And how would you rate the current ability of anyone to oversee the executive branch at this point in time? And there's the real issue. It's not that government has power. It's an issue whether oversight of that power is appropriate and functional.
Dvorak's shtick is to look for someone's sacred cow and throw rocks at it; he's a professional critic. And while there's always a sacred cow to be found, sometimes it seems Dvorak has a hard time finding suitable ammunition to hurl at his target and has to reach pretty far to come up with criticisms.
I would rather read observations from someone who was a little more insightful. Not that Dvorak isn't amusing sometimes (I don't follow his writing enough to tell how often this is). But it becomes a problem is when you run in to people who take him seriously.
Sure. And jails can be used to house political dissidents. And if the jails fill up, guns can be used to silence political dissidents even quicker. That doesn't mean we need to close down our jails and disarm our military and police. What it does mean is that we need to have checks to ensure that these things are used in an appropriate manner.
Then they forced Whedon to water down the scripts, showed them out of order, and finally scheduled the premier on a night where it was sure to be delayed in many markets by late-running baseball games.
I watched the series in the as-aired order (the fact that I never saw them when they were on the air is a different but very important point). I liked the "out of sequence" ordering. I had no problem jumping in to the action. Watching the fur fly... noticing that there were personal interactions between these characters... and wondering what the story was. By the time the two-part "original first episode" shows up in this sequence, I found it all a treat to finally get to see who and what these people were. I'm not so sure I would have been as interested if it started with character introductions first.
Clearly there are a number of people who disagree - episode order always gets mentioned when bemoaning the failure of Firefly. Maybe its a matter of sensibilities and preference. I'm not so sure it was sabotage. At least on this point.
I don't think that analogy applies here. I think TA's point is that the hypervisor itself may not be any more secure than the OSes it virtualizes. So now you're hypervisor OR the OS it's running may get hacked Actually... the gist of argument seems to go deeper. The point being stressed is that the underlying hardware can't provide sufficient separation so its unwise to expect either the host kernel / hypervisor or guest OS to do it. Buggy OS implementations seems to be more historical proof than the issue in itself.
Keep in mind that the base debate is whether a virtualized environment is "more secure" or not. I understand where the initial idea is coming from; the ability to provide various groups with their own virtual host to configure / jeopardize. But I must admit I haven't seen anything that convinces me one box with two virtualized hosts is any more secure than two seperate hosts on two seperate boxes. The only advantages to be found is in dealing with cost and/or utility of hardware.
We, as a species, should pool all of our assests together and put forth as much effort as possible at exploring space and figuring out a way to get off this rock.
I like your sentiment. However, you seem to be discounting or simply forgetting the value of competition. It may seem counterintuitive but sometimes divided pools of resources put towards achieving the same goal can achieve better results than a single effort.
Often you'll have different ideas on how to solve a problem. Sometimes you can't really be sure which way is the best way until you try and implement both. Pick the successful one. The challenge is to be sure that "success" isn't due to outside influence (politics, marketing, etc.) but on purely performance issues.
On a larger scale, the challenge to competing ideas is the bureaucracy. The larger the pool of resources and individuals involved, the greater the organization and mechanism to manage said resources and individuals. These environments tend to become lumbering, unwieldy things that require a lot of resources to simply run while stifling competition and innovation.
A project at the scale of space exploration probably leads to some manner of bureaucracy. However, I'm more inclined to have smaller, battling bureaucracies rather than a single massive one... or at least the often difficult process of trying to make multiple massive bureaucracies work together.
Of course not. That would be silly. It's going to follow a young Chewbacca; his awkward years. The humiliating defeat and associated downfall that drove him out of the Wookie Chess Club. The evening of the horrible swirlie at the hands of the lacrosse team. His attempts to prove himself by hand-building R2D2. And that pinnacle moment in his life when he joins the gun club and picks up his first bowcaster.
The study found regular use of profanity to express and reinforce solidarity among staff, enabling them to express their feelings, such as frustration, and develop social relationships, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UES).
