... IceWeasel! What a great name. I laughed my arse off when I saw this.
Now this is one reason why I love open source software so much. They have fun with their naming. It makes using an OS so much more interesting. Much better than using those staid commercial systems. IceWeasel has to rate up there with replacing "more" with "less", or naming a vi clone as "Elvis".
The danger comes in when there are conflicting socially acceptable standards. For example, in Australian in recent years we had a spate of gang rapes in Sydney by a group of Lebanese muslims who were yanking anglo-saxon girls off the street because 'white girls are sluts and are asking for it'.
In their little segment of society, women are expected to be covered with a veil from head to foot when in public or they are being deliberately provocative. It is unreasonable in their eyes for men to be expected to restrain their sexual urges when confronted by women with exposed arms, or a shirt that shows a bit of cleavage.
That is quite a good example actually. Muslim social expectations are very different to general western expectations. A girl walking down the street with a singlet top (tank top to you yanks), would be equivalent to some girl walking around in underwear. It is very sexually explicit to a Muslim man.
That said, I'm an Australian-Lebanese guy living in Sydney, although I'm Christian, not Muslim. I know a few Muslim people, and they think the gang rapes are totally despicable. There's no excuse for rape, no matter how badly dressed (or undressed) a girl is. If the Muslim parents try to excuse their boys behaviour, by claiming that it's because of how the girl was dressed, it's generally because they're in denial of their sons actions. Typical psychological behaviour really; their son is wonderful, so there must be something that drove him to that behaviour.
Yep, we sure don't live in a perfect world. Although gamer girls sure make the world just that little more perfect. How's that for dragging this back on topic?;)
Girls often (myself included) want to just "be" without having to worry about what to wear or having to leave someplace where we want to be just to avoid a situation that we didn't even start.
We live in a pretty free society. You have the right to wear anything you want, subject to decency laws of the area/society of course. As soon as you step out into public, you should realise that the freedom to wear what you want, also has consequences. If you wear short skirts, you're going to get hit on, and most likely pretty aggressively. That's a consequence of what you wear.
What you wear will affect how people treat you. You can wear almost anything you want, but you should know that it will affect others. If you dress up attractively, then expect to be attracted to. Isn't this just common sense?
If the attention of others curtails your freedom to wear what you want, then welcome to the myth of being free. Perfect freedom is only possible if you do not interact with anyone. We give up freedom as soon as we step outside the door onto the footpath.
I'm not saying that badly behaved guys shouldn't be responsibile for a bad situation. I'm just weary of girls who complain about bad attention, when they're attracting them like magnets with what they wear. I'm sure that you, as a GoddessOfDeath, does not suffer this affliction, what with the scythe and black flowing robe and all.
Wind turbines are only useful if the average wind speed is above 10 mph. The unit illustrated doesn't even cut in until 8 mph, and achieves its rated output at a wind speed of 20 mph.
Some Chinese researches have developed a maglev turbine which needs less wind speed than normal. The article claims a cut-in speed of 3 m/s, which my rough calculations make out to be a bit over 6 mph. Since this is the first generation of its type, I'm sure they could improve things in future versions.
For those who don't know, the cut-in speed is the threshold where useful power can be gained from the wind turbine.
The point was more along the lines of "don't pay people for stuff you didn't ask for". Not "come up with a realistic analogy".:)
Should we use the time tried car analogies then ?;)
Oh heaven forbid! Please don't start on the car analogies. That would drive me up the wall.;)
Sure, the bank didn't ask for it. They also don't have to pay for it. And, as far as I can tell, they didn't pay him. He wasn't threatening them or anything. He appears to be saying: "Hey, you have security issues that I can fix. I'd like you to pay me as a consultant to fix them for you." Surely that's a reasonable request. Well, I think it is anyway.
I think he goofed up when he tried charging for his services, which he hadn't been contracted for. That is very presumptious, and more than a little irritating. I don't believe he'd been asked to look for holes, which amounts to B&E.
Well, I guess we'll have to differ on this. I think he's well within his rights to ask for payment for his time and effort, as long as the amount is reasonable for a security consultant. If I was in charge of that system, I would be grateful that someone has come forward to notify me of any problems with it. Even if they wanted standard consultancy rates for their effort. But that's just me. You obviously feel different about it, and we can leave it at that.
Oh man, it seems like I'm on a witch hunt for bad analogies. This has got to be the bazillionth one so far in this slashdot topic. What, me exaggerate?!
Anyway, the guy didn't redesign their house. He just discovered something about it. No changes made. He was asking them if they're interested in paying for his knowledge.
