> You can debate DJB's personal approach to security, but you cannot fault his priorities.
Concur. Even beyond that, there's still plenty to respect about the software as well, that many folks don't bother thinking about.
True, Dr. Berstein can be a screaming asshole at times. However, if you RTFA, you'll see that even screaming assholes can learn from their mistakes, and Dr. Berstein has learned from some of his -- even to the point of acknowledging that he was saved from one of his mistakes only by a lack of bugs.
True, his software operates in a fundamentally different way than most daemons you're used to dealing with. That doesn't make it bad or evil or stupid, merely different. On the other hand, if you can't handle things that are different, you shouldn't try to simultaneously administer Samba and Apache, since they're different from one another as well.
False, his software isn't "undocumented." There are excellent resources available on the net (and at your local bookstore) for the software. The fact that Dr. Berstein didn't write them doesn't mean they're not useful. When in doubt, consult eg thedjbway or qmail.org or LWQ (Dave Sill's excellent howto, which is actively supported on the mailing list) or LWDJBDNS.
True, the people on the mailing lists can seem to be assholes. However, it has been my experience that if I scrupulously adhere to ESR's suggestions on How To Ask Smart Questions, I get much more helpful responses than when I do not. On the occasions when I've needed to go to the mailing list for help, when I failed to be clear and intelligent, I got useless garbage back. When I ask intelligent questions, I get back answers that either tell me what the mistake I made was, or (more often) point me in the right direction so I can solve the problem myself. Sometimes, just writing the question up will reveal the problem to me. If you don't like that, it's not a flaw in the software -- it's a flaw in your thinking.
There are lots of reasons I use djb software, but the most important is this: Once it's set up, I can forget it. In seven years of running qmail, I've once had to seriously jack with it after getting it going, and on that occasion I can't say definitively the flaw was in qmail (but I can say definitively that the trigger was me and my not paying attention to the box). I've never had to update for a security hole for either qmail or djbdns. It is one less thing to have to jack with, and I have plenty of other things that need my attention.
Big news expected.*This stock will implode!* Do not wait until it is too late!!! LOOK AND WATCH SCOX THIS MONDAY
New news expected next week. Expected 7 day price -$1.10 Last time they put out major news the stock ran like shit down a toddler's leg!
(SYMBOL: SCOX) Price: $.20 Short Term Target: 300-500% Loss
*******PRESS RELEASE****** **SCOX****SCOX****SCOX**** = A $1,000 dollar investment could yield a $5,000 dollar trip around the toilet bowl in just one trade if you trade out before you hit the water trap. SCOX should be one of the most exciting stocks to trade for Sept, if you like roller coasters that only go down! In this range the stock has potential to move in the nether direction in big concrete shoes!!!! This means you should be able to buy at the lows and sell even lower, if you can get the fuck out of the way of this oncoming train fast enough! Did we tell you you've been tied to the track!!!!!!!!!!
If the company is able to effectuate it's business model, WATCH OUT!!! We could see a GREAT STORY IN THE MAKING. Uproariously funny and documented all over the web for everyone to see!!!!
GOOD LUCK AND TRADE OUT BEFORE YOU HIT THE WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY!
> it's easy to prove adulthood, by demanding a credit-card check.
That is a defense in American statutory law, but not in practice. There are any number of outlets where anyone of any age with a sufficient amount of cash may buy a Visa gift card. I once sent an 8 year old to do it and he came back to me with a legally-purchased, fully working card I used to buy a subscription to a porn site.
Indeed, Visa specifically prohibits using a Visa card number as an age verification mechanism in their Rules for Merchants:
"The merchant must not use the account number for age verification or any purpose other than payment."
(Approximately 60% of adult industry transactions carried our by credit card on the net are carried out with Visa cards.) cite
Even if Visa permitted such a use, the merchant fees make it unworkable: Visa charges a percentage of every transaction, and the acquiring bank charges a fee as well, generally anything from a quarter to a dollar per transaction, PLUS a percentage, ranging anywhere from 2.3% to 15% of the ticket price, depending on a lot of factors they won't tell you about. This means that it simply isn't economical to use credit cards as a verification mechanism: It costs the merchant too much. To make a credit card transaction pay for itself, the merchant must make enough profit on the transaction to cover the fee, and if there's no fee, there's no profit one can use to cover the cost of the transaction, so it's a money-losing proposition.
