And listened to the presentations. Although this study took a very long time, they had some good findings. The person who posted this review to Taco had obviously not read the report, focusing instead on the more obvious aspects. One of the most important parts of this report was their recommendation that the DNS be policed/not/ by the government but by a private industry, especially considering that the Department of Commerce is in a special role in governing ICANN. Additionally, they recommend against ICANN becoming bogged down by politics, focusing exclusively on the running of the DNS.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Even with my misuse of "intelligible". The one thing I take issue with is being devoid of hope for _anything_ that will be touched by Bush & Co. -- there are still some good things happening out there, even with the PATRIOT Act, the (now-defunct, IIRC) Total Information Awareness program and other things of that ilk. Not that I feel up to naming the good things right now; it's always much easier to concentrate on (and remember) the bad.
That's quite possibly the most inane sentiment I've ever heard. If you'd taken two seconds to research this, you would've realized two things:
1. The PITAC was actually created by President Clinton. The council appointed while Clinton was in office stayed there until 2002, which, I might note, is minimally a year after Bush took office.
2. The PITAC is composed of real, interesting, professional people who collectively have a huge breadth of experience in the industry. Having been appointed to the PITAC while Bush was in office does absolutely nothing to diminish their credentials.
Realize that I'm not sticking up for Bush, but I'm sticking up for the PITAC and pointing out that your blanket comment was completely off the mark and ridiculous. It's that sort of knee-jerk idiocy that helps Bush's supporters write off all of his opponents as worthless. Stop, take a second, and think; when you come back with a halfway intelligible response I'll be ready to listen.
Ever heard of this concept? The simplest explanation is probably the best one. Let's start out with Area 51 being a "secret military base" that "doesn't officially exist". Area 51 exists, is acknowledged to exist, and is generally known as an Air Force base. So what could their motivation here be? Probably that they're tired of a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists trying to get a photo of the "aliens" on the base. The idea that Area 51 is a government hoax is ridiculous. Anyone who works or has worked for the US Federal Gov't knows the insane levels of bureacracy that you have to deal with on a daily basis, and you don't get thinking anywhere near that creative from the federal government. Let's stop making such a hugely asinine deal about this. Get out of your basement and stop wearing your x-files t-shirts around.
So the idea of a vending machine for software isn't necessarily the greatest, as consumers tend to go for tangible products as opposed to something in a black box. How to solve this sort of thing? Simple. Have the boxes out, don't include the software in the boxes, let the consumer check them out (as normal) at the register, and then have the clerk burn them. Potential problems? Burning time, obviously, especially if the consumer is on a time crunch or buying multiple software products. Up-to-date docs going with up-to-date software also might be a bit of a pain, but those might be included on the CD and the original, printed manual might also be included, maybe in a shrinkwrapped package or something. The nice thing, though, is that they don't have to download and install the latest patches for the software when they get home, CD keys can be generated automatically, and consumers still have a tangible product that they can keep. Also, if you steal one of the boxes, you just get some documentation and nothing that might actually cost real money to the store.
... is the only way to save people from these things. If you give them a tutorial instead of simply installing things on their computer (for example, you don't have to click 'yes' when a website wants to install something, and you should never open email attachments that you're not expecting -- that sort of thing), you'll equip them with something much more powerful than a firewall or a virus scanner. This obviously holds for people other than your parents. Try to keep them informed -- I realize that most people don't really want to know too many things about using computers, but you should explain to them that using the internet's similar to driving in that if you don't know safety rules, you could end up seriously hurt.
... the most important indie games of the internet's history - MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs and the like. They incorporate written and linguistic creativity, roleplaying, imagination, don't require any special software other than generic telnet, can be played on the oldest of links and, most importantly, are often free:) Try a good one at hypercube.org:9000, or many others at www.mudconnector.com.
Amen to that. Neither closed nor open source software are inherently more secure -- you can have a terribly programmed open source program which is fifty times more buggy than any commercial program; the only difference here is that a buggy open source program can, possibly, be peer-reviewed and fixed. (Note that having a lazy/apathetic maintainer of the project can, and does, happen.) Although I'm a huge advocate of open-source software in terms of security, it's for the same reason that cryptographers publish their algorithms: peer review helps one not only find and fix flaws in one's program, thereby improving one's own skills, but also helps the peer reviewers by giving them experience with secure programming practice in the field.
