways to decrease the probability of such a thing happening).
And if you have an abundance of cores, then you have enough CPU power to throw some sophisticated paging algorithms around.
"Does your Ford come with an instructon book to tell you how to fit a Nissan engine? No it doesn't because there's no good business case for them to do that."
Better analogy: Does the Ford convert the road it travels on to make all Nissan cars on it disappear?
"There is no architectural reason for the lack of malware on Linux. I know it would be trivially easy to write a Linux application that would trick the average home user into giving full control of their machine to the malware author. Even if the user didn't know the root password, it could still steal all of their data, turn the machine into a zombie for other attacks, etc."
These vulnerabilities are not about the OS, but about the internet-accessing client programs: Linux web browsers and email clients don't typically have a mode that pops up a window where one or a couple of clicks later (or, in some cases on windows even without clicks), code from the Internet gets executed. Well, almost: There are xpi-installs of themes/extensions, but there must be something 'architectural' in the design of those programs that makes it hard to 'trick the average user' to install malware, because it's not something we see happening.
If it was that easy to make one that is successful, we would have seen it. Enough Linux desktops are on the 'net all the time for malicious people to have tried. The most succesful techniques of the past included exploiting bugs in daemons, such as rpc, ident, etc. But really, these days (except for malicious users on shared systems), the most successful attacks on Linux are brute force password-dictionary attacks searching for weak passwords. Spyware or Antivirus compromise of a Linux box is so rare, it's not even talked about.
That Spyware and Antivirus are not an issue on Linux is not a result of nobody trying, or not trying enough. Attacks on Linux machines on the net are varied and advanced, done by smart and patient people, and if Spyware and Viruses worked better, they would have been used more.
"The key answer appears to be that the Linux user base is too small to attract attention. "
Which is not the answer given that there are quite sophisticated types of attacks on Linux going on on the 'net.
The answer is not 'dont run privileged', or 'switch to linux', it's more in the area of 'dont use junk software', and that means all that crap that lets people's computers get infected to begin with, and the Internet security web sites have ample information which software that is, and because most of the junk runs on Windows, and Linux alternatives are usually significantly less junky, that is why malware is more widespread on Windows. Junk attracks junk, just like rotten meat attrackts flies.
"And you think that's because you run deprivlidged in UNIX?"
Nope, but it helps.
"You think that with Vista, viruses will go away since it does the same thing?"
Nope, because it's made by Microsoft. Virtually everything Microsoft has made spurred a whole new class of virusses. DOS virusses, Windows virusses, MS Office macro virusses, ActiveX virusses, IE virusses, Outlook email virusses, and whatnot.
"I think some UNIX people put WAAAAAY too much faith in UNIX's privlidge escalation model"
None of that is based on theory, but it's a complete result of actual practical experience. Installing AV scanners, running spybot/adaware, etc, is a Windows ritual, not a Unix ritual. Whatever the reason is for that doesn't matter, it just sucks balls on Windows and doesn't on BSD and Linux. On Windows, needing to work with AV software and adware killers has become the norm, while on Linux and BSD, viruses are 'proof of concept' things, with infections being very rare occasiond and usually really nothing more than theoretical discussions.
Except when they are workground servers for windows clients, AV software for Linux is the same thing as elevators on the farm, or snow tires in Florida: You probably will never need it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Actually, it would evaporate before it could even encounter another particle. In fact, even if it did encounter another particle, it couldn't encounter more at a rate faster than it evaporates. Hawking radiation is inversely proportional to mass. The distance it would fall before radiating into nothingness is on the order of a proton radius."
But isn't that exactly the theory they are trying to prove experimentally here? What I mean is that, if the theory is correct, this experiment will prove it and nothing will be problematic, much rejoice etc etc. If the theory is wrong however, this experiment may show that with some problematic effects...
We are talking about different "orbits" here. The post I was responding to seemed to indicate that for some reason the black hole would stop orbiting the sun "with the earth."
