Re:It was gonna happen eventually
on
Loki Games Closing?
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Brainiac: Do you really think cheap games is the killer app that will drag down the Windows monopoly and bring users to Linux?
Most home pc owners I know don't ever do word processing. Nearly all own at least a few recent games. Selling ports of games that have already been out for windows for weeks just doesn't make good business sense, but if there were a large number of games that came out for linux first or linux only, I imagine a lot of people would switch.
Yep, apt-get is great, or so I've been told. The reason I didn't mention it in my initial post is that I don't have any experience with Debian which makes me unqualified to praise or criticise it. Since I live out in the middle of nowhere, my only internet connectivity option is a dialup account from a company that has more customers than bandwidth. When I downloaded Slackware, it took me 3 days. Because FreeBSD has impressed me more than linux in several areas besides than software management (kernel compilation, documentation, cleanness of a base install, only one "distro," etc.) I've not been in any real hurry to download and try out Debian. I probably will at some point, but it's just not a priority. I suppose it makes me a minority here, but I don't look at installing and configuring software as a means of recreation. I consider it a necessary chore in order to use my computer to read email, listen to music, surf the www and crunch numbers for certain statistical projects I'm working on. If I saw any indication that Debian could reduce that chore more effectively than FreeBSD, I'd set aside another three days. At the moment it looks like a toss-up at best, so I stick with what I have.
More like, what are rpm users missing out on? With rpm -i package.rpm the user may or may not be able to install the intended software. There could be real dependency problems, as in kde2 needs qt2. There could also be bogus dependency problems since you may have compiled qt2 from source but rpm wouldn't know about it.
Enter FreeBSD and ports. A typical FreeBSD install creates a directory called/usr/ports which is a whole tree of makefiles. So to install something, you just cd/usr/ports/category/WhateverYouWantToInstall/ && make && make install. All dependencies are taken care of automagically. The makefiles in these directories are smart enough to download whatever you need and then compile the source on your machine. So installing a new package doesn't take several hours of trolling newsgroups and searching for rpms.
But you don't have to take my word for it. Check this out.
My experience is limited to Mandrake, Slackware, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but when I need to get sh*t done, BSD, espescially FreeBSD is my first choice just because the ports tree contains nearly any software I'd want to run, eliminating the bottleneck that software installation sometimes turns into and letting me get to the task at hand.
As an aside, it seems like everything that Mandrake tries to be to "joe sixpack" who is just getting into trying linux on the desktop, BSD is to the sysadmin or programmer who needs to get a *nix platform up and running for a certain task. Compiling a custom kernel, installing software, modifying the init process, etc are at least as easy for the sysadmin on BSD as adjusting the screen fonts and changing the wallpaper are for a newbie in Mandrake.
Re:Mathematical models were based on...
on
Black Holes Disputed
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· Score: 3, Funny
I'm glad to see that the anti-MS sentiment is applicable to the science of astronomy. I'd be so disappointed if this kind of thinking was only relevant in the limited context of the software industry.
Why does not having a TV make you a better person?
I don't have a TV either. I don't believe that it makes me a better person. However, when I mention that I don't have a TV, a lot of people immediately get very defensive. Bear in mind that I don't go around advertising this fact. It's more like,
"Did you see Friends last night?"
"No, missed it."
"What, how could you miss Friends?!!" "I don't own a TV."
For whatever reason, people tend to get really defensive, as if they feel attacked. The reaction is almost exactly like when I've told pot smokers that I don't smoke pot. It's not an uncommon response for them to ask, "What? Do you think that makes you better than me?" even though I made no indication that it was a moral issue. This is the response of someone who feels guilty for their behavior, right or wrong as it may be to feel that way. In the context of such an exchange, I might actually reply, in exasperation, that not owning a TV or not smoking pot or whatever it may be really does make me a better person. I think that's where the sig comes from.
Besides, TV really does suck. Can you make any argument in favor of owning a TV? Well, it looks as though you did.
