Wow, that looks like shit. It's like Mac meets Windows meets TWM meets MWM meets a rainbow, and all mate to have some bastard child that nobody will touch with a ten foot pole.
Lousy appearance aside, you know that ten days after the official release date, we'll have QT/GTK themes to look like Windows widgets, and Enlightenment/Sawfish themes to match the window borders.
How God-damned big can that stupid start panel get? And only ten items? That's a quarter of the desktop being occupied to show five of "My" things, and less than five programs. My E application menu contains 17 items, and is about an 1-1/2 by 3 inches, on a 17" monitor at 1280x1024 pixels. If this were Microsoft, that damn panel would be at least 4 by 5 inches and have half the items (but only about 1/5 the useful items).
What marketeer decided that "My Network Places" is better-sounding than "Network Neighborhood"? Probably not the guy who decided that "Network Neighborhood" was better sounding than `dig www.microsoft.com` or `smbclient//www.microsoft.com/Share -U whatupdog`, which is an improvement. However, something less dumb than "Network Neighborhood" would be "Network File Manager".
Although I think the Apple GUI sucks more than you can imagine, Microsoft could really use some GUI design lessons from Apple.
After all, you know it's a lousy design when, until seeing Whistler pictures, you think KDE2 is way too cheesed up, but Whistler makes KDE look plain in comparison.
He may be claiming to invent DLLs, which may in fact be true. He's NOT claiming to have invented the concept of static linking, which was around in the Unix world long before.DLL files began showing up on PCs.
DLL, or dynamic link library, is a term and concept unique to Windows users. I don't know what they call them in Macs, but in the Unix world, they are simply called "libraries", or "shared libraries" to be more precise. (And yet, when you build programs, you either build with statically or dynamically, not statically or with shared libs. Go figure.) Rather than have a.DLL extension, they have a.so extension, for "shared object," I presume. The functionality is the same, the term is different.
He's pulling a subtle trick, making himself and his company look good, by claiming something comparable to, "I invented the Ford Taurus," (which we assume for argument's sake is true), while the average car user interprets this as, "He invented the automobile." The only difference in this example, is that people are exposed to many different cars every day, so they know that "Ford Taurus" isn't synonymous with "automobile". In operating systems, however, most people are limited to a sample of one. As far as these people are concerned, DLLs are the only type of shared library around.
Bill Gates is a very intelligent man. If he weren't, he wouldn't have made it to Harvard. It's likely he wouldn't be the head of the world's largest software company, and the richest man alive. He knows what he's saying, and I'm sure what he says is technically correct. The problem is, he also knows that most that listen to him, don't know the distinction between what he says, and what they hear. And he uses this knowledge to make him look like an innovator, a man working to bring customers the best and newest technologies in software design.
When one examines the tactics any software company uses to sell software, they bare a striking resemblance to the tactics used by con artists. With a careful selection of words, a big smile, and a lot of bull about how you care about customers, it becomes very easy to unload trash on people, and keep them begging for more.
Amazing that people should want to pay to upgrade an operating system, when the only change is some cheesed-up GUI that looks unsuitable for anybody older than 5 years old, is (if history is any indicator) far less stable and secure than even the least stable, least secure UNIX operating system (trademark left off to include things such as Linux, the BSDs, and any other UNIX-like system), and will require another costly upgrade within two years. I can modularly upgrade my Linux system, be it the kernel, the shell, init, X, enlightenment, or any other package, without first rebooting, and I can do it as each component is released. Try to upgrade a Windows2000 kernel without paying out some cash, and getting more crap than you bargained for.
Point: What he did should not have resulted in suspension. It is goddamned ridiculous that the school would suspend him for declining an award, which is in no way "disruptive", since the rest of the evening can continue without pause. Furthermore, he wasn't defying school officials, since they didn't choose him for king. He was defying his peers, the possibility of which is exactly what makes the US the greatest country in the Solar System (not that we don't have problems here). I really hope that his parents triumph in any legal action they pursue, because the boy only exercised the rights accorded to a US citizen: freedom of speech. He made a statement that he didn't want to accept the award, and I applaud that.
Counterpoint: Although bold and to-the-point, he could have rejected the award in a more graceful fashion, by stepping up to a microphone and saying, "Thanks, but no thanks, I do not accept my award." This kid is clearly trying to feel like he's some kind of political activist, and it makes him look like an idiot and a fool. Just listen to some of his quotes about how schools ought not put glamor in these popularity contests. What a fucking moron. The more he talks, the more grace he nips away from his actions. I've seen more worthy causes in my toilet, and I flush those away. He's no martyr, he's just a moron who wanted to become more popular overnight than any Homecoming King award could have ever made him. "The downtrodden"? What the hell are they? Sounds like this guy is a real loser, who likes to complain that he's not popular, which just makes him less popular. I've always been a computer geek, and was in fact the best student in my high school. Although not popular by any measure, I was never shunned. I firmly believe that those who are shunned in high school put themselves in that position. It starts by a perceived alienation, so that the child withdraws until it becomes real. For some reason, the people who withdraw are those who enjoy being alienated, because it gives them reason to cry, whine, and attract attention. Of course, since everybody loves to be a victim, the child then claims he was an outcast from the start, when in fact it was he that withdrew. All this complaining just drags his friends' attitudes down, so that they eventually abandon him. Finally, whiny and alone, the child tries to make a statement (although it's a hollow one), by complaining even more, changing his personality, dressing differently, and associating himself with others of his type.
While I don't know if he actually wanted this much attention, it is very clear he wanted to act like a "grown-up". The problem is, he picked one of the political-activist grown-ups that behave like children to push their worthless causes down your throat. If he doesn't endorse this sort of popularity contest, he shouldn't have come. It's as simple as that. To think that he has some right to enforce his values on a mass of people just because HE wants to attend a school activity, is childish and self-centered at best. At worst, it's the sort of dictatorial attitude that RMS takes toward Free Software (I'll call it Open Source just to piss him off, Fuck You RMS).
This kid thinks things should be his way just because he's an American citizen? Well so am I, and I want things my way. What's he going to do about that? If you want to abolish popularity contests, kid, run for superintendand of your school district in 20 years, then push to have them abolished. Quit whining now.
Finally, I feel sorry for the Homecoming Queen, who must have felt horrible standing there smiling while her king just walked away. What an asshole.
In response to the "Nerds 7, xxxx 0" post subject (I don't remember what the xxxx stands for), this kid is by no means a nerd. He's not a geek, either. He's just some whiny little kid who wants adverse attention. He wants people to notice him, and have respect for his political activities. A true nerd does one of two things:
Meshes with society, and acts like a normal person. While he probably won't be winning popularity contests, he certainly won't be shunned if he takes this route.
Consciously alienates himself from others, because he doesn't prefer their company. When this happens, he doesn't whine and complain like the kid we're talking about, he enjoys the peacefulness that he wanted from the beginning.
Since this kid chose neither route, he's not a nerd.
So your school is supposed to by equipment for everybody to use? What about the media? Do students pay for it? How will they transfer data to their own PCs?
I don't think these questions are for you or your school to worry about. I can imagine a lot of people come to you with their sob-stories about lost data, but what makes it your responsibility to protect them? You are offering enough protection in the form of a file server.
I suggest you stop trying to play savior; it's a waste of your time and your employer's money. When people come to you on the verge of tears, you ought to say, "Hey, we've warned you about diskettes. Maybe next time, you won't rely on them. Now get out of my way." I can assure you that, of the people that have already lost critical data, no one relies solely on floppies any more. You have to get fucked to learn, so let it happen.
Unless, of course, the one who lost data is some really hot girl, in which case you should be simpathetic and sensitive to her needs. Oh yeah...
Ayuh, they harrass you plenty after you download their software. That's why there are two options:
Give them some Yahoo! Mail account, where you can get a new one every month in order to get a new license, as long as you can remember bobsmithe6414165@yahoo.com for five minutes.:)
Use procmail to drop messages from VMWare.
Me, I've resorted to the second, but I give them a new address every time I renew the trial license.
It shows that Microsoft is quaking in its buggy boots about "that insignificant operating system." If it's dangerous to the user, and unimportant to the market, why stoop down to knock it?
