The legaly defined national security classifications described in executive order 12958 are:
UNCLASSIFIED CONFIDENTIAL SECRET TOP SECRET
The situation gets more complicated with codeword protected documents.
CONFIDENTIAL is classified. I could get fired for a compromise of CONFIDENTIAL information.
Most agencies have information categories that require protection but are not technicaly classified. These get various names depending on the agencies, LIMITED OFFICIAL USE, EFTO (encrypted for transmission only), LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE etc. It is possible, perhaps probable, that a journalist would use the word confidential to describe information of this sort.
It is quite true that Clipper was to be manditory only for communicating with the government.
It is also true that the government hoped that Clipper would then spread like a virus into non-government uses. It would have worked much like GPL detractors claim GPL is viral. It didn't work.
The government fondly remembers when their specifications (who here has read a FIPSPUB?) routinely became industry standards. They bought a significant portion of the computer industry output -- The computer industry did what they wanted. This is no longer the case. Government sales no longer drive the design choices of major industry players.
Another advantage to mailing payment is that you have a verified address for the seller. They must pick up the mailed check or money order. I'd be just a little more careful with a seller who refuses money orders.
First, ebay's much hearalded feedback system is constructed to discourage negative feedback. The text on the feedback page pleads with you not to leave negative feedback. If you decide to leave negative feedback anyway you must go through an extra confirmation page that is not required for positive feedback.
Second, it opens you to retaliation from the other party in the form of negative feedback. The only negative feedback I ever received was retaliation from the only seller I ever left negative feedback for. Investigating his feedback history I discovered that he only ever left negative feedback, and most of that was retaliation for negative feedback he received.
It is useful (I would say important) for a software developer to test, not only code but himself, and run on non-Intel hardware. People used to say "all the world's a Vax". Before that many didn't care about portability if their software ran on a PDP/11 or an IBM 360. If you have never touched a computer outside of a museum that wasn't decended from the original 5-slot PC you can never be sure how much you realy know about computers in general rather than PCs in particular.
Obsolete Sun hardware, available cheaply, fills this need rather nicely. I got myself a SparcStation-2, with Solaris already installed for just this purpose. A different OS as well as different hardware doubly fills the bill.
Unfortunatly:
Linux (at least 2.2.x) runs rings around Solaris on my Sparcstation-2. The diffence is so great that I find booting Solaris painful. I've heard that on newer, especialy multiprocessor, systems the advantage may go the other way.
I've tried both Debian and the unreleased Slackware, and Slackware was by far the easier and more successful install.
I do the same with my full-featured K-E log-log deci-trig etc. slide rule at the office. Some problems are perfect slide rule problems, this is one of them. Anything involving similar ratios where 2-3 digit precision is fine. Set the rule once and read off the height of the graphic for any column width.
It also elicits wonderful looks from my coworkers.
If there had ever been an actual potential for any kind of Y2K meltdown on the scale that the doomsayers predicted somebody, somewhere, would have had a problem.
Up until the last moment we heard about countries in Southeast Asia and clueless companies that started way too late to get fixed in time.
All those folks sailed right thru Y2K just as happily as we did. If one percent of the predictions were true something, somewhere, would have happend. The media was left grasping for Y2K straws.
Instead of fixing a blown out of problem that didn't realy exist, engineers and programmers in those countries and companies were doing real work, advancing their state of the art while the rest of the world stood still.
Y2K certification cost us almost a year of useful development work in my office. That was all testing and documentation - the only Y2K code changes we made were cosmetic.
We completed many a live test, each of which was more disruptive to production than Y2K itself. Each time the Y2K office then came up with new tests to run.
We submitted source code to third party monkies for review. The Y2K office's expert reviewers couldn't understand that a quantity defined by the ANSI C standard as "years since 1900" is quite properly converted to a four digit year by adding 1900 to it. I spent most of a day trying to explain that one. They even wanted to know which ANSI C standard we were using.
When Y2K day occured the world wide disruptions from Y2K precautions far exceeded the disruptions from Y2K related failures. Countless systems critical to their owners experienced downtime, not because of any Y2K bug, but because management bought the Y2K hype.
Y2K hype cost more in real disruption on Jan 1, 2000 than the Y2K bug ever could have.
The Y2K profits deserve to be pilloried, not aplauded. Hounded out of town, not honored. Disgraced, not dignified.
Peter what's his name can rot. And I'll not waste brain cells remembering his name. Y2K came off smoothly not because of brilliant remediation, but because there was no big problem to begin with.
