Looks like the World Record Book editors are going down the same path as the US Patent and Trademark Office analysts. Will the madness never cease?
I guess this is what happens when technical artifice crosses over into the mainstream, and becomes celebrity in its own right. I guess we can look forward to the day when there is an annual Moore's Law Award, with its own cute little statue. It would be held in Las Vegas and only prostitutes and Directors of Marketing could attend. Hey, I have some categories;
-- An award for the best increase in CPU performance for devices dissipating under 150W that are not light bulbs. -- An award for the largest amount of dynamic memory cells per square millimeter on a memory device that never makes it to market. -- An award for the greatest density of bits stored per surface area on magnetic media in a retail product with a MTBF greater than 10 hours. -- Lifetime achievement award for the least useful CPU performance metric having the broadest adoption after 5 years.
Around my house, any new purchase must score high on the WifeMark, which is a complex combined index of software and hardware performance. The benchmark is simply my wife's reaction to me maxing out the credit card again on a computer. The levels are:
"Feels about as fast as what I have now. And last time she almost killed me for buying a new box."
"Nice, seems faster, but the wife will kill me if I spend this kind of money for nothing special."
"Damn that's fast. I want. She's just going to have to deal with it."
I've been using that benchmark for years. I don't even look at the official numbers. Once it gets to the point where the kit I run now is clearly sh*t for anything normal, I upgrade. Just come home one day with a new box and figure she'll come around.
Got a Mac G4/466 right now, specifically to run OSX. She likes OSX. Before that a used 7600/200 (G2ish) because web browsing got slow and she likes web browsing. Before that a Quadra 630 (486/33ish) because it was best for desktop publishing and we were big into that at the time. Before that, I owned a SE/30 (386/16ish) but that was before we were married. For sure, I more than double performance each time, noticing when something is finally "damn fast" for what is currently important and figuring it scores high on the WifeMark.
Happy with the G4 running Panther, it does email and web browsing and web development work Real Well (as does the 7600 to be honest, but no OSX for that one). I'll upgrade the G4/466 chip someday, maybe when I can get a G4/2000 for cheap on EBay. But otherwise I might run this box for a long time as I can't see anything coming along that scores highly on the WifeMark.
BTW, I still have all the machines listed above. Old Macs never die, they just become web servers.
Hmm...well my employer here is offering to send me to India, to work in the office there as opposed to laying me off here, at a reasonable wage and was going to pay all my expenses including housing and sending my family over there and back. I know a lot of the people in the other office, and I used to live in Thailand, so it would seem familiar on arrival. Still working out the logistics; frankly, I do NOT want to be paid in rupees as they do not appear to be convertible currency; cannot get my wages out of the country it seems. Further, the tax rate in India is 40%, paid in ADVANCE, and you don't leave the country without proof of payment. I would like to be paid in $US into a US bank and skip all that nonsense.
Don't own a house. Kids are homeschooled. Curently live in a crappy rental to save money while salary is cut. No jobs in the area. No family nearby. No sign of a change. If my employer can work it out so I can make money living in India...or break even for a few years until the dust settles...then get the fsck out of the road because I'm OUTTA here hommies.
Re:the fearful always suffer
on
Cyberchondria
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· Score: 1
Thanks for the insights. I agree, not everyone is after attention. No doubt at all there can be a compulsive aspect to hypochondria, in which case professional counsel might indeed serve the sufferer.
I suppose there is "clinical hypochondria" of the kind you seem to describe, related probably to compulsive behavior, and another kind of "social hypochondria" that is more about loneliness and societal neglect of fragile individuals. Can't say which is the more common, thought I feel as if I've witnessed more of the social kind than the clinical kind over the years.
Clearly, Internet resources (and the problems they pose) will do more actual harm to the former population than the latter, since the latter will "get over it" once they get the attention they crave. Likewise I suppose the latter probably will not even turn to the Internet for information since they don't have any real investment in their condition, other than to groan frequently about some imagined infirmity based as often as not on sensational reporting in media of the most recent plague.
But generalizations of all kinds are risky, as you point out.
the fearful always suffer
on
Cyberchondria
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· Score: 4, Interesting
There is no way to help the fearful. Unabated fear of disease or malformation is sort of a narcisistic thing; makes them feel special and the constant complaining is how they gather more attention to themselves than they would normally justify.
I know, the hypochondriacs in the readership will say they have a special mental condition and need lifelong treatment, and there really is no cure. Well that just proves my point, doesn't it?
