> It seems like a reasonable thing to do to change the name.
I agree. If you want to posture yourself as being of higher moral caliber than $DARKLORD, then you have to split hairs between what you can do and what you should do.
> What's interesting is how it decodes itself from the string.
I saw something recently about how the anti-virus companies are starting to whinge about how the number of different compression schemes available out there makes it really hard to create signatures for all the viruses. Same virus, different compression ==> different signature required.
Ask not what viruses
do cost; ask rather how much they could cost.
Face it: most viruses (so far as we know) are little more than nuisances. Yes, they cost money because they waste a lot of people's time and bandwidth, but that's about it.
But what happens when people start writing more insidious virues?
Say: flip a random bit in a random data file. Those bits add up over a few years, and even if you had two years' accumulated daily backup tapes, it would be nigh impossible to rebuild clean data from them. So what happens when you go to work one day, start troubleshooting a problem, and suddenly discover that you can't trust any of the data on any of your company's computers? And can't even confidently demonstrate which files are corrupt and which aren't?
Or: suppose someone uses a virus to cover a more sinister attack? The bank's IT staff congratulate themselves at how quickly they squashed a viral attack, not realizing that one of those messages had the same subject line and same.vbs name, but carried an altogether different payload.
Other scenarios should be easy to come up with as well. The surprise is that the virus writers haven't come up with them yet. (Or haven't they?)
My point is: yes, headlines probably use grossly inflated figures for the cost of virus attacks, and yes, most of them could be shrugged off as annoying pranks. But will it always be that way? Rather than playing down the seriousness of viruses by pointing out cases of obvious or probable exaggeration, we should be trying to scare the bejesus out of our clients and employeers, before "the big one" comes along.
> What I've found out now, is that the auditing department of that company has since been keeping track of those message boards, and has identified me. I've been told that they may speak to me,
In order to avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings, make sure they know your hourly rates up front.
> and may also talk to the company I currently work for.
That's what God invented lawsuits for.
Ream 'em for what it's worth, plus a bit more for their better education.
> Sure is! Let each programmer freely choose his license, and let him be secure in the fact that someone else isn't going to flame him for it. That's freedom.
Yeah, but what if you're a multiclass "troll/hacker" and you chose the license as flamebait? Shouldn't freedom allow flaimbaiters to get flamed when they want to?
> The reason the power plants in California are in trouble is not because of anything EXCEPT too much government regulations.
I can't believe people are still posting that kind of claim. Every time the topic comes up, the following facts have to be pointed out:
It was the utilities that pushed the legislation in the first place. They didn't complain a whit then about "partial deregulation". Instead, they arranged their investors a $28,500,000,000 bail-out at taxpayer expense, and billed it as a 10% rate cut.
When Californians figured out how badly they had been screwed, they put up Proposition 9 to void part of the deal. The utilities put up $30,000,000 to fight P9.
Since the legislation took effect, PG&E has reorganized itself into a parent company and two siblings. Now the left hand is making record profits by selling power to the right hand at scalper's prices, and the right hand is demanding another bailout due to all the money it's "losing".
This is a Royal Scam of the finest water. Don't let your "all regulation is bad" ideology blind you to that fact.
> A quick glance at the latter's diagrams shows that, if nowhere else, they are clearly vulnerable to hardware based attack, but of course, the whole scheme, as has already been pointed out in this forum, is also vulnerable to a $15 tape recorder.
Surely you're not suggesting that Microsoft would push a product with a security hole the size of... of... of the one at goatse?
> The best Science Fiction has never been about the technology, but about people. The technology merely serves as a backdrop to get the people into an interesting situation, or presents new obstacles or opportunities for the characters.
I agree. Actually, the "hard core" stuff did appeal to me when I was a schoolboy, but after a decade or so I started getting tired of reading about "widgets" and "telltales" and convoluted explanations of why some plot prop should work, and even more bored with 'stories' whose entire raison d'être was to show off some semi-plausible technology that the author had cooked up.
