one of the cornerstones of our culture is "Mistrust authority, promote decentralisation".
Excellent! Our popular media propaganda plan is working!
Now, for the next item on the agenda...we must mandate educational reforms at the Federal level that are opposed by leaders at the state level. As a follow-on, we will construct a Federal bureaucracy to administer prescription-drug benefits. To prevent popular uprising, we will mobilize the state militias overseas.
Excellent point. Security, as always, is subtle. Bill Gates claims that security is job one now, and yet there is now an easy way to make security updates fail. And this behavior is BY DESIGN!
The answer, of course, is for Microsoft to stop worrying about piracy causing potential revenue loss and start worrying about security. Microsoft has enough cash reserves to buy ALL of google's stock (at least, they did last time I checked google's market capitalization). Microsoft's revenues are larger than the next n software companies COMBINED (where I believe n=20, but it may be even larger). Every new PC sold contributes to Microsoft's revenues. Revenues aren't the worry.
Indeed. It takes a great deal of skill for a performer to press down the keys of the keyboard without making a sound. If a single note escapes the piano, you have played the piece improperly. If you press the wrong key, you have played the piece improperly (though it's hard to imagine how a large audience could tell this).
When played CORRECTLY, Cage's work is a masterpiece. When the pianist sits silent for 273 seconds, it's just silly.
The Drake equation is junk science. It has ZERO practical application to the world.
Yes and no.
Yes because it is not falsifiable. How do you prove the Drake equation wrong? How can you perform tests that will either confirm it or fail to confirm it?
No because it is an one practical application: it is an EXCELLENT example of well-accepted junk science.
Yup. I had only minimal exposure to Netware - one of my first major projects as a network admin was to make it go away - but I have missed it ever since. Especially since we made it go away in favor of an NT4 domain...
Of course, there are standardized tools to generate md5 sums of files. A good rootkit, before replacing a file, determines the md5 checksum of the file. Then, when then easily-detectable standardized tools ask for the checksum, the rootkit intercepts the request and feeds the tool garbage. Of course, there are countermeasures you can take, but they will tend become standardized, leading to counter-counter-measures.
What it boils down to is GIGO. If you don't trust to code running on your system, you can't trust ANY result reported by the system. The only solution is to force the system to run code you trust - ie boot to a floppy or CD.
Microsoft does not make boxes. They make operating systems and applications. The security of a box is entirely different from the security of a piece of software. One requires little or no intelligence; the other requires as much as our culture has been able to produce.
Securing a box is an administrative task. You go through a checklist, changing the configuration and applying patches as it requires. This is dummy work; you can even write a script to do it. Creating the checklist requires intelligence, but you generally get the information necessary for it from the application or operating system vendor.
On the other hand, securing a piece of software means considering EVERY POSSIBLE COMBINATION of operations that the software can perform and ensuring that none of them can compromise the software. This is practically impossible. Building software is hard; we still haven't figured out how to do it with the same level of competence that we can build a bridge or dam or skyscraper.
I'm sorry if I'm asking the obvious here, but would you be willing to mail me a check for $20.00? I mean, you've got a lot of other monthly costs, so it's not like it's that much money.
Judging from Microsoft's behavior, they believe that spyware is bad - so bad, that they are willing to devote large sums of money to produce a product that they will charge $0 for. Why? I would guess it's because spyware can denigrate overall system performance, making it seem that Windows is slow or insecure.
On the other hand, Microsoft refuses to provide security patches for free. If you haven't paid for a license, they will not provide you with security patches. If spam zombies and worms find their way onto your unsecured system, Microsoft doesn't care. I presume that this is because the spam does not appear to be a problem with Windows.
But it is. I conclude that Microsoft is not concerned with security, but with the APPEARANCE of security.
Statements like this are hurtful to the FOSS movement
You might want to tell Richard Stallman that. He will tell you (1) There is no FOSS movement - there are F and OSS movements, with differing goals, and (2) commercial software deprives people of vital rights - ie, they are evil.
BTW, withoug RMS, there would BE NO FOSS movement. He is the heart and soul of it. Were he to die, it would be utterly co-opted by commercial forces.
