At least in the U.S., opinion pieces are [usually] clearly marked as such.
They sure are. Typical markings denoting an opinion piece include "CNN", "Washington Post", and "MSNBC".
Please. Take a typical news story, any news story, and tell me you honestly can't see the bias and slant. Look at the use of loaded words and phrases. There's no such thing as journalism any more; it's all opinions.
The phrase "journalistic integrity" no longer has any meaning, and those pompous and pretentious novelists who pretend they are genuine journalists should take a typical high-school journalism class to be reminded what it is they're supposed to do.
There was a batch of Deskpros which had faulty video cards. They would work fine when new, but over time the BIOS would leak power until one day you switched on and, well, it didn't switch on. You got the beep sequence informing you, "Dude, you're getting no video!". Once that happened, you were out of luck and had to RMA the card. Eventually they came out with a "patch" -- if you can consider a small Windows program which bleeps the BIOS every 24 hours to refresh the video card information a legitimate patch -- but it was useless if your card had already died.
I had a client who'd bought a batch of 70 or so and was rolling them out in lots of five at a time. Hence, every few weeks, we'd have to call Compaq and RMA the video card. Well, naturally, we had to go through the diagnostics. Even though this was a well-known and documented issue, and even though the beep sequence said exactly what was happening, and even though you would tell Compaq you'd gone through the diagnostics, you had to do it while the Compaq tech was on the line.
So eventually I figured out how to do this.
Compaq tech: "Okay, switch out the video card with a known good card and check it boots up with that one, then replace the original and see if you still have the same problem."
Me: wait for 15 seconds doing nothing, then, "Okay, done that. The other card worked fine, but I still have the same problem with the original."
Compaq tech: "Gosh, that was quick."
Me: "Yes, well, I'm, err, used to doing this by now."
Compaq tech: "Okay. Well then...um, let's reset the motherboard BIOS by..."
Me: "...switching over Jumper A17, powering up for 20 seconds, then turning it off and switching back, yeah, I know. Hang on a minute."
Sit for another 30 seconds doing nothing.
"Okay, done that, same problem."
Compaq tech: "Wow, you're really quick on this stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, well, I play the piano, I have good dexterity."
Compaq tech: "Oh..."
Quite efficient, I think: if you just pretend to do what they're asking instead of actually doing it, it goes much more quickly. This is good, right? You cut down on the call time, save the client time and money, and don't tie up the Compaq tech line either, so they're getting better call times -- yay, everyone wins!
You just had to make sure you paused long enough to make it sound plausible. No good coming back after five seconds claiming to have replaced the video card, booted up into Windows, shut down, and switched in the original video card, as well as having done a complete NT installation on the side. But there was one tech who I spoke with quite often, and he soon figured out what was going on. Fortunately, he also figured out I had at least half a clue, and if he played along it'd cut down his call times.
They have to go through the charade, poor buggers; almost feel sorry for them sometimes.
It would probably be cheaper to just send them money so they can buy new TVs.
It would also be cheaper to send them food rather than continually subsidise farmers to grow more for purely political reasons and then have to pay to destroy it. Yes, I'm off-topic and expect to be moderated as such, but this rather irritates me.
This is not an anti-US rant, either; if anything, the European Union is probably an even bigger criminal in this case.
Be assured it's just as silly here. I can't comment about Pizza Hut, but I know darn well that several fast food outlet pre-programmed droids get mighty confused when you ask for a small size of anything. "We have medium, large, extra large, and colossal -- what size would you like?"
To which I reply, "I'd like small, but you're not going to play along, are you?".
Blank stare, followed by "Medium, then, sir?"
"If that's the smallest you have, then yes."
Honestly, how stupid do you have to be to then ask me if I'd like to supersize that? Apparently, approximately as stupid as a significant proportion of American high-schoolers, who really make me want to say, "see, now, that's why you're wearing that silly hat".
Anyway, I digress. And, apart from that, I'm getting off the subject.
