Minor nickpick... there is no one virus that causes the common cold (but your claim still holds true for the class of viruses that cause the symptoms of a "common cold").
But other than that, this post was insightful, interesting, funny and underrated.
On the otherhand in china it appears there is a fertile breeding area when humans are not aggressively hunting bugs. this would be a good breeding ground for a simple bug to evolve to somthing actually AI quality.
Are you forgetting that an human being will have to be responsible for developing the AI for the virus? Today we can't even begin to understand the concepts behind self mutating computer viruses, and we many never fully understand the concepts.
And I, for one, and happy. I fear the the day that mankind releases upon the world code that has the capacity to mutate and change under certain circumstances. No good can come of that.
That would be great, but mental ability wouldn't matter for shit in that situation. Most/.ers would be killed and eaten in the first week.
So we would have a population of idiots who are in great shape. Hell, if I wanted to see that, I would go to the gym more often.
PS: Before you flame me, this goes for me, too. My 6'2, 275 lb frame can't even outrun the ice cream truck, let alone some alien beast that wants to eat me.
But worst of all, the software that decodes it REQUIRES the.NET framework to run -- so much for Linux!
Well geez. It seems to me that USB is a standard, and unless Logitech encrypted the data they are sending across the line, it should be an easy thing to use USB Snoopy (http://home.jps.net/~koma/) to read the packets and determine how the bytes work.
It shouldn't matter if they used.NET or GWBASIC to write the driver, because the driver for Linux would have to be different anyway.
I can't believe you actually got modded up for that.
So you want the government to have the freedom to create taxpayer funded programs and give them to the president's favorite software company for sale at a $1000 a pop? There is nothing stopping them from doing that right now.
Legislation is designed to protect the rights of the citizens. I understand that not all legislation reaches that lofty ideal (hell, half of all legislation doesn't fit the bill). But in this case, it does indeed protect our rights. Its either that or trying to get a thousand government agencies to promise that they will implement a public domain software policy. Which do you prefer?
Ok, so this guy is barking up the wrong tree, because many of these companies don't have to pay a cent in taxes, but his reasoning is still sound.
A BSD-like license is a better license for governmental projects, because it does give everybody the same rights to the code which was developed with public funds.
The GPL on the other hand makes certain restrictions which would be difficult for both the governmental entity and all redistributors to follow.
Say for example, that a government entity contracts a piece of software for counting ducks. And they provide it to all of the state entities for their fish and game departments to use in developing their own duck counting system. In turn, the states take the duck counting code, modify it for their own uses, and provide the binaries for the various agencies and private groups within the state that cares about duck populations. You now have the original code that the government provided, and you have 50 different versions of the code from the states. What are the odds that somewhere down the line, one of those states will forget (or be unwilling) to publish the code, or unintentially break one of the other provisions of the GPL?
With a BSD like license, this isn't a problem. The government can provide the code to the states, and they can modify the code to their choosing, but are under no obligations regarding the code.
In both cases, the goal of distributing government contracted code is fullfiled, but only the BSD provides a way for all citizens to be able to use the code without restrictions.
If I am have legal right to use an IP number for my own legal purposes, does a third party have a right to track that IP number and use the information gathered without my permission?
Also
Does an unspoken contract exist between search services and webmasters that allow a search engine to legally build it's business using the content of webmasters without express permission?
Pot, kettle, etc, etc... Its funny that the top link here is my site, and I sure don't recall giving permission to him to use it. I guess its all a matter of perspective.
/me fires off a message to the searchking himself.
Satellite based radio's would die and we'd see some nice shows on the sky when they fall out (just like the Iradium). This means Sirrus and XM. The cause for this would be better compression technologies and the recent opening of a spread spectrum by FCC that lets higher bandwith be sent over the airwaves. Stations would start to pump out studio (not cd as a/. story mentioned) quality audio out soon.