If someone uses a house in an analogy again, I swear I'll do something that I'll regret.
Certainly the House is a bad analogy. I totally agree with the parent poster on this one. Let's run with this Bank analogy though...
Suppose the man stays within the public areas of the bank. He is walking along, careful not to enter any restricted zone, but he is testing any doors leading to restricted or staff areas. Nobody seems to notice him doing this. Suppose he finds an unlocked door, but he doesn't take advantage of it. He goes to a staff member, and reports that the door is unlocked. Should he be arrested and convicted for this?
Voila! If anything should be arrested, it should be my case. Of course, not knowing what the guy specifically did, it's hard to say whether this scenario works for him. But that won't stop me from casting aspersions on anyone who dares to disagree with it.;)
(note for the humor impared: yes, that last bit was a joke. please feel free to argue anything. it is a free society after all. well, pretty free. ok, somewhat free. free enough to argue stuff anyway. most stuff.)
If you'd like to refine the argument, My hypothetical Burglar would be better charged under B&E, the attempt at billing non-withstanding.
Feel Better?:)
Not just yet.:)
I already coverd B&E in my original argument, as well as trespass if you're thinking of using that. Accord to Wikipedia, Breaking and Entering, or Burglary does indeed not need an actual theft. But it does need an intention to commit a crime. Making notes is not a crime.
Anyway, my original point is that your analogy really doesn't hold up. It's a bit redundant arguing the points in the analogy, if it's useless in the first place.
I'll add a bit more to this post, to actually make it on topic...
The guy is certainly walking a fine line. I believe that he should have been arrested and convicted, IF he was discovered in the process of purposely cracking the phone system. BUT, if he has purposely cracked the system without being discovered, and only notified the owners about it, then he is completely blameless and should never be convicted. In fact, he should be lauded for exposing a problem.
It's strange to think that there are two such extreme results from one action, only dependent on whether you're discovered in the process or not. But such is the case in this situation, and that is the fine line. If he was discovered, then we have to assume that he was acting maliciously. If he wasn't discovered, and he reports the problem, he has actually helped to benefit the owner of the system. NOBODY should EVER be punished for reporting a problem, when they haven't benefited themselves and the owners aren't threatened. Even if he was asking for a consultancy fee, the owners don't have to pay it. He has still helped the system owners by making them aware that there is a security problem.
I mean honestly, what would you prefer: a world where people are frightened to report problems, or a world where people can freely report problems. The judge was right. This case should definitely be dismissed.
In other words, I can break into your house and wander around, take notes then leave. When I come to the door later, I can bill you for the "Security Consultation" and not be charged for robbery. Great!...and they call Americans silly?
If you don't steal anything, you can't be arrested for robbery. If you left your door unlocked and open, you can't charge them for breaking and entering. You could probably get them on trespassing, but your analogy fails here because your house is not a public area, whereas a company phone system is used both by staff and public. You really haven't chosen an applicable analogy here.
If I was a customer of this bank, I would be grateful to this person for highlighting any security issues they have, and not taking advantage of these issues. Would you rather security problems be exposed, or would you prefer to have your head buried in the sand?
Yes, there is a reason why they call Americans silly, if your reaction is typical of Americans.
Now finally, we can name the effect used in anime, when they do near-instant limb regeneration. You know what I'm talking about... that bubbly organic extrusion that happens when chopped off limbs are regenerated. This shall now be called a "Blastema". Also used when organic bodies are psychically mutated, as in Akira.
He's the one you voted for last election cause he promised interest rates wouldn't go up if you did. He lied of course, but that's what politicians do.
I'd be surprised if Howard promised this, for the plain fact that the Australian government does not directly control interest rates. The Reserve Bank does. So little Johnny could promise anything he wants, but when inflation shoots up because of overseas oil, the Reserve Bank is going to raise interest rates. The government can't do a thing about it.
I can't remember myself exactly what he promised in the last election, but maybe it was craftily worded into a pseudo-promise (i.e "we shall endeavour to prevent an interest rate rise"). You've got to be careful how these politicians phrase things.
Then all Sony need to do, is to make you want it. If they came out with an exclusive game you _really_ wanted, then that'd probably entice you to get a PS3.
If Sony came out with PS3 enhanced versions of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, I know I'd be sorely tempted.
(yes, I know reading the actual articles is unusual for Slashdot, I'm sorry)
I know you said this in jest, but I can't help wondering that The Slashdot Effect and the Above Sentiment, are mutually exclusive. Either that, or many Slashdotters just give up on reading the article, if it still hasn't loaded in 5 minutes.
