too bad "fine O'Reilly title" is not redundant anymore
OK, I'll have to ask about this. I've been using O'Reilly books for years to teach me Linux and Perl (I have Using Linux, Learning Perl, Programming Perl, and the Perl Cookbook) and I've yet to find a stinker. I'll admit that my collection is tiny, but so far they're batting one thousand with me. Programming Perl, or the Camel, is ne plus ultra of Perl books, giving alphabetical listings of each and every function in the language, explaining all of them and giving examples of use. O'Relly books are written by people who know their stuff, and give both the long versions and the idiomatic versions of the code (most useful in Perl, where the idiomatic version could easily look wrong). If I ever get into Ruby or Python beyond the basic level, I plan to buy the relevant O'Reilly books. So, which O'Reilly book should I stay away from?
And I wonder, what would happen the day their careers are on the line and they don't have their calculators?
So, what kind of jobs will they be working where they can't bring a Wal-Mart calculator and maybe a scratchpad? Will their first boss be a real stickler for by-hand math? Hell, no! In the real world, people want right answers and now, not a concerted effort by Luddites.
Are they crippled because they can't memeorize things? Humans have been historically lousy at memorizing things. That's why we invented writing. This board, the King James Version, and the Principa all exist because we are too freaking lazy to memorize everything.
Are they crippled because they're going to use technology to its fullest potential? And they're going to be what, engineers? Cripes, if the people who design and maintain technology can't use technology, well, expect a rerun of the Tacoma Narrows Incident.
Are they crippled because they needed calculators to get a decent score? Well, wasn't that the teacher's fault for designing lousy tests? In good math classes, the process is important. You have to show steps, and the right ones, to get any credit. Just spitting out an answer is worthless, because it might as well demonstrate a facility at guessing, or copying, or programming. Yes, you should have gone to the instructor... with high-school math tests that require you to show your work.
The libertarians dont want to spend money on proprietary software because they believe in absolute freedom for each and every person.
No, that would be Anarchy. Libertarians, to put it in a nutshell, think the only valid function of a government is to prevent coercion (coercion via force and coercion via fraud). So they do want to limit people's rights to hurt each other and lie to each other.
The democrats use free software because they hate big corporations and want communism. I have heard open source software described as being communistic in nature, and I dont entirely disagree.
The Democrats, AFAIK, don't have a single party line, but most of them are not Communists. Open-Source Software is not Communistic, either, as it gives programmers a great way of earning income (developing on contract and/or acting as consultants). Some proponents of OSS may be Communists (RMS fits this, I think), but that does not paint the whole philosophy.
The republicans are rich, like big companies, and like to support big companies. True capatalists, not nessecarily a bad thing.
A simplification. Republicans tend to want less government regulation of business except when it comes to moral issues. So they aren't true Capitalists. Libertarians fit that description pretty closely, however.
Just so all my cards are firmly on the table, I'm a proud Libertarian.
If he only gets a Nobel Prize out of this, if it is successful, he can consider himself well and truly gypped. This has far-reaching implications comparable to things like the wheel and the internal-combustion engine. He deserves to become massively wealthy if it pans out, to serve as an example to all of the other budding geeks.
If Linux takes the rest of the world, Microsoft will either become compatable, or die.
Or use Senator Hollings to pass anti-Open Source laws that effectively make GNU software in general 'terrorist tools'. Never underestimate the sheer will of that bastard corporation to hang on, through good or ill, no matter who it pisses off.
Because the phrase "extraordinary proof" is stupid. What the fuck IS "extraordinary" proof? Since when is proof not enough to prove something?
Quite simply, an extraordinary proof proves something that goes against the current knowledge in science. Like saying perpetual motion machines work: That is an extraordinary claim (it directly contradicts the supremely effective predictive model known as the Laws of Motion), so it requires an extraordinary proof (a demonstration that physically contradicts the Laws of Motion). It's simple, really, and is the basis for real science, as opposed to running around like beheaded chickens, gawking at every new crackpot like he was the next Einstein.
Oh come on. All most every young man in China knows Locke and Thomas Jefferson.
