It [mailing yourself a document to establish time of original publishing] works in the US too....
No, it doesn't. That's something of an urban myth.
The post office will gladly deliver an unsealed, empty envelope as long as it has sufficient postage attached. A document being inside a postmarked envelope is no proof that the envelope contained the document when it was postmarked.
Ha! You've reminded me of when I needed to use a pencil eraser against the exposed end of the drive shaft to manually spin it up on an old hard drive way back in the day.
You must be exceedingly unimaginative if you can't think of any uses for remote attestation besides gaming and DRM.
I only presented the hacker-proof game as an example off the top of my own head because I thought it was easy to understand. I don't even play online games. I honestly had no idea it was a an old overworked example; but I can see why: it pretty clearly illustrates a decent use in an uncomplicated way. It's by no means the only thing that can be done.
I don't really see any reason to continue this, as it is apparently a religious issue for you. Like most religionists, you've gotten most of your facts wrong, and wrong conclusions have followed. Also like most religionists, it doesn't matter to you that the facts are wrong; it only matters that the conclusions were what you wanted them to be.
Neutral as regards possible uses and misuses of this technology -- yes, I'll assert that. His specialty is cryptography. He's not an industry guy, and has no profit or benefit motive for advancing DRM.
Listen. All you (and your kin) seem to be saying is that TC could be used by, e.g. Microsoft to enforce licence terms that we don't like. That's like arguing that faster processors allow Microsoft to make newer, more bloated operating systems that won't run on the older processors. Ok, is that a reason to not advance the technology?
In fact, TC will allow us to do things that were not beforehand possible. For example, how does a game server know that a game client connecting over the internet is really a genuine client, and not a cleverly crafted trojan that will cheat at the game? The answer is that it's not possible. The trojan, if methodically made, can appear to be exactly the client it's claiming to be.
With TC, the veracity of the other end of the connection can be confirmed by hardware. Software can't circumvent the system and pretend to be something that it's not. The only way to fool the system is to replace silicon, and the workaround might be intractible even then.
Now, my specialty is networking, and I can definately see the value of TCP. It solves problems that can't otherwise be solved. And just like government could use padlocks to keep citizens out of public libraries, I can use the same technology to keep thieves out of my tool shed. Possible abuse is not a good argument against an otherwise useful technology.
I could go on and on. But I'll sum up by saying that TC is not something that only Microsoft and the RIAA can use. We can use it, too. Your stated suspicion about the technology and about anybody that might say something good about it only confirms that you don't understood what the technology really is. This is the very definition of FUD. (And I don't think that Stallman is himself so objectively-minded that he's beyond spreading FUD.)
And keep in mind that RMS has been warning us of various things including this [Trusted Computing] for quite a while now, and hasn't been wrong yet.
I happen to know the person with whom you are sparring (you may just have to take my word for it, since you apparently have no way to confirm its verity). And I can say for certain that there are perhaps a dozen people in the world with as much understanding of Trusted Computing as "Dr. Blue."
Stallman is a pretty bright guy, but in a debate about this particular subject, I'd take Dr. Blue's opinion over that of RMS by default. I think that RMS needs to do a much better job if he wants to speak with authority about TC.
I just tried looking at the new design with CSS disabled. (This is a feature of Firefox's Web Developer Extension, which no serious HTML author should be without.)
You're kidding, right?
This is, in fact, a feature of Firefox's "View" menu. There you will find a sub-menu called "Page Style." Select "No Style."
I think that the correct phrase is, "Best years of our lives. So far." These exact words were delivered to us in a speech during my junior year. Now that I have a family of my own, I've found it to be profoundly true, at least for me.
[...blah blah blah...] No Child Left Behind [...blah blah blah...] I submit that they are the highest cost producer and if we sent less of our money to them and didn't allow them to spend as much as they do, we'd all be better off and richer.
In light of this statement, are you then a supporter or detractor of No Child Left Behind?
On the one hand, it's Federal control over local school policy and procedure, which I presume you don't like. On the other hand, it's essentially a non-funded mandate of better performance, which, in light of your final statement, I presume you would be in favor of.
Not trying to force you into a defensive posture; just curious.
Not sure which history book you've been reading, but you should ask for your money back. Human history on this planet is story after story of unions, guilds, cooperatives, corporations, and governments all conspiring to enrich themselves by making sure that new technologies are not open or unencumbered.
I think it does matter, at least as far as your previous statement:
But the Hurd will take off once they get it stable, because its licensed under the GPL, meaning all Linux drivers will be legal to port.
