Imagine what would happen if the entire federal government shut down for 2 weeks, let alone the months it would take to look over MS's code.
Have you been following the litigation against Secretary Norton, Department of the Interior, in regards to the Indian Trust Fund? In December, the whole thing was taken off the Internet. Not the same as what you're describing, but a taste of it. No web, no e-mail, no fax-server, etc. Because the judge found their security to be so attrocious that they couldn't be protecting the trust fund from hackers. I don't see that happening here, but it is interesting to see if this will catch on as a precedence.
After getting a taste of the DoI off line though, I'm sure the government will be even less willing to self-inflict that pain, no matter what MS chooses to reveal to us.
I go to collage for CS and there are many, many, MANY poeple in my class(s) that know absolutely nothing about CS exept what is in the books. This is a problem because they get better grades than most of the people that do know computers for real.
You go to college, where people are likely to be teaching theories and ideas, versus practical implementation, which by implication you have. Other people, who do not have the same background as you do, earn better grades. Because they do not approach computers the same way you do, their accomplishments in the course are useless.
Right. There are so many possibilities for why these people "get" better grades than you do. Maybe they have an advantage by approaching the class with a clean state, so that they don't have to unlearn past behaviors or ideas. Maybe they don't yet know that activities like commenting your code are hateful, boring tasks, so they actually do them as instructed. Indication of future value in the work force? No. But, personally, I'll take it as an indication that the 'one true way' appraoch is ever so tired. That probably makes me a troll around here, but if I get a big splintery club, that's cool.
Pinochet [remember-chile.org.uk] was a benign dictator?
(I'm going to assume on day two if you don't want to see spoilers you're not reading stuff like this)
I think this would be one of the first clues of the satirical nature of the peice. In the beginning the author desposes of the novelisations and comic books because he thinks they are attempts at "cleaning up philosophical messes," etc. I suspect that he feels similarly about the first two fo these three movies. That the two movies have not made a compelling case for why over throwing the old government was such a bad thing. AOTC is clumsy in spots, as was Phantom. Why do I care that Anakin is hovering on the precipice. I have to use my knowledge of Jedi to assume there's anything but jerk burried deep away (yes, I did notice the many ways he was manipulated). And, in the same vein, what does Amadala, a supposedly intelligent person see in him? Why are they together? The best I can come up with is that perhaps he's the only person that treats her like a person instead of queen/senator all the time.
Or maybe he is attempting to be topical, which still puts the peice firmly in the camp of satire. There seems to be a great willingness these days amongst people in general to hand over more and more powers to the government to be safe. And, hey, look at the results! The good thing about AOTC (I'm going to assume on day two if you don't want to see spoilers you're not reading stuff like this) is that there is an attempt of a gradual slide down the slippery path (well, gradual for a movie anyway).
Why are there personal ads for Yoda??? Why. Why. Why. Here I was all worried about the Dawson's Creekishness of the preview... recovering from that based on what people have said of the second. And, now I learn they're marketing this thing with cheesy personal ad posters from Yoda. What the hell is that?
I was shocked and numbed (okay, I got over it). But sheesh... What on earth. Damaging... you want damaging? Make chessy posters of Yoda personal ads. That's damaging.
1. The fact, if it is a fact, that reliability is in fact an issue that should be reckoned with 2. Criteria that clearly show the strengths and weaknesses of the alternatives that exist 3. The fact, if it is a fact, that it is possible to create a body that, based on objective criteria, can act as an authority that sets the standard for safety of ship's computer systems.
In reply: 1. For reliability, on cursory examination, I would suggest looking at the methods that new technology has replaced. Was it important for the previous method to be reliable? To what degree? Then presumably the new method needs to be as reliable. 2. Now we're back to how to set up a criteria creation body, which I think has been less addressed in the responses. I mentioned SANS in my early posting, why not contact these people, and people in similar industries (the person who mentioned they were in the railroad industry for example) and find how they did it, who the major players were, and talk to them. 3. I'll take a pass on this one.
Have you looked at any of the work done by SANS (http://www.sans.org) or NIST (which is not necessarily what you're looking for, but in the area of providing guidance, http://www.nist.gov)?
SANS has been publishing a series of "consensus" documents, asking for feedback from people on topics such as securing Windows and Unix versions. They've also put together a working group (pay to join).
If you have looked at these sources, I would be interested to hear how they do or do not fit in to what the author of the original question is looking for.
Okay, this is a me too posting that will likely never be read, but for what it's worth I'd look in the bin once in a while, and it'd be nice to have the option.
for one simple reason: the guy is serving jail time for the rape of a child under 12 years old.
There are a handful of threads bashing on the film, because of the inclusion of this person and because the issues wasn't handled. I'm not saying you're doing that. I will use your post as an opportunity to say what has been growing in my mind as I consider those posts. The character is one of the ones that stands out more. But, he isn't really made a hero. No one really is made in to a loveable, hugable, take home hero (the guys that go down to protect the second helicopter are very heroic, but you don't get to know them in that Hollywood hero way). The movie really is about one days action. That individual is not made into a saint in the movie. I imagine he is included in some ways to give the audience a person to relate to as the movie enters the battle scene. Most of us in the audience are green to battle, and that character who leads his platoon in, is also green. He was there, and a part of the history presented.