You obviously don't live in the boonies. In UtahWyomingColoradoEtc (they all look the same anyway), radio stations are few and far between. Unless the FCC is going to start allowing several million watt stations, satellite radio will be the only way we can pick up anything but static when we're on the road - not just music, but also news and sports stations - its really hard to follow a game when you are driving through this part of the country.
Beleive it - in Utah, where its painfully normal for early 20 somethings to have babies, they always bring them to theaters.
To paraphrase Chris Rock: you can either get your kid on, or your movie on, but not both. If you decide to spit out a kid at the age of 22, you pretty much give up your ability to do anything but sit and look at the walls for the next 6 years.
That's a funny crack at the US, but it's simply not true. The US holds more Nobel Prizes for sciences than any other country. The secondary school test scores could use some improvement, but University-level education is considered one of the highest in the world.
When you have 250 million people, you are bound to spit out a few intellegent deviants.
But have you been driving or grocery shopping lately? Have you seen the news? Do you ever wonder where News of the Wierd and the Darwin Awards get their material?
We *are* a nation of idiots. We've got some smart people here, but with so many carbon lifeforms bumping around this continent thats bound to happen.
if you bought a house in the last 2 years, you're going to look worse than this guy after the bubble bursts in the housing market.
houses arent that great of investments, and unless you are sure you are going to be in it for 5-10 years, you will get screwed.
and this housing market is as nuts as the 2000 stock market.
me, i'm a gunna wait until all those foreclosure sales start happening next spring.
Yeah, I know how you feel... I really hate investing in my net worth every month. I really hate how the interest rates are the lowest they have been in at least a decade. I really hate the five digit deduction I get on my Federal income tax. And I really hate the fact that even if I sell my house for exactly what I paid for it, I will still come out at least 15% ahead.
All these things really make me regret that I bought a "horrible investment".
Seriously, don't try to rationalize why you haven't bought a house. You sound like me 3 years ago before I was hit with the clue stick.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. These days, legal battles aren't about who's right, but who has more money to toss around. See the Nissan v. Nissan case.
It doesn't actually cost anything to stand up in front of a judge and argue (ie, you don't need to pay the balliff at the door). The legal costs are the complete domain of the lawyers. In the Nissan case, its all about the legal fees - the hours and hours of billable time that is racked up, especially when the other side has enough money to keep the writs and injunctions flowing. No amount of money should actually influence the judge (notice, I say should - and if it does influence the judge, I recommend public flogging as the appropriate punishment).
And especially in this situation, its about the law. Both parties have fought to the Supreme Court and they have presented their cases. Now it is up to the court to decide the facts of the law based on the constition - no amount of money can affect this decision. Thats the beauty of the American system.
Is Congress "paid" to enact laws. Of course. Do corporations and wealthy people use the court system to frustrate and befuddle others? Yep. Does the Supreme Court (or any other legitimiate court) care about the bank balances of who stands in front of them? They had better not.
I saw something unbelievable one time, true story. About 5 friends and I and an old girlfriend
Why should you destroy a perfectly believeable story about mysterious lights in the sky with a comment like that. Everybody knows that/.ers don't have girlfriends.
You missed the point - my failed sarcasm was to point out they have a responsibility to fix the bug anyway, but now they can get away with charging you for the fix.
Great troll. How many of those words did you learn this week in Operating Systems class?
dependency issues really only come into play from the distribution of binary-only packages, a la the.rpm or.deb.
Of course, unless you want to build a package that depends on another library. You still need the object code from the library, regardless if you link it in now (static) or later (shared). Alas, dependancy problems still exist for everyone.
So--if you can find a good remote-root linux exploit that's rather common, write your virus and compile it with no machine optimizations, ELF binary format, stripped, and static.
Machine optimizations? When was the last time you built a virus with MMX instructions? Seriously now. But definately make sure that your virus is stripped - nobody wants those pesky debug statements around.
use a smaller library, like uClib.
