The alternate route is to simply make copying hard enough to deter most people (console games + mod chips) or dial home to get some nifty extra features (MMORPG's).
Actually, the alternate route might be to make the blank media cost enough that people can't be bothered. Double layer DVD media are still too expensive (comparatively) for many people I know to bother with; they either use DVDShrink or, if they like the movie enough, buy it for $15. This is probably the reason why the MPAA lobbies for media taxes in Canada.
Don't know about you, but I've got a life to live; if OpenBSD doesn't feel like offering virtualisation technology (or -in the case of WINE- compatibility functionality) then I'll simply move on and use operating systems which do.
That's fine for you. Doesn't surprise me at all. Because, though I admit I've never used OpenBSD, my understanding of its goals and ethos leads me to believe that the kind of people who want to try to run Windows applications on top of a hacked version of the Microsoft APIs were never Theo's intended market to begin with.
I understand that reality may not be quite as tidy, but it still seems like a virtualized system would be much more secure that a non-virtualized system, if only because the increased level of knowledge involved means a smaller number of hackers capable of exploiting both layers. What am I missing?
But that's just security through obscurity. You're kind of assuming a probability-based model, where the goal is to lower that X percent chance that some random hacker might wander in and decide to go at your systems. What if you know for a fact that somebody is already out to get you? What if you're in a highly competitive industry that's prone to industrial espionage? What if you're the United States government? In such cases, the fact that exploiting a vulnerability is difficult to do, and therefore not many people have the required level of skill, is not relevant. You can assume that your enemies will find those people, and then all that "much more security" instantly vanishes.
Who want's to spend $80K on a college education, and work their ass off. Then, toil for entry level wages for another 5 years, only to train their $5/hour replacements in the Ukraine, or whatever? Great "career" right?
I know. It must suck to be a scientist.
I think it's safe to say that there are better career choices.
A place for you on the Golgafrinchan B Ark is assured.
Curious: Did you not give much thought to using the Canadian product (BlackBerry) instead?
My understanding is that Canada's economy is enjoying a boom currently, in large part due to oil. But a cursory view of the world shows that oil is not a healthy basis for a strong economy/society. Why not support the local industries -- especially when the products are pretty darn exemplary?
I also use Comcast. I don't do BitTorrent that much because in the long run certain... ahem... alternatives are faster, but I just grabbed an OpenSUSE DVD the other day (no, seriously, it really was a Linux ISO) and had no problems receiving at 750KB+. I also encrypt my traffic, though. Is this why I never seem to have seen Comcast fiddling around with my transfers? Or is Comcast only applying this in certain areas so far?
This dude claims that the precipitous drop in crime in New York City is not entirely attributable to Rudy Giuliani, but may actually be due to NYC's decades-long efforts to eliminate lead exposure among children. Apparently he has been studying this topic for some time, and has found identical correlation between lead exposure and criminality in studies from nine different countries.
It's funny, I'm holding out on buying a huge-display HDTV until prices drop due to the increased production/sales volume from the forced conversion to digital.
There's probably a community college in your area that teaches courses in all of the above and beyond. The fees are low (my local community college charges $20 per class credit) and there's usually no requirement that you formally enroll, declare a major, etc. The advantage is that you have an instructor who can answer your questions, plus who assigns you homework. In my experience, the only reliable way to learn math is to do it, and it's too easy to get lazy with self-directed study.
This is actually a diabolical marketing scheme for Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray version of the movie uses branching to offer "Blade Runner" the way YOU like it. Push a button on your remote and Deckard is a replicant. Or, make him a human. In a hidden Easter egg, Sean Young runs away with the unicorn.
The week previous we had watched apocolypse now redux..this has hands down got to be one of the worst movies of all time..it is long, it is pointless and it is very very boring
Well, duh. There was never any reason to re-edit "Apocalypse Now." The changes just made the plot wander all over the place even more than it already did. Go back and watch the real, original cut.
A lot of people seem to like Robocop, but it always seemed really camp to me. A sort of robotic nazi with lipstick with homoerotic overtones...was it supposed to be like that?
So far as I know... yes, it was totally supposed to be like that.