As for the impact of Google on all this; I recently suffered some kind of respiratory impact, and after two weeks of coughing woke up in the night feeling I could not breath. A call to the hospital assured me that I was in grave danger and I should call emergency aid. After thinking on this and listening to my body a while I decided to tough it out, and finally slept the rest of the night. Later the next day I had an exam and x-rays, which x-rays came back abnormal (metastatic cancer indication) which I didn't buy at all because I didn't fit the profile for metastatic cancer. I Googled some things and based on sound evidence decided I had a rare respiratory fungus. More x-rays and some consultations and the doctor said that OK I didn't have cancer, and he didn't know what I had, and it might be a rare respiratory fungus (!) and he would need to cut my chest open to see, which would land me in the hospital for 3 days (at a time when I am needing to find a job). I declined, of course.
Still have a cough of sorts, but getting better. I think the clue to health is to insist on being healthy despite the continued pressure to be otherwise. In this regard Google (and a clear head, and some experience working in a hospital X-ray lab) gave me the resources to stay on my feet at a time when I really needed to.
Like every other kind of tool, using the Internet takes skill and sometimes courage. And no I still don't have a job, so every day still counts.
[parody] In other news today, MSFT Chairman Bill Gates announced the creation of a new software division at Microsoft, whose job it will be to study FOSS source code to look for similarities with Windows code. Says Mr. Gates, "Due to the recent unfortunate release of our IP, we will now be keeping the open-source community honest by comparing all past and future versions of Windows code to all past and future versions of all open-source applications, as well as the Linux kernel. We don't expect to find anything, but if we do we will certainly take action."
Part of the effort will be the construction of a clustered supercomputer to constantly analyze code downloaded daily from SourceForge and similar web sites, comparing against a database of Windows code. This will employ "fuzzy logic" that will not only detect direct copies of Windows code, but also code that approximately matches Windows code or comments in code. Continued Mr Gates, "We're going to be reasonable with our findings, and will fund the creation of a panel to review all findings preliminary to legal action, but with this illegal Windows source code release we have no choice but to aggressively protect our IP." [/parody]
Hope that doesn't give them any ideas...but if they aren't already thinking along these lines I'd be amazed.
...and "WINE is bad because it simply *must* be tainted."
I think the WINE folk are automatically in for a huge lawsuit. I pray they can show a development tree in CVS that goes back before this leak. They ought to freeze development and go over all their current code with a comb before they fire the dev back up. Clean clean clean has got to become their religion.
I'll predict that this episode will open up a new kind of development task; specifically, deliberatly and regularly going over FOSS code to search for Windows code or blatant references to same. I don't know how it can happen without having the code in hand and therefore being vulnerable to a lawsuit, but if projects don't do it somehow and the code is later grepped by Microsoft, and they think they find something SCO-wise it will be hell to pay.
Statement to the Media Regarding Microsoft Source Code Leak
Mainsoft has been a Microsoft partner since 1994, when we first entered a source code licensing agreement with Microsoft. Mainsoft takes Microsoft's and all our customers' security matters seriously, and we recognize the gravity of the situation.
We will cooperate fully with Microsoft and all authorities in their investigation
We are unable to issue any further statement or answer questions until we have more information.
From Mike Gullard, Chairman of the Board, Mainsoft Corporation
I should think that the lawyers at M$ will wait a suitable period of time and then, once ReactOS looks good, swoop in with a C&D order. They will have a long list of "similarities" in source, and charts showing how development of ROS features and stability has become accelerated since the release (though ReactOS was picking up anyway, as has WINE, as does any project gaining mindshare) and even if it makes no sense M$ will be able to hold up everything for years in litigation and findings.
This whole thing has a really high suck factor.
Combined with SCO FUD and that fscking MyDoom nonsense, this is really bad.
I don't know about the rest of you, but now M$ can make a reasonable (as in SCO-reasonable, which is to say reasonable-to-a-monkey-like-my-boss) claim that projects like WINE can be assumed to be tained once they reach version 1.0. M$ can be *expected* to go on all kinds of fishing expeditions to harrass these projects into oblivion.
Back in the 70's (IIRC) there was a big stink about whether or not the US could deploy phased-array radar (PAR) to track incoming ICBMs from the USSR. There were all kinds of radar then, but the phased-array kind was considered destabilizing at a time when MAD was still the dominant military paradym. That is because PAR could accurately track thousands of targets, giving the targeted country an advantage that might cause them to actually strike first in the assumption that they could track and take out the retaliatory counter-strike.