The basic terminology of science and technology has spaned many languages for a long time.
Once the source of many terms was Latin, but thankfuly we have moved to modern languages. In physics we have gedankin (pardon spelling) experiments, aircraft have epanage(sp), factories use robots. The borrowing into english of words I cannot spell is natural and enriching.
I once worked for an international organization that operates a network of geosyncronous satelites. One day I needed to explain a map projection algorithim to a Spanish speaking programmer/engineer. An interpreter got us started, but was unneed as soon as we got to writing geometric diagrams and mathematical formulas on the white board. It turned out that we had the language of mathematics in common.
On the other hand, I once needed to press an Algerian programmer into service as a translator because a Canadian client couldn't or wouldn't speak English.
Any "competent" astrologer could have done the same.
You answer a few questions...
They tell you seemingly insiteful things about you.
This is hardly new.
I have witnessed a demonstration where a group was convinced of some divination technique, only to have it revealed to them that their "profiles" were assigned by a random process.
I agree whole-heartedly with the newspaper comment. I also like finding articles that I am not looking for. That is why I still get print periodicals.
Luckialy most search engines are excelent at finding pages you aren't interested in. Truly one of the joys of the web, and I don't mean that sarcasticly!
Oh, come on. The Canadian dollar may have gotten dinged a bit arround the edges, but each Canadian quarter would have reliably given its 0.02 cents wort 1250 times, at least in Canada.
Catch me on the street and I'd give you a US paper doller for a looney, somehow I haven't seen one yet.
And I do know how to spell ferrite. Just not reliably.
Exactly. Without a chief. Close to but not exactly without rules. In use it has come to have other, related meanings.
Simplifying a bit, there are two sorts of folks who talk about anarchy. Proponents of anarchism (called anarchists) believe that without a chief we can get along. They often believe that the only rules that we need are those of the natural order of things. Opponets of anarchism belive that without a chief we will have violence, disorder and other nasty things.
Personaly, I am not an anarchist, but I try to understand other viewpoints.
My sugestion of an anarchy-totalitarian scale isn't right, but I couldn't come up with a better alternative for what I wanted to say.
Perhaps sombody who knows somthing about the organization of the media in Austrailia could shed some light on that subject.
Is it like Britain, where the BBC is a quasi-governmental agency (oppinions of its independance are probably all over the map) and truly independant broadcast outlets are relativly new? How independant is the print media?
Anarchism is a belief in the absense of formal government. In its purest form it is a simple belief in the ability of folks to get along without the necesity of laws and police and so forth. It's more of an organization concept than an economic concept. Of course, organization and economics can never be completly separated.
Grass roots, small scale, capitolism amongst honest folk is much more compatable with basic anarchism than any real world implementation of socialism has been.
But I guess that is unfair, compairing an idealized anarchic state with real world socialism.
The real world couldn't be run as an peaceful anarchy either. The best we can hope for is a reasonable spot on the continum from the anarchic to the totalitarian.
At least we aren't equating anarchy with violence.
It is true that governments, like the people they should be protecting, sometimes break laws.
I think it is going too far to say "Agents of government (all of them) will routinely violate or circumvent (but usually the former) domestic and international law if they believe that it serves their purpose." It happens, true, that was a prety good list, but is usually not routine, and frequently there are negative repercusions, especialy in the most grievous cases.
No mater the prevelance of violation (we seem to disagree there) it is still fruitful to have the laws in place to define the rules. They deter more than you think, and when they don't there is a chance they can be enforced. You can't enforce a law that wasn't passed.
There are parts of the world where "anyone who thinks for themself and speaks their mind is a criminal".
I happen to think that my (US) government is the greatest, and I don't trust them without checks and balances (that they often want to shake off). There was a lot of talk about not long ago about protecting the identities Kosovar internet users. And how about users in any of a dozen other coutries. Your list of countries may well be different than mine, but that does not change the argument. Public access to strong encryption is a powerful weapon against totalitarian systems.
I think public access to strong encryption and public access to firearms have similar advantages, but that public access to encryption caries fewer risks.
Slashdot Mirror
The model T used a rather clever planetary transmision. So maybe they weren't that far.
The legaly defined national security classifications described in executive order 12958 are:
UNCLASSIFIED
CONFIDENTIAL
SECRET
TOP SECRET
The situation gets more complicated with codeword protected documents.
CONFIDENTIAL is classified. I could get fired for a compromise of CONFIDENTIAL information.