It's marketing, I'm sure, pure and simple. And the most depressing thing is it evidently works. Well it must, or they wouldn't keep doing it, now, would they? Yes, we really are stupid enough that we accept them calling the smallest size on the menu "medium", in blatant contradiction of all that is sensible and logical in the world, and buy drink sizes that ought to have a health warning from the surgeon general about over working your bladder and other sundry bits of internal plumbing.
You're right, this is an obvious solution. But something's puzzling me: everyone's bickering about whether it's legal and/or moral to edit the tapes, but nobody's mentioned the MovieShield device discussed halfway through the article, which allows users to select what type of material they wish to not see (eg "gore", "sexual situations") and simply blacks out such scenes. It doesn't touch the original copy, and what you're left with is something which simply automatically obscures parts you would voluntarily skip anyway.
Seems like a win-win situation. You can now watch officially sanctioned movies, not worry about the legality of tampering with the medium, and choose whether you want to see the nasty bits or not.
I should imagine this might even increase revenues a little; imagine if there was a film which interested you and was fine in most respects, but you knew had one scene which would offend you. If you have a reliable device to block that scene, you can now watch that film and not worry about it.
Why should the director complain? Pontificate all you like about "artistic vision" (and I can do it just as well as you; I'm a musician who writes original material), but the most basic function of a film-maker, musician, actor, or artist of any type is to entertain. If I decide that I want to be entertained by watching 95% of your movie, well, bully for you, that means you've done a fine job and I'm happy with most of what you've done. You might think I'm judging your work; but I contend it's a valid way to enjoy art (or films, which usually aren't the same thing, but anyway). Anyone remember "reader-response theory"?
You really don't see the difference? This isn't about the individual consumer, it's about companies editing then selling the edited works.
Just like a band doing a cover version of someone else's song, and putting it on a CD for sale. (Ever heard the reggae version of "Stairway to Heaven"?) Or doing it in a film (such as Britney Spears' cover of "I love rock and roll").
Now, from the comments above (see disclaimer at the bottom), it seems like one difference might be that in my examples you'd have to license your use. But the principle is the same, and, in the music industry at least, well-established. Why else would there be so many recordings of Beethoven's Eroica?
*Disclaimer -- I haven't read the article yet because the site is still/.ed -- but I did try!*
Exactly. It'd make a lot more sense if they compared how long the code took to run on:
* Linux servers; * Windows servers; * new UNIX servers; * Sun servers.
Okay, so it's a USA Today article, not a tech rag, but you get the point. They still should have specified how old the UNIX servers are, and perhaps how much it would cost to replace them with new UNIX servers versus the Linux servers.
So, what's the benefit of declaring war? AFAIK, congress still hasn't declared war over the World Trade Center attacks -- that's why it's still a "war on terror". Can you only declare war against a nation?
The funniest thing about those free AOL disks, IMHO, is the ever-increasing number of free hours you get which have to be used in a limited time frame.
Currently, they're up to 1025 hours for 45 days. That works out to 22 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds every day, including weekends. Short of leaving one's computer on 24 hours per day to auto-download, ahem, highly legitimate files...
I find the biggest problem I have with Ben Stiller is I can't tell the difference between him and Adam Sandler. (I wonder if they're the same person?) Both of these alleged actors annoy the tar out of me.
They're both obnoxious, loud, low-brow, pillocks, whose only discernible talent is the dubious ability to determine what will appeal most to the average eight year old boy.
But by far the most annoying thing about them is they both make far more money than me! Sods -- where is the justice?
Damn, you're joking! Where? We were just in Boston, and are actually seriously considering moving there. Regardless, we're definitely coming back -- and we need to know where this is! It's not tap, I suppose?
Hear hear -- please, do tell. I'd love to know if your tastes run up to something like, say, Theakston's Old Peculier* or Monteith's, as opposed to the standard fizzy anaesthetized brown stuff.
* And before you even sniff at my spelling, yes, that's how they spell it. So sod off.
