I noticed there were no Baen books on the list -
Baen (www.baen.com) has produced several bestsellers recently, including Eric Flint's "1633" (the followup to the wildly successful "1632", which is now free for the download). Baen is one of the few publishing houses to make money recently - and they are the one giving away full-length, top quality novels at their Baen Free Library. ( www.baen.com/library )
They also sell their books through "Webscriptions", which produce non-DRM e-books (They use HTML, RTF, or a variety of 'Reader' formats).
It's more than a little interesting that giving away older product, and selling current product without annoying DRM or other restrictions would produce a *positive* result - but of course the RIAA will probably continue to pay no attention.
I wonder why Locus avoided the whole publishing house? SF publishing has traditionally been a jealous, backbiting world but I don't know if that's a factor in this list, or just the taste of the reviewers.
The editor should EDIT the copy, not just format it and split it up. Some (many?) people can't really write consise stories. They NEED to have an editor to cut down on the drivel, extra words, side-tracks, repetitive examples, etc.
So, if the article is "overly-long-desperately-needs-to-be-edited" then it should be edited.
But probably, part of the lure of getting people to write for Salon the past few years is to tout the lack of length restrictions.
Re:The future? Just like the past should be...
on
More on Columbia
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I can solve the space access problem with a few sentences.
Be it enacted by the Congress of the United States:
The Treasurer of the United States is directed to pay to the first American owned company (if corporate at least 60% of the shares must be held by American citizens) the following sums for the following accomplishments. No monies shall be paid until the goals specified are accomplished and certified by suitable experts from the National Science Foundation or the National Academy of Science:
1. The sum of $2 billion to be paid for construction of 3 operational spacecraft which have achieved low earth orbit, returned to earth, and flown to orbit again three times in a period of three weeks.
2. The sum of $5 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a space station which has been continuously in orbit with at least 5 Americans aboard for a period of not less than three years and one day. The crew need not be the same persons for the entire time, but at no time shall the station be unoccupied.
3. The sum of $12 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a Lunar base in which no fewer than 31 Americans have continuously resided for a period of not less than four years and one day.
4. The sum of $10 billion to be paid for construction and maintenance of a solar power satellite system which delivers at least 800 megaWatts of electric power to a receiving station or stations in the United States for a period of at least two years and one day.
5. The payments made shall be exempt from all US taxes.
That would do it. Not one cent to be paid until the goals are accomplished. Not a bit of risk, and if it can't be done for those sums, well, no harm done to the treasury.
I had Newt Gingrich persuaded to do this before he found he couldn't keep the office of Speaker. I haven't had any audiences with his successors.
Jerry Pournelle's Site has several interesting articles on the space program. He's a science fiction author (see 'Fallen Angeles') at the Baen Free Library who worked in aerospace for many years, has testified before Congress and given speeches to the Air War College.
This article agreees with what David Bowie has been saying. The money (for most artists these days) is in the personal appearances (mainly concerts), not the royalties. It takes a HUGE-selling artist, or one who sells well to the non-downloading crowd, to get rich on royalties these days.
Still, I wonder about the 'intensive persnal appearances' this artist mentions. (Insert your own Natalie Portman jokes about the 'pirate my body' part).
"For Wang Lee Hom, that involved advertising campaigns and an intensive series of personal appearances.
"Until they pirate my body, I can rely on personal appearances," Wang said. "I am forced to view albums only as a promotional tool."
"Or do you love your property so much that you would be willing to kill for it, rather than file an insurance claim?"
If you cooperate with a robber, you have an implied contract of sorts - he won't shoot you, and you will give him your property. But it is entirely one-sided; he can still shoot you after taking your property.
Shooting someone solely in defense of property is not a valid defense in most states; (very generally) only if you are threatened with violence can you "shoot back".
So, the question is not about saving your property, but about the mental state of those willing to pull armed robbery. Somehow, I don't trust them.
Open IT: Govt to rewrite source code in Linux
SUDHA NAGARAJ
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2002 01:29:29 AM ]
NEW DELHI: If the Chinese have IT, get it. The Indian government seems to be taking a leaf out of China's operating system, and is planning a countrywide drive to promote the open source operating system, Linux, as the 'platform of choice' instead of 'proprietary' solutions.