There are a *lot* of loose ends in this movie. And, so many people it's hard to keep track of them all. I haven't read the book, maybe someone else could have been hilighted instead. But the role that was thrust on this person that day, 'you're in command, by the way we're going to battle' is likely different from others, and you probably feel his 'greenness' in a way you don't see with other people (well, there is one newbie who is definitely very gungho and green, but you get this in another way). Also, having the new guy in charge of his unit is a nice foil to give contrast to the Delta troops who apparently tended to be older and more experienced. Most of these guys aren't heroes in the story book way, and I venture to guess that if you asked most the guys there they wouldn't say they were a hero. I think that's what you (okay, I) take back from this movie. A giant feel of 'what is it like to be there.'
All of these anti-American, leftist look weren't they evil to be there posts, miss some of the point of the movie. If anything, there are some ways in which the movie reinforces their apparent isolationist bents. Is it worth it?? You see these people who could be the kid next door, and they have families, and is it worth it to send them in to possibly die on any day they do a dangerous job? Is the oil worth it? Is the moral issues worth it? It doesn't really matter what the issues are, can you look these guys in the face and tell them that it is worth their putting their asses on the line. Because while it's obvious there were some big problems with what we were doing in Somalia (unclear mission, etc.), and while in general we've been pretty fortunate in recent history (pardon me while I roll my eyes for a moment at the Drone War comment in the review).. anyway, while in general we've been pretty fortunate, things can and sometimes will go bad. And people will die. And some of them will be good people, and some of them you won't want living next door to you. But, as a people we're asking them to do things most of us wouldn't want to do. And, they go do it.
I don't see this movie as pro-war, anti-war, anti-American, or pro-American. I see it as "this is how it is." And, maybe the next time we're feeling interventionist or expansionist, or whatever; we'll think about this, and remember what we think it's like to be down there (unless we have the experience to know), and why we need to understand our enemy and understand what we want to do, why, and plan mission objectives and resources accordingly.
What movie did you watch? How about the soldier, who falls into a door, and they are shooting at the door into the room. There is a woman and her children. The soldier sneaks out the back door. There is a man there and a child, it becomes obvious it is the child's father. That man is shot, by the American soldier. He appears to be guarding the door. We don't really know. He's standing by the door with a boy that to me seemed older than the other children. There were shots, but I wasn't sure who fired them, and then the soldier killed that man. My impression, since the facts aren't laid out for us, was that this man was the father of that family, and he was trying to protect his families house.
I was thinking that also, until I gave the dates another thought. '93 is nearly 10 years ago, so probably most teenagers have either no or very dim recollections of the events. Throw in the uninformed, or those who didn't pay that much attention, who I suppose may have forgotten..
1) No character development - you never really established a connection with one character or another, part of the reason this was a problem was that there were too many characters it seemed, and to me they all looked pretty much the same, because they all have the standard military buzz cut.
I don't understand the no character development complaints. The events in the movie pretty much happen over the course of one day. How many life changing revelations are you going to have in one day? Okay, that's probably a day when quite a few people gained some personal insights, but is it really going to sink in before the fatigue wears off? Would we not be collectively gagging if one soldier had turned to another and exclaimed "I just had a personal revelation!" and then went on to elaborate upon it. As for the hair, I'm sure there would have been a zillion lack of realism complaints if they didn't have their hair cut in standard military cut.
You do get bits and peices, enough to identify a little bit with somebody, or have them remind you of something you know about somebody. The idealist, or the enthusiastic new kid, etc. That they all get lumped together in the chaos was part of the effect, I believe. And yet, there were things you saw that you remember - the femoral artery, the guy blown in half, picking up that guys hand, you have to tell me when to turn before I get to the corner, the kid that went deaf. I can only imagine, but I suspect that had I been there I'd see a lot of things that I wouldn't know who it was or what they were part of... I thought it added to the whole 'what it was like to be there.'
Welp, at least you saw the movie, it seems like a lot of people on here opining on the film haven't seen it.
I won't support *any* operating system that treats the data as having more important concerns than the machine's operator (me).
Understood. Looking at it from a different angle, it is interesting that MS can put money into this, so that as a consumer I'm forced to pay to protect somebody else's data, but they don't provide the same the same option for me to protect my own data. We're continuously offered default installations that necessitate following lengthy check-lists for a secure install. As a few other people pointed out - if you take away the 'digital rights management' it sounds a hell of a lot like 'trusted operating system.' Had they put in the patent that a user could tag their own data to be protected in this way, perhaps the patent office might have viewed the idea as being a little to familiar. Not having read more than the abstract, perhaps I'm jumping the gun, and missing something that makes this unique. But, as a network administrator I would be interested in a system that viewed appropriately classified organizational or personal information (think on the server) as more important than the machine user.