Web Developer gets the two thumbs up from me. An absolutely essential plugin for html creators.
I'd also recommend Live HTTP Headers. OK it's not a html tool, strictly speaking, but it is extremely useful for debugging any web server issues. There's no other way to track HTTP issues down, I believe, unless you telnet to the webserver. Error/access logs on the webserver don't often contain enough info, unfortunately.
Good point. Deborphan certainly doesn't pick up on circular dependencies. Hopefully it will in the future. Still, for 98% of the packages out there, it does a great job.
My recommendations are a little more modest than yours. I think it's fine to select a few packages from Experimental, as long as they're applications that are not needed by the system. I also recommend a good knowledge of apt, dpkg, and the/var/cache/apt/archives directory. I've needed to use packages from Experimental in the past; and some packages can hang around in there for quite a while! It's not always a short term collection.
Thanks for the link. Interesting read. I had a look at the patent in question, and it does not cover OS installers. It only covers mini-games on games machines, in between levels. So it looks like things are safe for a Debian installer mini-game.
The final installed image was less than 600 MB (excluding the package cache, which I apt-get cleaned).
That's what I love about Debian. It's wonderfully easy to optimise the package combinations. You could probably get it down even further, if you use the deborphan command to figure out all "leaf" packages (i.e packages that aren't dependencies for others). Then you can cull down the ones you don't want, rerun deborphan again, rinse and repeat. Also very useful for culling bloat in the system, from extra software installed over time.
This was more than a year ago however (not that Debian changes that fast)
This has to be the one myth about Debian that has almost every other Linux user suckered.
For these people, here is a rundown of the many different faces of Debian. You can choose four different types of Debian:
You can opt for the slow, barely changing except for security updates or the occasional point release, extremely stable distribution. Called 'stable', of course. Currently nicknamed 'sarge'.
You can choose the quite new, not rigorously checked but has had a good workout, still more stable than most distribution. That's 'testing'. It's nicknamed 'etch' right now.
You can adopt the very new, sneeze and you'll miss an update, I live in interesting times distribution. It's named 'unstable', but should probably be called 'Most likely fine, but we're not guarantueeing anything'. Has a nickname of 'sid'.
Or you can go for the bleeding edge, running with scissors, smoke me a kipper I'll be back for breakfast distribution. That is experimental. No nickname that I know of. It's not a complete distribution itself, as it contains only a few hundred packages. It has to be piggybacked onto one of the previous three. If you wanted to install XOrg 7.1 though, this is what you'd have to use.
Then, as if that wasn't enough, you can selectively include packages from all four distributions, by specifying a default dist, and specifically apt-getting from one of the four. Personally, that's what I do on my machine, using 'testing' as a base. I've also been known to set this up on some servers I maintain, if they desperately need a newer php or something like that. Works like a charm.
So as you can see, Debian can change rapidly. Very rapidly. It all depends on what you choose. It's just that the Debian "releases" are always of the 'stable' distribution. Hence this common misconception.
... it's the same damn installer. The questions are the same and the layout is practically the same. The X-based installer is just as (but no more) intuitive than the curses installer.
Yeah but it's GUI, man! It's now cool. Curses ain't named that for nuthin'.
But seriously, if Debian would tack on a game of tetris to the gui install, then it'd be worth it. No more booring waiting for downloads to finish and install.
Maybe it's something I can program and contribute back to Debian, if I find some spare time.
Does Enlightenment's desktop manager allow live dragging and dropping of programs/windows from one desktop into another, the way Leopard's does?
Well, I'm not familiar with the way OS X Leopard does things, so I can't compare.
The enlightenment desktop pager allows you to drag windows within the pager, and the windows themselves move around in realtime. So you can certainly use the enlightenment pager to move applications between virtual desktops. Does it work the same way as Leopard? I can't answer that one.
Slashdot Mirror
Now this is one reason why I love open source software so much. They have fun with their naming. It makes using an OS so much more interesting. Much better than using those staid commercial systems. IceWeasel has to rate up there with replacing "more" with "less", or naming a vi clone as "Elvis".
Yes
That is quite a good example actually. Muslim social expectations are very different to general western expectations. A girl walking down the street with a singlet top (tank top to you yanks), would be equivalent to some girl walking around in underwear. It is very sexually explicit to a Muslim man.
