AIDS is one of the few diseases that can be controlled simply by modifying behavior. It's difficult to contract AIDS.
So, here you have Brazil, a country full of people that won't stop carelessly fucking, breaking a patent for a medicine that someone else spent 10's if not 100's of millions of dollars developing, simply because they don't have the will to NOT FUCK, or at least use protection.
We had Anthrax mailed to us. It's not even close to being the same scenario. And the bottom line is, we paid. They won't.
Brazil has historically been the country of choice for international criminals due to their exportation laws. If you can make it to Brazilian soil, it's like crossing home plate. SAFE!
Don't believe me? Just ask Ronnie Biggs who after helping commit The Great Train Robbery in England, fled to and lived out his life in Brazi.
When international criminals need plastic surgery to change their appearance, more often than not it is performed by Brazilian doctors.
And the latest entry into Brazil's loooong list of indiscretions is the existence of large terrorist populations operating on their soil. Perhaps it isn't their fault the terrorists setup shop there, but they're still there.
Slashdot had an article about Brazil a couple months ago explaining about how their government was planning to break the patent on an AIDS drug because they couldn't agree with the manufacturer on a price.
And before you pipe up and say, "B..b..but the U.S. did the same thing with Cipro!" let me remind you that the patent on Cipro is nearly expired and we only threatened to hasten the bargaining game; not to actually do it. It was in very poor taste, but in the end, we paid for the medicine. Brazil won't.
So now Brazil is offering 'secure' documents, eh? HA! There are so many ways to exploit this it's sick.
Even in the U.S. you can be Joe Anyone and be certified as a notary. So if you want to falsify a will or business agreement, all you have to do is bribe one of your friends that is a notary and make the desired changes.
Or, you could even do it the right way and simply create a person. You can buy identities cheaply in Brazil. Make a false person, make that false person a notary, and have them change documents at will. Then, they simply disappear.
Total bullshit. Brazil creating and implementing a security scheme is like Ethiopia setting up culinary schools.
"Mr Bennett...wants to win the $10m...X-Prize. This award...will go to the first non-governmental outfit to put people on a rocket...62 miles...above the Earth...flying twice within a two-week period...[and]...also carry passengers."
In other news:
"A group of loosely organized computer enthusiasts from the website Slashdot have developed a space vehicle called the "Leech".
This craft is essentially a septic tank with enormous velcro straps. They have apparently bribed a NASA engineer with a $1m payday if he lets them piggyback on the space shuttle.
A model rocket engine has been attached to the rear of he septic tank because hey, rules are rules.
"Sharp's efforts to put a Linux handheld on the market has been known for quite a while, and now they're readying actual devices - but they're only for developers yet."
You can register to become a developer on their website, but it's still a PitA.
And there was no mention of how much these things will cost. Anyone know?
Perhaps we should drop leaflets explaining this to the Muslims, after which they'll declare jihad on the "unbelievers from space." Then they'll like us, because we can give them a ride to war.
"Fortunately this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" fad has faded from Hollywood..."
I'm not sure why that would be fortunate. If nothing else, the Tunguska incident shows that asteroids are a real threat. If Hollywood can help convince Joe/Jane Taxpayer that funneling money into government programs designed to increase the number of dishes we have monitoring the skies, that's a good thing.
The story has been Slashdotted already. I am posting it here for the benfit of fellow/.ers and EZ Karma points:
The Advanced Operating Systems Group, a branch of the Lab for Computer Science at MIT, has begun planning for a public release of their formerly unknown operating system known as Cesium.
Currently at version 4.2 (version 1.0 was finished in 1993), Cesium's architecture and abilities are enough to make even the most jaded computer enthusiast start frothing at the mouth. As an assistant to one of the lab's directors, I was invited to a private presentation given last week to some MIT staff members as part of the planning process for its eventual public release. I was given permission to write this sneak preview.