My oh my, but things were spooky back then. A good defense was considered a military advantage and harbinger of doom.
I guess the Cold War really is over. Now you can have PAR in the back on your Beemer to track incoming Hondas. OK, so maybe this is still about first-strike initiatives and counter-attack defense. I won't be worried until the Beemers and H2s start to carry surface-to-surface missles.
On a side note, "radar" used to be "RADAR" and was an acronym for something like "Radio Detection and Ranging". Funny how we co-opt technical terms and acronyms into the vernacular.
Cynical though it might seem, I do not think HP (et al.) are doing this as a public service. Nor do I think they are doing it because of.GOV pressure. They are certainly doing it to limit the liability of the companies that purchase HP (et al.) imaging products.
We would have to fire up the WayBackMachine, but I suspect there must have been some high profile counterfeit issue when color first showed up, say when the mighty color Xerox came out. I recall wanting to use that machine at one point at my Univeristy when it first showed up in the library and being told that they had to watch me working so as to guard against currency and ID fraud. Maybe that was just them being anal...but maybe there really was an issue. Back then.
It must be easier to sell these things to large institutions when the sales people can claim that the machine has built in safe guards against many kinds of fraudulent use. Perhaps some/.er who has been in procurement or facilities management can comment?
Re:What they didn't include in the article
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SCO Offline
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· Score: 2, Insightful
There is general agreement that this is the work of spammers/scammers and not, say, the GNU/Linux community. But there have been eleventy-hundred identical virus/worms/exploits emailed around for months/years/eons now, and they didn't bother adding a DDoS subroutine to attack SCO, or Microsoft, or anyone else except the anti-spam outfits (may they RIP).
So why all the sudden the "oh-we-need-a-smoke-screen" noise?
It is not a smoke screen. It's a fscking plot and it's well timed.
The spammers DO care how this whole SCO things turns out, as they care what happens to Windows on the desktop. Keeping the SCO plot up and running keeps Linux off the desktop (perhaps forever if the US court system really is as lame as it seems lately) and they really really need to keep Linux off the desktop and the pressure off Microsoft to change their product. They need Windows to be dominant, unchanged, wide open, and devoid of competition. Otherwise the spammers at least have to rewrite all their nice tools, and at worst they lose a ton of existing zombies and can't replace them; wave bye-bye to one most excellent business model if that happens.
Interesting how the dominant monoculture is playing a central role, isn't it? And Bill tells us Microsoft will end spam in three years, when clearly Microsoft products are the major portal for Internet spam and probably Internet crime. Will Microsoft ever guess how badly they've been played for fools? Or perhaps more alarming...do they even care?
There is something marvelously just and poetic about using flowers to detect land mines. Thousands of children and innocents a year are blown to giblets, or horribly hutilated, by land mines. May a thousand flowers bloom.
And IIRC the Greeks thought that any number over a million represented infinity. They didn't bother with them. That is not a limitation of the Greeks, it is a limitation of the human mind. (Normal) people just don't care anymore when numbers become enormous. You can carry a thousand songs on a Mini; can you even imagine, let alone desire, more than a thousand? Do you suppose you have you in your entire lifetime heard a thousand different songs that you could hum a few bars of now? Were every single one of them keepers? Are every single one of the keepers available in a digital form?
MyDoom==MiMail, that much is known. The MiMail malware runs on Windows, for the most part (know of any exceptions?) and in the past as been a tool to build spam and relay zombies for UCE and possibly criminal activity. That MyDoom would be the product of Linux supporters is immediately suspicious; far more likely (as others have already noted) it is going to do what every other MiMail variant did and that is to create zombies for organized crime, to be sold/rented to the Mafia and online gangs of Nigerian 419ers, singly and in bulk.
Now, the windows angle. As viruses become more common, not less, Windows platforms running in mission-critical roles might decrease, not increase. This is even more likely as the Linux/SCO thing is resolved in favor of Linux remaining open and free; one can imagine something of a stampede onto Liniux or FreeBSD after the court findings. So if you were a Mafia hacker, and you were watching all this, and you thought maybe you could sort of swing things in favor of the status quo, which certainly would keep you employeed writing viri for your Boss, why not involve SCO for a few days? Maybe influence the courts, some politicians, you know the friends of Big Money. And after that, why not MSN? Microsoft could use the public forum to decry their opponents. And then DDoS maybe a combination of SCO, MSN and the the Department of Homeland Security. You know, just so it is obvious how anti-Democratic and anti-choice these Linux freaks really are. During an election cycle.
