In 2004 there were reports of poll monitors and voters being harassed during the election, long before the outcome was known. If there had been the same level of abuse as was documented in 2004 then there would have been signs before the results were known.
Perhaps it's because there wasn't a presidency on the line this time, or because 2004 was a wake-up call to the folks tempted to push the envelope.
That makes me wonder why the enormous number of volunteer monitors at the polling places in 2004 were ineffective.
They were effective at exposing an awful lot of bad behaviour, but they weren't effective at preventing it. Why? Possibly they weren't taken seriously: after the election in 2000 they were seen as "spoilers", some were denied access and even harassed at polling places.
But after all that, in 2004 they still managed to document a lot of the same kinds of activities that were alleged in 2000. They mightn't have convinced election officials that the results were invalid, but they managed to ensure that this time they weren't harassed or ignored either.
The primary difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that a Republican votes according to the principles which got him elected, where a Democrat doesn't care how he votes, as long as he can blame the Republicans should something go wrong.
The best system we have is the optical-scan ballots... which can be judged with the naked eye OR a machine... but leave a complete paper trail.
And can be printed out with a cheap and reliable voting machine that doesn't need to have any internal storage at all, if you want electronic voting machines to help people fill them out.
Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of businesses are not opposed to their software infrastructure being "DRM infested" - in fact I suspect they prefer it.
That's why Microsoft had to come up with special corporate versions of XP without the Windows XP activation process? I'll bet that they'll have a similar corporate exception for Vista, if not now then pretty soon after release...
Believe it or not they would rather that their employees *not* spend all day listening to music or watching movies.
DRM does absolutely nothing to stop you from listening to music or watching movies... what it prevents you from doing is giving someone else a usable copy of the music or movies you're listening to, *if* that music or movie is DRM-protected.
As always, the elephant in the room (that piracy is substantial and deserves attention, if only because society has collectively devleoped a bargain where creators of intellectual property are entitled to reasonable protection of their works but that protection is being circumvented in massive quantities) is ignored.
Another elephant in the room is "are technical measures to prevent copying actually being circumvented in massive quantities by potential customers?", and another is "do we need additional legal protections, or are the current legal protections actually stronger than we need?".
These are real issues. Slippery slope arguments asking questions like "what if you're the last non-pirate in the world, won't you feel like a sucker?" aren't. They're muddying the waters. "Smoke and mirrors" if you like.
The file system abstraction in the next paragraph is a different idea however.
The file system abstraction is why it does all this better than a RAID. By exposing a file system API it can guarantee that the file system state is consistent and up to date *even in the face of an OS crash*. RAID can't do that that, and journalled file systems only guarantee that the state is consistent, not up-to-date.
The user accounts used keys for ssh to avoid passwords but I've switched them back to passwords since been told by a Linux guru that it was a good idea incase the client was hacked.
If "the client is hacked", then:
1. The bloke modifying your SSH client alrady has "root" on the computer running the broken client, and anything you type in (including your password) can be intercepted. 2. In any case, if he can modify the client to steal the passphrase for your key, he can modify it to steal your password just as easily.
Wouldn't that be slower? What advantages would this offer?
Same thing that a battery-backed cache on a RAID controller does, except in spades. The battery backed cache gives you block integrity even if the system loses power, so you can do write-back instead of write-through caching. This gives you file system integrity even if the system loses power or the OS crashes. Which means you can do more buffering and smarter buffering.
OS independance. You don't have to have file system drivers for everything. If you have an improved file system design (like, way, WAFL) you can use it... you don't have to wait for support to be added to all the systems you use.
All kinds of optimizations that aren't available in a general purpose OS that has to share cache with applications.
Getting peak performance out of it will require some smart changes to the OS, but it's about bloody time we had some. Even with your iSCSI you still have to deal with remote file systems an awful lot and frankly I haven't seen a remote file system in ten years that didn't make me want to call for a respirator and arm-length rubber gloves... the OS should provide same.
