1. I'm not a programmer - do some of your own legwork, read the Wikipedia page on Buffer overrun exploits or just fucking Google it. 2. I'm not so sure about "older stuff works and needs few patches" - exploits have been found in "older, working stuff". I recall a problem with BSD FTP that affected pretty much every Unix version going back 10+ years. And, i think at least one exploit with image-handling was found when the source for Win2K was released into the wild.
It seems that all exploits that I've read about over the last decade all boil down to the same flaws - buffer overflows, invalid pointers, format strings, etc. Yet, developers persist in using the same old programming languages & libraries that are rife with weaknesses. Why haven't they changed to something better? From what I can see, better tools have been available for a long time and, quite frankly, the old "we've always done things this way and it would be too expensive to change" is real crap. What about the cost of NOT changing? Is that irrelevant because the cost ( and consequences ) are the burden of the end-user, not the vendor?
Good, fast, cheap - pick any three. From what my Japanese and Korean friends tell me, they have it all when it comes to Internet access.
And, that "last mile" that you disparage? They have Hi-Def TV over their Net Connection. I would need to sell my soul to my local Cable provider to get that.
A better last mile empowers the end-user and makes it possible for more services to be delivered - especially if the last mile is treated as common infrastructure and not owned by a provider.
So, according to this article, the US, the lone superpower now has at least 7 cities that have surpassed the average Japanese or South Korean village in broadband speed.
You won't find the Devil hiding under rocks - he prefers comfort ( which is akin to laziness aka Sloth - one of the seven deadly sins). And if you want to find evil - look no further than the list of the filthy rich. As is written in the Holy Book, "the love of money is the root of all evil" and "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God"
Somehow, for all their fundamentalism, these simple facts escape so many of those pious souls that hawk Heaven, name-drop Christ and confound the masses.
As someone who lived in Quebec from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, I can tell you that the only was to prevent a car from rusting out in regular winter driving would be to do weekly salt / rust removal or multiple oil sprays on the entire undercarriage. A friend of mine who moved to Vancouver found that, in terms of body rust, 10 year old cars in BC were in better shape than 5 year old ones in QC.
Not enough room for a 1.8 inch card? Too bad - of course that would mean a design change to include a SATA controller but is that really a problem nowadays? I didn't notice the SD card spec when I first saw this last year - how's the performance? All SD cards I've used are frightfully slow. I was thinking about having a netbook with something like the Kingston 40GB SSDnow ( a cut-down Intel X-25M G2) which is $100.
Thanks. I stumbled onto this last year and forgot to bookmark it. It's certainly attractive but the SD card only option is a downer - why not an SSD? Also, they're being quite coy about the amount of installed RAM - which isn't upgradeable.
OMNI had the coolest illustrators of the day - about the only one of my longstanding favorites that I don't recall ever seeing in the mag was Frank Frazetta.
There are several hour-long talks on the history and potential of Thorium as a nuclear fuel. Very interesting stuff. I've long been opposed to relying on nuclear power but after looking at the info on Thorium, I'm starting to have second thoughts. Whether or not it pans out, I'm afraid that nothing short of a catastrophe of some kind will lead to its adoption. It's very hard to unseat the entrenched industries, especially in North America, so coal and uranium won't suddenly disappear.
You might be the one who's surprised - there are ( at least as recently as 7 years ago ) ways to trigger BIOS errors that would show in the original font / size of the IBM PC BIOS. That grandfathered set of code is buried deep but remnants of it are still lurking - it's most likely to be found in systems that still have ISA support.
If you care to nominate HP, I'll second the motion. We've come to despise them for both their services and their products. And, they have a couple of account managers who can only be described as oily. Unfortunately, they're assigned to our account and we can't seem to get rid of them.
And I've never heard the word "can't" used so often by techheads - considering that Hewlett and Packard essentially founded the original garage startup. They must both be rolling in their graves.
Profitable depends on how you do the accounting. From my perspective, a lot of how "profit" is calculated leaves a lot out of the equation.
Your Congress does a lot of screaming - so do babies but no matter how much they bitch and moan, they have to learn to get off the tit and grow the fuck up.
I think you're undermining your own point by bringing slavery and Chinese labourers into the arugment - wasn't America a democracy during those times? What that implies is that a democracy isn't any good at getting shit done. Also, China's "money to burn" didn't fall from the sky; we, in the Western nations, PAID them to help us fuck ourselves over while letting them get away with gaming the trade balance and currency in their favour.
And, your post makes it clear that Totalitarianism does get stuff done - but there is a point that's missing. China is more than just totalitarian; it's oppressive. A benevolent regime could dramatically change a nation in a short time; unfortunately, it does seem that power invariably corrupts. And why does a rail system have to be built all at once across the US? It just needs a few players to get the ball rolling; you got the Interstate Highway system built, didn't you? How long did that take? Hell, you've got Amtrak - start by upgrading the most heavily traveled routes. Look every approach to a big problem has drawbacks but at some point, someone has to put spades in the ground and get the ball rolling.