For proprietory, read Microsoft, which controls over 90% of the desktop software market.
The Department of Information Technology has already devised a strategy to introduce Linux and open source software as a de-facto standard in academic institutions, especially in engineering colleges through course work that encourages use of such systems.
Research establishments would be advised to use and develop re-distributable toolboxes just as Central government departments and state governments would be asked to use Linux-based offerings.
DIT is in talks with leading industry players like IBM and HCL to get a feel of their work in the area and invite proposals for joint projects. "As a first step we are persuading all government institutions to offer courses on Linux and programming for Linux environment. We would also set up Linux Resource Centres in academic institutes (with co-funding from government and industry)," said a senior government official.
Though India has made a name for itself selling solutions, software as a product is expensive within the country. And the cost will bite once India starts implementing IPR protection in earnest, as it has committed itself to.
While redistribution of proprietary software is restricted through a licence agreement, the licensing terms for Linux grants the right to obtain and redistribute copies. Many analysts believe that China's growing dominance in the IT space is fuelled by its low cost open source bias.
The Chinese government has consistently promoted its local software based on Linux, both for cost reasons, and reportedly for 'security' concerns as well.
The source code for proprietory software is not revealed, and this, it is believed, has not found favour with the Chinese, especially in defence and security related applications.
Microsoft, in what many observers and reports say is an attempt to soften the Chinese government's stand, recently committed to investing $750m in China in three years to help set up a software college and put its money into Chinese education.
In comparison, Microsoft has announced investments worth only $75m over a three-year time frame in India. Howver, the Chinese company Redflag Software, which was set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the country's most prestigious research institute, has often come out with low-cost software based on Linux, in direct competition to Windows-based software.
The Indian government's plan, however, is not driven by security concerns, but by the far more simple arithmetic of costing. To put it simply, India being a developing country needs low cost solutions.
Unlike the Microsoft-developed Windows operating system, Linux code is free and downloadable from the internet. With the addition of special applications, it can be personalized to meet specific needs.
An industry-government-user-developer conference on the subject would be organised to throw up ideas for specific initiatives including funding, reliable sources told ET.
The only issue here is support and services, which Indian government sources feel is not likely to be an issue in a country known for its software support and service skills.
Like China, the government is also eyeing the increasingly lucrative global support and services market for the Linux environment may prove lucrative. While proprietary support agreements govern only the systems purchased (with licences), for free software support is independent of the number of copies owned.
"With applications in security being a focus area, inputs have been sought from the Defence on their experience with Linux. Indian-language based solutions, e-governance, embedded and high performance cluster solutions are other areas. But firstly we want to concretise the position on IPR issues in the use of Linux," the source said.
DIT is planning a three-tier mechanism, with itself as the first, industry, user groups and state governments as the second and a national apex committee headed either by a government representative, an industry expert or an academician to oversee manpower and skill development, applications development and deployment and public policy support, said sources.
According to IDC's figures for '00, Microsoft still controlled 94% of the desktop software market and while Linux is expected to overtake the number two -- Apple Mac OS -- by '03, it would still control less than 4% of the market.
In server software, it fares a little better and is expected to control around 30% of the market by '03, according to IDC. Linux, which has established itself in the server space, is an open reliable OS that runs on virtually any platform and was developd by Finnish technologist Linus Torvalds.
After developing the initial source code, Linus made it available on the Internet for use, feedback and further development.
Not quite true, but not completely wrong. I know of an example where the person signed an odious non-compete agreement with disguised signature, with no witnesses, and got away with claiming his signature was forged (by a "Human Resources" flunky in his case). Their lawyers backed down when he proved willing to take them to court. Not something I would want to try.
Your point about courts disliking people who lie is 100% correct.
You can't win given the situation you describe. Was there only one backdoor installed? Do you know how many SQL 6.5 exploits there are? You have a system that CANNOT be secured without major changes, and a reload of the operating system.
Either you are intentionally being set up to fail, or your management is even more clueless than usual.
