In all, I don't think the processor is really responsible for most of these problems. I think it is the design and implementation of software. Things simply must be done correctly, or computers will go haywire no matter what kind of processor they have.
Linux, BSD, and other *nix systems are reasonably well protected through the design of the system and the widespread use of common server programs, which are checked and re-checked for these problems by a variety of people and organizations. Also, GCC provides ProPolice, which can help lock things down a bit more. I think this particular problem mostly applies to systems running Windows.
Microsoft's business problem in this regard is that they have no control over the applications running in Windows, and they provide a default Windows install that is quite open and vulnerable. Locking down the ports and getting rid of the most dain-bramaged policies in Windows is only one part of the solution. Vulnerabilities in application programs can still be used to break into these systems, and Microsoft will ultimately be blamed.
Perhaps the best thing Microsoft can do is integrate something like ProPolice into the C and C++ libraries used to compile programs for Windows. This would make a big difference in protecting the stack of running programs that are not designed with security as a priority.
If x86 really is less secure by nature, it probably wouldn't hurt if they'd put their virtualization engine (similar in function to VMware but not even half as good) right into the core OS. Under such a design, only the Windows kernel would run directly on the processor; the rest of the operating system and all of the application programs would run with the same x86 instruction set, but through the virtualization engine. There, checks could be made to prevent the most common vulnerabilities of the x86 processor from being utilized.
You know, I really think that Netflix is ultimately going to kick Blockbuster's assets. See, Netflix works like this: You can log on and make a list of all the movies you want to see. They arrive in the mail; you get to have three at a time with their most basic package; you watch them and keep them for as long as you like; each time you send one back, Netflix sends you the next one from your list.
It seems like an inconvenience to wait for the movies to show up in the mail. Truth is, it's actually very convenient, especially if you commute to work and your wife has to drive the kids around to ten different extracurricular activities. Making yet another stop at a video store to pick out a movie, and then having to return to that store a few days later, is a lot more inconvenient, IMO, than waiting for something to show up in the mail.
Furthermore, a Blockbuster store is only going to hold so many different titles. However, I routinely suffered from the fact that my local Blockbuster didn't carry a particular title that I wanted to watch. This happened on enough occasions that I stopped watching rental movies for a while. Netflix, on the other hand, has virtually every DVD ever made.
The above two advantages that Netflix has over Blockbuster will ultimately tilt the scale in their favor. And finally, I believe that with broadband becoming more commonplace and with high compression video (such as H.264, which Steve Jobs has been touting), it's not inconceivable that Netflix will offer some, and maybe later all, of its titles with an immediate viewing option. Imagine digitally "checking out" a movie, watching it as much as you want, and then exchanging it for something else. Or, you could watch a movie digitally and then decide to check out the DVD physically to watch on your TV. There are a lot of options that Netflix could take advantage of to differentiate it from the more limited Blockbuster.
He also goes on to insult Linux advocates by stating that, 'the position being run up the flagpole by what Stalin famously called "useful idiots" is first that the lawsuit itself is no longer a real issue and secondly that its consequences have been generally positive.'
He makes several mistakes: First, it was Lenin, not Stalin, who coined the phrase "useful idiots," IIRC.
Second, the lawsuit is a real issue because it is a perfect demonstration of what happens when unnecessary companies, whose business models have been left in the dust by external change, claw at the cliff's edge for their survival by creating lawsuits with no actual merit. These companies are experiencing something that is called Structural Unemployment for individuals. In other words, suppose you make brooms by hand. One day, a broom machine is invented that makes them twice as well in half the time. Your job is going to disappear. Sue the machine all you want for stealing your intellectual property (namely, your methods for making a broom), but you won't get your job back. The right thing to do, instead, is constantly learn new skills and constantly adapt to changes in the external environment. This way, when that broom machine comes out, you'll know enough to be the technician for that machine, and you'll even get paid more. This is what SCO failed to do for many years. The consequences are that their business model is no longer relevant; their software is no longer relevant for the most part; and instead of finding a way to profit through honest business practices, they are trying to steal a living by playing the new lottery: The legal system.
Third, while the consequences for Linux, namely publicity, have generally been positive, the consequences for many of the companies that support Linux, namely IBM, DiamlerChrysler, AutoZone, and perhaps others, have been quite negative and counterproductive.
For those of you who aren't familiar with Tempe, it's quite a hip place to hang out. Actually, if you fly to Phoenix International Airport in the evening, your plane will descend over Tempe, where you'll see a beautiful scene of the river, lights all around, restaurants, clubs, and all kinds of other fun.
Ironically, Tempe is very close To Scotsdale, which some people prefer to call Snobsdale. It's the "high class" part of greater Phoenix, with some of the fanciest hotels, restaurants, and malls around. I'm actually a bit surprised that it wasn't Scotsdale which announced plans for wireless broadband, considering that this is where you'd expect to see trendy executives on a business trip sipping a four dollar coffee and punching away at the corporate network via a wireless laptop at the hotel lobby.
But I am sure that the college-aged folks in Tempe will appreciate the ability to stay wired without all the wires. It's interesting news.
