The *only* place where 'storage' is measured constantly in powers of two is on-chip memory.
Communication lines are almost always (correctly) measured with powers of ten. (as per the *correct* value of the metric prefixes) Oh wait, METRIC? I forgot. THE US hastes metric. They must have a 'pound-byte' and an 'oz-byte' and a 'ton-byte' and so on and so forth.... because powers of 10 are just not convenient.
Actually, if he's a Sikh (I dunno), Canada (Surrey, BC) has the largest ethnic Sikh population outside of India. He might be right at home, depending on where he goes.
Well.. it is healthier for a country to educate it's CITIZENS into the roles it needs rather than simply importing the help from another country.
In the long run, much better.
What is the problem, though?
I mean, I sympathize with people.. but..
If you are granted a 'Temporary' Visa.. how does that equate to you deserving permanent status? They knew it was temporary.... and the fact that they can be denied renewal later is the REASON they are temporary.
Yes.. these people have lives and such, families, communities... but I can't help but wonder that they didn't take the 'temporary' stuff seriously.
I think another reason, though, is efficiency. I believe I read that these fuel cels are much more efficient than our typical coal generating stations.... so that would seem to cut donw on the power/polution ratio?
I *HATE* That.
You know.. all too often I hear people who come in to my company say 'at our other place, the IT people just wanted to control everything'.
You know what? I think in the majority of cases, that's just not how it is. It's a misunderstanding.
I am the IT guy. It is my job to TELL everyone how they shoudl manage their computers; with windows, this is harder than unix. Nobody acuses 'root' of 'being power-hungry' or 'needing to be in control'. It's common sense; root does root htings, users can't blow up their workstations.
Unfortunately, in a windows world, it's harder to achieve that balance. And all too often, simply sending out memos that tell people the appropriate way to use their computer, and instructing them to 'please not install stupid screensavers' and such just doesn't work. So, you have to have control!
And you know what? Sure, you say, I am smart enough to run my own workstation.. I don't need the IT guy. Hey.. us IT guys agree with you. But you know what else? When for whatever reason, your install something that breaks your computer, it's OUR problem to fix it, and if your computer doesn't work, it is WE who get in shit for not providing reliable infrastructure.
"Still doesn't help small shops"? Small shops never had this problem to begin with!
This problem ONLY affected LARGE shops, with SELECT and ENTERPRISE packages, no?
It wasn't that 'anyone who buys a system then disk-images a new copy onto it has to pay for both copies'.. it was that anyone who was on the select program had to do this. (because select involves support and other things).
Small shops were never affected in the first place.
deb is not centralized at all, only for convenience.
apt typically uses between 2 and 20 different sites to fetch files from. Dependencies are not centrally stored, but contained within each.deb
apt keeps a chache of everything available, and takes care of resolving dependencies.
so the typical behavior is 'apt-get update' (to update the cache' then apt-get upgrade (to check for newer versions of installed packages) or apt-get install package (to install a package) or apt-cache search string (to search the cache for a string)
BTW.. the original article at freshmeat is about exactly this.. it's not saying that.rpm and.deb suck, it' ssyanig that rpm has a few features missing that make it fundamentally difficult to integrate it with apt. IT also points out weakenss in.deb. RPM does more, but is missing a few things that enable this tight form of system management.
If you alone are in charge of the machines, and have the time to do this, that's great.
For major packages like apache and such, yes, it's best to do them yourself, from the ground up, so you know exactly what's up.. however.
What happens when you have 20+ servers, and a couple other staff who have to be taught to maintain them? Sure.. you can all do it.
What I've found is that Debian is fantastic for this, for servers. I trust that the debian folks have done a rather thorough job of their package tree, and it is SO easy to maintain. I can do a hundred systems, all the same, all in sync, easy.
Am I saying this is the way to go? Well, it was the way to go for me, in my situation.
Why argue? Source is source. we already have that.
Let's say you have a particular way of compiling things. Lets' say you also have a hundred servers, in eight cities. Perhaps you would set up a central archive of things you have compiled so you don't have to do it for every single box. You'd probably add some scripts and tools to help you update all those boxes with new versions, and to allow you to revert back to previous compiles of things. I would HOPE you have revision control for your servers to some degree.