So they haven't been censored by the government? Amazing.
And we also know about Martin Luther King, who was fighting for human rights and civil rights of the blacks in 1960s. And if I am not mistaken, you Americans had already started shouting about freedom and human rights.
Uh, yeah. Americans have believed in human rights for a long time.
We have different values, we understand human rights in a different way.
Like Hitler understanded racial equality in a different way?
But at the same time we also support Communist Party, because it is them who let us "stand up". Without them, we will not achieve 8% growth in economic development every year.
Eight percent? Hardly anything to shout about. And in the USA, anyone can own a company, not just the Party favorties. And anyone can hold any opinion without being sent to a shithole prison. China lets you 'stand up' the same way heroin makes you a genius.
Political reform shall only take place after the economical reform is finished.
And will pigs have to fly first?
Abraham Lincoln said that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Therefore, Communist Party shall not perish from China.
No, that is the reason the Chinese government will perish. As long as the Chinese people believe in human rights, the Chinese government is in grave, grave danger.
About your comparison with Linus and RMS: We care about the Chinese people, and the government they are laboring under, because we think human rights are a good thing and don't like seeing fellow humans die for holding opinions. We think we should help the Chinese government fall because we think slavery is wrong. That is why.
Then US has threatened many times that they will fight against PRC once we try to unify our country! One simple US' policy to China: keep the country seperate, so that it will not be strong enough to be a threat to US.
Dear sweet reason, if that isn't paranoid babbling. The US has pledged its help to a Democracy that is in danger of being overrun by a Totalitarian state many times its size. Really that simple. If you think China has a 'right' to extend its iron fist to the only bastion of free ethnically Chinese people, you have much to learn about real human rights. Start with Locke and Thomas Jefferson and see if you can still support the monsters in Beijing.
If we really owned everything south of Maryland, why did we have to invade it?
I knew this was going to come up, and it is an argument easily exploded. China has not laid credible claim to Taiwan since 1947. Instead, it has wrung its hands and threatened massive violence while Taiwan has been an indepenedent nation for fifty-five years. On the other hand, the USA immediately acted against the CSA in 1861, and the CSA lasted all of four years. So I think Chaing Kai-Sheck's nation is a bit more credible than Jefferson Davis' joke.
That is what has been written in the constitution, so you fools, go home and study it, stop talking bullshits here please
But we're discussing realpolitik, or how things are in the real world, not in some political dreamland or in rhetoric designed to stave off invasion. In the real world, Taiwan is a free nation. In the real world, China is just blowing smoke until it actually makes Taiwan 'just a province' through force of arms. And we call that invasion.
Taiwan is as much a country as Kuwait is (Remember when Iraq called Kuwait the 17th Province? Same deal.). China simply refuses to acknowledge it, and is threatening to conquer the independent nation of Taiwan by force. Hmmm... if they really owned Taiwan, why would they have to invade it just to assert authority over it?
Taiwan has its own government, military, and seperate ties to the US (seperate from China, that is). In fact, the US has pledged to defend Taiwan if the gangsters of Beijing ever stage an invasion. So Taiwan is recognized by the USA and most of the rest of the civilized world.
BBC Article of interest - We sell weapons to Taiwan, much to China's consternation. Beijing does not dictate Taiwan's foreign policy any more than the UK dictates America's foreign policy.
In short, you are full of shit. So is Beijing, for that matter. Taiwan is, and of rights ought to be, a free and independent nation.
Say what you will about Stallman, but I get the feeling GPL code of today will outlive all of us. No other license allows code to survive like the GPL.
If Stallman had anything to shout about
Free software will outlive us all without any doubt!
(To the tune of 'I Like Chinese', which RMS certainly would at this point.)
Humor (?) aside, it is great that liberated software is becoming so popular these days around the world. Europe, Asia, and South America are all falling to GNU/Linux (Never underestimate the power of the Free Side.), and it seems that the US is the only nation of any importance to the computer field that isn't going GNU/Linux. Redmond is too powerful here, I suppose, and GNU/Linux will be the third horse in a two-horse race in the US for the forseeable future. (BeOS being the llama, and the Amiga being the emu.)