I remember reading a newspaper article a few months ago about a town that straddles the US/CDN border. The article discussed specific people, such as a lady who lives on the US side but works on the CDN side (or the other way around), or neighbours who live across the street from each other and are in different countries.
The article then discussed some of the ramifications of this, especially in light of September 11. Before that, people were fairly relaxed about "crossing the border". Now, however, they can't afford to take such things lightly.
Moving more on topic, the article pointed to in the story mentioned a certain Iva Crider.
Iva Crider, 78, has more serious concerns. She and her husband built a house near the border 60 years ago. She'd always considered her house -- and five chicken coops -- in Rhode Island. The North Stonington survey would bump her into Connecticut.
"It's a shame. I'm a mile from the Hopkinton town hall, the post office, the police, two miles from the ambulance," says Mrs. Crider. "If they put this house in Connecticut, I'll have to sell. I can't go 15 miles [to town]. I'm in a wheelchair. After 160 years, I think they should just leave it alone."
This is someone who is facing her whole life being turned upside down for the sake of what must seem to her like purely arbitrary definitions.
Unfortunately, there's no simple question. Jurisdiction demands that these questions be defined precisely (especially in such a litigious society as America; what police officer is going to want to risk getting caught in a jurisdiction battle over disputed boundary lines when he is responding to a violent crime which may require him to draw his sidearm?). And simple politics demands that politicians protect their territory, valid or invalid, sensible or insensible.
This implies that one must be a lawyer to understand legality, and to be able to convincingly argue one's position.
I think it may imply the former, but not the latter. People are paid high salaries for the benefit of their expertise.
To put it into a perspective which may carry more weight on Slashdot, many people can understand the principles behind routers and firewalls, but rather fewer are able to competently configure same when complex scenarios are involved. Consider, for example, how many people fail their first run of the CCIE lab portion.
One may argue the semantics behind the formalization and/or certification of the knowledge required for a specialized task, but why be so demeaning? How many Slashdotters would leap to the defense were the above statement to be modified to read:
This implies that one must be a { systems engineer / network engineer / pick your label } to understand { WAN configurations / how to configure a firewall / pick your prized specialized skill }.
There's a difference between understanding something and knowing how to apply knowledge in an expert fashion. Don't demean skills that you don't understand or appreciate.
I know it's not really the same thing, but it kind of is. Um.
How often do you rebuild the desktop on your Macs? (Very nice of them to give that option as a built-in part of the OS, I must say.) From The Essential Mac:
The desktop is part of your computer's internal filing system. The desktop information is actually stored in two invisible desktop files (Desktop DB and Desktop DF). The Desktop file/database holds all the information necessary to associate each file with the application that created it. It lets the system know what application should be launched when you open a given file and what icons it should display where. Depending on its size each application has one or more representatives in the desktop file. As applications and files move on and off your hard disk, the Desktop file must keep track of all this relocation -- that can leave the Desktop file bloated and it can become corrupted. Every so often it's necessary to start with a clean slate. You do that by rebuilding the desktop.
I had this with one of the afore-mentioned companies a few months ago. (I'm a coward and don't want to get into trouble, so I won't mention names.) They got e-mail addresses for every listed contact from our whois record, and sent off letters to anyone for whom they could find an address, warning that our domain name registration was about to expire.
Including our CEO.
Who, not understanding what it was, and also not realizing that I'd only just renewed the domain name for five years and we weren't in any danger of losing our domain name until 2007, passed it on to the secretary with instructions to pay the bill.
Now, in fairness, the letter is cunningly worded, and probably can't be technically construed as slamming; it gives you the option. But, hoo boy, is it slimey!
The first I knew about it was when I started getting automated e-mails from our original registrar asking me to go through certain steps to authorize the name transfer. I tracked down what was happening, and got on the phone to Dom. Reg. of ***.
Forget the long, boring, tedious arguments. And the appalling insolence and downright rudeness of their people. Just a few points...
