Maybe it doesn't reflect a terrorist victory if we use prudence. I think a typical engineering attitude is: build/use it without considering how hard it is to clean up.
And this ranges from everything from DDT to asbestos to nuclear power (I'm pro-fission) and now, tragically, gigantic archiecture.
I think engineers need to consider not only how to MAKE something, but how to DISPOSE of it when it is either a) obsolete, or b) accidentally destroyed.
Given this, is it prudent to make such large and frail structures? Maybe the next world trade center should be a several dozen smaller buildings in the midwest?
...or underground: 1000 years from now all investment bankers all look like Morlok or CHUD (or molepeople, a la hans moleman:).
I think that it reflects very poorly on us that we'd collectively rather be a the mercy of armed criminals than in the company of an armed citizenry. If the former is truly preferable to the latter then we are surely lost.
I disagree entirely.
First, I think it is a huge step backwards a few hundred years to think everyone should be armed at all times. I would move to england or canada where guns are illegal and handgun homicides are essentially zero.
Second, we're at the mercy of people that are obviously pissed for some reason. Perhaps we could focus on why we're pissing off so many people before rallying to turn every american into an armed vigilante.
This reveals to me that you are incredibly elitist.
Oh yes, I totally am elitest, I don't disagree. But look at the discussion, we both obviously are based on this conversation, so why point it out?
Shall we form "Box Cutter Control, INC.?" Tacitly submit to body cavity searches in exchange for the privilege of leaving our homes?
I get a good body cavity search every morning from my boyfriend, so I'm stretched and ready! Are you?;-)
Firearms are an equalizer.
More rhetoric. Two people, two guns, one dead. How is that equal?
If the citizenry is good, on the balance, then the net result of an armed citizenry must be good.
Heh heh. Your morality is defended with a gun. I hope my morality is identical to yours, lest I incur your wrath.
What a country you describe: wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast, and strap on a firearm before going out of the house. Yee ha! Sounds like the old west! Maybe I should move to a 3rd world country where they live like this. That's more horrifying than anything else.
this is a really good discussion, and i need to sort through all of the posts, but i've found everything here pertains mostly to unix flavors. can someone focus on windows firewalls as well?
also, are there a few basic problems that make a firewall necessary that someone could describe? i don't quite understand the basic issues of why a firewall is needed on a windows system?
i've been heavily involved w/PCs for the past 20 years, but never got into networks because, well, i never found it interesting, or i didn't have the time/neurons to spend. now that i have no choice but to learn about firewall safety for my own needs, things are unmanagebly huge compared to the token-rings of 15 years ago!
a summary of the main reasons why a firewall is needed, i think, would be pretty useful to other people in the same boat as i.
I'm still out to lunch on the whole 2nd amendment debate, but could you imagine the air-rage case if people carried concealed weapons on planes!?
Air rage is far more common then hijaking.
Plus, did you listen to all the backward, racist hicks calling into CSPAN on tuesday? There are many well armed racists simpletons in this world who, after recent events, are all too eager to vent on anyone with skin darker than theirs, or someone who wears a cloth wrap on their head for religious reasons (not sure of the proper term for these).
I think the idea of bulletproof cabins that lock from the inside would be a good idea (unless the hijakers got INTO the cabin before the door was locked).
wow! that's pretty impressive for a webtranslation program!
Re:+4 Insightful? Try -1 Uninformed / Prejudiced
on
Our New Pearl Harbor
·
· Score: 2
Hmmm... isn't modding me down a sign of intolerance? You can't tolerate an alternative viewpoint, so you push it down under the radar until no one can see it?
Intolerance of the intolerant is a rather difficult concept to grasp. Is it a contradiction, or is it a statment about tolerance, thus not a paradox? It is anticlericalism.
You call me a bigot, but you ask people to pray? What do non-christians and atheists and agnostics think when their leader (chosen or not), asks them to "Pray?" That's a huge slap in the face to us as a result of YOUR VERY INTOLERANCE and insensitivity to alternate believe systems. And it's also quite difficult to those of us who don't believe in god to grasp: watching large masses of people shouting at the sky for comfort. it's really hard to empathize with that when your a nonbeliever, and asking me to embrace it is the very bigotry behind most (not all) religious dogmas. (thanks to a previous poster for pointing that out.)
I'm facing two types of prejudice on/. right now: 1) because I'm making assumptions about the perpetrators, which is absolultely a justified reason to slam me, and 2) because I'm illustrating the contradictions of religion. The latter is the intolerance you accuse me of.
