You completely missed the point of what I was saying. I'm not talking about safety at all. Reread my original message.
The point is that what you calling "spitting in the face" is a primitive, "mine-is-bigger-than-yours" instinct that we should have left behind in the schoolyard.
Our "national dignity" (to use another poster's phrase) doesn't depend on how big our buildings are! It depends on who we, as people, are. On whether we're smart enough not to play schoolyard games with terrorists, for example. By all means, the terrorists should be hunted down and brought to justice, or exterminated as the case may be, and host countries should be appropriately dealt with. But building bigger buildings just to show how great we are? What a pathetic excuse for a national self-image that implies!
I think we both occupy a place somewhere in the middle (as I define it, anyway) and were each objecting to an extreme on opposite ends of the spectrum.
OK, now we're agreed, let's go kill the fuckers!!!
I suppose what it comes down to is that if I'm going to endorse killing people, inevitably including some possibly innocent people, I want to make sure "our" position is as morally sound as it can possibly be. Which to me, means a bit of self-doubt and questioning is in order, no matter how justified our anger might feel.
You are correct... the US probably had a hand in creating this but do you believe that they wound up this little terrorist and let him go to destroy the WTC? No. The most for which the US government can take credit for is starting him on the path.
I agree.
Can you prove to me that all of his money is from the US government?
It isn't.
Or is it, perhaps, for American and other Arab/Moslem sympathisizers.
That, and Bin Laden had a lot of his own money too. Saddam Hussein and Iraq got a lot of U.S. financial and military support in their long battle against Iran.
Please try to look at more than the terrorist press releases and realize that there are more bad guys than just the US government agencies.
I have never read a terrorist press release that I'm aware of. I live in the US, but I do also read media that comes from outside the US. The perspective one gets from purely consuming US media can be just a tad warped.
BTW, I wasn't suggesting "the US deserved this". It's impossible to "deserve" the death of perhaps ten thousand civilians. But, I think one should be careful of getting too sanctimonious and righteous in the response. Don't make it into the holy war that the other side may believe it is. It's a simple case of needing to eradicate a threat, as quickly, efficiently and definitively as possible.
One thing that bin Laden has going for him is millions of dollars. He is the heir of a wealthy Saudi construction magnate, and his worth is somewhere in the millions.
OK, I'm nitpicking, so don't get too excited, but this reminds me a little of Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies, asking for "one million dollars" in ransom money.
A reasonable well-off middle-class retiree in America has millions of dollars in retirement savings. I know a couple of people with net worths in excess of $10 million. None of these people would get very far in funding terrorism except on a very small scale, because a million dollars just isn't that much money any more.
As the Economist magazine put it recently (I'm probably paraphrasing), $100 million is "fuck you" money. Much less than that and you can barely afford to buy and maintain a decent jet, for example.
Media reports recently are saying Bin Laden is worth a billion or more, although I don't know the details. He apparently issues grants to credible terrorists who apply to him with a workable plan, sort of like a terrorist version of an angel investor (I guess that would be a devil investor?)
The problem is that many who read those newspapers are going to be influenced by them in various ways. If a newspaper allows itself to be used as a vehicle to express irrational and unrestrained anger and hatred, then I think it should make it clear that this is what it's doing, in the (probably vain) hope that readers won't be led to believe that what they're reading are reasonable responses to the situation.
You're angry, as we all are, which presumably explains all the insults and expletives in your message.
However, that doesn't change the fact that it's not just training, but money and other kinds of support that the U.S. has used to further its political agenda, that have helped people like Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein before him, to become serious threats. There are many other examples, most dating back to a time in which the U.S. was willing to do just about anything to combat the Soviet threat.
The U.S. cannot now in good conscience wash its hands of such acts, and pretend that it is completely innocent. The attack on America was a cowardly, brutal and uncivilized act, but it may have been executed by a pawn that America helped loose upon the world, no matter what excuse it might have had at the time.
Rebuild them taller. That's the only thing to do. Show the cowards that we'll just get bigger when they hit.
The terrorists attacked WTC for two reasons, the first of which is that it was symbolic. The second reason is that it would cause massive loss of life.