* They're used to complaints. Despite their protestation that I was only the second person who'd ever complained about this, as soon as you mention the word slamming they've got a rehearsed speech about the wording of paragraph five which they quote to prove it's not slamming. Uh-huh. Try doing a Google search on them and see if it's that rare a complaint. * They're unhelpful buggers. No matter when I called, I was always told that nobody who was there could help me with my complaint, and I'd have to call back.
In the end, it works out okay. All you have to do is not authorize the transfer and they can't do anything about it, and they have to refund your money. Except for a processing fee. Trust me -- I argued and bitched and generally made a nuisance of myself by pointing out there was nothing in any of the correspondence we'd received or on their website about a processing fee, and we got the money back.
But believe me; there is one company who is now boycotted for life in my books.
But it's rather more dubious to void your warranty by installing a chip deliberately designed to bypass copy protection and allow owners to run pirated games. Therein lies the problem for this chap...
Amateur. The BOFH would ruthlessly torment the user by resetting the password to something vaguely resembling line noise before he'd even sniffed the first lager of the day.
The one thing the internet has that prevents massive worm penetration is heterogenality(sic). When nimbda (sic) came out it was windows boxes. This did not effect (sic) apache/*nix boxen(sic).
However, Code Red did"affect Cisco 600 series DSL routers by inadvertently triggering a previously published vulnerability" (my emphasis). And, if I remember correctly, I think it also affected some HP print servers, too.
Operating systems are complex. Routers use operating systems, as do dedicated print servers, and many other electronic devices. Even if a device or operating system is not specifically targeted, it can still be inadvertently hit when connected to a world-wide Internet.
By the way...any statistics on how many smug Windows-loathing administrators aren't up to date with the patches for their routers, print servers, managed switches, firewalls, etc.?
The problem is that the article doesn't specify if it was with the user's consent or not. And, if it was (for example, if consent was obtained through plea-bargaining), then it can't be considered a hack.
The article brings up several more interesting points, referring to a/. beloved case, for example.
The United States, too, is guilty of trying to extend its reach.
A U.S. copyright law was used to jail a Russian programmer in California for writing software that was legal in his country. He was later freed, but charges remain against his Russian employer.
They also talk about how they had to wait for him to attend a conference in Las Vegas before they could do anything. It seems like the laws of jurisdiction are beginning to show holes of inadequacy: just how do you deal with the global village?
But guess what -- there's even more. I double-checked this next bit when I first read it, just to make sure.
And because a large part of Internet traffic goes through the United States -- even if both sender and recipient live elsewhere -- last fall's anti-terrorism bill lets the Justice Department prosecute foreign hackers when they attack computers anywhere in the world.
Leaving aside cracks about UUNET for the moment, can you imagine the complexities of trying to enforce something like this if you are dealing with an unfriendly country that doesn't like to extradite to the U.S.? And while other countries may not be in quite the same boat as the U.S. with regards to Internet traffic hosting, let's not forget it's all going somewhere -- depending on where you're sending your traffic, it can go through several different countries before reaching its final destination. And each of those countries has its own complex legal system.
This is already a big problem (several other points mentioned in the article indicate this: e.g. the Yahoo Auctions/Nazi memoribilia difficulty), and will only get worse. Wait for the big ruckus to ensue when it's decided a world court is needed to supervise these issues and the U.S. is only one amongst many countries that refuse to accept any exterior jurisdiction (a la the World Crimes Court). The thing is that most of the world can actually agree on what constitutes a war crime against humanity -- but how do you cope with deciding if a page in cyberspace constitutes a crime when you've got as many options on what's legal and illegal as you do countries in the world?
Slashdot Mirror
At least in the U.S., opinion pieces are [usually] clearly marked as such.
They sure are. Typical markings denoting an opinion piece include "CNN", "Washington Post", and "MSNBC".
Please. Take a typical news story, any news story, and tell me you honestly can't see the bias and slant. Look at the use of loaded words and phrases. There's no such thing as journalism any more; it's all opinions.