I wonder how Erik Andersen would feel if he knew that there is a whole group of script kiddies ready to start compiling new viruses with the chewy goodness of Uclibc...:)
The only people who don't like or don't prefer vi are people who don't understand vi (hint: the secret to the power is the 'dot' command).
Thats like saying that the only people who don't like or don't prefer socialism are people who don't understand Karl Marx.
Personally, I know how to use vi just fine, but I stand using if I am logged in remotely on a slow connection, and then I only use it if Pico isn't available.
Not everyone who is smart uses vi, and not everyone who is stupid uses Emacs. Put down your broad brush and slowly walk away.
How much paper work does it take for a law firm to send a letter saying "Dear Mr Novak. BRING IT THE FUCK ON. Mr. I Sue-you, esquire"
I'm not sure how much paperwork the lawyer generates, I just know that *I* am gonna get charged a couple of thousand of dollars just to have my lawyer read the inital complaint, and even more to handle the response, even if it is just ascii art of a middle finger.
Yes lawyers are taught that going in front of a judge is the worst thing. But I can't imagine a lawyer saying "wow, this guy is filing all this stuff. I'm scared. Lets' settle!" I see them saying "this is so much bullshit, that I'm gonna try to take my fees directly out of Novak's ass."
The lawer isn't being sued. I'm being sued. The law firm is just the middle man. He's not scared, because the more time he spends on this case, the more it racks up in legal fees.
*I* am the one who is gonna look at a thousand billable hours of litigation over the next two years and get scared. After all, if I am running a business, principle goes straight out the window. Either I pay this guy a hundred grand to go away, or I pay the laywers two hundred grand to fight it (and I might lose anyway - you never know. After all, OJ is a free man). Everyone knows that spending $100,000 is much better than spending $200,000.
You can file suits till the cows come home... BUT WTF?! Summons, subpoena, discovery, WITH NO PRIMA FACIA CASE!
You obviously don't understand how this works...:)
These things don't ever make it in front of a judge. The DMCA has never been challenged in court, but we are afraid of it. Why? Because by simply by having papers filed against you, you are dragged down in to the third level of hell.
Lawyers today are taught that the worst thing that can happen to you is that you will actually have to argue a case in court. Heaven forfend that you actually have to argue a case in front of a judge - that sort of crap is only for Law & Order on TV.
Instead you get paperwork out the wazzo, all billed at 200 dollars an hour. Few companies, every the very rich are willing to even deal with it.
Wonder why Sony bent over backwards with a 30 million dollar check for the JPEG royalties? As sad as it may seem, that was actually a better way out than fighting it in court. Can you belive that? Its easier to pay somebody blood money than to sue them.
And before I get flamed for being anti-lawyer, let me just say that I don't blame this on any individual lawyer. This is your job, and you do it well. Its not your fault, you use the tools that you are given.
Is Slashdot ever going to fix the American flag logo? Am I the only one that notices the mistake?
Here's a thought - instead of complaining, why doesn't somebody fire up the GIMP, make a new icon, and send it to CmdrTaco post haste? I'm sure that he would appreciate the gesture, and then everyone can shut up about the damn icon (and start complaining about something else).
Re:Regulation of Robot Pets
on
Fritz's Hit List
·
· Score: 2, Funny
when the robot wont have any visible means of relaying understanding of your order.
So it will be just like going to that 24 hour taco joint on State and Main?
Slashdot Mirror
Minor nickpick... there is no one virus that causes the common cold (but your claim still holds true for the class of viruses that cause the symptoms of a "common cold").
But other than that, this post was insightful, interesting, funny and underrated.
Mod up now.
On the otherhand in china it appears there is a fertile breeding area when humans are not aggressively hunting bugs. this would be a good breeding ground for a simple bug to evolve to somthing actually AI quality.