Does it strike anyone else as a bad thing that all of the root nameservers, and for that matter almost all important nameservers, run BIND? Ergo, a serious security bug can be used to take out all of the root nameservers.
Uhm... apparently, since they devoted 3 paragraphs in the article about it...
There is a conversation on the NTBugtraq mailing list (http://www.ntbugtraq.com) in the last few days about modifying the config file for URLScan. Apparently, there is a problem when using the default settings and a deny posture, that if someone make a request to http://www.insertthennameofyourwebsitehere.com/ , the program will consider / to be the file extension and not allow the connection. A couple of people have posted sample ini files that will fix this problem and apparently some others they found in testing.
Here's a question for the lawyers, or maybe someone at an ISP with a vested interest in the answer..
How do ISP's actions in combating worms, blocking their customers, filtering other people's customers, affect their status as a common carrier? My understanding is a lot of the protections for ISP's in say the Computer Decency Act (for instance protecting against liability for copyright infringement by customers) is based in ISP's status as a common carrier along the same lines as the phone company. If the ISP's start picking and choosing (even where it technologically make sense, I don't want my web servers attacked by this junk) does that jeopardize their status. Does the fact that the worms are attacking the computer, attempting to install back doors, etc., mitigate the impact of the actions?
OTOH what is the alternative? It seems today, it is important to process a lot of information quickly. I'm just not sure that I know what is important.
The alternative is to go outside and get some air. Breath a little. Most of the columnists in the Washington Post have been writing about how its to soon to do anything but mourn. My take is different. If this were a 'normal' week and something traumatic happened to you (friend/relative died) some other friend would try to take you out to dinner or a movie or something. It wouldn't feel right, but you'd go anyway. You might feel a little, if not better, relieved from the burden you've carried around. It'd give you some space to emotionally recover. Welp, for us American's, unless we invite all of Canada down or something, there's no one to do this act for us, but ourselves.
Sure, processing information quickly is necessary these days. But how much new information have we received of late? If it is true that we're in for a long-haul confrontation, then its particularly important for us to regroup a little bit, so we can make it through. As self-preservation.
From my military brat days, and living through other confrontations when I didn't know if people I loved and cared for were going to be alive or not at the end of the day, I can say that this wanting to *know*, to *understand* is normal (well, for people I know and who I've discussed this with in the past). I think calling it an addiction is an over simplification. During Vietnam, people were glued to the evening news. During the Libya thing and incidents prior to the Persian Gulf War, people who were directly affected couldn't get enough of what was coming out of CNN. We're at war, but as reservists are called up we might go to war. We don't know yet. And we want to know, crave to know, to understand, and to make sense. Most all of us have come to highly value information and data as a way to comprehend and make sense of our daily life, so maybe some of us just feel like if we hold out long enough someone will discover the key to make things feel normal again.
I think the way to feel relatively normal again is to turn off the TV, get some air, maybe exercise or do some of the things you usually do. It's not disrespectful to the dead or the rescue effort, and it probably won't completely take your mind off things. But, most of us would probably benefit from a break just to figure out how we do feel and what is important.
I loved legos. And I still like legos. My Mom has a box of our legos in the attic still, and I used to look at the sets in toy stores on a fairly regular basis. They lost me a while back with all the special models. Mostly in ways people have already mentioned. What really turned me off was looking for some freeform sets, I figured I'd pick some up on a whim. Not only was it hard to find just a bucket of bricks, but the one's I did find came in "boy" buckets, and "girl" buckets!! What's with that?
The idea tha there's a market for this is a bit much. Maybe more colors would expand the appeal, but I don't remember my sister and I ever not playing with them, because we wished we had a pink one. Fight over the last handful of reds or blue bricks, sure. There was a program on model trains in the last few years on either PBS or one of the learning type channels on cable. They mentioned that Lionel went through a phase where they thought they'd expand to girls by marketing pink trains. Here's a big surprise, girls didn't like otherwise completely realistic trains painted pink. Can we say pandering, girls, and boys?
Does anyone know if these 'boy' and 'girl' sets are popular? The special sets don't seem as fun to me. We had some space toys, and I liked them, we did a lot of space play, but I wanted to be an astronaut, so go figure. The castle's and pirate ships were coming out as we got older and weren't playing so much, they didn't seem so bad. These days legos look like model sets. If I wanted to build a model and set it on the shelf, I'd buy a conventional model kit.
But not completely right. The author says that the worm wasn't written with malicious intent. Not getting it right (taking down the whitehouse.gov site) doesn't negate the intent. If in the first worm, instead of being programmed to look for the IP, it had been programmed for the domain name, then the side step taken by renumbering the whitehouse.gov website wouldn't have worked. Then what would they do? Ride it is your only choice really. If you take down the site so it doesn't get DOS'ed, well then you denied yourself. *shrug*
On the other hand, you're right the lack of sensationalizing in the article was definitely a refreshing change.
It may not be the lesson you wanted to learn, but you did learn a lesson. The next time you're up for an opportunity like this, you'll have a lot of questions to ask that you wouldn't have without this experience. Remember, if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is. Also remember, job interviews involve the company selling themselves to you, as much as you to them. It's all about sales. Read the fine print. Caveat Umptor, and all of that.