Now you could do this, and do it well..
but what you would have is your own package management system.
Let me say.. from personal experience, I don't like rpm in practice. I like it as a tool, but it just gets too messy in practice. I DO Like to compile my own if possible. RPM is usually a last resort when I'm in a hurry.
With Debian, I don't have this problem. If it comes out of the standard debian archive, then I can trust it. IF it isn't there, then I compile and install in/usr/local.
You know.. normally, I would completely avoid discussing this type of thing openly.
But here's my 2 cents.
Is the bible a hoax? Certainly not. Are some of the 'miracles' just acting/illusions? Quite possibly. The point is, that's not the point.
The BIBLE doesn't tell us to do wierd and crazy things.. people do. People read the bible, take it a certain way, and insist that 'this is the will of the Lord'.
I've read the thing. Without living in those times, and without understanding hte writing style of the times, in the author's original tongue, so much gets lost. We have people hanging off of words in the bible to the point of not accepting blood transfusions, because it says 'thou shalt not take the blood of another'. Nevermind that the original wording was a phrase meaning something like 'taking blood' which equated in the terms of the time to 'murder'. It most likely had NOTHING AT ALL to do with the willing gift of blood for medicinal purposes. Then again.. who knows? Not me.
The point is, I am not a christian. I am not anything.. do I admire the dude Jesus and what he did? Yes.. from what I read, and from what I got out of reading the good book.
And let me tell you, aside from some basic tenets about tolerance and thinking clearly (jesus thought very clearly), all the tripe the jesus ho bible thumpers keep saying is just that.. tripe.
Herds of people, like sheep, simply doing whatever the good reverend tells them to do.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had about as much of an effect on my way of thinking as the bible did.
So did Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
And 'The Art of War'.
And lots of other things...
Modern faith is all too blinded by itself. People are too wrapped up in what they are 'supposed' to believe, and in how 'important' a message is.
You know what the 10 commandments are? They are simple, straightforward rules that, if followed, tend to keep you from getting killed (or thrown in prison, or losing all your friends). They are also things that, if you follow them more or less, you can usually live at peace with your actions. Not because they describe 'sins', but simply becuase you can live guilt-free. Sin=GUILT! GUILT turns to sickness, and ruins an otherwise happy life.
Those who claim the bible is 'true' because of some obscure facts are just as guilty of judging others as those who claim it is 'false' because of some obscure facts.
It is simply a book, some writings, with a lot of history behind it. Take it for what you will, and quit with the hail-mary-jesus-flock-of-sheep crap and start using the brains you have!
Or, in other words... as that bumpersticker says...
"I like Jesus, I just hate his fan club."
And on another note, whatever beliefs bring you peace in life, that is your right.
The #1 problem with Fossil fuels isn't that they are non-renewable, it's the pollution caused by using them.
If I understand correclty, the fuel-cell technology wil work with just about any reasonable hydrocarbon, or just pure hydrogen (and oxygen from outside osurce, ie: the air).
Natural gas, propane, are simply compact and available sources of hydrogen.
If Ballard ever gets their fuel cel into cars, that's great.. why? THe gas industry is happy, they can still sell gas. THe environmentalists are more happy, becuase the cars no longer have toxic emissions. ANd when we run out of petrol, we simply move to some other organic/synthetic.
Could say the same thing about gas consumption.
I guess wiht propane, that'd be different.
As for hte 'cycle', I believe they only look for abnormally high power usage, especially in apartments where every suite is essentially the same. The power meters must be visited physically to monitor, and this would be an instant tipoff to growers. SO they don't monitor, I don't think, the exact 'on/off' cycle.
Yeah. THe that is THEIR RIGHT. Nobody can force them to advertise with the magazine.
Should a magazine buckle to the whims of it's advertisers, the public picks up on it, and it's popularity decreases. A great many trade journals are like this.
Like the copies of 'server/workstation Expert' I get in the mail for some reason. It's industry-funded tripe.
Think about it.
I didn't say 'security through obscurity is good'. That's a blanket statement, and security CANNOY be summed up so simply.
Is security through obscurity good? Well.. when it comes to holes in software... apparently not. MOre eyes = faster discovery of problems, and faster fixes.