:)
I was merely trying to point out that there isn't anything special about a black hole. It will "continue orbiting with the earth" just like anything else with mass. It's a singularity, but it isn't magic.
oh, ok... In that case I have to agree with you
Furthermore, why wouldn't it "continue orbiting with the earth?" Black holes obey the laws of gravity just like everything else with mass.
It will only orbit if created at orbital velocity, for example if the machine making the thing is in geostationary orbit, or on the ISS, or something. If it's made on earth on a fixed location on earth, then it will fall (e.a. try to hit the surface on earth, but fall (eat) right through it).
"What if you are only in the US for 3 or 4 months, a J-1 visa has an 18 month limit."
3 or 4 months is not enough to build up much of a credit history... But anyway, you get started by finding a bank that will give you a secured credit card when you open a checking account there, deposit cash, and get paid by direct deposit into it. For many banks, that should suffice.
But I have to say that J-visa's are extra difficult, because of the return requirement. Many banks will know that and refuse to give you a card. If everything else fails, I'd suggest to try a store card, because even if they deny you, it results in a log entry in the database. A credit record with a store card denial more than 6 months old is better than no credit record at all.
"The car loan is what did it - not the secured credit card. Get a car loan (even at a rip-off rate), pay it for 1 year, and you can get a mortgage at prime."
Note that I'm talking about 'no credit history', which is different than bankruptcy. No history means you don't exist, even for a car dealer. A bank will give you a secured card to get you some history, but a car dealer won't talk to you without a history (I tried, really).
The car loan was absolutely necessary to get a good mortgage, but if you have no credit history, you don't get the car loan (if the credit check comes up 'empty', then you dont exist). The secured credit card is used to get you a record in the database (plus to start the flood of offers of regular cards).
Solaris always had that crazyness. Solaris boxes were nice because they were rock solid stable, but things like that made them a pain to use. I remember the first, and last time I ever gave Solaris x86 a chance. Standard PC, standard setup, login on console, tap the backspace, and there it was : "^H".
My Solaris x86 test failed less than a minute after installation. Back to Linux.
"So-called "secured credit cards" don't improve your credit rating."
I'll call bull based on my own experience. Although some secured cards may be that way (because of how the cc company reports them), many are not.
Going from no credit history at all to getting the best rate for a mortgage takes about two years if you do it right (and if you don't live beyond your means):
While paying all your bills on time and not moving (keep the same address):
1) get a secured credit card from the bank where you have your checking account. Use it and pay the bill in full (pay early if the bill would be more than 1/3 of your credit limit).
2) 6 months later, get a car on a loan (cheap car, or use a big downpayment, because they will give you a loan, but the interest rate will be high). Don't borrow too much on this either, keep an eye on your debt-to-income ratio (go for less than 15% debt). Choose a short term loan or make sure there is no prepayment penalty, because soon you will get a better interest rate elsewhere.
3) Give the car loan some time to show up on your report, then call the cc company to convince them to convert the secured card to a normal one (get your 'safety deposit' money back) if they have not already done that automatically.
4) Some time during the next 6 months, also accept one of the credit card offers they're sending you to establish your 3rd credit line, you need 3 lines for a good mortgage rate).
5) 6-14 months after than: Apply for mortgage. Enjoy your good mortgage rate.
"If you have the Expose stuff turned on, press F11 and all the Windows will scootch to the sides. Do whatever you have to do and F11 pulls them back in."
Unless you do it in Firefox, where F11 means full-screen? Or did they screw up Firefox too?
And shutdown without saving is "Shift-F7 N Y"?
By automatic source scanners, the code below most likely will be flagged as a potential security issue because it doesn't use strncpy(), but it isdn't because 'const s1' guarantees s2 can not be overflown. Sure, if somebody can poke around and change s1 using some other real security problem, using strncpy() here might help hide the real problem, but this code itself is not a security risk Actually, many compilers will see that the source is a const string and change it into a memcpy() anyway, removing even that.