What to do now? There's already a lot of good advice on this board, so I won't repeat. Some of it is going to bruise your ego. Let it sink in, come back to this board a week from now and see if some of it doesn't sound true, once you've had time to get used to the idea.
It may not seem like the greatest now, but getting in your grunt work period now, is an advantage. We all do it, it's just a matter of when and for how long.
Very few women I know really like the "liberation" and "empowerment" of work.
Few women may like to have to go to work, I imagine few men do either. But the liberation and empowerment of work aren't as false as you make them out to be. Going to work is having money, and while money isn't the end all and be all of life, it does give you options. Being able to go to work means a woman is not dependent on a man for her options - before children, while raising children, or after children.
Do I think marriage is something casual to be discarded at the first signs of trouble? No. But every situation is different and some are bad. I am a woman, and I do like the liberation and empowerment of being able to work if I choose or need to do so.
What is this "balancing" you speak of? From the posts I've read here, the priority is career first, then kids.
Heh. Fortunately, I don't take my world view from slashdot posts. You see a lot of people saying career first, then kids. I see a lot of people saying you're a bad parent if you don't stay home (and honestly a lot of people getting defensive about it).
We talk about career and kids like they're cut and dry choices. But they're not, never have been, never will be. It's just easier to act like they are. Should employers offer day care? Certainly not as some legislated sort of thing. Is it some afront against childless people or stay at home parents - it shouldn't be. Some people choose to work, some people have to work. If employers can attract and retain employees through a benefit program (why not combine daycare with some flex-time/part-time arrangements so people can do 'balancing' in a true sense)then why not
Employees using day care services can pay for it with lower salaries than single workers. Don't force me to subsidize your kids. Besides, if IT workers are so highly paid, then why isn't your spouse at home 24/7 with the kids? Can't afford that? Don't have time for that? Then why are you having kids?
I'll probably regret it, but I'll bite.
The prevailing assumptions here are that "techies" are male without children, or married males with children. Maybe that's the majority, but it's certainly not the rule. Not all parents are married, and it is ignorant to assume they are. Why, they could even be male and single and raising kids. Shocking, I know.
Corporations provide benefits to attract or keep workers. Supposedly, there is a shortage of technical workers. Having a benefit like childcare could attract an undertapped resource female workers, or attract single parents. It could even attract married mothers who might want to work part-time. If you don't want to pay for this benefit - and what, are they going to decrease your salary the day they start this program? - you could vote with your feet and get a job somewhere else.
There are obviously problems now in how we as society has adjusted to dual income families, to women balancing jobs and careers, raising families, and accepting the choices others have made. The problems manifest in the increased problems we see from children (though a lot of these so called problems are media hype) I think it will be a while until we figure out how to deal with these issues as a society. An important element is that these are societal issues. As members of society, it is ridiculous for those of us without children to think that we are absolved from working out these issues on the basis of our childlessness.
Personally, I think the cafeteria benefit plans, where you can pick and choose or trade benefits you like less, for benefits you like more; so that the package can be customized to the individual, are more of the way to go. Maybe it'd be worth it to a parent to forego a gym benefit in favor of applying that money to child care.
If you show up at the polls and don't check off a box, your ballot doesn't get counted. Technically, you didn't vote. But you did show up. Showing up is participating in the system. I think we ought to measure how many people participate and expand the ways to participate.
My pet theory is the anti-vote. Maybe I don't feel very good about Candidate X or Candidate Y, and I don't want to provide a mandate to either of them (because you know the day after the election they'll start talking about mandates of the people), but I do know that I despise candidate Y. So, I use my anti-vote and one vote is subtracted from Candidate Y's tally. Then if Candidate X wins, we can see how much of it is on the basis of people voting for Candidate X, because they like Candidate X, and how much of their tally was because people couldn't stand Candidate Y.
Alternatively, there could be an "I showed up box" which would let people indicate that they made a conscious decission not to pick either candidate. This would distinguish from those who go to the polls and only vote in specific races and might have skipped voting on say the County Clerk, because they didn't know who those people are, or didn't care.
I know Anaplexian's message was a joke, but I think developing on the basic idea and having modes you could configure would be an improvement on the product.
A lot of people have pointed out that they don't need someone to tell them when they're mad. I don't either. But, the author of the white paper says he's defining flame for the purpose of his work as: "designed to intimidate the interlocutor by withholding the expected courtesies of polite communication." So, having a work mode, vs. a talking to my buddies, vs. an I want to be king of alt.flames mode; would be a way to attempt to judge a message in a more context appropriate manner.