If I were in your position, I would start writing memos, lots of CYA memos. Make them scary, use the L words like liability, lawsuit, lawyers. Explain how much money will be SAVED by not exposing credit card numbers to some hacker.
At a minimum, get another web server not running NT, if the blank SA password thing can't be changed.
(Ignoring the fact that most of the world calls the sport the Americans call soccer 'football'; I'll write with American usage:)
Right, and wrong. Buckballs are C-60 and soccerball shaped, but some relatives are indeed football shaped (more like a rugby ball, really), and have 70 or 76 Carbon atoms inside.
"C60 and C70 have similar properties, with six reversible, one electron reductions to C60(6-) and C70(6-) having been observed, whereas oxidation is irreversible. The first reduction for both fullerenes is ~1.0 V (Fc/Fc+), indicating they have electron accepting properties. C76 exhibits both electron donor/acceptor properties. C60 has a tendency of avoiding having double bonds within the pentagonal rings which makes electron delocalisation poor, and results in the fact that C60 is not "superaromatic". C60 behaves very much like an electron deficient alkene and readily reacts with electron rich species. " (from
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/bucky ba ll/c60a.htm )
Great, now the virus writers will have another tool for Dos attacks. And it's so bandwidth-efficient, even a modem connection can be used. I could be wrong. (I hope I am.)
How long would it use these techniques to make a tool to grab every connection on slashdot? (I'm not a TCP/IP jockey, that's a real question.)
(The email addr doesn't work anymore and slashcode won't let me change it.)
Netzero.net and 1stup.com both are totally free, (make you watch ads) have lots of local numbers, and are what I have used throughout the country. 1stup.com is the actual host for several free internet services, including AltaVista, 7abc, and the Simpsons. Check out their sites to check out the phone numbers available - I don't know which would have better coverage in your planned travel area.
Netzero is about 5 meg to download, requires 800x600 resolution minimum, and gives you an email address (yourname@netzero.net). I hever get a connection better than 28.8 to NetZero, but it is a fairly stable one.
1stup will fit on a floppy (uninstalled), can tolerate 640x480, but does not give you an email account (use a free web-based one), and seems a little less stable overall - if the ad server has connection problems, you can't stay on line.
Both run only on Windows 9.x
Travel Warrior Tips: Take along a cheap analog phone to try the hotel room lines - some are digital lines and would fry a modem, though even in rural areas things are getting better. I'd also recommend a copy of Street Atlas (or its brethren) [~$30] and if you have the money, a GPS [~$200] - it's very nice to know where you are. Buy a cheap power inverter [~$40] to plug into the cigarette lighter to provide 110volt power for the laptop.
I've been recommending refurbished HP printers for years - the older (II - III - 4) series last well and seem to be better built (less flimsy plastic) than the new ones. One source is www.p3si.com/cat_prn.html. I ordered from them a year ago, got a HPIIID (prints on both sides of a page with the right drivers), and it's still working. These may be the most popular laser printers ever. Repair parts and consumables are easy to find and cheap.
I use 'Wizard' amongst the non-technical. It is much more likely to be correctly intrepreted. In a mixed crowd, I will qualify it so I don't appear to be claiming so-and-so is a semi-demigod (in the hacker meaning).
With a non-computer crowd, I won't use 'wiz' much, mainly because it is too close to 'whiz', which has other meanings, but is also a slang term for urinate. I remember a very funny cartoon showing a fed-up programmer peeing on his printout and terminal, with the caption 'Computer Whiz'. (Doesn't sound like it would be funny; you had to be there.)
Alan Cox's diary page self-describes him as 'Kernel Hacker'. 'Kernel Wizard' is also pretty accurate - and less likely to be interpreted as evil by the uninformed.
Let's say you are of small stature, of Lawful/Good alignment, and minding your own business. If someone large and evil comes at you with a baseball bat, do you want to (a.) call 911 and wait while being beaten to death, (b.) cower in fear while being beaten to death, or (c.) defend yourself? And if not with a gun, then what? Evil people do exist - guns are usually (90% or more) used to disuade evil deeds with no shots fired.