So, right now, there is no way to effectively prove age, either adult or minor, on the internet. None.
Now if you really want to be somebody, get an honorary degree from Harvard outside of normal commencement exercises. You join this list of luminaries (plus a few others nobody born after World War II has heard of):
> How would you like the FBI showing up at your door because some data mining program thinks that you are probably going to protest a visit to your hometown by the president?
The kind doctor says, "We will begin with the obvious problem that they are treating autism as a single disorder."
There's a good discussion at National Institutes of Mental Health that provides something of an overview about the wide variety of behaviors you'll see.
My own son has been classified as "high-functioning autistic" by some physicians and medical practitioners, but not others. We've gone through the usual battery of testing, including MRIs, physical and behavioral exams, and enough blood tests that would bring a vampire to orgasm.
The truth is that, at least for the medium term (the next 20 years), we'll need to consider how to bring non-magic bullet therapies to these children, and then -- holy shit! -- continue to offer these people support well into their adulthood. My own son is very young, but I'm hearing horror stories of autistic children turning 18 or 21, and they and their families being left in a wilderness to fend for themselves, unable to cope with everyday living without support that's too expensive to provide because the person with the disorder no longer meets eligibility criteria.
The other issue to recall is that Census hires hundreds or thousands of contractors nationwide to actually carry out Census Bureau surveys (which are often conducted on behalf of, and paid for by, other government agencies). I once did a housing survey for Census that was actually being used by HUD. The reason for this is that Census has the skill and experience in doing large-scale surveys that other agencies don't have; it is a more effective use of resources to let the experts do their thing than reinvent the wheel. For once, a government practice that makes some sense.
While generally these contractors are hard-working, honest Americans (citizenship is frequently a requirement), stuff happens. One of the laptops in the quoted statistic was mine; it was stolen out of my locked car parked around a corner from my respondent, while I stood at somebody's door asking about how many bedrooms they have. This isn't anybody's fault (except the thief), it is simply one of those things that happens.
A certain amount of loss or damage to any office asset is to be expected over a period of five or six years, and this is especially true of any asset that is fragile, mobile, has a high perceived value, and can generally be mistreated through being dropped, thrown around, spilled on, etc.
The fact that even seemingly large numbers of units disappear over a period of several years doesn't mean anything by itself, especially if the parent is right in its figures. A 1% loss is well within the limits of what should be acceptable. As a percentage, we lose at least that many paperclips out of any given box.
... but the kid has a judgement hanging over her. They can't enforce against her until she turns 18, but after that they can make her life miserable.
I'm amazed that the judge permitted a default judgment against a minor in the first place, but then in civil courts you don't have rights, you merely have privleges that you pay for.
costs more than either. First cell company to unlimited minutes for $50 a month wins my cash vote.
They win. Coverage areas are limited, as they are a new launch and they are apparently building out their network. Even so, in the limited places where they offer service, this price point -- unlimited airtime for $45/mo -- has arrived.
Even more fun, there's no contract and no activation fee. While the phones aren't portable to other carriers (CDMA) and the selection of handsets is limited, that will change in time and you can, of course, port your old number.
Is that why I, with my CS degree, ten years experience on the phones, and enough certified paper to wallpaper a bedroom, can't get an interview in the computer industry at all? Because I need a degree and experience?
- ABC gets things of value to it. - NBC gets things of value to it. - Michaels and Madden gets something they want. - NBC/Universal unloads something that has no value to it -- Oswold -- and gives it to Disney (owner of ABC), who sees value in it, in return for things that NBC values.
Trading contracts like this happens all the time in the professional world, most visably in professional sorts, where it's called a trade.
There's absolutely nothing evil going on here. Which is a change for Disney, I know, but everybody has their moments.
MP3 audiobook rental at http://www.kitabe.com./ They mail them to you, along with a post-paid mailer to return them in. Variable monthly fee based on how many books you have out at a time, starts at $13/mo. Turn-around is about four days, since it goes by first class mail. I have a subscription, and love it.
I believe very firmly that this election is already decided. It was rigged months ago.
In 1988, I (would have) voted for Michael Dukakis. Instead, of course, George Bush Sr. won that election. But we were all pretty much willing to get on with life and live with Bush as our president, agree or not, because we believed in the fundamental fairness of the election that put Bush in power.