They've just made themselves look worse than before. If they had been smart, they would have withheld the ad, and only knocked Linux in press conferences when reporters explicitly asked about it. The response could have been a quick, "Well, we don't feel Linux is a viable alternative to Windows, so we don't pay enough attention to it to be able to answer your question." There it is, straight from Microsoft, that Linux is no big deal.
But now, it's so important that Microsoft has to employ FUD tactics. The cycle is beginning: FUD->Embrace->Extend->Suffocate. Next we'll see a few "MGPL" programs, which is the "Microsoft General Public License". Next, they'll clone Linux, maybe calling it "MNL" for "Microsoft is not Linux". Once MNL is the standard Linux system (which they'll see to by flooding the market), they'll migrate everybody to MS Windows2010.
It is always reassuring to know that even your enemies regard your tools and significant. We're no longer invisible.
... is to use procmail, and just drop all the mail from amazon.com into the bitbucket. I started doing this a few weeks ago, when I received the straw that broke my back: "MAKE MONEY NOW!" Procmail was not difficult to setup, especially after reading the man pages. Granted, I'm not doing complex things, just moving stuff into different folders, and sending junk to/dev/null. But still...
My INCOMING->/dev/null patented SPAM-ANNIHILATOR (TM) has an ever-growing list. It really feels good to be oblivious to all that crap. When some new sender throws junk my way, I just add his name to my.procmailrc, delete his message, and never hear from him again.
What's truly great about all of this is, if you share an e-mail account with your wife, you could tell your friends to send mail to the account using your name, and your wife could have her friends mail her at her name. For instance, my email could come to Commandant <ajh3@spam.redirect.de>, and my wife's mail could come to MrsCommandant <ajh3@spam.redirect.de>. Then procmail can separate these, delivering my mail to my inbox, and her mail to her inbox. Now your wife won't be able to find out about that anniversary gift you ordered her.
This does put the burden on my hardware instead of the spammers', but I think it's worth it. One problem with unsubscribing to spam is, they usually require personal information like a name. They generally don't know this when they send you the original message, so I'm not eager to give it out. This way, I remain totally anonymous and oblivious. Also, since I'm not getting 10,000 messages a day, it's not like my PIII works much harder than it does anyway to drop the three messages per week that I get.
Either way, good luck in not getting another email from them.
I agree with the list of games in this thread (Blaster Master, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros. (1 and 3), the Zeldas (1 and 2), Contra, Metroid.
Now I have a few games to add:
Kung Fu -- This games was so cool, where he'd say "Foo Foo" when he kicked, and "Cha Cha" when he punched. Defeat Mr. X and save (What was her name?). OH YEAH.
R.C. Pro Am -- This game was awesome. Drive around in little RC cars, collecting N-I-N-T-E-N-D-O letter blocks, to get a car upgrade. Look out for the oil slick!
Double Dragon -- Was this mentioned before? It deserves it--particularly DD2. How cool is it to pick up a steel drum and throw it at an enemy?
Base Wars -- A futuristic robot baseball game. It really sucked, but getting in fights was totally cool when you choose the "Edit A" and "Edit B" teams--tons of cool weapons to beat the shit out of your opponent with! It was only good with the NES Advantage, though. You would fight every time you ran to a base where the baseman tagged you with the ball--you fought to determine if you were safe or out.
Spy Hunter and Seicross -- These two are lumped together since neither one has an end. They just keep repeating. Spy Hunter is a car game, where you look down on top of your car. You use guns, oil slicks, and smoke screens to force enemies off the road. I still remember the music. Sometimes, they play variations of it on the radio--I'm not kidding. The grass at the side of the road cycles through colors, but you never get anywhere (except on a boat, but you have to get off after awhile, and the cycle repeats). Somebody once told me there was a sequence of forks that you need to take to beat it--that was a lie. Seicross is a futuristic motorcycle game, where you shoot enemies and avoid crashing into obstacles. There are six levels, which alternate fast and slow (the speed you zoom through the level). At the end of each level, there are dinosaur/tiger monstrosities you must shoot, while still moving. When you get to level six, you just work your way back down to level one, then back up to six, ad infinitum (or ad nauseum, whichever you prefer). Both are fun, but they get old after awhile.
NINJA GAIDEN -- This is all in caps because, of all the games here (which I'd consider my favorite games of all time), this is the absolute BEST Nintendo game I've ever played. It's so hard, I can't even beat it with Game Genie. I come sooooo close, though. I'm talkin' last level here, where Ryu fights his father. That game is impossible. If you haven't played Ninja Gaiden, you really need to. It's the game I'm most likely to forget about when I'm reminiscing about Nintendo, but it's my favorite by a long shot. Does anybody remember the CIA chick's name? She was about as hot as you can get in sixteen colors. What I hated was those goddamned jumping ninjas you can never get rid of. And those fuckin' birds in level three, which would knock you into a pit so many times. Don't get the sequel, it sucks badly.
Nintendo was the high point of console gaming (and damn close to the high point of all of digital gaming). The only thing I like nowadays is GT2 for Playstation, which is a truly awesome game. But it doesn't come close to my NES. Oh that I were twelve with my Nintendo again! We're goin' all the way, Ryu, all the way...
I think this project is going to be the biggest, most-observed failure in the history of open-source computing. Let's take a moment to thank Sun, who may destroy everything that programmers have worked hard to succeed at. Imagine who will avoid open source software because StarOffice (OpenOffice) turns out to be a flop. I won't jump ship, but it will help people from boarding the ship in the first place. Maybe it was intentional, to either debunk Microsoft's office suite dominance, or try to debunk Linux's rising dominance if the first goal should fail. Sun can't lose. Either they look good with StarOffice and make MS look bad, or they don't hurt MS and make Linux (the masthead of the open-source world) look bad. More copies of Solaris to everybody.
Let me tell you why it will fail, or probably will. First there's the sheer size. 80MB of gzipped source? It says a requirement for building is 400MB of disk space, just to unpack the source. Not much of the computing world can download 80MB of source in a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, I can only imagine how long it will take to compile. I'm downloading binaries now, and if they look good, I'll make a go at compilation. 80MB should set me back about 45 minutes of download time. Then the compilation starts. Most people won't tolerate this.
Now look at Mozilla. As bloated, buggy, and just plain lousy as Netscape 4 is on Linux, Mozilla is a thousand times worse. It's bloated, amazingly slow, buggy, and far from complete. How long has it taken them to get to this point? Too long.
Developers hate debugging. It's difficult, frustrating, and tedious. You already written the code; why would you want to inspect it again? You know what it says. Why does that damn segfault occur whenever I mouse over the Print icon? The code looks fine to me...
It's much more fun to add new code, since it's refreshing, and you see real progress. That's the problem with Mozilla. Rather than slim things down, speed them up, and make sure everything is well-written and fully functional, we see Mozilla get more bloated as time goes on. I just want a browser.
This will also happen with OpenOffice. People are going to bloat it, bog it down with extraneous features that nobody really wants. A few people will try to optimize it, but it's too large to be optimized by anyone but the original programmers. Ever try reading somebody else's code? It's a joke. But why would the original developers want to trim it down? They were paid to do their original work. I doubt they'll spend their free time fixing it.
Well, I've lost my chain of thought. All I can say is that OpenOffice is going to become far more bloated, buggy and slow than StarOffice is now, just like Mozilla is worse than Netscape. The only thing it has going for it now, is that it doesn't use that stupid Windows-desktop look that it had before. And yet the install is still the same size. I'm going to get the source, and waste some time compiling. Maybe it will speed up. We need some rogue programmer to separate each of the modules into a stand-along application, and maybe port it to GTK so that it is visually compatible with other GTK programs. Oh, and maybe a QT port wouldn't be bad, either. But I'm not the guy, because I don't really give a damn. Things aren't going to get better, they'll only get worse. Grab OpenOffice605 now, before they have a chance to modify the source too much.
Actually, I think they look kind of cool. Purple is for girls. This has a futuristic, simple look to it. Black and white. Slick.
