In practice the risks can be minimized by using additional virtual encrypted volumes (in files) on the encrypted disk itself which have their keys in RAM scrambled upon dismount by TrueCrypt. Also, the contents of any volatile memory, such as RAM, will have completely dissipated within at most a couple of minutes after shutdown and loss of power. So boot into your secure hidden OS, do whatever work you were going to do, and then shutdown for a while before booting back into the public OS (which is also encrypted). TrueCrypt renders successful attacks very difficult to execute in practice even though they remain theoretically possible which is certainly no worse than any other present competing alternative (hardware OR software).
It probably wouldn't be a good idea. MySQL is not fast or efficient enough for kernel mode use and file systems, despite attempts by Microsoft and others to merge them with databases, file systems work best when they provide minimal functionality that can be built on top of (i.e. SQL implementations generally run on top of the file system as a separate service NOT as an integral embedded part of the file system). The minimal OS is really the way to go and the industry convergence on this consensus (with Microsoft being among the last to see the light on this one) is encouraging to see. The OS is supposed to mediate between applications and hardware to provide basic services; anything beyond that is an application and should be treated as such and NOT as an integrated part of the OS.
Strange though it may sound, it is actually quite a difficult thing to spend $800b.
Then why try to spend it all at once? The senate was right to cut down the bill (largely at the insistance of the Republicans although even some "blue dog" democrats grumbled about Pelosi's bill). Trying to rush anything throught Congress virtually guarantees that it will become a christmass tree so overloaded with pork and favored special interest spending that it could easily cost several times more than to pass the measures separately. This is especially true with non immediate spending. They should pass the critical spending first and then work on the other things as time permits and circumstances become more amenable. IMHO, the democrats made too big a deal of their "first 100 days" pledges as if rushing things, regardless of circumstances, was obviously the best way to go about completing the job.
With this in mind, actually spending $160b (20%) is still quite an achievement.
In a macabre sort of way I suppose that is true. However, as a Libertarian I am still horrified at the massive government spending that is currently taking place to make good the ill effects of previous government interventions, which notably include flooding the market with liquidity and allowing the money supply to increase massively in the years following 9/11 in an ill fated attempt to "smooth out" some bumps in the economic road and look where that got us. Now the government wants to cure what is essentially a spending problem, with...wait for it...even more government and consumer spending? Do we cure an alcoholic by offering him even more of his favorite beverage? Certainly not, so how can we cure a spending problem with more spending and making even MORE money available to spend?
However, the fact that the projects are started and have a guaranteed completion should provide more stimulus than the actual cash spend.
I don't know how it is in your state, but here in California it takes CalTrans and state contractors forever to finish highway projects. In some cases it has taken as long as two (2) DECADES after the first load of dirt was scooped to complete what should have been two (2) year or less construction projects. I remain skeptical that more of these types of projects will provide a lot of stimulus to the economy. After all, trucks cannot use new on-ramps and overpasses to move goods until they are actually completed.
I don't know whether the spending is going to the right places, or that it will have the desired stimulus effect
Don't worry, its NOT going to the right places AND it will NOT have the desired stimulus effect.
but it's not correct to suggest that this is some kind of ruse just because it appears that the funding is not front-loaded.
At best, it is an unwelcome distraction to the real problem which is the bad mortgage backed debts that are like sand in the proverbial economic engine, corrupting everything they touch and poisoning by proxy the balance sheets of everyone even remotely connected. The really important question, IMHO, that isn't being asked is this:
How can Amercians, whose real wages have stagnated since the end of the 1970s compared to economic growth and inflation, continue to pay inflated prices for the nation's housing stock? Most americans and particularly young Americans can really only afford a home that costs less than about $150,000 dollars or so and yet in many parts of the nation the price stubbornly refuses to fall below that level. There are too many dollars in the system relative to what average Americans actually produce and earn and until that problem is addressed I think that this economic malaise will continue, even after the "recovery", until this nation addresses its debt and spending problems.
