Security (Re:Interesting..)
on
Dumb Laws
·
· Score: 2
> All men must carry a rifle to church on Sunday. (Repealed) In > Massachusetts (where I live) > > Interesting, but what is the point of all men bringnig rifles > to church?
Security.
Many states in the US back in the wild days recognized that the Government simply did not have the resources to protect citizens from criminals and indians ( who they were always starting wars with ).
So what they did was not just allow people to go around armed but require each man to be armed and take personal responsibility for his family. "Over my dead body" was to be taken literally in cases of raping the daughter for instance.
There is a strong temptation to not bring weapons to the house of God. Many feel it is almost blasphemy to do so. Everybody knows this and would rob the bank while all the men were in church and unarmed.
You get around that kind of problem by giving the solution the force of law.
Note that the "Internet OS Counter" at Leb.net lists Linux as running on 31.3% of surveyed servers. NT and Win9x had 24.3%.
Since the vast majority of Linux servers ran Apache at the time you are talking something like 28% Apache + Linux. The majority of Netscape Servers were actually deployed on NT so NT + IIS probably amounted to 15%.
It's only not a lie if they count different kernel, Distribution and Apache versions separately. What about NT Service packs ?
They only count around 1/4 the net which would give them less than 1% margin of error.
Lynx for when you just need something fast and light.
Konqueror and Mozilla for the future 100% standards compliant and gorgeous colored and flash impregnated sites.
Netscape because it's the only working browser for a lot of sites now.
and finally EMacs, because with the Emacspeak add-on You can actually get a voice only interface which is essential for all those blind Linux hackers out there.
Wince was appropriate, it made sense. Every time somebody asked me to configure a Wince based palmtop for a PC, I winced at the thought that a power user would need help. Then I winced at the difficulty of doing it myself.
Now It's "Windows Powered" which can be abbreviated WinPed, [pronounced wimped], for what people do when faced with the new levels of difficulty in using this thing. A few clients have already winped out and gone back to Palm.
Lambs breath ? OK. As long as it's not Ganja because I want to keap that for my freinds.
Ohh... you can have a little bit too, maybe a ton or two. Drop me a line if you are ever here. I culd show you the _real_ fun spots with girls to match.
The comment was in the context of it being used for a mainstream desktop.
How much are you willing to wager that putting the original P5 design ( Pentium before MMX, F00F bug and all:) on a.18 micron process would allow you to yield chips at 1.5 GHz ?
Phasing out means _we_ won't be growing them for export. A profitable banana farm in the modern world needs to be flat and large. By large, I mean like 1/3 the size of Jamaica. This is a hilly country.
As for that green stuff:). We still grow the best but Export is... ohm... discouraged. Actually you aren't allowed to grow or use it either but who cares ? It's here and it's good and I will encourage anyone to fly down and use lots of it while your here.
Where I come from import duty is charged on the item at a percentage of the invoiced cost *or* the "true value" ( as determined by some bureaucrat ) and the tax collector can actually choose which one to use. You are of course allowed to fight it.
As an aside for computer stuff they use "Computer Shopper" as the reference and if they reject your invoice ( people do get forged invoices with lower prices ) you can look through the latest issue and suggest the lowest advertised price for each item.
Not a fare system by any means but lawmakers suck.
As to the WTO being "for the benefit of developing nations" that is such absolute bull I could laugh. Jamaica as a former colony of England ( up to 1962 ) has a special deal with England and some of her allies in Europe where they buy our Sugar and Banana at well over the market price. ( For 400 years they tacked everything earned hear so don't start with morality etc... ). The US took this deal before the WTO as unfair competition and won the 1st round. If this goes all the way before these crops are fazed out Jamaica will suffer real and immediate problems.
Not least of which is a massive jump in unemployment and a widening of the trade gap.
Not only are BBS communities alive an well but they have grown stronger over the years. What has changed is the technology. In the old days it was only practical to be on BBSs in your home town ( Onles you phreaked ). Now BBSs have moved online for the most part.
Guess what Slashdot is ? Massive online debates, games ( 1st post *IS* an online game ). Flames, threats and a lot of fun. This is Rob's BBS and the day it becomes something else 90% of the regulars will depart.