This reminds me of some slick looking E themes, maybe I'll check them out. New! Have a laptop that matches your window manager! Coordinated computing just made a big step forward.
Since I can't coordinate my wardrobe, at least I can impress chicks with my sense of style in computing--"Yeah, my clothes don't match, but my window manager matches my laptop! It also matches the console!" I can see the line of girls forming at my door...
Excuse me, gentlemen, I've got to go woo some honeys.
I just told someone about the bragging on OpenBSD.org to convince them that OSS operating systems aren't necessarily less secure than, say, Windows NT (control your laughter, please). Still, three years? Isn't it something like two years without a localhost hole? That's better than my linux machine can do.
First let me correct my sentence, "Biggest concern is stability." should have been, "My biggest concern is stability." I do like to talk in complete sentences.
Now let me point out that the ext2 basis of ext3 is one of my problems with it. The fact that it is so new, and merely grafted on to ext2, makes me wonder how reliable it is.
ReiserFS was built from the ground up to marry journaling to data storage, so the fact that it is beta-quality does not raise concerns of backwards-compatibility-induced errors.
Furthermore, ReiserFS is also based on existing, proven filesystem technology--it uses the superblock/bitmap/inode metadata-structure present in ext2, and it organizes this with a B* balanced tree structure for fast searching and sorting.
One nice feature of ReiserFS over ext2 (and quite possibly ext3) is the ability to dynamically allocate inodes, so I never have to worry about having too many files. Small features like these are the rewards for not choosing a filesystem for backwards-compatibility.
I installed the ReiserFS kernel patch and utilities today, and just finished replacing all my partitions with ReiserFS partitions. Let me tell you why I chose ReiserFS over the other three mentioned.
Biggest concern is stability. Ext3 is version 0.0.2e, which is not a reassuring sign. JFS is 0.0.3 (or somewhere around there), again not very reassuring. I don't know the version number of the XFS port, but it does say on the website something about the FS port being beta, and that it "may damage" data. Furthermore, it is only available for kernel 2.4.0, which doesn't seem to work with my sound card module (I'll never by a product based on Aureal hardware again). ReiserFS is up to version 3.5 on stable kernels, which indicates that it's been around for a while. Plus, the testimonial on their web page says sourceforge uses RFS for half their servers. If it works for them, I figure it works for me.
Another problem with Ext3 is the fact that it's just Ext2 with journaling grafted on. I want a filesystem built around journaling, not journaling built around a filesystem.
XFS and JFS bother me because they are early ports of software for different platforms. I trust Ext3 over either of these, simply because Ext3 was meant specifically for Linux. If SGI or IBM can make their ports stable, they'll be worth looking into.
RFS was built from the ground up as a Linux-native, journaling file system. People have used it and loved it. I love it too, at least as much as I can after knowing it for only a few hours. I've reset it a few times now, beaming as the screen says, "3 transactions replayed in 2 seconds" and mounts my partition, rather than saying "fsck forced... 1%...2%...3%..." and mounting my partition five minutes later. So far, I've not found any lost data. The only thing that bothers me is the lack of extended attributes, but I never use them anyway.
FSCK forcefully wiping out data in order to boot was what sent me crying back to WinNT about a year ago. It was the only grudge I held when I went crying back to Linux from NT two months after that. I treated my power button delicately, and shut my PC down every time a thunderstorm started.
With ReiserFS, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, where I can tempt the fates by continuing to work in a thunderstorm, and I don't have to tremble with fear that I might accidentally pull the wrong cord if I need to unplug something on the same outlet as my PC.
Whether it's XFS, JFS, RFS, or Ext3, at least we can say that NT no longer has ANYTHING over Linux. Choice is good.
Wee-hah! No more disk-swapping and power-supply fan-creaking! I've got a router/packet-filter/masquerader set up in my home, an old P-100 with no hard disk. It's big, it's bulky, the power-supply fan makes too much noise (still quieter than an HD though), and I need a boot/root disk set.
This looks like it could solve my routing problems, because (I imagine) the power supply has no fan, I can get rid of my disk set, and I can hide it under a desk.
These kinds of toys are just plain cool, except the price is a little steep ($299), considering my present box is free.
What would have been cooler, in my opinion, is if they had made it System-on-a-chip, not Disk-on-a-chip. Just have one chip, one PCI/ISA combo slot, and all the built-in stuff (NIC, display, keyboard/mouse). It would be like the Mac G4 cube, but smaller--just big enough to hold a second NIC and a power switch you don't need a paper clip to use, just small enough to tape to a wall or something:)
But this isn't the same as what Amazon is doing. As you say yourself, mailorder places check your account number for discounts. They don't jack up the price above list if you've expressed (unknowingly) in the past that you will pay higher prices. A discount is nothing but a sales pitch, an advertisement. It is a way to draw customers in, by saying, "The more you spend, the more you save!"
Amazon isn't pitching sales, though. They jack the price around at random (or based on your past history of buying things with randomly-jacked prices) to determine the maximum amount of money you are willing to pay.
That's perfectly understandable. After all, as consumers, don't we all look for the best price? Still, it annoys me, but I'll always check other sites for the same product. If Amazon is more expensive, I don't buy from them.
If someone has his car stolen when he is at work, he reports it to the police as soon as he finds out.
Failure to do that makes him a criminal. However, he is no longer an accessory, because he didn't give implicit permission to have his automobile stolen. Now he is guilty of obstruction of justice, for denying the police facts that may have lead to the arrest of the criminal before or soon after he committed another robbery. Information like the make, model, color, license number, and location of the car is very valuable when tracking down a thief.
Because of the "innocent until proven guilty" phrase, one must prove that Joe User stood by, knowing his car was stolen, and did not report it to police. This is easy to do if, say, the car was taken from the garage, and Joe User is found at home. There are times, however, that it can be difficult to prove Joe User knows his car was stolen.
The problem is that one's network connection is never removed from your control. When your car is gone, you can't pull the emergency brake and shift it to neutral to prevent the thief from driving it. However, Joe User can disconnect his broadband access while he figures out what's going on (or has a professional do so).
It is perfectly acceptable to deny someone broadband access while they are figuring out how it is being used illegally. The illegal use is hurting some sites, and although Joe User is not doing it, his connection (which is under his control) is. Therefore, if Joe User's IP address is detected in a DoS attack, Joe's ISP should call him, saying, "We've restricted you to 14.4kbps since your line is being used in DoS attacks. Until you can secure your machine, you will not have fast access." When Joe User calls his ISP and says, "I've found a Trojan horse, but I've removed it. My machine is no longer being used in the DoS attacks," the ISP should immediately remove the bandwidth restriction.
This is akin to having a terrorist take hostages in your apartment building. The terrorist threatens to kill hostages should anyone enter the building. Furthermore, people milling about the building will obstruct the police from arresting the terrorist. Because of these two things, it is perfectly acceptable for the police to deny you access to your apartment while they figure out what to do. Likewise, you should be temporarily denied quick access to the Internet if your presence is a danger to someone else, or if your presence is hindering the process of justice.
Furthermore, by notifying Joe User that his machine is being used in illegal activities, Joe User becomes an accessory to the crime if he does not take action against the activity.
Unfortunately, these are the tradeoffs of living in a good society. They don't have DoS problems in central Africa. By living in society, you open yourself to the possiblity of temporarily losing access to your residence. By simple having a connection to the Internet, you risk having it temporarily blocked. But if justice is not allowed to proceed because it inconveniences one man, society would come crashing down.
You don't punish a person, you inconvenience him. Punishment is a harsh action designed to deter an individual fro repeating acts he has already performed. Inconveniencing an individual is a reasonable action which subjects him to less-than-optimal conditions, not designed to deter him from actions he has performed previously.
Bandwidth should be taken away permanently as punishment for initiating a DoS attack, or willfully allowing one to take place through your own machine.
In the first, Joe User is a victim. He's lost his possessions. Even if those possessions are used later to commit a crime, Joe User has no control over his possessions, so he's not aided a criminal in any way.
In the second, Jane User is not even offering something that can be used in a crime. She is simply a victim.
The third example is just a rehash of the first.