The primary goal of Cesium's creators was to fully abandon the "historic principles" that have shaped most contemporary operating systems. Concepts like "desktop", "folders", "files", etc., have all been thrown out the window. The results, while unusual when compared against the de facto standard of Microsoft Windows, are nevertheless fascinating and potentially very useful.
Cesium comprises five main parts, or "Overmodules". These overmodules are made up of semi-independent modules, which can be replaced or updated at will in order to add, remove or modify system functionality.
The Platform overmodule is the only platform-specific part of Cesium. It serves as a virtual machine, allowing the OS to run almost identically on a variety of platforms. The AOSG Lab has a distributed Cesium system made up of a seemingly random batch of Mac and PC machines, and Cesium has also been successfully tested on some handheld devices.
The Storage overmodule is one of the more unique ideas behind Cesium. Instead of using a traditional filesystem, all data is stored in an object-oriented database (OODBMS) that is written through the Platform overmodule directly to a hard drive. This allows for queries and operations that would not normally be possible within a traditional filesystem. In addition, it eliminates the concepts of files and folders, opting instead for child-parent relationships between any data stores.
The Program overmodule serves as interpreter, compiler, and API for Cesium software. After translating code into an intermediate language called "Cilantro" (which is cached for future use), it passes the code to the Platform overmodule, which then executes it. Cesium currently supports C, C++, Java, Perl, Fortran, Lisp, COBOL, and numerous smaller languages.
The Presentation overmodule works with the Platform overmodule to give programs access to a powerful and platform-independent visual interface that can present the output of programs as anything from terminal text to a 3-dimensional Hollywood-style GUI called "Tripwire" (which does shadows, transparencies, textures and light rendering better than most video game engines) depending on what the user chooses to see and what the hardware can handle.
Finally, the Security overmodule handles access issues, providing administrators with user maintenance and permissions functionality that rivals anything offered by mainstream operating systems.
The most interesting parts of Cesium, however, are often the little things. For example, all human-readable text is assumed to be HTML or XML, instead of Notepad-style plain text, and formatting can be customized with cascading style sheets. The default text editor that comes with Cesium, therefore, handles such things as bold, italics, tables, graphics, colors, etc., without trouble.
Another interesting little tidbit is that Cesium was intended to be well documented from the very start. Error messages are dynamically generated and context sensitive, meaning that almost any error comes with a plain English description of exactly what happened, how it probably happened, and how to fix it.
Cesium is due to be released by the end of the year for free, bundled with approximately 200 software applications including HTTP, FTP, NNTP and SMTP servers; a fully functional office application suite; graphics and audio software; and four video games including CesiumQuake.
For further information, stay tuned to The MIT Laboratory for Computer Science website.
Yeah, that's brilliant. Spend gobs of cash educating pre-criminals in a technology field that is already overcrowded with mediocre talent.
What will society get in return? An unemployed former gang member mediocre HTML 'coder' that realizes jacking the working man is far more profitable and 10 times easier.
I've been working in the computer industry since 1994 and the most amazing aspect to me has always been the ridiculously low level of product quality. Can you imagine if a car company or appliance manufacturer had the same lemon rate as computers? They would be sued into oblivion.
The computer industry, as a whole, has some of the the highest, if not the highest return rates of their products. To add insult to injury, they also have THE ABSOLUTE WORST customer service of any industry on the planet. Put those two factors together, and you have the current situation.
But since computers have become a necessity, we have to deal with all the crap. When someone asks me, "What is the best computer?" I always give them the same response: none.
They ALL suck. And they really do. Some suck less, but there isn't a name brand system I think is good, in the strict sense of the word.
It's probably the fault of the demand for cheaper computers while companies need to turn big profits. How do you do that? Dirt cheap, poorly designed, low-quality parts and big reductions of those expensive tech support reps.
The last computer system I recommended was a Digital, and we all know what happened to them. They built high-quality, durable, but expensive systems, and went the way of the Dodo as a result.
"As it nears its closest point to the planet over the northern hemisphere, the spacecraft will fire its 640-newton main engine for approximately 19.7 minutes to allow itself to be captured into an elliptical, or looping, orbit about 20 hours long."