Still, it does me good to be in on the pop culture of our times. Without a TV I wouldn't be as much a part of US society.
Does this really sound that convincing to you? It's just a pretty way of saying that TV is a cultural normalizer. Have you noticed that in any given time of day, all the major networks have rather similar shows? That's because TV programming is predicated on uniformity of its audience.
If you watch a person's behavior when they shoot up smack, it's the same as when they watch TV. The eyes gloss over, the body slumps, the brain goes into an alpha state, etc. Look at how a person watches TV. What's channel surfing? It's looking for something to lull the viewer into a trance. If people really watched for content they would stick to certain shows, or just rent DVDs. That's far from the norm. The norm is to get off work and look through the channels for something to dullen the senses, just like a closet drunk looking in various hiding places around the house for a bottle stashed away. This may seem like an extreme comparison. Bear in mind that liver damage will cut a person's life by ten years perhaps. How many years do people surrender to TV, thirty minutes at a time?
Do I really think I'm better than you for not owning a TV? No. But I do feel like I'm enjoying a freedom of mind that a lot of people choose to give up in order to pass the time. Perhaps they view the choice of what to do with their free time as a burden. Maybe they are really concerned with what will happen on Survivor. I just happen not to feel that way. But if someone should get defensive with me when I tell them so, I'd probably give it right back to them.
Gnome and KDE are great if user friendly==windows98 look and feel, and if you have a fast machine with a ton of ram. To give a single example of the userfriendliness, your "main menu" in KDE or Gnome require you to move your mouse over the K or the foot, respectively. GNUstep lets you click anywhere on the background image. Additionally, in GNUstep icons are usually spaced out in a line along one screen edge so you can't possible overshoot with your mouse. Seems trivial, but it lets me work faster.
Also, GNUstep will run on some pretty old hardware. I have changed the setup lately, but I used to have KDE2 on my 900mhz duron w/ 512 MB and WindowMaker on my PII 100mhz w/ 32 MB and if you didn't actually know, you'd think the PII was faster just because the environment was so lightweight.
Not to mention Bin Laden Sr. had the contract to build the biggest us military installation in Saudi Arabia. Not that it means much. Even among anti-American Saudis, most still accept a US presence there if it keeps Hussein from interfering with their life.
"It's not a CS degree. Most CS people laugh at these people. Sorry but it's true."
Get real, friend. Going to college with bragging rights as a first priority is just silly. If you really want a reason to brag, double major in mathematics and also a foreign language (Russian would be a great choice for a self-righteous masochist since the literature component is so heavy.) On the other hand, a lot of people go to college with aspirations of actually working, in which case it would generally make sense to pursue the course of study which can be completed most quickly, so long as it would still be usable to obtain desired employment.
The terrible state of music today is a problem in itself. Sure there's good stuff out there, but the market for it is rather small. As you describe, the most profitable music is that which appeals to the proles. But Orwell got it wrong. Our hope lies not with them.
This exchange, and the general reputation TdR has garnered for himself actually cause me to have a greater respect for the project. Sure, Theo can be a bully, etc. But when I look at all the times I've given someone some verbal brutality, it was because it was something I really cared about. Harsh words never go along with complacency. As harsh as Theo has proven himself to be, I have no doubt believing he's thoroughly committed to the stated goals of the OpenBSD project. Notice, no one ever criticises his knowledge or coding skills. (I am disregarding those who complain that OpenBSD is only secure because it disables programs known to introduce touchy security issues. They may as well be complaining that OpenBSD is only secure because it's designed not to be insecure.)
If you found that a type of ID for entry to a controlled area, which was considered to be difficult or impossible to duplicate, could be easily manufactured, wouldn't you be doing the right thing to tell the agency that maintained the area and those who depended on that agency of the problem? It's just the same when you find a bug and tell the vendor and the public, or at least the purchasers of the vendor's products. Schneier doesn't advocate distributing skrip7 k1ddi3 tools, just as you probably wouldn't start selling plans for a machine to make the fake ID.
