Even if our military was ten times its current size, today's attacks might still have happened. No one in the Pentagon or at any number of military/intelligence installations is on the lookout for passenger jets. Even if they were, what are we going to do? Shoot them down with our bigger, badder weapons? Do you want to make that call?
Instead of arming ourselves to fend off those who want to kill us horribly, we should be asking what it is that we're doing that makes them so desperate (read: our foreign policy) and then ask if it's worth it to persist in our behavior. We are all humans living here together on planet Earth. If we are all sufficiently happy, things like what happened today don't occur. When they do occur, they're symptomatic of larger problems.
The Diamond Age, anyone? Anyone? Now we can have shirts made out of this stuff and pay licensing fees for new designs, streamed in via our cell phones.
I agree with the parent post. If I don't know someone's phone number, I don't just pick up a phone and start dialing 111-1111, 111-1112, 111-1113. ..it's a waste of my time, it's annoying to other people, and it wastes network resources. Write down your machine's IP address before you leave the house in the morning, or have it announce it's address to you. E-mail is just one of many ways I can think of doing this.
Let's say your friend moves and you want to visit them. ..do you call and ask for the address (or wait for them to tell you before you head out) or do you just drive to the new city and start knocking on doors?
I think you're missing the point. Most of the computers connected to the internet are private property. That is, someone owns them. In this case, my analogy still holds. The only machines on the internet which are 'public facilies' would be perhaps government websites (i.e., paid for by tax dollars and are 'public property' in the sense that parks and roads are). Still, you don't go around jiggling doorknobs on public libraries and government buildings, do you? Remember the internet may seem like a public place, but its infrastructure and the machines connected to it aren't public goods. I can still provide public 'access' to my house (by having a yard sale, or new years' party, etc) and call it private property.
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to go from house to house testing people's doorknobs and windows, even if you claim that you're not up to anything bad. Why should portscanning (or even automated portscanning of larger netblocks) be any different?
how this is a story 'about' the X-Box crashing in public? All I could find is one sentence towards the end of the five-paragraph 'article'. If this was on the SATs and you said that the 'main point of this story' is that the X-Box crashed in public, you'd be wrong. The closest thing I could come up with is that it's about the controller, but even that's a stretch.
Who the fuck is going around moderating all posts like the parent one to "Troll"? This is dead-on! The company made a decision, and no one else is responsible for making sure they considered all the factors (security and otherwise). Sure, you may feel bad for them, but there's no real tactful way to inform them of their mistakes without looking like a sore loser.
"Hi, a couple of my friends and I want to start a space program. None of us have ever really worked on space exploration, but we like really like Star Trek and the first few spinoff shows. We were hoping that maybe some people from the NASA community could help us out with some tips. ..what kinds of fuels and rockets should I use with my space program? Is there a GPS service that works in orbit as well? What were some snags you ran into when starting your space program? There are obvious things like astronauts, space suits, mission control centers, and flight computers, but we'd like to get a feel for how hard it might be to patch something together with open source alternatives. Also things like programming flight trajectories might be useful. I figured we might think about it ourselves for a few minutes and realize that if we have to ask these types of questions and don't know how to research them ourselves then we really shouldn't be getting into this business, but gosh darn it, we were sitting around drinking beer, and figure that it would be really cool!
I always thought that writing in to/. to pimp your own website was frowned upon, but I guess not:
Red Mercury writes: "Sony has just announced their much anticipated high resolution (320x320) Palm OS-based PEG-N710 Clie Handheld. You can read their press release, and check out Red Mercury's experience with a pre-production unit here."
A total of three links to his site in the first three lines. Not bad for a shameless self-promotion:-)
Slashdot Mirror
Mod this funny shit up!
Uh, Intel boxes can do serial consoles either with a PC Weasel, or a mobo supporting it.
You would think so, yet here we are. This is the crux of the current distaste for many patents.
Mod this freaking thing UP!
Dammit, when are they gonna add a "Stupid" moderation category?!?
By what possible stretch of the imagination is the parent "Informative"?
Are you sure it's experience? Are you sure it wasn't from reading Snow Crash?
Crazy jibberish!
So you think these posts are just wacky coded messages between sinister organizations?