How long until corporations have religions in their pockets to the extent that they can declare any competition to the established business model blasphemy? We already shop around for faiths (note the rise in New Age religion), so how long until major religions (Baptists, Catholics, etc.) have product tie-ins? Get a free KJV (Protestant edition) or Chick Tract with your Big Mac! Get a free Catholic bible with your Whopper Jr.! Amazing.
CNN "say that the law takes an inappropriate one-size-fits-all approach that treats children and adults the same"
Which it does. You couldn't opt-out of the censorship just because you were of legal age. So CNN was telling the truth.
Some of the problem is adults whacking off in libraries looking at porn. We can protect the kids from that by banning porn altogether.
If they whack their wee willies in the bathrooms, who is it hurting? (Okay, maybe the janitorial staff. But that's why they have toilet paper!) The only plan that would hurt anyone is if morons like you instituted censorship in freaking public libraries.
Another problem is state funds. I for one never want to see my tax dollars being use *even once* for viewing crap like porn. So ban it. If our excuse is that in blocking porn we may also block some other "protected" speech, then we are obviously just making excuses.
I don't want my tax dollars being used *even once* for spreading crap like what you are spewing here. Does that mean I have the right to shut you up? NO!
"denies poor people without home computers the same full access to information as their wealthier neighbors"
This is just a case of them furthering their agenda by trying to get poor people on their side.
So telling the truth is 'furthering an agenda'? Get paranoid often?
What about the millions of Americans (including the poor) that don't want their children subject to pornography? Libraries are public places, public funded, and they should be treated as such. If we'd simply apply the decency laws to libraries like we do to our city streets, we'd solve the problem.
So, my friend, what is pornography? A site on breast cancer? Information about AIDS and other venereal diseases? DaVinci's art? Recent news about Catholicism? I guarantee my definition won't fit yours.
Tell me why anyone would defend porn?
It makes no sense.
It makes perfect sense if you would read the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech..." is how it begins, in case you don't know. That means all speech, not just the speech you happen to enjoy.
IF MS's code was open, the bugs that are already there (and MS itself admits that its code is a fucking hazard to life and property) could be fixed and new ones could be caught early and avoided. How? Same way all Open-Source communites do it: Having an actual community run through the source and audit it for flaws. Perform regression testing on obscure hardware configurations. Look for things like buffer overflows and heap problems. In other words, do what Linux and BSD and everyone else except the corporations have been doing all along, and what has been serving those groups well.
The reason that major exploits are not discovered for Open-Source systems nearly as often as they are for MS stuff is for the above-listed reasons: More people policing the code, more people fixing the code. Most people are responsible most of the time, and very few crackers have the brains or the patience to sit down and analyse source code (if they did, they probably wouldn't be the antisocial fucks they are). So Open-Source Software is secure, Closed-Source Software is insecure, and the only way MSFT can make it seem otherwise is by lying like a cheap whore.
It's Perl, not PERL. Perl isn't an acronym, it's a backronym: Larry decided on the name first and then formed an expansion to fit the name.
Originally, it was called Pearl, hence 'Practical Extraction and Report Language'. Then Larry found another language called Pearl, so he renamed it Perl.
Another common expansion is 'Pathetically Eclectic Rubbish lLster', but neither of these is 'correct' or 'original'. Perl does not expand to anything.
This is 2002, Humans should evolve to my level, or else why should I consider them human? I can consider them animals.
This is 1933, Non-Aryans should evolve to my level, or else why should I consider them human? I can consider them animals.
The same arrogance you have shown has made it very easy for people like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Hirohito to kill off millions of their own people. The same arrogance you have shown turned the twentieth century into an abbatoir and is promising to make the twenty-first even worse unless the infants in the Middle East grow up soon.
It isn't helpful. It isn't intelligent. It isn't even halfway cogent. It demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of evolution and a level of arrogance we can afford very little of if we wish to avoid war.
You can't be reissued a fingerprint the way you can with credit cards.