Australia has had all sorts of armed crimes go up since they had the law-abiding turn in most of their weapons. The bad guys ignore gun laws, and the laws end up disarming the good guys only.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, yes, after a night of Guiness... This site gives new meaning to the term Technicolor Yawn!
I noticed there were no Baen books on the list - Baen (www.baen.com) has produced several bestsellers recently, including Eric Flint's "1633" (the followup to the wildly successful "1632", which is now free for the download). Baen is one of the few publishing houses to make money recently - and they are the one giving away full-length, top quality novels at their Baen Free Library. ( www.baen.com/library )
They also sell their books through "Webscriptions", which produce non-DRM e-books (They use HTML, RTF, or a variety of 'Reader' formats).
It's more than a little interesting that giving away older product, and selling current product without annoying DRM or other restrictions would produce a *positive* result - but of course the RIAA will probably continue to pay no attention.
I wonder why Locus avoided the whole publishing house? SF publishing has traditionally been a jealous, backbiting world but I don't know if that's a factor in this list, or just the taste of the reviewers.
The editor should EDIT the copy, not just format it and split it up. Some (many?) people can't really write consise stories. They NEED to have an editor to cut down on the drivel, extra words, side-tracks, repetitive examples, etc.
So, if the article is "overly-long-desperately-needs-to-be-edited" then it should be edited.
But probably, part of the lure of getting people to write for Salon the past few years is to tout the lack of length restrictions.
Jerry Pournelle's Site has several interesting articles on the space program. He's a science fiction author (see 'Fallen Angeles') at the Baen Free Library who worked in aerospace for many years, has testified before Congress and given speeches to the Air War College.
This article agreees with what David Bowie has been saying. The money (for most artists these days) is in the personal appearances (mainly concerts), not the royalties. It takes a HUGE-selling artist, or one who sells well to the non-downloading crowd, to get rich on royalties these days.
Still, I wonder about the 'intensive persnal appearances' this artist mentions. (Insert your own Natalie Portman jokes about the 'pirate my body' part).
"For Wang Lee Hom, that involved advertising campaigns and an intensive series of personal appearances.
"Until they pirate my body, I can rely on personal appearances," Wang said. "I am forced to view albums only as a promotional tool."
"Or do you love your property so much that you would be willing to kill for it, rather than file an insurance claim?" If you cooperate with a robber, you have an implied contract of sorts - he won't shoot you, and you will give him your property. But it is entirely one-sided; he can still shoot you after taking your property.
Shooting someone solely in defense of property is not a valid defense in most states; (very generally) only if you are threatened with violence can you "shoot back".
So, the question is not about saving your property, but about the mental state of those willing to pull armed robbery. Somehow, I don't trust them.
In case it's slashdotted...
Open IT: Govt to rewrite source code in Linux SUDHA NAGARAJ
TIMES NEWS NETWORK [ WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 09, 2002 01:29:29 AM ]
NEW DELHI: If the Chinese have IT, get it. The Indian government seems to be taking a leaf out of China's operating system, and is planning a countrywide drive to promote the open source operating system, Linux, as the 'platform of choice' instead of 'proprietary' solutions.
For proprietory, read Microsoft, which controls over 90% of the desktop software market.
The Department of Information Technology has already devised a strategy to introduce Linux and open source software as a de-facto standard in academic institutions, especially in engineering colleges through course work that encourages use of such systems.
Research establishments would be advised to use and develop re-distributable toolboxes just as Central government departments and state governments would be asked to use Linux-based offerings.
DIT is in talks with leading industry players like IBM and HCL to get a feel of their work in the area and invite proposals for joint projects. "As a first step we are persuading all government institutions to offer courses on Linux and programming for Linux environment. We would also set up Linux Resource Centres in academic institutes (with co-funding from government and industry)," said a senior government official.
Though India has made a name for itself selling solutions, software as a product is expensive within the country. And the cost will bite once India starts implementing IPR protection in earnest, as it has committed itself to.
While redistribution of proprietary software is restricted through a licence agreement, the licensing terms for Linux grants the right to obtain and redistribute copies. Many analysts believe that China's growing dominance in the IT space is fuelled by its low cost open source bias.