The phrase "journalistic integrity" no longer has any meaning, and those pompous and pretentious novelists who pretend they are genuine journalists should take a typical high-school journalism class to be reminded what it is they're supposed to do.
There was a batch of Deskpros which had faulty video cards. They would work fine when new, but over time the BIOS would leak power until one day you switched on and, well, it didn't switch on. You got the beep sequence informing you, "Dude, you're getting no video!". Once that happened, you were out of luck and had to RMA the card. Eventually they came out with a "patch" -- if you can consider a small Windows program which bleeps the BIOS every 24 hours to refresh the video card information a legitimate patch -- but it was useless if your card had already died.
I had a client who'd bought a batch of 70 or so and was rolling them out in lots of five at a time. Hence, every few weeks, we'd have to call Compaq and RMA the video card. Well, naturally, we had to go through the diagnostics. Even though this was a well-known and documented issue, and even though the beep sequence said exactly what was happening, and even though you would tell Compaq you'd gone through the diagnostics, you had to do it while the Compaq tech was on the line.
So eventually I figured out how to do this.
Compaq tech: "Okay, switch out the video card with a known good card and check it boots up with that one, then replace the original and see if you still have the same problem."
Me: wait for 15 seconds doing nothing, then, "Okay, done that. The other card worked fine, but I still have the same problem with the original."
Compaq tech: "Gosh, that was quick."
Me: "Yes, well, I'm, err, used to doing this by now."
Compaq tech: "Okay. Well then...um, let's reset the motherboard BIOS by..."
Me: "...switching over Jumper A17, powering up for 20 seconds, then turning it off and switching back, yeah, I know. Hang on a minute."
Sit for another 30 seconds doing nothing.
"Okay, done that, same problem."
Compaq tech: "Wow, you're really quick on this stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, well, I play the piano, I have good dexterity."
Compaq tech: "Oh..."
Quite efficient, I think: if you just pretend to do what they're asking instead of actually doing it, it goes much more quickly. This is good, right? You cut down on the call time, save the client time and money, and don't tie up the Compaq tech line either, so they're getting better call times -- yay, everyone wins!
You just had to make sure you paused long enough to make it sound plausible. No good coming back after five seconds claiming to have replaced the video card, booted up into Windows, shut down, and switched in the original video card, as well as having done a complete NT installation on the side. But there was one tech who I spoke with quite often, and he soon figured out what was going on. Fortunately, he also figured out I had at least half a clue, and if he played along it'd cut down his call times.
They have to go through the charade, poor buggers; almost feel sorry for them sometimes.
It would probably be cheaper to just send them money so they can buy new TVs.
It would also be cheaper to send them food rather than continually subsidise farmers to grow more for purely political reasons and then have to pay to destroy it. Yes, I'm off-topic and expect to be moderated as such, but this rather irritates me.
This is not an anti-US rant, either; if anything, the European Union is probably an even bigger criminal in this case.
Be assured it's just as silly here. I can't comment about Pizza Hut, but I know darn well that several fast food outlet pre-programmed droids get mighty confused when you ask for a small size of anything. "We have medium, large, extra large, and colossal -- what size would you like?"
To which I reply, "I'd like small, but you're not going to play along, are you?".
Blank stare, followed by "Medium, then, sir?"
"If that's the smallest you have, then yes."
Honestly, how stupid do you have to be to then ask me if I'd like to supersize that? Apparently, approximately as stupid as a significant proportion of American high-schoolers, who really make me want to say, "see, now, that's why you're wearing that silly hat".
Anyway, I digress. And, apart from that, I'm getting off the subject.
It's marketing, I'm sure, pure and simple. And the most depressing thing is it evidently works. Well it must, or they wouldn't keep doing it, now, would they? Yes, we really are stupid enough that we accept them calling the smallest size on the menu "medium", in blatant contradiction of all that is sensible and logical in the world, and buy drink sizes that ought to have a health warning from the surgeon general about over working your bladder and other sundry bits of internal plumbing.