Oh, can't you? Plastic surgery might not be there yet, but remolding a fingerprint should be pretty easy once we can grow skin cells on scaffolding easily. Mafia got your prints? Go to get the top few layers of your fingertip skin removed and replaced with skin with a brand-new print. It might be a hassle (it would be an office procedure at least, and would require plenty of anasthetic), but do you think people wouldn't do it to save their credit rating?
My software, Radiate [overclockers.com] generated a false-positive in Ad-Aware because my executable filename ( Radiate.exe ) matched that of a scumware company Aureate Media's.
Which is why AdAware has an 'ignore this file' feature built in where a reasonably intelligent user could be expected to find it.
What's more, it ignores based on a full path, not just a filename: A user ignoring your software at 'C:\Goodshit\radiate.exe' will still be protected from the spyware at 'C:\Espionage\luserware\radiate.exe'. Different paths = different software to AdAware.
1. First, software installation should be passive. On Windows (as well as other OS), you download some binary executable and run them. This foreign binary essentially has full reign over your system. Instead it should be a compressed package file with instruction embedded in it that describes what and where the package manifest should be installed. This package should be signed by the originator so that the package is tamper resistant and has some privilege to modify package that was originated from same source. This way the OS and user is in control rather than untrusted binary running amok on your system.
Exactly. The self-installing executable is a fine example of convenience being the enemy of security: At first, it sounds like a good idea. The program knows how to install the program you want with no interference from you. But if the program installs something you don't want, you're screwed. Why a program should have that level of trust on an OS is another issue you address in your next point:
2. This is more difficult one to implement. I think application should have some levels of access on your system and they should be disabled by default. For example, multimedia player should not be allowed to delete files or initiate outgoing network connection. Even file read can be made more granular by restricting the file mime type that an application can read. Multimedia player has no business reading any other files than ones that it knows what to do with. This sort of sandbox could make it harder for application from whacking competitor's application.
That is a tough nut to implement, I'd imagine, but the work has been done: *nix file permissions. A file has only the permissions its creator (or the superuser, root) gives it (so 'image files' can't run as programs), and an executable created by a certain user only has the permissions of that user, so it can't whack anything the user himself couldn't whack. So, on a *nix-y system, you could make AdAware untouchable to normal users and then only install software (other than AA) as a normal user. Problem solved.
Ultimately an implicit trust should be abandoned and implementing mandatory security may be the solution.
I think all multi-user OSes have reached this conclusion.
Unfortunately this is not something that can be easily added easily but rather it must be designed into the underlying system itself.
True. The file-permission system wasn't bolted on to Unix.
I'm writing this at 6:00am after staying up all night writing code so I'm sure lot of loopy ideas are leaking from my brain at the moment. This may be one of them.
These loopy ideas are what make *nix boxes so tough to crack.
Slashdot Mirror
Are they crippled because they can't memeorize things? Humans have been historically lousy at memorizing things. That's why we invented writing. This board, the King James Version, and the Principa all exist because we are too freaking lazy to memorize everything.
Are they crippled because they're going to use technology to its fullest potential? And they're going to be what, engineers? Cripes, if the people who design and maintain technology can't use technology, well, expect a rerun of the Tacoma Narrows Incident.
Are they crippled because they needed calculators to get a decent score? Well, wasn't that the teacher's fault for designing lousy tests? In good math classes, the process is important. You have to show steps, and the right ones, to get any credit. Just spitting out an answer is worthless, because it might as well demonstrate a facility at guessing, or copying, or programming. Yes, you should have gone to the instructor
Just so all my cards are firmly on the table, I'm a proud Libertarian.
If he only gets a Nobel Prize out of this, if it is successful, he can consider himself well and truly gypped. This has far-reaching implications comparable to things like the wheel and the internal-combustion engine. He deserves to become massively wealthy if it pans out, to serve as an example to all of the other budding geeks.
About your comparison with Linus and RMS: We care about the Chinese people, and the government they are laboring under, because we think human rights are a good thing and don't like seeing fellow humans die for holding opinions. We think we should help the Chinese government fall because we think slavery is wrong. That is why.
