... and they deserve to hear the community's opinion on the matter.
Better would be a systematical analysis of their
patents and a search for prior art. This will be a case at the courts and no popularity contest. If you need to vent some air,/dev/null allways has an open ear for you.
By nature, terrorists obviously aren't going to obey any laws... much less SOFTWARE LICENSES. This makes Windows a FREE OS.
Be carefull what you say. Due to the current governing logic some people may read it "Anyone who takes Windows for free is a terrorist". And they would get a lot of handclapping from Redmond.
if you want to catch terrorists, there are two ways:
You hunt down an existing terrorist: This is a very tedious way. Those guys tend to be cunning, hide in holes and avoid cell phones.
You pick someone you already have or can easily lay your hands on. Than you declare what he's doing to be a terrorist (or supporting) activity (e.g. encrypting, breaking copy protection, concealing ip addresses, writing open source software).
The second method may have one disadvantage: You may find a terrorist where none has been before looking. This is like a self fullfilling prophecy.
By declaring people to be terrorists you can make
them to be.
Serious: I'm more scared by the changes to the political systems than by the Al-Quaida. The "war on terror" has become a convenient handle (also in europe) to push for changes that have unacceptable before. The result may be the destruction of our ideals (a free society) in the name to defending them.
Yours, Martin
P.S. My definition of terrorist is "someone who is using violence against civilians with the goal to use the resulting scare/horror to force them into an action they wouldn't do by free will". This definition has become very unpopular after WWII because it included too many winners.
RAM is costlier on a per MB basis than HDDs could ever be, and every pricing chart that takes this into account will show how this will probably never change.
Correct: But if RAM started out to be 1000 times as costly as an HD an now is only 30 times as costly, this will influence the design of operating systems drastically.
This shell be no justification of memory consuming
monsters (do read me Billy), but if you can speed
up a system by using two extra megs of RAM, this
may be an appropiate choice;-).
Bye, Martin
P.S. I love operating systems which use memory
economically. But this is admiration for a form
of art;-).
does anyone has a statistic on HD and RAM prices
throughout the last years?
I only have a feeling, that the last years RAM
prices have fallen quicker than HD prices. This
will naturally lead towards such developments as
mentioned.
I think it would be very interesting to study the
technical developments in the light of price
developments. My bet is, that most inventions are
not caused by bright minds but the need for them.
For most technical breakthroughs, the mind is not
cause but catalysator;-).
CU, Martin
Re:Me-262 effect is overrated
on
Nuke-Lobbing
·
· Score: 1
Of course, like all jets, it was short range and couldn't have escorted bombers to Berlin.
I think, that this is one of the important points.
Up to the battle of Britain, the germans used the
Me-110 as bomber escort. It had a pretty decent
range, but it was no match for a Spitfire. The Me-109 was on equal footing to the Spitfire, but
range limitations gave it little standing power in
british airspace.
A proper counter-strategy was to disable the
airfields in southern england and therefor force
the english fighters to use up more fuel on the
way to the battle. By the time the goal was in
reach, they switched targets to the citys.
Back to Me-262: Technical problems would have been
worked out quickly and they would have (IMHO)
achieved air superiority in german airspace (at least for some time). As (correctly) pointed out,
they had not a lot of uptime. Once deployed, the
Allies would have deployed similar planes too
(but not as fighter escort). This equation was
probably well known by then too. So the Me-262 was seen
as a "defensive" weapon and therefor dropped.
Regards, Martin
Re:Whoa, two mea culpas here
on
Nuke-Lobbing
·
· Score: 1
Both my and mseeger's mea culpas, we both read Me-262, the jet fighter, whereas reverseengineer said Me-162
and that includes the insane ideas the Nazis had at the end of WWII like the Me-162
The Me-162 was no insane idea (beside the fact that everything prologing the war would have been an insane idea). The Me-162 was ready for production in 1942 and (by far) the best and most
advanced fighter plane used in WWII.
If the Me-162 would have become available in huge
numbers during 1943 (which was possible), it would
probably have reversed the allied aerial
superiority above germany.