What if you were MS? How would you take it if a security researcher claimed to know of some holes in your products and discouraged buying from you. He just doesn't tell anyone what they are to stay on the right side of the law. So you take the guy to court for libel and he demonstrates that he cannot possibly receive a fair trial since presenting evidence in his favor (essentially the vulnerabilities themselves) would be in violation of whatever anti-disclosure laws you had bought.
If you read what Bruce said in his essay, you'll see that he draws a distinct line detween full disclosure and irresponsible disclosure.
"Unfortunately, (emphasis mine) the story about Linux saving Amazon millions [cnet.com] was not as bad for Microsoft as it was good for Linux."
What is so unfortunate about something not being harmful to MS? Does harming MS somehow benefit others? Somehow a large, or at least very vocal part of the linux user base thinks so. I see the same feeling in the article:
"Reproducing what is available on a Microsoft desktop will win some users, but it is not enough. It may yet turn out, however, that Microsoft's licensing will provide that impetus to switch."
Now for the authors here, I can almost see a reason to want MS to lose market share. Their readership is made almost entirely of linux users and they are operating under the assumption that for there to be more linux users, there will have to be less MS users as if the number of potential computer users were a finite quantity of persons and organizations that will use MS *or* linux.
This assumption is just wrong. Number one, a majority of those who use linux on the desktop also use windows on desktop via dual booting or have multiple machines. Secondly, this is grounded on the notion that everyone who wants to use a computer for anything is already doing so and that the odd individual who purchases his/her first pc tomorrow will not possibly be a linux user. This might be the case for someone who heads to best buy and picks up a new system with winME preinstalled, but it neglects the guy who is first introduced to computers at his linux using friend's home or the second grader who browses her first website in a volunteer supported, linux based school computer lab. These are the people who will most likely stick with linux because after a few months becoming familiar with kde, mozilla, etc, they will have litle patience to "wait while windows builds a driver information database" or reboot for every "general protection fault in crappycode.dll"
Even so, this is only beneficial to people who make their money from a linux using market. As a user who loves linux and uses it almost exclusively, I don't care how many other linux users there are. I certainly don't feel like it's *unfortunate* when something doesn't hurt MS. I use linux becaues it does what I want it to, and as long as it meets that requirement I could care less what liscense the new MS product is released under or how many people buy their products.
Good to see someone else who knows spooky games don't have to run on the PC. The scariest game I've ever played was "terror" on the C=64. The graphics were limited by today's standards, but bleeding edge as can be for the time but the sound was the real kicker. Through the entire game there was music playing, Tocatta & Fugue in D minor or something similar. Only it played really quiet, like so quiet you'd be humming the tune to yourself, not realizing it was playing. Then when the zombie or vampire jumped out, the music cranked up and you peed your pants. I don't think I was able to finish the game because it was just too freaky.
"In windows Explorer - navigate to the folder you want to remove the files from, press F3 to bring up the Find Files dialog, type in *.OBJ, hit enter, hit CTRL-A, and hit DEL (or SHIFT -DEL to bypass the recycle bin)."
I've seen several posts (perhaps all by this guy) that detail how to do something in windows, keys only. Am I the only one who wishes there were a gui environment not designed around the assumed presence of a mouse? As much as I like seeing all my progs on screen at once, the worst thing about a gui is the need for a mouse. It's just one more potential point of hardware trouble and a waste of desk space.
This ``new'' network already exists. The military already has NIPRNET which is encrypted but relies on public internet channels, SIPRNET which is for classified data and is on entirely different hardware, and JWICS which is on another bunch of hardware still for top secret data.
I'm amazed by how many people would frown on all of this. Shouldn't the government have a means of distributing data electronically without having to worry about attacks? Personally, I suport this, but I question the timing of the article.
Re:Many Hands Make Shite Work
on
Mob Software
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· Score: 1
But you see, the author of the article speaks of the many members of the mob having a similar vision. The crowd which vehemently references _the mythical man month_ assumes a priori that there is no common vision. However, when there is a common vision as to what the finished product will be, such as what happened in excellent products such as apache, the end product is typically quite excellent. That is what the article was about, not large numbers of coders, but a group of coders sharing the same vision, i.e. a mob mentality.