Use something like Sun's cachefs instead of a buffer cache. Cachefs was designed to let you do things like boot and run a diskless workstation over a dialup, and give you good performance once the cache was in place... it should be able to deal with system-bus levels of latency.
I've run Java apps on my PDA. If you've got an app that's running like snail snot on a quad core sparc then either (a) your quad-core sparc is slower than my PDA, or (b) the guy who wrote the application needs retraining. With a 2x4.
A java application here chokes on the 4 x 400MHz sparc
I know the sparc is a bloody anemic processor, thanks to its bizarre stack discipline, but I had no idea that a quad 400 MHz Sparc was worse than the 33 MHz 68000 in my Clie, or the 166 MHz Pentium (not III, or II, or even MMX) in my Toshiba Libretto!
The idea of a guiding hand in evolution as depicted in Darwin's Radio is a common fallacy. There's no "next stage" in evolution... evolution is a side effect of myriads of small forces, each of them random and unplanned. The fractal branches of zoological taxonomy are the only pattern it makes, the path of any branch is random and guided only by the "terrain" it encounters.
I wish they'd work on low-end 4- or more core processors.
For general computing, I'd rather have a quad-core 500 MHz processor than a single-core 2 GHz one. It'd run cooler and be more responsive, even though the peak performance would be lower.
Ideally I'd like a computer with a display engine running an OpenGL-based remote display server, and one or more compute engines... and maybe even a separate processor for the file system with its own battery-backed RAM. Not just a RAID controller, a NAS box inside the computer.
Except for the restrictions regarding legal action, the Ms-PL (Permissive License) seems sort of BSDL-like.
The point isn't "does MS have a BSD-like license".
The point is "if they're going to tout their BSD-like license when talking about Windows CE, they bloody well better be using that license for Windows CE".
Because they're obviously not. Which one are they using? Do you know?
From TFA:The opening up of Windows CE's kernel source code is likely to make Windows CE more attractive as an alternative to Linux in many embedded applications and devices that require substantial customization of the OS, or where source code availability has been mandated by the development team. Additionally, Microsoft touts the terms of its BSD-like shared source license as being preferred by many device and equipment manufacturers that don't want to be compelled to make their OS customizations public and available to their competitors.
On the other hand, following a long to an older article, I read:In terms of impact to Microsoft's Windows CE Shared Source and Shared Platforms initiatives, Windows Embedded product manager Nic Sagez told WindowsForDevices.com that these programs are not migrating to the new licenses any time soon. However, Sagez did not rule out the possibility of a longer term change, based on customer feedback and market requirements.
Back to TFA:For the first time, Microsoft is making 100 percent of the source code of the Windows CE kernel available as part of the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system package, to everyone who gets the OS package.... but nowhere does it explain just which of the many licenses described in the earlier article is actually being used. It seems disingenuous to "touts the terms of its BSD-like shared source license" if the license it's using isn't BSD-like... and, clearly, it's not:
Developers and companies are permitted to use the evaluation version to begin their projects, and need not pay anything to Microsoft until the time limit expires, after which a non-evaluation version is available for $995 -- or when they begin to ship product that requires run-time royalties, Microsoft says.
Slashdot Mirror
Victoria, Australia is testing a new voting machine in elections this month.
They print out a standard ballot, which is deposited in the ballot box.
And they're counted by the same machines that count hand-filled ballots.
If Australia, with its complex transferrable vote system, can handle this... why can't the US?
In 2004 there were reports of poll monitors and voters being harassed during the election, long before the outcome was known. If there had been the same level of abuse as was documented in 2004 then there would have been signs before the results were known.
Perhaps it's because there wasn't a presidency on the line this time, or because 2004 was a wake-up call to the folks tempted to push the envelope.
That makes me wonder why the enormous number of volunteer monitors at the polling places in 2004 were ineffective.