Housing is at the root of this crises, but beyond even that is
SSH really would be preferable to telnet if at all possible, even for innocuous personal data. The encryption/decryption all takes place at the end points so there is no extra bandwidth burden over using telnet. In fact, I cannot really think of a good reason NOT to use SSH when connecting to your Linux server back home over the public Internet.
they put their faith in technology that doesn't exist instead of getting their supersized butts out of their trucks.
That is because their super-sized buttocks will only fit in a large American car or truck. Have you ever seen the big guy in the sub-compact car? They don't want to be that guy. Not everyone can drive the Civic or the Prius even if they work great for you.
That is exactly what I say whenever someone else suggests that I should conserve or cut back. That is also, incidentally, why there will almost certainly be no global solution to global warming. If we cut back on our energy use then some people somewhere are either going to have to make do with less than they presently consume or never consume it in the first place. You know what the other guy says when you tell him that he should cut back? You guessed it...you first.
I would blame the marketers and the corporate hype machines more than I would blame the computer scientists and software developers for muddying the waters with buzzwords and other meaningless drivel concerning what should be unambiguous technical concepts. There was a time, as I am sure that you will recall, before the marketers really knew what computing was or could do and it was a time when engineers conversed with one another in clear jargon (which made sense to the initiated) that was not altered or added onto unless something really new and important came along and it made sense to do so. Alas, but those days are far behind us now and we have to put up with marketing idiots continually confusing the public about computing so that they can make a fast buck or two.
The only thing that might be novel is if this phatomOS goes whole hog, and forces you to use that api and actually denies you all access directly to files using more traditional methods.
Which would be a HUGE mistake. As you have already pointed out many developers have written software or components which offer this type of behavior or some variation thereof. IMHO, it is unnecessary to bloat the OS with lots of obvious variations on different types of file access. The Java and.NET Framework class libraries, for example, already include just about all of the abstractions that anyone could ever want with regard to reading and writing streams (which is really what file access amounts to at the highest level of abstraction). The OS should offer the simplest, minimal, and atomic set of operations that could possibly work, perhaps offering separate libraries on top of that ala Java and.NET, to get the job done, but it should not assume anything concrete about how data should be accessed apart from the essential basics. Just my two cents.
The never-saving paradigm of the PalmOS was one of its brilliant features.
This can easily be emulated in any normal file system. It all depends upon how the program handles its reads and writes with respect to files. I once built a b-tree mapped record system on top of an NTFS file system that behaved in this way so that even if the service process crashed and had to be restarted no data would ever be lost as long as the disk could be read or written because no data was stored "in memory" waiting for a write. I see no reason to give up the b-tree style file systems currently in use by just about every modern OS, they are simply too useful to abandon.
So while smoking a joint doesn't shock me, his stupidity does.
Why does it shock you that one of our species' greatest living physical specimens is not also among our most intelligent? For my own part, I had the distinct impression that his magnificent physique was not accompanied by an equally fit mind during the Olympics when he gave interviews to the press. Phelps is probably of average intelligence and has clearly lived a sheltered life of training and singular focus which has obviously, as this incident proves, left him lacking in social wisdom and street smarts. All of us have our strengths and weaknesses; it is no different for the greatest modern Olympian of all time.
It is very common to see people lock down when it goes yellow so approaching either of the two I go through does require extra caution.
The auto insurance companies have consistently lobbied against red light ticket cameras for precisely this reason. They are invariably set to shorter yellows to maximize ticket revenue which results in more lock downs and rear end collisions as drivers slam on the brakes with little or no warning at the last second to avoid a ticket. Traffic cameras are about getting more revenue for the city operating them NOT traffic safety.
it doesn't matter if the control the US Justice Department. They will remain 20th-century wolves chasing 20th-century sheep.
Do not be so sure. There is arguably no better vehicle for bullying ordinary citizens than the power of the Federal government made manifest in the Department of Justice run by minions who have an axe to grind. It would not surprise me in the least if these RIAA tainted appointees use the power at their command to crush ordinary citizens at the behest of their masters in the entertainment industry. The MAFIAA has already demonstrated that they aren't interested in truth or justice with their lawsuits, only money and settlements at all costs in a scorched earth campaign to keep the revenues flowing and damn the consequences.
and why not? Obama has already admitted in writing that he is "beholden" to the unions for their support and assistance over the years. Now is the time for all of the big Democratic Party donors to cash in their chips. That must be what they mean by "change we can believe in". People should have listened to us Libertarians before they voted for the biggest Federal Government in our nation's history, now all we can say is, "see, we told you so".