Re:If I could I *would* mod you down...
on
Our New Pearl Harbor
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The "root of it all" may turn out to be domestic terrorism. And if so, you'd really look bad.
Thank you. This is the first objective reply I've gotten (of course, I've posted rather irrationally for the past few hours, so I can understand some of the angry words). You make a very good point that I hadn't thought of.
Your reply is exactly why I read/post to slashdot in the first place. I'd be the first to admit I don't have everything figured out, so I deliberately post my flaming, raw, unrationalized opinions to/., and I rely on the collective brainpower to either mod me down, publish an opinion that agrees with mine, or a dissenting statement that rationally disarms my position. Yours was the latter.
It's all a social experiment: I'd rather be modded as a troll on/. than beat up in real life for shooting my mouth off.
It's impossible to stare at the TV and not think of the horrific convergence between technology, politics, and information.
Tragedy, yes. Everyone I know has someone missing or someone hurt by this.
/. keeps forgetting RELIGION's ROLE in this mess. That's at the root of it all: two countries persecuting each other over a holyland, and we're in the middle of it.
Repeat: this would not have happened if two countries didn't think a small city was the holyland of their respective gods. The sooner we wean people off of religion, the less intolerance we'll have to deal with. Needn't list all of the intolerance and racism religion has caused. And don't blame a few zealots, it's everyone.
Of course, this thought keeps getting modded down as a troll by a few brainwashed sheep... but go ahead and mod me down, I've got plenty of karma to kill...
In "Fight Club", the plot to take out the skyscrapers seemed cool and funny. And at the end, it seemed carefree and rewarding that the monoliths of capitalism were toppling, I'm sure everyone felt good about that.
Now seeing people jumping out of windows in terror, thousands crushed burned and killed, a city closed, an infrastructure disabled, and world on high-alert, it doesn't seem so cool anymore.
I feel the full effect of desensitization in the movies, and I am disturbed that I can't find the right words to communicate with friends who are in the midst of this crisis. Where can compassion be found? I'm not blaming the media for anything, I'm just sharply aware of the before and after I'm feeling toward fightclub vs. the real thing.
"God is Great!" -- unnamed person celebrating in the streets of Palestine.
Let me try to state this in a non-troll:
It is good to see people on this site reaching out to each other in sympathy and empathy, but when you say, "God bless", which god do you mean? The god of the people that performed this act? Or the god of the victims?
i understand the tragedy completely, you do not. the fact that i awoke to the terrifying notion that the lives of close friends were in jeopardy because of religious insanity enlightened me.
but attempts by people like you to crush the true cause of the tragedy is the real shame.
remember, when you hear someone say "pray for xxxxx", it's prayer that started this.
a battle over a piece of land in mythology. that is why 50000+ people died today.
when people say 'pray to god for the vicitms', what god do they mean? the god of the muslim palenstinians, or the jewish god of the israelis, or the catholic god???
it is all religion's fault.
wake up sheep, your sacred texts are no different then the stories lof odin, zeus, or thoth.
The philosophical argument about the astronaut falling into a black hole is just filler material for science journalists who need an article ASAP. Don't waste your brain cells. There's no proof black holes exist. The philosophy arises from the singularity in the gravitation equation and lorentz's time dilation equation. (radii decrease, gravitiy increases, time slows down... oops...)
I'm can't wait for the day when we do away with this time-stopping/zeno's paradox thing and find a different model for gravity, other than the centuries old newtonian model.
that's what i was wondering. the article sounded like he actually ate a soggy apple soaked in cyanide, but my old copies if 'the anarchitsts cookbook' and 'poor man's james bond' both claim that you can distill pure cyanide from group appleseeds... which would seem like the necessary course, under guard.
The irony of Turing holding the apple is quite a powerful message, as stated at the end of the article. Symbol of Newton, and yet he deliberately took his life with one (news to me).
Imagine helping save Europe from the Nazi's and then being prodded and forced by politicians and doctors to take libido-surpressing drugs: people who's very asses you helped save, all because they're fucking prudes.
Fuckers.
Makes me recite the anticlericalist mantra: intolerance of the intolerant. In the words of Consolidated (from Play More Music), "Yes, we're hypocrites, but for the left."