It's not a surprise at all that Microsoft missed their quarterly revenue projection. After all, the company is very accustomed to basically controlling the marketplace and dictating their terms upon their customers. The quarterly projections must have accounted for nearly everybody still using prior versions of Windows to be using Windows XP or Windows Server 2003. They expected tons of sales of the newest Microsoft Office. However, many sysadmins and IT departments are wary of further "upgrades" due to the problems posed by them. Many users who have Office 2000 continue to use it because newer versions, despite their glossy advertisements, really offer nothing new for this type of work. Other users, such as most employees at this company that used to use MS Office, are discovering OpenOffice.org and discovering, for various reasons, that they actually like it better. Essentially, many companies are slowly migrating away from Windows and Office, finding that other software out there is quite capable of doing the job without all the hoopla.
In our organization, spending on software has declined almost to nothing. We no longer buy MS Office products because OpenOffice.org has eliminated the need to do so; all of our critical infrastructure runs on Linux and FreeBSD; and the desktops and workstations that run Windows continue to run the same versions of Windows that originally came on those workstations. Therefore, we use Windows 98, Me, and XP Personal, which came on several eMachines we bought for office use. And the funniest thing is that while the Linux and FreeBSD boxes continue to use the latest stable and release versions of the OS and software, the Windows boxes have not been upgraded, and there are no plans to do so. It would only be costly, and would offer us nothing in exchange. And I believe the same applies to countless organizations the world over. People will simply not continue to upgrade hardware and software forever.
That, my friends, is why Microsoft missed its quarterly revenue projection.
In my case, I think there were several services, all of which were monitoring all of the others. If you delete one, it'll be back before you can delete another. That's the problem. You have to simultaneously delete all parts of these things.
My policy has always been to blow everything away and start from a known secure backup, or from scratch if no such backup exists, whenever a machine gets compromised. You just don't know what else is in there, and Windows is such a big, clunky, kludgy mess that you'll never figure it out. Even Microsoft doesn't know what mess lurks inside, and they've been fighting with it for years.
But since this particular office is stuck with this crap, I've implemented all sorts of "baby steps" to get them off this junk:
First, by putting OpenOffice on all the computers. Then I simply wait for someone to get frustrated with MS Office, which is known for stupidities like putting its own formatting on things you don't want formatted that way, crashing, or being unable to open its own files (which OOo will succeed in opening, by the way). Then, I simply say, "Oh, just use OOo, it can do the job better than MS Office." And once they start using OOo on that computer, I wait a while, and then remove MS Office "to make space"...
I put Opera and Firefox on the computers, and tell people not to use IE.
This will go on for a while. One day, the last few remaining programs that keep us stuck with Windows will work on somthing other than Windows... Programs like AutoCAD, which we use because our customers demand it. Other CAD programs cannot read and write AutoCAD's file format in an acceptable way, and trying to work around the problems costs too much. When AutoCAD becomes available for Linux, Mac, or anything else, we'll dump Windows in the CAD department in an instant.
Copyright tax for songs and movies in your brain.
on
Dutch Pass iPod Tax
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I really think there should be a brain tax. Every individual on the planet should be charged an annual tax, which will be based on the individual's age. Older individuals will pay more.
The theory behind this is that as individuals live and experience the world, those individuals will hear music, watch movies, read books, and have access to many forms of copyrighted intellectual properties. These properties are essentially stored in the individual's brain. For example, how many times have you had a song stuck in your head? This law would guarantee that copyright holders would get paid a fair amount for bestowing upon you the priviledge of having that song in your brain.
The tax, of course, would go directly to the RIAA and MPAA, to cover the losses those organizations suffer from the misappropriation of such valuable copyrighted works into the minds of countless individuals on a daily basis.
I'm beginning to think that VMware ACE or VMware Workstation or something like that would be a good idea. This is the scheme I thought of for the office:
All files are already stored on a server, which makes the files available to Windows users via Samba. This server runs FreeBSD and never crashes.:-) All user-generated files are supposed to be placed here, and we discourage saving on individual desktops because it's too time consuming to back them up. So they're imaged from the day the OS and the apps are installed, and that's the only desktop backup.
My idea is this: All desktop computers throughout the company would run the Windows OS through a virtualizer. A disk image file would be used for this virtualizer. Everything else would "pass through." And the virtualizer will be configured so that all changes to the disk image would be lost when the machine is shut down. (Or copy a duplicate disk image on top of the one that is being used.) That way, each startup is a fresh one, just like the day the machine's OS was first installed. Spyware? Reboot. Gone. And with a disk image, you can MD5sum it, sign it, and know for a fact that nothing was changed.
As an improvement on that approach, I would design a bootloader that would snatch control after the BIOS but before the OS. It would reset the disk contents to the good known image and then pass control to the OS. You'd think this would take a long time, but I think a basic Windows install with all the apps (remember, the data is on a server) only takes up a few gigs, and that can be restored quickly.
I'm still thinking about both of these approaches. Basically, I'd like to make sure that no matter how a user abuses a system setup, it will always return to the way I want it to be, without my intervention.
'These fraudulent programs foul machines, undermine productivity and in many cases frustrate consumers' efforts to remove them from their computers.'
As a matter of fact, I once had a run-in with exactly one of those spyware programs that frustrate your efforts to remove it from your computer. Mind you, this wasn't on any of my computers, which are Linux, FreeBSD, or Mac boxes. It was a secretary's computer at work, running Windows XP. Unfortunately, they still haven't listened to me about migrating away from that.