So how's it working for you?
How's what working?
Being a/. cynic because you're just so 1337?
The law abiding citizen would have a problem with this because it is the law abiding citizen who is made to pay for installation and maintenance of these cameras. The dollar cost of this program may not bother you but the opportunity cost should. For example, have you driven along any of GA's interstates lately? You'll notice these cameras every so many feet, but not a single streetlight. You can guess which would do more to increase public safety, but that must not have been a priority to the lawmakers in that state. However, it is a priority to me, and presumably many other law abiding citizens.
What if you have an effective means of data concealment but use a flawed implememtation? I believe that the idea was for the drives containing the pads never to be released to the public. Whether the politician or trucker goofs, it's an error in implementation, not method. I can't think of any computer security methods which are secure against errors in implementation. The original poster didn't imply that this idea was either. Personally, this is one of the most interesting ideas I've ever seen on/. or elsewhere.
Hmm, well I'm a little confused as to why the parent was modded up so much. How long till ebay gets r00ted..it's just bound to happen any day now. Now that's informative. Ahem... But when this sort of thing happens and every l33t whitehat starts barking up the OpenBSD tree, don't let it give you the wrong idea. Every OS has it's zealots but OpenBSD isn't just secure by default in the the same sense as cp/m, i.e. deaf on all ports. It's also secure in the sense that when you set up some services you don't have to install a bunch of patches and service packs, etc. whenever you install it.
Anyway, as I read it, your illustration only amounts to saying that OpenBSD can potentially be made insecure by the sysadmin. Well if that's one of your criteria for evaluating an OS's security model, I can see why OpenBSD is inadequate. However the security model of an OS is only a small factor in the security model of a business. Some company like Amazon would probably keep their www servers all running in a DMZ and the less sensitive part their customer database behind a firewall. More sensitive parts of their customer dbase (cc numbers, shippng addresses, etc.) could conceivably be stored on servers connected to the internet only via sneakernet. Point is, only a poor admin would rely on the strength of the OS alone as a means to secure data.
Re:Read the article, kids
on
Got Tracks?
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· Score: 1
Friction != Force * Coefficient of friction. Think racecar tires, etc. The formula you quote is a lot like f=kx where f=force, k = a spring const and x = stretching distance. It's useful in clasrooms, but not elsewhere. Really, friction depends upon the maximum amount of resistance which can occur per sqare inch. At a most basic level, think of two calibrated flat guage blocks in contact. Surface area determines how many atoms of steel are able to to resist motion and once there is enough pressure to result in the contact surfaces bonding on a molecular level (not much pressure is actually needed) the only thing that would increase friction would be more surface area.
"Not only is it theft and burgluray, but it's an insult to academic integrity."
So are laws making school attendance compulsory for persons who might rather not be there.
So is hiring inept IT staff.
So is using scare talk to instill a particular mentality in people who the school should be *educating*, not indoctrinating.
So is hiring a principal who commits open displays of anger.
So is giving the students busywork for a large portion of their grade so that the average kids have a way to compete with the brighter ones.
Breaking systems is a crime. Fine. But breaking systems or even a disregard for authority is a tiny problem compared to the problem of schools where the people responsible fo educating and guiding young folks are either too stupid or too complacent to perform their duties with any sort of commitment. Unfortunately, it's not a crime for school systems to do a piss poor job.
When the OpenBSD project claim so-and-so years without a root exploit in the default install, they seem to be speaking as engineers, not scientists. No code can really be said to be totally free of exploits, only to be free of discovered exploits
Besides that, OpenBSD is not the easiest system to config and maintain, especially as compared to something with a pretty gui like NT. Is that a security weakness? No. Should network admins have the skills to work with OpenBSD? Probably. Is it possible that your average admin would be too limited by having to configure everything through vi to properly secure a host? Yes.