When a user deserves to have bandwidth restricted, is when he allows his bandwidth to be used for illegal activities, whether he knows so or not, and allows it to continue going on (either explicitly or implicitly). Much like we can't offer services or objects to criminals who wish to commit a crime with what we offer, we can't allow one man's bandwidth to be available to any cracker. It becomes a user's duty to monitor his network, and make sure it isn't involved in illegal activity. Unlike the case where Joe User has his house robbed, network activity is always under Joe User's control, so failing to monitor it (and thus allowing crackers to use it illegally) is becoming a (knowing or unknowing) accessory to a crime.
If you want to consider the Joe User example, allowing bandwidth to be used illegally is akin to standing in your garage, watching a thief steal your car. You do nothing to stop him, you don't report him to authorities, you just go inside after he's gone. Later, that car is used in a bank robbery. Joe User becomes an accessory to robbery. This is because Joe User wasn't really robbed--by doing nothing to stop a thief, and by not reporting it to the authorities, he was giving implicit permission for the thief to take his car.
It's not like it's difficult to make people watch their network. I have a cable modem, and whenever there is network activity through it, there is a green light that flashes like mad. If that's flashing and you're not requesting data, obviously someone else is. Unplug the modem and find out what's going on, either yourself or with a professional.
I agree that Joe User deserves to have his bandwidth limited if he is careless. Being an irresponsible user is being an accessory to a crime. When you posted, though, it seemed you wanted to impose restriction on people before they were allowed access to broadband services.
This is wrong--it's charging people with crimes before they are committed. Bandwidth should not be limited until after the DoS crimes are committed.
And regarding taking business loss over death, I say this: I'd rather be homeless than dead. But what DoS attacks last long enough to kill a business? How long would it take to kill a business? More than a few days. Any DoS attack can (by competent admins) be detected within a day. Just unplug whatever networking medium is plugged into the server, let the DoS attackers go nuts pinging a dead machine.
J. Random User can operate a backhoe; you can rent them if you like. The questions are in availability and intelligence: 1) Can you find a place that rents backhoes? 2) If you've never done so before, it's probably not wise to tear up your backyard with a backhoe.
Question (1) is irrelevant, since anyone can make his own suply if he chooses, by becoming a dealer of Caterpillar equipment (or a competitor of Cat). Question (2) is left up to each potential driver. If my neighbor wants to chew up his yard with a backhoe, that's his business. I'll sue him if he chews up mine.
Giving out morphine, demerol, or AZT is a different matter. First, if it is needed, doctors will prescribe it. Second, it has been determined, through due process of law, that possessing these drugs without a prescription is illegal. Therefore it is illegal for a pharmacy to distribute it, as well illegal for an end-user to possess it.
The reason this law passed, is that a person without a medical degree, or the ability to prescribe drugs, will misuse it. This is necessarily always true, since if it weren't being misused, the user could have obtained a prescription. This misuse affects the thought processes and actions of an individual who uses the drugs. First, the person may die, potentially causing the government to expend time and money (local government, anyway) removing the dead body. Second, a person under the influnce of morphine could try to operate heavy machinery, potentially damaging himself, another person, or property. Third, he might sell the drugs to another person, who could continue the chain.
But I talk in another post (the response to the parent of the parent of this one) about not preventing someone from receiving a service or possessing an object because of potential harm. Why do I support using potential harm as an excuse for requiring prescriptions for drugs? Notice the first reason is that it is illegal. If Big Brother decides that Broadband access is to be administered in a controlled environment, I'll be pissed off, I'll try to change the law, but I'll oblige. In addition, as I said above, anyone who circumvents the prescription process is necessarily misusing the drug, meaning he is displaying a carelessness for potential effects. This is akin to denying a killer a gun, since the killer has shown a carelessness for the consequences of killing someone. I support that attitude. Finally, if you reject the previous two reasons, remember that a DoS attack on a website is relatively harmless. A man could lose a day's worth of business because of an attack. These are minor consequences compared to the potential death brought about by a morphine-influenced driver.
Following these guidelines would limit broadband access to anyone who has used a broadband connection to perform illegal actions before, or who expresses an explicit, serious intent to do so in the future. (You don't give weapons to a violent criminal, nor do you sell weapons to a man who asks, "Do you have any knives that I can use to stab my wife?" Anyone else should be able to buy weapons.)
What you're saying here, is that we should deny everyone the availability of a service simply because the potential to do malicious damage exists.
If you subscribe to this, you should take away everyone's car, because there will be people this year who deliberately run over people with cars.
You should outlaw knives, guns, rocks, lawnmowers, sticks, and every other object in the world, since people and property can be damaged by anything in the world, if another person wills it so.
Water and food should be outlawed, too, because people can poison food, or drown other people.
Personally, I'd take being the admin and owner of a DoS'ed business web site over being stabbed any day. Are your priorities that out of whack?
The phrase innocent until proven guilty means that punishment for a crime cannot be administered before one is convicted of that crime. Taking away broadband internet access because the potential to do harm exists is not only administering punishment for a crime one hasn't been convicted of yet, it's administering punishment for a crime that hasn't even been committed yet!
Denying people anything on the premise that it could be used for harmful activities was the way Hitler conducted government. It was the way Stalin conducted government. It's the way Castro conducts government. Do you see a pattern? The reason the United States is such a great country, is because we've outlawed that in-your-face government dictatorial bullshit.
If you want this sort of dictatorship where you live, establish your own country on an island somewhere.
But we live in the USA, where we have a Constitution, and laws, which makes it illegal to deny me anything simply because I might misuse it. I'm claiming my freedom now. If anyone has a problem with that, it's time to water that tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants. As Jefferson said, that should be done every twenty years or so.
When I walked into my local Radio Shack, the guy didn't even know what a CueCat was. I had to say, "You know, the barcode reader?" He acknowledged and handed me the thing. He took my name and address (I still can't figure out why I didn't use fake info). He never said anything about a license to use it. He also never said, on the phone or in person, that it was on loan from DigitalConvergence.com. He said they were "giving" it to me, for free.
After opening the package I plugged the thing into my machine, and glanced at the card they give you. I've just now read the entire card, and it says nothing about a license agreement, or even a mandatory look at crq.com. It only says to go to crq.com to get a unique activation code.
Unfortunately, in screw-you lawyer style, the back of the CD jacket says, in tiny print on the bottom, "Opening of this software constitutes acceptance of our License terms contained herein. Copies can also be found at www.digitalconvergence.com/ula.html. [...]" Although I don't recall a EULA in the package, it does direct you to online information. It also doesn't say installation constitutes acceptance, only opening the software. And that happened when you eagerly ripped open the plastic containing the device.
Therefore, unfortunately, we are all bound by those license terms. I could imagine, if one took it all the way to the Supreme Court, one could claim that decoding the CueCat output is merely reinterpretation of public information (since the CueCat dumps its code into any text editor you choose, they aren't making an effort to conceal the code).
If mine gets recalled, though, I won't give it back. The reason? I paid for it. That's right: when I was at Radio Shack, and before I could even see a hint of a license agreement in the package (the message was obstructed by the informational booklet), I gave away my name and address (it's even printed on the receipt they gave me), which is valuable marketing information. So Radio Shack (and potentially DigitalConvergence.com) can send me shit I don't want, and I have nothing to show for it? I don't think so. I deserve compensation for giving up my privacy.
What I meant to say was, "Every piece of software on my PC was free of charge, and is 100% legal." Data files, which embody MP3 audio, are not included in my definition of "software". Software is any file that is executable, or a library/configuration file required by an executable.
This does not imply, in any manner, that I use Napster to transfer illegal material. It implies absolutely nothing at all.
All I am saying is that, if I were to transfer illegal material through Napster, that would not make their business appropriate. They should be held responsible for copyright infringement that is openly supported on their servers. The fact that there is no mechanism to attempt to block the transfer of copyrighted materials through their servers, makes them accessories to copyright infringement violations. Napster would (should) only be exempt if users were explicitly and indiscreetly circumventing protections built into Napster servers by the company.
Thank you.
PS - It looks like my signature got cut off. It was supposed to say:
Neither this post, nor any of my posts, nor I am a member of the public domain.