You're right, this is an obvious solution. But something's puzzling me: everyone's bickering about whether it's legal and/or moral to edit the tapes, but nobody's mentioned the MovieShield device discussed halfway through the article, which allows users to select what type of material they wish to not see (eg "gore", "sexual situations") and simply blacks out such scenes. It doesn't touch the original copy, and what you're left with is something which simply automatically obscures parts you would voluntarily skip anyway.
Seems like a win-win situation. You can now watch officially sanctioned movies, not worry about the legality of tampering with the medium, and choose whether you want to see the nasty bits or not.
I should imagine this might even increase revenues a little; imagine if there was a film which interested you and was fine in most respects, but you knew had one scene which would offend you. If you have a reliable device to block that scene, you can now watch that film and not worry about it.
Why should the director complain? Pontificate all you like about "artistic vision" (and I can do it just as well as you; I'm a musician who writes original material), but the most basic function of a film-maker, musician, actor, or artist of any type is to entertain. If I decide that I want to be entertained by watching 95% of your movie, well, bully for you, that means you've done a fine job and I'm happy with most of what you've done. You might think I'm judging your work; but I contend it's a valid way to enjoy art (or films, which usually aren't the same thing, but anyway). Anyone remember "reader-response theory"?
You really don't see the difference? This isn't about the individual consumer, it's about companies editing then selling the edited works.
/.ed -- but I did try!*
Just like a band doing a cover version of someone else's song, and putting it on a CD for sale. (Ever heard the reggae version of "Stairway to Heaven"?) Or doing it in a film (such as Britney Spears' cover of "I love rock and roll").
Now, from the comments above (see disclaimer at the bottom), it seems like one difference might be that in my examples you'd have to license your use. But the principle is the same, and, in the music industry at least, well-established. Why else would there be so many recordings of Beethoven's Eroica?
*Disclaimer -- I haven't read the article yet because the site is still
I think it's "Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", encompassing England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
Exactly. It'd make a lot more sense if they compared how long the code took to run on:
* Linux servers;
* Windows servers;
* new UNIX servers;
* Sun servers.
Okay, so it's a USA Today article, not a tech rag, but you get the point. They still should have specified how old the UNIX servers are, and perhaps how much it would cost to replace them with new UNIX servers versus the Linux servers.
I loathe these alleged journalists.
So, what's the benefit of declaring war? AFAIK, congress still hasn't declared war over the World Trade Center attacks -- that's why it's still a "war on terror". Can you only declare war against a nation?
No worries -- that's already been accomplished.
Out of 34 votes, 0% positive, 100% negative votes. Can't get much lower than that, now, can you?
Hey, NeoNapster, any comments? That's gotta be mighty embarrassing.
The funniest thing about those free AOL disks, IMHO, is the ever-increasing number of free hours you get which have to be used in a limited time frame.
Currently, they're up to 1025 hours for 45 days. That works out to 22 hours 46 minutes 40 seconds every day, including weekends. Short of leaving one's computer on 24 hours per day to auto-download, ahem, highly legitimate files...
Ugh. Sounds like a great reason to stay off AOL at all costs.
What, you don't have enough reasons already?
I find the biggest problem I have with Ben Stiller is I can't tell the difference between him and Adam Sandler. (I wonder if they're the same person?) Both of these alleged actors annoy the tar out of me.
They're both obnoxious, loud, low-brow, pillocks, whose only discernible talent is the dubious ability to determine what will appeal most to the average eight year old boy.
But by far the most annoying thing about them is they both make far more money than me! Sods -- where is the justice?
Damn, you're joking! Where? We were just in Boston, and are actually seriously considering moving there. Regardless, we're definitely coming back -- and we need to know where this is! It's not tap, I suppose?
Hear hear -- please, do tell. I'd love to know if your tastes run up to something like, say, Theakston's Old Peculier* or Monteith's, as opposed to the standard fizzy anaesthetized brown stuff.