If you watched "RoboCop" taking it dead seriously as a futuristic actioner, you missed most of the point. It's cruel, inky-black social satire. In "RoboCop," the world of the future is falling apart under the weight of its own decadence. Corporations run the show, even social services like the police and fire department. RoboCop superficially seems like a comic-book hero come to save the day, but if you stop suspending your disbelief for even a minute -- and the movie strains credibility so far that you're all but forced to do so -- it's obvious that a world "saved" by RoboCop would be a fascist nightmare. The extreme violence and gore effects only drive home the point. The world of "RoboCop" is thoroughly, utterly irredeemable -- yet disturbingly familiar -- and, just to rub salt in the wound, it's served up as a camp joke. I think it's brilliant. And, incidentally, it's a great bookend to Verhoeven's other sci-fi black satire, "Starship Troopers."
This is the first time BEA has seen $18/share since 2002 - they should look at any offer in this range as a gift from the gods. I remember talking to BEA sales reps back in 1999-2000, and man they were arrogant pricks! They were absolutely positive that you needed them waaaay worse than they needed you. Based on their latest moves, I'm not sure they've learned anything since then...
I once talked to some BEA execs at the BEA offices as a member of the trade press, maybe around 2001. The BEA folks in the room told me (paraphrasing) that they didn't really care about press publicity, because there were literally only about six CEOs in the country whom they were interested in reaching. The others were basically not worthy. Seriously -- they said this.
Re:And what is the point?
on
Cracking Go
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· Score: 1
Oh, I'm not against a novel computer program that can play Go. My objection to this is mainly that it doesn't seem particularly novel. They're trying the most obvious, least sophisticated approach of all -- a brute force attack. It's as if they've run out of options and the deadline is almost up, so they're going to devote their energy to beating the game into submission. Only...what deadline? Is "cracking" Go really so urgent? They're welcome to work on it, if they think it's worth their time. I just ask "why bother," when it sounds like they won't have achieved all that much even if they succeed. This seems like the kind of project you might work on as an undergrad, but nothing particularly newsworthy.
Re:And what is the point?
on
Cracking Go
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· Score: 1
More to the point, why not? It's a challenge, design a program / hardware solution to beat Go. By your logic, why do anything?
But isn't Go supposed to be an enjoyable pastime, fundamentally? Or perhaps, for more advanced players, an exercise in meditation? By your logic, it would make sense to invent a computer program that could use brute-force database comparisons to explain the punchline of any joke.
The GP is right to let "it is a big, red, house" bug him, because it's completely incorrect.
The serial comma, on the other hand, is still optional. You can either say "it was red, white and blue" or "it was red, white, and blue"... there is no universal standard, either in British or American English. (Personally I find it is easier to accidentally form confusing sentences if you leave the comma out, but leaving it out does not automatically make the sentence confusing.)
And what is the point?
on
Cracking Go
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· Score: 1
Exactly my thought.
Plus, why is it so important to "crack" Go, anyway? These researchers have come up with a solution that is essentially a brute-force attack for each game position, requiring a supercomputer. We all know that supercomputers can do amazing things that require unfathomable amounts of calculations. It sounds like they know that this approach would work, too -- they just aren't sure that they can build a machine powerful enough to tackle the problem in a reasonable amount of time. So how does this advance computer science? How does it advance the understanding of human intelligence? What important problems in game theory does it help to solve? More importantly, how does this help me play a nice game of Go on my laptop while I'm waiting for my flight to land? As near as I can tell, it achieves none of the above.
I've been working on my own Access-killer for a couple of years now. It's a suite of open-source, cross-platform Perl libraries, using Gtk2 for the GUI.
Hmmmm. Let's see... implement my system in Access... or implement it in Perl. Implement it in Access... or implement it in Perl. Access. Or Perl. Access. Perl. Damn, I'm going to need a couple beers to figure this one out.
Pretty stiff!? Exactly how many songs could you physically steal from a shop before you reached a $10K fine?
More than that, how many times could you punch the clerk in the face on your way out? How many days of work could you lose in jail before you were out that amount? And people still complain about welfare abusers... corporations are becoming the biggest leeches society as ever seen.
Novell networks are easier to maintain, more secure and much more stable than a Windows environment. The only areas where Windows beats (soundly) Netware is in ease of installation and application selection.