Then sit back and let those wheels of power do their beautiful thing. With luck, Linux falls under the IP of SCO Group, the OSS community goes into shock, Linux and even FreeBSD deployments collapse, Microsoft issues an "I told you so" PR and rolls up the server market, their Trusted Computing development budget withers on the vine because they don't need it anymore to counter any external threat to their marketing drivel. Viruses run rampant for another 10 years until some later excess makes the governments of the world take action, by then too late. In the meantime the gangster are essentially printing money, they 0wnz the Internet, and r00t perhaps half the computers in the world.
You think I'm nuts? Tin-foil hat askew? Don't ever underestimate the criminal, or political, communities.
that aims to define exactly who it is that is opening email, saving attachments, opening the attachment, running the payload, and is not using AV software. I mean that is a lot of work by someone with at least *some* clue about email. Who is doing this? Is there a profile? Is it generally a home user, or generally at a public school? Is it that there is a subset of people that for their own sick reasons *always* runs infection attachments just to watch the LAN go down so they can go home early? I'm becoming suspicious [tinfoil hat goes on and is pulled down hard]
The comment someone made, about it looking just like Arizona, is what suddenly hit me. It does look like Arizona. This is freaking me out. Look at the "approach" photos; there are windswept craters! We never saw that with the moon photos. This is so strange, in my mind it should not look like Earth but it does.
The Opp probe appears to be resting between some sand dunes, it could be any playa basin or even beach in the world. I half expect the camera to show some scrawny bunch grasses or a bit of dessicated twig next. Then scorpion tracks. Not going to happen of course...but expecting it is a big step.
Say what you like, it starts to freak you out if you let it sink in. We are on Mars! We are fscking there and it is ours to do with as we please. We can send any kind of robot, factory, mining equipment, greenhouses or prebuilt shelter we want to, tons and tons of stuff, have them all come together on their own power and dock, build a whole base station in advance, then send a few couples a la Swiss Family Robinson to just go and live there forever, have babies, study the place, the whole thing. We are there.
If the IBM patent really is defensive, and if the threat is present and not future, then we might be on the leading edge of a ramp up in defensive/offensive patents. How about these patents we'd all like to see?
A patent on a method to manage outsourced software development.
A patent on a method to handle consumer RMAs using web services to coordinate agents.
A patent on a method to manage software development via timelines and milestones using an online collaborative system.
A patent on a method to...
I think you get the point. If the way we work is now subject to patent, just like the products of our work, then there is very little that cannot be patented. Either the madness will now stop, or the future of our industry is going to be absolutely insane.
well that's sort of true...yet I think the lesson might also be that the RIAA is roadkill and the subject of public mockery. Sure Pepsi is milking this incident for their own profit, but that doesn't make RIAA less like roadkill. The Pepsi drinking crowd and the music sharing crowd are overlapping sets; Pepsi is saying "we are listening" and that counts for a lot when RIAA certainly are not listening. Has no practical impact on music sharing of course.
So does this qualify as a modded car, or as a masterful case mod? As a car, it's a great hack, Detroit should steal it. But if this is a case mod it shows l33t m4d skilz. Drive this baby to the next LAN party, watch the gurls got nuts; "Hey baby, let's do some lagers in the back of my computer."
Mobster: you must be a member of a gang or Mafia. To get in, you need to have a rap sheet with at least 20 entries. First 12,000 invites went to email addresses in Federal prisons.
Witchster: you must be an initiate into witchcraft. To get in you need to have posted at least one spell of your own creation, with details on the underlying operation principles. First 12,000 invites went to the High Priest/Priestesses of covens registered as nonprofits.
Govster: you must be a politician who is, or recently was, running for any public office in the United States of America. To get in you must have a public web site that contains the slogan "Vote for America! Vote for me!". First 12,000 invites went to the list of people who ran for Governor of California in the latest state election.
You don't have to be convicted to be branded a criminal.
In America, yes you do have to be convicted. Unless by "branded" you mean by society. As for what people think, they can go fsck themselves until the trial is over. But like I said that's America, so depending on what dictatorship you reside under YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Looks like the World Record Book editors are going down the same path as the US Patent and Trademark Office analysts. Will the madness never cease?