That said, I'm an Australian-Lebanese guy living in Sydney, although I'm Christian, not Muslim. I know a few Muslim people, and they think the gang rapes are totally despicable. There's no excuse for rape, no matter how badly dressed (or undressed) a girl is. If the Muslim parents try to excuse their boys behaviour, by claiming that it's because of how the girl was dressed, it's generally because they're in denial of their sons actions. Typical psychological behaviour really; their son is wonderful, so there must be something that drove him to that behaviour.
Yep, we sure don't live in a perfect world. Although gamer girls sure make the world just that little more perfect. How's that for dragging this back on topic?
We live in a pretty free society. You have the right to wear anything you want, subject to decency laws of the area/society of course. As soon as you step out into public, you should realise that the freedom to wear what you want, also has consequences. If you wear short skirts, you're going to get hit on, and most likely pretty aggressively. That's a consequence of what you wear.
What you wear will affect how people treat you. You can wear almost anything you want, but you should know that it will affect others. If you dress up attractively, then expect to be attracted to. Isn't this just common sense?
If the attention of others curtails your freedom to wear what you want, then welcome to the myth of being free. Perfect freedom is only possible if you do not interact with anyone. We give up freedom as soon as we step outside the door onto the footpath.
I'm not saying that badly behaved guys shouldn't be responsibile for a bad situation. I'm just weary of girls who complain about bad attention, when they're attracting them like magnets with what they wear. I'm sure that you, as a GoddessOfDeath, does not suffer this affliction, what with the scythe and black flowing robe and all.
Back to topic
Some Chinese researches have developed a maglev turbine which needs less wind speed than normal. The article claims a cut-in speed of 3 m/s, which my rough calculations make out to be a bit over 6 mph. Since this is the first generation of its type, I'm sure they could improve things in future versions.
For those who don't know, the cut-in speed is the threshold where useful power can be gained from the wind turbine.
Well, I guess we'll have to differ on this. I think he's well within his rights to ask for payment for his time and effort, as long as the amount is reasonable for a security consultant. If I was in charge of that system, I would be grateful that someone has come forward to notify me of any problems with it. Even if they wanted standard consultancy rates for their effort. But that's just me. You obviously feel different about it, and we can leave it at that.
Oh man, it seems like I'm on a witch hunt for bad analogies. This has got to be the bazillionth one so far in this slashdot topic. What, me exaggerate?!
Anyway, the guy didn't redesign their house. He just discovered something about it. No changes made. He was asking them if they're interested in paying for his knowledge.
If someone uses a house in an analogy again, I swear I'll do something that I'll regret.
Certainly the House is a bad analogy. I totally agree with the parent poster on this one. Let's run with this Bank analogy though
Suppose the man stays within the public areas of the bank. He is walking along, careful not to enter any restricted zone, but he is testing any doors leading to restricted or staff areas. Nobody seems to notice him doing this. Suppose he finds an unlocked door, but he doesn't take advantage of it. He goes to a staff member, and reports that the door is unlocked. Should he be arrested and convicted for this?
Voila! If anything should be arrested, it should be my case. Of course, not knowing what the guy specifically did, it's hard to say whether this scenario works for him. But that won't stop me from casting aspersions on anyone who dares to disagree with it.
(note for the humor impared: yes, that last bit was a joke. please feel free to argue anything. it is a free society after all. well, pretty free. ok, somewhat free. free enough to argue stuff anyway. most stuff.)
Not just yet.
I already coverd B&E in my original argument, as well as trespass if you're thinking of using that. Accord to Wikipedia, Breaking and Entering, or Burglary does indeed not need an actual theft. But it does need an intention to commit a crime. Making notes is not a crime.
Anyway, my original point is that your analogy really doesn't hold up. It's a bit redundant arguing the points in the analogy, if it's useless in the first place.
I'll add a bit more to this post, to actually make it on topic
The guy is certainly walking a fine line. I believe that he should have been arrested and convicted, IF he was discovered in the process of purposely cracking the phone system. BUT, if he has purposely cracked the system without being discovered, and only notified the owners about it, then he is completely blameless and should never be convicted. In fact, he should be lauded for exposing a problem.
It's strange to think that there are two such extreme results from one action, only dependent on whether you're discovered in the process or not. But such is the case in this situation, and that is the fine line. If he was discovered, then we have to assume that he was acting maliciously. If he wasn't discovered, and he reports the problem, he has actually helped to benefit the owner of the system. NOBODY should EVER be punished for reporting a problem, when they haven't benefited themselves and the owners aren't threatened. Even if he was asking for a consultancy fee, the owners don't have to pay it. He has still helped the system owners by making them aware that there is a security problem.
I mean honestly, what would you prefer: a world where people are frightened to report problems, or a world where people can freely report problems. The judge was right. This case should definitely be dismissed.