The real insane part was instead of producing the
fighter plane (they had), the upper echelons
decided to go for a bomber (which they hadn't)
and delayed the serial production for nearly three
years.
This was not the only decision of that kind. The
german leaders always went for the offensive
waepons. They dropped e.g. small surface-to-air
missiles in favor of big surface-to-surface
missiles (V1, V2). They (luckily) totally
misjudged their power and the overall situation.
nobody is interested in backups. What everyone wants are restores. There is a fine but crucial distinction between both terms. If you don't see it, continue backing up your data on the same DAT tape you've been using for years;-). I think the counselor can tell a lot about people who did frequent backups and now had to do their first restore.
The guns are not governed by the usual strict firearms regulations in Germany, but prosecutors in the republic's 16 states are passing emergency rulings to try to outlaw them.
Believe me, nearly everything that can shoot is outlawed here (or at least: shooting with it). During the days of the RAF (a terror organisation active in the 70's and 80's) the police even monitored sales of certain types of alarm clocks (which could be used for time bombs).
Prosecuter said they didn't take those guns for serious and up to now violators received just slap and. They're changing their attitude. But this is not a big issue (just a heaven's gift for journalists).
the story calling it "craze" is somewhat overrated. At every time in the last 50 years, kids have built something that goes boom. I think that is the same in every other country.
I live here and i haven't seen or heard of a single "Kartoffelkanone" prior to the article and the photos of the
SPIEGEL magazine.
At least it's an interesting method of delivering
mashed potatoes.
Yours, Martin
Re:Lifetime of code...
on
Immortal Code
·
· Score: 1
In that case, a "software engineer" would be someone dedicated to designing and building systems by putting together building blocks of code, instead of writing code from scratch. Software would start to resemble other engineering disciplines.
Would this be a good or a bad thing? This would probably depend on the personal view. I know a lot of software engineers who see it as an art and would loose all interest once it would become real engineering.
I already thought ten years ago hat this was about to happen. Instead i see today more lousy code from more lousy coders than ever.
The beauty of unix is that for 99% of the services you can patch the app and not interrupt OS uptime. That'll never, ever happen with any Microsoft OS.
The problem is not the system itself. Most problems reside on OSI layer 8: the sysadmin. How many sysadmin know how to patch a system correctly witout rebooting it?
I even recommend to reboot a system after patching. The patches may change startup routines too. Two month later (when the next reboot occurs) nobody does still know what has happened. So it's better to do it right away.
Yours, Martin
Lifetime of code...
on
Immortal Code
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Hi,
there are several limitations for the lifetime of code:
Hardware lifetime: hardware specific code may loose its usefullness once the hardware itself becomes obsolete.
Purpose lifetime: A lot of code serves a temporary purpose. Once the purpose is achieved or dropped, the code will die.
Language: A code in an obsolete programming language will probably be dropped as there is no one to judge the elegancy of it.
Perhaps we should look at it that way: If all good code would and could be reused, more than the half of all software engineers would be ou of duty soon. I think i once read a figure that less than 20% of all code written is "new".
It's easy to blame someone for not having his/her systems patched. But i believe, that the average patch level on Windows Systems is higher than on Unix systems.
Most of the Unix (espescially servers) system just run and don't cause trouble. So nobody thinks of and patches them. A 1000+ days uptime is something to make a sysadmin proud and a security adviser weep.
As many Windopws sysadmins have trouble to debug their system in depth, in the case of problems they try to apply available patches first (second action taken after reboot). So, as Windows systems cause more trouble than Unix servers, they are better patched. Q.E.D.
the average american will get over 3600 of them a year
It would be a relief to get back to that level. After about 15 years with the same email addresses, 3600 is about the monthly dose. Thanks to SpamAssassin i'm only seeing a small part of them. But if i had suddenly had as much money i could spend in my life, i would sit down and write Anti-Spam software or join an existing project.
It sounds like you didn't accept the takeover offer... why not??
In brief:
Mostly i didn't because i didn't consider it a serious offer. Someone who were really interested would have checked first.