I guess this is what happens when technical artifice crosses over into the mainstream, and becomes celebrity in its own right. I guess we can look forward to the day when there is an annual Moore's Law Award, with its own cute little statue. It would be held in Las Vegas and only prostitutes and Directors of Marketing could attend. Hey, I have some categories;
-- An award for the best increase in CPU performance for devices dissipating under 150W that are not light bulbs.
-- An award for the largest amount of dynamic memory cells per square millimeter on a memory device that never makes it to market.
-- An award for the greatest density of bits stored per surface area on magnetic media in a retail product with a MTBF greater than 10 hours.
-- Lifetime achievement award for the least useful CPU performance metric having the broadest adoption after 5 years.
How depressing.
Around my house, any new purchase must score high on the WifeMark, which is a complex combined index of software and hardware performance. The benchmark is simply my wife's reaction to me maxing out the credit card again on a computer. The levels are:
"Feels about as fast as what I have now. And last time she almost killed me for buying a new box."
"Nice, seems faster, but the wife will kill me if I spend this kind of money for nothing special."
"Damn that's fast. I want. She's just going to have to deal with it."
I've been using that benchmark for years. I don't even look at the official numbers. Once it gets to the point where the kit I run now is clearly sh*t for anything normal, I upgrade. Just come home one day with a new box and figure she'll come around.
Got a Mac G4/466 right now, specifically to run OSX. She likes OSX. Before that a used 7600/200 (G2ish) because web browsing got slow and she likes web browsing. Before that a Quadra 630 (486/33ish) because it was best for desktop publishing and we were big into that at the time. Before that, I owned a SE/30 (386/16ish) but that was before we were married. For sure, I more than double performance each time, noticing when something is finally "damn fast" for what is currently important and figuring it scores high on the WifeMark.
Happy with the G4 running Panther, it does email and web browsing and web development work Real Well (as does the 7600 to be honest, but no OSX for that one). I'll upgrade the G4/466 chip someday, maybe when I can get a G4/2000 for cheap on EBay. But otherwise I might run this box for a long time as I can't see anything coming along that scores highly on the WifeMark.
BTW, I still have all the machines listed above. Old Macs never die, they just become web servers.
Hmm...well my employer here is offering to send me to India, to work in the office there as opposed to laying me off here, at a reasonable wage and was going to pay all my expenses including housing and sending my family over there and back. I know a lot of the people in the other office, and I used to live in Thailand, so it would seem familiar on arrival. Still working out the logistics; frankly, I do NOT want to be paid in rupees as they do not appear to be convertible currency; cannot get my wages out of the country it seems. Further, the tax rate in India is 40%, paid in ADVANCE, and you don't leave the country without proof of payment. I would like to be paid in $US into a US bank and skip all that nonsense.
Don't own a house. Kids are homeschooled. Curently live in a crappy rental to save money while salary is cut. No jobs in the area. No family nearby. No sign of a change. If my employer can work it out so I can make money living in India...or break even for a few years until the dust settles...then get the fsck out of the road because I'm OUTTA here hommies.
Thanks for the insights. I agree, not everyone is after attention. No doubt at all there can be a compulsive aspect to hypochondria, in which case professional counsel might indeed serve the sufferer.
I suppose there is "clinical hypochondria" of the kind you seem to describe, related probably to compulsive behavior, and another kind of "social hypochondria" that is more about loneliness and societal neglect of fragile individuals. Can't say which is the more common, thought I feel as if I've witnessed more of the social kind than the clinical kind over the years.
Clearly, Internet resources (and the problems they pose) will do more actual harm to the former population than the latter, since the latter will "get over it" once they get the attention they crave. Likewise I suppose the latter probably will not even turn to the Internet for information since they don't have any real investment in their condition, other than to groan frequently about some imagined infirmity based as often as not on sensational reporting in media of the most recent plague.
But generalizations of all kinds are risky, as you point out.
There is no way to help the fearful. Unabated fear of disease or malformation is sort of a narcisistic thing; makes them feel special and the constant complaining is how they gather more attention to themselves than they would normally justify.
I know, the hypochondriacs in the readership will say they have a special mental condition and need lifelong treatment, and there really is no cure. Well that just proves my point, doesn't it?