In 2000, a significant portion of the electorate though that the election was "stolen." It has resulted in four years of bitter political division, the likes of which haven't been seen since Vietnam.
I could accept the winner this year -- Bush or Kerry -- if I thought that the electoral process that selects the winner exhibits fundamental principles of fairness. Even if my candidate loses, it wouldn't be nearly so big a deal for me as some, if I thought that, within the framework of the fucked-up rules we have for this in the States, the winner had won fairly.
I don't think that will be the case. I believe I know who the winner will be; I believe it was decided months ago; I believe that we will see massive complaints of voter (read minority) indimidation and fraud; I believe that the courts will be used to enforce this rigging; and I believe that the next election won't be any better, no matter who inherits the Bush political machine.
I'm also reasonably confident that the next president will be Dennis Hastert, because both the Republicans and Democrats will keep the process so tied up in litigation that January 20 will come and go without a clear victor declared; Bush's and Cheney's terms will expire, and with no qualified person to take over, we'll be left with the constitutional stand-in -- the Speaker of the House. (In the unlikely event the House flips to the Democrats, the next president will be Nancy Pelosi, but the chances of that are something akin to George Bush saying going to Iraq was a mistake.)
... myDSLprovider apparently won't allow competingdslproviders to service my line, even though I have DSL service and it's supposed to be competative.
This means that I'm stuck with being required to have a POTS line, unless I want to dump DSL and go back to cable where the service is so bad the administrators can't manage to keep DHCP servers online (and have been having trouble with them for two years running).
So much for the utility of VOIP for me.
I'm obviously in the 10% of campuses. I was informed last week that I'm not permitted to bring my laptop onto campus at all, even if I don't connect it to the wired network.
And the wireless network used to exist, but it was taken down because (holy shit!) students were sitting out in the parking lot using it.
Slashdot Mirror
"Everything, asshole and up."
It's obvious you've never been on a jury. You're too smart.
Concur. Even beyond that, there's still plenty to respect about the software as well, that many folks don't bother thinking about.
True, Dr. Berstein can be a screaming asshole at times. However, if you RTFA, you'll see that even screaming assholes can learn from their mistakes, and Dr. Berstein has learned from some of his -- even to the point of acknowledging that he was saved from one of his mistakes only by a lack of bugs.
True, his software operates in a fundamentally different way than most daemons you're used to dealing with. That doesn't make it bad or evil or stupid, merely different. On the other hand, if you can't handle things that are different, you shouldn't try to simultaneously administer Samba and Apache, since they're different from one another as well.
False, his software isn't "undocumented." There are excellent resources available on the net (and at your local bookstore) for the software. The fact that Dr. Berstein didn't write them doesn't mean they're not useful. When in doubt, consult eg thedjbway or qmail.org or LWQ (Dave Sill's excellent howto, which is actively supported on the mailing list) or LWDJBDNS.
True, the people on the mailing lists can seem to be assholes. However, it has been my experience that if I scrupulously adhere to ESR's suggestions on How To Ask Smart Questions, I get much more helpful responses than when I do not. On the occasions when I've needed to go to the mailing list for help, when I failed to be clear and intelligent, I got useless garbage back. When I ask intelligent questions, I get back answers that either tell me what the mistake I made was, or (more often) point me in the right direction so I can solve the problem myself. Sometimes, just writing the question up will reveal the problem to me. If you don't like that, it's not a flaw in the software -- it's a flaw in your thinking.
There are lots of reasons I use djb software, but the most important is this: Once it's set up, I can forget it. In seven years of running qmail, I've once had to seriously jack with it after getting it going, and on that occasion I can't say definitively the flaw was in qmail (but I can say definitively that the trigger was me and my not paying attention to the box). I've never had to update for a security hole for either qmail or djbdns. It is one less thing to have to jack with, and I have plenty of other things that need my attention.
Big news expected.*This stock will implode!*
.20
Do not wait until it is too late!!!
LOOK AND WATCH SCOX THIS MONDAY
New news expected next week.
Expected 7 day price -$1.10
Last time they put out major news the stock ran like shit down a toddler's leg!