However.. if I run a server where ALL the daemons are custom written, and NOBODY has the source, how can you tell me that my site will be 'more secure if I publish the source?'. It sure as hell won't be. Nobody would have a clue where to begin.
One of the first tenets of security is to not divulge how or what your security measures are. If you do, you simply help someone in figuring out how to avoid your measures.
If security through obscurity is so bad.. why doesn't every firewalled network publish a diagram of their internal network, complete with passwords and firewall configurations? I mean, otherwise they're being 'obscure' right?
Why do you say it is legal for non-commercial purposes? Becuase of the AHRA, that states that 'use of a digital recoreding device by a consume rfor non-commercial purposes is not actionable?'... doesn't hold up; computer aren't covered. The AHRA states that using what it defines as an 'audio home recording device' is permissible. Digital devices under ahra must follow the SCMS (serial copy management system.. you know, those 'copyright' and 'original' bits in mp3 headers that nobody uses.
THe AHRA specifically does not apply to computers.
As for #2.. why condescend on me? It was simply a question, not a statement.
As for an ecnrypted HD.. siezing a computer and telling the jury 'look, i'ts encrypted' is a LOT different than telling them 'look, he has all these mp3s'
As for confiscation.. they would have confiscated it anyway. THe point is they would be able to do less with it once they got it.
1) Well, it IS illegal.. and he WAS doing it... so what's the big deal?
2) Campus police.. are they 'real' police? Can they sieze things? (I honestly have no idea.. someone fill me in?)
3) For all our wonderful 'technology', the stuff we use to do MP3, the stuff we think is 'revolutionary' and should be used.... we all too often overlook encryption. 2 things could perhaps help this guy. If his HD was encrypted (or at least the relevant portions), he would be in better shape. Strongdisk, for instance, has a nice feature where you can set up ghosted emergency filesystems such that if you supply one password, you get the real one, if you supply the 'emergency' password, you get the fake one, destroy the original, etc. This idea could be expanded on greatly..
3) Encrypted/authenticated sessions. You know what? Look at big warez sites these days. THe passwords don't get just 'handed out' all over. IPs are filtered, connections are proxied, and you don't get it unless you are part of a group, or 'know' somebody. WHy? Because what they are doing is illegal. Sharing mp3 should follow similar rules.
4) Hmm. What if 3 friends and I all get together and decide to have a 'shared' music collection online, that only we four have access to, so we pool all our stuff together.. is this illegal also? Should it be? I mean, if we all lived together, we could share a CD collection...
5) Secure comm protocol. We need a way to archive, database, and share files in a secure manner. Authenticate that the person who grabbed them had a right to do so; that traffic should be encrypted. IT also needs to employ some sort of.. damn. I forget the word. Deniability? No.... that feature of cryptographic communications that would prevent a third party from proving that a transaction ever took place? We need that.
You missed the point.
The point wasn't that you could reclaim your damages.. the point was that employees who are run through proper security audits, and forced to sign proper documents indicating the penalties for disclosing confidential information will tend to RESPECT THAT, as opposed to simply putting in a 'technical' solution.
As an IT person, I may look at people's surfing habits, but only out of idle curiosity.
Perhaps if I noticed they surfed what I thought was an awful lot, I might poke my nose into what they were surfing.. and then poke my nose into whether their boss is happy with their performance or not.
Why? I firmly believe that the bottom line is, the employee has been hired to do a job. If he is doing that job to the satisfaction of those responsible for his position in the first place, I don't *care* how much he surfs.
You hit it on the head when you said 'provide data supervisors needs to see'... if they need to see it. If they have issues with their employees not working out, they can come and ask.
Slashdot Mirror
To impress us, or simply a different media?
The *only* place where 'storage' is measured constantly in powers of two is on-chip memory.
Communication lines are almost always (correctly) measured with powers of ten. (as per the *correct* value of the metric prefixes) Oh wait, METRIC? I forgot. THE US hastes metric. They must have a 'pound-byte' and an 'oz-byte' and a 'ton-byte' and so on and so forth.... because powers of 10 are just not convenient.
Actually, if he's a Sikh (I dunno), Canada (Surrey, BC) has the largest ethnic Sikh population outside of India. He might be right at home, depending on where he goes.