Slashdot Mirror
Brainiac: Do you really think cheap games is the killer app that will drag down the Windows monopoly and bring users to Linux?
Most home pc owners I know don't ever do word processing. Nearly all own at least a few recent games. Selling ports of games that have already been out for windows for weeks just doesn't make good business sense, but if there were a large number of games that came out for linux first or linux only, I imagine a lot of people would switch.
Yep, apt-get is great, or so I've been told. The reason I didn't mention it in my initial post is that I don't have any experience with Debian which makes me unqualified to praise or criticise it. Since I live out in the middle of nowhere, my only internet connectivity option is a dialup account from a company that has more customers than bandwidth. When I downloaded Slackware, it took me 3 days. Because FreeBSD has impressed me more than linux in several areas besides than software management (kernel compilation, documentation, cleanness of a base install, only one "distro," etc.) I've not been in any real hurry to download and try out Debian. I probably will at some point, but it's just not a priority. I suppose it makes me a minority here, but I don't look at installing and configuring software as a means of recreation. I consider it a necessary chore in order to use my computer to read email, listen to music, surf the www and crunch numbers for certain statistical projects I'm working on. If I saw any indication that Debian could reduce that chore more effectively than FreeBSD, I'd set aside another three days. At the moment it looks like a toss-up at best, so I stick with what I have.
What exactly is the ports system?
/usr/ports which is a whole tree of makefiles. So to install something, you just cd /usr/ports/category/WhateverYouWantToInstall/ && make && make install. All dependencies are taken care of automagically. The makefiles in these directories are smart enough to download whatever you need and then compile the source on your machine. So installing a new package doesn't take several hours of trolling newsgroups and searching for rpms.
More like, what are rpm users missing out on? With rpm -i package.rpm the user may or may not be able to install the intended software. There could be real dependency problems, as in kde2 needs qt2. There could also be bogus dependency problems since you may have compiled qt2 from source but rpm wouldn't know about it.
Enter FreeBSD and ports. A typical FreeBSD install creates a directory called
But you don't have to take my word for it. Check this out.
My experience is limited to Mandrake, Slackware, FreeBSD and OpenBSD. They each have their strengths and weaknesses, but when I need to get sh*t done, BSD, espescially FreeBSD is my first choice just because the ports tree contains nearly any software I'd want to run, eliminating the bottleneck that software installation sometimes turns into and letting me get to the task at hand.
As an aside, it seems like everything that Mandrake tries to be to "joe sixpack" who is just getting into trying linux on the desktop, BSD is to the sysadmin or programmer who needs to get a *nix platform up and running for a certain task. Compiling a custom kernel, installing software, modifying the init process, etc are at least as easy for the sysadmin on BSD as adjusting the screen fonts and changing the wallpaper are for a newbie in Mandrake.
I'm glad to see that the anti-MS sentiment is applicable to the science of astronomy. I'd be so disappointed if this kind of thinking was only relevant in the limited context of the software industry.
WindowMaker just makes a Pentium seem like a PII, that's all. Yeah, that's what I meant.
My mistake. It's as you describe.
I know it's offtopic....
Why does not having a TV make you a better person?
I don't have a TV either. I don't believe that it makes me a better person. However, when I mention that I don't have a TV, a lot of people immediately get very defensive. Bear in mind that I don't go around advertising this fact. It's more like,
"Did you see Friends last night?"
"No, missed it."
"What, how could you miss Friends?!!"
"I don't own a TV."
For whatever reason, people tend to get really defensive, as if they feel attacked. The reaction is almost exactly like when I've told pot smokers that I don't smoke pot. It's not an uncommon response for them to ask, "What? Do you think that makes you better than me?" even though I made no indication that it was a moral issue. This is the response of someone who feels guilty for their behavior, right or wrong as it may be to feel that way. In the context of such an exchange, I might actually reply, in exasperation, that not owning a TV or not smoking pot or whatever it may be really does make me a better person. I think that's where the sig comes from.