Or, it will fire its 64.0-newton main engine for approximately 197 minutes to allow itself to slam into the surface at about 20x the speed of sound.
Scene: Windowless van parked next to the sidewalk under a streetlamp. Two slightly overweight first-year FBI agents sit in the van splitting a box of Crunch-n-Munch. The air smells like two slightly overweight first-year FBI agents eating Crunch-n-Munch.
Agent 1:"Turn on your monitor. The sniffer is receiving something."
Agent 2 wipes the crumbs off his hands against the leg of his jeans and flicks the switch on his flatscreen.
Agent 2:"It's coming in. It says: 'ALL...YOUR...BASE...ARE...BELONG...TO...US...' What the fuck does that mean?"
Agent 1:"I don't know, but add it to the MOVE ZIG and FOR GREAT JUSTICE files. I think we're onto something.
Meanwhile, down the street, a ten-year-old geek chortles and crawls under the covers.
This may be off-topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
While I was working throughout the Mediterranean, I met several Nepalese security officers. Those familiar with British military history may recall that Nepalese soldiers, b.k.a. Gurkhas, have been used by the Brits for several wartime, policing and security activities.
Unfortunately, the Gurkhas got a huge black eye courtesy of the Brits when they were used to kill peaceful, unarmed Indian protestors, including children, during Gandhi's early days. Aside from that unfortunate incident, the Nepalese have been great friends of the Brits and have worked and fought side-by-side with them for nearly 200 years.
The Nepalese I met were, as a whole, some of the most courteous, respectful, hard-working and fun-loving people I've ever met. In short, I've never met a Nepalese that I didn't like.
I want to add that I don't hold any grudge against the Nepalese nor the Britons for past indiscretions. There is not a race, religion or nationality on the planet that hasn't committed an atrocity at some point in history. But by today's standards, the Nepalese are really good people.
If anyone on that side of the world deserves our help, even if it's just old computer parts, it's them.
Everytime I download a distro, within a week a new one comes out. I just finished downloading all 3 CD ISOs for Red Hat 7.1 and Tools and now they release 7.2
I'm switching to FreeBSD. Those guys update MUCH more slowly...
Slashdot editors are remarkably hypocritical. I posted this a few hours ago in response to this very thread:
"Where in the heck do these ideas come from?"
From people desperate to associate their race with any great achievement. Whether or not it's true is of little import, to them.
It was since deleted. This could just be yet another example of their piss-poor coding abilities, but I doubt it.
You fucking cunts take every opportunity you can to blast any attempt at muffling Free Speech that dares rear its head then turn around and do it on the very forum from which you promulgate.
Not that I am doubting you, and I don't care enough to check the facts anyway, but the computer I'm using right now is housed in a PCP&C case with a Silencer power supply.
I live in South Florida where blackouts and power surges are very common due to lightning storms, and the Silencer hasn't faulted me in 3 years. And it really is VERY quiet.
I don't care who makes it, I love it. However, I wouldn't mind knowing the OEM so I could buy it at a lower cost.
$600 for a case is insane. For $200, you can get a fantastic case and top-notch power supply from PC Power & Cooling which leaves $400 for a faster CPU, better hard drive, and extra cooling fans.
Slashdot Mirror
AIDS is one of the few diseases that can be controlled simply by modifying behavior. It's difficult to contract AIDS.
So, here you have Brazil, a country full of people that won't stop carelessly fucking, breaking a patent for a medicine that someone else spent 10's if not 100's of millions of dollars developing, simply because they don't have the will to NOT FUCK, or at least use protection.
We had Anthrax mailed to us. It's not even close to being the same scenario. And the bottom line is, we paid. They won't.
Knunov
...has fewer holes.
Brazil has historically been the country of choice for international criminals due to their exportation laws. If you can make it to Brazilian soil, it's like crossing home plate. SAFE!
Don't believe me? Just ask Ronnie Biggs who after helping commit The Great Train Robbery in England, fled to and lived out his life in Brazi.