Sounds very much like camaraderie and morale; old military standbys. Perhaps there is a good reason swearing seems to be ingrained in military culture.
I'm curious as to what security holes Warden is inducing? Last I checked, even the most vocal critics of Warden only claimed an invasion of privacy. And while that's definitely something to be concerned with, I don't see it as quite the same class as rootkits and stealth installs.
Whether Warden is even that big of a deal is an entirely different subject.
Sure - bundled software sucks. But even if I get suckered in to installing the Google toolbar or desktop, I'm willing to bet I can just as easily uninstall it. I'm betting that neither will stop me from searching using Yahoo or Ask.com. And I'm also suspecting that Google's managing to get their software bundled isn't due to them strong-arming with their lead in Internet search or online advertising. So once again we see that Google and Microsoft are apples and oranges.
Here's an exercise for you. We'll call it "switching".
Switching Search Engines:
1. URL - www.yahoo.com 2. Done.
Switching OS:
1. Backup data. 2. Wipe system, load new OS. 3. Restore data. 5. Find applications for new OS.
5.a. What do you mean that doesn't exist on this OS? 6. Try to find applicable replacement 7. Try to access data
7.a. What do you mean you're still trying to figure out how that data file works?
Switching Browsers:
1. Find new browser
1.a. What do you mean you're not allowed to pre-install a competitor? You won't get what discount? 2. Execute and use new browser 3. Uninstall old browser
3.a. Part of the OS? The browser?
3.b. Why does this keep trying to use the old browser? How'd it execute that drive-by install anyway?
OK - I'm being a little factitious. But the "monopoly" Google has is hardly the same as what Microsoft was convicted of. It's amusing whenever some Microsoft fanboi rants about that. The IT industry is full of industry leaders that hold strong positions in their particular market. Yet Microsoft managed to get singled out. Either we're seeing bias and conspiracy on a very large scale or Microsoft did, in fact, do something to single themselves out. The court case tends to spell out exactly what they did.
Wouldn't it have been interesting to go back in time and force Microsoft to compete on the quality of its product alone? Maybe we wouldn't have had to settle for an imperfect OS. Maybe DrDOS would have survived. Maybe OS/2 Warp might have been successful. Maybe BeOS wouldn't have been still-born (here's something to consider - Microsoft does not produce all those drivers). Maybe MacOS might have made good on all that ease-of-use Windows fanbois blather on about while the Mac Fanbois seethe over having never recaptured market share despite having delivered just that (although I suspect Apple was doomed the day IBM lost control of its platform and microcomputing hardware became a commodity market).
Maybe it's not about the OS. Maybe its about the applications. And a market that still routinely supports multiple platforms.
It's nice to say the fittest and strongest survive. It's a good story. But the tech industry proves that there are so many factors involved, especially when you get in to the sordid details of microcomputing, that "fittest and strongest" is highly subjective to say the least. Sorry if that's difficult for a Microsoft fanboi to understand. It's a difficult and complex world.
Unfortunately the bullet in the head probably wasn't earned because he was a scum-sucking Internet bottom feeder but because he was a scum-sucking Internet bottom feeder who didn't pay up.
My job is to manage an extremely large Linux server environment. I have a Linux desktop as a jumping off point to the rest of the systems. It sits at a command prompt because I have an XP box that does everything the Linux desktop does, only better. And faster. And more reliable. I'm curious.... why do you bother with having a Linux desktop? Isn't something like PuTTY or Cygwin suitable for your needs?
Me, myself... I got tired of trying to force my WinXP workstation to behave like a Linux box. I shrunk down the WinXP partition(s) and loaded Ubuntu. VMWare gives me access to the enterprise XP load for the few, rare times I need it. And now I do almost all my work in my favored desktop environment (better, faster, more reliably, etc.) - even operating in an environment that's heavily dominated by Microsoft.