* And before you even sniff at my spelling, yes, that's how they spell it. So sod off.
I remember reading a newspaper article a few months ago about a town that straddles the US/CDN border. The article discussed specific people, such as a lady who lives on the US side but works on the CDN side (or the other way around), or neighbours who live across the street from each other and are in different countries.
The article then discussed some of the ramifications of this, especially in light of September 11. Before that, people were fairly relaxed about "crossing the border". Now, however, they can't afford to take such things lightly.
Moving more on topic, the article pointed to in the story mentioned a certain Iva Crider.
Iva Crider, 78, has more serious concerns. She and her husband built a house near the border 60 years ago. She'd always considered her house -- and five chicken coops -- in Rhode Island. The North Stonington survey would bump her into Connecticut.
"It's a shame. I'm a mile from the Hopkinton town hall, the post office, the police, two miles from the ambulance," says Mrs. Crider. "If they put this house in Connecticut, I'll have to sell. I can't go 15 miles [to town]. I'm in a wheelchair. After 160 years, I think they should just leave it alone."
This is someone who is facing her whole life being turned upside down for the sake of what must seem to her like purely arbitrary definitions.
Unfortunately, there's no simple question. Jurisdiction demands that these questions be defined precisely (especially in such a litigious society as America; what police officer is going to want to risk getting caught in a jurisdiction battle over disputed boundary lines when he is responding to a violent crime which may require him to draw his sidearm?). And simple politics demands that politicians protect their territory, valid or invalid, sensible or insensible.
This implies that one must be a lawyer to understand legality, and to be able to convincingly argue one's position.
I think it may imply the former, but not the latter. People are paid high salaries for the benefit of their expertise.
To put it into a perspective which may carry more weight on Slashdot, many people can understand the principles behind routers and firewalls, but rather fewer are able to competently configure same when complex scenarios are involved. Consider, for example, how many people fail their first run of the CCIE lab portion.
One may argue the semantics behind the formalization and/or certification of the knowledge required for a specialized task, but why be so demeaning? How many Slashdotters would leap to the defense were the above statement to be modified to read:
This implies that one must be a { systems engineer / network engineer / pick your label } to understand { WAN configurations / how to configure a firewall / pick your prized specialized skill }.
There's a difference between understanding something and knowing how to apply knowledge in an expert fashion. Don't demean skills that you don't understand or appreciate.
I know it's not really the same thing, but it kind of is. Um.
How often do you rebuild the desktop on your Macs? (Very nice of them to give that option as a built-in part of the OS, I must say.) From The Essential Mac:
The desktop is part of your computer's internal filing system. The desktop information is actually stored in two invisible desktop files (Desktop DB and Desktop DF). The Desktop file/database holds all the information necessary to associate each file with the application that created it. It lets the system know what application should be launched when you open a given file and what icons it should display where. Depending on its size each application has one or more representatives in the desktop file. As applications and files move on and off your hard disk, the Desktop file must keep track of all this relocation -- that can leave the Desktop file bloated and it can become corrupted. Every so often it's necessary to start with a clean slate. You do that by rebuilding the desktop.
And of course if you've never read the BOFH stories, you're missing out.
You're welcome.
Preen, preen...
I had this with one of the afore-mentioned companies a few months ago. (I'm a coward and don't want to get into trouble, so I won't mention names.) They got e-mail addresses for every listed contact from our whois record, and sent off letters to anyone for whom they could find an address, warning that our domain name registration was about to expire.
Including our CEO.
Who, not understanding what it was, and also not realizing that I'd only just renewed the domain name for five years and we weren't in any danger of losing our domain name until 2007, passed it on to the secretary with instructions to pay the bill.
Now, in fairness, the letter is cunningly worded, and probably can't be technically construed as slamming; it gives you the option. But, hoo boy, is it slimey!
The first I knew about it was when I started getting automated e-mails from our original registrar asking me to go through certain steps to authorize the name transfer. I tracked down what was happening, and got on the phone to Dom. Reg. of ***.