I think most of us know somebody who just does not take cultural/societal clues well. Maybe they don't read a situation very well; or they don't seperate work from personal situations; or they send messages at work that while you wouldn't sic the hr people on them raise an eyebrow or come across as unprofessional when you know they make efforts in other areas to be professional... Someone like this could probably benefit from a well constructed MoodWatch. (I haven't tried the program, only read the paper). I doubt you could rely on a MoodWatch type program any more than you can rely on a grammar check program to correct all your mistakes. Sometimes you disagree with the checker. Sometimes you know it's wrong (grammatically), but you want to send it anyway; sometimes the program says it's wrong (in particular in spell checks) and you know the word is correct. With MoodWatch, many of us will probably write something and if we have the feature turned on, we'll read back over and decide that's what we wanted to say, or hey maybe we should add on for the three chili version. But, there might also be instances where we don't want to come across in an offensive manner, and having something looking over our shoulder and saying "hey, did you really mean to say that," would be helpful.
Besides, no one's making you use it (yet, I know..), and getting the heuristics worked out is probably an interesting problem (maybe not for the majority of posters on this board, but..).
When you consider that the government is the focus of most hackers, this rating is really scary. A D- is completely unacceptable in the security world, and the fact that our government is so unsecure well the thought is very frightening to me.
This brings us right back to the question of - what is the scale? What standards are they auditing to? What can we compare this information to? Okay, the security probably pretty much sucks. With D-'s it obviously sucks to their standards. But, maybe their standards are higher than yours.
Do I think you shouldn't worry? Nope, not saying that. It's enough that it's bad by their standards. But, I don't think the article is incredibly informative either.
Slashdot Mirror
Have you been following the litigation against Secretary Norton, Department of the Interior, in regards to the Indian Trust Fund? In December, the whole thing was taken off the Internet. Not the same as what you're describing, but a taste of it. No web, no e-mail, no fax-server, etc. Because the judge found their security to be so attrocious that they couldn't be protecting the trust fund from hackers. I don't see that happening here, but it is interesting to see if this will catch on as a precedence.
After getting a taste of the DoI off line though, I'm sure the government will be even less willing to self-inflict that pain, no matter what MS chooses to reveal to us.
You go to college, where people are likely to be teaching theories and ideas, versus practical implementation, which by implication you have. Other people, who do not have the same background as you do, earn better grades. Because they do not approach computers the same way you do, their accomplishments in the course are useless.
Right. There are so many possibilities for why these people "get" better grades than you do. Maybe they have an advantage by approaching the class with a clean state, so that they don't have to unlearn past behaviors or ideas. Maybe they don't yet know that activities like commenting your code are hateful, boring tasks, so they actually do them as instructed. Indication of future value in the work force? No. But, personally, I'll take it as an indication that the 'one true way' appraoch is ever so tired. That probably makes me a troll around here, but if I get a big splintery club, that's cool.
(I'm going to assume on day two if you don't want to see spoilers you're not reading stuff like this)
I think this would be one of the first clues of the satirical nature of the peice. In the beginning the author desposes of the novelisations and comic books because he thinks they are attempts at "cleaning up philosophical messes," etc. I suspect that he feels similarly about the first two fo these three movies. That the two movies have not made a compelling case for why over throwing the old government was such a bad thing. AOTC is clumsy in spots, as was Phantom. Why do I care that Anakin is hovering on the precipice. I have to use my knowledge of Jedi to assume there's anything but jerk burried deep away (yes, I did notice the many ways he was manipulated). And, in the same vein, what does Amadala, a supposedly intelligent person see in him? Why are they together? The best I can come up with is that perhaps he's the only person that treats her like a person instead of queen/senator all the time.
Or maybe he is attempting to be topical, which still puts the peice firmly in the camp of satire. There seems to be a great willingness these days amongst people in general to hand over more and more powers to the government to be safe. And, hey, look at the results! The good thing about AOTC (I'm going to assume on day two if you don't want to see spoilers you're not reading stuff like this) is that there is an attempt of a gradual slide down the slippery path (well, gradual for a movie anyway).
Why are there personal ads for Yoda??? Why. Why. Why. Here I was all worried about the Dawson's Creekishness of the preview... recovering from that based on what people have said of the second. And, now I learn they're marketing this thing with cheesy personal ad posters from Yoda. What the hell is that?
I was shocked and numbed (okay, I got over it). But sheesh... What on earth. Damaging... you want damaging? Make chessy posters of Yoda personal ads. That's damaging.
Over reacting? Probably. But what the hell??
1. The fact, if it is a fact, that reliability is in fact an issue that should be reckoned with
2. Criteria that clearly show the strengths and weaknesses of the alternatives that exist
3. The fact, if it is a fact, that it is possible to create a body that, based on objective criteria, can act as an authority that sets the standard for safety of ship's computer systems.
In reply:
1. For reliability, on cursory examination, I would suggest looking at the methods that new technology has replaced. Was it important for the previous method to be reliable? To what degree? Then presumably the new method needs to be as reliable.
2. Now we're back to how to set up a criteria creation body, which I think has been less addressed in the responses. I mentioned SANS in my early posting, why not contact these people, and people in similar industries (the person who mentioned they were in the railroad industry for example) and find how they did it, who the major players were, and talk to them.
3. I'll take a pass on this one.
Have you looked at any of the work done by SANS (http://www.sans.org) or NIST (which is not necessarily what you're looking for, but in the area of providing guidance, http://www.nist.gov)?