Now, back some decades it apparently seemed important, for some reason, to build the tallest towers, etc. In fact, a similar argument was used to go to the moon. That's all well and good, but haven't we moved past that?
Malaysia is the latest nation to believe that having the tallest building somehow enhances its national prestige. Is the U.S. really so insecure that it feels it has to compete with nations like Malaysia on this basis? Or is it a case of needing to impress the primitive folk, both within and without our country?
Wouldn't it be better to focus our energies on protecting our borders, skies and buildings in a way that doesn't diminish the freedoms of the residents of the U.S.?
I'm not saying symbolism isn't important to the human psyche, but perhaps if we got past the "mine is bigger than yours" phase, it might change the nature of the battle for the better.
From my own experience, I found I had shoulder trouble when I was in a really bad ergonomic situation (not directly under my control) and just about everything was wrong. If your forearm is pointing outward when using your mouse, that's bad. If your forearm is tilted upward, that's also bad. Inward and downward (or at least more or less level) is better, I think, although consult an ergonomic guide for expert advice. An armrest that you can actually use, i.e. that's the right height and fit, should also help, since I think part of the problem is simply supporting the weight of your arm.
You don't need face recognition to stop hijacking. There are any number of technological measures that could be taken to make it much more difficult for terrorists to crash planes into buildings, without affecting the life of the average citizen other than making it more secure.
A kneejerk lockdown reaction which takes away freedoms from the citizens of the U.S. is the most direct way to serve the ends of the terrorists. The U.S. is one of the world's superpowers in large measure because it does not oppress its own citizens in the overt way that other nations have done (and in some cases, are still doing). That freedom is essential if the U.S. is to continue to thrive - in fact, it is the main thing that should be protected.
On the contrary, the stupidity and shortsightedness of these terrorists is staggering. I'm ashamed to belong to the same species as them. What end do they think they've served today? They will soon be dead, and the small threat that they represented will become part of a sad chapter of the history of the human race.
The purpose of terrorism is to strike fear in the average persons heart
You're confusing the means which terrorists employ, with their political aim. The terrorists seem to have done the same thing. Terrorist acts which don't have the desired political result are a failure. The acts today have failed in their aim, and dismally so. The entire civilized world is likely to unite against these attacks. U.S. and world policy will not change in any way that is favorable to the terrorists, and the U.S. is more likely to be strengthened than weakened.
At best, these terrorists have demonstrated the limits of terrorism: their best efforts at creating terror can do little more than destroy some buildings and kill innocent people, without furthering the goals of the terrorists.
Of course, if this was an attack by Osama bin Laden's people, as seems quite likely if conventional wisdom is to be believed, then the terrorists may feel that they have done credit to their own souls, based on their religious beliefs. Even so, the ultimate purpose of such beliefs is still to bring about some end, which was neither brought about nor furthered today. Today's acts only demonstrate a lack of intelligence and greater purpose amongst the terrorists.
An invasion is another matter entirely. Think Gulf War.
Besides, the U.S. now has reason to fully commit its troops and other resources. In Somalia and even the Gulf War, no U.S. lives were at risk, other than the soldiers themselves. In this case, thousands of U.S. civilians were killed, and more may be at risk in future if the perpetrators aren't neutralized.
It's as the saying goes: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
Why do terrorists seem to go after the World Trade Center, anyways?
Because terrorists are primitive and think in a sort of 19th-century way about "symbols" and the like. To them, the World Trade Center is the symbol of America's economic success, and they think that Americans will be devastated if it is successfully attacked.
The truth is, if anything, it shows how limited and weak the terrorists really are - their one and only target has been standing there for decades and they've just finally figured out how to seriously damage it.
If they had managed to simultaneously do the same thing in multiple cities, one might be impressed at their capabilities - as it stands, woop-de-do, they can hijack two planes at the same time.
America doesn't have anything real to worry about, not that it shouldn't go after the perpetrators with everything it's got.
One of my friends from college works on nuclear missiles warheads.
It's a little different if you know that the person you're talking to works in the area you're talking about. That wasn't clear in the original post I responded to. When it comes to classified stuff, "need to know" makes it even less likely that the person you're talking to knows anything about things that's aren't his direct responsibility.