Not to be an asshole, but: Has anyone here even considered the fact that viewing this list requires Excel to be installed? There could be worms or VBScript or any sort of malicious code inside of that waiting to execute and no would would be the wiser. Although (hopefully) most of the people here have secured their Excel installations from things like that, the fact remains that it seems like a stupidly good way for people to distribute worms -- post on slashdot, millions of geeks will click and some are _bound_ to have holes. Don't put up links to this kind of stuff anymore, please. It's irresponsible.
Yeah, but that distinction is, at least, intuitively stupid. Tech support sucks (I did it for my university for a year), but couching it in terms people understand (such as "the little black 3.5 inch disk that sticks in the front of the computer next to the CD slot") makes it easier on both you and the enduser. Using the term "floppy" for people who aren't technically inclined is confusing at best unless you want to get into the history of the floppy disk, and most people really don't care that much. They just want their damn computer to work. However, I actually have to say that the worst experience I've had doing techsupport was for people who _think_ they know what they're doing and _really don't_. I had people call up to complain about how their connections were slow and start rambling about some nonsensical meter they were using which, in all actuality, had nothing to do with the connection. Ugh.
Honestly. That was, quite possibly, one of the most mind-numbing articles I've ever read in my life. It was bland -- not telling me anything that was even remotely interesting -- and it was very, very poorly written. If you're going to criticize RedHat for not including programs or features in the OS, please, at least, do a little research as to why they're doing this and tell people how they can do the same. Can we please keep from posting schlock on this site? I've been reading Slashdot for a long time now, and articles like these are starting to dissuade me.
We just don't have the processing power now. Any CS major who's taken a logic class knows that it's incredibly hard to sift the useful bits of information from the nonuseful - and there's no algorithm that can really be programmed to do that, short of one that iterates through every possible permutation of information it has at its disposal... Taking into account the fact that there are billions of bits of information out there, this would take forever. So yes, theoretically, computers could think logically, but it would take them forever to actually get anything useful done. Their processing power right now just isn't enough to do anything short of extremely basic logical proofs. Even Big Blue, which is often cited by these alarmists, was just really a machine that was built specifically to play chess, programmed with huge amounts of input from chess experts from around the world, and given massively parallel hardware so that it could essentially calculate moves extremely deep into the game. It wasn't thinking; merely computing using huge stores of knowledge. And Kasparov _still_ beat it the first time he went up against it - the IBM team had to go and reprogram it before the second match.
So, what I'm trying to get at is the fact that there's no way in Hell that robots will ever be able to take over the human race in the forseeable future.
This isn't that amazing, really; Simpsons philosophy classes have been out there forever. I think I recall hearing about one at Stanford a few years back (and on here, no less!). I'm surprised that this made Slashdot, and even more susprised at some of the reactions that people are having. The Simpsons are an excellent way to teach philosophy; in fact, in my class this semester, quite a few people actually used the Simpsons as topics for the 15-page term paper at the end of the year (things like analysis of the Bart Loses His Soul episode, which really do get philosophical if you bring in some outside sources and philosophers).
If anyone's interested, there's even a book, called The Simpsons and Philosophy - the D'oh! of Homer.
You neglect to mention the fact that many 802.11b cards nowadays support 128-bit WEP encryption. This is much better security than the unencrypted links that people (stupidly!) leave open. Granted, it isn't nearly as secure as fiber, but I think that 802.11b with a high gain antenna would probably be in this school's best interests. You can even check out http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/Primestar/Prime star.html for a page that tells how to use an old Primestar dish for a 10 mile full 11mbps link, and http://www.antennasystems.com/broadband.html has a list of lots of different antennas that might also be helpful.
If you can tell, I've been doing a lot of research for antennas for my home 802.11b LAN...:P
Just to let y'all know, I had a previous post along these lines and figured that it was relevant: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21544&cid=2279 948
When I woke up this morning, I heard sirens going off all over the place. I had no idea what was going on, but as soon as I got up my roommate was running into the room yelling about the Pentagon being bombed. We looked out our window and saw black smoke billowing out across the city, and decided to see what it was.