BTW : The traditional BBSs are still around. For those in Jamaica ( or willing to pay perverse international call rates ) you can check out Chrysalis at 876-977-7334 and Synapse at 876-977-6681 .
If your computer invents something patentable it's all yours. How complex is that ? Just like if your care drags goods to market you get paid for the transport.
How can it be less expensive to pack several peripheral components that previously existed as separate cards or chip into the CPU ( which routinely stretches the limits of IC manufacturing ) than to pack those same components into the motherboard chipset ( which will be needed anyway, but hasn't been stressed to the limits of the CPU ? ).
Bare in mind that the chipset will have to be made specifically to accommodate these new CPU features.
This has been tried before and it has never worked and it never will. Not until the technology gets to the stage where the whole computer will be a single complex chip. Because this plan of 2 complex chips for the motherboard and one unbelievably complicated CPU is what Cirix tried ( didn't work ) and iNTEL itself failed at a long time ago ( ever herd of the 80186 ? ).
My solution ? A motherboard with sound, networking, video and even modem on a single chip ( possible with relatively little stress since it's mostly been done ) then add a "normal" CPU. simpler, faster an cheaper. Take a look at the VIA-GRA and similar motherboards. They are very close and the main transgression is windows only hardware.
somebody signed a deal to distribute Corel Linux and promptly put 150 hackers to work on Linux drivers in it's Tiwan office. guess who:)
are the obvious ease of use, desktop publishing and to some extent doing pretty machines.
The iMac fit in the core ease of use market since it was the simplest machine on the market to get up and running after opening the box. Now they have an iBook, not so people can do stuff on the road but rather so you don't have to plug in a keyboard.
SGI has a lot of other things going and some we know are dragging them down. Irix on big workstations and humongus servers isn't one of those "problem areas".
It's just that the Irix market is very very small so it alone won't hold up a company the size of SGI.
1: Figure out your core strength. In this case delivering a _compleat_ high end workstation.
2: Abandon projects that are loosing money. In this case Cray, and Visual Workstation.
3: Cut expenditure as much as possible without reducing production. In this case adopt Linux for as much as reasonably possible. at SGI that's low end servers and eventually most workstations ( once the software ecosystem has grown up a bit ).
4: Market like crazy. notice how many SGI stories are appearing in papers of late ?
5: Make deals with anyone who can give you money and / or grow your market. In this case SGI has invested in VALinux and has joined Linux international. They are also a partner on the retail Debian.
Only time can tell how well this will work but since it was such a good strategy for Apple, why not SGI ?
My Bill ( And I'm not saying JPS is something to emulate ) lists.
1: How many dollars they charge per Kilowatt hour.
2: How many Kilowatt hours you use.
3: How many other vindictive gratuitous charges they feel like adding on.
So yes for scientists Kilowatt/Hour/Hour is correct. For persons simply paying an electricity bill ( the apparent context of the comment in this article ) it's 30 kWh at $1 per kWh = $21600 per month.
2: Include a link to your own FTP site with all the SRPMs piled high.
3: State within the warranty ( near the beginning, in bold letters ) that you don't cover modifications or recompilations of included software.
4: Include an offer to make such modifications for the user at a specific charge.
This complies with the GPL, makes your life simpler and makes the customer happy. Note that you should send the modified software ( whatever it is ) over to Sunsite so that it will be easily accessible even if your site is down ( All the really big archives mirror sunsite ).
Just because the screws for your hard drive are readily accessible doesn't stop the manufacturer from saying "Opening it up voids the warranty". You can say the same thing here. Installing modified versions of the included software voids the warranty.
To make it clear state the cost ( to the customer ) of recovering from such situations with your help, or even of having you optimize something for them.
Note: You will in all likelihood need to issue bug fixes for security violations at some point.
SJVN ( Easily the MOST cluefull editor over at ZdNet ) did a story about Linux for the print edition of Smart Reseller. As is the praxes the story was posted online as soon as the magazine hit the news stands.
He made several points about what's right and wrong with Linux. 2 of his most important points however were only correct 2 months ago ( when he wrote the story ) but not at the time they were published. As the Internet lets us see more of this happening paper magazines will become less valuable as a source of leading edge information ( the old usage ) and more as a nice package of important things you may need to know even a year or more after buying it.