It wouldn't have worked. Even the most simple check during the process would have shown there isn't a business. Faking some wasn't and isn't an option for me
The offer sounded like someone who was eager to buy but my guess was, that they would start sieving among the answers. So putting some work into an answer probably would have been wasted.
Please don't imagine such an offer as a guy at the door with a bag full of money. It was polite letter on high quality paper with some impressive signature and talking about interesting sums. But it was not the "sign here and take the money" type.
I could add a lot more, but this is the baseline. And there is a rule: Something that seems to be good to be true, probably isn't.
What i wanted to illustrate with the story was not my stupidity not to take the money, but the way data is circulating and used in absurd ways. Some VC (it must have been around 1997) was probably scanning for.com companies and has had his filter setup this way: ( "has a domain for more than three years" and "web server is up and running" and "doesn't seem too big" and "name sounds as it has something to do with he internet").
For me, the story is a nice joke to tell but not a lost opportunity.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I have served seven years as the CEO (1992 till 1999) of an internet startup and experienced serious takeover offers too. It was pure and undeserved luck that we didn't take one of them. That story would be even more offtopic;-), but we're still up and running.
Keeping track of the "flow of information" you're handing out is a fascinating thing. I once invented a company name to reserve a domain for. This was in the dark ages, when a popular top level domains was upkept by someone using a "vi" and who was rejecting domain names he disliked. As "fantasy" names were refused, i made up a company named like the domain i wanted to get. Unluckily i used my home address.
The name and address together was never used again by me. But this company still gets magazines, advertisement, business proposals (not only from Nigeria) and (during the.boom era) once even got an offer for a takeover.
Even if i should drop dead immediately, this name would continue to live and be responsible for the slaughter of complete forests.
So be carefull when you invent names. Like ghosts they may come when you call but not leave when not wellcome any more.
it's a well know fact, that the worst enemy of all (high) availability resides on OSI layer 8. I think 62% is a pretty low number, the reality is higher. In all cases where the unlucky bastards manages to cover his tracks, technology will take the blame. Other than the people involved it doesn't argue about it.
i recently bought myself a Dell Inspiron 8200. The Inspiron made it because i wanted to have a notebook to play contemporary games with. For Online-Battles against my friends i didn't want to carry my PC even though it's only a Minitower. Surely it won't be the perfect hardware for Doom III, but HalfLife, Civ3, Anno1503 or Mafia all work fine. I'm completely satisfied.
i can only recommend to read the introduction to the Baen Free Library. It's good to see, that not every one who depends on selling content wants to fleece the customers like sheep.
Living from content and a fair use policy are no contradictions. They explain why and how. And it works. I keep buying WebScriptions and the books;-). That I love to read John Ringo (Gust Front), David Weber (Honor series) and Lois McMaster Bujold (The Vor game) may explain it.
Yours, Martin
P.S. Has anyone already written a simulator (Perl prefered) for the starships in the Honor-Universe? I would like to check some battles:-).
Slashdot Mirror
Better would be a systematical analysis of their patents and a search for prior art. This will be a case at the courts and no popularity contest. If you need to vent some air, /dev/null allways has an open ear for you.
Bye, Martin
Be carefull what you say. Due to the current governing logic some people may read it "Anyone who takes Windows for free is a terrorist". And they would get a lot of handclapping from Redmond.
Bye, Martin
if you want to catch terrorists, there are two ways:
The second method may have one disadvantage: You may find a terrorist where none has been before looking. This is like a self fullfilling prophecy. By declaring people to be terrorists you can make them to be.
Serious: I'm more scared by the changes to the political systems than by the Al-Quaida. The "war on terror" has become a convenient handle (also in europe) to push for changes that have unacceptable before. The result may be the destruction of our ideals (a free society) in the name to defending them.
Yours, Martin
P.S. My definition of terrorist is "someone who is using violence against civilians with the goal to use the resulting scare/horror to force them into an action they wouldn't do by free will". This definition has become very unpopular after WWII because it included too many winners.
Correct: But if RAM started out to be 1000 times as costly as an HD an now is only 30 times as costly, this will influence the design of operating systems drastically.