The higher paying job. An extra 10 grand to put away on a monthly basis makes me independently wealthy sooner. It means that my kids will be independently wealthy. It means that I can fund my own projects, and employ workers to make me even richer.
Indeed, you ARE a doe-eyed innocent. If you weren't, you'd realize that the history of technology, at least for the last 200 years of American history, is the history of industry, and thus the history of the men who OWNED industry. Alexander Graham Bell OWNED the telephone industry in from its inception in the USA; therefore, he invented the telephone. Likewise for Edison and the electrical appliance industry, and Ford and the automotive industry.
With regard to Edison - do you REALLY think that he, personally and individually, tested 500 diferent filaments for light bulbs? Or is it more that he paid the money that bought the building and employed the workers who did the testin? Edison invented the lightbulb in the same way that Gore invented the internet; he provided the necessary funding for the men who did the real work. At least with the internet, we know who those men are.
The Wright brothers are a curious exception. They created the first heavier-than-air machine capable of lifting a man from the ground and returning him to it safely (for a certain value of "safe" - one was killed in a flying accident). They patented their inventions and promptly ceased innovating, choosing rather to sue the socks off of their competitors, who were forced to innovate ahead of the Wright patents. That is why there is no Wright Airlines or Wright Aircraft company today.
By that reasoning, you should never buy a car either. Every car is replaced with a next-gen version within a year.
The reason for buying a console is to PLAY GAMES. Buy games you like, with high replayability, and keep it for 5-10 years. The Atari 2600 was still fun for me in the 1990s.
Google, too, is putting "junk" on the internet to make money. This guy is providing high-quality junk, as far as his niche audience is concerned. They get good information; the lawyers get clients; this guy gets ad revenues; everybody wins. Commerce is not a zero-sum game; gaming the system can increase everyone's revenues.
But very often natural processes have been so distorted by human intervention that you can't count on the result. A valid and important point, and you support it well; I don't substantially disagree with you. However, it has nothing to do with the effect of an earthquake on the floor of the Indian Ocean.
And suppose that the prey species is on the verge of extinction? Ah, there's the rub. Obviously, if we're responsible for the loss of habitat or depletion of the numbers, then we bear the responsibility for preserving the species. If the species, when discovered, lives only in one spring in one cave, then I'm not too concerned about preserving it. For purely selfish reasons, it might be worthwhile to preserve frozen samples of it, but its loss will have no great effect on the ecosystem, and I won't worry if the cave collapses.
I will nitpick your usage of the word "damage", but I agree substantially with your post.
"Damage" suggests to me that something becomes less fit for its intended purpose. What is the purpose of the floor of the Indian Ocean? That's a significant question, as "purpose" implies an intelligent intent. My body may become damaged, because, from my point of view, it no longer does what I think it should. My house can be damaged, my yard can be damaged, my ecosystem can be damaged. I'm not sure the floor of an ocean can be damaged. (Unless there's a gargantuan leak into the earth's hollow interior - but that's a story for a less skeptical audience =)
I'm not referring to "damage" in the article. I didn't get past the first sentence in the original posting before I was compelled to respond to the phrase "damage to the floor of the Indian Ocean."
The damage described here is limited to THE INDIAN OCEAN ONLY. Why do you think the Indian Ocean was damaged? I don't think there's ANY geological basis to such a statement. I'll grant (and have elsewhere in this thread) that habitats, structures, etc. were destroyed, but I contend that the floor of the Indian Ocean was not damaged. It's still there, still doing what it always did.
Do you think that when one animal attacks and proceeds to eat another, the victim is not damaged? That's a silly suggestion; of course that individual organism is damaged. Within a few days, it's broken down into its component atoms and reassembled. You are correct, however, that the biosphere IS unharmed by such an event.
First, it's "semantic" not "symantec". The latter is a made-up word, a brand name that was obviously meant to suggest "semantic."
Anyway, yes, it does depend on how you define "natural." As I pointed out, though, most people do not consider the word "natural" to include acts inflicted on the earth by humanity. Your suggestion of wiping out all life is, I suppose, natural on a cosmological scale, but not on a planetary one. You have a valid point, but I I declare it to be irrelevant to this discussion, because I'm defining "natural" to mean "not caused by humanity."