Besides, TV really does suck. Can you make any argument in favor of owning a TV? Well, it looks as though you did.
Still, it does me good to be in on the pop culture of our times. Without a TV I wouldn't be as much a part of US society.
Does this really sound that convincing to you? It's just a pretty way of saying that TV is a cultural normalizer. Have you noticed that in any given time of day, all the major networks have rather similar shows? That's because TV programming is predicated on uniformity of its audience.
If you watch a person's behavior when they shoot up smack, it's the same as when they watch TV. The eyes gloss over, the body slumps, the brain goes into an alpha state, etc. Look at how a person watches TV. What's channel surfing? It's looking for something to lull the viewer into a trance. If people really watched for content they would stick to certain shows, or just rent DVDs. That's far from the norm. The norm is to get off work and look through the channels for something to dullen the senses, just like a closet drunk looking in various hiding places around the house for a bottle stashed away. This may seem like an extreme comparison. Bear in mind that liver damage will cut a person's life by ten years perhaps. How many years do people surrender to TV, thirty minutes at a time?
Do I really think I'm better than you for not owning a TV? No. But I do feel like I'm enjoying a freedom of mind that a lot of people choose to give up in order to pass the time. Perhaps they view the choice of what to do with their free time as a burden. Maybe they are really concerned with what will happen on Survivor. I just happen not to feel that way. But if someone should get defensive with me when I tell them so, I'd probably give it right back to them.
Gnome and KDE are great if user friendly==windows98 look and feel, and if you have a fast machine with a ton of ram. To give a single example of the userfriendliness, your "main menu" in KDE or Gnome require you to move your mouse over the K or the foot, respectively. GNUstep lets you click anywhere on the background image. Additionally, in GNUstep icons are usually spaced out in a line along one screen edge so you can't possible overshoot with your mouse. Seems trivial, but it lets me work faster.
Also, GNUstep will run on some pretty old hardware. I have changed the setup lately, but I used to have KDE2 on my 900mhz duron w/ 512 MB and WindowMaker on my PII 100mhz w/ 32 MB and if you didn't actually know, you'd think the PII was faster just because the environment was so lightweight.
Not to mention Bin Laden Sr. had the contract to build the biggest us military installation in Saudi Arabia. Not that it means much. Even among anti-American Saudis, most still accept a US presence there if it keeps Hussein from interfering with their life.
"It's not a CS degree. Most CS people laugh at these people. Sorry but it's true."
Get real, friend. Going to college with bragging rights as a first priority is just silly. If you really want a reason to brag, double major in mathematics and also a foreign language (Russian would be a great choice for a self-righteous masochist since the literature component is so heavy.) On the other hand, a lot of people go to college with aspirations of actually working, in which case it would generally make sense to pursue the course of study which can be completed most quickly, so long as it would still be usable to obtain desired employment.
The terrible state of music today is a problem in itself. Sure there's good stuff out there, but the market for it is rather small. As you describe, the most profitable music is that which appeals to the proles. But Orwell got it wrong. Our hope lies not with them.
This exchange, and the general reputation TdR has garnered for himself actually cause me to have a greater respect for the project. Sure, Theo can be a bully, etc. But when I look at all the times I've given someone some verbal brutality, it was because it was something I really cared about. Harsh words never go along with complacency. As harsh as Theo has proven himself to be, I have no doubt believing he's thoroughly committed to the stated goals of the OpenBSD project. Notice, no one ever criticises his knowledge or coding skills. (I am disregarding those who complain that OpenBSD is only secure because it disables programs known to introduce touchy security issues. They may as well be complaining that OpenBSD is only secure because it's designed not to be insecure.)
If you found that a type of ID for entry to a controlled area, which was considered to be difficult or impossible to duplicate, could be easily manufactured, wouldn't you be doing the right thing to tell the agency that maintained the area and those who depended on that agency of the problem? It's just the same when you find a bug and tell the vendor and the public, or at least the purchasers of the vendor's products. Schneier doesn't advocate distributing skrip7 k1ddi3 tools, just as you probably wouldn't start selling plans for a machine to make the fake ID.