I am also not a member of the spam.redirect.de domain.
My posts belong in my domain; I belong in the cec.wustl.edu domain.
But the username is the same.
Seriously, though. I'm the most intellectual property right-oriented person I know (not that I know that many people--after all, I use Linux and hang out on/.:). Everything I write, say, or think has a copyright stamp posted on it. My web pages have copyrights, trademarks, slogan marks, you name it. My code (there's not too much) has copyrights on it. I'm scared to death of copyright violations against me (oddly, I'm not quite as concerned about violations by me against somebody else--figure that one out!).
Despite this, I'm pro-open source. Everything on my PC was free of charge, and is 100% legal. I don't even have a copy of QT, although I guess that's legit. Whatever code I write (again, not that much) is distributed in source and binary format. I support freedom (speech and beer)--I just want credit for what's mine.
To say that open source supporters promote the spread of copyrighted material may be true, as long as spreading of that material is granted by the owner.
My views can perhaps best be expressed in my standpoint on one popular issue nowadays: I believe that the service provided by Napster is terribly wrong. Until copyright protections can be built into the system, it will never be right.
One will be quick to see that I did not say I don't use Napster... But I don't think it's right.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, sorry, that was a typo. I meant to say "He's NOT claiming to have invented the concept of dynamic linking, [...]"
It was late when I wrote this, give me a break, okay?
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Wow, that looks like shit. It's like Mac meets Windows meets TWM meets MWM meets a rainbow, and all mate to have some bastard child that nobody will touch with a ten foot pole.
Lousy appearance aside, you know that ten days after the official release date, we'll have QT/GTK themes to look like Windows widgets, and Enlightenment/Sawfish themes to match the window borders.
How God-damned big can that stupid start panel get? And only ten items? That's a quarter of the desktop being occupied to show five of "My" things, and less than five programs. My E application menu contains 17 items, and is about an 1-1/2 by 3 inches, on a 17" monitor at 1280x1024 pixels. If this were Microsoft, that damn panel would be at least 4 by 5 inches and have half the items (but only about 1/5 the useful items).
What marketeer decided that "My Network Places" is better-sounding than "Network Neighborhood"? Probably not the guy who decided that "Network Neighborhood" was better sounding than `dig www.microsoft.com` or `smbclient //www.microsoft.com/Share -U whatupdog`, which is an improvement. However, something less dumb than "Network Neighborhood" would be "Network File Manager".
Although I think the Apple GUI sucks more than you can imagine, Microsoft could really use some GUI design lessons from Apple.
After all, you know it's a lousy design when, until seeing Whistler pictures, you think KDE2 is way too cheesed up, but Whistler makes KDE look plain in comparison.
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He may be claiming to invent DLLs, which may in fact be true. He's NOT claiming to have invented the concept of static linking, which was around in the Unix world long before .DLL files began showing up on PCs.
DLL, or dynamic link library, is a term and concept unique to Windows users. I don't know what they call them in Macs, but in the Unix world, they are simply called "libraries", or "shared libraries" to be more precise. (And yet, when you build programs, you either build with statically or dynamically, not statically or with shared libs. Go figure.) Rather than have a .DLL extension, they have a .so extension, for "shared object," I presume. The functionality is the same, the term is different.
He's pulling a subtle trick, making himself and his company look good, by claiming something comparable to, "I invented the Ford Taurus," (which we assume for argument's sake is true), while the average car user interprets this as, "He invented the automobile." The only difference in this example, is that people are exposed to many different cars every day, so they know that "Ford Taurus" isn't synonymous with "automobile". In operating systems, however, most people are limited to a sample of one. As far as these people are concerned, DLLs are the only type of shared library around.
Bill Gates is a very intelligent man. If he weren't, he wouldn't have made it to Harvard. It's likely he wouldn't be the head of the world's largest software company, and the richest man alive. He knows what he's saying, and I'm sure what he says is technically correct. The problem is, he also knows that most that listen to him, don't know the distinction between what he says, and what they hear. And he uses this knowledge to make him look like an innovator, a man working to bring customers the best and newest technologies in software design.
When one examines the tactics any software company uses to sell software, they bare a striking resemblance to the tactics used by con artists. With a careful selection of words, a big smile, and a lot of bull about how you care about customers, it becomes very easy to unload trash on people, and keep them begging for more.
Amazing that people should want to pay to upgrade an operating system, when the only change is some cheesed-up GUI that looks unsuitable for anybody older than 5 years old, is (if history is any indicator) far less stable and secure than even the least stable, least secure UNIX operating system (trademark left off to include things such as Linux, the BSDs, and any other UNIX-like system), and will require another costly upgrade within two years. I can modularly upgrade my Linux system, be it the kernel, the shell, init, X, enlightenment, or any other package, without first rebooting, and I can do it as each component is released. Try to upgrade a Windows2000 kernel without paying out some cash, and getting more crap than you bargained for.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
This has been on the website for months, I saw it back in July or August when I wanted to download the "old standby".
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Point: What he did should not have resulted in suspension. It is goddamned ridiculous that the school would suspend him for declining an award, which is in no way "disruptive", since the rest of the evening can continue without pause. Furthermore, he wasn't defying school officials, since they didn't choose him for king. He was defying his peers, the possibility of which is exactly what makes the US the greatest country in the Solar System (not that we don't have problems here). I really hope that his parents triumph in any legal action they pursue, because the boy only exercised the rights accorded to a US citizen: freedom of speech. He made a statement that he didn't want to accept the award, and I applaud that.
Counterpoint: Although bold and to-the-point, he could have rejected the award in a more graceful fashion, by stepping up to a microphone and saying, "Thanks, but no thanks, I do not accept my award." This kid is clearly trying to feel like he's some kind of political activist, and it makes him look like an idiot and a fool. Just listen to some of his quotes about how schools ought not put glamor in these popularity contests. What a fucking moron. The more he talks, the more grace he nips away from his actions. I've seen more worthy causes in my toilet, and I flush those away. He's no martyr, he's just a moron who wanted to become more popular overnight than any Homecoming King award could have ever made him. "The downtrodden"? What the hell are they? Sounds like this guy is a real loser, who likes to complain that he's not popular, which just makes him less popular. I've always been a computer geek, and was in fact the best student in my high school. Although not popular by any measure, I was never shunned. I firmly believe that those who are shunned in high school put themselves in that position. It starts by a perceived alienation, so that the child withdraws until it becomes real. For some reason, the people who withdraw are those who enjoy being alienated, because it gives them reason to cry, whine, and attract attention. Of course, since everybody loves to be a victim, the child then claims he was an outcast from the start, when in fact it was he that withdrew. All this complaining just drags his friends' attitudes down, so that they eventually abandon him. Finally, whiny and alone, the child tries to make a statement (although it's a hollow one), by complaining even more, changing his personality, dressing differently, and associating himself with others of his type.
While I don't know if he actually wanted this much attention, it is very clear he wanted to act like a "grown-up". The problem is, he picked one of the political-activist grown-ups that behave like children to push their worthless causes down your throat. If he doesn't endorse this sort of popularity contest, he shouldn't have come. It's as simple as that. To think that he has some right to enforce his values on a mass of people just because HE wants to attend a school activity, is childish and self-centered at best. At worst, it's the sort of dictatorial attitude that RMS takes toward Free Software (I'll call it Open Source just to piss him off, Fuck You RMS).
This kid thinks things should be his way just because he's an American citizen? Well so am I, and I want things my way. What's he going to do about that? If you want to abolish popularity contests, kid, run for superintendand of your school district in 20 years, then push to have them abolished. Quit whining now.
Finally, I feel sorry for the Homecoming Queen, who must have felt horrible standing there smiling while her king just walked away. What an asshole.
In response to the "Nerds 7, xxxx 0" post subject (I don't remember what the xxxx stands for), this kid is by no means a nerd. He's not a geek, either. He's just some whiny little kid who wants adverse attention. He wants people to notice him, and have respect for his political activities. A true nerd does one of two things:
Since this kid chose neither route, he's not a nerd.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
So your school is supposed to by equipment for everybody to use? What about the media? Do students pay for it? How will they transfer data to their own PCs?