This means less of the "And company A is negotiating to buy company B" type story. If it hasn't happened by the time it hits print then there was probably something wrong with the source. Expect more of the "And this is how you configure DNS on *BSD or make the Easter Egg in the current version of wince come up".
These are interesting times in deed.
We can't ask print mags to start going through the whole compile -> edit -> revise -> print cycle as fast as web mags. Rob can fix a typo on the slashdot main page after only 50 or so people have seen it. A Paper mag doesn't have that option and must print a retraction the next month. Embarrassment before your entire audience 2 times in 30 days:)
Hasn't anyone else noticed it ? When you ask IBM about unreleased products they either give a no comment or flatly deny working on it. 2 Months before the 1st notes Beta for Linux came out, Lotus' CEO was promising to never support Linux.
Frankly I don't think it's a coincidence. It could be that all that monitoring they have been under since IBM had it's own run in with the DOJ has made them play nice and this is one of the "nice" things for a "market dominant" player to do.
Don't sell Vaporware. Even if it's already Alpha in your labs.
A Linux client would be cool and all but the 1st we hear of it will be "...And you can download the Beta version at."
I know one Netware shop that will be shooting NT for this.
They have a bunch of Netware servers that NEVER go down and a single NT server running Notes that takes up 1/2 the IT budget with it's instability. Even going with the 2 CPU version of Mindcraft's Server of choice ( big DELL ) didn't solve the problems. The Linux BETA hasn't gone down under a larger simulated load.
A few weeks testing on the Gold code and this baby goes into a production deployment.
Slashdot Mirror
> All men must carry a rifle to church on Sunday. (Repealed) In
> Massachusetts (where I live)
>
> Interesting, but what is the point of all men bringnig rifles
> to church?
Security.
Many states in the US back in the wild days recognized that the
Government simply did not have the resources to protect citizens
from criminals and indians ( who they were always starting wars
with ).
So what they did was not just allow people to go around armed but
require each man to be armed and take personal responsibility
for his family. "Over my dead body" was to be taken literally
in cases of raping the daughter for instance.
There is a strong temptation to not bring weapons to the house of
God. Many feel it is almost blasphemy to do so. Everybody
knows this and would rob the bank while all the men were in church
and unarmed.
You get around that kind of problem by giving the solution the
force of law.
Since the vast majority of Linux servers ran Apache at the time you are talking something like 28% Apache + Linux. The majority of Netscape Servers were actually deployed on NT so NT + IIS probably amounted to 15%.
It's only not a lie if they count different kernel, Distribution and Apache versions separately. What about NT Service packs ?
They only count around 1/4 the net which would give them less than 1% margin of error.
Those 5 are;
Lynx for when you just need something fast and light.
Konqueror and Mozilla for the future 100% standards compliant and gorgeous colored and flash impregnated sites.
Netscape because it's the only working browser for a lot of sites now.
and finally EMacs, because with the Emacspeak add-on You can actually get a voice only interface which is essential for all those blind Linux hackers out there.
Wince was appropriate, it made sense. Every time somebody asked me to configure a Wince based palmtop for a PC, I winced at the thought that a power user would need help. Then I winced at the difficulty of doing it myself.
Now It's "Windows Powered" which can be abbreviated WinPed, [pronounced wimped], for what people do when faced with the new levels of difficulty in using this thing. A few clients have already winped out and gone back to Palm.
Lambs breath ? OK. As long as it's not Ganja
because I want to keap that for my freinds.
Ohh... you can have a little bit too, maybe a
ton or two. Drop me a line if you are ever here.
I culd show you the _real_ fun spots with girls
to match.
I don't know weather I should laugh or cry but it has been the law for over a year now that nobody can import any equipment that is not Y2K compliant.
:)
This is why Jamaica should stop electing so many lawyers to Parliament
I didn't mean to and as you can see from the way I state it I had no information at all.
The comment was in the context of it being used for a mainstream desktop.
:) on a .18 micron process would allow you to yield chips at 1.5 GHz ?