What if you were MS? How would you take it if a security researcher claimed to know of some holes in your products and discouraged buying from you. He just doesn't tell anyone what they are to stay on the right side of the law. So you take the guy to court for libel and he demonstrates that he cannot possibly receive a fair trial since presenting evidence in his favor (essentially the vulnerabilities themselves) would be in violation of whatever anti-disclosure laws you had bought.
If you read what Bruce said in his essay, you'll see that he draws a distinct line detween full disclosure and irresponsible disclosure.
"Unfortunately, (emphasis mine) the story about Linux saving Amazon millions [cnet.com] was not as bad for Microsoft as it was good for Linux."
What is so unfortunate about something not being harmful to MS? Does harming MS somehow benefit others? Somehow a large, or at least very vocal part of the linux user base thinks so. I see the same feeling in the article:
"Reproducing what is available on a Microsoft desktop will win some users, but it is not enough. It may yet turn out, however, that Microsoft's licensing will provide that impetus to switch."
Now for the authors here, I can almost see a reason to want MS to lose market share. Their readership is made almost entirely of linux users and they are operating under the assumption that for there to be more linux users, there will have to be less MS users as if the number of potential computer users were a finite quantity of persons and organizations that will use MS *or* linux.
This assumption is just wrong. Number one, a majority of those who use linux on the desktop also use windows on desktop via dual booting or have multiple machines. Secondly, this is grounded on the notion that everyone who wants to use a computer for anything is already doing so and that the odd individual who purchases his/her first pc tomorrow will not possibly be a linux user. This might be the case for someone who heads to best buy and picks up a new system with winME preinstalled, but it neglects the guy who is first introduced to computers at his linux using friend's home or the second grader who browses her first website in a volunteer supported, linux based school computer lab. These are the people who will most likely stick with linux because after a few months becoming familiar with kde, mozilla, etc, they will have litle patience to "wait while windows builds a driver information database" or reboot for every "general protection fault in crappycode.dll"
Even so, this is only beneficial to people who make their money from a linux using market. As a user who loves linux and uses it almost exclusively, I don't care how many other linux users there are. I certainly don't feel like it's *unfortunate* when something doesn't hurt MS. I use linux becaues it does what I want it to, and as long as it meets that requirement I could care less what liscense the new MS product is released under or how many people buy their products.
Good to see someone else who knows spooky games don't have to run on the PC. The scariest game I've ever played was "terror" on the C=64. The graphics were limited by today's standards, but bleeding edge as can be for the time but the sound was the real kicker. Through the entire game there was music playing, Tocatta & Fugue in D minor or something similar. Only it played really quiet, like so quiet you'd be humming the tune to yourself, not realizing it was playing. Then when the zombie or vampire jumped out, the music cranked up and you peed your pants. I don't think I was able to finish the game because it was just too freaky.
"In windows Explorer - navigate to the folder you want to remove the files from, press F3 to bring up the Find Files dialog, type in *.OBJ, hit enter, hit CTRL-A, and hit DEL (or SHIFT -DEL to bypass the recycle bin)."
I've seen several posts (perhaps all by this guy) that detail how to do something in windows, keys only. Am I the only one who wishes there were a gui environment not designed around the assumed presence of a mouse? As much as I like seeing all my progs on screen at once, the worst thing about a gui is the need for a mouse. It's just one more potential point of hardware trouble and a waste of desk space.
This ``new'' network already exists. The military already has NIPRNET which is encrypted but relies on public internet channels, SIPRNET which is for classified data and is on entirely different hardware, and JWICS which is on another bunch of hardware still for top secret data.
I'm amazed by how many people would frown on all of this. Shouldn't the government have a means of distributing data electronically without having to worry about attacks? Personally, I suport this, but I question the timing of the article.