You want someone who practices law like that to be in a position of authority in terms of justice?
The Department of Justice is becoming a running joke following the depredations of the Bush administration and apparently continuing now in the Obama administration, albeit with different priorities and "bad guys". Now that GITMO is closed down where will the inquisition turn next? Seriously, the thought that the Department of Justice might now become the lapdog of the MAFIAA is really sickening. They ought to change the name to "Department of Victor's Justice" or "Department of Injustice" in order to more accurately reflect how politicized the notion of "justice" and it's department has become in the United States today. It is almost enough to make one long for the days of the old west, when most everyone was armed to the teeth and the tomfoolery that passes for justice these days was not easily tolerated by a populace with itchy trigger fingers.
I distinctly remember being fingerprinted in primary school when I was nine years old. If I had known then what I know now then I would have refused, of course, but how can a nine year old be expected to fully appreciate the possible consequences? The answer is they cannot and the state takes advantage of that to trick them while they are still young and impressionable with all sorts of propaganda, indoctrination, and anti-drug scare mongering (and now extreme environmental, but that hadn't caught on yet when I was going through the system). I have a real problem with lying to children in order to "scare them for their own good". Eventually children figure out that their parents, the police, or the authorities have lied to them consistently and never blindly trust authority again (which is itself a valuable lesson, but one which can be learned without the pain of betrayal).
The history and culture of Windows is at least as responsible for the "run as root" problem as any shortcomings, and there were many over the years, in the OS itself and although Windows OSes has progressively improved security over the years there is only so much to be done, on any system, when users have been trained to run as root and click "yes" everytime. Of course, malicious programs like downadup and the infamous ClickYesToContinue ActiveX certificate debacle don't help matters.
However, the transmission of other strains of HIV may not be blocked by the presence of this gene.
It is not the presence of "special" gene which most of us lack that confers immunity but rather a deletion mutation of that CCR5 gene which causes cell receptors required by the HIV virus for infection to be absent from the helper T cells. I am not a biologist or virologist, but from what I understand the portion of the HIV DNA that codes for the CCR5 receptor never changes between variants because if it did then the resulting virons would be duds (i.e. unable to infect and reproduce). Is it possible that HIV could mutate enough to get around this? I don't know...possibly perhaps, but it seems that evolving completely new abilities (i.e the ability to use an alternate receptor or infection route) is more difficult than incremental modifications to existing viral characteristics through mutation and natural selection.
The problem of HIV is not medical or technological in nature. It is a social, cultural, and economic problem.
It has been said before by others that HIV is the quintessential human virus; at once adaptable and uniquely in tune with the weaknesses of both our immune systems and our human nature.
The beloved market would quickly decide that human presence in space isn't worth the investment.
In point of fact, for now at least, it probably isn't. There are more pressing priorities here on the ground for government relief spending, research, and development. We should wait until we have (a) somewhere interesting to go and (b) a propulsion technology capable of taking us there without insane fuel and trip duration requirements.
Experimental treatments are already available to HIV patients who wish to try them and have been for years now. The FDA loosened the rules on that back in the early to mid 1990s because of the growing epidemic and terminal nature of the illness. Although in recent years the consequences of experimental treatment have to be weighed against the known efficacy of the anti retro viral cocktails that are now available and manage the infection quite well (albiet with some moderate to severe side effects). Should a patient be able to risk a premature demise with experimental treatment when their prognosis on HAART is good? If they are not insane then the answer is probably yes, but any ethical doctor would probably recommend, at the very least, serious reflection and possibly some sort of third party counseling before signing up their patients on a first request.
Slashdot Mirror
In practice the risks can be minimized by using additional virtual encrypted volumes (in files) on the encrypted disk itself which have their keys in RAM scrambled upon dismount by TrueCrypt. Also, the contents of any volatile memory, such as RAM, will have completely dissipated within at most a couple of minutes after shutdown and loss of power. So boot into your secure hidden OS, do whatever work you were going to do, and then shutdown for a while before booting back into the public OS (which is also encrypted). TrueCrypt renders successful attacks very difficult to execute in practice even though they remain theoretically possible which is certainly no worse than any other present competing alternative (hardware OR software).