When they chuckle and tell you it's classified, they generally mean that it's classified
Or that they're trying to impress you - how would you know the difference?;)
For example, living in St. Louis, I was talking to someone from Boeing and mentioned how they must not too happy that their missile tests failed. He just laughed and said he couldn't talk about it's classified. Makes you wonder if maybe he was inferring that those public tests don't totally represent the actually success of the projects...
Dream on. Unless the guy you were talking to actually worked in the exact defense unit of Boeing, he probably knew as little about the missile tests as you do - maybe less. That's why he laughed. It's like when you meet someone from, say, Germany, and say something like "Hey, I know a guy in Dusseldorf name Hans Pickelgruber, do you know him?" The only meaningful reaction is to laugh.
Boeing is a humongous company, and if you work in say the commercial airliner division, you're not even remotely exposed to what's going on in the defense divisions. Nevertheless, when you sign on as an employee you're still warned not to talk about company business with outsiders. So that explains the reaction you got: laughter because the guy probably knew nothing about the missile tests, and thought it was amusing that you thought he worked just down the hall from where they're building rocket engines and guidance systems, when in reality he works in a cubicle with thousands of other people who are all pushing paper just like him; and stonewalling because the guy's job could be at stake even if he speculates about company business that he knows nothing about with an outsider.
"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of sending a mouse to Mars, and returning it safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be less impressive to mankind, or less important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so cheap or easy to accomplish.
"But why, some say, Mars? Why choose this as our goal? We choose to send our mice to Mars. We choose to send them to Mars in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are really easy, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is the biggest one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
if you think there's an army of world class hackers brewing there any time soon...I am not seeing it.
An army - no. A big issue is education - it requires a basic level of education to become a hacker, and much of the African population falls below that level. But there are African hackers, I know a couple. South Africa has produced quite a few, since it has a somewhat first-world education system, at least for its wealthier citizens (used to be whites only, but that's changed a bit now).
The digitial certificate company Thawte is South African, for example (see this article. Of course, Thawte has since been acquired by the U.S. certificate monopoly, Verisign - can't have any foreign competition, wouldn't be good for business.
For your amusement, here are a few links (found on Google):
But some of the best African hackers leave for other countries, where they can earn more money and leave the various problems of Africa behind.
The founder of X.com, Elon Musk, is a South African. X.com now owns Paypal. Musk founded X.com with the $305 million in cash he made from selling the Internet directory company he founded, Zip2.
You may argue whether some of the above are truly hackers, but the point is, the skills are there, just not in the numbers that you get in countries with better-educated populations.
VMWare will do what you want. The pro server implementation you describe can be achieved using VMWare's higher-end offerings, GSX and ESX, which support scripting of VMs.
Can you make inter-VM calls? How about inter-VM DB-driver queries (eg. biz objs in VM1, DB in VM2)?
Yes. Inter-VM calls can be made across the "network" which VMWare sets up. You can host two NT VMs on a Linux box and they can talk to each other quite happily; and other machines on the network can talk to them, too. Each gets its own IP address, etc.
Although it's not COM, in one case I've used VMWare to run MS SQL Server 6.5 on a Linux box, with a Java application server running under native Linux. The performance is better than hosting the database on a separate machine with a 100Mbit connection, and it allows "legacy" databases (or other systems) to be used without dedicating a separate box for the purpose.
I used to use a four-way switch and have up to four computers connected. I threw that all out once I got VMWare.
Using VMWare, I can keep a stable base environment and develop and test code on multiple platforms: various Linux distros, plus multiple Windows flavors in my case.
In addition to that, I can install stuff that I'm evaluating in a virtual OS - including in a virtual Linux running on top of Linux - and if it causes any problems, I haven't affected my base environment.
With VMWare, the state of a virtual machine can be suspend in seconds, and you can shut down the physical machine and come back to exactly where you left off, right down to the state of the Caps Lock key and the mouse cursor. In the middle of some complex development and want to take a break to play a game? Just suspend the VM you're working in, play your game, and resume the VM you want.