How much are you willing to wager that putting the original P5 design ( Pentium before MMX, F00F bug and all
Phasing out means _we_ won't be growing them for export. A profitable banana farm in the modern world needs to be flat and large. By large, I mean like 1/3 the size of Jamaica. This is a hilly country.
:). We still grow the best but Export is ... ohm ... discouraged. Actually you aren't allowed to grow or use it either but who cares ? It's here and it's good and I will encourage anyone to fly down and use lots of it while your here.
As for that green stuff
BTW : You are talking about Thime right ?
MS publishes it's stuff in other languages because it makes money that way, not out of "caring".
People prefer to use the native tunge as much as posible and if you don't alow that you are second choice.
I.e. If Windows was not in French and OS/2 was then Warp wold own 90% of the fench desktop market today.
Where I come from import duty is charged on the item at a percentage of the invoiced cost *or* the "true value" ( as determined by some bureaucrat ) and the tax collector can actually choose which one to use. You are of course allowed to fight it.
As an aside for computer stuff they use "Computer Shopper" as the reference and if they reject your invoice ( people do get forged invoices with lower prices ) you can look through the latest issue and suggest the lowest advertised price for each item.
Not a fare system by any means but lawmakers suck.
As to the WTO being "for the benefit of developing nations" that is such absolute bull I could laugh. Jamaica as a former colony of England ( up to 1962 ) has a special deal with England and some of her allies in Europe where they buy our Sugar and Banana at well over the market price. ( For 400 years they tacked everything earned hear so don't start with morality etc... ). The US took this deal before the WTO as unfair competition and won the 1st round. If this goes all the way before these crops are fazed out Jamaica will suffer real and immediate problems.
Not least of which is a massive jump in unemployment and a widening of the trade gap.
Not only are BBS communities alive an well but they have grown stronger over the years. What has changed is the technology. In the old days it was only practical to be on BBSs in your home town ( Onles you phreaked ). Now BBSs have moved online for the most part.
Guess what Slashdot is ? Massive online debates, games ( 1st post *IS* an online game ). Flames, threats and a lot of fun. This is Rob's BBS and the day it becomes something else 90% of the regulars will depart.
BTW : The traditional BBSs are still around. For those in Jamaica ( or willing to pay perverse international call rates ) you can check out Chrysalis at 876-977-7334 and Synapse at 876-977-6681 .
What about boards elsware?
L: slashdolt
P: slashdolt
For those who simply refuse to create acounts on these sites let's start a "slashdolt" ring.
There is now an acount at NWT with "slashdolt" for both name and password because that other L/P combo dosn't seam to work anymore.
If your computer invents something patentable it's all yours. How complex is that ? Just like if your care drags goods to market you get paid for the transport.
How can it be less expensive to pack several peripheral components that previously existed as separate cards or chip into the CPU ( which routinely stretches the limits of IC manufacturing ) than to pack those same components into the motherboard chipset ( which will be needed anyway, but hasn't been stressed to the limits of the CPU ? ).
:)
Bare in mind that the chipset will have to be made specifically to accommodate these new CPU features.
This has been tried before and it has never worked and it never will. Not until the technology gets to the stage where the whole computer will be a single complex chip. Because this plan of 2 complex chips for the motherboard and one unbelievably complicated CPU is what Cirix tried ( didn't work ) and iNTEL itself failed at a long time ago ( ever herd of the 80186 ? ).
My solution ? A motherboard with sound, networking, video and even modem on a single chip ( possible with relatively little stress since it's mostly been done ) then add a "normal" CPU. simpler, faster an cheaper. Take a look at the VIA-GRA and similar motherboards. They are very close and the main transgression is windows only hardware.
somebody signed a deal to distribute Corel Linux and promptly put 150 hackers to work on Linux drivers in it's Tiwan office. guess who
are the obvious ease of use, desktop publishing and to some extent doing pretty machines.
:)
The iMac fit in the core ease of use market since it was the simplest machine on the market to get up and running after opening the box. Now they have an iBook, not so people can do stuff on the road but rather so you don't have to plug in a keyboard.
PS: That was a joke
SGI has a lot of other things going and some we know are dragging them down. Irix on big workstations and humongus servers isn't one of those "problem areas".