Turns out, this secretary went to some website using Internet Explorer, which we constantly tell people not to use. The site automatically installed some software without her knowledge. The complaint was that her computer was lagging and running significantly slower than normal. I checked the Registry, which should be called the Madnesstry, and found under various Startup locations that there were some ten similar programs running. I deleted all of the associated keys. Turns out, the software installs a daemon that watches the registry and reinstalls the key the instant you remove it. Trying to shut down that daemon or delete the actual EXE files from the computer is a futile effort. The damn thing monitors its own existance in every way that you can imagine.
Finally, I blew everything off the computer, installed Windows from CD, and personally locked down that box as far as you can say that Windows can be locked down, which isn't very far. Internet Explorer is hidden everywhere, and I actually put Internet Explorer icons that simply launch a window that says this computer is not authorized to launch internet explorer. Instead, there is Firefox and Opera to choose from. I also went ahead and created a blacklist of sites from here to Timbuktu. That solved most of the problems.
The solution to all of Microsoft's security problems are very simple: In the control panel, there should be only one option for networking (only one!!!). This option should read:
Network:
Secure.
Insecure.
The idea is to allow system administrators very good control over the security of their systems. When the network is placed in secure mode, a solenoid will actuate, physically disconnecting the ethernet wire from the network card. When the network is placed in insecure mode, the solenoid will reconnect the ethernet wire. There is currently no option to control any wireless devices the computer might have, so the above is meaningless from a security standpoint.
This will have the following advantages:
System administrators will be able to lock down their systems, preventing viruses, hackers, spyware, and other Microsoft applications from getting into the system.
If system administrators require maximum convenience, they will be able to enable network connectivity. Since there will be no other controls available within the Windows operating system to control connections more finely, the software will automatically seek out and connect to as many systems as it can find, leaving all ports open, all protocols working, and all permissions set so that any user with a connection to the machine can have complete access to the machine.
In contrast to remote users, who under "insecure" mode will have complete access to the machine, the Windows GUI will be designed in such a way that the user who owns the machine, or any authorized user, will be unable to copy his own files, since they are automatically copyrighted by law. However, unauthorized remote users will be able to copy, and even replace or delete, the user's files.
By selecting the "insecure" option, users will be given widespread control over all the details they need be concerned about when it comes to network security.
Heh heh heh... Did anybody here know that SCO bought Tiger Direct over a year ago? (Neither did I.) They've also been scanning through the Darwin source code, and they found thousands of '{' and '}' symbols that are 100% identical to '{' and '}' symbols found in SCO source code. Armed with this undeniable evidence that Apple stole SCO code and misappropriated it into Tiger, a second lawsuit is slated to be launched the day after Tiger is released.
Give me a break, guys... This is the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard. The operating system is not called Tiger Direct; it's called Tiger. This is a codename for software; the other company is a retailer. Proof that NOBODY SHOULD EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM TIGER DIRECT.
Tiger Direct is a trash, garbage company. Tiger Direct is evil, vile, and wicked. Tiger Direct probably has an ethics policy that reads, "Screw over the supplier, customer, employee, shareholder, and everybody else as much as possible." Tiger Direct does bad business. Tiger Direct probably commits crimes behind everybody's backs. Tiger Direct. Where do you want to go today?
In other news, Bill Gates and Darl McBride today announced immediate availability of a product made jointly by Microsoft and SCO, codenamed Softjudge 2005 Enterprise Edition. The software will allow government agencies at all levels to streamline rubberstamping of all types of requests related to the reduction of unnecessary privacy. The software is said to control a solenoid attached to a rubber stamp of approval. The solenoid actuates each time a wiretap request form, search warrant, or other such document is passed under it.
The technology aims to replace human judges, who may perform the process more slowly. This news comes days after Microsoft won approval on a patent that covers use of artificial intelligence to replace humans in legal professions.
"The artificial intelligence in our system will get it right 100% of the time when it comes to approving wiretaps, search warrants, and other such documents," said Gates in an interview.
Darl McBride said, "We are excited to bring new opportunities for freedom and privacy to citizens throughout the country." SCO is currently filing a lawsuit against the solenoid manufacturer, claiming it stole intellectual property belonging to SCO. Apparently, since SCO is using a solenoid in the product, and the supplier's solenoid appears identical to the solenoid SCO buys from the supplier, that is proof that the supplier stole SCO's intellectual property.
I have a better idea. What if the government were to pass a law stating that Gates must give all his money to RMS? Huh? I think that would be much better for society as a whole, then whatever bad idea he thinks he has.
Our company was the pride of the technological world. We were given $100 Million because we wrote a press release that began, "By leveraging innovative technologies, content providers streamline compelling enterprise solutions." We used that money to get fancy offices, fancy office furniture, kids fresh out of college who claimed they knew how to use a computer (we considered them experts), BMWs to give our computer experts, nerf toys that our computer experts could shoot each other with in the fancy offices, etc. After a year, we ran out of money. Unfortunately, all our computer experts were busy playing with the nerf toys, so they didn't make something we could sell.