Also, improved infrastructure has a way of creating unforeseen opportunities. Look at the Internet? I doubt even visionaries like Cerf, Negroponte or Berners-Lee foresaw the Web as it is today and the initial implementations were flawed but someone got the ball rolling and made what we have today possible. A country of your size, with the kinds of resources and an adequate but not overburdened population shouldn't have anything to fear but somehow, somewhen the American mindset got locked into a narrow channel and it's led to a decline and it doesn't seem like enough people are willing to change soon enough to avert a catastrophe on several fronts. Recall that one of the definitions of madness is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.
I was around and online long before that. Yes, the winmodem was a lousy idea but they were cheap (most were "free" since they were included with the PC) and some worked okay if your PC had enough horsepower. Even a laptop user could get an affordable hardware modem on a PC-Card. I don't recall too many winmodems on laptops - mine always were equipped with real modems. It did suck for Linux users but some enterprising coders did manage to whip up usable drivers for a number of models - if you were savvy and patient. But I'll know that I'm in Hell when I start hearing that the Mwave is making a comeback.
BULLSHIT. Other western countries who have long had a greater environmental conscience that America have high-speed rail as well and have had it for decades. China simply has the newest and they got it done quickly - an advantage of their government, their hard-earned economic prowess and their large labor force.
But, the US ( and Canada) has had DECADES, dating back to when they were the cat's ass of civilization, to get better rail transport in place and it's never lead anywhere. The decision has always come down to more transport by gascan whether on 4 wheels or by 4 engines.
Americans used to value hard work for an honest day's pay. And you have millions who don't work at all. I agree that China's authoritarian government and a large population has its advantages but it also has downsides, which the US doesn't have.
It's time for Americans to stop bitching and whining - stand up, think for yourselves and tape your assholes shut so the moneyed interests can stop blowing smoke up them.
It's not too late to reverse the slide of the American Dream - but the clock is ticking and time is fast running out.
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1. I'm not a programmer - do some of your own legwork, read the Wikipedia page on Buffer overrun exploits or just fucking Google it.
2. I'm not so sure about "older stuff works and needs few patches" - exploits have been found in "older, working stuff". I recall a problem with BSD FTP that affected pretty much every Unix version going back 10+ years.
And, i think at least one exploit with image-handling was found when the source for Win2K was released into the wild.
It seems that all exploits that I've read about over the last decade all boil down to the same flaws - buffer overflows, invalid pointers, format strings, etc.
Yet, developers persist in using the same old programming languages & libraries that are rife with weaknesses.
Why haven't they changed to something better? From what I can see, better tools have been available for a long time and, quite frankly,
the old "we've always done things this way and it would be too expensive to change" is real crap.
What about the cost of NOT changing? Is that irrelevant because the cost ( and consequences ) are the burden of the end-user, not the vendor?
Isn't it past time that things changed?
Good, fast, cheap - pick any three. From what my Japanese and Korean friends tell me, they have it all when it comes to Internet access.
And, that "last mile" that you disparage? They have Hi-Def TV over their Net Connection. I would need to sell my soul to my local Cable provider to get that.
A better last mile empowers the end-user and makes it possible for more services to be delivered - especially if the last mile is treated as common infrastructure and not owned by
a provider.
If by penises you mean infrastructure, then, yes, I would say they are quite well-endowed.
It's not just telecom - both countries have long, stiff railway cocks as well.
Kid, keep up the good work, and move to a school with smarter officials.
So, according to this article, the US, the lone superpower now has at least 7 cities that have surpassed
the average Japanese or South Korean village in broadband speed.
Pour me some champagne.
You won't find the Devil hiding under rocks - he prefers comfort ( which is akin to laziness aka Sloth - one of the seven deadly sins).
And if you want to find evil - look no further than the list of the filthy rich.
As is written in the Holy Book, "the love of money is the root of all evil" and
"it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God"
Somehow, for all their fundamentalism, these simple facts escape so many of those pious souls that hawk Heaven, name-drop Christ
and confound the masses.
So, when will M$ produce their version of Dance, Dance, Revolution? Bet you'll be the chief avatar.
As someone who lived in Quebec from the mid-70s to the mid-90s, I can tell you that the only was to prevent
a car from rusting out in regular winter driving would be to do weekly salt / rust removal or multiple oil sprays on the entire undercarriage.
A friend of mine who moved to Vancouver found that, in terms of body rust, 10 year old cars in BC were in better shape
than 5 year old ones in QC.
I stand corrected
So what happens if you have a conductor MOVING through a static magnetic field? Will that induce an electric current?
Says who? Boner = Woody ( = means equals, you programming language nazis)
Not enough room for a 1.8 inch card? Too bad - of course that would mean a design change to include a SATA controller but is that really a problem nowadays?