The Chinese government has consistently promoted its local software based on Linux, both for cost reasons, and reportedly for 'security' concerns as well.
The source code for proprietory software is not revealed, and this, it is believed, has not found favour with the Chinese, especially in defence and security related applications.
Microsoft, in what many observers and reports say is an attempt to soften the Chinese government's stand, recently committed to investing $750m in China in three years to help set up a software college and put its money into Chinese education.
In comparison, Microsoft has announced investments worth only $75m over a three-year time frame in India. Howver, the Chinese company Redflag Software, which was set up by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the country's most prestigious research institute, has often come out with low-cost software based on Linux, in direct competition to Windows-based software.
The Indian government's plan, however, is not driven by security concerns, but by the far more simple arithmetic of costing. To put it simply, India being a developing country needs low cost solutions.
Unlike the Microsoft-developed Windows operating system, Linux code is free and downloadable from the internet. With the addition of special applications, it can be personalized to meet specific needs.
An industry-government-user-developer conference on the subject would be organised to throw up ideas for specific initiatives including funding, reliable sources told ET.
The only issue here is support and services, which Indian government sources feel is not likely to be an issue in a country known for its software support and service skills.
Like China, the government is also eyeing the increasingly lucrative global support and services market for the Linux environment may prove lucrative. While proprietary support agreements govern only the systems purchased (with licences), for free software support is independent of the number of copies owned.
"With applications in security being a focus area, inputs have been sought from the Defence on their experience with Linux. Indian-language based solutions, e-governance, embedded and high performance cluster solutions are other areas. But firstly we want to concretise the position on IPR issues in the use of Linux," the source said.
DIT is planning a three-tier mechanism, with itself as the first, industry, user groups and state governments as the second and a national apex committee headed either by a government representative, an industry expert or an academician to oversee manpower and skill development, applications development and deployment and public policy support, said sources.
According to IDC's figures for '00, Microsoft still controlled 94% of the desktop software market and while Linux is expected to overtake the number two -- Apple Mac OS -- by '03, it would still control less than 4% of the market.
In server software, it fares a little better and is expected to control around 30% of the market by '03, according to IDC. Linux, which has established itself in the server space, is an open reliable OS that runs on virtually any platform and was developd by Finnish technologist Linus Torvalds.
After developing the initial source code, Linus made it available on the Internet for use, feedback and further development.
Not quite true, but not completely wrong. I know of an example where the person signed an odious non-compete agreement with disguised signature, with no witnesses, and got away with claiming his signature was forged (by a "Human Resources" flunky in his case). Their lawyers backed down when he proved willing to take them to court. Not something I would want to try.
Your point about courts disliking people who lie is 100% correct.
You can't win given the situation you describe. Was there only one backdoor installed? Do you know how many SQL 6.5 exploits there are? You have a system that CANNOT be secured without major changes, and a reload of the operating system.
Either you are intentionally being set up to fail, or your management is even more clueless than usual.
If I were in your position, I would start writing memos, lots of CYA memos. Make them scary, use the L words like liability, lawsuit, lawyers. Explain how much money will be SAVED by not exposing credit card numbers to some hacker.
At a minimum, get another web server not running NT, if the blank SA password thing can't be changed.
(Ignoring the fact that most of the world calls the sport the Americans call soccer 'football'; I'll write with American usage:)
y ba ll/c60a.htm )
Right, and wrong. Buckballs are C-60 and soccerball shaped, but some relatives are indeed football shaped (more like a rugby ball, really), and have 70 or 76 Carbon atoms inside.
"C60 and C70 have similar properties, with six reversible, one electron reductions to C60(6-) and C70(6-) having been observed, whereas oxidation is irreversible. The first reduction for both fullerenes is ~1.0 V (Fc/Fc+), indicating they have electron accepting properties. C76 exhibits both electron donor/acceptor properties. C60 has a tendency of avoiding having double bonds within the pentagonal rings which makes electron delocalisation poor, and results in the fact that C60 is not "superaromatic". C60 behaves very much like an electron deficient alkene and readily reacts with electron rich species. " (from
http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/buck
Great, now the virus writers will have another tool for Dos attacks. And it's so bandwidth-efficient, even a modem connection can be used. I could be wrong. (I hope I am.)