Are you forgetting that an human being will have to be responsible for developing the AI for the virus? Today we can't even begin to understand the concepts behind self mutating computer viruses, and we many never fully understand the concepts.
And I, for one, and happy. I fear the the day that mankind releases upon the world code that has the capacity to mutate and change under certain circumstances. No good can come of that.
I might be an idiot, but I never even knew this existed. I'm signing up today!
Thanks
Since he admits that in its current form there is no way the bill would be passed, what would have to be changed to be passed?
He probably had to take out the part that said "constitution, smonstitution...."
That would be great, but mental ability wouldn't matter for shit in that situation. Most /.ers would be killed and eaten in the first week.
So we would have a population of idiots who are in great shape. Hell, if I wanted to see that, I would go to the gym more often.
PS: Before you flame me, this goes for me, too. My 6'2, 275 lb frame can't even outrun the ice cream truck, let alone some alien beast that wants to eat me.
But worst of all, the software that decodes it REQUIRES the .NET framework to run -- so much for Linux!
.NET or GWBASIC to write the driver, because the driver for Linux would have to be different anyway.
Well geez. It seems to me that USB is a standard, and unless Logitech encrypted the data they are sending across the line, it should be an easy thing to use USB Snoopy (http://home.jps.net/~koma/) to read the packets and determine how the bytes work.
It shouldn't matter if they used
I can't believe you actually got modded up for that.
So you want the government to have the freedom to create taxpayer funded programs and give them to the president's favorite software company for sale at a $1000 a pop? There is nothing stopping them from doing that right now.
Legislation is designed to protect the rights of the citizens. I understand that not all legislation reaches that lofty ideal (hell, half of all legislation doesn't fit the bill). But in this case, it does indeed protect our rights. Its either that or trying to get a thousand government agencies to promise that they will implement a public domain software policy. Which do you prefer?
Ok, so this guy is barking up the wrong tree, because many of these companies don't have to pay a cent in taxes, but his reasoning is still sound.
A BSD-like license is a better license for governmental projects, because it does give everybody the same rights to the code which was developed with public funds.
The GPL on the other hand makes certain restrictions which would be difficult for both the governmental entity and all redistributors to follow.
Say for example, that a government entity contracts a piece of software for counting ducks. And they provide it to all of the state entities for their fish and game departments to use in developing their own duck counting system. In turn, the states take the duck counting code, modify it for their own uses, and provide the binaries for the various agencies and private groups within the state that cares about duck populations. You now have the original code that the government provided, and you have 50 different versions of the code from the states. What are the odds that somewhere down the line, one of those states will forget (or be unwilling) to publish the code, or unintentially break one of the other provisions of the GPL?
With a BSD like license, this isn't a problem. The government can provide the code to the states, and they can modify the code to their choosing, but are under no obligations regarding the code.
In both cases, the goal of distributing government contracted code is fullfiled, but only the BSD provides a way for all citizens to be able to use the code without restrictions.
Kernel developers also want to have him banned from the LKML for constantly spamming it with off-topic political discussions.
Wrong! One missguided person wants him banned. Everyone else thinks that he is annoying but generally harmless.
Most ernel developers understand that censorship doesn't solve anything.
From the post:
/me fires off a message to the searchking himself.
If I am have legal right to use an IP number for my own legal purposes, does a third party have a right to track that IP number and use the information gathered without my permission?
Also
Does an unspoken contract exist between search services and webmasters that allow a search engine to legally build it's business using the content of webmasters without express permission?
Pot, kettle, etc, etc... Its funny that the top link here
is my site, and I sure don't recall giving permission to him to use it. I guess its all a matter of perspective.
Thanks for the heads up.
Satellite based radio's would die and we'd see some nice shows on the sky when they fall out (just like the Iradium). This means Sirrus and XM. The cause for this would be better compression technologies and the recent opening of a spread spectrum by FCC that lets higher bandwith be sent over the airwaves. Stations would start to pump out studio (not cd as a /. story mentioned) quality audio out soon.