That's the thing about automatic source analysis.
const char *s1 = "blabla";
char s2[100];
strcpy(s2, s1);
"Why mix the units like that? It's either 33 meters a side, or its 12,100 square feet. Mixing units is the sort of thing that can only lead to errors."
;-)
'Non-metric people' are used to units being mixed up... The solution taken by many is to either give up and think that 'math is difficult', or to only use rounding/approximations for 'quick calculations': '5000 feet per mile' (instead of 5280)...
Rounding like that is what results in allowing space for the 4 interns... Hurrah for rounding: Where would the interns sit otherwise?
For example, how many ounces does a cubic foot of water weigh, and how many gallons is that by the way? It's not trivial, you'd have to memorize or calculate it from other numbers you memorized. So a cubic foot of water weighs 62.31 pounds, or 996.96 ounces, which is 7.78875 gallons of fluid, oh no 7.48051945 gallons because there are two meanings of 'ounce'.
Allways there is either an apparently random number to memorize, or maybe one that is easier to memorize if you give up on being exact and round it, and there is more confusion wherever possible. In the metric world, it's much simpler: A cubic meter of water weighs a (metric) tonne (1000 Kg), and is 1000 Liters. You still have to memorize relationships, but the numbers are nicely rounded. It's easier because all metrics more easily related.
"and none of them can be shared because it violates the SLA we have with Cisco."
But _that_ is not politics, it's because Cisco understands windows servers and how badly they handle more than one task.
"I read in a manual for technical writers that less than 2% of the population reads non-fiction books not relating to work."
I read on Wikipedia that 95% of all statistics are made up.
Now, which statement is more reliable?
"Why change? I love Linux, and if it changed to suit "the ipod generation," I would probably like it less."
Those were my thought, plus 'where does this ipod generation come from, and what happened to joe sixpack whom historically we were supposed to convince to switch to Linux?'...
Hey, they can buy Linux from RedHat/Novell at $300 a pop, and then RedHat/Novell can do the licensing dance. We need not change, we are not RedHat, Novell, IBM, etc...
Who bought ESR? I thought he was better than that.
Maybe it's a spoof?
I'm not an economist, but when somebody argues that adding a 33% tax will stave off economic problems, I can't help but doubt their credentials (short summary: it won't have the effect the author thinks it will, in neither of both intended ways (simplification and taxation on spending versus earning)).
I'm not saying everything is fine and dandy, but the article does not contain the answer.
"Also, ever looked at the maximum value of an IEEE single precision float? It's 3.40282347e+38."
Now try counting with that. Add one to that and see if it changed. It won't be.
log(1e38)/log(2) = 126.23
Floats are still only 32 bits, even doubles are only 64 bits, and long doubles only 96 bits. You can't suddendly store 127 bits worth of information in them.
"or if they want to do something *really* neat, tell you if that product is available for considerably less (or on sale!) at a different store nearby."
o gle&q=sandisk&addr=90210&lnk=flp&lmode=local
They will find a unique solution to making that feature utterly useless, such as not telling the user that the price is after a Mail-In-Rebate that expired yesterday.
PS: have Opera on your phone? You may already have that feature: Try this http://froogle.google.com/froogle?btnG=Search+Fro
And uh, no, that is not my zip... It's just one I somehow remember (damn tv series).
"Nah, they used the term 'religious', which means that Linux users (like us) who actually enjoy Linux are now unofficially zealots."
Hmm...
Zealot \Zeal"ot\, n. [F. z['e]lote, L. zelotes, Gr. ?. See
{Zeal}.]
One who is zealous; one who engages warmly in any cause, and
pursues his object with earnestness and ardor; especially,
one who is overzealous, or carried away by his zeal; one
absorbed in devotion to anything; an enthusiast; a fanatical
partisan.
[1913 Webster]
Nah, I just really don't like the alternative to Linux.
"If they sold MSOffice for much cheaper for Windows, it would kill OpenOffice,"
Not only that, it would kill Microsoft, because the Office tools are their largest source of revenue...
