Politicians, who only take up that job because they don't actually have any useful skills, are easily scared by dabblers in black arts like computer programming.
What kind of a dipshit thing is that to say? Of course politicians on the whole don't have much technical expertise, because that isn't their job. Nor do you have much expertise in, say, appropriating agricultural funds, handling parliamentary procedure, drafting a bill, etc. I am not suggesting that all politicians are good, wise, people, but your statement is a gross, insulting generalization. If you believe that politicians don't have any useful skills, why haven't you run circles around all of them because of your superior political skills (remember, you said all of them have no skills whatsoever) and are now king of the world?
The merits of the rest of your post are completely negated by this bitter, unsubstantiated attack.
In my freshman CS class we are using the Scheme book "Concrete Abstractions," which is more oriented around theory than "The Little Schemer." A fine paradoxical title for a book. The author's name escapes me though.
I think no one can use www.J#.NET , simply because DNS can't handle those darned octothropes. And how is MS going to steal the whole.NET TLD anyway? Those wily Redmond punks fooling with the Domain Name System....:)
Well, there are (at least) 2 ways to ensure secure government Internet-style services (web, e-mail, etc.) 1. Invest in secure, robust communications protocols, and usually well-proven open-source software packages like qmail, apache, and its kin, along with the usual stuff. In other words, continue doing things the way they have been done, with mostly high success, and improving, as time goes by.
2. Spend billions upon billions of dollars to replicate the Internet, whose supposed network-wide security could be compromised by tapping into a LAN at a Dept. of Agriculture office or whatever.
Of course, many Internet protocols are wildly insecure, due to the academic roots of the 'Net when security wasn't an issue. However, we have https, ssh, all that good stuff now.
I demand you show me more than a handful of properly administered (Yes, MS software could possibly be a part of that) government computer networks that have been compromised like this guy fears. Unix-based servers with good IT people backing them up are pretty goddamned solid. DDOS attacks are probably the only threat which could be helped by building DARPANET-2. What a dumbass!
I thought the SSSCA was a response to the supposed (mostly unsubstantiated) threat of encryption being used by terrorists. Now we find, through the fine reporting of RedHat (?!) that this guy is bought and paid for by the entertainment industry? He uses the tragedy of the bombing and a legitimate need to redress warrants in the digital age to push through fair-use-obliterating content control? What a Machiavellian fuckhead!
...I believe it's like 384k downlink. To your phone. Once again, my jealousy runs rampant.
Meanwhile much of the rest of the world struggles to get clean water and electricity. Just a reminder that you need to keep your geek-goodies envy in perspective.
Maybe there's an argument for an OS which has two modes which are mutually exclusive. You can use the machine (run applications etc.) or you can administer the machine (install drivers etc.). You cannot do both from the same account. Many Windows users run their day to day work under accounts with admin privileges - or worse still, domain admin privileges. Why? Do people really need to switch from document writing to driver installation so quickly that they need be done without an additional login? Does anyone really need god-like priviledges from a regular account?
I have been a MacOS user all the live long day, and I damn well know that I want to be able to install printer drivers without any of this logging in and out authentication nonsense. Of course, if I were running a server, I'd want more stringent security. However, viewed objectively it is nonsense to make a single-user, or even multi-user, system force me to log out just to install drivers. This is poor interface design and nothing else, if you aren't running a server. (hence OS X)
If the commerce originates in the US, i think it is reasonable to control export. I don't think we have the right to control other nations' independent businesses directly, of course.
I think it is probably a sign of social progress that the question is no longer whether or not pornography CAN be on the Internet. Recall not too long ago that was sort of up in the air. As for age verification, I think it is reasonable that the gov't can force people to verify age, much as it would be done in the physical world.
I think as the Supreme Court goes forward this session it'd be worth remembering that U.S. laws do NOT have domain over the whole net, however much grandstanding our politicians may make.
Today on Ask Slashdot, we ask, "What is this 'liberal-arts college' thing currently hot in tech circles? Seeing as how giant swaths of tech workers who only studied their technical fields in college are now out of work without useful skills, many wish they'd gotten a more 'well-rounded' education, but have no idea what it means. Today we'll explore the possibilities, remote as they may seem, of getting a well-rounded education. There must be a few people out in/. land who went to these so-called "liberal arts" places, what do you have to say?"
I discovered last weekend that I stopped getting UPN. Who knows when, since I've never needed it before. So I will be missing it, and crying in chair, while mumbling curses directed at my cable provider.