I didn't notice the SD card spec when I first saw this last year - how's the performance? All SD cards I've used are frightfully slow. I was thinking
about having a netbook with something like the Kingston 40GB SSDnow ( a cut-down Intel X-25M G2) which is $100.
Thanks. I stumbled onto this last year and forgot to bookmark it. It's certainly attractive but the SD card only option is
a downer - why not an SSD? Also, they're being quite coy about the amount of installed RAM - which isn't upgradeable.
I think there were ads in Penthouse or other mags announcing Nova but the name was changed to OMNI before the first issue went to print.
OMNI had the coolest illustrators of the day - about the only one of my longstanding favorites that I don't recall ever seeing
in the mag was Frank Frazetta.
There are several hour-long talks on the history and potential of Thorium as a nuclear fuel. Very interesting stuff.
I've long been opposed to relying on nuclear power but after looking at the info on Thorium, I'm starting to have
second thoughts.
Whether or not it pans out, I'm afraid that nothing short of a catastrophe of some kind will lead to its adoption.
It's very hard to unseat the entrenched industries, especially in North America, so coal and uranium won't
suddenly disappear.
You might be the one who's surprised - there are ( at least as recently as 7 years ago ) ways to trigger BIOS errors that
would show in the original font / size of the IBM PC BIOS.
That grandfathered set of code is buried deep but remnants of it are still lurking - it's most likely to be found in
systems that still have ISA support.
If you care to nominate HP, I'll second the motion. We've come to despise them for both their services and
their products. And, they have a couple of account managers who can only be described as oily. Unfortunately,
they're assigned to our account and we can't seem to get rid of them.
And I've never heard the word "can't" used so often by techheads - considering that Hewlett and Packard essentially
founded the original garage startup. They must both be rolling in their graves.
Bravo on the double karma - I hope it was unintentional.
Profitable depends on how you do the accounting.
From my perspective, a lot of how "profit" is calculated leaves a lot out of the equation.
Your Congress does a lot of screaming - so do babies but no matter how much they bitch and moan, they have to learn to get off the tit and grow the fuck up.
I think you're undermining your own point by bringing slavery and Chinese labourers into the arugment - wasn't America a democracy during those times? What that implies is that a democracy isn't any good at getting shit done.
Also, China's "money to burn" didn't fall from the sky; we, in the Western nations, PAID them to help us fuck ourselves over while letting them get away with gaming the trade balance and currency in their favour.
And, your post makes it clear that Totalitarianism does get stuff done - but there is a point that's missing. China is more than just totalitarian; it's oppressive. A benevolent regime could dramatically change a nation in a short time; unfortunately, it does seem that power invariably corrupts.
And why does a rail system have to be built all at once across the US? It just needs a few players to get the ball rolling; you got the Interstate Highway system built, didn't you?
How long did that take? Hell, you've got Amtrak - start by upgrading the most heavily traveled routes.
Look every approach to a big problem has drawbacks but at some point, someone has to put spades in the ground and get the ball rolling.
Also, improved infrastructure has a way of creating unforeseen opportunities. Look at the Internet? I doubt even visionaries like Cerf, Negroponte or Berners-Lee foresaw the Web as it is today and the initial implementations were flawed but someone got the ball rolling and made what we have today possible.
A country of your size, with the kinds of resources and an adequate but not overburdened population shouldn't have anything to fear but somehow, somewhen the American mindset got locked into a narrow channel and it's led to a decline and it doesn't seem like enough people are willing to change soon enough to avert a catastrophe on several fronts.
Recall that one of the definitions of madness is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result.
I was around and online long before that. Yes, the winmodem was a lousy idea but they were cheap (most were "free" since they were included with the PC) and some worked okay if your PC had enough horsepower.
Even a laptop user could get an affordable hardware modem on a PC-Card. I don't recall too many winmodems on laptops - mine always were equipped with real modems.
It did suck for Linux users but some enterprising coders did manage to whip up usable drivers for a number of models - if you were savvy and patient.
But I'll know that I'm in Hell when I start hearing that the Mwave is making a comeback.
BULLSHIT. Other western countries who have long had a greater environmental conscience that America have
high-speed rail as well and have had it for decades. China simply has the newest and they got it done quickly - an advantage
of their government, their hard-earned economic prowess and their large labor force.
But, the US ( and Canada) has had DECADES, dating back to when they were the cat's ass of civilization, to get better
rail transport in place and it's never lead anywhere. The decision has always come down to more transport by gascan
whether on 4 wheels or by 4 engines.
Americans used to value hard work for an honest day's pay. And you have millions who don't work at all.
I agree that China's authoritarian government and a large population has its advantages but it also has
downsides, which the US doesn't have.
It's time for Americans to stop bitching and whining - stand up, think for yourselves and tape your assholes
shut so the moneyed interests can stop blowing smoke up them.
It's not too late to reverse the slide of the American Dream - but the clock is ticking and time is fast running out.
A yellowish shade of red