DISCLAIMER: this is not a cheap shot at interns: it is a shot at managers failing to properly groom young hackers into veteran hackers with the humility to focus on the what's best for the project, rather than deft coding tricks.
i've seen dozens of interns and new hires come in with 1 or 2 semesters of C, and write lots of code, sometimes important pieces of code. management seems to think that if you throw enough newbies at a problem, it's the same as one or two really good programmers. this is a huge management oversight. interns and new hires need good solid mentors and time to develop and hone their skills, and project management needs to enforce design rules. unfortunately, newbies are very reluctant to code to design rules, I know because I always wanted to do stuff my way as an intern (eight years later I'm writing design rules... irony). the result is like a meatgrinder on full speed: code spewing everywhere that all looks different, and is not being tested, regressed or reviewed.
I've seen projects with strict design rules and rule checkers plus a technical guru/godfather for the project owner: results, fewer bugs and fewer people needed to support the code, and i'm talking about million line simulators.
solution: mentoring by veterans with large program experience (the really mean veterans, they are the best people to surround yourself with); and a strict adherence to design rules and revision control; and regression/coverage testing!
RE: Last line of the article, the part about the spinning ship.
I seem to recall a pen-and-paper calculation demonstrating that simulating gravity by spinning the spaceship would require either: a) a spaceship with a ~1km hull, or b) a hull that would have to spin at unreasonable speeds...
Anyone know what I'm talking about? Any physics majors want a stab at this?
Those recommended numbers of 230-250 and 400W are the required ratings to supply large somewhat instantaneous current for the entire system. This is usually during bootup and reset for short periods of time.
Remember, a computer isn't an ohmic device, the current varies. The majority of the time large parts of the system are idle, drawining only 25-50W from the outlet.
The main concern is CPU power. From reliability to chassis noise from the fans, to cooling costs. This is more important to OEMs than performance.
FOr once environmental and marketing needs are in synch.
It's a little sensationalist, but recently a local news network checked with doctors in the northern california area and confirmed that there are shortages for people who just want a booster for no apparent reason.
It's not 100% doom-and-gloom, but it is a tiny bit scary...
I also know a bit about what goes on at the secondary level because in the 1980s I made an educational TV series, The Mechanical Universe, that's still widely used in U.S. colleges and high schools.
widely used in colleges?! hell, i've been out of college for 8 years and i still watch all 26 episodes twice a year... ya think it would have sunk in by now...
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it doesn't reflect a terrorist victory if we use prudence. I think a typical engineering attitude is: build/use it without considering how hard it is to clean up.
And this ranges from everything from DDT to asbestos to nuclear power (I'm pro-fission) and now, tragically, gigantic archiecture.
I think engineers need to consider not only how to MAKE something, but how to DISPOSE of it when it is either a) obsolete, or b) accidentally destroyed.
Given this, is it prudent to make such large and frail structures? Maybe the next world trade center should be a several dozen smaller buildings in the midwest?
...or underground: 1000 years from now all investment bankers all look like Morlok or CHUD (or molepeople, a la hans moleman
I think that it reflects very poorly on us that we'd collectively rather be a the mercy of armed criminals than in the company of an armed citizenry. If the former is truly preferable to the latter then we are surely lost.
;-)
I disagree entirely.
First, I think it is a huge step backwards a few hundred years to think everyone should be armed at all times. I would move to england or canada where guns are illegal and handgun homicides are essentially zero.
Second, we're at the mercy of people that are obviously pissed for some reason. Perhaps we could focus on why we're pissing off so many people before rallying to turn every american into an armed vigilante.
This reveals to me that you are incredibly elitist.
Oh yes, I totally am elitest, I don't disagree. But look at the discussion, we both obviously are based on this conversation, so why point it out?
Shall we form "Box Cutter Control, INC.?" Tacitly submit to body cavity searches in exchange for the privilege of leaving our homes?
I get a good body cavity search every morning from my boyfriend, so I'm stretched and ready! Are you?
Firearms are an equalizer.
More rhetoric. Two people, two guns, one dead. How is that equal?
If the citizenry is good, on the balance, then the net result of an armed citizenry must be good.
Heh heh. Your morality is defended with a gun. I hope my morality is identical to yours, lest I incur your wrath.
What a country you describe: wake up, take a shower, eat breakfast, and strap on a firearm before going out of the house. Yee ha! Sounds like the old west! Maybe I should move to a 3rd world country where they live like this. That's more horrifying than anything else.
this is a really good discussion, and i need to sort through all of the posts, but i've found everything here pertains mostly to unix flavors. can someone focus on windows firewalls as well?
also, are there a few basic problems that make a firewall necessary that someone could describe? i don't quite understand the basic issues of why a firewall is needed on a windows system?
i've been heavily involved w/PCs for the past 20 years, but never got into networks because, well, i never found it interesting, or i didn't have the time/neurons to spend. now that i have no choice but to learn about firewall safety for my own needs, things are unmanagebly huge compared to the token-rings of 15 years ago!
a summary of the main reasons why a firewall is needed, i think, would be pretty useful to other people in the same boat as i.
thx in advance,
s
Whoa there cap'n!