I can save multiple configurations of each OS, and keep copies of old configurations to go back to if I need to. It's like having a whole swath of preinstalled partitions, except you don't have to reboot your machine to switch between them, and you can run more than one at the same time.
The only caveat to all of the above is that it needs a lot of memory and disk space to work well - figure at least 64MB per running VM, ideally more; and at least 1-2GB per VM disk image. Good CPU performance doesn't hurt, either. The upside is that these days, this is all pretty cheap. I currently run with 512MB RAM and 2x30GB disks, on a dual CPU box, and the only performance issue I'm ever aware of is a bit of mouse lag.
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Ah, I get it! Luckily, the U.S. has more mod points than anybody else. Those terrorists are going to have some seriously negative karma soon!
The point is that what you calling "spitting in the face" is a primitive, "mine-is-bigger-than-yours" instinct that we should have left behind in the schoolyard.
Our "national dignity" (to use another poster's phrase) doesn't depend on how big our buildings are! It depends on who we, as people, are. On whether we're smart enough not to play schoolyard games with terrorists, for example. By all means, the terrorists should be hunted down and brought to justice, or exterminated as the case may be, and host countries should be appropriately dealt with. But building bigger buildings just to show how great we are? What a pathetic excuse for a national self-image that implies!
More likely, you know I'm right and don't want to admit it to yourself.
What can I say, I'm crass and insensitive enough to have fallen into your trap... :P
Flight training school: 4 * $3500 = $14000
Cardboard cutters: 8 * $5 = $40
One-way plane tickets: 8 * 150 = $1200
You forgot:
A dozen suicidal terrorists: priceless.
OK, now we're agreed, let's go kill the fuckers!!!
I suppose what it comes down to is that if I'm going to endorse killing people, inevitably including some possibly innocent people, I want to make sure "our" position is as morally sound as it can possibly be. Which to me, means a bit of self-doubt and questioning is in order, no matter how justified our anger might feel.
I agree.
Can you prove to me that all of his money is from the US government?
It isn't.
Or is it, perhaps, for American and other Arab/Moslem sympathisizers.
That, and Bin Laden had a lot of his own money too. Saddam Hussein and Iraq got a lot of U.S. financial and military support in their long battle against Iran.
Please try to look at more than the terrorist press releases and realize that there are more bad guys than just the US government agencies.
I have never read a terrorist press release that I'm aware of. I live in the US, but I do also read media that comes from outside the US. The perspective one gets from purely consuming US media can be just a tad warped.
BTW, I wasn't suggesting "the US deserved this". It's impossible to "deserve" the death of perhaps ten thousand civilians. But, I think one should be careful of getting too sanctimonious and righteous in the response. Don't make it into the holy war that the other side may believe it is. It's a simple case of needing to eradicate a threat, as quickly, efficiently and definitively as possible.
OK, I'm nitpicking, so don't get too excited, but this reminds me a little of Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies, asking for "one million dollars" in ransom money.
A reasonable well-off middle-class retiree in America has millions of dollars in retirement savings. I know a couple of people with net worths in excess of $10 million. None of these people would get very far in funding terrorism except on a very small scale, because a million dollars just isn't that much money any more.
As the Economist magazine put it recently (I'm probably paraphrasing), $100 million is "fuck you" money. Much less than that and you can barely afford to buy and maintain a decent jet, for example.
Media reports recently are saying Bin Laden is worth a billion or more, although I don't know the details. He apparently issues grants to credible terrorists who apply to him with a workable plan, sort of like a terrorist version of an angel investor (I guess that would be a devil investor?)
The problem is that many who read those newspapers are going to be influenced by them in various ways. If a newspaper allows itself to be used as a vehicle to express irrational and unrestrained anger and hatred, then I think it should make it clear that this is what it's doing, in the (probably vain) hope that readers won't be led to believe that what they're reading are reasonable responses to the situation.
However, that doesn't change the fact that it's not just training, but money and other kinds of support that the U.S. has used to further its political agenda, that have helped people like Bin Laden, and Saddam Hussein before him, to become serious threats. There are many other examples, most dating back to a time in which the U.S. was willing to do just about anything to combat the Soviet threat.