If you like, we could have a different discussion using your definition of "natural."
First you allege that an asteroid shatters the planet. Then you say the planet hurt itself. In this theory, the Universe says to the Earth "Baby, why you always gotta make me hit you?"
Taking your statements seriously, though...if you expand consideration to include the entire solar system, then you've got to include it in your assessment of the damage, and you've got to consider stellar timescales. I would submit that, in this case, the solar system is NOT damaged. Sure, there's not much life left on Earth but bacteria, but according to the biologists, that's no different than it was a couple billion years ago.
Good comment; I had to think for a while before I could come up with a reason why I wasn't wrong. =)
Re-read the sentence I objected to. It's the FLOOR OF THE INDIAN OCEAN that I claimed wasn't damaged. Not once did I say that neither habitats nor structures were destroyed. I think that much is obvious. What wasn't obvious to the original writer is that the floor of the ocean, though changed, was not damaged. Many living things died or were disrupted, but the geological structure we call "THE FLOOR OF THE INDIAN OCEAN" was not damaged.
I like your ssecond paragraph. Hmmm...where to begin...ya know, I don't think I can disagree with you. Changes WE cause are by definition damage (at least in my opinion). Building a house to live in damages the habitat I'm building on. We MUST minimize and mitigate the damage we cause.
However, I don't think we should be too concerned about damage to the environment CAUSED by the environment. When a lion eats an antelope, that's natural. When the desert drifts and destroys an oasis, that's natural. When the ocean floor drops several meters, that's natural. To make the planetary environment static and unchanging over the centuries would be the greatest natural disaster of all.
Yes. Also a left-wing extremist. We must now finish the work begun by the tsunami so that the human scourge on the planet earth will at last be wiped out, leaving only gentle Gaea and her peaceful animals.
Slashdot Mirror
one of the cornerstones of our culture is "Mistrust authority, promote decentralisation".
Excellent! Our popular media propaganda plan is working!
Now, for the next item on the agenda...we must mandate educational reforms at the Federal level that are opposed by leaders at the state level. As a follow-on, we will construct a Federal bureaucracy to administer prescription-drug benefits. To prevent popular uprising, we will mobilize the state militias overseas.
Excellent point. Security, as always, is subtle. Bill Gates claims that security is job one now, and yet there is now an easy way to make security updates fail. And this behavior is BY DESIGN!
The answer, of course, is for Microsoft to stop worrying about piracy causing potential revenue loss and start worrying about security. Microsoft has enough cash reserves to buy ALL of google's stock (at least, they did last time I checked google's market capitalization). Microsoft's revenues are larger than the next n software companies COMBINED (where I believe n=20, but it may be even larger). Every new PC sold contributes to Microsoft's revenues. Revenues aren't the worry.
And this is different from CNN News how?
Political Agenda is what that 24 hour POS news station is all about. Political partisan nature is what most news stations are all about.
Indeed. It takes a great deal of skill for a performer to press down the keys of the keyboard without making a sound. If a single note escapes the piano, you have played the piece improperly. If you press the wrong key, you have played the piece improperly (though it's hard to imagine how a large audience could tell this).
When played CORRECTLY, Cage's work is a masterpiece. When the pianist sits silent for 273 seconds, it's just silly.
The Drake equation is junk science. It has ZERO practical application to the world.
Yes and no.
Yes because it is not falsifiable. How do you prove the Drake equation wrong? How can you perform tests that will either confirm it or fail to confirm it?
No because it is an one practical application: it is an EXCELLENT example of well-accepted junk science.
Yup. I had only minimal exposure to Netware - one of my first major projects as a network admin was to make it go away - but I have missed it ever since. Especially since we made it go away in favor of an NT4 domain...
Clearly, they were looking for a former Microsoft employee...
Of course, there are standardized tools to generate md5 sums of files. A good rootkit, before replacing a file, determines the md5 checksum of the file. Then, when then easily-detectable standardized tools ask for the checksum, the rootkit intercepts the request and feeds the tool garbage. Of course, there are countermeasures you can take, but they will tend become standardized, leading to counter-counter-measures.
What it boils down to is GIGO. If you don't trust to code running on your system, you can't trust ANY result reported by the system. The only solution is to force the system to run code you trust - ie boot to a floppy or CD.