As for the impact of Google on all this; I recently suffered some kind of respiratory impact, and after two weeks of coughing woke up in the night feeling I could not breath. A call to the hospital assured me that I was in grave danger and I should call emergency aid. After thinking on this and listening to my body a while I decided to tough it out, and finally slept the rest of the night. Later the next day I had an exam and x-rays, which x-rays came back abnormal (metastatic cancer indication) which I didn't buy at all because I didn't fit the profile for metastatic cancer. I Googled some things and based on sound evidence decided I had a rare respiratory fungus. More x-rays and some consultations and the doctor said that OK I didn't have cancer, and he didn't know what I had, and it might be a rare respiratory fungus (!) and he would need to cut my chest open to see, which would land me in the hospital for 3 days (at a time when I am needing to find a job). I declined, of course.
Still have a cough of sorts, but getting better. I think the clue to health is to insist on being healthy despite the continued pressure to be otherwise. In this regard Google (and a clear head, and some experience working in a hospital X-ray lab) gave me the resources to stay on my feet at a time when I really needed to.
Like every other kind of tool, using the Internet takes skill and sometimes courage. And no I still don't have a job, so every day still counts.
[parody]
In other news today, MSFT Chairman Bill Gates announced the creation of a new software division at Microsoft, whose job it will be to study FOSS source code to look for similarities with Windows code. Says Mr. Gates, "Due to the recent unfortunate release of our IP, we will now be keeping the open-source community honest by comparing all past and future versions of Windows code to all past and future versions of all open-source applications, as well as the Linux kernel. We don't expect to find anything, but if we do we will certainly take action."
Part of the effort will be the construction of a clustered supercomputer to constantly analyze code downloaded daily from SourceForge and similar web sites, comparing against a database of Windows code. This will employ "fuzzy logic" that will not only detect direct copies of Windows code, but also code that approximately matches Windows code or comments in code. Continued Mr Gates, "We're going to be reasonable with our findings, and will fund the creation of a panel to review all findings preliminary to legal action, but with this illegal Windows source code release we have no choice but to aggressively protect our IP."
[/parody]
Hope that doesn't give them any ideas...but if they aren't already thinking along these lines I'd be amazed.
...and "WINE is bad because it simply *must* be tainted."
I think the WINE folk are automatically in for a huge lawsuit. I pray they can show a development tree in CVS that goes back before this leak. They ought to freeze development and go over all their current code with a comb before they fire the dev back up. Clean clean clean has got to become their religion.
I'll predict that this episode will open up a new kind of development task; specifically, deliberatly and regularly going over FOSS code to search for Windows code or blatant references to same. I don't know how it can happen without having the code in hand and therefore being vulnerable to a lawsuit, but if projects don't do it somehow and the code is later grepped by Microsoft, and they think they find something SCO-wise it will be hell to pay.
This is from their web site:
Statement to the Media Regarding Microsoft Source Code Leak
Mainsoft has been a Microsoft partner since 1994, when we first entered a source code licensing agreement with Microsoft. Mainsoft takes Microsoft's and all our customers' security matters seriously, and we recognize the gravity of the situation.
We will cooperate fully with Microsoft and all authorities in their investigation
We are unable to issue any further statement or answer questions until we have more information.
From Mike Gullard, Chairman of the Board, Mainsoft Corporation
I should think that the lawyers at M$ will wait a suitable period of time and then, once ReactOS looks good, swoop in with a C&D order. They will have a long list of "similarities" in source, and charts showing how development of ROS features and stability has become accelerated since the release (though ReactOS was picking up anyway, as has WINE, as does any project gaining mindshare) and even if it makes no sense M$ will be able to hold up everything for years in litigation and findings.
This whole thing has a really high suck factor.
Combined with SCO FUD and that fscking MyDoom nonsense, this is really bad.
I don't know about the rest of you, but now M$ can make a reasonable (as in SCO-reasonable, which is to say reasonable-to-a-monkey-like-my-boss) claim that projects like WINE can be assumed to be tained once they reach version 1.0. M$ can be *expected* to go on all kinds of fishing expeditions to harrass these projects into oblivion.
This really sux.
Back in the 70's (IIRC) there was a big stink about whether or not the US could deploy phased-array radar (PAR) to track incoming ICBMs from the USSR. There were all kinds of radar then, but the phased-array kind was considered destabilizing at a time when MAD was still the dominant military paradym. That is because PAR could accurately track thousands of targets, giving the targeted country an advantage that might cause them to actually strike first in the assumption that they could track and take out the retaliatory counter-strike.