Well, the above is a joke, but what drove me nuts in the 1999-2000 time frame was that all kinds of companies with lame names that were supposed to sound innovative issued press release after press release that basically said nothing but used the kinds of words found in the Official Bullshit Generator. All kinds of venture capitalists who thought they were going to be the next Gill Bates bet the farm on these companies, and subsequently lost everything. Some of these companies claimed they were so innovative because they provided programmers with lots of room, lots of light, allowed nerf toys to be used at the office (yes, I am serious!), and all kinds of further bullshit that businesses don't do because that's not how you make money. (As if, you know, businesses have existed for thousands of years, and only now, it took some innovative computer geek to come up with a better way to do business by throwing away centuries of experience.) And what's that about lots of light? What hacker do you know who likes lots of light? Personally, I like my screen dark, my room dark, the shades drawn, and sunglasses on, just in case, so I can't see the darker characters in the terminal... Otherwise, where would the grue come from? But what drove me the most nuts was that most of the vaporware these phony technology companies came up with were products that nobody would ever want or need anyway. For example, Be, Inc., whose programmers worked their asses off for a decade to create a bitchen OS, changed focus from operating systems to internet appliances in the wake of dumb press releases like the above. When asked what an internet appliance was, they said, "It's a refrigerator with an internet connection, so you can check your email on your refrigerator." What a dumb move, which shortly destroyed the company. Other companies, which didn't even exist prior to 1999, invented truly dumb devices... like a picture frame that's actually an LCD monitor, so you can have the picture change every so often. Yeah, like I'm gonna spend the $500 that an LCD cost back then to get such a useless gimmick out of it. Oh well... I don't want to think about the bullshit bubble.
I have a better idea. Microsoft should put the equivalent of that recording software that records everything that happens on the display in an AVI file, kind of like that software that parents can install to see what their kids are viewing on the Internet, or wives can put to see if their husbands are watching pr0n, or whatever. This will constantly feed to Microsoft's servers, where thousands of Microsoft employees will sift through the data to find trade secrets that Microsoft can use, or damaging evidence that Microsoft can blackmail people with, or other things like that. Also, this will record all key presses, mouse movements, communications going in and out of the machine, communications to all devices and peripherals that might be connected, and all information that can be obtained from a debugger so that Microsoft can, at all times, have complete control and information over the contents and operation of every computer using their software.
I especially like the screenshot that says, "Your computer might be at risk... No firewall is turned on... blah blah blah"
What it should say is, "Your computer might be at risk. Currently downloading: 18,432 viruses, 94% complete. These downloads will automatically install upon completion. For your convenience, you cannot cancel or stop this operation. If you disconnect the network during this time or attempt to reboot, you will be arrested under the DMCA clause that prohibits anti-circumvention with regards to the intellectual property rights of the virus authors. Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?"
In other news, Darl McBride and Bill Gates just announced new legislation (remember, Microsoft bought the U.S. government) that will make it illegal to violate intellectual property rights. Well, it's already illegal, but their new law will make it punishable by immediate death sentence, with no trial. The same legislation changes the sentencing for first-degree murder to... the murderer has to write a five-paragraph essay about why it's not ok to kill people, and he has to promise to be good from now on, and then he's set free.
World Intellectual Bah Humbug Day... I hate the RIAA, the MPAA, SCO, and Microsoft. May all four organizations go directly to hell.
Never underestimate the bandwidth carrying capacity of a station wagon loaded with backup tapes.
(I think that one, or something very similar, is attributed to Andrew Tanenbaum... Back in the day, when there was no easy way to UUCP stuff between America and Australia, there was a legend that newsfeeds were saved on magnetic tape, loaded into a station wagon, driven to the airport, and flown across the ocean. Personally, I don't believe it, as it would be much easier, cheaper, and faster to dial in via modem, expensive as long distance calling was in that bygone era. But it's a nice story, anyway.)
Comments may be important, but not quite as important as well-written, organized, and coherent code, with well-chosen names for functions, variables, and types. When a program is written in such a way that it's obvious what it does, so you can read it and understand it, the comments might just have to describe why things are done a certain way. In most code, 90% of the stuff is obvious, boilerplate, exists-in-every-program kind of stuff anyway... It's that 10% of code where the real logic of a program happens where you need to make sure that you comment everything so well that there's no screwing up.
Maybe he didn't like that they didn't say enough bad stuff about Microsoft stealing all of Apple's good ideas. That is, of course, what Microsoft did, since Microsoft is evil, vile, and wicked; since Microsoft sucks; and since Microsoft represents everything that mankind should avoid at all costs. Microsoft is bad, Apple is good, and Steve Jobs is right to be upset.
the Bush Administration is removing U.S. delegates from the Inter-American Telephone Commission because they gave money to John Kerry in last year's election
And they're absolutely right in doing so! I am a Republican. I voted for President Bush twice; first in 2000 and second in 2004. Yeah, it might seem a bit unfair, but they're right. You can't flip off the president and tell him to take a long walk on a short pier and then turn around a few months later and pretend like it's all good. I don't care if he's the only one who can pronounce "nucular" correctly.
Vote for Bush in 2004. If it's not 2004 anymore, then go back in time and then see the previous sentence.
Hey, "Republican" starts with an "R", and "rice_burners_suck" starts with an "R". And "Right Wing" starts with an "R"... Coincidence? I think not!
Our RMS which art in free software, hallowed be thy name. Thy free software come. Thy will be done in free software as it is in free software. Give us this day our daily free software. And forgive us our use of non-free software, as we forgive them that create non-free software against us. And lead us not into temptation to use non-free software. But deliver us from non-free software. Amen.