However this above statement disturbs me. It's okay if they spend time updating WTO and free trade articles, but not anime pages? They shouldn't be updating either pages. Anime pages are one thing, and they can and should be reprimanded for that. But I shudder at the thought of governments paying employees to update Wikipedia. Why aren't the head bureaucrats getting reprimanded by someone!!! ugh. I wouldn't be surprised to find that the agricultural ministry has some expertise in the WTO and international trade issues. Individuals contributing to a public information resource on issues that they are professionally acquainted with seems rather ordinary... even commonplace. I also wouldn't be surprised if these individuals had a lot of other things they were doing as well (and would find themselves hard pressed to justify not seeing to other tasks in order to favor time editing Wikipedia entries).
It's the double edged sword of software popularity.
Linux is becoming so respected and desired as an operating system for servers that phishers & hackers are slowly turning their attention towards it being profitable. Yes and no. What this represents is simply fluctuation - nothing novel. Linux has been targeted plenty in the past. Nobody should be surprised they're being targeted now.
What they SHOULD apologize for is their habit of putting uber-powerful wandering elites in zones where individuals or small-groups are trying to accomplish individual and small-group quests.
The presence of a monster that can sneak up behind you and kill you in two hits does NOT add to the challenge of the game, but rather, the frustration. I completely disagree. I assume you're talking about the Fel Reavers (although Devilsaur comes to mind too). The nice thing with the Fel Reavers is that they make lots of noise (not to mention shaking the ground). They don't exactly "sneak". I've had plenty of "oh crap" moments when I had to dodge one but have never been caught. I've had guildmates get smacked while not paying attention (lots of banter ensued). And while all this is a bit inconvenient, I found that it really added to the overall sense of danger and atmosphere of the Outlands.
Of course - I play RPPVP servers anyway. I'm used to keeping my head on a swivel for danger (not that I'm always successful).
Interesting read. One thing that I don't see, however, is how it all ends up as a win for Microsoft. The whole ploy could fail and have no effect on the threats you listed at the start of your observation. It might even bring some positive light to what makes these threats so attractive to IT consumers. The only win you've noted at this point would be a weakened Novell. I'm not sure that's all that damaging. Is Novell really THAT much of a threat?
Blogs lack accountability and can't be cited in any proper journal or paper. That is the reason they are not a source. I'm curious as to what forms of media can be cited and what makes them accountable? I suspect it has less to do with the fact that, say, one form of media is a newspaper as it is a question of credibility. Not all newspapers have the same degree of credibility.
Let's attack this from a slightly different angle. Is there a difference between what Bruce Schneier writes in his blog, in his emailed newsletter, a printed version of said newsletter, or published in a book? It all comes from the same author. Does the media itself matter? Or is it the mechanism of the media that adds some value to the author's work?
You link to a blog and expect anyone to take it seriously?
Repeat after me. A blog is not a source. Sorry, but a blog IS a source. There's nothing mystical about a book, a newspaper, or a broadcast. They are all valid sources of information. It is the information itself with additional emphasis on the speaker that rates the value of that source. The only reason to put less immediate value on a blog is that blogs are available to everyone - to include a lot of unknown individuals with unknown track records and motivations. I would put Bruce Schneier above many such unknowns.
Yes, unfortunately there is many 3rd party apps, virtually a must to play, that are all windows only;( Also had to update in windows.. Back when I was playing with the Linux client, I wasn't aware of the 3rd party apps (either they weren't around at that point or I wasn't aware of them). As for updates... you just went to the FTP server and downloaded the updated Linux binary. All the fun ended when the devs who created said binary (unofficially) left and the updates ended.
Slashdot Mirror
Dvorak's shtick is to look for someone's sacred cow and throw rocks at it; he's a professional critic. And while there's always a sacred cow to be found, sometimes it seems Dvorak has a hard time finding suitable ammunition to hurl at his target and has to reach pretty far to come up with criticisms.
I would rather read observations from someone who was a little more insightful. Not that Dvorak isn't amusing sometimes (I don't follow his writing enough to tell how often this is). But it becomes a problem is when you run in to people who take him seriously.
Sure. And jails can be used to house political dissidents. And if the jails fill up, guns can be used to silence political dissidents even quicker. That doesn't mean we need to close down our jails and disarm our military and police. What it does mean is that we need to have checks to ensure that these things are used in an appropriate manner.