There were all manner of different people clustering to see what was going on - there were tourists from Russia, reporters, agents from every conceivable branch of the government en route to the Pentagon. We saw a number of generals standing in the shade outside of it, and there were military personnel all over the place. Most of the streets were blocked off, too. Pennsylvania Avenue was strangely devoid of traffic, and I know that at this point they aren't letting anything remotely near the White House.
I figured that I'd add that there have been a number of bomb threats going off around the city - most notably to me at the Marvin Center at the George Washington University, because that's where I tend to get food. They evacuated the Center and shut down the entire school for the day - you can see the University's warning message at http://www.gwu.edu/~virtual/message.html
Oh yes, and while I was walking to and from the Pentagon, my friends and I happened to see - or at least we believe we did - Marine 1, the President's personal chopper. Seeing as he wasn't in DC at the time, it was probably Cheney or some other officials checking out the damage. It was a damn sight to see - the chopper was accompanied by a fighter plane, and it is ENOURMOUS. The thing is easily bigger than you'd ever think it could be.
I just wanted tos ay that I was at the Pentagon this morning, and that everything there seems to be like it's very well under control. There were a bunch of different people there watching the flames be put out - TV stations and such, as well as tourists and residents who, like me, wanted to see what the hell was going on.
Probably the most interesting thing that happened was talking to one of the officers who works at the Pentagon. She told me not to get any nearer (which I declined to listen to) and then said, I don't know if this was a joke or not, that I should try to stay alive so I could serve the country. God save us if we have to go to war!
DC is currently in a state of emergency, and almost all the streets are closed - it's pretty eerie. I walked by the state department, and the whole thing is shut down. There are cops and agents from every sort of government department everywhere - you literally can't go a block without seeing a handful sitting around or directing traffic or doing whatever they do. Washingtonians are being pretty calm, though, so there aren't any riots or looting or anything like that.
Just to give another view on the situation here in DC:)
I've read this book many many times over, and I have to say that a lot of the dialogue is straight from the book. I can see that they've made a lot of changes, but it's not like they're changes that could've been helped (of course, Paul meeting the Princess at dinner was ridiculous). It's a FAR better attempt at Dune than the movie with Jurgen Prochnow was in. Although it may not be as great as reading the novel, you have to remember that translating a novel onto the television's going to lose/something/ along the way. I think most notable in the book is the thought processes of the characters, and the level of complexity of plot and intrigue. Of course, some of these things had to be cut out because they would make 1.) thoroughly boring TV, 2.) would take up too much time, and 3.) would be barely feasible. (Would you/really/ like to hear Paul thinking for minutes on end or Jessica muse back to her time as an apprentice at the Bene Gesserit school? No? I didn't think so. These things don't see on TV.)
So yes, some of the liberties they've taken may be little off-the-wall, and nothing will ever compare with the book itself, but they're doing a damn fine job of making it interesting to the TV crowd.
And they actually/did/ have ornithopters - the Harkonnens were piloting them, though:P
I can't say more good things about XFree86 4. Why? Primarily, because I can run programs that utilize GL along with my Riva TNT2-based card. Although the driver isn't open-source (write a nice letter to nvidia, please), it works well enough that I don't have to reboot to windows to play Quake. This, in my opinion, is one of the best things that could have happened to X. Anyway, just my $0.02
It says that it's going to ship with Mozilla installed... I wonder if this company is contributing any development to the browser? And I also wonder if the release date of this will be subject to Mozilla's completion.
The reason for this should be pretty obvious... They don't want people leaking answers to the tests. If that were to happen, what worth would the exam be? Anyone who had taken the exam could sell info to the highest bidder. At the very least, this gives Red Hat the means to prosecute someone doing this, and makes it happening less likely.
Slashdot Mirror
And listened to the presentations. Although this study took a very long time, they had some good findings. The person who posted this review to Taco had obviously not read the report, focusing instead on the more obvious aspects. One of the most important parts of this report was their recommendation that the DNS be policed /not/ by the government but by a private industry, especially considering that the Department of Commerce is in a special role in governing ICANN. Additionally, they recommend against ICANN becoming bogged down by politics, focusing exclusively on the running of the DNS.