Give me a story that works as a story.
My longstanding favorite SF author is Jack Vance. That's partly because his whimsy appeals to me, but also very much because the people in his stories take their technology just as much for granted as we do, and don't go around explaining it to each other for page after page. If people need to go somewhere, they just hop into the aircar and get along with the plot, without a lot of "Gee, whiz! An aircar!" and "Yeah, superconductivity makes it all possible."
When I want to read about technology for technology's sake, I read Scientific American. When I want to read a story, I expect the technology to merge into the background so that literary qualities can have center stage.
--
Re:Been done here for ages, and it works.
on
The Unblinking Eye
·
· Score: 1
> Crime in Glasgow city centre has fallen by some 70% since this system was introduced, and the city has become a much safer place to socialise in.
JL suggested last night that you get one of those fancy split-screen televisions, tune the left side to "Most Wanted" and the right side to the Superbowl, and whenever you see a match you call up and collect your reward.
> While the hell the PTO doesn't employ some moderately technically literate people to make sure these stupid patents are never granted in the first place is beyond me. If there should be any blame placed it should be with the PTO, although Altavista (CMGI) should know better.
> I've been waiting for some of the 'Net pioneers to come out against this crap. Looks like Emtage is one of the few who has the resources to fight this!
"funny" will be if he has a patent on it and makes AV pay out the gazoo for using it.
"funnier" will be if he donates the proceeds from his patent to the EFF.
"funniest" will be if he turns out to have a patent on one-click shopping, too.
> On 1492-10-12, Columbus recieved tobacco leaves, "certain dried leaves which gave off distinct fragrances" as indian gifts.... which he later threw away.
Yeah, but that was the marijuana. This article's about the "other" stuff some people smoke.
> but to see you bag him because of the amount of money he's contributed?
You mistake me. Personally, I don't care if he keeps every penny for himself and wastes it on bubblegum. What sets me off isn't him personally, nor the the greatness or smallness of his charity, but rather seeing people try to whitewash him into a saint just because he has lots of ill-gotten gain to throw around, and actually does throw a rather small portion of it around.
Thank all the gods, I'm neither his judge nor his counsellor. But I'm not going to sit back and let a lot of bullshit propaganda go down without pointing it out for what it is.
> Fuck you. Really. Fuck you.
Now that your dander is up, you know exactly how I feel about all the twisty spin control the rich and powerful subject us to day in and day out. "Gates isn't a villian, he's a philanthropist!" "The California utilities are getting screwed!" "Vote for me and I'll give everyone everything they want, and lower your taxes too."
It just goes on and on and on, and more of us ought to be pointing out what a crock it is.
Sure we can. Some of us just don't happen to think Gates is due any.
If he dies tomorrow and we discover that he's been giving till it hurts -- or at least inconveniences -- and hasn't been bragging off about it, call it to my attention and I'll applaud him for it.
> Stock that you do not sell is money that you do not have.
FWIW, the FSF accepts donations in the form of stocks. If by chance BG doesn't see the FSF as a worthy cause, perhaps other charities would be equally willing to accept a pile of MSFT.
Slashdot Mirror
> It seems like a reasonable thing to do to change the name.
I agree. If you want to posture yourself as being of higher moral caliber than $DARKLORD, then you have to split hairs between what you can do and what you should do.
--
> What is with Buckminster Fuller's names. "Dymaxion map"?
"Twister" was already copyrighted.
--
> What's interesting is how it decodes itself from the string.
I saw something recently about how the anti-virus companies are starting to whinge about how the number of different compression schemes available out there makes it really hard to create signatures for all the viruses. Same virus, different compression ==> different signature required.
--
But what happens when people start writing more insidious virues?
Say: flip a random bit in a random data file. Those bits add up over a few years, and even if you had two years' accumulated daily backup tapes, it would be nigh impossible to rebuild clean data from them. So what happens when you go to work one day, start troubleshooting a problem, and suddenly discover that you can't trust any of the data on any of your company's computers? And can't even confidently demonstrate which files are corrupt and which aren't?