It's good that they're speeding this thing up. One day, all homes will have this kind of broadband connection coming in. This will be a necessity because all television programming, telecommunications, and other functions will take place over this network. When you rent a movie, you won't have to wait for a DVD to come in the mail. It will instantly be there and ready for you to watch. When you download pr0n, you won't have to wait for it to get there, losing your current state of passion. This is going to be extremely important for the twenty-first century.
Two compile farms (one for the HP C3 PA-RISC based systems, one for x86 based systems), several boxes devoted to specialized software I use for my industrial consulting business (that's what the SGIs and Windows boxes are for), several boxes for software testing in various strange configurations. (The day AutoCAD becomes available for Mac or Linux, I will no longer have a need for Windows.)
Actually, this only accounts for about half of the boxes. The rest are various junk that I bought at auctions at liquidation prices, and they serve various purposes, like serving up stuff for my internal network, SETI@home, various experiments, etc. True, I only use four or five of the computers interactively, but I use most of them in one way or another.
Speaking of giving them away, I routinely buy computers cheap at liquidation auctions and the like, and I have given some of the nicer ones to my family and friends. A guy at work got a really nice one (a Pentium 3 that some huge company offloaded for $40!) so he could get started selling stuff on eBay.
The Mac boxes are for personal use.:-) And actually, only two are G5 boxes. One is a G4 laptop that I take on the road. The rest are actually too old to be useful to anyone, but they have sentimental value, and they still work, so I have them around for my friends to play with and compare from Apple's old systems to the crazy wacky stuff they do now.
And my friend, bless his heart, has tons of money. He earns, get this, almost $100,000 a year, and he's single. No girlfriend to spend his money for him. Quite naturally, he lives in a tiny apartment, doesn't go out much, and just hoards his money in savings accounts. He doesn't know what it means to be broke... Before I had my laptop, I used to carry a desktop computer with me. Mind you, this is one of those tall towers that weighs quite a bit. And I'd bring a monitor (CRT, not flat screen), keyboard, and all the other stuff. He asked me, "Why don't you get a laptop?" My reply was that I couldn't afford to buy milk. Yup, that's right. I started my own business so I could choose when to work. So I choose to work all the time! But truly, most of these computers are ones that nobody wanted anyway, and they've become an integrated part of my messy network, so it won't make much sense to give them away.:-)
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Linux, BSD, and other *nix systems are reasonably well protected through the design of the system and the widespread use of common server programs, which are checked and re-checked for these problems by a variety of people and organizations. Also, GCC provides ProPolice, which can help lock things down a bit more. I think this particular problem mostly applies to systems running Windows.
Microsoft's business problem in this regard is that they have no control over the applications running in Windows, and they provide a default Windows install that is quite open and vulnerable. Locking down the ports and getting rid of the most dain-bramaged policies in Windows is only one part of the solution. Vulnerabilities in application programs can still be used to break into these systems, and Microsoft will ultimately be blamed.
Perhaps the best thing Microsoft can do is integrate something like ProPolice into the C and C++ libraries used to compile programs for Windows. This would make a big difference in protecting the stack of running programs that are not designed with security as a priority.
If x86 really is less secure by nature, it probably wouldn't hurt if they'd put their virtualization engine (similar in function to VMware but not even half as good) right into the core OS. Under such a design, only the Windows kernel would run directly on the processor; the rest of the operating system and all of the application programs would run with the same x86 instruction set, but through the virtualization engine. There, checks could be made to prevent the most common vulnerabilities of the x86 processor from being utilized.
It seems like an inconvenience to wait for the movies to show up in the mail. Truth is, it's actually very convenient, especially if you commute to work and your wife has to drive the kids around to ten different extracurricular activities. Making yet another stop at a video store to pick out a movie, and then having to return to that store a few days later, is a lot more inconvenient, IMO, than waiting for something to show up in the mail.
Furthermore, a Blockbuster store is only going to hold so many different titles. However, I routinely suffered from the fact that my local Blockbuster didn't carry a particular title that I wanted to watch. This happened on enough occasions that I stopped watching rental movies for a while. Netflix, on the other hand, has virtually every DVD ever made.
The above two advantages that Netflix has over Blockbuster will ultimately tilt the scale in their favor. And finally, I believe that with broadband becoming more commonplace and with high compression video (such as H.264, which Steve Jobs has been touting), it's not inconceivable that Netflix will offer some, and maybe later all, of its titles with an immediate viewing option. Imagine digitally "checking out" a movie, watching it as much as you want, and then exchanging it for something else. Or, you could watch a movie digitally and then decide to check out the DVD physically to watch on your TV. There are a lot of options that Netflix could take advantage of to differentiate it from the more limited Blockbuster.
He makes several mistakes: First, it was Lenin, not Stalin, who coined the phrase "useful idiots," IIRC.
Second, the lawsuit is a real issue because it is a perfect demonstration of what happens when unnecessary companies, whose business models have been left in the dust by external change, claw at the cliff's edge for their survival by creating lawsuits with no actual merit. These companies are experiencing something that is called Structural Unemployment for individuals. In other words, suppose you make brooms by hand. One day, a broom machine is invented that makes them twice as well in half the time. Your job is going to disappear. Sue the machine all you want for stealing your intellectual property (namely, your methods for making a broom), but you won't get your job back. The right thing to do, instead, is constantly learn new skills and constantly adapt to changes in the external environment. This way, when that broom machine comes out, you'll know enough to be the technician for that machine, and you'll even get paid more. This is what SCO failed to do for many years. The consequences are that their business model is no longer relevant; their software is no longer relevant for the most part; and instead of finding a way to profit through honest business practices, they are trying to steal a living by playing the new lottery: The legal system.