But you see, the author of the article speaks of the many members of the mob having a similar vision. The crowd which vehemently references _the mythical man month_ assumes a priori that there is no common vision. However, when there is a common vision as to what the finished product will be, such as what happened in excellent products such as apache, the end product is typically quite excellent. That is what the article was about, not large numbers of coders, but a group of coders sharing the same vision, i.e. a mob mentality.
/. cynic because you're just so 1337?
So how's it working for you?
How's what working?
Being a
yet another 60 minute download over my 57.6kbps modem
The law abiding citizen would have a problem with this because it is the law abiding citizen who is made to pay for installation and maintenance of these cameras. The dollar cost of this program may not bother you but the opportunity cost should. For example, have you driven along any of GA's interstates lately? You'll notice these cameras every so many feet, but not a single streetlight. You can guess which would do more to increase public safety, but that must not have been a priority to the lawmakers in that state. However, it is a priority to me, and presumably many other law abiding citizens.
What if you have an effective means of data concealment but use a flawed implememtation ? I believe that the idea was for the drives containing the pads never to be released to the public. Whether the politician or trucker goofs, it's an error in implementation, not method. I can't think of any computer security methods which are secure against errors in implementation. The original poster didn't imply that this idea was either. Personally, this is one of the most interesting ideas I've ever seen on /. or elsewhere.
Hmm, well I'm a little confused as to why the parent was modded up so much. How long till ebay gets r00ted..it's just bound to happen any day now. Now that's informative. Ahem... But when this sort of thing happens and every l33t whitehat starts barking up the OpenBSD tree, don't let it give you the wrong idea. Every OS has it's zealots but OpenBSD isn't just secure by default in the the same sense as cp/m, i.e. deaf on all ports. It's also secure in the sense that when you set up some services you don't have to install a bunch of patches and service packs, etc. whenever you install it.
Anyway, as I read it, your illustration only amounts to saying that OpenBSD can potentially be made insecure by the sysadmin. Well if that's one of your criteria for evaluating an OS's security model, I can see why OpenBSD is inadequate. However the security model of an OS is only a small factor in the security model of a business. Some company like Amazon would probably keep their www servers all running in a DMZ and the less sensitive part their customer database behind a firewall. More sensitive parts of their customer dbase (cc numbers, shippng addresses, etc.) could conceivably be stored on servers connected to the internet only via sneakernet. Point is, only a poor admin would rely on the strength of the OS alone as a means to secure data.
Friction != Force * Coefficient of friction. Think racecar tires, etc. The formula you quote is a lot like f=kx where f=force, k = a spring const and x = stretching distance. It's useful in clasrooms, but not elsewhere. Really, friction depends upon the maximum amount of resistance which can occur per sqare inch. At a most basic level, think of two calibrated flat guage blocks in contact. Surface area determines how many atoms of steel are able to to resist motion and once there is enough pressure to result in the contact surfaces bonding on a molecular level (not much pressure is actually needed) the only thing that would increase friction would be more surface area.
"Not only is it theft and burgluray, but it's an insult to academic integrity."
So are laws making school attendance compulsory for persons who might rather not be there.
So is hiring inept IT staff.
So is using scare talk to instill a particular mentality in people who the school should be *educating*, not indoctrinating.
So is hiring a principal who commits open displays of anger.
So is giving the students busywork for a large portion of their grade so that the average kids have a way to compete with the brighter ones.
Breaking systems is a crime. Fine. But breaking systems or even a disregard for authority is a tiny problem compared to the problem of schools where the people responsible fo educating and guiding young folks are either too stupid or too complacent to perform their duties with any sort of commitment. Unfortunately, it's not a crime for school systems to do a piss poor job.
When the OpenBSD project claim so-and-so years without a root exploit in the default install, they seem to be speaking as engineers, not scientists. No code can really be said to be totally free of exploits, only to be free of discovered exploits
Besides that, OpenBSD is not the easiest system to config and maintain, especially as compared to something with a pretty gui like NT. Is that a security weakness? No. Should network admins have the skills to work with OpenBSD? Probably. Is it possible that your average admin would be too limited by having to configure everything through vi to properly secure a host? Yes.