They were effective at exposing an awful lot of bad behaviour, but they weren't effective at preventing it. Why? Possibly they weren't taken seriously: after the election in 2000 they were seen as "spoilers", some were denied access and even harassed at polling places.
But after all that, in 2004 they still managed to document a lot of the same kinds of activities that were alleged in 2000. They mightn't have convinced election officials that the results were invalid, but they managed to ensure that this time they weren't harassed or ignored either.
The primary difference between a Republican and a Democrat is that a Republican votes according to the principles which got him elected, where a Democrat doesn't care how he votes, as long as he can blame the Republicans should something go wrong.
*cough* *cough* Fiscal Conservatism *cough*?
There were an enormous number of volunteer monitors at the polling places this time.
I just hope they're out in force again in 2008.
C syntax is a horrible mismatch with object-oriented programming.
No matter what band-aids you apply to it.
Objective C is the least worst compromise, and it's not even a close second to fully embracing Smalltalk-like syntax.
The best system we have is the optical-scan ballots... which can be judged with the naked eye OR a machine... but leave a complete paper trail.
And can be printed out with a cheap and reliable voting machine that doesn't need to have any internal storage at all, if you want electronic voting machines to help people fill them out.
Uh, sorry to burst your bubble, but the vast majority of businesses are not opposed to their software infrastructure being "DRM infested" - in fact I suspect they prefer it.
That's why Microsoft had to come up with special corporate versions of XP without the Windows XP activation process? I'll bet that they'll have a similar corporate exception for Vista, if not now then pretty soon after release...
Believe it or not they would rather that their employees *not* spend all day listening to music or watching movies.
DRM does absolutely nothing to stop you from listening to music or watching movies... what it prevents you from doing is giving someone else a usable copy of the music or movies you're listening to, *if* that music or movie is DRM-protected.
We really need a new category for an insightful exposition of something that should be obvious.
As always, the elephant in the room (that piracy is substantial and deserves attention, if only because society has collectively devleoped a bargain where creators of intellectual property are entitled to reasonable protection of their works but that protection is being circumvented in massive quantities) is ignored.
Another elephant in the room is "are technical measures to prevent copying actually being circumvented in massive quantities by potential customers?", and another is "do we need additional legal protections, or are the current legal protections actually stronger than we need?".
These are real issues. Slippery slope arguments asking questions like "what if you're the last non-pirate in the world, won't you feel like a sucker?" aren't. They're muddying the waters. "Smoke and mirrors" if you like.
Yeh, gotta keep your undead straight, the OP was clearly thinking about ghouls.
I clearly credited slashdot readers with too much intelligence.
But that's a pretty low hurdle, isn't it?
The file system abstraction in the next paragraph is a different idea however.
The file system abstraction is why it does all this better than a RAID. By exposing a file system API it can guarantee that the file system state is consistent and up to date *even in the face of an OS crash*. RAID can't do that that, and journalled file systems only guarantee that the state is consistent, not up-to-date.
Did you know that the word "sarcasm" isn't in the dictionary?
I think you're barking up the wrong tree.
The user accounts used keys for ssh to avoid passwords but I've switched them back to passwords since been told by a Linux guru that it was a good idea incase the client was hacked.
If "the client is hacked", then:
1. The bloke modifying your SSH client alrady has "root" on the computer running the broken client, and anything you type in (including your password) can be intercepted.
2. In any case, if he can modify the client to steal the passphrase for your key, he can modify it to steal your password just as easily.
Wouldn't that be slower? What advantages would this offer?
Same thing that a battery-backed cache on a RAID controller does, except in spades. The battery backed cache gives you block integrity even if the system loses power, so you can do write-back instead of write-through caching. This gives you file system integrity even if the system loses power or the OS crashes. Which means you can do more buffering and smarter buffering.
OS independance. You don't have to have file system drivers for everything. If you have an improved file system design (like, way, WAFL) you can use it... you don't have to wait for support to be added to all the systems you use.