My oh my, but things were spooky back then. A good defense was considered a military advantage and harbinger of doom.
I guess the Cold War really is over. Now you can have PAR in the back on your Beemer to track incoming Hondas. OK, so maybe this is still about first-strike initiatives and counter-attack defense. I won't be worried until the Beemers and H2s start to carry surface-to-surface missles.
On a side note, "radar" used to be "RADAR" and was an acronym for something like "Radio Detection and Ranging". Funny how we co-opt technical terms and acronyms into the vernacular.
Cynical though it might seem, I do not think HP (et al.) are doing this as a public service. Nor do I think they are doing it because of .GOV pressure. They are certainly doing it to limit the liability of the companies that purchase HP (et al.) imaging products.
/.er who has been in procurement or facilities management can comment?
We would have to fire up the WayBackMachine, but I suspect there must have been some high profile counterfeit issue when color first showed up, say when the mighty color Xerox came out. I recall wanting to use that machine at one point at my Univeristy when it first showed up in the library and being told that they had to watch me working so as to guard against currency and ID fraud. Maybe that was just them being anal...but maybe there really was an issue. Back then.
It must be easier to sell these things to large institutions when the sales people can claim that the machine has built in safe guards against many kinds of fraudulent use. Perhaps some
There is general agreement that this is the work of spammers/scammers and not, say, the GNU/Linux community. But there have been eleventy-hundred identical virus/worms/exploits emailed around for months/years/eons now, and they didn't bother adding a DDoS subroutine to attack SCO, or Microsoft, or anyone else except the anti-spam outfits (may they RIP).
So why all the sudden the "oh-we-need-a-smoke-screen" noise?
It is not a smoke screen. It's a fscking plot and it's well timed.
The spammers DO care how this whole SCO things turns out, as they care what happens to Windows on the desktop. Keeping the SCO plot up and running keeps Linux off the desktop (perhaps forever if the US court system really is as lame as it seems lately) and they really really need to keep Linux off the desktop and the pressure off Microsoft to change their product. They need Windows to be dominant, unchanged, wide open, and devoid of competition. Otherwise the spammers at least have to rewrite all their nice tools, and at worst they lose a ton of existing zombies and can't replace them; wave bye-bye to one most excellent business model if that happens.
Interesting how the dominant monoculture is playing a central role, isn't it? And Bill tells us Microsoft will end spam in three years, when clearly Microsoft products are the major portal for Internet spam and probably Internet crime. Will Microsoft ever guess how badly they've been played for fools? Or perhaps more alarming...do they even care?
I hope we've not been giving the enemy any ideas.
There is something marvelously just and poetic about using flowers to detect land mines. Thousands of children and innocents a year are blown to giblets, or horribly hutilated, by land mines. May a thousand flowers bloom.
And IIRC the Greeks thought that any number over a million represented infinity. They didn't bother with them. That is not a limitation of the Greeks, it is a limitation of the human mind. (Normal) people just don't care anymore when numbers become enormous. You can carry a thousand songs on a Mini; can you even imagine, let alone desire, more than a thousand? Do you suppose you have you in your entire lifetime heard a thousand different songs that you could hum a few bars of now? Were every single one of them keepers? Are every single one of the keepers available in a digital form?
Now what number do you have.
MyDoom==MiMail, that much is known. The MiMail malware runs on Windows, for the most part (know of any exceptions?) and in the past as been a tool to build spam and relay zombies for UCE and possibly criminal activity. That MyDoom would be the product of Linux supporters is immediately suspicious; far more likely (as others have already noted) it is going to do what every other MiMail variant did and that is to create zombies for organized crime, to be sold/rented to the Mafia and online gangs of Nigerian 419ers, singly and in bulk.
Now, the windows angle. As viruses become more common, not less, Windows platforms running in mission-critical roles might decrease, not increase. This is even more likely as the Linux/SCO thing is resolved in favor of Linux remaining open and free; one can imagine something of a stampede onto Liniux or FreeBSD after the court findings. So if you were a Mafia hacker, and you were watching all this, and you thought maybe you could sort of swing things in favor of the status quo, which certainly would keep you employeed writing viri for your Boss, why not involve SCO for a few days? Maybe influence the courts, some politicians, you know the friends of Big Money. And after that, why not MSN? Microsoft could use the public forum to decry their opponents. And then DDoS maybe a combination of SCO, MSN and the the Department of Homeland Security. You know, just so it is obvious how anti-Democratic and anti-choice these Linux freaks really are. During an election cycle.