China is not outright hostile towards you, they simply don't want you telling them what to do.
Well.. it is healthier for a country to educate it's CITIZENS into the roles it needs rather than simply importing the help from another country.
In the long run, much better.
What is the problem, though?
I mean, I sympathize with people.. but..
If you are granted a 'Temporary' Visa.. how does that equate to you deserving permanent status? They knew it was temporary.... and the fact that they can be denied renewal later is the REASON they are temporary.
Yes.. these people have lives and such, families, communities... but I can't help but wonder that they didn't take the 'temporary' stuff seriously.
Thanks for the info.
I think another reason, though, is efficiency. I believe I read that these fuel cels are much more efficient than our typical coal generating stations.... so that would seem to cut donw on the power/polution ratio?
I *HATE* That.
You know.. all too often I hear people who come in to my company say 'at our other place, the IT people just wanted to control everything'.
You know what? I think in the majority of cases, that's just not how it is. It's a misunderstanding.
I am the IT guy. It is my job to TELL everyone how they shoudl manage their computers; with windows, this is harder than unix. Nobody acuses 'root' of 'being power-hungry' or 'needing to be in control'. It's common sense; root does root htings, users can't blow up their workstations.
Unfortunately, in a windows world, it's harder to achieve that balance. And all too often, simply sending out memos that tell people the appropriate way to use their computer, and instructing them to 'please not install stupid screensavers' and such just doesn't work. So, you have to have control!
And you know what? Sure, you say, I am smart enough to run my own workstation.. I don't need the IT guy. Hey.. us IT guys agree with you. But you know what else? When for whatever reason, your install something that breaks your computer, it's OUR problem to fix it, and if your computer doesn't work, it is WE who get in shit for not providing reliable infrastructure.
Shrink-wrap license on material goods? I think not. You don't 'license' goods, you buy them (or are given them for free).
"Still doesn't help small shops"? Small shops never had this problem to begin with!
This problem ONLY affected LARGE shops, with SELECT and ENTERPRISE packages, no?
It wasn't that 'anyone who buys a system then disk-images a new copy onto it has to pay for both copies'.. it was that anyone who was on the select program had to do this. (because select involves support and other things).
Small shops were never affected in the first place.
deb is not centralized at all, only for convenience.
.deb
.rpm and .deb suck, it' ssyanig that rpm has a few features missing that make it fundamentally difficult to integrate it with apt. IT also points out weakenss in .deb. RPM does more, but is missing a few things that enable this tight form of system management.
apt typically uses between 2 and 20 different sites to fetch files from. Dependencies are not centrally stored, but contained within each
apt keeps a chache of everything available, and takes care of resolving dependencies.
so the typical behavior is 'apt-get update' (to update the cache' then apt-get upgrade (to check for newer versions of installed packages) or apt-get install package (to install a package) or apt-cache search string (to search the cache for a string)
BTW.. the original article at freshmeat is about exactly this.. it's not saying that
If you alone are in charge of the machines, and have the time to do this, that's great.
/usr/local.
For major packages like apache and such, yes, it's best to do them yourself, from the ground up, so you know exactly what's up.. however.
What happens when you have 20+ servers, and a couple other staff who have to be taught to maintain them? Sure.. you can all do it.
What I've found is that Debian is fantastic for this, for servers. I trust that the debian folks have done a rather thorough job of their package tree, and it is SO easy to maintain. I can do a hundred systems, all the same, all in sync, easy.
Am I saying this is the way to go? Well, it was the way to go for me, in my situation.
Why argue? Source is source. we already have that.
Let's say you have a particular way of compiling things. Lets' say you also have a hundred servers, in eight cities. Perhaps you would set up a central archive of things you have compiled so you don't have to do it for every single box. You'd probably add some scripts and tools to help you update all those boxes with new versions, and to allow you to revert back to previous compiles of things. I would HOPE you have revision control for your servers to some degree.
Now you could do this, and do it well..
but what you would have is your own package management system.
Let me say.. from personal experience, I don't like rpm in practice. I like it as a tool, but it just gets too messy in practice. I DO Like to compile my own if possible. RPM is usually a last resort when I'm in a hurry.