Forget the long, boring, tedious arguments. And the appalling insolence and downright rudeness of their people. Just a few points...
* They're used to complaints. Despite their protestation that I was only the second person who'd ever complained about this, as soon as you mention the word slamming they've got a rehearsed speech about the wording of paragraph five which they quote to prove it's not slamming. Uh-huh. Try doing a Google search on them and see if it's that rare a complaint.
* They're unhelpful buggers. No matter when I called, I was always told that nobody who was there could help me with my complaint, and I'd have to call back.
In the end, it works out okay. All you have to do is not authorize the transfer and they can't do anything about it, and they have to refund your money. Except for a processing fee. Trust me -- I argued and bitched and generally made a nuisance of myself by pointing out there was nothing in any of the correspondence we'd received or on their website about a processing fee, and we got the money back.
But believe me; there is one company who is now boycotted for life in my books.
But it's rather more dubious to void your warranty by installing a chip deliberately designed to bypass copy protection and allow owners to run pirated games. Therein lies the problem for this chap...
Yes, AND the "mod chips" he was selling were deliberately designed to bypass the copy protection, thereby enabling user to run pirated games.
As mrbill says
If he didnt know *that* was illegal, he's full of it.
Amateur. The BOFH would ruthlessly torment the user by resetting the password to something vaguely resembling line noise before he'd even sniffed the first lager of the day.
The one thing the internet has that prevents massive worm penetration is heterogenality (sic) . When nimbda (sic) came out it was windows boxes. This did not effect (sic) apache/*nix boxen (sic) .
However, Code Red did "affect Cisco 600 series DSL routers by inadvertently triggering a previously published vulnerability" (my emphasis). And, if I remember correctly, I think it also affected some HP print servers, too.
Operating systems are complex. Routers use operating systems, as do dedicated print servers, and many other electronic devices. Even if a device or operating system is not specifically targeted, it can still be inadvertently hit when connected to a world-wide Internet.
By the way...any statistics on how many smug Windows-loathing administrators aren't up to date with the patches for their routers, print servers, managed switches, firewalls, etc.?
The problem is that the article doesn't specify if it was with the user's consent or not. And, if it was (for example, if consent was obtained through plea-bargaining), then it can't be considered a hack.
/. beloved case, for example.
The article brings up several more interesting points, referring to a
The United States, too, is guilty of trying to extend its reach.
A U.S. copyright law was used to jail a Russian programmer in California for writing software that was legal in his country. He was later freed, but charges remain against his Russian employer.
They also talk about how they had to wait for him to attend a conference in Las Vegas before they could do anything. It seems like the laws of jurisdiction are beginning to show holes of inadequacy: just how do you deal with the global village?
But guess what -- there's even more. I double-checked this next bit when I first read it, just to make sure.
And because a large part of Internet traffic goes through the United States -- even if both sender and recipient live elsewhere -- last fall's anti-terrorism bill lets the Justice Department prosecute foreign hackers when they attack computers anywhere in the world.
Leaving aside cracks about UUNET for the moment, can you imagine the complexities of trying to enforce something like this if you are dealing with an unfriendly country that doesn't like to extradite to the U.S.? And while other countries may not be in quite the same boat as the U.S. with regards to Internet traffic hosting, let's not forget it's all going somewhere -- depending on where you're sending your traffic, it can go through several different countries before reaching its final destination. And each of those countries has its own complex legal system.
This is already a big problem (several other points mentioned in the article indicate this: e.g. the Yahoo Auctions/Nazi memoribilia difficulty), and will only get worse. Wait for the big ruckus to ensue when it's decided a world court is needed to supervise these issues and the U.S. is only one amongst many countries that refuse to accept any exterior jurisdiction (a la the World Crimes Court). The thing is that most of the world can actually agree on what constitutes a war crime against humanity -- but how do you cope with deciding if a page in cyberspace constitutes a crime when you've got as many options on what's legal and illegal as you do countries in the world?