SANS has been publishing a series of "consensus" documents, asking for feedback from people on topics such as securing Windows and Unix versions. They've also put together a working group (pay to join).
If you have looked at these sources, I would be interested to hear how they do or do not fit in to what the author of the original question is looking for.
Okay, this is a me too posting that will likely never be read, but for what it's worth I'd look in the bin once in a while, and it'd be nice to have the option.
There are a handful of threads bashing on the film, because of the inclusion of this person and because the issues wasn't handled. I'm not saying you're doing that. I will use your post as an opportunity to say what has been growing in my mind as I consider those posts. The character is one of the ones that stands out more. But, he isn't really made a hero. No one really is made in to a loveable, hugable, take home hero (the guys that go down to protect the second helicopter are very heroic, but you don't get to know them in that Hollywood hero way). The movie really is about one days action. That individual is not made into a saint in the movie. I imagine he is included in some ways to give the audience a person to relate to as the movie enters the battle scene. Most of us in the audience are green to battle, and that character who leads his platoon in, is also green. He was there, and a part of the history presented.
There are a *lot* of loose ends in this movie. And, so many people it's hard to keep track of them all. I haven't read the book, maybe someone else could have been hilighted instead. But the role that was thrust on this person that day, 'you're in command, by the way we're going to battle' is likely different from others, and you probably feel his 'greenness' in a way you don't see with other people (well, there is one newbie who is definitely very gungho and green, but you get this in another way). Also, having the new guy in charge of his unit is a nice foil to give contrast to the Delta troops who apparently tended to be older and more experienced. Most of these guys aren't heroes in the story book way, and I venture to guess that if you asked most the guys there they wouldn't say they were a hero. I think that's what you (okay, I) take back from this movie. A giant feel of 'what is it like to be there.'
All of these anti-American, leftist look weren't they evil to be there posts, miss some of the point of the movie. If anything, there are some ways in which the movie reinforces their apparent isolationist bents. Is it worth it?? You see these people who could be the kid next door, and they have families, and is it worth it to send them in to possibly die on any day they do a dangerous job? Is the oil worth it? Is the moral issues worth it? It doesn't really matter what the issues are, can you look these guys in the face and tell them that it is worth their putting their asses on the line. Because while it's obvious there were some big problems with what we were doing in Somalia (unclear mission, etc.), and while in general we've been pretty fortunate in recent history (pardon me while I roll my eyes for a moment at the Drone War comment in the review).. anyway, while in general we've been pretty fortunate, things can and sometimes will go bad. And people will die. And some of them will be good people, and some of them you won't want living next door to you. But, as a people we're asking them to do things most of us wouldn't want to do. And, they go do it.
I don't see this movie as pro-war, anti-war, anti-American, or pro-American. I see it as "this is how it is." And, maybe the next time we're feeling interventionist or expansionist, or whatever; we'll think about this, and remember what we think it's like to be down there (unless we have the experience to know), and why we need to understand our enemy and understand what we want to do, why, and plan mission objectives and resources accordingly.
What movie did you watch? How about the soldier, who falls into a door, and they are shooting at the door into the room. There is a woman and her children. The soldier sneaks out the back door. There is a man there and a child, it becomes obvious it is the child's father. That man is shot, by the American soldier. He appears to be guarding the door. We don't really know. He's standing by the door with a boy that to me seemed older than the other children. There were shots, but I wasn't sure who fired them, and then the soldier killed that man. My impression, since the facts aren't laid out for us, was that this man was the father of that family, and he was trying to protect his families house.
Who in the hell *doesn't* know how it ends?
I was thinking that also, until I gave the dates another thought. '93 is nearly 10 years ago, so probably most teenagers have either no or very dim recollections of the events. Throw in the uninformed, or those who didn't pay that much attention, who I suppose may have forgotten..
I don't understand the no character development complaints. The events in the movie pretty much happen over the course of one day. How many life changing revelations are you going to have in one day? Okay, that's probably a day when quite a few people gained some personal insights, but is it really going to sink in before the fatigue wears off? Would we not be collectively gagging if one soldier had turned to another and exclaimed "I just had a personal revelation!" and then went on to elaborate upon it. As for the hair, I'm sure there would have been a zillion lack of realism complaints if they didn't have their hair cut in standard military cut.
You do get bits and peices, enough to identify a little bit with somebody, or have them remind you of something you know about somebody. The idealist, or the enthusiastic new kid, etc. That they all get lumped together in the chaos was part of the effect, I believe. And yet, there were things you saw that you remember - the femoral artery, the guy blown in half, picking up that guys hand, you have to tell me when to turn before I get to the corner, the kid that went deaf. I can only imagine, but I suspect that had I been there I'd see a lot of things that I wouldn't know who it was or what they were part of... I thought it added to the whole 'what it was like to be there.'
Welp, at least you saw the movie, it seems like a lot of people on here opining on the film haven't seen it.
I won't support *any* operating system that treats the data as having more important concerns than the machine's operator (me).