Unless you think that a stable Hurd will happen before GPL3. I doubt that, but even if it did, when GPL3 arrives, you can bet the farm that Hurd will adopt it. At that point, modules that are GPL2-only may have to be removed if my understanding of the issue is correct.
so how is this better than the apt.deb standard where it asks you what to do?
I never claimed rpm was better. In your zeal to argue that apt is better than rpm, you have defined my argument for me. For my part, I'm not arguing. I only responded to your assertion that rpm could not do something by showing that it can.
I mean you aren't really making the case here.
Like I said...
In practice.rpm based distros never ask me how to resolve dependency issues while apt based distros do.
Your statements lead me to believe that you don't have much real experience using the package management on RPM-based systems. There's nothing really wrong with that; I don't have much experience using APT-based systems. Everyone gets good with the tools they use. But we shouldn't go around ignorantly making false claims of inferiority about the system we don't happen to use.
You are now asserting that rpm can't resolve problems at all. This is reasonable but remember the point was to argue that there was no difference between.deb/apt and.rpm/rpm.
And here we finally come to the issue. APT isn't a program, but people talk about it as if it were. And when they do talk of it, they seem (at least to me) to be referring to the collection of all front-ends to the APT library. So they take this idea of APT in all of its glory and compare it to rpm, the simplest imaginable command-line front-end to librpm.
This is a bad comparison. Librpm has other front-ends. A better comparison would be apt-get and yum. (I'm not comparing them here, only saying that it's at least a fair comparison, more or less.)
You are now asserting that rpm doesn't resolve dependency at all....
[deja vu] That's right. Keep in mind, however, that rpm is only a very thin front-end to librpm. So when you say rpm, you are really only talking about librpm. Librpm is not concerned with where packages come from. It is only a house-slave that refuses to work if the requested task breaks a rule.
I will agree I phrased my comment poorly out of ignorance regarding that feature of rpm that I have yet to ever see used.
I showed you an example of the "feature" in use. In fact, it's utilized by every RPM-based system in existence. That you've "yet to ever see [it] used" only proves that you lack sufficient credentials to comment about it.
It doesn't. All RPM does is ensure that your dependency tree is not broken. Figuring out how to resolve dependencies is the domain of yum or apt-rpm or whatever.
Are you arguing that RPM doesn't have this? Here's a clue: dependencies can be any keyword, so "requires webserver" will be satisfied by any package that "provides webserver," such as apache or boa. Same thing for your other points.
You have failed. Context is always important. Without context, one could prove nearly anything from the proclamations of Scripture, just as you have done.
The book of Leviticus was written instruction to the nation of Isreal concerning their own behavior. The Levitical law had no bearing on outsiders. Therefore, a "non-believer" in this context was not subject to these rules nor the consequences of breaking them.
Specifically, this verse is from a section discussing blasphemy. Non-believers are not really capable of blasphemy unless they invoke the Name of God themselves, which means that the presumed outsider has attemted to boost his own integrity by claiming God as his witness. This idea would be closely related to "taking the name of the Lord in vain," as in Exodus 20:7.
Now, some might object based on the "as well the stranger" part. But as I have said, random sojourners don't commit blasphemy. To do so would require that they proclaim to be from God. If someone invokes the Name of God, they have implicitly placed themselves under the authority of God, and therefore, the Levitical law.
Gimp for OSX requires X11. The average Mac user will not understand why they have to install this esoteric thing from their original OS install disks just to try out a graphics program. Then they will not understand why the main menu of the program (which by their reckoning is the one at the top of the screen -- the X11 menu) has absolutely nothing to do with the application that they are running.
The toolbox in a separate window thing, which I actually like on Linux, doesn't work on Mac because the first click on a window in OSX selects the window and does not activate any elements in that window. This means that selecting a new tool requires double-clicking in the toolbox window. Then using the tool requires double-clicking in the image window -- once to select the window and once to use the tool.
The entire GIMP user interface is alien on OSX. The application feels completely out of place. And this coming from someone who uses (and likes) the UI that everyone hates on his multi-head, multi-workspace Linux machine at work. In that environment, I like the separate toolbox and the separate image windows and the context menu. It works for me in that environment. But on OSX (which I'm running at home -- and have GIMP installed on) it just doesn't work.
Please don't confuse me with someone that cares if TV forever dropped off the face of the earth. I would be the first to dance in the streets that I would no longer have to pay $55.98 a month for DirecTV.
I don't even understand this.