This shell be no justification of memory consuming monsters (do read me Billy), but if you can speed up a system by using two extra megs of RAM, this may be an appropiate choice ;-).
Bye, Martin
P.S. I love operating systems which use memory economically. But this is admiration for a form of art ;-).
does anyone has a statistic on HD and RAM prices throughout the last years?
I only have a feeling, that the last years RAM prices have fallen quicker than HD prices. This will naturally lead towards such developments as mentioned.
I think it would be very interesting to study the technical developments in the light of price developments. My bet is, that most inventions are not caused by bright minds but the need for them. For most technical breakthroughs, the mind is not cause but catalysator ;-).
CU, Martin
I think, that this is one of the important points. Up to the battle of Britain, the germans used the Me-110 as bomber escort. It had a pretty decent range, but it was no match for a Spitfire. The Me-109 was on equal footing to the Spitfire, but range limitations gave it little standing power in british airspace.
A proper counter-strategy was to disable the airfields in southern england and therefor force the english fighters to use up more fuel on the way to the battle. By the time the goal was in reach, they switched targets to the citys.
Back to Me-262: Technical problems would have been worked out quickly and they would have (IMHO) achieved air superiority in german airspace (at least for some time). As (correctly) pointed out, they had not a lot of uptime. Once deployed, the Allies would have deployed similar planes too (but not as fighter escort). This equation was probably well known by then too. So the Me-262 was seen as a "defensive" weapon and therefor dropped.
Regards, Martin
Correct...
The Me-162 was no insane idea (beside the fact that everything prologing the war would have been an insane idea). The Me-162 was ready for production in 1942 and (by far) the best and most advanced fighter plane used in WWII.
If the Me-162 would have become available in huge numbers during 1943 (which was possible), it would probably have reversed the allied aerial superiority above germany.
The real insane part was instead of producing the fighter plane (they had), the upper echelons decided to go for a bomber (which they hadn't) and delayed the serial production for nearly three years.
This was not the only decision of that kind. The german leaders always went for the offensive waepons. They dropped e.g. small surface-to-air missiles in favor of big surface-to-surface missiles (V1, V2). They (luckily) totally misjudged their power and the overall situation.
Bye, Martin
I just heard they have a new bit at Slashdot. It's called "DupeBit" and this is the first article which got it.
Yours, Martin
nobody is interested in backups. What everyone wants are restores. There is a fine but crucial distinction between both terms. If you don't see it, continue backing up your data on the same DAT tape you've been using for years ;-). I think the counselor can tell a lot about people who did frequent backups and now had to do their first restore.
Yours, Martin
I doubt that a floppy is significantly cheaper than a CD. But i have to confess i didn't buy one for years. A CD is currently at 0.25 to 0.35$.
Yours, Martin
Even as security issues are top news usually on Slashdot, this shows where our hearts are.
Yours, Martin
Believe me, nearly everything that can shoot is outlawed here (or at least: shooting with it). During the days of the RAF (a terror organisation active in the 70's and 80's) the police even monitored sales of certain types of alarm clocks (which could be used for time bombs).
Prosecuter said they didn't take those guns for serious and up to now violators received just slap and. They're changing their attitude. But this is not a big issue (just a heaven's gift for journalists).
Yours, Martin
the story calling it "craze" is somewhat overrated. At every time in the last 50 years, kids have built something that goes boom. I think that is the same in every other country.
I live here and i haven't seen or heard of a single "Kartoffelkanone" prior to the article and the photos of the SPIEGEL magazine.
At least it's an interesting method of delivering mashed potatoes.
Yours, Martin
Would this be a good or a bad thing? This would probably depend on the personal view. I know a lot of software engineers who see it as an art and would loose all interest once it would become real engineering.
I already thought ten years ago hat this was about to happen. Instead i see today more lousy code from more lousy coders than ever.
Yours, Martin
The problem is not the system itself. Most problems reside on OSI layer 8: the sysadmin. How many sysadmin know how to patch a system correctly witout rebooting it?