I don't think these questions are for you or your school to worry about. I can imagine a lot of people come to you with their sob-stories about lost data, but what makes it your responsibility to protect them? You are offering enough protection in the form of a file server.
I suggest you stop trying to play savior; it's a waste of your time and your employer's money. When people come to you on the verge of tears, you ought to say, "Hey, we've warned you about diskettes. Maybe next time, you won't rely on them. Now get out of my way." I can assure you that, of the people that have already lost critical data, no one relies solely on floppies any more. You have to get fucked to learn, so let it happen.
Unless, of course, the one who lost data is some really hot girl, in which case you should be simpathetic and sensitive to her needs. Oh yeah...
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Ayuh, they harrass you plenty after you download their software. That's why there are two options:
Me, I've resorted to the second, but I give them a new address every time I renew the trial license.
Thank you.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
It shows that Microsoft is quaking in its buggy boots about "that insignificant operating system." If it's dangerous to the user, and unimportant to the market, why stoop down to knock it?
They've just made themselves look worse than before. If they had been smart, they would have withheld the ad, and only knocked Linux in press conferences when reporters explicitly asked about it. The response could have been a quick, "Well, we don't feel Linux is a viable alternative to Windows, so we don't pay enough attention to it to be able to answer your question." There it is, straight from Microsoft, that Linux is no big deal.
But now, it's so important that Microsoft has to employ FUD tactics. The cycle is beginning: FUD->Embrace->Extend->Suffocate. Next we'll see a few "MGPL" programs, which is the "Microsoft General Public License". Next, they'll clone Linux, maybe calling it "MNL" for "Microsoft is not Linux". Once MNL is the standard Linux system (which they'll see to by flooding the market), they'll migrate everybody to MS Windows2010.
It is always reassuring to know that even your enemies regard your tools and significant. We're no longer invisible.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
... is to use procmail, and just drop all the mail from amazon.com into the bitbucket. I started doing this a few weeks ago, when I received the straw that broke my back: "MAKE MONEY NOW!" Procmail was not difficult to setup, especially after reading the man pages. Granted, I'm not doing complex things, just moving stuff into different folders, and sending junk to /dev/null. But still...
My INCOMING->/dev/null patented SPAM-ANNIHILATOR (TM) has an ever-growing list. It really feels good to be oblivious to all that crap. When some new sender throws junk my way, I just add his name to my .procmailrc, delete his message, and never hear from him again.
What's truly great about all of this is, if you share an e-mail account with your wife, you could tell your friends to send mail to the account using your name, and your wife could have her friends mail her at her name. For instance, my email could come to Commandant <ajh3@spam.redirect.de>, and my wife's mail could come to MrsCommandant <ajh3@spam.redirect.de>. Then procmail can separate these, delivering my mail to my inbox, and her mail to her inbox. Now your wife won't be able to find out about that anniversary gift you ordered her.
This does put the burden on my hardware instead of the spammers', but I think it's worth it. One problem with unsubscribing to spam is, they usually require personal information like a name. They generally don't know this when they send you the original message, so I'm not eager to give it out. This way, I remain totally anonymous and oblivious. Also, since I'm not getting 10,000 messages a day, it's not like my PIII works much harder than it does anyway to drop the three messages per week that I get.
Either way, good luck in not getting another email from them.
Thank you.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
I agree with the list of games in this thread (Blaster Master, Mega Man, Super Mario Bros. (1 and 3), the Zeldas (1 and 2), Contra, Metroid.
Now I have a few games to add:
Nintendo was the high point of console gaming (and damn close to the high point of all of digital gaming). The only thing I like nowadays is GT2 for Playstation, which is a truly awesome game. But it doesn't come close to my NES. Oh that I were twelve with my Nintendo again! We're goin' all the way, Ryu, all the way...
Thank you.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
I think this project is going to be the biggest, most-observed failure in the history of open-source computing. Let's take a moment to thank Sun, who may destroy everything that programmers have worked hard to succeed at. Imagine who will avoid open source software because StarOffice (OpenOffice) turns out to be a flop. I won't jump ship, but it will help people from boarding the ship in the first place. Maybe it was intentional, to either debunk Microsoft's office suite dominance, or try to debunk Linux's rising dominance if the first goal should fail. Sun can't lose. Either they look good with StarOffice and make MS look bad, or they don't hurt MS and make Linux (the masthead of the open-source world) look bad. More copies of Solaris to everybody.
Let me tell you why it will fail, or probably will. First there's the sheer size. 80MB of gzipped source? It says a requirement for building is 400MB of disk space, just to unpack the source. Not much of the computing world can download 80MB of source in a reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, I can only imagine how long it will take to compile. I'm downloading binaries now, and if they look good, I'll make a go at compilation. 80MB should set me back about 45 minutes of download time. Then the compilation starts. Most people won't tolerate this.
Now look at Mozilla. As bloated, buggy, and just plain lousy as Netscape 4 is on Linux, Mozilla is a thousand times worse. It's bloated, amazingly slow, buggy, and far from complete. How long has it taken them to get to this point? Too long.
Developers hate debugging. It's difficult, frustrating, and tedious. You already written the code; why would you want to inspect it again? You know what it says. Why does that damn segfault occur whenever I mouse over the Print icon? The code looks fine to me...
It's much more fun to add new code, since it's refreshing, and you see real progress. That's the problem with Mozilla. Rather than slim things down, speed them up, and make sure everything is well-written and fully functional, we see Mozilla get more bloated as time goes on. I just want a browser.
This will also happen with OpenOffice. People are going to bloat it, bog it down with extraneous features that nobody really wants. A few people will try to optimize it, but it's too large to be optimized by anyone but the original programmers. Ever try reading somebody else's code? It's a joke. But why would the original developers want to trim it down? They were paid to do their original work. I doubt they'll spend their free time fixing it.
Well, I've lost my chain of thought. All I can say is that OpenOffice is going to become far more bloated, buggy and slow than StarOffice is now, just like Mozilla is worse than Netscape. The only thing it has going for it now, is that it doesn't use that stupid Windows-desktop look that it had before. And yet the install is still the same size. I'm going to get the source, and waste some time compiling. Maybe it will speed up. We need some rogue programmer to separate each of the modules into a stand-along application, and maybe port it to GTK so that it is visually compatible with other GTK programs. Oh, and maybe a QT port wouldn't be bad, either. But I'm not the guy, because I don't really give a damn. Things aren't going to get better, they'll only get worse. Grab OpenOffice605 now, before they have a chance to modify the source too much.
Thank you.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Actually, I think they look kind of cool. Purple is for girls. This has a futuristic, simple look to it. Black and white. Slick.
This reminds me of some slick looking E themes, maybe I'll check them out. New! Have a laptop that matches your window manager! Coordinated computing just made a big step forward.
Since I can't coordinate my wardrobe, at least I can impress chicks with my sense of style in computing--"Yeah, my clothes don't match, but my window manager matches my laptop! It also matches the console!" I can see the line of girls forming at my door...
Excuse me, gentlemen, I've got to go woo some honeys.
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I just told someone about the bragging on OpenBSD.org to convince them that OSS operating systems aren't necessarily less secure than, say, Windows NT (control your laughter, please). Still, three years? Isn't it something like two years without a localhost hole? That's better than my linux machine can do.
You know that's gotta sting for Theo.
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First let me correct my sentence, "Biggest concern is stability." should have been, "My biggest concern is stability." I do like to talk in complete sentences.
Now let me point out that the ext2 basis of ext3 is one of my problems with it. The fact that it is so new, and merely grafted on to ext2, makes me wonder how reliable it is.
ReiserFS was built from the ground up to marry journaling to data storage, so the fact that it is beta-quality does not raise concerns of backwards-compatibility-induced errors.
Furthermore, ReiserFS is also based on existing, proven filesystem technology--it uses the superblock/bitmap/inode metadata-structure present in ext2, and it organizes this with a B* balanced tree structure for fast searching and sorting.
One nice feature of ReiserFS over ext2 (and quite possibly ext3) is the ability to dynamically allocate inodes, so I never have to worry about having too many files. Small features like these are the rewards for not choosing a filesystem for backwards-compatibility.