(SYMBOL: SCOX)
Price: $
Short Term Target: 300-500% Loss
*******PRESS RELEASE******
**SCOX****SCOX****SCOX**** =
A $1,000 dollar investment could yield a $5,000 dollar trip around the toilet bowl in just one trade if you trade out before you hit the water trap. SCOX should be one of the most exciting stocks to trade for Sept, if you like roller coasters that only go down! In this range the stock has potential to move in the nether direction in big concrete shoes!!!! This means you should be able to buy at the lows and sell even lower, if you can get the fuck out of the way of this oncoming train fast enough! Did we tell you you've been tied to the track!!!!!!!!!!
If the company is able to effectuate it's business model, WATCH OUT!!! We could see a GREAT STORY IN THE MAKING. Uproariously funny and documented all over the web for everyone to see!!!!
GOOD LUCK AND TRADE OUT BEFORE YOU HIT THE WASTE TREATMENT FACILITY!
That is a defense in American statutory law, but not in practice. There are any number of outlets where anyone of any age with a sufficient amount of cash may buy a Visa gift card. I once sent an 8 year old to do it and he came back to me with a legally-purchased, fully working card I used to buy a subscription to a porn site.
Indeed, Visa specifically prohibits using a Visa card number as an age verification mechanism in their Rules for Merchants:
"The merchant must not use the account number for age verification or any purpose other than payment."
(Approximately 60% of adult industry transactions carried our by credit card on the net are carried out with Visa cards.) cite
Even if Visa permitted such a use, the merchant fees make it unworkable: Visa charges a percentage of every transaction, and the acquiring bank charges a fee as well, generally anything from a quarter to a dollar per transaction, PLUS a percentage, ranging anywhere from 2.3% to 15% of the ticket price, depending on a lot of factors they won't tell you about. This means that it simply isn't economical to use credit cards as a verification mechanism: It costs the merchant too much. To make a credit card transaction pay for itself, the merchant must make enough profit on the transaction to cover the fee, and if there's no fee, there's no profit one can use to cover the cost of the transaction, so it's a money-losing proposition.
So, right now, there is no way to effectively prove age, either adult or minor, on the internet. None.
- George Washington
- Marquis de Lafyette
- James Monroe
- Andrew Jackson
- Winston Churchill
- Nelson Mandela
That's real company.> How would you like the FBI showing up at your door because some data mining program thinks that you are probably going to protest a visit to your hometown by the president?
In my case it was the Secret Service.
> University's are not completely stupid
You've obviously never been to mine.
The kind doctor says, "We will begin with the obvious problem that they are treating autism as a single disorder."
There's a good discussion at National Institutes of Mental Health that provides something of an overview about the wide variety of behaviors you'll see.
My own son has been classified as "high-functioning autistic" by some physicians and medical practitioners, but not others. We've gone through the usual battery of testing, including MRIs, physical and behavioral exams, and enough blood tests that would bring a vampire to orgasm.
The truth is that, at least for the medium term (the next 20 years), we'll need to consider how to bring non-magic bullet therapies to these children, and then -- holy shit! -- continue to offer these people support well into their adulthood. My own son is very young, but I'm hearing horror stories of autistic children turning 18 or 21, and they and their families being left in a wilderness to fend for themselves, unable to cope with everyday living without support that's too expensive to provide because the person with the disorder no longer meets eligibility criteria.
I still hope Timothy Mrs. Frisby are happy in their new home, though.
The other issue to recall is that Census hires hundreds or thousands of contractors nationwide to actually carry out Census Bureau surveys (which are often conducted on behalf of, and paid for by, other government agencies). I once did a housing survey for Census that was actually being used by HUD. The reason for this is that Census has the skill and experience in doing large-scale surveys that other agencies don't have; it is a more effective use of resources to let the experts do their thing than reinvent the wheel. For once, a government practice that makes some sense.
While generally these contractors are hard-working, honest Americans (citizenship is frequently a requirement), stuff happens. One of the laptops in the quoted statistic was mine; it was stolen out of my locked car parked around a corner from my respondent, while I stood at somebody's door asking about how many bedrooms they have. This isn't anybody's fault (except the thief), it is simply one of those things that happens.
A certain amount of loss or damage to any office asset is to be expected over a period of five or six years, and this is especially true of any asset that is fragile, mobile, has a high perceived value, and can generally be mistreated through being dropped, thrown around, spilled on, etc.
The fact that even seemingly large numbers of units disappear over a period of several years doesn't mean anything by itself, especially if the parent is right in its figures. A 1% loss is well within the limits of what should be acceptable. As a percentage, we lose at least that many paperclips out of any given box.