I agree with you wholeheartedly. Even with my misuse of "intelligible". The one thing I take issue with is being devoid of hope for _anything_ that will be touched by Bush & Co. -- there are still some good things happening out there, even with the PATRIOT Act, the (now-defunct, IIRC) Total Information Awareness program and other things of that ilk. Not that I feel up to naming the good things right now; it's always much easier to concentrate on (and remember) the bad.
That's quite possibly the most inane sentiment I've ever heard. If you'd taken two seconds to research this, you would've realized two things:
1. The PITAC was actually created by President Clinton. The council appointed while Clinton was in office stayed there until 2002, which, I might note, is minimally a year after Bush took office.
2. The PITAC is composed of real, interesting, professional people who collectively have a huge breadth of experience in the industry. Having been appointed to the PITAC while Bush was in office does absolutely nothing to diminish their credentials.
Realize that I'm not sticking up for Bush, but I'm sticking up for the PITAC and pointing out that your blanket comment was completely off the mark and ridiculous. It's that sort of knee-jerk idiocy that helps Bush's supporters write off all of his opponents as worthless. Stop, take a second, and think; when you come back with a halfway intelligible response I'll be ready to listen.
Yes, there will -- light refreshments will be served beginning at 7:30 :)
Ever heard of this concept? The simplest explanation is probably the best one. Let's start out with Area 51 being a "secret military base" that "doesn't officially exist". Area 51 exists, is acknowledged to exist, and is generally known as an Air Force base. So what could their motivation here be?
Probably that they're tired of a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists trying to get a photo of the "aliens" on the base. The idea that Area 51 is a government hoax is ridiculous. Anyone who works or has worked for the US Federal Gov't knows the insane levels of bureacracy that you have to deal with on a daily basis, and you don't get thinking anywhere near that creative from the federal government.
Let's stop making such a hugely asinine deal about this. Get out of your basement and stop wearing your x-files t-shirts around.
So the idea of a vending machine for software isn't necessarily the greatest, as consumers tend to go for tangible products as opposed to something in a black box. How to solve this sort of thing?
Simple. Have the boxes out, don't include the software in the boxes, let the consumer check them out (as normal) at the register, and then have the clerk burn them.
Potential problems? Burning time, obviously, especially if the consumer is on a time crunch or buying multiple software products. Up-to-date docs going with up-to-date software also might be a bit of a pain, but those might be included on the CD and the original, printed manual might also be included, maybe in a shrinkwrapped package or something.
The nice thing, though, is that they don't have to download and install the latest patches for the software when they get home, CD keys can be generated automatically, and consumers still have a tangible product that they can keep. Also, if you steal one of the boxes, you just get some documentation and nothing that might actually cost real money to the store.
Just my $0.02.
... is the only way to save people from these things. If you give them a tutorial instead of simply installing things on their computer (for example, you don't have to click 'yes' when a website wants to install something, and you should never open email attachments that you're not expecting -- that sort of thing), you'll equip them with something much more powerful than a firewall or a virus scanner. This obviously holds for people other than your parents. Try to keep them informed -- I realize that most people don't really want to know too many things about using computers, but you should explain to them that using the internet's similar to driving in that if you don't know safety rules, you could end up seriously hurt.
... the most important indie games of the internet's history - MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs and the like. They incorporate written and linguistic creativity, roleplaying, imagination, don't require any special software other than generic telnet, can be played on the oldest of links and, most importantly, are often free :)
Try a good one at hypercube.org:9000, or many others at www.mudconnector.com.
Amen to that. Neither closed nor open source software are inherently more secure -- you can have a terribly programmed open source program which is fifty times more buggy than any commercial program; the only difference here is that a buggy open source program can, possibly, be peer-reviewed and fixed. (Note that having a lazy/apathetic maintainer of the project can, and does, happen.) Although I'm a huge advocate of open-source software in terms of security, it's for the same reason that cryptographers publish their algorithms: peer review helps one not only find and fix flaws in one's program, thereby improving one's own skills, but also helps the peer reviewers by giving them experience with secure programming practice in the field.