Or: suppose someone uses a virus to cover a more sinister attack? The bank's IT staff congratulate themselves at how quickly they squashed a viral attack, not realizing that one of those messages had the same subject line and same
Other scenarios should be easy to come up with as well. The surprise is that the virus writers haven't come up with them yet. (Or haven't they?)
My point is: yes, headlines probably use grossly inflated figures for the cost of virus attacks, and yes, most of them could be shrugged off as annoying pranks. But will it always be that way? Rather than playing down the seriousness of viruses by pointing out cases of obvious or probable exaggeration, we should be trying to scare the bejesus out of our clients and employeers, before "the big one" comes along.
--
More often it means that one of them is giving up and trying to get the best deal it can for its assets.
As for Linux layoffs...
- Even in the best of times, selling something that's available for free is at best a weak business model.
- The economy's going to hell in a handbasket, and layoffs aren't limited to Linux companies (nor even to tech companies).
Move along, folks. There's nothing to see here.--
> What I've found out now, is that the auditing department of that company has since been keeping track of those message boards, and has identified me. I've been told that they may speak to me,
In order to avoid any unfortunate misunderstandings, make sure they know your hourly rates up front.
> and may also talk to the company I currently work for.
That's what God invented lawsuits for.
Ream 'em for what it's worth, plus a bit more for their better education.
--
> Sure is! Let each programmer freely choose his license, and let him be secure in the fact that someone else isn't going to flame him for it. That's freedom.
Yeah, but what if you're a multiclass "troll/hacker" and you chose the license as flamebait? Shouldn't freedom allow flaimbaiters to get flamed when they want to?
--
I can't believe people are still posting that kind of claim. Every time the topic comes up, the following facts have to be pointed out:
- It was the utilities that pushed the legislation in the first place. They didn't complain a whit then about "partial deregulation". Instead, they arranged their investors a $28,500,000,000 bail-out at taxpayer expense, and billed it as a 10% rate cut.
- When Californians figured out how badly they had been screwed, they put up Proposition 9 to void part of the deal. The utilities put up $30,000,000 to fight P9.
- Since the legislation took effect, PG&E has reorganized itself into a parent company and two siblings. Now the left hand is making record profits by selling power to the right hand at scalper's prices, and the right hand is demanding another bailout due to all the money it's "losing".
This is a Royal Scam of the finest water. Don't let your "all regulation is bad" ideology blind you to that fact.--
> A quick glance at the latter's diagrams shows that, if nowhere else, they are clearly vulnerable to hardware based attack, but of course, the whole scheme, as has already been pointed out in this forum, is also vulnerable to a $15 tape recorder.
Surely you're not suggesting that Microsoft would push a product with a security hole the size of... of... of the one at goatse?
--
> I guess that explains the appeal in porn.
Except that for porn, it isn't a neuron that "fires".
--
Yeah, I very often ended up with a missing piece or an extra piece, so I would have to agree that jigsaw puzzles are not by and large zero-sum games.
--
> The best Science Fiction has never been about the technology, but about people. The technology merely serves as a backdrop to get the people into an interesting situation, or presents new obstacles or opportunities for the characters.
I agree. Actually, the "hard core" stuff did appeal to me when I was a schoolboy, but after a decade or so I started getting tired of reading about "widgets" and "telltales" and convoluted explanations of why some plot prop should work, and even more bored with 'stories' whose entire raison d'être was to show off some semi-plausible technology that the author had cooked up.
Give me a story that works as a story.
My longstanding favorite SF author is Jack Vance. That's partly because his whimsy appeals to me, but also very much because the people in his stories take their technology just as much for granted as we do, and don't go around explaining it to each other for page after page. If people need to go somewhere, they just hop into the aircar and get along with the plot, without a lot of "Gee, whiz! An aircar!" and "Yeah, superconductivity makes it all possible."