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I installed the ReiserFS kernel patch and utilities today, and just finished replacing all my partitions with ReiserFS partitions. Let me tell you why I chose ReiserFS over the other three mentioned.
Biggest concern is stability. Ext3 is version 0.0.2e, which is not a reassuring sign. JFS is 0.0.3 (or somewhere around there), again not very reassuring. I don't know the version number of the XFS port, but it does say on the website something about the FS port being beta, and that it "may damage" data. Furthermore, it is only available for kernel 2.4.0, which doesn't seem to work with my sound card module (I'll never by a product based on Aureal hardware again). ReiserFS is up to version 3.5 on stable kernels, which indicates that it's been around for a while. Plus, the testimonial on their web page says sourceforge uses RFS for half their servers. If it works for them, I figure it works for me.
Another problem with Ext3 is the fact that it's just Ext2 with journaling grafted on. I want a filesystem built around journaling, not journaling built around a filesystem.
XFS and JFS bother me because they are early ports of software for different platforms. I trust Ext3 over either of these, simply because Ext3 was meant specifically for Linux. If SGI or IBM can make their ports stable, they'll be worth looking into.
RFS was built from the ground up as a Linux-native, journaling file system. People have used it and loved it. I love it too, at least as much as I can after knowing it for only a few hours. I've reset it a few times now, beaming as the screen says, "3 transactions replayed in 2 seconds" and mounts my partition, rather than saying "fsck forced... 1%...2%...3%..." and mounting my partition five minutes later. So far, I've not found any lost data. The only thing that bothers me is the lack of extended attributes, but I never use them anyway.
FSCK forcefully wiping out data in order to boot was what sent me crying back to WinNT about a year ago. It was the only grudge I held when I went crying back to Linux from NT two months after that. I treated my power button delicately, and shut my PC down every time a thunderstorm started.
With ReiserFS, this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, where I can tempt the fates by continuing to work in a thunderstorm, and I don't have to tremble with fear that I might accidentally pull the wrong cord if I need to unplug something on the same outlet as my PC.
Whether it's XFS, JFS, RFS, or Ext3, at least we can say that NT no longer has ANYTHING over Linux. Choice is good.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Wee-hah! No more disk-swapping and power-supply fan-creaking! I've got a router/packet-filter/masquerader set up in my home, an old P-100 with no hard disk. It's big, it's bulky, the power-supply fan makes too much noise (still quieter than an HD though), and I need a boot/root disk set.
This looks like it could solve my routing problems, because (I imagine) the power supply has no fan, I can get rid of my disk set, and I can hide it under a desk.
These kinds of toys are just plain cool, except the price is a little steep ($299), considering my present box is free.
What would have been cooler, in my opinion, is if they had made it System-on-a-chip, not Disk-on-a-chip. Just have one chip, one PCI/ISA combo slot, and all the built-in stuff (NIC, display, keyboard/mouse). It would be like the Mac G4 cube, but smaller--just big enough to hold a second NIC and a power switch you don't need a paper clip to use, just small enough to tape to a wall or something :)
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
But this isn't the same as what Amazon is doing. As you say yourself, mailorder places check your account number for discounts. They don't jack up the price above list if you've expressed (unknowingly) in the past that you will pay higher prices. A discount is nothing but a sales pitch, an advertisement. It is a way to draw customers in, by saying, "The more you spend, the more you save!"
Amazon isn't pitching sales, though. They jack the price around at random (or based on your past history of buying things with randomly-jacked prices) to determine the maximum amount of money you are willing to pay.
That's perfectly understandable. After all, as consumers, don't we all look for the best price? Still, it annoys me, but I'll always check other sites for the same product. If Amazon is more expensive, I don't buy from them.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
If someone has his car stolen when he is at work, he reports it to the police as soon as he finds out.
Failure to do that makes him a criminal. However, he is no longer an accessory, because he didn't give implicit permission to have his automobile stolen. Now he is guilty of obstruction of justice, for denying the police facts that may have lead to the arrest of the criminal before or soon after he committed another robbery. Information like the make, model, color, license number, and location of the car is very valuable when tracking down a thief.
Because of the "innocent until proven guilty" phrase, one must prove that Joe User stood by, knowing his car was stolen, and did not report it to police. This is easy to do if, say, the car was taken from the garage, and Joe User is found at home. There are times, however, that it can be difficult to prove Joe User knows his car was stolen.
The problem is that one's network connection is never removed from your control. When your car is gone, you can't pull the emergency brake and shift it to neutral to prevent the thief from driving it. However, Joe User can disconnect his broadband access while he figures out what's going on (or has a professional do so).
It is perfectly acceptable to deny someone broadband access while they are figuring out how it is being used illegally. The illegal use is hurting some sites, and although Joe User is not doing it, his connection (which is under his control) is. Therefore, if Joe User's IP address is detected in a DoS attack, Joe's ISP should call him, saying, "We've restricted you to 14.4kbps since your line is being used in DoS attacks. Until you can secure your machine, you will not have fast access." When Joe User calls his ISP and says, "I've found a Trojan horse, but I've removed it. My machine is no longer being used in the DoS attacks," the ISP should immediately remove the bandwidth restriction.
This is akin to having a terrorist take hostages in your apartment building. The terrorist threatens to kill hostages should anyone enter the building. Furthermore, people milling about the building will obstruct the police from arresting the terrorist. Because of these two things, it is perfectly acceptable for the police to deny you access to your apartment while they figure out what to do. Likewise, you should be temporarily denied quick access to the Internet if your presence is a danger to someone else, or if your presence is hindering the process of justice.
Furthermore, by notifying Joe User that his machine is being used in illegal activities, Joe User becomes an accessory to the crime if he does not take action against the activity.
Unfortunately, these are the tradeoffs of living in a good society. They don't have DoS problems in central Africa. By living in society, you open yourself to the possiblity of temporarily losing access to your residence. By simple having a connection to the Internet, you risk having it temporarily blocked. But if justice is not allowed to proceed because it inconveniences one man, society would come crashing down.
You don't punish a person, you inconvenience him. Punishment is a harsh action designed to deter an individual fro repeating acts he has already performed. Inconveniencing an individual is a reasonable action which subjects him to less-than-optimal conditions, not designed to deter him from actions he has performed previously.
Bandwidth should be taken away permanently as punishment for initiating a DoS attack, or willfully allowing one to take place through your own machine.
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Your examples are completely irrelevant.
In the first, Joe User is a victim. He's lost his possessions. Even if those possessions are used later to commit a crime, Joe User has no control over his possessions, so he's not aided a criminal in any way.
In the second, Jane User is not even offering something that can be used in a crime. She is simply a victim.
The third example is just a rehash of the first.
When a user deserves to have bandwidth restricted, is when he allows his bandwidth to be used for illegal activities, whether he knows so or not, and allows it to continue going on (either explicitly or implicitly). Much like we can't offer services or objects to criminals who wish to commit a crime with what we offer, we can't allow one man's bandwidth to be available to any cracker. It becomes a user's duty to monitor his network, and make sure it isn't involved in illegal activity. Unlike the case where Joe User has his house robbed, network activity is always under Joe User's control, so failing to monitor it (and thus allowing crackers to use it illegally) is becoming a (knowing or unknowing) accessory to a crime.
If you want to consider the Joe User example, allowing bandwidth to be used illegally is akin to standing in your garage, watching a thief steal your car. You do nothing to stop him, you don't report him to authorities, you just go inside after he's gone. Later, that car is used in a bank robbery. Joe User becomes an accessory to robbery. This is because Joe User wasn't really robbed--by doing nothing to stop a thief, and by not reporting it to the authorities, he was giving implicit permission for the thief to take his car.
It's not like it's difficult to make people watch their network. I have a cable modem, and whenever there is network activity through it, there is a green light that flashes like mad. If that's flashing and you're not requesting data, obviously someone else is. Unplug the modem and find out what's going on, either yourself or with a professional.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
I agree that Joe User deserves to have his bandwidth limited if he is careless. Being an irresponsible user is being an accessory to a crime. When you posted, though, it seemed you wanted to impose restriction on people before they were allowed access to broadband services.