I would never in my right mind use IE7 over Firefox. Although, frankly, right now my favorite browser is Google Chrome.
The great thing about Firefox is the extensions. Extensions make Firefox like Voltron, everything works better when the pieces join together.
It probably wouldn't be a good idea. MySQL is not fast or efficient enough for kernel mode use and file systems, despite attempts by Microsoft and others to merge them with databases, file systems work best when they provide minimal functionality that can be built on top of (i.e. SQL implementations generally run on top of the file system as a separate service NOT as an integral embedded part of the file system). The minimal OS is really the way to go and the industry convergence on this consensus (with Microsoft being among the last to see the light on this one) is encouraging to see. The OS is supposed to mediate between applications and hardware to provide basic services; anything beyond that is an application and should be treated as such and NOT as an integrated part of the OS.
Strange though it may sound, it is actually quite a difficult thing to spend $800b.
Then why try to spend it all at once? The senate was right to cut down the bill (largely at the insistance of the Republicans although even some "blue dog" democrats grumbled about Pelosi's bill). Trying to rush anything throught Congress virtually guarantees that it will become a christmass tree so overloaded with pork and favored special interest spending that it could easily cost several times more than to pass the measures separately. This is especially true with non immediate spending. They should pass the critical spending first and then work on the other things as time permits and circumstances become more amenable. IMHO, the democrats made too big a deal of their "first 100 days" pledges as if rushing things, regardless of circumstances, was obviously the best way to go about completing the job.
With this in mind, actually spending $160b (20%) is still quite an achievement.
In a macabre sort of way I suppose that is true. However, as a Libertarian I am still horrified at the massive government spending that is currently taking place to make good the ill effects of previous government interventions, which notably include flooding the market with liquidity and allowing the money supply to increase massively in the years following 9/11 in an ill fated attempt to "smooth out" some bumps in the economic road and look where that got us. Now the government wants to cure what is essentially a spending problem, with...wait for it...even more government and consumer spending? Do we cure an alcoholic by offering him even more of his favorite beverage? Certainly not, so how can we cure a spending problem with more spending and making even MORE money available to spend?
However, the fact that the projects are started and have a guaranteed completion should provide more stimulus than the actual cash spend.
I don't know how it is in your state, but here in California it takes CalTrans and state contractors forever to finish highway projects. In some cases it has taken as long as two (2) DECADES after the first load of dirt was scooped to complete what should have been two (2) year or less construction projects. I remain skeptical that more of these types of projects will provide a lot of stimulus to the economy. After all, trucks cannot use new on-ramps and overpasses to move goods until they are actually completed.
I don't know whether the spending is going to the right places, or that it will have the desired stimulus effect
Don't worry, its NOT going to the right places AND it will NOT have the desired stimulus effect.
but it's not correct to suggest that this is some kind of ruse just because it appears that the funding is not front-loaded.
At best, it is an unwelcome distraction to the real problem which is the bad mortgage backed debts that are like sand in the proverbial economic engine, corrupting everything they touch and poisoning by proxy the balance sheets of everyone even remotely connected. The really important question, IMHO, that isn't being asked is this:
How can Amercians, whose real wages have stagnated since the end of the 1970s compared to economic growth and inflation, continue to pay inflated prices for the nation's housing stock? Most americans and particularly young Americans can really only afford a home that costs less than about $150,000 dollars or so and yet in many parts of the nation the price stubbornly refuses to fall below that level. There are too many dollars in the system relative to what average Americans actually produce and earn and until that problem is addressed I think that this economic malaise will continue, even after the "recovery", until this nation addresses its debt and spending problems.
Housing is at the root of this crises, but beyond even that is
SSH really would be preferable to telnet if at all possible, even for innocuous personal data. The encryption/decryption all takes place at the end points so there is no extra bandwidth burden over using telnet. In fact, I cannot really think of a good reason NOT to use SSH when connecting to your Linux server back home over the public Internet.