Not.
Even if our military was ten times its current size, today's attacks might still have happened. No one in the Pentagon or at any number of military/intelligence installations is on the lookout for passenger jets. Even if they were, what are we going to do? Shoot them down with our bigger, badder weapons? Do you want to make that call?
Instead of arming ourselves to fend off those who want to kill us horribly, we should be asking what it is that we're doing that makes them so desperate (read: our foreign policy) and then ask if it's worth it to persist in our behavior. We are all humans living here together on planet Earth. If we are all sufficiently happy, things like what happened today don't occur. When they do occur, they're symptomatic of larger problems.
Quite frankly his comments are usually rimshot, especially now
It looks like JonKatz has jumped in along with all the other talking heads trying to score +5, Insightful when really he should be -3, Sophomoric
Dude, lay off the meth. You're hyper-paranoid and hitting the wrong keys.
That screen looks superimposed to me. Sorry to burst your thoughtfully analytic bubbles.
So he has to run Red Hat Linux to be taken seriously? I forgot that Open Source, /., News for Nerds, etc was synonymous with "Red Hat Linux".
The Diamond Age, anyone? Anyone? Now we can have shirts made out of this stuff and pay licensing fees for new designs, streamed in via our cell phones.
Let's say your friend moves and you want to visit them. . .do you call and ask for the address (or wait for them to tell you before you head out) or do you just drive to the new city and start knocking on doors?
I think you're missing the point. Most of the computers connected to the internet are private property. That is, someone owns them. In this case, my analogy still holds. The only machines on the internet which are 'public facilies' would be perhaps government websites (i.e., paid for by tax dollars and are 'public property' in the sense that parks and roads are). Still, you don't go around jiggling doorknobs on public libraries and government buildings, do you? Remember the internet may seem like a public place, but its infrastructure and the machines connected to it aren't public goods. I can still provide public 'access' to my house (by having a yard sale, or new years' party, etc) and call it private property.
I'm pretty sure it's illegal to go from house to house testing people's doorknobs and windows, even if you claim that you're not up to anything bad. Why should portscanning (or even automated portscanning of larger netblocks) be any different?
how this is a story 'about' the X-Box crashing in public? All I could find is one sentence towards the end of the five-paragraph 'article'. If this was on the SATs and you said that the 'main point of this story' is that the X-Box crashed in public, you'd be wrong. The closest thing I could come up with is that it's about the controller, but even that's a stretch.
Who the fuck is going around moderating all posts like the parent one to "Troll"? This is dead-on! The company made a decision, and no one else is responsible for making sure they considered all the factors (security and otherwise). Sure, you may feel bad for them, but there's no real tactful way to inform them of their mistakes without looking like a sore loser.
No, CD-RW is a pointless technology. Discs don't always play in other drives, drives are usually slower/more expensive, as is media.
I see. . .and would this be the same day that everyone starts running Linux?
Sorry...."GNU/Linux"
"Hi, a couple of my friends and I want to start a space program. None of us have ever really worked on space exploration, but we like really like Star Trek and the first few spinoff shows. We were hoping that maybe some people from the NASA community could help us out with some tips. . .what kinds of fuels and rockets should I use with my space program? Is there a GPS service that works in orbit as well? What were some snags you ran into when starting your space program? There are obvious things like astronauts, space suits, mission control centers, and flight computers, but we'd like to get a feel for how hard it might be to patch something together with open source alternatives. Also things like programming flight trajectories might be useful. I figured we might think about it ourselves for a few minutes and realize that if we have to ask these types of questions and don't know how to research them ourselves then we really shouldn't be getting into this business, but gosh darn it, we were sitting around drinking beer, and figure that it would be really cool!
Isn't there already a HOWTO on this?
Good point. Had he unveiled color photography in America, he'd have been burned at the stake as a witch.
Who moderated this offtopic? It's on-topic and funny to boot! A shining example for would-be first posters
Red Mercury writes: "Sony has just announced their much anticipated high resolution (320x320) Palm OS-based PEG-N710 Clie Handheld. You can read their press release, and check out Red Mercury's experience with a pre-production unit here."
A total of three links to his site in the first three lines. Not bad for a shameless self-promotion :-)