This is wrong--it's charging people with crimes before they are committed. Bandwidth should not be limited until after the DoS crimes are committed.
And regarding taking business loss over death, I say this: I'd rather be homeless than dead. But what DoS attacks last long enough to kill a business? How long would it take to kill a business? More than a few days. Any DoS attack can (by competent admins) be detected within a day. Just unplug whatever networking medium is plugged into the server, let the DoS attackers go nuts pinging a dead machine.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
J. Random User can operate a backhoe; you can rent them if you like. The questions are in availability and intelligence: 1) Can you find a place that rents backhoes? 2) If you've never done so before, it's probably not wise to tear up your backyard with a backhoe.
Question (1) is irrelevant, since anyone can make his own suply if he chooses, by becoming a dealer of Caterpillar equipment (or a competitor of Cat). Question (2) is left up to each potential driver. If my neighbor wants to chew up his yard with a backhoe, that's his business. I'll sue him if he chews up mine.
Giving out morphine, demerol, or AZT is a different matter. First, if it is needed, doctors will prescribe it. Second, it has been determined, through due process of law, that possessing these drugs without a prescription is illegal. Therefore it is illegal for a pharmacy to distribute it, as well illegal for an end-user to possess it.
The reason this law passed, is that a person without a medical degree, or the ability to prescribe drugs, will misuse it. This is necessarily always true, since if it weren't being misused, the user could have obtained a prescription. This misuse affects the thought processes and actions of an individual who uses the drugs. First, the person may die, potentially causing the government to expend time and money (local government, anyway) removing the dead body. Second, a person under the influnce of morphine could try to operate heavy machinery, potentially damaging himself, another person, or property. Third, he might sell the drugs to another person, who could continue the chain.
But I talk in another post (the response to the parent of the parent of this one) about not preventing someone from receiving a service or possessing an object because of potential harm. Why do I support using potential harm as an excuse for requiring prescriptions for drugs? Notice the first reason is that it is illegal. If Big Brother decides that Broadband access is to be administered in a controlled environment, I'll be pissed off, I'll try to change the law, but I'll oblige. In addition, as I said above, anyone who circumvents the prescription process is necessarily misusing the drug, meaning he is displaying a carelessness for potential effects. This is akin to denying a killer a gun, since the killer has shown a carelessness for the consequences of killing someone. I support that attitude. Finally, if you reject the previous two reasons, remember that a DoS attack on a website is relatively harmless. A man could lose a day's worth of business because of an attack. These are minor consequences compared to the potential death brought about by a morphine-influenced driver.
Following these guidelines would limit broadband access to anyone who has used a broadband connection to perform illegal actions before, or who expresses an explicit, serious intent to do so in the future. (You don't give weapons to a violent criminal, nor do you sell weapons to a man who asks, "Do you have any knives that I can use to stab my wife?" Anyone else should be able to buy weapons.)
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What you're saying here, is that we should deny everyone the availability of a service simply because the potential to do malicious damage exists.
If you subscribe to this, you should take away everyone's car, because there will be people this year who deliberately run over people with cars.
You should outlaw knives, guns, rocks, lawnmowers, sticks, and every other object in the world, since people and property can be damaged by anything in the world, if another person wills it so.
Water and food should be outlawed, too, because people can poison food, or drown other people.
Personally, I'd take being the admin and owner of a DoS'ed business web site over being stabbed any day. Are your priorities that out of whack?
The phrase innocent until proven guilty means that punishment for a crime cannot be administered before one is convicted of that crime. Taking away broadband internet access because the potential to do harm exists is not only administering punishment for a crime one hasn't been convicted of yet, it's administering punishment for a crime that hasn't even been committed yet!
Denying people anything on the premise that it could be used for harmful activities was the way Hitler conducted government. It was the way Stalin conducted government. It's the way Castro conducts government. Do you see a pattern? The reason the United States is such a great country, is because we've outlawed that in-your-face government dictatorial bullshit.
If you want this sort of dictatorship where you live, establish your own country on an island somewhere.
But we live in the USA, where we have a Constitution, and laws, which makes it illegal to deny me anything simply because I might misuse it. I'm claiming my freedom now. If anyone has a problem with that, it's time to water that tree of liberty with the blood of tyrants. As Jefferson said, that should be done every twenty years or so.
We're about 205 years overdue.
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When I walked into my local Radio Shack, the guy didn't even know what a CueCat was. I had to say, "You know, the barcode reader?" He acknowledged and handed me the thing. He took my name and address (I still can't figure out why I didn't use fake info). He never said anything about a license to use it. He also never said, on the phone or in person, that it was on loan from DigitalConvergence.com. He said they were "giving" it to me, for free.
After opening the package I plugged the thing into my machine, and glanced at the card they give you. I've just now read the entire card, and it says nothing about a license agreement, or even a mandatory look at crq.com. It only says to go to crq.com to get a unique activation code.
Unfortunately, in screw-you lawyer style, the back of the CD jacket says, in tiny print on the bottom, "Opening of this software constitutes acceptance of our License terms contained herein. Copies can also be found at www.digitalconvergence.com/ula.html. [...]" Although I don't recall a EULA in the package, it does direct you to online information. It also doesn't say installation constitutes acceptance, only opening the software. And that happened when you eagerly ripped open the plastic containing the device.
Therefore, unfortunately, we are all bound by those license terms. I could imagine, if one took it all the way to the Supreme Court, one could claim that decoding the CueCat output is merely reinterpretation of public information (since the CueCat dumps its code into any text editor you choose, they aren't making an effort to conceal the code).
If mine gets recalled, though, I won't give it back. The reason? I paid for it. That's right: when I was at Radio Shack, and before I could even see a hint of a license agreement in the package (the message was obstructed by the informational booklet), I gave away my name and address (it's even printed on the receipt they gave me), which is valuable marketing information. So Radio Shack (and potentially DigitalConvergence.com) can send me shit I don't want, and I have nothing to show for it? I don't think so. I deserve compensation for giving up my privacy.
Maybe that's why I didn't use fake info.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Good point. I got careless with my words here.
What I meant to say was, "Every piece of software on my PC was free of charge, and is 100% legal." Data files, which embody MP3 audio, are not included in my definition of "software". Software is any file that is executable, or a library/configuration file required by an executable.
This does not imply, in any manner, that I use Napster to transfer illegal material. It implies absolutely nothing at all.
All I am saying is that, if I were to transfer illegal material through Napster, that would not make their business appropriate. They should be held responsible for copyright infringement that is openly supported on their servers. The fact that there is no mechanism to attempt to block the transfer of copyrighted materials through their servers, makes them accessories to copyright infringement violations. Napster would (should) only be exempt if users were explicitly and indiscreetly circumventing protections built into Napster servers by the company.
Thank you.
PS - It looks like my signature got cut off. It was supposed to say:
Neither this post, nor any of my posts, nor I am a member of the public domain.
I am also not a member of the spam.redirect.de domain.
My posts belong in my domain; I belong in the cec.wustl.edu domain.
But the username is the same.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.
Well, that's beside the point...
Seriously, though. I'm the most intellectual property right-oriented person I know (not that I know that many people--after all, I use Linux and hang out on /. :). Everything I write, say, or think has a copyright stamp posted on it. My web pages have copyrights, trademarks, slogan marks, you name it. My code (there's not too much) has copyrights on it. I'm scared to death of copyright violations against me (oddly, I'm not quite as concerned about violations by me against somebody else--figure that one out!).
Despite this, I'm pro-open source. Everything on my PC was free of charge, and is 100% legal. I don't even have a copy of QT, although I guess that's legit. Whatever code I write (again, not that much) is distributed in source and binary format. I support freedom (speech and beer)--I just want credit for what's mine.
To say that open source supporters promote the spread of copyrighted material may be true, as long as spreading of that material is granted by the owner.
My views can perhaps best be expressed in my standpoint on one popular issue nowadays: I believe that the service provided by Napster is terribly wrong. Until copyright protections can be built into the system, it will never be right.
One will be quick to see that I did not say I don't use Napster... But I don't think it's right.
I do not belong in the spam.redirect.de domain.