The U.S. cannot now in good conscience wash its hands of such acts, and pretend that it is completely innocent. The attack on America was a cowardly, brutal and uncivilized act, but it may have been executed by a pawn that America helped loose upon the world, no matter what excuse it might have had at the time.
The terrorists attacked WTC for two reasons, the first of which is that it was symbolic. The second reason is that it would cause massive loss of life.
Now, back some decades it apparently seemed important, for some reason, to build the tallest towers, etc. In fact, a similar argument was used to go to the moon. That's all well and good, but haven't we moved past that?
Malaysia is the latest nation to believe that having the tallest building somehow enhances its national prestige. Is the U.S. really so insecure that it feels it has to compete with nations like Malaysia on this basis? Or is it a case of needing to impress the primitive folk, both within and without our country?
Wouldn't it be better to focus our energies on protecting our borders, skies and buildings in a way that doesn't diminish the freedoms of the residents of the U.S.?
I'm not saying symbolism isn't important to the human psyche, but perhaps if we got past the "mine is bigger than yours" phase, it might change the nature of the battle for the better.
From my own experience, I found I had shoulder trouble when I was in a really bad ergonomic situation (not directly under my control) and just about everything was wrong. If your forearm is pointing outward when using your mouse, that's bad. If your forearm is tilted upward, that's also bad. Inward and downward (or at least more or less level) is better, I think, although consult an ergonomic guide for expert advice. An armrest that you can actually use, i.e. that's the right height and fit, should also help, since I think part of the problem is simply supporting the weight of your arm.
A kneejerk lockdown reaction which takes away freedoms from the citizens of the U.S. is the most direct way to serve the ends of the terrorists. The U.S. is one of the world's superpowers in large measure because it does not oppress its own citizens in the overt way that other nations have done (and in some cases, are still doing). That freedom is essential if the U.S. is to continue to thrive - in fact, it is the main thing that should be protected.
On the contrary, the stupidity and shortsightedness of these terrorists is staggering. I'm ashamed to belong to the same species as them. What end do they think they've served today? They will soon be dead, and the small threat that they represented will become part of a sad chapter of the history of the human race.
You're confusing the means which terrorists employ, with their political aim. The terrorists seem to have done the same thing. Terrorist acts which don't have the desired political result are a failure. The acts today have failed in their aim, and dismally so. The entire civilized world is likely to unite against these attacks. U.S. and world policy will not change in any way that is favorable to the terrorists, and the U.S. is more likely to be strengthened than weakened.
At best, these terrorists have demonstrated the limits of terrorism: their best efforts at creating terror can do little more than destroy some buildings and kill innocent people, without furthering the goals of the terrorists.
Of course, if this was an attack by Osama bin Laden's people, as seems quite likely if conventional wisdom is to be believed, then the terrorists may feel that they have done credit to their own souls, based on their religious beliefs. Even so, the ultimate purpose of such beliefs is still to bring about some end, which was neither brought about nor furthered today. Today's acts only demonstrate a lack of intelligence and greater purpose amongst the terrorists.
Besides, the U.S. now has reason to fully commit its troops and other resources. In Somalia and even the Gulf War, no U.S. lives were at risk, other than the soldiers themselves. In this case, thousands of U.S. civilians were killed, and more may be at risk in future if the perpetrators aren't neutralized.
It's as the saying goes: what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.
Because terrorists are primitive and think in a sort of 19th-century way about "symbols" and the like. To them, the World Trade Center is the symbol of America's economic success, and they think that Americans will be devastated if it is successfully attacked.
The truth is, if anything, it shows how limited and weak the terrorists really are - their one and only target has been standing there for decades and they've just finally figured out how to seriously damage it.
If they had managed to simultaneously do the same thing in multiple cities, one might be impressed at their capabilities - as it stands, woop-de-do, they can hijack two planes at the same time.
America doesn't have anything real to worry about, not that it shouldn't go after the perpetrators with everything it's got.
...yeah, that has a good ring to it!
It's a little different if you know that the person you're talking to works in the area you're talking about. That wasn't clear in the original post I responded to. When it comes to classified stuff, "need to know" makes it even less likely that the person you're talking to knows anything about things that's aren't his direct responsibility.