Then sit back and let those wheels of power do their beautiful thing. With luck, Linux falls under the IP of SCO Group, the OSS community goes into shock, Linux and even FreeBSD deployments collapse, Microsoft issues an "I told you so" PR and rolls up the server market, their Trusted Computing development budget withers on the vine because they don't need it anymore to counter any external threat to their marketing drivel. Viruses run rampant for another 10 years until some later excess makes the governments of the world take action, by then too late. In the meantime the gangster are essentially printing money, they 0wnz the Internet, and r00t perhaps half the computers in the world.
You think I'm nuts? Tin-foil hat askew? Don't ever underestimate the criminal, or political, communities.
that aims to define exactly who it is that is opening email, saving attachments, opening the attachment, running the payload, and is not using AV software. I mean that is a lot of work by someone with at least *some* clue about email. Who is doing this? Is there a profile? Is it generally a home user, or generally at a public school? Is it that there is a subset of people that for their own sick reasons *always* runs infection attachments just to watch the LAN go down so they can go home early? I'm becoming suspicious [tinfoil hat goes on and is pulled down hard]
The comment someone made, about it looking just like Arizona, is what suddenly hit me. It does look like Arizona. This is freaking me out. Look at the "approach" photos; there are windswept craters! We never saw that with the moon photos. This is so strange, in my mind it should not look like Earth but it does.
The Opp probe appears to be resting between some sand dunes, it could be any playa basin or even beach in the world. I half expect the camera to show some scrawny bunch grasses or a bit of dessicated twig next. Then scorpion tracks. Not going to happen of course...but expecting it is a big step.
Say what you like, it starts to freak you out if you let it sink in. We are on Mars! We are fscking there and it is ours to do with as we please. We can send any kind of robot, factory, mining equipment, greenhouses or prebuilt shelter we want to, tons and tons of stuff, have them all come together on their own power and dock, build a whole base station in advance, then send a few couples a la Swiss Family Robinson to just go and live there forever, have babies, study the place, the whole thing. We are there.
If the IBM patent really is defensive, and if the threat is present and not future, then we might be on the leading edge of a ramp up in defensive/offensive patents. How about these patents we'd all like to see?
A patent on a method to manage outsourced software development.
A patent on a method to handle consumer RMAs using web services to coordinate agents.
A patent on a method to manage software development via timelines and milestones using an online collaborative system.
A patent on a method to...
I think you get the point. If the way we work is now subject to patent, just like the products of our work, then there is very little that cannot be patented. Either the madness will now stop, or the future of our industry is going to be absolutely insane.
Cold mornings, tractor won't turn over. Spirit needs a jump start. I wonder if Opportunity has jumper cables?
well that's sort of true...yet I think the lesson might also be that the RIAA is roadkill and the subject of public mockery. Sure Pepsi is milking this incident for their own profit, but that doesn't make RIAA less like roadkill. The Pepsi drinking crowd and the music sharing crowd are overlapping sets; Pepsi is saying "we are listening" and that counts for a lot when RIAA certainly are not listening. Has no practical impact on music sharing of course.
So does this qualify as a modded car, or as a masterful case mod? As a car, it's a great hack, Detroit should steal it. But if this is a case mod it shows l33t m4d skilz. Drive this baby to the next LAN party, watch the gurls got nuts; "Hey baby, let's do some lagers in the back of my computer."
Mobster: you must be a member of a gang or Mafia. To get in, you need to have a rap sheet with at least 20 entries. First 12,000 invites went to email addresses in Federal prisons.
Witchster: you must be an initiate into witchcraft. To get in you need to have posted at least one spell of your own creation, with details on the underlying operation principles. First 12,000 invites went to the High Priest/Priestesses of covens registered as nonprofits.
Govster: you must be a politician who is, or recently was, running for any public office in the United States of America. To get in you must have a public web site that contains the slogan "Vote for America! Vote for me!". First 12,000 invites went to the list of people who ran for Governor of California in the latest state election.
You don't have to be convicted to be branded a criminal.
In America, yes you do have to be convicted. Unless by "branded" you mean by society. As for what people think, they can go fsck themselves until the trial is over. But like I said that's America, so depending on what dictatorship you reside under YMMV.