Most agencies have information categories that require protection but are not technicaly classified. These get various names depending on the agencies, LIMITED OFFICIAL USE, EFTO (encrypted for transmission only), LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE etc. It is possible, perhaps probable, that a journalist would use the word confidential to describe information of this sort.
Not much here - I suspect the "attached FAQ" which we are supposed to see fills in some details, where is it?
It obviously does use your space unless they somehow magicly enlarged the available storage in the unit to create the extra space.
It is quite true that Clipper was to be manditory only for communicating with the government.
It is also true that the government hoped that Clipper would then spread like a virus into non-government uses. It would have worked much like GPL detractors claim GPL is viral. It didn't work.
The government fondly remembers when their specifications (who here has read a FIPSPUB?) routinely became industry standards. They bought a significant portion of the computer industry output -- The computer industry did what they wanted. This is no longer the case. Government sales no longer drive the design choices of major industry players.
Another advantage to mailing payment is that you have a verified address for the seller. They must pick up the mailed check or money order. I'd be just a little more careful with a seller who refuses money orders.
I haven't owned a bike in 20 years that would be satisfied by 35psi.
I'm sure kid bikes and mountain bikes with their fatter tires (tyres for the BBC) take lower pressure.
You realy need a small-bore high pressure pump for bike tires. Doesn't move much volume, but a good one will exceed 70psi easialy.
Just make sure you fill it with somthing heavy, water would probably do.
The balistic coefficent of an empty (or 70psi air filled) 2 liter soda bottle is reasonably poor.
There are good reasons for that.
First, ebay's much hearalded feedback system is constructed to discourage negative feedback. The text on the feedback page pleads with you not to leave negative feedback. If you decide to leave negative feedback anyway you must go through an extra confirmation page that is not required for positive feedback.
Second, it opens you to retaliation from the other party in the form of negative feedback. The only negative feedback I ever received was retaliation from the only seller I ever left negative feedback for. Investigating his feedback history I discovered that he only ever left negative feedback, and most of that was retaliation for negative feedback he received.
It is a ploy to sell thousands of CDs to hackers who want the chalange.
Obsolete Sun hardware, available cheaply, fills this need rather nicely. I got myself a SparcStation-2, with Solaris already installed for just this purpose. A different OS as well as different hardware doubly fills the bill.
Unfortunatly:
I've tried both Debian and the unreleased Slackware, and Slackware was by far the easier and more successful install.
I do the same with my full-featured K-E log-log deci-trig etc. slide rule at the office. Some problems are perfect slide rule problems, this is one of them. Anything involving similar ratios where 2-3 digit precision is fine. Set the rule once and read off the height of the graphic for any column width.
It also elicits wonderful looks from my coworkers.
If there had ever been an actual potential for any kind of Y2K meltdown on the scale that the doomsayers predicted somebody, somewhere, would have had a problem.
Up until the last moment we heard about countries in Southeast Asia and clueless companies that started way too late to get fixed in time.
All those folks sailed right thru Y2K just as happily as we did. If one percent of the predictions were true something, somewhere, would have happend. The media was left grasping for Y2K straws.
Instead of fixing a blown out of problem that didn't realy exist, engineers and programmers in those countries and companies were doing real work, advancing their state of the art while the rest of the world stood still.
Y2K certification cost us almost a year of useful development work in my office. That was all testing and documentation - the only Y2K code changes we made were cosmetic.
We completed many a live test, each of which was more disruptive to production than Y2K itself. Each time the Y2K office then came up with new tests to run.
We submitted source code to third party monkies for review. The Y2K office's expert reviewers couldn't understand that a quantity defined by the ANSI C standard as "years since 1900" is quite properly converted to a four digit year by adding 1900 to it. I spent most of a day trying to explain that one. They even wanted to know which ANSI C standard we were using.
When Y2K day occured the world wide disruptions from Y2K precautions far exceeded the disruptions from Y2K related failures. Countless systems critical to their owners experienced downtime, not because of any Y2K bug, but because management bought the Y2K hype.
Y2K hype cost more in real disruption on Jan 1, 2000 than the Y2K bug ever could have.
The Y2K profits deserve to be pilloried, not aplauded. Hounded out of town, not honored. Disgraced, not dignified.
Peter what's his name can rot. And I'll not waste brain cells remembering his name. Y2K came off smoothly not because of brilliant remediation, but because there was no big problem to begin with.
The basic terminology of science and technology has spaned many languages for a long time.