Understood. Looking at it from a different angle, it is interesting that MS can put money into this, so that as a consumer I'm forced to pay to protect somebody else's data, but they don't provide the same the same option for me to protect my own data. We're continuously offered default installations that necessitate following lengthy check-lists for a secure install. As a few other people pointed out - if you take away the 'digital rights management' it sounds a hell of a lot like 'trusted operating system.' Had they put in the patent that a user could tag their own data to be protected in this way, perhaps the patent office might have viewed the idea as being a little to familiar. Not having read more than the abstract, perhaps I'm jumping the gun, and missing something that makes this unique. But, as a network administrator I would be interested in a system that viewed appropriately classified organizational or personal information (think on the server) as more important than the machine user.
Does it strike anyone else as a bad thing that all of the root nameservers, and for that matter almost all important nameservers, run BIND? Ergo, a serious security bug can be used to take out all of the root nameservers.
Uhm... apparently, since they devoted 3 paragraphs in the article about it...
There is a conversation on the NTBugtraq mailing list (http://www.ntbugtraq.com) in the last few days about modifying the config file for URLScan. Apparently, there is a problem when using the default settings and a deny posture, that if someone make a request to http://www.insertthennameofyourwebsitehere.com/ , the program will consider / to be the file extension and not allow the connection. A couple of people have posted sample ini files that will fix this problem and apparently some others they found in testing.
Here's a question for the lawyers, or maybe someone at an ISP with a vested interest in the answer..
How do ISP's actions in combating worms, blocking their customers, filtering other people's customers, affect their status as a common carrier? My understanding is a lot of the protections for ISP's in say the Computer Decency Act (for instance protecting against liability for copyright infringement by customers) is based in ISP's status as a common carrier along the same lines as the phone company. If the ISP's start picking and choosing (even where it technologically make sense, I don't want my web servers attacked by this junk) does that jeopardize their status. Does the fact that the worms are attacking the computer, attempting to install back doors, etc., mitigate the impact of the actions?
OTOH what is the alternative? It seems today, it is important to process a lot of information quickly. I'm just not sure that I know what is important.
The alternative is to go outside and get some air. Breath a little. Most of the columnists in the Washington Post have been writing about how its to soon to do anything but mourn. My take is different. If this were a 'normal' week and something traumatic happened to you (friend/relative died) some other friend would try to take you out to dinner or a movie or something. It wouldn't feel right, but you'd go anyway. You might feel a little, if not better, relieved from the burden you've carried around. It'd give you some space to emotionally recover. Welp, for us American's, unless we invite all of Canada down or something, there's no one to do this act for us, but ourselves.
Sure, processing information quickly is necessary these days. But how much new information have we received of late? If it is true that we're in for a long-haul confrontation, then its particularly important for us to regroup a little bit, so we can make it through. As self-preservation.
From my military brat days, and living through other confrontations when I didn't know if people I loved and cared for were going to be alive or not at the end of the day, I can say that this wanting to *know*, to *understand* is normal (well, for people I know and who I've discussed this with in the past). I think calling it an addiction is an over simplification. During Vietnam, people were glued to the evening news. During the Libya thing and incidents prior to the Persian Gulf War, people who were directly affected couldn't get enough of what was coming out of CNN. We're at war, but as reservists are called up we might go to war. We don't know yet. And we want to know, crave to know, to understand, and to make sense. Most all of us have come to highly value information and data as a way to comprehend and make sense of our daily life, so maybe some of us just feel like if we hold out long enough someone will discover the key to make things feel normal again.
I think the way to feel relatively normal again is to turn off the TV, get some air, maybe exercise or do some of the things you usually do. It's not disrespectful to the dead or the rescue effort, and it probably won't completely take your mind off things. But, most of us would probably benefit from a break just to figure out how we do feel and what is important.
The idea tha there's a market for this is a bit much. Maybe more colors would expand the appeal, but I don't remember my sister and I ever not playing with them, because we wished we had a pink one. Fight over the last handful of reds or blue bricks, sure. There was a program on model trains in the last few years on either PBS or one of the learning type channels on cable. They mentioned that Lionel went through a phase where they thought they'd expand to girls by marketing pink trains. Here's a big surprise, girls didn't like otherwise completely realistic trains painted pink. Can we say pandering, girls, and boys?
Does anyone know if these 'boy' and 'girl' sets are popular? The special sets don't seem as fun to me. We had some space toys, and I liked them, we did a lot of space play, but I wanted to be an astronaut, so go figure. The castle's and pirate ships were coming out as we got older and weren't playing so much, they didn't seem so bad. These days legos look like model sets. If I wanted to build a model and set it on the shelf, I'd buy a conventional model kit.
On the other hand, you're right the lack of sensationalizing in the article was definitely a refreshing change.
What to do now? There's already a lot of good advice on this board, so I won't repeat. Some of it is going to bruise your ego. Let it sink in, come back to this board a week from now and see if some of it doesn't sound true, once you've had time to get used to the idea.