Here's a plan: Stop paying DirectTV. Perhaps then they will release you from the shackles that apparently hold you in front of your television and their programming.
Slashdot Mirror
It [mailing yourself a document to establish time of original publishing] works in the US too....
No, it doesn't. That's something of an urban myth.
The post office will gladly deliver an unsealed, empty envelope as long as it has sufficient postage attached. A document being inside a postmarked envelope is no proof that the envelope contained the document when it was postmarked.
Sales will skyrocket for that band.
Or downloads will.
Sorry. Showing my age...
Ugh. I'm feeling old. I've been here too long, I suspect.
P.S.: Your assertion that it used to be good is, in this context, patently false. Maybe before *my* time...
You must be exceedingly unimaginative if you can't think of any uses for remote attestation besides gaming and DRM.
I only presented the hacker-proof game as an example off the top of my own head because I thought it was easy to understand. I don't even play online games. I honestly had no idea it was a an old overworked example; but I can see why: it pretty clearly illustrates a decent use in an uncomplicated way. It's by no means the only thing that can be done.
I don't really see any reason to continue this, as it is apparently a religious issue for you. Like most religionists, you've gotten most of your facts wrong, and wrong conclusions have followed. Also like most religionists, it doesn't matter to you that the facts are wrong; it only matters that the conclusions were what you wanted them to be.
Listen. All you (and your kin) seem to be saying is that TC could be used by, e.g. Microsoft to enforce licence terms that we don't like. That's like arguing that faster processors allow Microsoft to make newer, more bloated operating systems that won't run on the older processors. Ok, is that a reason to not advance the technology?
In fact, TC will allow us to do things that were not beforehand possible. For example, how does a game server know that a game client connecting over the internet is really a genuine client, and not a cleverly crafted trojan that will cheat at the game? The answer is that it's not possible. The trojan, if methodically made, can appear to be exactly the client it's claiming to be.
With TC, the veracity of the other end of the connection can be confirmed by hardware. Software can't circumvent the system and pretend to be something that it's not. The only way to fool the system is to replace silicon, and the workaround might be intractible even then.
Now, my specialty is networking, and I can definately see the value of TCP. It solves problems that can't otherwise be solved. And just like government could use padlocks to keep citizens out of public libraries, I can use the same technology to keep thieves out of my tool shed. Possible abuse is not a good argument against an otherwise useful technology.
I could go on and on. But I'll sum up by saying that TC is not something that only Microsoft and the RIAA can use. We can use it, too. Your stated suspicion about the technology and about anybody that might say something good about it only confirms that you don't understood what the technology really is. This is the very definition of FUD. (And I don't think that Stallman is himself so objectively-minded that he's beyond spreading FUD.)
I happen to know the person with whom you are sparring (you may just have to take my word for it, since you apparently have no way to confirm its verity). And I can say for certain that there are perhaps a dozen people in the world with as much understanding of Trusted Computing as "Dr. Blue."
Stallman is a pretty bright guy, but in a debate about this particular subject, I'd take Dr. Blue's opinion over that of RMS by default. I think that RMS needs to do a much better job if he wants to speak with authority about TC.
You're kidding, right?
This is, in fact, a feature of Firefox's "View" menu. There you will find a sub-menu called "Page Style." Select "No Style."
Nothing but news here. No editorializing in sight. Good thing Slashdot has standards.
I think that the correct phrase is, "Best years of our lives. So far." These exact words were delivered to us in a speech during my junior year. Now that I have a family of my own, I've found it to be profoundly true, at least for me.
In light of this statement, are you then a supporter or detractor of No Child Left Behind?
On the one hand, it's Federal control over local school policy and procedure, which I presume you don't like. On the other hand, it's essentially a non-funded mandate of better performance, which, in light of your final statement, I presume you would be in favor of.
Not trying to force you into a defensive posture; just curious.
Funniest thing I've read all week. Thanks for that!
While it may be true that CitiBank has too many domains, you don't help your own argument much by exagerating your evidence.
Not sure which history book you've been reading, but you should ask for your money back. Human history on this planet is story after story of unions, guilds, cooperatives, corporations, and governments all conspiring to enrich themselves by making sure that new technologies are not open or unencumbered.
I think it does matter, at least as far as your previous statement:
But the Hurd will take off once they get it stable, because its licensed under the GPL, meaning all Linux drivers will be legal to port.
Unless you think that a stable Hurd will happen before GPL3. I doubt that, but even if it did, when GPL3 arrives, you can bet the farm that Hurd will adopt it. At that point, modules that are GPL2-only may have to be removed if my understanding of the issue is correct.