When they chuckle and tell you it's classified, they generally mean that it's classified
Or that they're trying to impress you - how would you know the difference? ;)
Dream on. Unless the guy you were talking to actually worked in the exact defense unit of Boeing, he probably knew as little about the missile tests as you do - maybe less. That's why he laughed. It's like when you meet someone from, say, Germany, and say something like "Hey, I know a guy in Dusseldorf name Hans Pickelgruber, do you know him?" The only meaningful reaction is to laugh.
Boeing is a humongous company, and if you work in say the commercial airliner division, you're not even remotely exposed to what's going on in the defense divisions. Nevertheless, when you sign on as an employee you're still warned not to talk about company business with outsiders. So that explains the reaction you got: laughter because the guy probably knew nothing about the missile tests, and thought it was amusing that you thought he worked just down the hall from where they're building rocket engines and guidance systems, when in reality he works in a cubicle with thousands of other people who are all pushing paper just like him; and stonewalling because the guy's job could be at stake even if he speculates about company business that he knows nothing about with an outsider.
"But why, some say, Mars? Why choose this as our goal? We choose to send our mice to Mars. We choose to send them to Mars in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are really easy, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is the biggest one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
-- President G.W. Bush, Jan 23, 2002
An army - no. A big issue is education - it requires a basic level of education to become a hacker, and much of the African population falls below that level. But there are African hackers, I know a couple. South Africa has produced quite a few, since it has a somewhat first-world education system, at least for its wealthier citizens (used to be whites only, but that's changed a bit now).
The digitial certificate company Thawte is South African, for example (see this article. Of course, Thawte has since been acquired by the U.S. certificate monopoly, Verisign - can't have any foreign competition, wouldn't be good for business.
For your amusement, here are a few links (found on Google):
But some of the best African hackers leave for other countries, where they can earn more money and leave the various problems of Africa behind.
The founder of X.com, Elon Musk, is a South African. X.com now owns Paypal. Musk founded X.com with the $305 million in cash he made from selling the Internet directory company he founded, Zip2.
You may argue whether some of the above are truly hackers, but the point is, the skills are there, just not in the numbers that you get in countries with better-educated populations.
Can you make inter-VM calls? How about inter-VM DB-driver queries (eg. biz objs in VM1, DB in VM2)?
Yes. Inter-VM calls can be made across the "network" which VMWare sets up. You can host two NT VMs on a Linux box and they can talk to each other quite happily; and other machines on the network can talk to them, too. Each gets its own IP address, etc.
Although it's not COM, in one case I've used VMWare to run MS SQL Server 6.5 on a Linux box, with a Java application server running under native Linux. The performance is better than hosting the database on a separate machine with a 100Mbit connection, and it allows "legacy" databases (or other systems) to be used without dedicating a separate box for the purpose.
There's no negative karma cap, right?! That means I would no longer be doomed to this boring existence in which my karma is nearly always 50! Woohoo!
Using VMWare, I can keep a stable base environment and develop and test code on multiple platforms: various Linux distros, plus multiple Windows flavors in my case.
In addition to that, I can install stuff that I'm evaluating in a virtual OS - including in a virtual Linux running on top of Linux - and if it causes any problems, I haven't affected my base environment.
With VMWare, the state of a virtual machine can be suspend in seconds, and you can shut down the physical machine and come back to exactly where you left off, right down to the state of the Caps Lock key and the mouse cursor. In the middle of some complex development and want to take a break to play a game? Just suspend the VM you're working in, play your game, and resume the VM you want.
I can save multiple configurations of each OS, and keep copies of old configurations to go back to if I need to. It's like having a whole swath of preinstalled partitions, except you don't have to reboot your machine to switch between them, and you can run more than one at the same time.
The only caveat to all of the above is that it needs a lot of memory and disk space to work well - figure at least 64MB per running VM, ideally more; and at least 1-2GB per VM disk image. Good CPU performance doesn't hurt, either. The upside is that these days, this is all pretty cheap. I currently run with 512MB RAM and 2x30GB disks, on a dual CPU box, and the only performance issue I'm ever aware of is a bit of mouse lag.