I'm still out to lunch on the whole 2nd amendment debate, but could you imagine the air-rage case if people carried concealed weapons on planes!?
Air rage is far more common then hijaking.
Plus, did you listen to all the backward, racist hicks calling into CSPAN on tuesday? There are many well armed racists simpletons in this world who, after recent events, are all too eager to vent on anyone with skin darker than theirs, or someone who wears a cloth wrap on their head for religious reasons (not sure of the proper term for these).
I think the idea of bulletproof cabins that lock from the inside would be a good idea (unless the hijakers got INTO the cabin before the door was locked).
wow! that's pretty impressive for a webtranslation program!
Hmmm... isn't modding me down a sign of intolerance? You can't tolerate an alternative viewpoint, so you push it down under the radar until no one can see it?
Intolerance of the intolerant is a rather difficult concept to grasp. Is it a contradiction, or is it a statment about tolerance, thus not a paradox? It is anticlericalism.
You call me a bigot, but you ask people to pray? What do non-christians and atheists and agnostics think when their leader (chosen or not), asks them to "Pray?" That's a huge slap in the face to us as a result of YOUR VERY INTOLERANCE and insensitivity to alternate believe systems. And it's also quite difficult to those of us who don't believe in god to grasp: watching large masses of people shouting at the sky for comfort. it's really hard to empathize with that when your a nonbeliever, and asking me to embrace it is the very bigotry behind most (not all) religious dogmas. (thanks to a previous poster for pointing that out.)
I'm facing two types of prejudice on
The "root of it all" may turn out to be domestic terrorism. And if so, you'd really look bad.
Thank you. This is the first objective reply I've gotten (of course, I've posted rather irrationally for the past few hours, so I can understand some of the angry words). You make a very good point that I hadn't thought of.
Your reply is exactly why I read/post to slashdot in the first place. I'd be the first to admit I don't have everything figured out, so I deliberately post my flaming, raw, unrationalized opinions to
It's all a social experiment: I'd rather be modded as a troll on
It's impossible to stare at the TV and not think of the horrific convergence between technology, politics, and information.
Tragedy, yes. Everyone I know has someone missing or someone hurt by this.
/. keeps forgetting RELIGION's ROLE in this mess. That's at the root of it all: two countries persecuting each other over a holyland, and we're in the middle of it.
Repeat: this would not have happened if two countries didn't think a small city was the holyland of their respective gods. The sooner we wean people off of religion, the less intolerance we'll have to deal with. Needn't list all of the intolerance and racism religion has caused. And don't blame a few zealots, it's everyone.
Of course, this thought keeps getting modded down as a troll by a few brainwashed sheep... but go ahead and mod me down, I've got plenty of karma to kill...
In "Fight Club", the plot to take out the skyscrapers seemed cool and funny. And at the end, it seemed carefree and rewarding that the monoliths of capitalism were toppling, I'm sure everyone felt good about that.
Now seeing people jumping out of windows in terror, thousands crushed burned and killed, a city closed, an infrastructure disabled, and world on high-alert, it doesn't seem so cool anymore.
I feel the full effect of desensitization in the movies, and I am disturbed that I can't find the right words to communicate with friends who are in the midst of this crisis. Where can compassion be found? I'm not blaming the media for anything, I'm just sharply aware of the before and after I'm feeling toward fightclub vs. the real thing.
"God is Great!" -- unnamed person celebrating in the streets of Palestine.
Let me try to state this in a non-troll:
It is good to see people on this site reaching out to each other in sympathy and empathy, but when you say, "God bless", which god do you mean? The god of the people that performed this act? Or the god of the victims?
i understand the tragedy completely, you do not. the fact that i awoke to the terrifying notion that the lives of close friends were in jeopardy because of religious insanity enlightened me.
but attempts by people like you to crush the true cause of the tragedy is the real shame.
remember, when you hear someone say "pray for xxxxx", it's prayer that started this.
a battle over a piece of land in mythology. that is why 50000+ people died today.
when people say 'pray to god for the vicitms', what god do they mean? the god of the muslim palenstinians, or the jewish god of the israelis, or the catholic god???
it is all religion's fault.
wake up sheep, your sacred texts are no different then the stories lof odin, zeus, or thoth.
Myst one was a little disturbing when the bro's both lock you up for good.