I even recommend to reboot a system after patching. The patches may change startup routines too. Two month later (when the next reboot occurs) nobody does still know what has happened. So it's better to do it right away.
Yours, Martin
there are several limitations for the lifetime of code:
Perhaps we should look at it that way: If all good code would and could be reused, more than the half of all software engineers would be ou of duty soon. I think i once read a figure that less than 20% of all code written is "new".
Yours, Martin
It's easy to blame someone for not having his/her systems patched. But i believe, that the average patch level on Windows Systems is higher than on Unix systems.
Most of the Unix (espescially servers) system just run and don't cause trouble. So nobody thinks of and patches them. A 1000+ days uptime is something to make a sysadmin proud and a security adviser weep.
As many Windopws sysadmins have trouble to debug their system in depth, in the case of problems they try to apply available patches first (second action taken after reboot). So, as Windows systems cause more trouble than Unix servers, they are better patched. Q.E.D.
Just kidding, Martin
Martin
It would be a relief to get back to that level. After about 15 years with the same email addresses, 3600 is about the monthly dose. Thanks to SpamAssassin i'm only seeing a small part of them. But if i had suddenly had as much money i could spend in my life, i would sit down and write Anti-Spam software or join an existing project.
Yours, Martin
In brief:
Please don't imagine such an offer as a guy at the door with a bag full of money. It was polite letter on high quality paper with some impressive signature and talking about interesting sums. But it was not the "sign here and take the money" type.
I could add a lot more, but this is the baseline. And there is a rule: Something that seems to be good to be true, probably isn't.
What i wanted to illustrate with the story was not my stupidity not to take the money, but the way data is circulating and used in absurd ways. Some VC (it must have been around 1997) was probably scanning for .com companies and has had his filter setup this way: ( "has a domain for more than three years" and "web server is up and running" and "doesn't seem too big" and "name sounds as it has something to do with he internet").
For me, the story is a nice joke to tell but not a lost opportunity.
Yours, Martin
P.S. I have served seven years as the CEO (1992 till 1999) of an internet startup and experienced serious takeover offers too. It was pure and undeserved luck that we didn't take one of them. That story would be even more offtopic ;-), but we're still up and running.
Keeping track of the "flow of information" you're handing out is a fascinating thing. I once invented a company name to reserve a domain for. This was in the dark ages, when a popular top level domains was upkept by someone using a "vi" and who was rejecting domain names he disliked. As "fantasy" names were refused, i made up a company named like the domain i wanted to get. Unluckily i used my home address.
The name and address together was never used again by me. But this company still gets magazines, advertisement, business proposals (not only from Nigeria) and (during the .boom era) once even got an offer for a takeover.
Even if i should drop dead immediately, this name would continue to live and be responsible for the slaughter of complete forests.
So be carefull when you invent names. Like ghosts they may come when you call but not leave when not wellcome any more.
Yours, Martin
it's a well know fact, that the worst enemy of all (high) availability resides on OSI layer 8. I think 62% is a pretty low number, the reality is higher. In all cases where the unlucky bastards manages to cover his tracks, technology will take the blame. Other than the people involved it doesn't argue about it.
Yours, Martin
i recently bought myself a Dell Inspiron 8200. The Inspiron made it because i wanted to have a notebook to play contemporary games with. For Online-Battles against my friends i didn't want to carry my PC even though it's only a Minitower. Surely it won't be the perfect hardware for Doom III, but HalfLife, Civ3, Anno1503 or Mafia all work fine. I'm completely satisfied.
Yours, Martin
i can only recommend to read the introduction to the Baen Free Library. It's good to see, that not every one who depends on selling content wants to fleece the customers like sheep.
Living from content and a fair use policy are no contradictions. They explain why and how. And it works. I keep buying WebScriptions and the books ;-). That I love to read John Ringo (Gust Front), David Weber (Honor series) and Lois McMaster Bujold (The Vor game) may explain it.
Yours, Martin
P.S. Has anyone already written a simulator (Perl prefered) for the starships in the Honor-Universe? I would like to check some battles :-).