I watched the series in the as-aired order (the fact that I never saw them when they were on the air is a different but very important point). I liked the "out of sequence" ordering. I had no problem jumping in to the action. Watching the fur fly... noticing that there were personal interactions between these characters... and wondering what the story was. By the time the two-part "original first episode" shows up in this sequence, I found it all a treat to finally get to see who and what these people were. I'm not so sure I would have been as interested if it started with character introductions first.
Clearly there are a number of people who disagree - episode order always gets mentioned when bemoaning the failure of Firefly. Maybe its a matter of sensibilities and preference. I'm not so sure it was sabotage. At least on this point.
Keep in mind that the base debate is whether a virtualized environment is "more secure" or not. I understand where the initial idea is coming from; the ability to provide various groups with their own virtual host to configure / jeopardize. But I must admit I haven't seen anything that convinces me one box with two virtualized hosts is any more secure than two seperate hosts on two seperate boxes. The only advantages to be found is in dealing with cost and/or utility of hardware.
I like your sentiment. However, you seem to be discounting or simply forgetting the value of competition. It may seem counterintuitive but sometimes divided pools of resources put towards achieving the same goal can achieve better results than a single effort.
Often you'll have different ideas on how to solve a problem. Sometimes you can't really be sure which way is the best way until you try and implement both. Pick the successful one. The challenge is to be sure that "success" isn't due to outside influence (politics, marketing, etc.) but on purely performance issues.
On a larger scale, the challenge to competing ideas is the bureaucracy. The larger the pool of resources and individuals involved, the greater the organization and mechanism to manage said resources and individuals. These environments tend to become lumbering, unwieldy things that require a lot of resources to simply run while stifling competition and innovation.
A project at the scale of space exploration probably leads to some manner of bureaucracy. However, I'm more inclined to have smaller, battling bureaucracies rather than a single massive one... or at least the often difficult process of trying to make multiple massive bureaucracies work together.
Of course not. That would be silly. It's going to follow a young Chewbacca; his awkward years. The humiliating defeat and associated downfall that drove him out of the Wookie Chess Club. The evening of the horrible swirlie at the hands of the lacrosse team. His attempts to prove himself by hand-building R2D2. And that pinnacle moment in his life when he joins the gun club and picks up his first bowcaster.
Sounds very much like camaraderie and morale; old military standbys. Perhaps there is a good reason swearing seems to be ingrained in military culture.
I'm curious as to what security holes Warden is inducing? Last I checked, even the most vocal critics of Warden only claimed an invasion of privacy. And while that's definitely something to be concerned with, I don't see it as quite the same class as rootkits and stealth installs.
Whether Warden is even that big of a deal is an entirely different subject.
Sure - bundled software sucks. But even if I get suckered in to installing the Google toolbar or desktop, I'm willing to bet I can just as easily uninstall it. I'm betting that neither will stop me from searching using Yahoo or Ask.com. And I'm also suspecting that Google's managing to get their software bundled isn't due to them strong-arming with their lead in Internet search or online advertising. So once again we see that Google and Microsoft are apples and oranges.
Here's an exercise for you. We'll call it "switching".
Switching Search Engines:
1. URL - www.yahoo.com
2. Done.
Switching OS:
1. Backup data.
2. Wipe system, load new OS.
3. Restore data.
5. Find applications for new OS.
5.a. What do you mean that doesn't exist on this OS?
6. Try to find applicable replacement
7. Try to access data
7.a. What do you mean you're still trying to figure out how that data file works?
Switching Browsers:
1. Find new browser
1.a. What do you mean you're not allowed to pre-install a competitor? You won't get what discount?
2. Execute and use new browser
3. Uninstall old browser
3.a. Part of the OS? The browser?
3.b. Why does this keep trying to use the old browser? How'd it execute that drive-by install anyway?