When I want to read about technology for technology's sake, I read Scientific American. When I want to read a story, I expect the technology to merge into the background so that literary qualities can have center stage.
--
> Crime in Glasgow city centre has fallen by some 70% since this system was introduced, and the city has become a much safer place to socialise in.
Yeah, but they still haven't spotted Elvis.
--
JL suggested last night that you get one of those fancy split-screen televisions, tune the left side to "Most Wanted" and the right side to the Superbowl, and whenever you see a match you call up and collect your reward.
The latest thing in TV game shows, I reckon.
--
> I'd like to know why in the blazes "members" should be the only people getting the early warnings on security issues.
Yeah, and there's also the rather obvious problem of "What if it isn't a member that discovers it?"
Maybe we can partition the world into "members" and "non-members", and neither group will tell the other about the problems they discover.
--
> Linux has a lame space strategy game, Windows doesn't.
Aren't you forgetting Space Cadet?
--
> P2P (the RIAA's goal is to "guarantee that no venture capitalist invests money in new modes of distribution unless Hollywood signs off")
Sounds like an attempt to exercise an existing monopoly to control another industry, IMO.
--
> MacOS X is based on GNU/Darwin
Shouldn't be too hard to sell an OS named g' Nude Arwen, especially after LOTR comes out.
--
> While the hell the PTO doesn't employ some moderately technically literate people to make sure these stupid patents are never granted in the first place is beyond me. If there should be any blame placed it should be with the PTO, although Altavista (CMGI) should know better.
I think PTO uses AV to search for prior art.
--
> I've been waiting for some of the 'Net pioneers to come out against this crap. Looks like Emtage is one of the few who has the resources to fight this!
"funny" will be if he has a patent on it and makes AV pay out the gazoo for using it.
"funnier" will be if he donates the proceeds from his patent to the EFF.
"funniest" will be if he turns out to have a patent on one-click shopping, too.
--
> It will make your wife look better (and thinner),
.NET isn't going to do much for me, eh?
My wife has anarexia (and I have dyslexia, so lay off the spell checker).
> the flowers smell more fragrant,
I have a hayfever problem.
> your black and white tv will become color
I'm colorblind.
> and HD TV cable ready.
My TV doesn't have a hard drive.
I guess that means
> 10 print "I rule d00d"
That should be "I r001, d00d!", but be careful not to print "I droo1, rood!" by accident.
--
> On 1492-10-12, Columbus recieved tobacco leaves, "certain dried leaves which gave off distinct fragrances" as indian gifts.... which he later threw away.
Yeah, but that was the marijuana. This article's about the "other" stuff some people smoke.
--
> but to see you bag him because of the amount of money he's contributed?
You mistake me. Personally, I don't care if he keeps every penny for himself and wastes it on bubblegum. What sets me off isn't him personally, nor the the greatness or smallness of his charity, but rather seeing people try to whitewash him into a saint just because he has lots of ill-gotten gain to throw around, and actually does throw a rather small portion of it around.
Thank all the gods, I'm neither his judge nor his counsellor. But I'm not going to sit back and let a lot of bullshit propaganda go down without pointing it out for what it is.
> Fuck you. Really. Fuck you.
Now that your dander is up, you know exactly how I feel about all the twisty spin control the rich and powerful subject us to day in and day out. "Gates isn't a villian, he's a philanthropist!" "The California utilities are getting screwed!" "Vote for me and I'll give everyone everything they want, and lower your taxes too."
It just goes on and on and on, and more of us ought to be pointing out what a crock it is.
--
> Apparently we can't give credit where it's due.
Sure we can. Some of us just don't happen to think Gates is due any.
If he dies tomorrow and we discover that he's been giving till it hurts -- or at least inconveniences -- and hasn't been bragging off about it, call it to my attention and I'll applaud him for it.
--
> Stock that you do not sell is money that you do not have.
FWIW, the FSF accepts donations in the form of stocks. If by chance BG doesn't see the FSF as a worthy cause, perhaps other charities would be equally willing to accept a pile of MSFT.
--