I have employed the following method to varying degrees of success. I suggest to CT and anyone else who needs broadcast stations to simply unfold a paper clip and jam it in the coaxial pin hole. On a regular analog television you'll be able to get strong local stations if you aren't within heavy walls. A lengthy bit of wire also works. I don't know if slashdot's very proprietor would be willing to lower himself to the paper clips, but hey...
On 9/11 in the big library at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities I at least got sound as the news rolled in.
As usual Microsoft has used its media wing to trick the American public into believing that backdoors in cryptographic technology are not such a bad idea. This permits them to put less effort into the as-yet-unfinished and unrefined Passport and.Net architectures, or perhaps to justify the holes they know exist, (that perhaps MS or its employees are exploiting themselves right now) when they are uncovered and exploited by eleet haxors. This has been a HongPong conspiracy, such as it is.
But seriously folks, WHY oh WHY should a software company have its own (joint) news service? There is no possible way that it could at all benefit the public with objective, balanced reporting, I say. A bit like a joint news venture with an ammunition company during wartime or a meat-packing company back in the '20s. It serves no useful purpose to society at large!
Speaking of birds getting diced, does anyone know where I could find that video clip of dead chickens getting dropped into a jet turbine at 1000 frames per second? It's perhaps one of the creepiest but coolest things ever...
All things considered, it might not be a bad idea to get cable at slashdot headquarters. It might have been invaluable earlier this week, and who knows, when CT took the time to drive home he might have gotten distracted and hit in a car accident. Or not, but the chance was there.
Also, most local stations were simulcasting from CNN, FoxNews, CBS, ABC, etc. Twice through Tuesday I used paper clips as antennas to catch so-so signals from local stations.
Also, cable'd let you guys watch Toonami at work.
Oh, now I see why you don't have it. CT and Hemos watching anime all afternoon...:) (That and cable's 0wned by evil conglomerates, I guess)
I still find it difficult to bend my mind around the idea that today's attacks occurred not in Chechnya or Israel, but in the heart of American civilization. The very heart. I know, however, that America will survive this attack at punish those responsible. While perhaps "Pearl Harbor" is an extreme comparison, because we don't seem to be at war with a defined nation, it certainly will provoke almost as strong a change in public opinion and policy as that surprise attack.
Here at Macalester College in St. Paul, far far away from today's incidents, The state of MN has responded by shutting down the Mall of America and some of the larger buildings in downtown Mpls. and St. Paul. All over the cities, people are congregating, grieving for those lost and for the massive, mindless hatred and violence of today.
I think for millions of us, the most striking thing about this incident is its totally surreal nature. It is reminiscent of the end of Fight Club, or some kind of cartoonish super-villiany. The incident in Oklahoma City seemed far more within the realm of reality than "The destrucion of the WTC and a chunk of the Pentagon?!? Oh, please!"
In my opinion the best photo I've seen is located here. I suspect it'll be on the cover of TIME or Newsweek.
As for those of you angry with Mr. Katz for being trite: FUCK YOU! Thousands of people are DEAD and you have the balls to be angry with a man who's lost someone and prayed about it?! Only on the anonymous Internet would a person dare to tell someone they were being trite mourning a friend lost violently. You cruel bastards...
Oh on one last note, remember the trailers for the Spiderman movie? Will the scene with a bad-guy helicopter caught by a web between the WTC towers be kept for final theatrical release??
I found it odd that this story, rather than getting classed under the Lego icon, got the Almighty Buck icon, especially because there was a "Lego" story only a couple stories down. I think that the Management should start using multiple little icons to denote their stories, though of course Mr. Katz would always need the Almighty Buck, and the US flag, etc etc.
I have always wondered about the possibility of harnessing lightning's energy as a source of electricity. While I'm not an electrical expert in ANY sense, I wonder if it would be possible to develop a gigantic antenna, grounded, which would attract lightning, and milliseconds after the initial strike, a very powerful relay would flip the lightning's course from an open path to the ground into some ridiculously strong diodes and battery configuration. Obviously this wouldn't be feasible unless, at the least, diodes and relays capable of handling millions of volts and lots of amps (does static electricity have amperes?) are developed.
I have no idea if this is at all possible, or even remotely logical, but I'd like to hear what someone who's an expert thinks.
If I'm not mistaken it's actually quite difficult to get relatively inert gold atoms into an ionized state. That's why it retains its luster when a treasure is lost in seawater for centuries, and one of the reasons it's useful in industry. Frankly I've never heard of any biological process involving Au or its ions, but INABc (I am not a Bio-chemist). There isn't an FDA recommended allowance of gold, is there?