So Novell networks are great for IT managers, but lousy for end users (because of poor application selection). And it seems to me that this has been the main problem with NetWare for years and years now. I guess it depends on your organization's priorities.
Unless you absolutely must have an application that runs exclusively under Windows, there is no compelling reason to use a Microsoft network.
I'm no great fan, but I reckon for most organizations that application is Exchange. By comparison, I spent a few years sitting on a NetWare network running Lotus Notes and doing basic e-mail communication felt like operating a Cold War-era Russian submarine.
Personally, I can't stand netware. But, the did a lot of the good stuff way before MS or Sun picked up on the concepts, hence they haven't had a major reason to make any massive changes.
Except, I guess, to change it so that henceforth it runs on top of Linux.
I run Mac OS X, Windows 2003, Redhat and Suse Linux servers, and to date, no server platform has given me less downtime or fewer problems than my Netware servers.
Well guess what. When you migrate them to NetWare running on a Xen hypervisor, you're going to have some downtime.;-)
Seriously -- the "NetWare is 100 percent reliable" argument, I get that. The "change a reliable NetWare system into a different system that looks just like a NetWare system, but isn't, yet is just as reliable" argument... like I say, I'm skeptical.
Slashdot Mirror
Sure, but in this post-Columbine world, what choice do we have?
(If you don't get the reference, don't worry about it.)
Actually, the alternate route might be to make the blank media cost enough that people can't be bothered. Double layer DVD media are still too expensive (comparatively) for many people I know to bother with; they either use DVDShrink or, if they like the movie enough, buy it for $15. This is probably the reason why the MPAA lobbies for media taxes in Canada.
That's fine for you. Doesn't surprise me at all. Because, though I admit I've never used OpenBSD, my understanding of its goals and ethos leads me to believe that the kind of people who want to try to run Windows applications on top of a hacked version of the Microsoft APIs were never Theo's intended market to begin with.
But that's just security through obscurity. You're kind of assuming a probability-based model, where the goal is to lower that X percent chance that some random hacker might wander in and decide to go at your systems. What if you know for a fact that somebody is already out to get you? What if you're in a highly competitive industry that's prone to industrial espionage? What if you're the United States government? In such cases, the fact that exploiting a vulnerability is difficult to do, and therefore not many people have the required level of skill, is not relevant. You can assume that your enemies will find those people, and then all that "much more security" instantly vanishes.
I know. It must suck to be a scientist.
A place for you on the Golgafrinchan B Ark is assured.Curious: Did you not give much thought to using the Canadian product (BlackBerry) instead?
My understanding is that Canada's economy is enjoying a boom currently, in large part due to oil. But a cursory view of the world shows that oil is not a healthy basis for a strong economy/society. Why not support the local industries -- especially when the products are pretty darn exemplary?
I also use Comcast. I don't do BitTorrent that much because in the long run certain... ahem... alternatives are faster, but I just grabbed an OpenSUSE DVD the other day (no, seriously, it really was a Linux ISO) and had no problems receiving at 750KB+. I also encrypt my traffic, though. Is this why I never seem to have seen Comcast fiddling around with my transfers? Or is Comcast only applying this in certain areas so far?
This dude claims that the precipitous drop in crime in New York City is not entirely attributable to Rudy Giuliani, but may actually be due to NYC's decades-long efforts to eliminate lead exposure among children. Apparently he has been studying this topic for some time, and has found identical correlation between lead exposure and criminality in studies from nine different countries.
In any process, the total suckiness of the universe remains constant.
Ah, yes! The old "compact disc" strategy...
There's probably a community college in your area that teaches courses in all of the above and beyond. The fees are low (my local community college charges $20 per class credit) and there's usually no requirement that you formally enroll, declare a major, etc. The advantage is that you have an instructor who can answer your questions, plus who assigns you homework. In my experience, the only reliable way to learn math is to do it, and it's too easy to get lazy with self-directed study.
This is actually a diabolical marketing scheme for Blu-Ray. The Blu-Ray version of the movie uses branching to offer "Blade Runner" the way YOU like it. Push a button on your remote and Deckard is a replicant. Or, make him a human. In a hidden Easter egg, Sean Young runs away with the unicorn.