Third, while the consequences for Linux, namely publicity, have generally been positive, the consequences for many of the companies that support Linux, namely IBM, DiamlerChrysler, AutoZone, and perhaps others, have been quite negative and counterproductive.
Ironically, Tempe is very close To Scotsdale, which some people prefer to call Snobsdale. It's the "high class" part of greater Phoenix, with some of the fanciest hotels, restaurants, and malls around. I'm actually a bit surprised that it wasn't Scotsdale which announced plans for wireless broadband, considering that this is where you'd expect to see trendy executives on a business trip sipping a four dollar coffee and punching away at the corporate network via a wireless laptop at the hotel lobby.
But I am sure that the college-aged folks in Tempe will appreciate the ability to stay wired without all the wires. It's interesting news.
In our organization, spending on software has declined almost to nothing. We no longer buy MS Office products because OpenOffice.org has eliminated the need to do so; all of our critical infrastructure runs on Linux and FreeBSD; and the desktops and workstations that run Windows continue to run the same versions of Windows that originally came on those workstations. Therefore, we use Windows 98, Me, and XP Personal, which came on several eMachines we bought for office use. And the funniest thing is that while the Linux and FreeBSD boxes continue to use the latest stable and release versions of the OS and software, the Windows boxes have not been upgraded, and there are no plans to do so. It would only be costly, and would offer us nothing in exchange. And I believe the same applies to countless organizations the world over. People will simply not continue to upgrade hardware and software forever.
That, my friends, is why Microsoft missed its quarterly revenue projection.
My policy has always been to blow everything away and start from a known secure backup, or from scratch if no such backup exists, whenever a machine gets compromised. You just don't know what else is in there, and Windows is such a big, clunky, kludgy mess that you'll never figure it out. Even Microsoft doesn't know what mess lurks inside, and they've been fighting with it for years.
But since this particular office is stuck with this crap, I've implemented all sorts of "baby steps" to get them off this junk:
- First, by putting OpenOffice on all the computers. Then I simply wait for someone to get frustrated with MS Office, which is known for stupidities like putting its own formatting on things you don't want formatted that way, crashing, or being unable to open its own files (which OOo will succeed in opening, by the way). Then, I simply say, "Oh, just use OOo, it can do the job better than MS Office." And once they start using OOo on that computer, I wait a while, and then remove MS Office "to make space"...
- I put Opera and Firefox on the computers, and tell people not to use IE.
This will go on for a while. One day, the last few remaining programs that keep us stuck with Windows will work on somthing other than Windows... Programs like AutoCAD, which we use because our customers demand it. Other CAD programs cannot read and write AutoCAD's file format in an acceptable way, and trying to work around the problems costs too much. When AutoCAD becomes available for Linux, Mac, or anything else, we'll dump Windows in the CAD department in an instant.The theory behind this is that as individuals live and experience the world, those individuals will hear music, watch movies, read books, and have access to many forms of copyrighted intellectual properties. These properties are essentially stored in the individual's brain. For example, how many times have you had a song stuck in your head? This law would guarantee that copyright holders would get paid a fair amount for bestowing upon you the priviledge of having that song in your brain.
The tax, of course, would go directly to the RIAA and MPAA, to cover the losses those organizations suffer from the misappropriation of such valuable copyrighted works into the minds of countless individuals on a daily basis.
All files are already stored on a server, which makes the files available to Windows users via Samba. This server runs FreeBSD and never crashes. :-) All user-generated files are supposed to be placed here, and we discourage saving on individual desktops because it's too time consuming to back them up. So they're imaged from the day the OS and the apps are installed, and that's the only desktop backup.
My idea is this: All desktop computers throughout the company would run the Windows OS through a virtualizer. A disk image file would be used for this virtualizer. Everything else would "pass through." And the virtualizer will be configured so that all changes to the disk image would be lost when the machine is shut down. (Or copy a duplicate disk image on top of the one that is being used.) That way, each startup is a fresh one, just like the day the machine's OS was first installed. Spyware? Reboot. Gone. And with a disk image, you can MD5sum it, sign it, and know for a fact that nothing was changed.
As an improvement on that approach, I would design a bootloader that would snatch control after the BIOS but before the OS. It would reset the disk contents to the good known image and then pass control to the OS. You'd think this would take a long time, but I think a basic Windows install with all the apps (remember, the data is on a server) only takes up a few gigs, and that can be restored quickly.
I'm still thinking about both of these approaches. Basically, I'd like to make sure that no matter how a user abuses a system setup, it will always return to the way I want it to be, without my intervention.
As a matter of fact, I once had a run-in with exactly one of those spyware programs that frustrate your efforts to remove it from your computer. Mind you, this wasn't on any of my computers, which are Linux, FreeBSD, or Mac boxes. It was a secretary's computer at work, running Windows XP. Unfortunately, they still haven't listened to me about migrating away from that.