Not to be an asshole, but:
Has anyone here even considered the fact that viewing this list requires Excel to be installed? There could be worms or VBScript or any sort of malicious code inside of that waiting to execute and no would would be the wiser. Although (hopefully) most of the people here have secured their Excel installations from things like that, the fact remains that it seems like a stupidly good way for people to distribute worms -- post on slashdot, millions of geeks will click and some are _bound_ to have holes.
Don't put up links to this kind of stuff anymore, please. It's irresponsible.
Yeah, but that distinction is, at least, intuitively stupid. Tech support sucks (I did it for my university for a year), but couching it in terms people understand (such as "the little black 3.5 inch disk that sticks in the front of the computer next to the CD slot") makes it easier on both you and the enduser.
Using the term "floppy" for people who aren't technically inclined is confusing at best unless you want to get into the history of the floppy disk, and most people really don't care that much. They just want their damn computer to work.
However, I actually have to say that the worst experience I've had doing techsupport was for people who _think_ they know what they're doing and _really don't_. I had people call up to complain about how their connections were slow and start rambling about some nonsensical meter they were using which, in all actuality, had nothing to do with the connection. Ugh.
Seriously:
I would rate your comment 'funny' if I had moderator status.
Unfortunately, I don't.
Honestly.
That was, quite possibly, one of the most mind-numbing articles I've ever read in my life. It was bland -- not telling me anything that was even remotely interesting -- and it was very, very poorly written. If you're going to criticize RedHat for not including programs or features in the OS, please, at least, do a little research as to why they're doing this and tell people how they can do the same.
Can we please keep from posting schlock on this site? I've been reading Slashdot for a long time now, and articles like these are starting to dissuade me.
By passing a variable, cmdrtaco=1, to the slashcode engine, all text is passed through the TPE ("Taco Parsing Engine") and is subsequently misspelled.
We just don't have the processing power now. Any CS major who's taken a logic class knows that it's incredibly hard to sift the useful bits of information from the nonuseful - and there's no algorithm that can really be programmed to do that, short of one that iterates through every possible permutation of information it has at its disposal... Taking into account the fact that there are billions of bits of information out there, this would take forever. So yes, theoretically, computers could think logically, but it would take them forever to actually get anything useful done. Their processing power right now just isn't enough to do anything short of extremely basic logical proofs. Even Big Blue, which is often cited by these alarmists, was just really a machine that was built specifically to play chess, programmed with huge amounts of input from chess experts from around the world, and given massively parallel hardware so that it could essentially calculate moves extremely deep into the game. It wasn't thinking; merely computing using huge stores of knowledge. And Kasparov _still_ beat it the first time he went up against it - the IBM team had to go and reprogram it before the second match.
So, what I'm trying to get at is the fact that there's no way in Hell that robots will ever be able to take over the human race in the forseeable future.
This isn't that amazing, really; Simpsons philosophy classes have been out there forever. I think I recall hearing about one at Stanford a few years back (and on here, no less!). I'm surprised that this made Slashdot, and even more susprised at some of the reactions that people are having. The Simpsons are an excellent way to teach philosophy; in fact, in my class this semester, quite a few people actually used the Simpsons as topics for the 15-page term paper at the end of the year (things like analysis of the Bart Loses His Soul episode, which really do get philosophical if you bring in some outside sources and philosophers).
If anyone's interested, there's even a book, called The Simpsons and Philosophy - the D'oh! of Homer.
You neglect to mention the fact that many 802.11b cards nowadays support 128-bit WEP encryption. This is much better security than the unencrypted links that people (stupidly!) leave open. Granted, it isn't nearly as secure as fiber, but I think that 802.11b with a high gain antenna would probably be in this school's best interests. You can even check out http://www.wwc.edu/~frohro/Airport/Primestar/Prime star.html for a page that tells how to use an old Primestar dish for a 10 mile full 11mbps link, and http://www.antennasystems.com/broadband.html has a list of lots of different antennas that might also be helpful. :P
If you can tell, I've been doing a lot of research for antennas for my home 802.11b LAN...