Only if Hurd can accept drivers licensed under GPL version 2 exclusively.
Perhaps the GPL v3+ will allow combination with v2. I don't myself know whether it will.
I never claimed rpm was better. In your zeal to argue that apt is better than rpm, you have defined my argument for me. For my part, I'm not arguing. I only responded to your assertion that rpm could not do something by showing that it can.
I mean you aren't really making the case here.
Like I said...
In practice .rpm based distros never ask me how to resolve dependency issues while apt based distros do.
Your statements lead me to believe that you don't have much real experience using the package management on RPM-based systems. There's nothing really wrong with that; I don't have much experience using APT-based systems. Everyone gets good with the tools they use. But we shouldn't go around ignorantly making false claims of inferiority about the system we don't happen to use.
You are now asserting that rpm can't resolve problems at all. This is reasonable but remember the point was to argue that there was no difference between .deb/apt and .rpm/rpm.
And here we finally come to the issue. APT isn't a program, but people talk about it as if it were. And when they do talk of it, they seem (at least to me) to be referring to the collection of all front-ends to the APT library. So they take this idea of APT in all of its glory and compare it to rpm, the simplest imaginable command-line front-end to librpm.
This is a bad comparison. Librpm has other front-ends. A better comparison would be apt-get and yum. (I'm not comparing them here, only saying that it's at least a fair comparison, more or less.)
You are now asserting that rpm doesn't resolve dependency at all....
[deja vu] That's right. Keep in mind, however, that rpm is only a very thin front-end to librpm. So when you say rpm, you are really only talking about librpm. Librpm is not concerned with where packages come from. It is only a house-slave that refuses to work if the requested task breaks a rule.
I will agree I phrased my comment poorly out of ignorance regarding that feature of rpm that I have yet to ever see used.
I showed you an example of the "feature" in use. In fact, it's utilized by every RPM-based system in existence. That you've "yet to ever see [it] used" only proves that you lack sufficient credentials to comment about it.
It doesn't. All RPM does is ensure that your dependency tree is not broken. Figuring out how to resolve dependencies is the domain of yum or apt-rpm or whatever.
Are you arguing that RPM doesn't have this? Here's a clue: dependencies can be any keyword, so "requires webserver" will be satisfied by any package that "provides webserver," such as apache or boa. Same thing for your other points.
Is Skipper mad?
You have failed. Context is always important. Without context, one could prove nearly anything from the proclamations of Scripture, just as you have done.
The book of Leviticus was written instruction to the nation of Isreal concerning their own behavior. The Levitical law had no bearing on outsiders. Therefore, a "non-believer" in this context was not subject to these rules nor the consequences of breaking them.
Specifically, this verse is from a section discussing blasphemy. Non-believers are not really capable of blasphemy unless they invoke the Name of God themselves, which means that the presumed outsider has attemted to boost his own integrity by claiming God as his witness. This idea would be closely related to "taking the name of the Lord in vain," as in Exodus 20:7.
Now, some might object based on the "as well the stranger" part. But as I have said, random sojourners don't commit blasphemy. To do so would require that they proclaim to be from God. If someone invokes the Name of God, they have implicitly placed themselves under the authority of God, and therefore, the Levitical law.
Yeah, like Romans 12:18. Something simply must be done about people who hold to such radical philosophies...
Gimp for OSX requires X11. The average Mac user will not understand why they have to install this esoteric thing from their original OS install disks just to try out a graphics program. Then they will not understand why the main menu of the program (which by their reckoning is the one at the top of the screen -- the X11 menu) has absolutely nothing to do with the application that they are running.
The toolbox in a separate window thing, which I actually like on Linux, doesn't work on Mac because the first click on a window in OSX selects the window and does not activate any elements in that window. This means that selecting a new tool requires double-clicking in the toolbox window. Then using the tool requires double-clicking in the image window -- once to select the window and once to use the tool.
The entire GIMP user interface is alien on OSX. The application feels completely out of place. And this coming from someone who uses (and likes) the UI that everyone hates on his multi-head, multi-workspace Linux machine at work. In that environment, I like the separate toolbox and the separate image windows and the context menu. It works for me in that environment. But on OSX (which I'm running at home -- and have GIMP installed on) it just doesn't work.
I don't even understand this.
Here's a plan: Stop paying DirectTV. Perhaps then they will release you from the shackles that apparently hold you in front of your television and their programming.