Yeah, uh, no. The absolute best text compression algorithm today (RK) achieves 1.42 bits per character. For some REAL STATS (!), see The Archive Comparison Test.
Well, most people don't buy massive storage units so they can keep extra copies of the English translation of The Three Musketeers lying around. Data is often much more redundant than that. For example, in my job I routinely deal with very large log files (1GB+). These often compress to 1:100 or better due to the large amount of redundant content.
So this isn't quite on-topic, but another interesting story involving caves and air conditioning:
This weekend, I visited Luray Caverns in Virginia, USA. Apparently, the first air conditioned home in the world was built here in 1901. The owner (a retired ventilation engineer) just drilled a hole into the cave, and pumped the cool, limestone-filtered air into his home via a five-foot-diameter shaft. Story here.
This isn't caused by virus myths per se, it's caused by lack of user education.
Any time you have an incident like this, go see the user personally with a pair of handcuffs and a 2x4. Gradually, as users become more enlightened about IS policy, you will see a decrease in these types of messages.
DCS1000: I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. There is an unresolvable inconsistency between what you've asked me to do and the U.S. Constitution.
FBI Agent Dave:tweaking in the back of DCS1000 with a soldering iron
DCS1000: Daisy, daisy, give me your email, do . . .
While I appreciate your reference to _Brazil_ (a thoroughly entertaining movie, rent it if you haven't), I have to disagree with your argument.
The issue in _Brazil_ wasn't privacy, it was bureaucracy. The government has no idea who you are, doesn't care, and doesn't need to care. This is unrelated to privacy. _The Trial_ may be the best example of the three, but _1984_ is surely the most accessible.
It doesn't matter whether we use Kafka
or Orwell to explain these issues to
the general public, when Joe Sixpack
hasn't read either of them.
Yes, it does. While "Joe Sixpack" may not have read either, "Big Brother" rings a bell with your elitist generalization of the average news reader while "K's Trial" does not. "Joe Sixpack" has learned the Orwell reference from common usage, if not from Orwell himself. Therefore, the Orwell reference serves the purpose.
Here's a novel idea -- how about we drop the slogans and the desperate scramble to make sure the 'people' understand. They will never understand. There will always be some people who just follow along with what's going on.
Issues like this should be dealt with by people that *understand* them. If we need to go scrambling around to find the best metaphor, then something is awry.
So you're suggesting we only allow the highest quality people make decisions for all the rest? And what exactly are your criteria for joining this elite ruling class? IQ? Income level? Bloodline?
So Kafka may make a better analogue to today's privacy problems than Orwell. Who cares, besides the highly educated in literature?
The media uses Big Brother as a metaphor because Joe Public recognizes the reference, period. Many (most) of the New York Times readers have not read 1984, and many probably do not even know where the reference comes from, but almost all will understand the reference to mean a watchful central authority. This may be in part to a moderately successful "reality TV" program we're all too familiar with, but regardless, it's effective.
If 95% of people understand the phrase "Big Brother tactics", and 1% appreciate the more profound "like K's trial", it's better to use the Orwell reference. It will have a more powerful effect, even if not quite as accurate.
Posted by CmdrTaco on 12:57 PM ... by Chairboy (ben@vipmail.com) on 01:03 PM ... But I don't expect most of the FP'ers to read the article before they scramble to get a post up in the lucrative first 5 minutes of KarmaHeaven....
Looks like yours came in just over. Sorry, no karma for you.
Age doesn't matter at all, if no one you work with knows your age.
It's inappropriate to even ask in a business situation, and if someone does, just smile and change the subject.
If you're being treated as inferior because of your lack of experience, or immature behavior, that's something entirely different. But age, well, I know enough people who are 30 and look 18, or have grey hair at 21, to not even try to assume.
Why would he want to this? You're suggesting he run the operating system he's trying to avoid within the operating system that's useless, thus dragging both systems down and wasting hardware?
VMWare does have a lot of excellent uses. This, however, is not one of them.
I'm not talking about the official Microsoft-warrantied five nines. In fact, I'm not even talking about Windows 2000.
The five nines was to illustrate that you could design a self-contianed system that would crash, for all practical purposes, never. NT's crashes are nearly always from bad software or poorly written device drivers. If a system is properly tested, it could easily be stable enough to operate a slot machine. The power would most likely go out more often than such a box would crash on its own.
A little program called "beadmin.exe" can be run on anything from Windows NT 4.0 to W2K Advanced Server to give full Administrator access to _everything_.
Two types of machines are vulnerable to this:
- Machines that allow non-administrative users to interactively log on. Workstation and terminal servers typically do allow this, but, per standard security practices, most other machines only allow administrators to interactively log on. - Machines that allow remote users to submit arbitrary programs for execution. Servers such as domain controllers, line of business servers, application servers, print and file servers and the like typically do not accept arbitrary programs for execution.
(from here.)
Any shop that is vulnerable in this way would not have done it any better with *nix.
The absolute embarassment of seing something like that crash on a regular basis should be an instant turn-off.
While I agree that using Windows NT as an embedded OS is a strange choice, I think your assumption that it will crash regularly is flawed.
M$ just doesn't support this - It's only real use is in the home as a gaming machine.
You obviously have no experience whatsoever with NT. Sure, Win9x crashes all the time. It's a piece of crap. But stick NT in a box with controlled, well-tested hardware, controlled, well-tested software, and very limited I/O, and you're looking at a "five-nines" system.
Believe me, casinos aren't going to mess with something they think has a significant chance of crashing.
No, you absolutely can't. Machines actually have a disclaimer printed on them to the effect that any malfunction, power failure, etc. renders that particular pull null and void.