Turns out, this secretary went to some website using Internet Explorer, which we constantly tell people not to use. The site automatically installed some software without her knowledge. The complaint was that her computer was lagging and running significantly slower than normal. I checked the Registry, which should be called the Madnesstry, and found under various Startup locations that there were some ten similar programs running. I deleted all of the associated keys. Turns out, the software installs a daemon that watches the registry and reinstalls the key the instant you remove it. Trying to shut down that daemon or delete the actual EXE files from the computer is a futile effort. The damn thing monitors its own existance in every way that you can imagine.
Finally, I blew everything off the computer, installed Windows from CD, and personally locked down that box as far as you can say that Windows can be locked down, which isn't very far. Internet Explorer is hidden everywhere, and I actually put Internet Explorer icons that simply launch a window that says this computer is not authorized to launch internet explorer. Instead, there is Firefox and Opera to choose from. I also went ahead and created a blacklist of sites from here to Timbuktu. That solved most of the problems.
Network:
- Secure.
- Insecure.
The idea is to allow system administrators very good control over the security of their systems. When the network is placed in secure mode, a solenoid will actuate, physically disconnecting the ethernet wire from the network card. When the network is placed in insecure mode, the solenoid will reconnect the ethernet wire. There is currently no option to control any wireless devices the computer might have, so the above is meaningless from a security standpoint.This will have the following advantages:
- System administrators will be able to lock down their systems, preventing viruses, hackers, spyware, and other Microsoft applications from getting into the system.
- If system administrators require maximum convenience, they will be able to enable network connectivity. Since there will be no other controls available within the Windows operating system to control connections more finely, the software will automatically seek out and connect to as many systems as it can find, leaving all ports open, all protocols working, and all permissions set so that any user with a connection to the machine can have complete access to the machine.
In contrast to remote users, who under "insecure" mode will have complete access to the machine, the Windows GUI will be designed in such a way that the user who owns the machine, or any authorized user, will be unable to copy his own files, since they are automatically copyrighted by law. However, unauthorized remote users will be able to copy, and even replace or delete, the user's files.By selecting the "insecure" option, users will be given widespread control over all the details they need be concerned about when it comes to network security.
Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?
Give me a break, guys... This is the most ridiculous idea I have ever heard. The operating system is not called Tiger Direct; it's called Tiger. This is a codename for software; the other company is a retailer. Proof that NOBODY SHOULD EVER BUY ANYTHING FROM TIGER DIRECT.
Tiger Direct is a trash, garbage company. Tiger Direct is evil, vile, and wicked. Tiger Direct probably has an ethics policy that reads, "Screw over the supplier, customer, employee, shareholder, and everybody else as much as possible." Tiger Direct does bad business. Tiger Direct probably commits crimes behind everybody's backs. Tiger Direct. Where do you want to go today?
The technology aims to replace human judges, who may perform the process more slowly. This news comes days after Microsoft won approval on a patent that covers use of artificial intelligence to replace humans in legal professions.
"The artificial intelligence in our system will get it right 100% of the time when it comes to approving wiretaps, search warrants, and other such documents," said Gates in an interview.
Darl McBride said, "We are excited to bring new opportunities for freedom and privacy to citizens throughout the country." SCO is currently filing a lawsuit against the solenoid manufacturer, claiming it stole intellectual property belonging to SCO. Apparently, since SCO is using a solenoid in the product, and the supplier's solenoid appears identical to the solenoid SCO buys from the supplier, that is proof that the supplier stole SCO's intellectual property.
Micro$COft. Where do you want to go today?
RMS is our Lord and savior.
Well, the above is a joke, but what drove me nuts in the 1999-2000 time frame was that all kinds of companies with lame names that were supposed to sound innovative issued press release after press release that basically said nothing but used the kinds of words found in the Official Bullshit Generator. All kinds of venture capitalists who thought they were going to be the next Gill Bates bet the farm on these companies, and subsequently lost everything. Some of these companies claimed they were so innovative because they provided programmers with lots of room, lots of light, allowed nerf toys to be used at the office (yes, I am serious!), and all kinds of further bullshit that businesses don't do because that's not how you make money. (As if, you know, businesses have existed for thousands of years, and only now, it took some innovative computer geek to come up with a better way to do business by throwing away centuries of experience.) And what's that about lots of light? What hacker do you know who likes lots of light? Personally, I like my screen dark, my room dark, the shades drawn, and sunglasses on, just in case, so I can't see the darker characters in the terminal... Otherwise, where would the grue come from? But what drove me the most nuts was that most of the vaporware these phony technology companies came up with were products that nobody would ever want or need anyway. For example, Be, Inc., whose programmers worked their asses off for a decade to create a bitchen OS, changed focus from operating systems to internet appliances in the wake of dumb press releases like the above. When asked what an internet appliance was, they said, "It's a refrigerator with an internet connection, so you can check your email on your refrigerator." What a dumb move, which shortly destroyed the company. Other companies, which didn't even exist prior to 1999, invented truly dumb devices... like a picture frame that's actually an LCD monitor, so you can have the picture change every so often. Yeah, like I'm gonna spend the $500 that an LCD cost back then to get such a useless gimmick out of it. Oh well... I don't want to think about the bullshit bubble.
I have a better idea. Microsoft should put the equivalent of that recording software that records everything that happens on the display in an AVI file, kind of like that software that parents can install to see what their kids are viewing on the Internet, or wives can put to see if their husbands are watching pr0n, or whatever. This will constantly feed to Microsoft's servers, where thousands of Microsoft employees will sift through the data to find trade secrets that Microsoft can use, or damaging evidence that Microsoft can blackmail people with, or other things like that. Also, this will record all key presses, mouse movements, communications going in and out of the machine, communications to all devices and peripherals that might be connected, and all information that can be obtained from a debugger so that Microsoft can, at all times, have complete control and information over the contents and operation of every computer using their software.