With Debian, I don't have this problem. If it comes out of the standard debian archive, then I can trust it. IF it isn't there, then I compile and install in
and THAT is why I have package managent.
You know.. normally, I would completely avoid discussing this type of thing openly.
But here's my 2 cents.
Is the bible a hoax? Certainly not. Are some of the 'miracles' just acting/illusions? Quite possibly. The point is, that's not the point.
The BIBLE doesn't tell us to do wierd and crazy things.. people do. People read the bible, take it a certain way, and insist that 'this is the will of the Lord'.
I've read the thing. Without living in those times, and without understanding hte writing style of the times, in the author's original tongue, so much gets lost. We have people hanging off of words in the bible to the point of not accepting blood transfusions, because it says 'thou shalt not take the blood of another'. Nevermind that the original wording was a phrase meaning something like 'taking blood' which equated in the terms of the time to 'murder'. It most likely had NOTHING AT ALL to do with the willing gift of blood for medicinal purposes. Then again.. who knows? Not me.
The point is, I am not a christian. I am not anything.. do I admire the dude Jesus and what he did? Yes.. from what I read, and from what I got out of reading the good book.
And let me tell you, aside from some basic tenets about tolerance and thinking clearly (jesus thought very clearly), all the tripe the jesus ho bible thumpers keep saying is just that.. tripe.
Herds of people, like sheep, simply doing whatever the good reverend tells them to do.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance had about as much of an effect on my way of thinking as the bible did.
So did Way of the Peaceful Warrior.
And 'The Art of War'.
And lots of other things...
Modern faith is all too blinded by itself. People are too wrapped up in what they are 'supposed' to believe, and in how 'important' a message is.
You know what the 10 commandments are? They are simple, straightforward rules that, if followed, tend to keep you from getting killed (or thrown in prison, or losing all your friends). They are also things that, if you follow them more or less, you can usually live at peace with your actions. Not because they describe 'sins', but simply becuase you can live guilt-free. Sin=GUILT! GUILT turns to sickness, and ruins an otherwise happy life.
Those who claim the bible is 'true' because of some obscure facts are just as guilty of judging others as those who claim it is 'false' because of some obscure facts.
It is simply a book, some writings, with a lot of history behind it. Take it for what you will, and quit with the hail-mary-jesus-flock-of-sheep crap and start using the brains you have!
Or, in other words... as that bumpersticker says...
"I like Jesus, I just hate his fan club."
And on another note, whatever beliefs bring you peace in life, that is your right.
Actually, that's
2(H20) --> electrolysis --> 2 H2 + O2
The #1 problem with Fossil fuels isn't that they are non-renewable, it's the pollution caused by using them.
If I understand correclty, the fuel-cell technology wil work with just about any reasonable hydrocarbon, or just pure hydrogen (and oxygen from outside osurce, ie: the air).
Natural gas, propane, are simply compact and available sources of hydrogen.
If Ballard ever gets their fuel cel into cars, that's great.. why? THe gas industry is happy, they can still sell gas. THe environmentalists are more happy, becuase the cars no longer have toxic emissions. ANd when we run out of petrol, we simply move to some other organic/synthetic.
Could say the same thing about gas consumption.
I guess wiht propane, that'd be different.
As for hte 'cycle', I believe they only look for abnormally high power usage, especially in apartments where every suite is essentially the same. The power meters must be visited physically to monitor, and this would be an instant tipoff to growers. SO they don't monitor, I don't think, the exact 'on/off' cycle.
Right.
And for the most part, getting those depedencies resolved is *easy and fast*.
With rpm, it's fairly simple.
With apt + deb, it's dead easy. (not judging either.)
With windows? Ha.
Linux is hard to upgrade??
Which distro do you mean?
Redhat isn't too hard, although it can be a bit messy.
Slackware is a bitch.
Debian is dead easy.
Each has it's flaws and strengths.
Yeah. THe that is THEIR RIGHT. Nobody can force them to advertise with the magazine.
Should a magazine buckle to the whims of it's advertisers, the public picks up on it, and it's popularity decreases. A great many trade journals are like this.
Like the copies of 'server/workstation Expert' I get in the mail for some reason. It's industry-funded tripe.