You obviously don't live in the boonies. In UtahWyomingColoradoEtc (they all look the same anyway), radio stations are few and far between. Unless the FCC is going to start allowing several million watt stations, satellite radio will be the only way we can pick up anything but static when we're on the road - not just music, but also news and sports stations - its really hard to follow a game when you are driving through this part of the country.
Beleive it - in Utah, where its painfully normal for early 20 somethings to have babies, they always bring them to theaters.
To paraphrase Chris Rock: you can either get your kid on, or your movie on, but not both. If you decide to spit out a kid at the age of 22, you pretty much give up your ability to do anything but sit and look at the walls for the next 6 years.
That's a funny crack at the US, but it's simply not true. The US holds more Nobel Prizes for sciences than any other country. The secondary school test scores could use some improvement, but University-level education is considered one of the highest in the world.
When you have 250 million people, you are bound to spit out a few intellegent deviants.
But have you been driving or grocery shopping lately? Have you seen the news? Do you ever wonder where News of the Wierd and the Darwin Awards get their material?
We *are* a nation of idiots. We've got some smart people here, but with so many carbon lifeforms bumping around this continent thats bound to happen.
if you bought a house in the last 2 years, you're going to look worse than this guy after the bubble bursts in the housing market.
houses arent that great of investments, and unless you are sure you are going to be in it for 5-10 years, you will get screwed.
and this housing market is as nuts as the 2000 stock market.
me, i'm a gunna wait until all those foreclosure sales start happening next spring.
Yeah, I know how you feel... I really hate investing in my net worth every month. I really hate how the interest rates are the lowest they have been in at least a decade. I really hate the five digit deduction I get on my Federal income tax. And I really hate the fact that even if I sell my house for exactly what I paid for it, I will still come out at least 15% ahead.
All these things really make me regret that I bought a "horrible investment".
Seriously, don't try to rationalize why you haven't bought a house. You sound like me 3 years ago before I was hit with the clue stick.
Free Gift?
Thats redundant, not an oxymoron.
An oxymoron is phrase consisting of words that are opposite:
Athletic Scholarship
Clueful Management
Trustworthiness Initative
Sadly, I have to agree with you. These days, legal battles aren't about who's right, but who has more money to toss around. See the Nissan v. Nissan case.
It doesn't actually cost anything to stand up in front of a judge and argue (ie, you don't need to pay the balliff at the door). The legal costs are the complete domain of the lawyers. In the Nissan case, its all about the legal fees - the hours and hours of billable time that is racked up, especially when the other side has enough money to keep the writs and injunctions flowing. No amount of money should actually influence the judge (notice, I say should - and if it does influence the judge, I recommend public flogging as the appropriate punishment).
And especially in this situation, its about the law. Both parties have fought to the Supreme Court and they have presented their cases. Now it is up to the court to decide the facts of the law based on the constition - no amount of money can affect this decision. Thats the beauty of the American system.
Is Congress "paid" to enact laws. Of course. Do corporations and wealthy people use the court system to frustrate and befuddle others? Yep. Does the Supreme Court (or any other legitimiate court) care about the bank balances of who stands in front of them? They had better not.
I saw something unbelievable one time, true story. About 5 friends and I and an old girlfriend
/.ers don't have girlfriends.
Why should you destroy a perfectly believeable story about mysterious lights in the sky with a comment like that. Everybody knows that
You missed the point - my failed sarcasm was to point out they have a responsibility to fix the bug anyway, but now they can get away with charging you for the fix.
Great troll. How many of those words did you learn this week in Operating Systems class?
.rpm or .deb.
:)
dependency issues really only come into play from the distribution of binary-only packages, a la the
Of course, unless you want to build a package that depends on another library. You still need the object code from the library, regardless if you link it in now (static) or later (shared). Alas, dependancy problems still exist for everyone.