Gehn was a little psycho in Riven: keeping a woman locked in a prison... hmmm...
Myst 3, when crazy man clubs you in the face with a hammer at the end. That's pretty violent, ja?
So maybe not totally non-violent, but probably as close as possible.
Go to MP3.com
Even MP3 is not pure, read this. I like Fabrik Nos (listening to RantRadio.com), and SteveE makes some good points.
PREMIUM ARTIST SERVICE. That's just bullshit!
Someday, Barnaby.
(Equity Lord? The Diamond Age?)
i don't agree with your argument.
can i play my dvd on my turntable? or a cassette on a CD-ROM?
convergence will sort this mess out in a few years.
Yes, you're right. But...
The philosophical argument about the astronaut falling into a black hole is just filler material for science journalists who need an article ASAP. Don't waste your brain cells. There's no proof black holes exist. The philosophy arises from the singularity in the gravitation equation and lorentz's time dilation equation. (radii decrease, gravitiy increases, time slows down... oops...)
I'm can't wait for the day when we do away with this time-stopping/zeno's paradox thing and find a different model for gravity, other than the centuries old newtonian model.
my $0.02
right, but Bush_Administration == George_Bush
only when the administration does something good and he takes credit for appointing a diverse and competent bunch.
that's what i was wondering. the article sounded like he actually ate a soggy apple soaked in cyanide, but my old copies if 'the anarchitsts cookbook' and 'poor man's james bond' both claim that you can distill pure cyanide from group appleseeds... which would seem like the necessary course, under guard.
The irony of Turing holding the apple is quite a powerful message, as stated at the end of the article. Symbol of Newton, and yet he deliberately took his life with one (news to me).
Imagine helping save Europe from the Nazi's and then being prodded and forced by politicians and doctors to take libido-surpressing drugs: people who's very asses you helped save, all because they're fucking prudes.
Fuckers.
Makes me recite the anticlericalist mantra: intolerance of the intolerant. In the words of Consolidated (from Play More Music), "Yes, we're hypocrites, but for the left."
DISCLAIMER: this is not a cheap shot at interns: it is a shot at managers failing to properly groom young hackers into veteran hackers with the humility to focus on the what's best for the project, rather than deft coding tricks.
i've seen dozens of interns and new hires come in with 1 or 2 semesters of C, and write lots of code, sometimes important pieces of code. management seems to think that if you throw enough newbies at a problem, it's the same as one or two really good programmers. this is a huge management oversight. interns and new hires need good solid mentors and time to develop and hone their skills, and project management needs to enforce design rules. unfortunately, newbies are very reluctant to code to design rules, I know because I always wanted to do stuff my way as an intern (eight years later I'm writing design rules... irony). the result is like a meatgrinder on full speed: code spewing everywhere that all looks different, and is not being tested, regressed or reviewed.
I've seen projects with strict design rules and rule checkers plus a technical guru/godfather for the project owner: results, fewer bugs and fewer people needed to support the code, and i'm talking about million line simulators.
solution: mentoring by veterans with large program experience (the really mean veterans, they are the best people to surround yourself with); and a strict adherence to design rules and revision control; and regression/coverage testing!
damn good analysis!
RE: Last line of the article, the part about the spinning ship.
I seem to recall a pen-and-paper calculation demonstrating that simulating gravity by spinning the spaceship would require either: a) a spaceship with a ~1km hull, or b) a hull that would have to spin at unreasonable speeds...
Anyone know what I'm talking about? Any physics majors want a stab at this?
Those recommended numbers of 230-250 and 400W are the required ratings to supply large somewhat instantaneous current for the entire system. This is usually during bootup and reset for short periods of time.
Remember, a computer isn't an ohmic device, the current varies. The majority of the time large parts of the system are idle, drawining only 25-50W from the outlet.
The main concern is CPU power. From reliability to chassis noise from the fans, to cooling costs. This is more important to OEMs than performance.
FOr once environmental and marketing needs are in synch.
I meant recently, in the past few years. Check this article: http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2001/03/08/tetan us/index.html
It's a little sensationalist, but recently a local news network checked with doctors in the northern california area and confirmed that there are shortages for people who just want a booster for no apparent reason.
It's not 100% doom-and-gloom, but it is a tiny bit scary...
I also know a bit about what goes on at the secondary level because in the 1980s I made an educational TV series, The Mechanical Universe, that's still widely used in U.S. colleges and high schools.
widely used in colleges?! hell, i've been out of college for 8 years and i still watch all 26 episodes twice a year... ya think it would have sunk in by now...