Think about it.
I didn't say 'security through obscurity is good'. That's a blanket statement, and security CANNOY be summed up so simply.
Is security through obscurity good? Well.. when it comes to holes in software... apparently not. MOre eyes = faster discovery of problems, and faster fixes.
However.. if I run a server where ALL the daemons are custom written, and NOBODY has the source, how can you tell me that my site will be 'more secure if I publish the source?'. It sure as hell won't be. Nobody would have a clue where to begin.
One of the first tenets of security is to not divulge how or what your security measures are. If you do, you simply help someone in figuring out how to avoid your measures.
If security through obscurity is so bad.. why doesn't every firewalled network publish a diagram of their internal network, complete with passwords and firewall configurations? I mean, otherwise they're being 'obscure' right?
SHeesh.
Why do you say it is legal for non-commercial purposes? Becuase of the AHRA, that states that 'use of a digital recoreding device by a consume rfor non-commercial purposes is not actionable?'... doesn't hold up; computer aren't covered. The AHRA states that using what it defines as an 'audio home recording device' is permissible. Digital devices under ahra must follow the SCMS (serial copy management system.. you know, those 'copyright' and 'original' bits in mp3 headers that nobody uses.
THe AHRA specifically does not apply to computers.
As for #2.. why condescend on me? It was simply a question, not a statement.
As for an ecnrypted HD.. siezing a computer and telling the jury 'look, i'ts encrypted' is a LOT different than telling them 'look, he has all these mp3s'
As for confiscation.. they would have confiscated it anyway. THe point is they would be able to do less with it once they got it.
Several thoughts come to mind.
1) Well, it IS illegal.. and he WAS doing it... so what's the big deal?
2) Campus police.. are they 'real' police? Can they sieze things? (I honestly have no idea.. someone fill me in?)
3) For all our wonderful 'technology', the stuff we use to do MP3, the stuff we think is 'revolutionary' and should be used.... we all too often overlook encryption. 2 things could perhaps help this guy. If his HD was encrypted (or at least the relevant portions), he would be in better shape. Strongdisk, for instance, has a nice feature where you can set up ghosted emergency filesystems such that if you supply one password, you get the real one, if you supply the 'emergency' password, you get the fake one, destroy the original, etc. This idea could be expanded on greatly..
3) Encrypted/authenticated sessions. You know what? Look at big warez sites these days. THe passwords don't get just 'handed out' all over. IPs are filtered, connections are proxied, and you don't get it unless you are part of a group, or 'know' somebody. WHy? Because what they are doing is illegal. Sharing mp3 should follow similar rules.
4) Hmm. What if 3 friends and I all get together and decide to have a 'shared' music collection online, that only we four have access to, so we pool all our stuff together.. is this illegal also? Should it be? I mean, if we all lived together, we could share a CD collection...
5) Secure comm protocol. We need a way to archive, database, and share files in a secure manner. Authenticate that the person who grabbed them had a right to do so; that traffic should be encrypted. IT also needs to employ some sort of.. damn. I forget the word. Deniability? No.... that feature of cryptographic communications that would prevent a third party from proving that a transaction ever took place? We need that.
The readers... just like any other publication.
I don't debate that.
And..
Don't publish your security methods openly.
You missed the point.
The point wasn't that you could reclaim your damages.. the point was that employees who are run through proper security audits, and forced to sign proper documents indicating the penalties for disclosing confidential information will tend to RESPECT THAT, as opposed to simply putting in a 'technical' solution.
As an IT person, I may look at people's surfing habits, but only out of idle curiosity.
Perhaps if I noticed they surfed what I thought was an awful lot, I might poke my nose into what they were surfing.. and then poke my nose into whether their boss is happy with their performance or not.
Why? I firmly believe that the bottom line is, the employee has been hired to do a job. If he is doing that job to the satisfaction of those responsible for his position in the first place, I don't *care* how much he surfs.
You hit it on the head when you said 'provide data supervisors needs to see'... if they need to see it. If they have issues with their employees not working out, they can come and ask.
But remember, the issue is that IT must do proper diligence to ensuring that data does not leak, in order to meet with financial regulations.
You only need to go as far as necessary to meet regs.