How long would it use these techniques to make a tool to grab every connection on slashdot? (I'm not a TCP/IP jockey, that's a real question.)
(The email addr doesn't work anymore and slashcode won't let me change it.)
Netzero.net and 1stup.com both are totally free, (make you watch ads) have lots of local numbers, and are what I have used throughout the country. 1stup.com is the actual host for several free internet services, including AltaVista, 7abc, and the Simpsons. Check out their sites to check out the phone numbers available - I don't know which would have better coverage in your planned travel area.
Netzero is about 5 meg to download, requires 800x600 resolution minimum, and gives you an email address (yourname@netzero.net). I hever get a connection better than 28.8 to NetZero, but it is a fairly stable one.
1stup will fit on a floppy (uninstalled), can tolerate 640x480, but does not give you an email account (use a free web-based one), and seems a little less stable overall - if the ad server has connection problems, you can't stay on line.
Both run only on Windows 9.x
Travel Warrior Tips: Take along a cheap analog phone to try the hotel room lines - some are digital lines and would fry a modem, though even in rural areas things are getting better. I'd also recommend a copy of Street Atlas (or its brethren) [~$30] and if you have the money, a GPS [~$200] - it's very nice to know where you are. Buy a cheap power inverter [~$40] to plug into the cigarette lighter to provide 110volt power for the laptop.
I've been recommending refurbished HP printers for years - the older (II - III - 4) series last well and seem to be better built (less flimsy plastic) than the new ones. One source is www.p3si.com/cat_prn.html. I ordered from them a year ago, got a HPIIID (prints on both sides of a page with the right drivers), and it's still working. These may be the most popular laser printers ever. Repair parts and consumables are easy to find and cheap.
I use 'Wizard' amongst the non-technical. It is much more likely to be correctly intrepreted. In a mixed crowd, I will qualify it so I don't appear to be claiming so-and-so is a semi-demigod (in the hacker meaning).
With a non-computer crowd, I won't use 'wiz' much, mainly because it is too close to 'whiz', which has other meanings, but is also a slang term for urinate. I remember a very funny cartoon showing a fed-up programmer peeing on his printout and terminal, with the caption 'Computer Whiz'. (Doesn't sound like it would be funny; you had to be there.)
Alan Cox's diary page self-describes him as 'Kernel Hacker'. 'Kernel Wizard' is also pretty accurate - and less likely to be interpreted as evil by the uninformed.
STAR OFFICE 5.1 Download Sites:
FTP SITES:
Sun SITE UTK at University of Tennessee - Knoxville
TU Clausthal - Germany
Sun SITE Central Europe at RWTH-Aachen - Germany
Sun SITE Finland at the Tampere University of Technology
Sun SITE Switzerland - cnlab & SWITCH - Rapperswil & Zurich
Star Division - Germany
Star Division - Germany
AARNet Mirror Project - Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
HTTP SITES:
Sun SITE USA at University of North Carolina - UNC Chapel Hill
Sun SITE UTK at University of Tennessee - Knoxville
Sun SITE Central Europe at RWTH-Aachen - Germany
Sun SITE Finland at the Tampere University of Technology
Sun SITE Nordic at Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan - Stockholm
Sun SITE Belgium
Sun SITE Northern Europe at Imperial College - London
Sun SITE Switzerland - cnlab & SWITCH - Rapperswil & Zurich
Let's say you are of small stature, of Lawful/Good alignment, and minding your own business. If someone large and evil comes at you with a baseball bat, do you want to (a.) call 911 and wait while being beaten to death, (b.) cower in fear while being beaten to death, or (c.) defend yourself? And if not with a gun, then what? Evil people do exist - guns are usually (90% or more) used to disuade evil deeds with no shots fired.
Australia has had all sorts of armed crimes go up since they had the law-abiding turn in most of their weapons. The bad guys ignore gun laws, and the laws end up disarming the good guys only.