Taiwan is as much a country as Kuwait is (Remember when Iraq called Kuwait the 17th Province? Same deal.). China simply refuses to acknowledge it, and is threatening to conquer the independent nation of Taiwan by force. Hmmm... if they really owned Taiwan, why would they have to invade it just to assert authority over it?
Taiwan has its own government, military, and seperate ties to the US (seperate from China, that is). In fact, the US has pledged to defend Taiwan if the gangsters of Beijing ever stage an invasion. So Taiwan is recognized by the USA and most of the rest of the civilized world.
What the CIA says about Taiwan. - We recognize Taiwan. Taiwan recognizes us.
BBC Article of interest - We sell weapons to Taiwan, much to China's consternation. Beijing does not dictate Taiwan's foreign policy any more than the UK dictates America's foreign policy.
In short, you are full of shit. So is Beijing, for that matter. Taiwan is, and of rights ought to be, a free and independent nation.
Free software will outlive us all without any doubt!
(To the tune of 'I Like Chinese', which RMS certainly would at this point.)
Humor (?) aside, it is great that liberated software is becoming so popular these days around the world. Europe, Asia, and South America are all falling to GNU/Linux (Never underestimate the power of the Free Side.), and it seems that the US is the only nation of any importance to the computer field that isn't going GNU/Linux. Redmond is too powerful here, I suppose, and GNU/Linux will be the third horse in a two-horse race in the US for the forseeable future. (BeOS being the llama, and the Amiga being the emu.)
It means 'a free software environment completely in the Chinese language'.
Which is what a Taiwanese user would want, one might suppose.
How long until corporations have religions in their pockets to the extent that they can declare any competition to the established business model blasphemy? We already shop around for faiths (note the rise in New Age religion), so how long until major religions (Baptists, Catholics, etc.) have product tie-ins? Get a free KJV (Protestant edition) or Chick Tract with your Big Mac! Get a free Catholic bible with your Whopper Jr.! Amazing.
Which it does. You couldn't opt-out of the censorship just because you were of legal age. So CNN was telling the truth.
If they whack their wee willies in the bathrooms, who is it hurting? (Okay, maybe the janitorial staff. But that's why they have toilet paper!) The only plan that would hurt anyone is if morons like you instituted censorship in freaking public libraries.
I don't want my tax dollars being used *even once* for spreading crap like what you are spewing here. Does that mean I have the right to shut you up? NO!
So telling the truth is 'furthering an agenda'? Get paranoid often?
So, my friend, what is pornography? A site on breast cancer? Information about AIDS and other venereal diseases? DaVinci's art? Recent news about Catholicism? I guarantee my definition won't fit yours.
It makes perfect sense if you would read the First Amendment. "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech..." is how it begins, in case you don't know. That means all speech, not just the speech you happen to enjoy.
IF MS's code was open, the bugs that are already there (and MS itself admits that its code is a fucking hazard to life and property) could be fixed and new ones could be caught early and avoided. How? Same way all Open-Source communites do it: Having an actual community run through the source and audit it for flaws. Perform regression testing on obscure hardware configurations. Look for things like buffer overflows and heap problems. In other words, do what Linux and BSD and everyone else except the corporations have been doing all along, and what has been serving those groups well.
The reason that major exploits are not discovered for Open-Source systems nearly as often as they are for MS stuff is for the above-listed reasons: More people policing the code, more people fixing the code. Most people are responsible most of the time, and very few crackers have the brains or the patience to sit down and analyse source code (if they did, they probably wouldn't be the antisocial fucks they are). So Open-Source Software is secure, Closed-Source Software is insecure, and the only way MSFT can make it seem otherwise is by lying like a cheap whore.
It's Perl, not PERL. Perl isn't an acronym, it's a backronym: Larry decided on the name first and then formed an expansion to fit the name.
Originally, it was called Pearl, hence 'Practical Extraction and Report Language'. Then Larry found another language called Pearl, so he renamed it Perl.
Another common expansion is 'Pathetically Eclectic Rubbish lLster', but neither of these is 'correct' or 'original'. Perl does not expand to anything.
This is 2002, Humans should evolve to my level, or else why should I consider them human? I can consider them animals.