When international criminals need plastic surgery to change their appearance, more often than not it is performed by Brazilian doctors.
And the latest entry into Brazil's loooong list of indiscretions is the existence of large terrorist populations operating on their soil. Perhaps it isn't their fault the terrorists setup shop there, but they're still there.
Slashdot had an article about Brazil a couple months ago explaining about how their government was planning to break the patent on an AIDS drug because they couldn't agree with the manufacturer on a price.
And before you pipe up and say, "B..b..but the U.S. did the same thing with Cipro!" let me remind you that the patent on Cipro is nearly expired and we only threatened to hasten the bargaining game; not to actually do it. It was in very poor taste, but in the end, we paid for the medicine. Brazil won't.
So now Brazil is offering 'secure' documents, eh? HA! There are so many ways to exploit this it's sick.
Even in the U.S. you can be Joe Anyone and be certified as a notary. So if you want to falsify a will or business agreement, all you have to do is bribe one of your friends that is a notary and make the desired changes.
Or, you could even do it the right way and simply create a person. You can buy identities cheaply in Brazil. Make a false person, make that false person a notary, and have them change documents at will. Then, they simply disappear.
Total bullshit. Brazil creating and implementing a security scheme is like Ethiopia setting up culinary schools.
Knunov
From the article:
"Mr Bennett...wants to win the $10m...X-Prize. This award...will go to the first non-governmental outfit to put people on a rocket...62 miles...above the Earth...flying twice within a two-week period...[and]...also carry passengers."
In other news:
"A group of loosely organized computer enthusiasts from the website Slashdot have developed a space vehicle called the "Leech".
This craft is essentially a septic tank with enormous velcro straps. They have apparently bribed a NASA engineer with a $1m payday if he lets them piggyback on the space shuttle.
A model rocket engine has been attached to the rear of he septic tank because hey, rules are rules.
Knunov
I wonder if this unit can be filled with alcohol or ethanol.
Perhaps using aluminum dust in the water would help, as well.
Knunov
An MCSE, eh? I'm surprised you knew how to click the link.
Check your dept.
From the article:
"Sharp's efforts to put a Linux handheld on the market has been known for quite a while, and now they're readying actual devices - but they're only for developers yet."
You can register to become a developer on their website, but it's still a PitA.
And there was no mention of how much these things will cost. Anyone know?
Knunov
Maybe I've become numb to such teasing in my old age, but the trailer did nothing to whet my appetite.
The least they could have done was included a cutaway shot of Natalie's robe falling to the floor, just before her bare, firm buttocks appeared.
I just teased myself into petrification. I'll be back in a few minutes.
Knunov
Perhaps we should drop leaflets explaining this to the Muslims, after which they'll declare jihad on the "unbelievers from space." Then they'll like us, because we can give them a ride to war.
Knunov
Shut up.
"Fortunately this news comes well after the "meteorite blast" fad has faded from Hollywood..."
I'm not sure why that would be fortunate. If nothing else, the Tunguska incident shows that asteroids are a real threat. If Hollywood can help convince Joe/Jane Taxpayer that funneling money into government programs designed to increase the number of dishes we have monitoring the skies, that's a good thing.
Knunov
At the bottom of the story on Slant Six there is a hit counter. When I first read the story it stated:
/.
This story has been read 71 times.
After the Slashdotting, I went back and just a few hours later the counter read:
This story has been read 20416 times.
Behold the power of
The story has been Slashdotted already. I am posting it here for the benfit of fellow /.ers and EZ Karma points:
The Advanced Operating Systems Group, a branch of the Lab for Computer Science at MIT, has begun planning for a public release of their formerly unknown operating system known as Cesium.
Currently at version 4.2 (version 1.0 was finished in 1993), Cesium's architecture and abilities are enough to make even the most jaded computer enthusiast start frothing at the mouth. As an assistant to one of the lab's directors, I was invited to a private presentation given last week to some MIT staff members as part of the planning process for its eventual public release. I was given permission to write this sneak preview.