It's just that the Irix market is very very small so it alone won't hold up a company the size of SGI.
1: Figure out your core strength. In this case delivering a _compleat_ high end workstation.
2: Abandon projects that are loosing money. In this case Cray, and Visual Workstation.
3: Cut expenditure as much as possible without reducing production. In this case adopt Linux for as much as reasonably possible. at SGI that's low end servers and eventually most workstations ( once the software ecosystem has grown up a bit ).
4: Market like crazy. notice how many SGI stories are appearing in papers of late ?
5: Make deals with anyone who can give you money and / or grow your market. In this case SGI has invested in VALinux and has joined Linux international. They are also a partner on the retail Debian.
Only time can tell how well this will work but since it was such a good strategy for Apple, why not SGI ?
My Bill ( And I'm not saying JPS is something to emulate ) lists.
1: How many dollars they charge per Kilowatt hour.
2: How many Kilowatt hours you use.
3: How many other vindictive gratuitous charges they feel like adding on.
So yes for scientists Kilowatt/Hour/Hour is correct. For persons simply paying an electricity bill ( the apparent context of the comment in this article ) it's 30 kWh at $1 per kWh = $21600 per month.
Where and why did they cost more ?
Here is how you do it to keep everybody happy.
1: Include the GPL itself with the documentation.
2: Include a link to your own FTP site with all the SRPMs piled high.
3: State within the warranty ( near the beginning, in bold letters ) that you don't cover modifications or recompilations of included software.
4: Include an offer to make such modifications for the user at a specific charge.
This complies with the GPL, makes your life simpler and makes the customer happy. Note that you should send the modified software ( whatever it is ) over to Sunsite so that it will be easily accessible even if your site is down ( All the really big archives mirror sunsite ).
Just because the screws for your hard drive are readily accessible doesn't stop the manufacturer from saying "Opening it up voids the warranty". You can say the same thing here. Installing modified versions of the included software voids the warranty.
To make it clear state the cost ( to the customer ) of recovering from such situations with your help, or even of having you optimize something for them.
Note: You will in all likelihood need to issue bug fixes for security violations at some point.
SJVN ( Easily the MOST cluefull editor over at ZdNet ) did a story about Linux for the print edition of Smart Reseller. As is the praxes the story was posted online as soon as the magazine hit the news stands.
:)
He made several points about what's right and wrong with Linux. 2 of his most important points however were only correct 2 months ago ( when he wrote the story ) but not at the time they were published. As the Internet lets us see more of this happening paper magazines will become less valuable as a source of leading edge information ( the old usage ) and more as a nice package of important things you may need to know even a year or more after buying it.
This means less of the "And company A is negotiating to buy company B" type story. If it hasn't happened by the time it hits print then there was probably something wrong with the source. Expect more of the "And this is how you configure DNS on *BSD or make the Easter Egg in the current version of wince come up".
These are interesting times in deed.
We can't ask print mags to start going through the whole compile -> edit -> revise -> print cycle as fast as web mags. Rob can fix a typo on the slashdot main page after only 50 or so people have seen it. A Paper mag doesn't have that option and must print a retraction the next month. Embarrassment before your entire audience 2 times in 30 days
Hasn't anyone else noticed it ? When you ask IBM about unreleased products they either give a no comment or flatly deny working on it. 2 Months before the 1st notes Beta for Linux came out, Lotus' CEO was promising to never support Linux.
."
Frankly I don't think it's a coincidence. It could be that all that monitoring they have been under since IBM had it's own run in with the DOJ has made them play nice and this is one of the "nice" things for a "market dominant" player to do.
Don't sell Vaporware. Even if it's already Alpha in your labs.
A Linux client would be cool and all but the 1st we hear of it will be "...And you can download the Beta version at
I know one Netware shop that will be shooting NT for this.
They have a bunch of Netware servers that NEVER go down and a single NT server running Notes that takes up 1/2 the IT budget with it's instability. Even going with the 2 CPU version of Mindcraft's Server of choice ( big DELL ) didn't solve the problems. The Linux BETA hasn't gone down under a larger simulated load.
A few weeks testing on the Gold code and this baby goes into a production deployment.