OK - I'm being a little factitious. But the "monopoly" Google has is hardly the same as what Microsoft was convicted of. It's amusing whenever some Microsoft fanboi rants about that. The IT industry is full of industry leaders that hold strong positions in their particular market. Yet Microsoft managed to get singled out. Either we're seeing bias and conspiracy on a very large scale or Microsoft did, in fact, do something to single themselves out. The court case tends to spell out exactly what they did.
Wouldn't it have been interesting to go back in time and force Microsoft to compete on the quality of its product alone? Maybe we wouldn't have had to settle for an imperfect OS. Maybe DrDOS would have survived. Maybe OS/2 Warp might have been successful. Maybe BeOS wouldn't have been still-born (here's something to consider - Microsoft does not produce all those drivers). Maybe MacOS might have made good on all that ease-of-use Windows fanbois blather on about while the Mac Fanbois seethe over having never recaptured market share despite having delivered just that (although I suspect Apple was doomed the day IBM lost control of its platform and microcomputing hardware became a commodity market).
Maybe it's not about the OS. Maybe its about the applications. And a market that still routinely supports multiple platforms.
It's nice to say the fittest and strongest survive. It's a good story. But the tech industry proves that there are so many factors involved, especially when you get in to the sordid details of microcomputing, that "fittest and strongest" is highly subjective to say the least. Sorry if that's difficult for a Microsoft fanboi to understand. It's a difficult and complex world.
Blade Runner: The Final Cut. This time, it's personal.
Unfortunately the bullet in the head probably wasn't earned because he was a scum-sucking Internet bottom feeder but because he was a scum-sucking Internet bottom feeder who didn't pay up.
Me, myself... I got tired of trying to force my WinXP workstation to behave like a Linux box. I shrunk down the WinXP partition(s) and loaded Ubuntu. VMWare gives me access to the enterprise XP load for the few, rare times I need it. And now I do almost all my work in my favored desktop environment (better, faster, more reliably, etc.) - even operating in an environment that's heavily dominated by Microsoft.
To each their own.
I, too, am Sparticus. With money.
Linux is becoming so respected and desired as an operating system for servers that phishers & hackers are slowly turning their attention towards it being profitable. Yes and no. What this represents is simply fluctuation - nothing novel. Linux has been targeted plenty in the past. Nobody should be surprised they're being targeted now.
The presence of a monster that can sneak up behind you and kill you in two hits does NOT add to the challenge of the game, but rather, the frustration. I completely disagree. I assume you're talking about the Fel Reavers (although Devilsaur comes to mind too). The nice thing with the Fel Reavers is that they make lots of noise (not to mention shaking the ground). They don't exactly "sneak". I've had plenty of "oh crap" moments when I had to dodge one but have never been caught. I've had guildmates get smacked while not paying attention (lots of banter ensued). And while all this is a bit inconvenient, I found that it really added to the overall sense of danger and atmosphere of the Outlands.
Of course - I play RPPVP servers anyway. I'm used to keeping my head on a swivel for danger (not that I'm always successful).
Interesting read. One thing that I don't see, however, is how it all ends up as a win for Microsoft. The whole ploy could fail and have no effect on the threats you listed at the start of your observation. It might even bring some positive light to what makes these threats so attractive to IT consumers. The only win you've noted at this point would be a weakened Novell. I'm not sure that's all that damaging. Is Novell really THAT much of a threat?
Let's attack this from a slightly different angle. Is there a difference between what Bruce Schneier writes in his blog, in his emailed newsletter, a printed version of said newsletter, or published in a book? It all comes from the same author. Does the media itself matter? Or is it the mechanism of the media that adds some value to the author's work?
Repeat after me. A blog is not a source. Sorry, but a blog IS a source. There's nothing mystical about a book, a newspaper, or a broadcast. They are all valid sources of information. It is the information itself with additional emphasis on the speaker that rates the value of that source. The only reason to put less immediate value on a blog is that blogs are available to everyone - to include a lot of unknown individuals with unknown track records and motivations. I would put Bruce Schneier above many such unknowns.
And oddly enough... for a short period of time... there was a Linux version. :P