Thank you for your service, and stay safe out there.
they put their faith in technology that doesn't exist instead of getting their supersized butts out of their trucks.
That is because their super-sized buttocks will only fit in a large American car or truck. Have you ever seen the big guy in the sub-compact car? They don't want to be that guy. Not everyone can drive the Civic or the Prius even if they work great for you.
That is exactly what I say whenever someone else suggests that I should conserve or cut back. That is also, incidentally, why there will almost certainly be no global solution to global warming. If we cut back on our energy use then some people somewhere are either going to have to make do with less than they presently consume or never consume it in the first place. You know what the other guy says when you tell him that he should cut back? You guessed it...you first.
we make it hard for you to describe bad things to do so we don't have to work hard to prevent you.
Sounds a lot like the Ruby on Rails philosophy today...
I would blame the marketers and the corporate hype machines more than I would blame the computer scientists and software developers for muddying the waters with buzzwords and other meaningless drivel concerning what should be unambiguous technical concepts. There was a time, as I am sure that you will recall, before the marketers really knew what computing was or could do and it was a time when engineers conversed with one another in clear jargon (which made sense to the initiated) that was not altered or added onto unless something really new and important came along and it made sense to do so. Alas, but those days are far behind us now and we have to put up with marketing idiots continually confusing the public about computing so that they can make a fast buck or two.
The only thing that might be novel is if this phatomOS goes whole hog, and forces you to use that api and actually denies you all access directly to files using more traditional methods.
Which would be a HUGE mistake. As you have already pointed out many developers have written software or components which offer this type of behavior or some variation thereof. IMHO, it is unnecessary to bloat the OS with lots of obvious variations on different types of file access. The Java and .NET Framework class libraries, for example, already include just about all of the abstractions that anyone could ever want with regard to reading and writing streams (which is really what file access amounts to at the highest level of abstraction). The OS should offer the simplest, minimal, and atomic set of operations that could possibly work, perhaps offering separate libraries on top of that ala Java and .NET, to get the job done, but it should not assume anything concrete about how data should be accessed apart from the essential basics. Just my two cents.
The never-saving paradigm of the PalmOS was one of its brilliant features.
This can easily be emulated in any normal file system. It all depends upon how the program handles its reads and writes with respect to files. I once built a b-tree mapped record system on top of an NTFS file system that behaved in this way so that even if the service process crashed and had to be restarted no data would ever be lost as long as the disk could be read or written because no data was stored "in memory" waiting for a write. I see no reason to give up the b-tree style file systems currently in use by just about every modern OS, they are simply too useful to abandon.
So while smoking a joint doesn't shock me, his stupidity does.
Why does it shock you that one of our species' greatest living physical specimens is not also among our most intelligent? For my own part, I had the distinct impression that his magnificent physique was not accompanied by an equally fit mind during the Olympics when he gave interviews to the press. Phelps is probably of average intelligence and has clearly lived a sheltered life of training and singular focus which has obviously, as this incident proves, left him lacking in social wisdom and street smarts. All of us have our strengths and weaknesses; it is no different for the greatest modern Olympian of all time.
They are very detached from the mainstream.
In Utah they are the mainstream, that is why they all packed up and moved there from the east coast during the 19th century.
It is very common to see people lock down when it goes yellow so approaching either of the two I go through does require extra caution.
The auto insurance companies have consistently lobbied against red light ticket cameras for precisely this reason. They are invariably set to shorter yellows to maximize ticket revenue which results in more lock downs and rear end collisions as drivers slam on the brakes with little or no warning at the last second to avoid a ticket. Traffic cameras are about getting more revenue for the city operating them NOT traffic safety.
it doesn't matter if the control the US Justice Department. They will remain 20th-century wolves chasing 20th-century sheep.