Once the source of many terms was Latin, but thankfuly we have moved to modern languages. In physics we have gedankin (pardon spelling) experiments, aircraft have epanage(sp), factories use robots. The borrowing into english of words I cannot spell is natural and enriching.
I once worked for an international organization that operates a network of geosyncronous satelites. One day I needed to explain a map projection algorithim to a Spanish speaking programmer/engineer. An interpreter got us started, but was unneed as soon as we got to writing geometric diagrams and mathematical formulas on the white board. It turned out that we had the language of mathematics in common.
On the other hand, I once needed to press an Algerian programmer into service as a translator because a Canadian client couldn't or wouldn't speak English.
Any "competent" astrologer could have done the same.
You answer a few questions...
They tell you seemingly insiteful things about you.
This is hardly new.
I have witnessed a demonstration where a group was convinced of some divination technique, only to have it revealed to them that their "profiles" were assigned by a random process.
More like self-reverential.
I agree whole-heartedly with the newspaper comment. I also like finding articles that I am not looking for. That is why I still get print periodicals.
Luckialy most search engines are excelent at finding pages you aren't interested in. Truly one of the joys of the web, and I don't mean that sarcasticly!
Somebody is in violation, be it DC, Delta Airlines, Wired or Forbes. Name them all and let the Postal Inspection Service sort them out.
What realy matters to you is that if you got it in the mail it is yours, and you can do anything you want to with it.
I wouldn't worry too much about the EULA, I can't begin to fathom how it could possibly override the law in this case.
Oh, come on. The Canadian dollar may have gotten dinged a bit arround the edges, but each Canadian quarter would have reliably given its 0.02 cents wort 1250 times, at least in Canada.
Catch me on the street and I'd give you a US paper doller for a looney, somehow I haven't seen one yet.
And I do know how to spell ferrite. Just not reliably.
It is exactly what the company I work for did to celebrate new years this year.
And, yes, I do know how to spell ferrite. I think.
The major two families of browsers are plenty willing to divulge more than your IP address.
Exactly. Without a chief. Close to but not exactly without rules. In use it has come to have other, related meanings.
Simplifying a bit, there are two sorts of folks who talk about anarchy. Proponents of anarchism (called anarchists) believe that without a chief we can get along. They often believe that the only rules that we need are those of the natural order of things. Opponets of anarchism belive that without a chief we will have violence, disorder and other nasty things.
Personaly, I am not an anarchist, but I try to understand other viewpoints.
My sugestion of an anarchy-totalitarian scale isn't right, but I couldn't come up with a better alternative for what I wanted to say.
Perhaps sombody who knows somthing about the organization of the media in Austrailia could shed some light on that subject.
Is it like Britain, where the BBC is a quasi-governmental agency (oppinions of its independance are probably all over the map) and truly independant broadcast outlets are relativly new? How independant is the print media?
Anarchism is a belief in the absense of formal government. In its purest form it is a simple belief in the ability of folks to get along without the necesity of laws and police and so forth. It's more of an organization concept than an economic concept. Of course, organization and economics can never be completly separated.
Grass roots, small scale, capitolism amongst honest folk is much more compatable with basic anarchism than any real world implementation of socialism has been.
But I guess that is unfair, compairing an idealized anarchic state with real world socialism.
The real world couldn't be run as an peaceful anarchy either. The best we can hope for is a reasonable spot on the continum from the anarchic to the totalitarian.
At least we aren't equating anarchy with violence.
It is true that governments, like the people they should be protecting, sometimes break laws.
I think it is going too far to say "Agents of government (all of them) will routinely violate or circumvent (but usually the former) domestic and international law if they believe that it serves their purpose." It happens, true, that was a prety good list, but is usually not routine, and frequently there are negative repercusions, especialy in the most grievous cases.
No mater the prevelance of violation (we seem to disagree there) it is still fruitful to have the laws in place to define the rules. They deter more than you think, and when they don't there is a chance they can be enforced. You can't enforce a law that wasn't passed.
There are parts of the world where "anyone who thinks for themself and speaks their mind is a criminal".
I happen to think that my (US) government is the greatest, and I don't trust them without checks and balances (that they often want to shake off). There was a lot of talk about not long ago about protecting the identities Kosovar internet users. And how about users in any of a dozen other coutries. Your list of countries may well be different than mine, but that does not change the argument. Public access to strong encryption is a powerful weapon against totalitarian systems.
I think public access to strong encryption and public access to firearms have similar advantages, but that public access to encryption caries fewer risks.