> Ordinary devices like electronics have smoke in them.
That is because your electronics are insufficiently advanced.
if you don't donate your spare cash to the EFF, you're just going to waste it on booze.
too bad we can't waste it on girls.
... but the kid has a judgement hanging over her. They can't enforce against her until she turns 18, but after that they can make her life miserable.
I'm amazed that the judge permitted a default judgment against a minor in the first place, but then in civil courts you don't have rights, you merely have privleges that you pay for.
and we do not condone vigilantie justice, like hunting these bastards down and ripping their legs off and beating them with them ... why?
> Adults of sound mind do not have a legal guardian.
Unless you're in school. Every student, even the ones who can vote, must have a guardian.
It is possible that you can become your own guardian, but this is unusual.
They win. Coverage areas are limited, as they are a new launch and they are apparently building out their network. Even so, in the limited places where they offer service, this price point -- unlimited airtime for $45/mo -- has arrived.
Even more fun, there's no contract and no activation fee. While the phones aren't portable to other carriers (CDMA) and the selection of handsets is limited, that will change in time and you can, of course, port your old number.
Is that why I, with my CS degree, ten years experience on the phones, and enough certified paper to wallpaper a bedroom, can't get an interview in the computer industry at all? Because I need a degree and experience?
Thanks. No.
From TFA: 1/3 of the traffic on the net is P2P traffic.
That means that only 2/3 of net traffic is spam?
This has all the hallmarks of a good deal.
- ABC gets things of value to it.
- NBC gets things of value to it.
- Michaels and Madden gets something they want.
- NBC/Universal unloads something that has no value to it -- Oswold -- and gives it to Disney (owner of ABC), who sees value in it, in return for things that NBC values.
Trading contracts like this happens all the time in the professional world, most visably in professional sorts, where it's called a trade.
There's absolutely nothing evil going on here. Which is a change for Disney, I know, but everybody has their moments.
MP3 audiobook rental at http://www.kitabe.com./ They mail them to you, along with a post-paid mailer to return them in. Variable monthly fee based on how many books you have out at a time, starts at $13/mo. Turn-around is about four days, since it goes by first class mail. I have a subscription, and love it.
Spammers don't like this, but they don't care what I want. Why should I care what they want?
I believe very firmly that this election is already decided. It was rigged months ago.
In 1988, I (would have) voted for Michael Dukakis. Instead, of course, George Bush Sr. won that election. But we were all pretty much willing to get on with life and live with Bush as our president, agree or not, because we believed in the fundamental fairness of the election that put Bush in power.
In 2000, a significant portion of the electorate though that the election was "stolen." It has resulted in four years of bitter political division, the likes of which haven't been seen since Vietnam.
I could accept the winner this year -- Bush or Kerry -- if I thought that the electoral process that selects the winner exhibits fundamental principles of fairness. Even if my candidate loses, it wouldn't be nearly so big a deal for me as some, if I thought that, within the framework of the fucked-up rules we have for this in the States, the winner had won fairly.
I don't think that will be the case. I believe I know who the winner will be; I believe it was decided months ago; I believe that we will see massive complaints of voter (read minority) indimidation and fraud; I believe that the courts will be used to enforce this rigging; and I believe that the next election won't be any better, no matter who inherits the Bush political machine.
I'm also reasonably confident that the next president will be Dennis Hastert, because both the Republicans and Democrats will keep the process so tied up in litigation that January 20 will come and go without a clear victor declared; Bush's and Cheney's terms will expire, and with no qualified person to take over, we'll be left with the constitutional stand-in -- the Speaker of the House. (In the unlikely event the House flips to the Democrats, the next president will be Nancy Pelosi, but the chances of that are something akin to George Bush saying going to Iraq was a mistake.)
This means that I'm stuck with being required to have a POTS line, unless I want to dump DSL and go back to cable where the service is so bad the administrators can't manage to keep DHCP servers online (and have been having trouble with them for two years running). So much for the utility of VOIP for me.
I'm obviously in the 10% of campuses. I was informed last week that I'm not permitted to bring my laptop onto campus at all, even if I don't connect it to the wired network.
And the wireless network used to exist, but it was taken down because (holy shit!) students were sitting out in the parking lot using it.
Bastion of education, that.
The AC who submitted this story must not have been rasterman. The text is actually comprehensible.