"Linux geeks admit that the open source OS isn't necessarily a better platform for important applications,"
So I guess I'm not a Linux geek.
"Sometimes more RAM can hurt things."
In that case, it's not the RAM that hurts things, it's the algorithm. That page just shows that FIFO is not the best (an algorithm that would not be so stupid to erase #3 two frames after its last request for example (which is what causes the effect described on the wiki page), and there are many ways to decrease the probability of such a thing happening).
And if you have an abundance of cores, then you have enough CPU power to throw some sophisticated paging algorithms around.
"The ability to download and execute software from a website is a basic requirement for most users,"
Only in the windows model of software distribution, and notably mostly 'shareware', which often has a very high junk level.
For apt-get, I don't need any of that functionality.
"Does your Ford come with an instructon book to tell you how to fit a Nissan engine? No it doesn't because there's no good business case for them to do that."
Better analogy: Does the Ford convert the road it travels on to make all Nissan cars on it disappear?
I bet they wish they could.
"There is no architectural reason for the lack of malware on Linux. I know it would be trivially easy to write a Linux application that would trick the average home user into giving full control of their machine to the malware author. Even if the user didn't know the root password, it could still steal all of their data, turn the machine into a zombie for other attacks, etc."
These vulnerabilities are not about the OS, but about the internet-accessing client programs: Linux web browsers and email clients don't typically have a mode that pops up a window where one or a couple of clicks later (or, in some cases on windows even without clicks), code from the Internet gets executed. Well, almost: There are xpi-installs of themes/extensions, but there must be something 'architectural' in the design of those programs that makes it hard to 'trick the average user' to install malware, because it's not something we see happening.
If it was that easy to make one that is successful, we would have seen it. Enough Linux desktops are on the 'net all the time for malicious people to have tried. The most succesful techniques of the past included exploiting bugs in daemons, such as rpc, ident, etc. But really, these days (except for malicious users on shared systems), the most successful attacks on Linux are brute force password-dictionary attacks searching for weak passwords. Spyware or Antivirus compromise of a Linux box is so rare, it's not even talked about.
That Spyware and Antivirus are not an issue on Linux is not a result of nobody trying, or not trying enough. Attacks on Linux machines on the net are varied and advanced, done by smart and patient people, and if Spyware and Viruses worked better, they would have been used more.
"The key answer appears to be that the Linux user base is too small to attract attention. "
Which is not the answer given that there are quite sophisticated types of attacks on Linux going on on the 'net.
The answer is not 'dont run privileged', or 'switch to linux', it's more in the area of 'dont use junk software', and that means all that crap that lets people's computers get infected to begin with, and the Internet security web sites have ample information which software that is, and because most of the junk runs on Windows, and Linux alternatives are usually significantly less junky, that is why malware is more widespread on Windows. Junk attracks junk, just like rotten meat attrackts flies.
"And you think that's because you run deprivlidged in UNIX?"
Nope, but it helps.
"You think that with Vista, viruses will go away since it does the same thing?"
Nope, because it's made by Microsoft. Virtually everything Microsoft has made spurred a whole new class of virusses. DOS virusses, Windows virusses, MS Office macro virusses, ActiveX virusses, IE virusses, Outlook email virusses, and whatnot.
"I think some UNIX people put WAAAAAY too much faith in UNIX's privlidge escalation model"
None of that is based on theory, but it's a complete result of actual practical experience. Installing AV scanners, running spybot/adaware, etc, is a Windows ritual, not a Unix ritual. Whatever the reason is for that doesn't matter, it just sucks balls on Windows and doesn't on BSD and Linux. On Windows, needing to work with AV software and adware killers has become the norm, while on Linux and BSD, viruses are 'proof of concept' things, with infections being very rare occasiond and usually really nothing more than theoretical discussions.
Except when they are workground servers for windows clients, AV software for Linux is the same thing as elevators on the farm, or snow tires in Florida: You probably will never need it.