So--if you can find a good remote-root linux exploit that's rather common, write your virus and compile it with no machine optimizations, ELF binary format, stripped, and static.
Machine optimizations? When was the last time you built a virus with MMX instructions? Seriously now. But definately make sure that your virus is stripped - nobody wants those pesky debug statements around.
use a smaller library, like uClib.
I wonder how Erik Andersen would feel if he knew that there is a whole group of script kiddies ready to start compiling new viruses with the chewy goodness of Uclibc...
Now, when a hacker/virus/trojan attacks, maybe Microsoft will have to accept some accountability, after all I am paying for the security.
Yeah, we found that bug that cost you $250,000 in downtime, and we have this service pack that you need to apply. Will that be cash or charge?
The only people who don't like or don't prefer vi are people who don't understand vi (hint: the secret to the power is the 'dot' command).
Thats like saying that the only people who don't like or don't prefer socialism are people who don't understand Karl Marx.
Personally, I know how to use vi just fine, but I stand using if I am logged in remotely on a slow connection, and then I only use it if Pico isn't available.
Not everyone who is smart uses vi, and not everyone who is stupid uses Emacs. Put down your broad brush and slowly walk away.
Lets pretend that Mr Novak is suing me.
How much paper work does it take for a law firm to send a letter saying "Dear Mr Novak. BRING IT THE FUCK ON. Mr. I Sue-you, esquire"
I'm not sure how much paperwork the lawyer generates, I just know that *I* am gonna get charged a couple of thousand of dollars just to have my lawyer read the inital complaint, and even more to handle the response, even if it is just ascii art of a middle finger.
Yes lawyers are taught that going in front of a judge is the worst thing. But I can't imagine a lawyer saying "wow, this guy is filing all this stuff. I'm scared. Lets' settle!" I see them saying "this is so much bullshit, that I'm gonna try to take my fees directly out of Novak's ass."
The lawer isn't being sued. I'm being sued. The law firm is just the middle man. He's not scared, because the more time he spends on this case, the more it racks up in legal fees.
*I* am the one who is gonna look at a thousand billable hours of litigation over the next two years and get scared. After all, if I am running a business, principle goes straight out the window. Either I pay this guy a hundred grand to go away, or I pay the laywers two hundred grand to fight it (and I might lose anyway - you never know. After all, OJ is a free man). Everyone knows that spending $100,000 is much better than spending $200,000.
You can file suits till the cows come home... BUT WTF?! Summons, subpoena, discovery, WITH NO PRIMA FACIA CASE!
:)
You obviously don't understand how this works...
These things don't ever make it in front of a judge. The DMCA has never been challenged in court, but we are afraid of it. Why? Because by simply by having papers filed against you, you are dragged down in to the third level of hell.
Lawyers today are taught that the worst thing that can happen to you is that you will actually have to argue a case in court. Heaven forfend that you actually have to argue a case in front of a judge - that sort of crap is only for Law & Order on TV.
Instead you get paperwork out the wazzo, all billed at 200 dollars an hour. Few companies, every the very rich are willing to even deal with it.
Wonder why Sony bent over backwards with a 30 million dollar check for the JPEG royalties? As sad as it may seem, that was actually a better way out than fighting it in court. Can you belive that? Its easier to pay somebody blood money than to sue them.
And before I get flamed for being anti-lawyer, let me just say that I don't blame this on any individual lawyer. This is your job, and you do it well. Its not your fault, you use the tools that you are given.
Is Slashdot ever going to fix the American flag logo? Am I the only one that notices the mistake?
Here's a thought - instead of complaining, why doesn't somebody fire up the GIMP, make a new icon, and send it to CmdrTaco post haste? I'm sure that he would appreciate the gesture, and then everyone can shut up about the damn icon (and start complaining about something else).
when the robot wont have any visible means of relaying understanding of your order.
So it will be just like going to that 24 hour taco joint on State and Main?