If you don't steal anything, you can't be arrested for robbery. If you left your door unlocked and open, you can't charge them for breaking and entering. You could probably get them on trespassing, but your analogy fails here because your house is not a public area, whereas a company phone system is used both by staff and public. You really haven't chosen an applicable analogy here.
If I was a customer of this bank, I would be grateful to this person for highlighting any security issues they have, and not taking advantage of these issues. Would you rather security problems be exposed, or would you prefer to have your head buried in the sand?
Yes, there is a reason why they call Americans silly, if your reaction is typical of Americans.
Now finally, we can name the effect used in anime, when they do near-instant limb regeneration. You know what I'm talking about ... that bubbly organic extrusion that happens when chopped off limbs are regenerated. This shall now be called a "Blastema". Also used when organic bodies are psychically mutated, as in Akira.
I'd be surprised if Howard promised this, for the plain fact that the Australian government does not directly control interest rates. The Reserve Bank does. So little Johnny could promise anything he wants, but when inflation shoots up because of overseas oil, the Reserve Bank is going to raise interest rates. The government can't do a thing about it.
I can't remember myself exactly what he promised in the last election, but maybe it was craftily worded into a pseudo-promise (i.e "we shall endeavour to prevent an interest rate rise"). You've got to be careful how these politicians phrase things.
Then all Sony need to do, is to make you want it. If they came out with an exclusive game you _really_ wanted, then that'd probably entice you to get a PS3.
If Sony came out with PS3 enhanced versions of ICO and Shadow of the Colossus, I know I'd be sorely tempted.
I know you said this in jest, but I can't help wondering that The Slashdot Effect and the Above Sentiment, are mutually exclusive. Either that, or many Slashdotters just give up on reading the article, if it still hasn't loaded in 5 minutes.
In any case, you are forgiven.
Web Developer gets the two thumbs up from me. An absolutely essential plugin for html creators.
I'd also recommend Live HTTP Headers. OK it's not a html tool, strictly speaking, but it is extremely useful for debugging any web server issues. There's no other way to track HTTP issues down, I believe, unless you telnet to the webserver. Error/access logs on the webserver don't often contain enough info, unfortunately.
Yeah, but what about the negative side of DRM?
Good point. Deborphan certainly doesn't pick up on circular dependencies. Hopefully it will in the future. Still, for 98% of the packages out there, it does a great job.
My recommendations are a little more modest than yours. I think it's fine to select a few packages from Experimental, as long as they're applications that are not needed by the system. I also recommend a good knowledge of apt, dpkg, and the /var/cache/apt/archives directory. I've needed to use packages from Experimental in the past; and some packages can hang around in there for quite a while! It's not always a short term collection.
Thanks for the link. Interesting read. I had a look at the patent in question, and it does not cover OS installers. It only covers mini-games on games machines, in between levels. So it looks like things are safe for a Debian installer mini-game.
That's what I love about Debian. It's wonderfully easy to optimise the package combinations. You could probably get it down even further, if you use the deborphan command to figure out all "leaf" packages (i.e packages that aren't dependencies for others). Then you can cull down the ones you don't want, rerun deborphan again, rinse and repeat. Also very useful for culling bloat in the system, from extra software installed over time.
This has to be the one myth about Debian that has almost every other Linux user suckered.
For these people, here is a rundown of the many different faces of Debian. You can choose four different types of Debian:
Then, as if that wasn't enough, you can selectively include packages from all four distributions, by specifying a default dist, and specifically apt-getting from one of the four. Personally, that's what I do on my machine, using 'testing' as a base. I've also been known to set this up on some servers I maintain, if they desperately need a newer php or something like that. Works like a charm.
So as you can see, Debian can change rapidly. Very rapidly. It all depends on what you choose. It's just that the Debian "releases" are always of the 'stable' distribution. Hence this common misconception.
Yeah but it's GUI, man! It's now cool. Curses ain't named that for nuthin'.
But seriously, if Debian would tack on a game of tetris to the gui install, then it'd be worth it. No more booring waiting for downloads to finish and install.
Maybe it's something I can program and contribute back to Debian, if I find some spare time.
Where's the CowboyNeal option?
Well, I'm not familiar with the way OS X Leopard does things, so I can't compare.
The enlightenment desktop pager allows you to drag windows within the pager, and the windows themselves move around in realtime. So you can certainly use the enlightenment pager to move applications between virtual desktops. Does it work the same way as Leopard? I can't answer that one.
Cobalt green is people!
;)
Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for electronics.