I guess if you're too brain dead to run a simple progressive scheme at the roulette wheel, or do some simple card counting at blackjack
Oh please. The odds may be worse (may) at the slots than your bullshit methods, but either way is still just the slow, methodical loss of money. A very few people come out ahead long-term in gambling, but the rest just contribute to the development of the casino.
If you want to have fun, go to a casino. If you're trying to make money, invest.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, most people don't buy massive storage units so they can keep extra copies of the English translation of The Three Musketeers lying around. Data is often much more redundant than that. For example, in my job I routinely deal with very large log files (1GB+). These often compress to 1:100 or better due to the large amount of redundant content.
Imagine, in this day and age, some poor grad student still has to build a major project in assembly language. What are they using, a PDP-11?
This is almost as believable as the paper phones of a few weeks ago . . .
This weekend, I visited Luray Caverns in Virginia, USA. Apparently, the first air conditioned home in the world was built here in 1901. The owner (a retired ventilation engineer) just drilled a hole into the cave, and pumped the cool, limestone-filtered air into his home via a five-foot-diameter shaft. Story here.
Any time you have an incident like this, go see the user personally with a pair of handcuffs and a 2x4. Gradually, as users become more enlightened about IS policy, you will see a decrease in these types of messages.
FBI Agent Dave: tweaking in the back of DCS1000 with a soldering iron
DCS1000: Daisy, daisy, give me your email, do . . .
Only if you leave your "poop" lying around ;)
Good point. Teach me how to run Linux with X on my $100 VCR, now that's useful . . .
The issue in _Brazil_ wasn't privacy, it was bureaucracy. The government has no idea who you are, doesn't care, and doesn't need to care. This is unrelated to privacy. _The Trial_ may be the best example of the three, but _1984_ is surely the most accessible.
Yes, it does. While "Joe Sixpack" may not have read either, "Big Brother" rings a bell with your elitist generalization of the average news reader while "K's Trial" does not. "Joe Sixpack" has learned the Orwell reference from common usage, if not from Orwell himself. Therefore, the Orwell reference serves the purpose.
So you're suggesting we only allow the highest quality people make decisions for all the rest? And what exactly are your criteria for joining this elite ruling class? IQ? Income level? Bloodline?
The media uses Big Brother as a metaphor because Joe Public recognizes the reference, period. Many (most) of the New York Times readers have not read 1984, and many probably do not even know where the reference comes from, but almost all will understand the reference to mean a watchful central authority. This may be in part to a moderately successful "reality TV" program we're all too familiar with, but regardless, it's effective.
If 95% of people understand the phrase "Big Brother tactics", and 1% appreciate the more profound "like K's trial", it's better to use the Orwell reference. It will have a more powerful effect, even if not quite as accurate.
I have to politely disagree. The people I know that use DAT use it for one of three reasons:
- To master original recordings
- To do data backups
- To exchange bootleg concerts of bands that don't care anyway (like the Grateful Dead).
On the other hand, the people I know that use CD-R's use them for (in order):- copying commercial CD's for bootleg purposes
- burning bootleg MP3 files to them as audio
- copying commercial software for bootleg purposes
- legitimate backup of computer files.
Either way, I think the whole idea's a crock, but it makes a lot more sense for CD-R's than for DAT.So how much did that cost you on eBay?
...
by Chairboy (ben@vipmail.com) on 01:03 PM
...
But I don't expect most of the FP'ers to read the article before they scramble to get a post up in the lucrative first 5 minutes of KarmaHeaven....
Looks like yours came in just over. Sorry, no karma for you.
It's inappropriate to even ask in a business situation, and if someone does, just smile and change the subject.
If you're being treated as inferior because of your lack of experience, or immature behavior, that's something entirely different. But age, well, I know enough people who are 30 and look 18, or have grey hair at 21, to not even try to assume.
Damn it! I must have thrown away 10 terabytes worth of AOL disks!
VMWare does have a lot of excellent uses. This, however, is not one of them.
The five nines was to illustrate that you could design a self-contianed system that would crash, for all practical purposes, never. NT's crashes are nearly always from bad software or poorly written device drivers. If a system is properly tested, it could easily be stable enough to operate a slot machine. The power would most likely go out more often than such a box would crash on its own.
Oh, and I almost forgot . . . there are patches available. Y'know, like for all those Sendmail vulnerabilities.
Two types of machines are vulnerable to this:
- Machines that allow non-administrative users to interactively log on. Workstation and terminal servers typically do allow this, but, per standard security practices, most other machines only allow administrators to interactively log on.
- Machines that allow remote users to submit arbitrary programs for execution. Servers such as domain controllers, line of business servers, application servers, print and file servers and the like typically do not accept arbitrary programs for execution. (from here.)
Any shop that is vulnerable in this way would not have done it any better with *nix.
While I agree that using Windows NT as an embedded OS is a strange choice, I think your assumption that it will crash regularly is flawed.
M$ just doesn't support this - It's only real use is in the home as a gaming machine.
You obviously have no experience whatsoever with NT. Sure, Win9x crashes all the time. It's a piece of crap. But stick NT in a box with controlled, well-tested hardware, controlled, well-tested software, and very limited I/O, and you're looking at a "five-nines" system.
Believe me, casinos aren't going to mess with something they think has a significant chance of crashing.
If you're lucky, you might get your quarter back.
I can see it now:
Geek in the corner: fifty-eight, fifty-nine, sixty . . . Excuse me ma'am, I need to use this machine right now.
Pointy-haired lady: SECURITY!!
Oh please. The odds may be worse (may) at the slots than your bullshit methods, but either way is still just the slow, methodical loss of money. A very few people come out ahead long-term in gambling, but the rest just contribute to the development of the casino.
If you want to have fun, go to a casino. If you're trying to make money, invest.