This is 1933, Non-Aryans should evolve to my level, or else why should I consider them human? I can consider them animals.
The same arrogance you have shown has made it very easy for people like Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and Hirohito to kill off millions of their own people. The same arrogance you have shown turned the twentieth century into an abbatoir and is promising to make the twenty-first even worse unless the infants in the Middle East grow up soon.
It isn't helpful. It isn't intelligent. It isn't even halfway cogent. It demonstrates a basic lack of understanding of evolution and a level of arrogance we can afford very little of if we wish to avoid war.
You can't be reissued a fingerprint the way you can with credit cards.
Oh, can't you? Plastic surgery might not be there yet, but remolding a fingerprint should be pretty easy once we can grow skin cells on scaffolding easily. Mafia got your prints? Go to get the top few layers of your fingertip skin removed and replaced with skin with a brand-new print. It might be a hassle (it would be an office procedure at least, and would require plenty of anasthetic), but do you think people wouldn't do it to save their credit rating?
My software, Radiate [overclockers.com] generated a false-positive in Ad-Aware because my executable filename ( Radiate.exe ) matched that of a scumware company Aureate Media's.
Which is why AdAware has an 'ignore this file' feature built in where a reasonably intelligent user could be expected to find it.
What's more, it ignores based on a full path, not just a filename: A user ignoring your software at 'C:\Goodshit\radiate.exe' will still be protected from the spyware at 'C:\Espionage\luserware\radiate.exe'. Different paths = different software to AdAware.
1. First, software installation should be passive. On Windows (as well as other OS), you download some binary executable and run them. This foreign binary essentially has full reign over your system. Instead it should be a compressed package file with instruction embedded in it that describes what and where the package manifest should be installed. This package should be signed by the originator so that the package is tamper resistant and has some privilege to modify package that was originated from same source. This way the OS and user is in control rather than untrusted binary running amok on your system.
Exactly. The self-installing executable is a fine example of convenience being the enemy of security: At first, it sounds like a good idea. The program knows how to install the program you want with no interference from you. But if the program installs something you don't want, you're screwed. Why a program should have that level of trust on an OS is another issue you address in your next point:
2. This is more difficult one to implement. I think application should have some levels of access on your system and they should be disabled by default. For example, multimedia player should not be allowed to delete files or initiate outgoing network connection. Even file read can be made more granular by restricting the file mime type that an application can read. Multimedia player has no business reading any other files than ones that it knows what to do with. This sort of sandbox could make it harder for application from whacking competitor's application.
That is a tough nut to implement, I'd imagine, but the work has been done: *nix file permissions. A file has only the permissions its creator (or the superuser, root) gives it (so 'image files' can't run as programs), and an executable created by a certain user only has the permissions of that user, so it can't whack anything the user himself couldn't whack. So, on a *nix-y system, you could make AdAware untouchable to normal users and then only install software (other than AA) as a normal user. Problem solved.
Ultimately an implicit trust should be abandoned and implementing mandatory security may be the solution.
I think all multi-user OSes have reached this conclusion.
Unfortunately this is not something that can be easily added easily but rather it must be designed into the underlying system itself.
True. The file-permission system wasn't bolted on to Unix.
I'm writing this at 6:00am after staying up all night writing code so I'm sure lot of loopy ideas are leaking from my brain at the moment. This may be one of them.
These loopy ideas are what make *nix boxes so tough to crack.
xs4all.nl hosts xenu.net, according to a traceroute.
wtf is a UFT and TOR
I'm guessing Unified Field Theory and Theory Of Relativity.
timid nile swimmers?
Maybe a reference to that venerable old crack, "Denial isn't just a river in Egypt."
I like how he so easily compared TLC with CNN and Goebels. Ah, nothing like the Cable Nazi Network to give us proles the rightthink.
Whadda maroon.
bending your legs up and over your head is now a violation of the DMCA.
Damn. Now Gates can't suck his own dick, and all those who shove their heads up their asses are in deep shit.
Maybe if enough Congresscritters get burned on the second count we can finally get the DMCA repealed.
-Derleth, or "Go Stick Your Head in a Pig!"