Do not be so sure. There is arguably no better vehicle for bullying ordinary citizens than the power of the Federal government made manifest in the Department of Justice run by minions who have an axe to grind. It would not surprise me in the least if these RIAA tainted appointees use the power at their command to crush ordinary citizens at the behest of their masters in the entertainment industry. The MAFIAA has already demonstrated that they aren't interested in truth or justice with their lawsuits, only money and settlements at all costs in a scorched earth campaign to keep the revenues flowing and damn the consequences.
and why not? Obama has already admitted in writing that he is "beholden" to the unions for their support and assistance over the years. Now is the time for all of the big Democratic Party donors to cash in their chips. That must be what they mean by "change we can believe in". People should have listened to us Libertarians before they voted for the biggest Federal Government in our nation's history, now all we can say is, "see, we told you so".
You want someone who practices law like that to be in a position of authority in terms of justice?
The Department of Justice is becoming a running joke following the depredations of the Bush administration and apparently continuing now in the Obama administration, albeit with different priorities and "bad guys". Now that GITMO is closed down where will the inquisition turn next? Seriously, the thought that the Department of Justice might now become the lapdog of the MAFIAA is really sickening. They ought to change the name to "Department of Victor's Justice" or "Department of Injustice" in order to more accurately reflect how politicized the notion of "justice" and it's department has become in the United States today. It is almost enough to make one long for the days of the old west, when most everyone was armed to the teeth and the tomfoolery that passes for justice these days was not easily tolerated by a populace with itchy trigger fingers.
I distinctly remember being fingerprinted in primary school when I was nine years old. If I had known then what I know now then I would have refused, of course, but how can a nine year old be expected to fully appreciate the possible consequences? The answer is they cannot and the state takes advantage of that to trick them while they are still young and impressionable with all sorts of propaganda, indoctrination, and anti-drug scare mongering (and now extreme environmental, but that hadn't caught on yet when I was going through the system). I have a real problem with lying to children in order to "scare them for their own good". Eventually children figure out that their parents, the police, or the authorities have lied to them consistently and never blindly trust authority again (which is itself a valuable lesson, but one which can be learned without the pain of betrayal).
The history and culture of Windows is at least as responsible for the "run as root" problem as any shortcomings, and there were many over the years, in the OS itself and although Windows OSes has progressively improved security over the years there is only so much to be done, on any system, when users have been trained to run as root and click "yes" everytime. Of course, malicious programs like downadup and the infamous ClickYesToContinue ActiveX certificate debacle don't help matters.
However, the transmission of other strains of HIV may not be blocked by the presence of this gene.
It is not the presence of "special" gene which most of us lack that confers immunity but rather a deletion mutation of that CCR5 gene which causes cell receptors required by the HIV virus for infection to be absent from the helper T cells. I am not a biologist or virologist, but from what I understand the portion of the HIV DNA that codes for the CCR5 receptor never changes between variants because if it did then the resulting virons would be duds (i.e. unable to infect and reproduce). Is it possible that HIV could mutate enough to get around this? I don't know...possibly perhaps, but it seems that evolving completely new abilities (i.e the ability to use an alternate receptor or infection route) is more difficult than incremental modifications to existing viral characteristics through mutation and natural selection.
The problem of HIV is not medical or technological in nature. It is a social, cultural, and economic problem.
It has been said before by others that HIV is the quintessential human virus; at once adaptable and uniquely in tune with the weaknesses of both our immune systems and our human nature.
The beloved market would quickly decide that human presence in space isn't worth the investment.
In point of fact, for now at least, it probably isn't. There are more pressing priorities here on the ground for government relief spending, research, and development. We should wait until we have (a) somewhere interesting to go and (b) a propulsion technology capable of taking us there without insane fuel and trip duration requirements.
Why not? That is what Hubbard did with his.
Experimental treatments are already available to HIV patients who wish to try them and have been for years now. The FDA loosened the rules on that back in the early to mid 1990s because of the growing epidemic and terminal nature of the illness. Although in recent years the consequences of experimental treatment have to be weighed against the known efficacy of the anti retro viral cocktails that are now available and manage the infection quite well (albiet with some moderate to severe side effects). Should a patient be able to risk a premature demise with experimental treatment when their prognosis on HAART is good? If they are not insane then the answer is probably yes, but any ethical doctor would probably recommend, at the very least, serious reflection and possibly some sort of third party counseling before signing up their patients on a first request.
Funny? This should have been modded insightful. He probably just summarized the entire conference for FREE (minus celebrity cocktail parties).