I'm pleased to meet you. I've always wanted to meet Monkeyboy's kid.
Agreed.
HOWEVER...
Microsoft does not make boxes. They make operating systems and applications. The security of a box is entirely different from the security of a piece of software. One requires little or no intelligence; the other requires as much as our culture has been able to produce.
Securing a box is an administrative task. You go through a checklist, changing the configuration and applying patches as it requires. This is dummy work; you can even write a script to do it. Creating the checklist requires intelligence, but you generally get the information necessary for it from the application or operating system vendor.
On the other hand, securing a piece of software means considering EVERY POSSIBLE COMBINATION of operations that the software can perform and ensuring that none of them can compromise the software. This is practically impossible. Building software is hard; we still haven't figured out how to do it with the same level of competence that we can build a bridge or dam or skyscraper.
Taxation or theft. It's a matter of semantics.
Here's a useful definition to bring up in any political discussion involving funding of governmental programs...
tax: money extracted with threat of force from citizens (or subjects) by rulers.
Anyone disagreeing is encouraged to consider consequences of refusing to pay taxes; at some point, men with guns come into the picture.
I'm sorry if I'm asking the obvious here, but would you be willing to mail me a check for $20.00? I mean, you've got a lot of other monthly costs, so it's not like it's that much money.
=)
Judging from Microsoft's behavior, they believe that spyware is bad - so bad, that they are willing to devote large sums of money to produce a product that they will charge $0 for. Why? I would guess it's because spyware can denigrate overall system performance, making it seem that Windows is slow or insecure.
On the other hand, Microsoft refuses to provide security patches for free. If you haven't paid for a license, they will not provide you with security patches. If spam zombies and worms find their way onto your unsecured system, Microsoft doesn't care. I presume that this is because the spam does not appear to be a problem with Windows.
But it is. I conclude that Microsoft is not concerned with security, but with the APPEARANCE of security.
Statements like this are hurtful to the FOSS movement
You might want to tell Richard Stallman that. He will tell you (1) There is no FOSS movement - there are F and OSS movements, with differing goals, and (2) commercial software deprives people of vital rights - ie, they are evil.
BTW, withoug RMS, there would BE NO FOSS movement. He is the heart and soul of it. Were he to die, it would be utterly co-opted by commercial forces.
The higher paying job. An extra 10 grand to put away on a monthly basis makes me independently wealthy sooner. It means that my kids will be independently wealthy. It means that I can fund my own projects, and employ workers to make me even richer.
Glory fades. Generational wealth is forever.
Indeed, you ARE a doe-eyed innocent. If you weren't, you'd realize that the history of technology, at least for the last 200 years of American history, is the history of industry, and thus the history of the men who OWNED industry. Alexander Graham Bell OWNED the telephone industry in from its inception in the USA; therefore, he invented the telephone. Likewise for Edison and the electrical appliance industry, and Ford and the automotive industry.
With regard to Edison - do you REALLY think that he, personally and individually, tested 500 diferent filaments for light bulbs? Or is it more that he paid the money that bought the building and employed the workers who did the testin? Edison invented the lightbulb in the same way that Gore invented the internet; he provided the necessary funding for the men who did the real work. At least with the internet, we know who those men are.
The Wright brothers are a curious exception. They created the first heavier-than-air machine capable of lifting a man from the ground and returning him to it safely (for a certain value of "safe" - one was killed in a flying accident). They patented their inventions and promptly ceased innovating, choosing rather to sue the socks off of their competitors, who were forced to innovate ahead of the Wright patents. That is why there is no Wright Airlines or Wright Aircraft company today.
Food for thought.
By that reasoning, you should never buy a car either. Every car is replaced with a next-gen version within a year.
The reason for buying a console is to PLAY GAMES. Buy games you like, with high replayability, and keep it for 5-10 years. The Atari 2600 was still fun for me in the 1990s.
Google, too, is putting "junk" on the internet to make money. This guy is providing high-quality junk, as far as his niche audience is concerned. They get good information; the lawyers get clients; this guy gets ad revenues; everybody wins. Commerce is not a zero-sum game; gaming the system can increase everyone's revenues.