Even NPR, which I wake up to every morning, does not sound a bit different if I listen in NYC, Atlanta, or San Francisco. They have All Things Considered, they have Car Talk on Saturdays, they have a mid-day call in program to talk about local politics.
All Things Considered is produced in a very peculiar way for most large NPR stations. When the feed comes in from National Public Radio, the affiliate mixes in local news with the national news. My cousin produces ATC in the Twin Cities and it is actually a very complicated threading of segments, which are mixed together differently depending on how that day's news has been. (Literally "mixed," too. NPR gives background music for local anchors to read the news by, and the levels are mixed.:) You have to admit, besides, that ATC and NPR beat the hell out of almost any other cable, TV or radio news source.
Quite unusual... If this is the next Drug War, and the next generation of organized crime, then the Norwegians (DeCSS), of all people, have a leg up...
"You gonna pay Fadda Svetlander or you wanna dip in the Lutefisk vat?"
I find your idea here compelling. I guess it means dorks like me will be badass or something... cool!
Slashdot Mirror
What kind of a dipshit thing is that to say? Of course politicians on the whole don't have much technical expertise, because that isn't their job. Nor do you have much expertise in, say, appropriating agricultural funds, handling parliamentary procedure, drafting a bill, etc. I am not suggesting that all politicians are good, wise, people, but your statement is a gross, insulting generalization. If you believe that politicians don't have any useful skills, why haven't you run circles around all of them because of your superior political skills (remember, you said all of them have no skills whatsoever) and are now king of the world?
The merits of the rest of your post are completely negated by this bitter, unsubstantiated attack.
In my freshman CS class we are using the Scheme book "Concrete Abstractions," which is more oriented around theory than "The Little Schemer." A fine paradoxical title for a book. The author's name escapes me though.
I think no one can use www.J#.NET , simply because DNS can't handle those darned octothropes. And how is MS going to steal the whole .NET TLD anyway? Those wily Redmond punks fooling with the Domain Name System.... :)
2. Spend billions upon billions of dollars to replicate the Internet, whose supposed network-wide security could be compromised by tapping into a LAN at a Dept. of Agriculture office or whatever.
Of course, many Internet protocols are wildly insecure, due to the academic roots of the 'Net when security wasn't an issue. However, we have https, ssh, all that good stuff now.
I demand you show me more than a handful of properly administered (Yes, MS software could possibly be a part of that) government computer networks that have been compromised like this guy fears. Unix-based servers with good IT people backing them up are pretty goddamned solid. DDOS attacks are probably the only threat which could be helped by building DARPANET-2. What a dumbass!
I thought the SSSCA was a response to the supposed (mostly unsubstantiated) threat of encryption being used by terrorists. Now we find, through the fine reporting of RedHat (?!) that this guy is bought and paid for by the entertainment industry? He uses the tragedy of the bombing and a legitimate need to redress warrants in the digital age to push through fair-use-obliterating content control? What a Machiavellian fuckhead!
Meanwhile much of the rest of the world struggles to get clean water and electricity. Just a reminder that you need to keep your geek-goodies envy in perspective.
I have been a MacOS user all the live long day, and I damn well know that I want to be able to install printer drivers without any of this logging in and out authentication nonsense. Of course, if I were running a server, I'd want more stringent security. However, viewed objectively it is nonsense to make a single-user, or even multi-user, system force me to log out just to install drivers. This is poor interface design and nothing else, if you aren't running a server. (hence OS X)
If the commerce originates in the US, i think it is reasonable to control export. I don't think we have the right to control other nations' independent businesses directly, of course.
I think as the Supreme Court goes forward this session it'd be worth remembering that U.S. laws do NOT have domain over the whole net, however much grandstanding our politicians may make.
Today on Ask Slashdot, we ask, "What is this 'liberal-arts college' thing currently hot in tech circles? Seeing as how giant swaths of tech workers who only studied their technical fields in college are now out of work without useful skills, many wish they'd gotten a more 'well-rounded' education, but have no idea what it means. Today we'll explore the possibilities, remote as they may seem, of getting a well-rounded education. There must be a few people out in /. land who went to these so-called "liberal arts" places, what do you have to say?"
I have employed the following method to varying degrees of success. I suggest to CT and anyone else who needs broadcast stations to simply unfold a paper clip and jam it in the coaxial pin hole. On a regular analog television you'll be able to get strong local stations if you aren't within heavy walls. A lengthy bit of wire also works. I don't know if slashdot's very proprietor would be willing to lower himself to the paper clips, but hey...