It may not seem like the greatest now, but getting in your grunt work period now, is an advantage. We all do it, it's just a matter of when and for how long.
Few women may like to have to go to work, I imagine few men do either. But the liberation and empowerment of work aren't as false as you make them out to be. Going to work is having money, and while money isn't the end all and be all of life, it does give you options. Being able to go to work means a woman is not dependent on a man for her options - before children, while raising children, or after children.
Do I think marriage is something casual to be discarded at the first signs of trouble? No. But every situation is different and some are bad. I am a woman, and I do like the liberation and empowerment of being able to work if I choose or need to do so.
Heh. Fortunately, I don't take my world view from slashdot posts. You see a lot of people saying career first, then kids. I see a lot of people saying you're a bad parent if you don't stay home (and honestly a lot of people getting defensive about it).
We talk about career and kids like they're cut and dry choices. But they're not, never have been, never will be. It's just easier to act like they are. Should employers offer day care? Certainly not as some legislated sort of thing. Is it some afront against childless people or stay at home parents - it shouldn't be. Some people choose to work, some people have to work. If employers can attract and retain employees through a benefit program (why not combine daycare with some flex-time/part-time arrangements so people can do 'balancing' in a true sense)then why not
I'll probably regret it, but I'll bite.
The prevailing assumptions here are that "techies" are male without children, or married males with children. Maybe that's the majority, but it's certainly not the rule. Not all parents are married, and it is ignorant to assume they are. Why, they could even be male and single and raising kids. Shocking, I know.
Corporations provide benefits to attract or keep workers. Supposedly, there is a shortage of technical workers. Having a benefit like childcare could attract an undertapped resource female workers, or attract single parents. It could even attract married mothers who might want to work part-time. If you don't want to pay for this benefit - and what, are they going to decrease your salary the day they start this program? - you could vote with your feet and get a job somewhere else.
There are obviously problems now in how we as society has adjusted to dual income families, to women balancing jobs and careers, raising families, and accepting the choices others have made. The problems manifest in the increased problems we see from children (though a lot of these so called problems are media hype) I think it will be a while until we figure out how to deal with these issues as a society. An important element is that these are societal issues. As members of society, it is ridiculous for those of us without children to think that we are absolved from working out these issues on the basis of our childlessness.
Personally, I think the cafeteria benefit plans, where you can pick and choose or trade benefits you like less, for benefits you like more; so that the package can be customized to the individual, are more of the way to go. Maybe it'd be worth it to a parent to forego a gym benefit in favor of applying that money to child care.
My pet theory is the anti-vote. Maybe I don't feel very good about Candidate X or Candidate Y, and I don't want to provide a mandate to either of them (because you know the day after the election they'll start talking about mandates of the people), but I do know that I despise candidate Y. So, I use my anti-vote and one vote is subtracted from Candidate Y's tally. Then if Candidate X wins, we can see how much of it is on the basis of people voting for Candidate X, because they like Candidate X, and how much of their tally was because people couldn't stand Candidate Y. Alternatively, there could be an "I showed up box" which would let people indicate that they made a conscious decission not to pick either candidate. This would distinguish from those who go to the polls and only vote in specific races and might have skipped voting on say the County Clerk, because they didn't know who those people are, or didn't care.
A lot of people have pointed out that they don't need someone to tell them when they're mad. I don't either. But, the author of the white paper says he's defining flame for the purpose of his work as: "designed to intimidate the interlocutor by withholding the expected courtesies of polite communication." So, having a work mode, vs. a talking to my buddies, vs. an I want to be king of alt.flames mode; would be a way to attempt to judge a message in a more context appropriate manner.
I think most of us know somebody who just does not take cultural/societal clues well. Maybe they don't read a situation very well; or they don't seperate work from personal situations; or they send messages at work that while you wouldn't sic the hr people on them raise an eyebrow or come across as unprofessional when you know they make efforts in other areas to be professional... Someone like this could probably benefit from a well constructed MoodWatch. (I haven't tried the program, only read the paper). I doubt you could rely on a MoodWatch type program any more than you can rely on a grammar check program to correct all your mistakes. Sometimes you disagree with the checker. Sometimes you know it's wrong (grammatically), but you want to send it anyway; sometimes the program says it's wrong (in particular in spell checks) and you know the word is correct. With MoodWatch, many of us will probably write something and if we have the feature turned on, we'll read back over and decide that's what we wanted to say, or hey maybe we should add on for the three chili version. But, there might also be instances where we don't want to come across in an offensive manner, and having something looking over our shoulder and saying "hey, did you really mean to say that," would be helpful.
Besides, no one's making you use it (yet, I know..), and getting the heuristics worked out is probably an interesting problem (maybe not for the majority of posters on this board, but..).
This brings us right back to the question of - what is the scale? What standards are they auditing to? What can we compare this information to? Okay, the security probably pretty much sucks. With D-'s it obviously sucks to their standards. But, maybe their standards are higher than yours.
Do I think you shouldn't worry? Nope, not saying that. It's enough that it's bad by their standards. But, I don't think the article is incredibly informative either.