But very often natural processes have been so distorted by human intervention that you can't count on the result.
A valid and important point, and you support it well; I don't substantially disagree with you. However, it has nothing to do with the effect of an earthquake on the floor of the Indian Ocean.
And suppose that the prey species is on the verge of extinction?
Ah, there's the rub. Obviously, if we're responsible for the loss of habitat or depletion of the numbers, then we bear the responsibility for preserving the species. If the species, when discovered, lives only in one spring in one cave, then I'm not too concerned about preserving it. For purely selfish reasons, it might be worthwhile to preserve frozen samples of it, but its loss will have no great effect on the ecosystem, and I won't worry if the cave collapses.
I will nitpick your usage of the word "damage", but I agree substantially with your post.
"Damage" suggests to me that something becomes less fit for its intended purpose. What is the purpose of the floor of the Indian Ocean? That's a significant question, as "purpose" implies an intelligent intent. My body may become damaged, because, from my point of view, it no longer does what I think it should. My house can be damaged, my yard can be damaged, my ecosystem can be damaged. I'm not sure the floor of an ocean can be damaged. (Unless there's a gargantuan leak into the earth's hollow interior - but that's a story for a less skeptical audience =)
I'm not referring to "damage" in the article. I didn't get past the first sentence in the original posting before I was compelled to respond to the phrase "damage to the floor of the Indian Ocean."
The damage described here is limited to THE INDIAN OCEAN ONLY.
Why do you think the Indian Ocean was damaged? I don't think there's ANY geological basis to such a statement. I'll grant (and have elsewhere in this thread) that habitats, structures, etc. were destroyed, but I contend that the floor of the Indian Ocean was not damaged. It's still there, still doing what it always did.
Do you think that when one animal attacks and proceeds to eat another, the victim is not damaged?
That's a silly suggestion; of course that individual organism is damaged. Within a few days, it's broken down into its component atoms and reassembled. You are correct, however, that the biosphere IS unharmed by such an event.
First, it's "semantic" not "symantec". The latter is a made-up word, a brand name that was obviously meant to suggest "semantic."
Anyway, yes, it does depend on how you define "natural." As I pointed out, though, most people do not consider the word "natural" to include acts inflicted on the earth by humanity. Your suggestion of wiping out all life is, I suppose, natural on a cosmological scale, but not on a planetary one. You have a valid point, but I I declare it to be irrelevant to this discussion, because I'm defining "natural" to mean "not caused by humanity."
If you like, we could have a different discussion using your definition of "natural."
First you allege that an asteroid shatters the planet. Then you say the planet hurt itself. In this theory, the Universe says to the Earth "Baby, why you always gotta make me hit you?"
Taking your statements seriously, though...if you expand consideration to include the entire solar system, then you've got to include it in your assessment of the damage, and you've got to consider stellar timescales. I would submit that, in this case, the solar system is NOT damaged. Sure, there's not much life left on Earth but bacteria, but according to the biologists, that's no different than it was a couple billion years ago.
Good comment; I had to think for a while before I could come up with a reason why I wasn't wrong. =)
Re-read the sentence I objected to. It's the FLOOR OF THE INDIAN OCEAN that I claimed wasn't damaged. Not once did I say that neither habitats nor structures were destroyed. I think that much is obvious. What wasn't obvious to the original writer is that the floor of the ocean, though changed, was not damaged. Many living things died or were disrupted, but the geological structure we call "THE FLOOR OF THE INDIAN OCEAN" was not damaged.
I like your ssecond paragraph. Hmmm...where to begin...ya know, I don't think I can disagree with you. Changes WE cause are by definition damage (at least in my opinion). Building a house to live in damages the habitat I'm building on. We MUST minimize and mitigate the damage we cause.
However, I don't think we should be too concerned about damage to the environment CAUSED by the environment. When a lion eats an antelope, that's natural. When the desert drifts and destroys an oasis, that's natural. When the ocean floor drops several meters, that's natural. To make the planetary environment static and unchanging over the centuries would be the greatest natural disaster of all.
Yes. Also a left-wing extremist. We must now finish the work begun by the tsunami so that the human scourge on the planet earth will at last be wiped out, leaving only gentle Gaea and her peaceful animals.