Well, duh. There was never any reason to re-edit "Apocalypse Now." The changes just made the plot wander all over the place even more than it already did. Go back and watch the real, original cut.
So far as I know ... yes, it was totally supposed to be like that.
If you watched "RoboCop" taking it dead seriously as a futuristic actioner, you missed most of the point. It's cruel, inky-black social satire. In "RoboCop," the world of the future is falling apart under the weight of its own decadence. Corporations run the show, even social services like the police and fire department. RoboCop superficially seems like a comic-book hero come to save the day, but if you stop suspending your disbelief for even a minute -- and the movie strains credibility so far that you're all but forced to do so -- it's obvious that a world "saved" by RoboCop would be a fascist nightmare. The extreme violence and gore effects only drive home the point. The world of "RoboCop" is thoroughly, utterly irredeemable -- yet disturbingly familiar -- and, just to rub salt in the wound, it's served up as a camp joke. I think it's brilliant. And, incidentally, it's a great bookend to Verhoeven's other sci-fi black satire, "Starship Troopers."
I once talked to some BEA execs at the BEA offices as a member of the trade press, maybe around 2001. The BEA folks in the room told me (paraphrasing) that they didn't really care about press publicity, because there were literally only about six CEOs in the country whom they were interested in reaching. The others were basically not worthy. Seriously -- they said this.
Oh, I'm not against a novel computer program that can play Go. My objection to this is mainly that it doesn't seem particularly novel. They're trying the most obvious, least sophisticated approach of all -- a brute force attack. It's as if they've run out of options and the deadline is almost up, so they're going to devote their energy to beating the game into submission. Only...what deadline? Is "cracking" Go really so urgent? They're welcome to work on it, if they think it's worth their time. I just ask "why bother," when it sounds like they won't have achieved all that much even if they succeed. This seems like the kind of project you might work on as an undergrad, but nothing particularly newsworthy.
But isn't Go supposed to be an enjoyable pastime, fundamentally? Or perhaps, for more advanced players, an exercise in meditation? By your logic, it would make sense to invent a computer program that could use brute-force database comparisons to explain the punchline of any joke.
The GP is right to let "it is a big, red, house" bug him, because it's completely incorrect.
... there is no universal standard, either in British or American English. (Personally I find it is easier to accidentally form confusing sentences if you leave the comma out, but leaving it out does not automatically make the sentence confusing.)
The serial comma, on the other hand, is still optional. You can either say "it was red, white and blue" or "it was red, white, and blue"
Exactly my thought.
Plus, why is it so important to "crack" Go, anyway? These researchers have come up with a solution that is essentially a brute-force attack for each game position, requiring a supercomputer. We all know that supercomputers can do amazing things that require unfathomable amounts of calculations. It sounds like they know that this approach would work, too -- they just aren't sure that they can build a machine powerful enough to tackle the problem in a reasonable amount of time. So how does this advance computer science? How does it advance the understanding of human intelligence? What important problems in game theory does it help to solve? More importantly, how does this help me play a nice game of Go on my laptop while I'm waiting for my flight to land? As near as I can tell, it achieves none of the above.
Hmmmm. Let's see
More than that, how many times could you punch the clerk in the face on your way out? How many days of work could you lose in jail before you were out that amount? And people still complain about welfare abusers ... corporations are becoming the biggest leeches society as ever seen.
So Novell networks are great for IT managers, but lousy for end users (because of poor application selection). And it seems to me that this has been the main problem with NetWare for years and years now. I guess it depends on your organization's priorities.
I'm no great fan, but I reckon for most organizations that application is Exchange. By comparison, I spent a few years sitting on a NetWare network running Lotus Notes and doing basic e-mail communication felt like operating a Cold War-era Russian submarine.Except, I guess, to change it so that henceforth it runs on top of Linux.
Well guess what. When you migrate them to NetWare running on a Xen hypervisor, you're going to have some downtime. ;-)
Seriously -- the "NetWare is 100 percent reliable" argument, I get that. The "change a reliable NetWare system into a different system that looks just like a NetWare system, but isn't, yet is just as reliable" argument ... like I say, I'm skeptical.