The primary goal of Cesium's creators was to fully abandon the "historic principles" that have shaped most contemporary operating systems. Concepts like "desktop", "folders", "files", etc., have all been thrown out the window. The results, while unusual when compared against the de facto standard of Microsoft Windows, are nevertheless fascinating and potentially very useful.
Cesium comprises five main parts, or "Overmodules". These overmodules are made up of semi-independent modules, which can be replaced or updated at will in order to add, remove or modify system functionality.
The Platform overmodule is the only platform-specific part of Cesium. It serves as a virtual machine, allowing the OS to run almost identically on a variety of platforms. The AOSG Lab has a distributed Cesium system made up of a seemingly random batch of Mac and PC machines, and Cesium has also been successfully tested on some handheld devices.
The Storage overmodule is one of the more unique ideas behind Cesium. Instead of using a traditional filesystem, all data is stored in an object-oriented database (OODBMS) that is written through the Platform overmodule directly to a hard drive. This allows for queries and operations that would not normally be possible within a traditional filesystem. In addition, it eliminates the concepts of files and folders, opting instead for child-parent relationships between any data stores.
The Program overmodule serves as interpreter, compiler, and API for Cesium software. After translating code into an intermediate language called "Cilantro" (which is cached for future use), it passes the code to the Platform overmodule, which then executes it. Cesium currently supports C, C++, Java, Perl, Fortran, Lisp, COBOL, and numerous smaller languages.
The Presentation overmodule works with the Platform overmodule to give programs access to a powerful and platform-independent visual interface that can present the output of programs as anything from terminal text to a 3-dimensional Hollywood-style GUI called "Tripwire" (which does shadows, transparencies, textures and light rendering better than most video game engines) depending on what the user chooses to see and what the hardware can handle.
Finally, the Security overmodule handles access issues, providing administrators with user maintenance and permissions functionality that rivals anything offered by mainstream operating systems.
The most interesting parts of Cesium, however, are often the little things. For example, all human-readable text is assumed to be HTML or XML, instead of Notepad-style plain text, and formatting can be customized with cascading style sheets. The default text editor that comes with Cesium, therefore, handles such things as bold, italics, tables, graphics, colors, etc., without trouble.
Another interesting little tidbit is that Cesium was intended to be well documented from the very start. Error messages are dynamically generated and context sensitive, meaning that almost any error comes with a plain English description of exactly what happened, how it probably happened, and how to fix it.
Cesium is due to be released by the end of the year for free, bundled with approximately 200 software applications including HTTP, FTP, NNTP and SMTP servers; a fully functional office application suite; graphics and audio software; and four video games including CesiumQuake.
For further information, stay tuned to The MIT Laboratory for Computer Science website.
Yeah, that's brilliant. Spend gobs of cash educating pre-criminals in a technology field that is already overcrowded with mediocre talent.
What will society get in return? An unemployed former gang member mediocre HTML 'coder' that realizes jacking the working man is far more profitable and 10 times easier.
I've been working in the computer industry since 1994 and the most amazing aspect to me has always been the ridiculously low level of product quality. Can you imagine if a car company or appliance manufacturer had the same lemon rate as computers? They would be sued into oblivion.
The computer industry, as a whole, has some of the the highest, if not the highest return rates of their products. To add insult to injury, they also have THE ABSOLUTE WORST customer service of any industry on the planet. Put those two factors together, and you have the current situation.
But since computers have become a necessity, we have to deal with all the crap. When someone asks me, "What is the best computer?" I always give them the same response: none.
They ALL suck. And they really do. Some suck less, but there isn't a name brand system I think is good, in the strict sense of the word.
It's probably the fault of the demand for cheaper computers while companies need to turn big profits. How do you do that? Dirt cheap, poorly designed, low-quality parts and big reductions of those expensive tech support reps.
The last computer system I recommended was a Digital, and we all know what happened to them. They built high-quality, durable, but expensive systems, and went the way of the Dodo as a result.