On 9/11 in the big library at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities I at least got sound as the news rolled in.
But seriously folks, WHY oh WHY should a software company have its own (joint) news service? There is no possible way that it could at all benefit the public with objective, balanced reporting, I say. A bit like a joint news venture with an ammunition company during wartime or a meat-packing company back in the '20s. It serves no useful purpose to society at large!
Speaking of birds getting diced, does anyone know where I could find that video clip of dead chickens getting dropped into a jet turbine at 1000 frames per second? It's perhaps one of the creepiest but coolest things ever...
Also, most local stations were simulcasting from CNN, FoxNews, CBS, ABC, etc. Twice through Tuesday I used paper clips as antennas to catch so-so signals from local stations.
Also, cable'd let you guys watch Toonami at work.
Oh, now I see why you don't have it. CT and Hemos watching anime all afternoon... :) (That and cable's 0wned by evil conglomerates, I guess)
Huh, mdad said the same thing today actually. It contributed a weird subdued atmosphere at work. He works in Eagan too... how 'bout dat?
I still find it difficult to bend my mind around the idea that today's attacks occurred not in Chechnya or Israel, but in the heart of American civilization. The very heart. I know, however, that America will survive this attack at punish those responsible. While perhaps "Pearl Harbor" is an extreme comparison, because we don't seem to be at war with a defined nation, it certainly will provoke almost as strong a change in public opinion and policy as that surprise attack.
Here at Macalester College in St. Paul, far far away from today's incidents, The state of MN has responded by shutting down the Mall of America and some of the larger buildings in downtown Mpls. and St. Paul. All over the cities, people are congregating, grieving for those lost and for the massive, mindless hatred and violence of today.
I think for millions of us, the most striking thing about this incident is its totally surreal nature. It is reminiscent of the end of Fight Club, or some kind of cartoonish super-villiany. The incident in Oklahoma City seemed far more within the realm of reality than "The destrucion of the WTC and a chunk of the Pentagon?!? Oh, please!"
In my opinion the best photo I've seen is located here. I suspect it'll be on the cover of TIME or Newsweek.
As for those of you angry with Mr. Katz for being trite: FUCK YOU! Thousands of people are DEAD and you have the balls to be angry with a man who's lost someone and prayed about it?! Only on the anonymous Internet would a person dare to tell someone they were being trite mourning a friend lost violently. You cruel bastards...
Oh on one last note, remember the trailers for the Spiderman movie? Will the scene with a bad-guy helicopter caught by a web between the WTC towers be kept for final theatrical release??
If people don't use Braille anymore, then how come in libraries and schools etc. there's always Braille on the signs?
I found it odd that this story, rather than getting classed under the Lego icon, got the Almighty Buck icon, especially because there was a "Lego" story only a couple stories down. I think that the Management should start using multiple little icons to denote their stories, though of course Mr. Katz would always need the Almighty Buck, and the US flag, etc etc.
Ours are so much fatter than the Brits', who knows what would have happened! (It's true, Americans are the fattest people on earth)
I have no idea if this is at all possible, or even remotely logical, but I'd like to hear what someone who's an expert thinks.
If I'm not mistaken it's actually quite difficult to get relatively inert gold atoms into an ionized state. That's why it retains its luster when a treasure is lost in seawater for centuries, and one of the reasons it's useful in industry. Frankly I've never heard of any biological process involving Au or its ions, but INABc (I am not a Bio-chemist). There isn't an FDA recommended allowance of gold, is there?
All Things Considered is produced in a very peculiar way for most large NPR stations. When the feed comes in from National Public Radio, the affiliate mixes in local news with the national news. My cousin produces ATC in the Twin Cities and it is actually a very complicated threading of segments, which are mixed together differently depending on how that day's news has been. (Literally "mixed," too. NPR gives background music for local anchors to read the news by, and the levels are mixed. :) You have to admit, besides, that ATC and NPR beat the hell out of almost any other cable, TV or radio news source.
"You gonna pay Fadda Svetlander or you wanna dip in the Lutefisk vat?"
I find your idea here compelling. I guess it means dorks like me will be badass or something... cool!
Yeah, you won't find a lot, considering the guy's name is Skylarov...
For the record I found nothing on their site under the correct spelling, though... How often does the ACLU get involved in copyright anyway?
Having low-quality video is hardly unique to Real! Methinks that low-res Sorenson, MPEG or what-have-you are all available.