What it should say is, "Your computer might be at risk. Currently downloading: 18,432 viruses, 94% complete. These downloads will automatically install upon completion. For your convenience, you cannot cancel or stop this operation. If you disconnect the network during this time or attempt to reboot, you will be arrested under the DMCA clause that prohibits anti-circumvention with regards to the intellectual property rights of the virus authors. Microsoft. Where do you want to go today?"
Screenshot here.
World Intellectual Bah Humbug Day... I hate the RIAA, the MPAA, SCO, and Microsoft. May all four organizations go directly to hell.
(I think that one, or something very similar, is attributed to Andrew Tanenbaum... Back in the day, when there was no easy way to UUCP stuff between America and Australia, there was a legend that newsfeeds were saved on magnetic tape, loaded into a station wagon, driven to the airport, and flown across the ocean. Personally, I don't believe it, as it would be much easier, cheaper, and faster to dial in via modem, expensive as long distance calling was in that bygone era. But it's a nice story, anyway.)
Comments may be important, but not quite as important as well-written, organized, and coherent code, with well-chosen names for functions, variables, and types. When a program is written in such a way that it's obvious what it does, so you can read it and understand it, the comments might just have to describe why things are done a certain way. In most code, 90% of the stuff is obvious, boilerplate, exists-in-every-program kind of stuff anyway... It's that 10% of code where the real logic of a program happens where you need to make sure that you comment everything so well that there's no screwing up.
Maybe he didn't like that they didn't say enough bad stuff about Microsoft stealing all of Apple's good ideas. That is, of course, what Microsoft did, since Microsoft is evil, vile, and wicked; since Microsoft sucks; and since Microsoft represents everything that mankind should avoid at all costs. Microsoft is bad, Apple is good, and Steve Jobs is right to be upset.
And they're absolutely right in doing so! I am a Republican. I voted for President Bush twice; first in 2000 and second in 2004. Yeah, it might seem a bit unfair, but they're right. You can't flip off the president and tell him to take a long walk on a short pier and then turn around a few months later and pretend like it's all good. I don't care if he's the only one who can pronounce "nucular" correctly.
Vote for Bush in 2004. If it's not 2004 anymore, then go back in time and then see the previous sentence.
Hey, "Republican" starts with an "R", and "rice_burners_suck" starts with an "R". And "Right Wing" starts with an "R"... Coincidence? I think not!
Our RMS which art in free software, hallowed be thy name. Thy free software come. Thy will be done in free software as it is in free software. Give us this day our daily free software. And forgive us our use of non-free software, as we forgive them that create non-free software against us. And lead us not into temptation to use non-free software. But deliver us from non-free software. Amen.
It's good that they're speeding this thing up. One day, all homes will have this kind of broadband connection coming in. This will be a necessity because all television programming, telecommunications, and other functions will take place over this network. When you rent a movie, you won't have to wait for a DVD to come in the mail. It will instantly be there and ready for you to watch. When you download pr0n, you won't have to wait for it to get there, losing your current state of passion. This is going to be extremely important for the twenty-first century.
Two compile farms (one for the HP C3 PA-RISC based systems, one for x86 based systems), several boxes devoted to specialized software I use for my industrial consulting business (that's what the SGIs and Windows boxes are for), several boxes for software testing in various strange configurations. (The day AutoCAD becomes available for Mac or Linux, I will no longer have a need for Windows.)
Actually, this only accounts for about half of the boxes. The rest are various junk that I bought at auctions at liquidation prices, and they serve various purposes, like serving up stuff for my internal network, SETI@home, various experiments, etc. True, I only use four or five of the computers interactively, but I use most of them in one way or another.
Speaking of giving them away, I routinely buy computers cheap at liquidation auctions and the like, and I have given some of the nicer ones to my family and friends. A guy at work got a really nice one (a Pentium 3 that some huge company offloaded for $40!) so he could get started selling stuff on eBay.
The Mac boxes are for personal use. :-) And actually, only two are G5 boxes. One is a G4 laptop that I take on the road. The rest are actually too old to be useful to anyone, but they have sentimental value, and they still work, so I have them around for my friends to play with and compare from Apple's old systems to the crazy wacky stuff they do now.
And my friend, bless his heart, has tons of money. He earns, get this, almost $100,000 a year, and he's single. No girlfriend to spend his money for him. Quite naturally, he lives in a tiny apartment, doesn't go out much, and just hoards his money in savings accounts. He doesn't know what it means to be broke... Before I had my laptop, I used to carry a desktop computer with me. Mind you, this is one of those tall towers that weighs quite a bit. And I'd bring a monitor (CRT, not flat screen), keyboard, and all the other stuff. He asked me, "Why don't you get a laptop?" My reply was that I couldn't afford to buy milk. Yup, that's right. I started my own business so I could choose when to work. So I choose to work all the time! But truly, most of these computers are ones that nobody wanted anyway, and they've become an integrated part of my messy network, so it won't make much sense to give them away. :-)
Ever heard of a compile farm, you insensitive clod?!?!?!!