"As it nears its closest point to the planet over the northern hemisphere, the spacecraft will fire its 640-newton main engine for approximately 19.7 minutes to allow itself to be captured into an elliptical, or looping, orbit about 20 hours long."
Or, it will fire its 64.0-newton main engine for approximately 197 minutes to allow itself to slam into the surface at about 20x the speed of sound.
Decimals sure can be a bitch.
Scene: Windowless van parked next to the sidewalk under a streetlamp. Two slightly overweight first-year FBI agents sit in the van splitting a box of Crunch-n-Munch. The air smells like two slightly overweight first-year FBI agents eating Crunch-n-Munch.
Agent 1:"Turn on your monitor. The sniffer is receiving something."
Agent 2 wipes the crumbs off his hands against the leg of his jeans and flicks the switch on his flatscreen.
Agent 2:"It's coming in. It says: 'ALL...YOUR...BASE...ARE...BELONG...TO...US...' What the fuck does that mean?"
Agent 1:"I don't know, but add it to the MOVE ZIG and FOR GREAT JUSTICE files. I think we're onto something.
Meanwhile, down the street, a ten-year-old geek chortles and crawls under the covers.
This may be off-topic, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
While I was working throughout the Mediterranean, I met several Nepalese security officers. Those familiar with British military history may recall that Nepalese soldiers, b.k.a. Gurkhas, have been used by the Brits for several wartime, policing and security activities.
Unfortunately, the Gurkhas got a huge black eye courtesy of the Brits when they were used to kill peaceful, unarmed Indian protestors, including children, during Gandhi's early days. Aside from that unfortunate incident, the Nepalese have been great friends of the Brits and have worked and fought side-by-side with them for nearly 200 years.
The Nepalese I met were, as a whole, some of the most courteous, respectful, hard-working and fun-loving people I've ever met. In short, I've never met a Nepalese that I didn't like.
I want to add that I don't hold any grudge against the Nepalese nor the Britons for past indiscretions. There is not a race, religion or nationality on the planet that hasn't committed an atrocity at some point in history. But by today's standards, the Nepalese are really good people.
If anyone on that side of the world deserves our help, even if it's just old computer parts, it's them.
Everytime I download a distro, within a week a new one comes out. I just finished downloading all 3 CD ISOs for Red Hat 7.1 and Tools and now they release 7.2
I'm switching to FreeBSD. Those guys update MUCH more slowly...
They returned it after my second post. Not only are they hypocrites, but they are cowardly.
Slashdot editors are remarkably hypocritical. I posted this a few hours ago in response to this very thread:
"Where in the heck do these ideas come from?"
From people desperate to associate their race with any great achievement. Whether or not it's true is of little import, to them.
It was since deleted. This could just be yet another example of their piss-poor coding abilities, but I doubt it.
You fucking cunts take every opportunity you can to blast any attempt at muffling Free Speech that dares rear its head then turn around and do it on the very forum from which you promulgate.
"Where in the heck do these ideas come from?"
From people desperate to associate their race with any great achievement. Whether or not it's true is of little import, to them.
Not that I am doubting you, and I don't care enough to check the facts anyway, but the computer I'm using right now is housed in a PCP&C case with a Silencer power supply.
I live in South Florida where blackouts and power surges are very common due to lightning storms, and the Silencer hasn't faulted me in 3 years. And it really is VERY quiet.
I don't care who makes it, I love it. However, I wouldn't mind knowing the OEM so I could buy it at a lower cost.
$600 for a case is insane. For $200, you can get a fantastic case and top-notch power supply from PC Power & Cooling which leaves $400 for a faster CPU, better hard drive, and extra cooling fans.
This is a luxury item. Total overkill.
"Scott Culp, Manager of the Microsoft Security Response Center..."
I always said you'd go far once you dropped the -able from your last name! ROCK ON, BABY BROTHER! ROCK-THE-FUCK-ON!
"The difference between a madman and a genius is that a genius won't use his/her knowlege to kill people for sport (or any other reason)"
I guess Oppenheimer was a madman...