Just to let y'all know, I had a previous post along these lines and figured that it was relevant:9 948
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=21544&cid=227
When I woke up this morning, I heard sirens going off all over the place. I had no idea what was going on, but as soon as I got up my roommate was running into the room yelling about the Pentagon being bombed. We looked out our window and saw black smoke billowing out across the city, and decided to see what it was.
There were all manner of different people clustering to see what was going on - there were tourists from Russia, reporters, agents from every conceivable branch of the government en route to the Pentagon. We saw a number of generals standing in the shade outside of it, and there were military personnel all over the place. Most of the streets were blocked off, too. Pennsylvania Avenue was strangely devoid of traffic, and I know that at this point they aren't letting anything remotely near the White House.
I figured that I'd add that there have been a number of bomb threats going off around the city - most notably to me at the Marvin Center at the George Washington University, because that's where I tend to get food. They evacuated the Center and shut down the entire school for the day - you can see the University's warning message at http://www.gwu.edu/~virtual/message.html
Oh yes, and while I was walking to and from the Pentagon, my friends and I happened to see - or at least we believe we did - Marine 1, the President's personal chopper. Seeing as he wasn't in DC at the time, it was probably Cheney or some other officials checking out the damage. It was a damn sight to see - the chopper was accompanied by a fighter plane, and it is ENOURMOUS. The thing is easily bigger than you'd ever think it could be.
I just wanted tos ay that I was at the Pentagon this morning, and that everything there seems to be like it's very well under control. There were a bunch of different people there watching the flames be put out - TV stations and such, as well as tourists and residents who, like me, wanted to see what the hell was going on.
:)
Probably the most interesting thing that happened was talking to one of the officers who works at the Pentagon. She told me not to get any nearer (which I declined to listen to) and then said, I don't know if this was a joke or not, that I should try to stay alive so I could serve the country. God save us if we have to go to war!
DC is currently in a state of emergency, and almost all the streets are closed - it's pretty eerie. I walked by the state department, and the whole thing is shut down. There are cops and agents from every sort of government department everywhere - you literally can't go a block without seeing a handful sitting around or directing traffic or doing whatever they do. Washingtonians are being pretty calm, though, so there aren't any riots or looting or anything like that.
Just to give another view on the situation here in DC
Your boss is using ICQ - that's the sound it makes per default on receiving a message ;)
I've read this book many many times over, and I have to say that a lot of the dialogue is straight from the book. I can see that they've made a lot of changes, but it's not like they're changes that could've been helped (of course, Paul meeting the Princess at dinner was ridiculous). It's a FAR better attempt at Dune than the movie with Jurgen Prochnow was in. Although it may not be as great as reading the novel, you have to remember that translating a novel onto the television's going to lose /something/ along the way. I think most notable in the book is the thought processes of the characters, and the level of complexity of plot and intrigue. Of course, some of these things had to be cut out because they would make 1.) thoroughly boring TV, 2.) would take up too much time, and 3.) would be barely feasible. (Would you /really/ like to hear Paul thinking for minutes on end or Jessica muse back to her time as an apprentice at the Bene Gesserit school? No? I didn't think so. These things don't see on TV.)
/did/ have ornithopters - the Harkonnens were piloting them, though :P
So yes, some of the liberties they've taken may be little off-the-wall, and nothing will ever compare with the book itself, but they're doing a damn fine job of making it interesting to the TV crowd.
And they actually
I can't say more good things about XFree86 4. Why? Primarily, because I can run programs that utilize GL along with my Riva TNT2-based card. Although the driver isn't open-source (write a nice letter to nvidia, please), it works well enough that I don't have to reboot to windows to play Quake. This, in my opinion, is one of the best things that could have happened to X.
Anyway, just my $0.02
At the moment, the "iSKY Q&A page" link is pointing to http://slashdot.org.
It says that it's going to ship with Mozilla installed... I wonder if this company is contributing any development to the browser? And I also wonder if the release date of this will be subject to Mozilla's completion.
The reason for this should be pretty obvious... They don't want people leaking answers to the tests. If that were to happen, what worth would the exam be? Anyone who had taken the exam could sell info to the highest bidder. At the very least, this gives Red Hat the means to prosecute someone doing this, and makes it happening less likely.