All kinds of optimizations that aren't available in a general purpose OS that has to share cache with applications.
Getting peak performance out of it will require some smart changes to the OS, but it's about bloody time we had some. Even with your iSCSI you still have to deal with remote file systems an awful lot and frankly I haven't seen a remote file system in ten years that didn't make me want to call for a respirator and arm-length rubber gloves... the OS should provide same.
Use something like Sun's cachefs instead of a buffer cache. Cachefs was designed to let you do things like boot and run a diskless workstation over a dialup, and give you good performance once the cache was in place... it should be able to deal with system-bus levels of latency.
*snork*
I've run Java apps on my PDA. If you've got an app that's running like snail snot on a quad core sparc then either (a) your quad-core sparc is slower than my PDA, or (b) the guy who wrote the application needs retraining. With a 2x4.
Your choice.
That is what RAID controllers are now - like the current 3ware ones with a powerpc processor.
I don't mean block storage, I mean something that exposes a file system API to the rest of the computer.
I don't think you do.
I think I do.
A java application here chokes on the 4 x 400MHz sparc
I know the sparc is a bloody anemic processor, thanks to its bizarre stack discipline, but I had no idea that a quad 400 MHz Sparc was worse than the 33 MHz 68000 in my Clie, or the 166 MHz Pentium (not III, or II, or even MMX) in my Toshiba Libretto!
The idea of a guiding hand in evolution as depicted in Darwin's Radio is a common fallacy. There's no "next stage" in evolution... evolution is a side effect of myriads of small forces, each of them random and unplanned. The fractal branches of zoological taxonomy are the only pattern it makes, the path of any branch is random and guided only by the "terrain" it encounters.
Mod parent +1 Commonsense.
I wish they'd work on low-end 4- or more core processors.
For general computing, I'd rather have a quad-core 500 MHz processor than a single-core 2 GHz one. It'd run cooler and be more responsive, even though the peak performance would be lower.
Ideally I'd like a computer with a display engine running an OpenGL-based remote display server, and one or more compute engines... and maybe even a separate processor for the file system with its own battery-backed RAM. Not just a RAID controller, a NAS box inside the computer.
When I need to use IE at all I'm still using IE 5.5.
Except for the restrictions regarding legal action, the Ms-PL (Permissive License) seems sort of BSDL-like.
The point isn't "does MS have a BSD-like license".
The point is "if they're going to tout their BSD-like license when talking about Windows CE, they bloody well better be using that license for Windows CE".
Because they're obviously not. Which one are they using? Do you know?
From TFA: The opening up of Windows CE's kernel source code is likely to make Windows CE more attractive as an alternative to Linux in many embedded applications and devices that require substantial customization of the OS, or where source code availability has been mandated by the development team. Additionally, Microsoft touts the terms of its BSD-like shared source license as being preferred by many device and equipment manufacturers that don't want to be compelled to make their OS customizations public and available to their competitors.
On the other hand, following a long to an older article, I read: In terms of impact to Microsoft's Windows CE Shared Source and Shared Platforms initiatives, Windows Embedded product manager Nic Sagez told WindowsForDevices.com that these programs are not migrating to the new licenses any time soon. However, Sagez did not rule out the possibility of a longer term change, based on customer feedback and market requirements.
Back to TFA: For the first time, Microsoft is making 100 percent of the source code of the Windows CE kernel available as part of the Windows Embedded CE 6.0 operating system package, to everyone who gets the OS package.... but nowhere does it explain just which of the many licenses described in the earlier article is actually being used. It seems disingenuous to "touts the terms of its BSD-like shared source license" if the license it's using isn't BSD-like... and, clearly, it's not:
Developers and companies are permitted to use the evaluation version to begin their projects, and need not pay anything to Microsoft until the time limit expires, after which a non-evaluation version is available for $995 -- or when they begin to ship product that requires run-time royalties, Microsoft says.
Run-time royalties? BSD-like license? Please!