How do you know the MD5 wasn't made after the intruder got in? It wouldn't be very valuable then, would it?
The point is, after a breakin you must determine when the breakin occured, because everything after that is suspect. The problem is it can sometimes be very difficult -- or impossible -- to determine when the breakin happened. Then you're really, really screwed.
Ah, but this has been tried elsewhere. Look up the design history of the swing-wing pivots on the B-1 bomber. The pivots are two large hollow metal cylinders, slightly asymmetrical. One side is clearly marked "THIS SIDE UP."
However, the manufacturer stamped the wrong side of the pivot, and it was dutifully installed upside-down. Murphy wins again no matter what you do.
This doesn't occur for much the same reason people are often jerks in traffic and don't give someone room to enter their lane.
Perhaps if people would try manipulating that funny stalk poking out of the steering column called a "blinker," then I'd consider letting them over. If they're too lazy to put on a blinker, they can try to get in front of someone else. I certainly don't want them in front of me.
What if you propose something, but then don't do anything about it? Does that count for anything?
My, what little patience you have. Bush has made a grand proposal, yes. And, true, the money hasn't been allocated yet. How about giving the guy some time to actually do what he said he was going to do before you tar and feather him? It could be that he's just spouting smoke and mirrors for election year politics, but it also could be that he genuinely wants this country to get back into space for the betterment of humanity. Until he's actually failed to make good on his promise you have no business saying "See! He's lying!"
1) Bush does not really care if it is funded or not. The speech and goals are just political mumbo-jumbo, like his AIDS research promises...
And if Bush had failed to put forth any spending for Mars or for AIDS, you'd have been right there screaming "you see? He doesn't care about people or space exploration, he's just an insenstive conservative politician!" That's the problem with Bush-haters: if you don't do anything, you get lambasted for being uncaring. If you do propose something, you get lambasted for posturing and being uncaring.
Hmm, a reporter writing a story for a liberal news outlet (AP) inflating the cost of a conservative administration's plan for space exploration, with other reporters gleefully carrying and amplifying the story for their news outlets. Nope, no liberal media bias here folks! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Fine, but it still doesn't remove the basic issue that the PC is certainly capable of doing the job. 100Mbit being saturated? Get a Gigabit card, or load-share across multiple 100Mbit cards. There are multiport Ethernet cards that do internal port-to-port switching as well, completely bypassing the PCI bus limitations.
As one of the other posters pointed out, it's not bandwidth that's your problem, it's pps (packets per second). The limiting factor there is going to be how quickly your system can handle interrupts, which is where polling driver support comes in.
"true...sort of. if those 3000 users aren't doing much other than checking email and browsing the web. If they are doing some serious stuff; which they may not be who knows?; then chances are good that 3000 users means a heck of a lot of traffic."
You're just not grasping this concept very well, are you? Let me spell it out to you very slowly: the limiting rate here is his T3 connection! No matter what these 3000+ users are doing, they cannot generate more than 45Mbit/sec of traffic because that's the max the T3 will handle (actually it's slightly less than even that due to overhead). So, with a single 100Mbit Ethernet card for the internal net and a single 100Mbit Ethernet card for the external net (or a T3 PCI adapter, it doesn't matter which), what's the max traffic you're ever going to have to deal with? Bingo! 45Mbit/sec, which is well within the capabilities of a single 100Mbit Ethernet card. It sure as hell isn't a problem for the PCI bus, which maxes out at 133MB (bytes, not bits) per second. That's 1064Mbit/sec, compared to the T3's 45Mbit/sec.
So, in short, it doesn't matter whether you've got one user, 5,000 users, or 50,000 users -- they are restricted by the smallest pipe in the system, and that's the T3. This should be obvious, but for some reason you keep thinking that more users can somehow generate more than 45Mbit/sec of traffic through a T3. Sorry, it can't be done. Perhaps you're thinking about using a PC as a switch instead of a firewall or something, but as a firewall you are completely and totally wrong.
Interesting idea: have you heard of floppyfw? I've used it in a variety of small-office locations and found it to be a fantastic little one-floppy firewall. You can totally dispense with the need for a hard drive, which removes the possibility of mechanical failure. Now the only mechanical things left to fail are fans.
The other nice thing about using a floppy instead of a hard drive? Just write protect the floppy when you're done building the firewall. If someone ever "breaks into" your firewall, you can simply reboot the firewall knowing that there's no way the floppy's been muddled with. Takes a lot of the guesswork out of recovering from a break in.
Just my $0.02 worth, adjusted for inflation.
Re:Polluting other planets
on
Melting Europa
·
· Score: 1
Guess what... the concept of ownership is completely human. In reality, we can't lay claim to anything we can't hold on to.
Not to be heading too far off topic, but the concept of ownership is just blatant reality and has nothing to do with humanity at all. A chimp can claim ownership to a female, and he will exercise that ownership until another, bigger chimp comes along to make him give up. Nature is full of territorial plant and animal life, and last I checked, plants weren't human.
But the bare fact of the matter is that ownership is real. If I lay claim to Jupiter itself, and if I'm in a position to defend that ownership from anyone who would take it from me, I own Jupiter. As soon as my fleet of intergalactic battlecruisers is ready, I'm gonna lay claim to Saturn as well. What's NASA gonna do, send the Shuttle out to stop me?
If you're in a position to exercise control over something or someone, you own that something or someone. That's the essence of ownership.
You again prove you're incapable of making an argument, and fall down to sputtering and frothing. I see I'm wasting my time with an ardent Microsoft-basher who has no logical thought process to back up his vitriol. You argue that Microsoft's "standard" is broken, but the only ruler you hold it up to is the HTML committee. May I remind you that large companies have singlehandedly come up with "standards" before? Ever hear of TN3270? Alas, you are too deaf to hear history. I'm sure it's intentional.
Main Entry: pedantic Pronunciation: pi-'dan-tik Function: adjective 1 : of, relating to, or being a pedant 2 : narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned 3 : UNIMAGINATIVE, PEDESTRIAN - pedantically/-'dan-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb
I think Doc meets the third definition quite well with his immature usage of the "M$" label. Apparently he's incapable of making a logical argument on merit, so he sinks to ad hominem attacks.
You seem too emotional to make a reasoned argument. Even the slightest criticism of your reasoning ignites you into rhetoric. And again you sink to the level of trying to pin some silly little label on Microsoft with your usage of the dollar sign. Is that really necessary? Aren't you capable of making your point without being so childish?
However, I'll give you one last chance. You state the following:
The M$ de facto standard is a problem, not a solution.
Please explain to me exactly why this is a problem. Please explain why any company, individual, or group imposing a de facto standard is always, without question, a bad thing. You seem to be so immensely sure of it, I'm sure you've got a sound, logical reason that isn't based on some preconceived hatred of Microsoft. I'd like to hear it.
First: Money and Microsoft (M$) is the name of their game
So? I fail to see what relevance this has on the suitability of one "standard" over another. Unless you're just anti-capitalist to begin with, you ought to be able to weigh the technical merits of each regardless of who it comes from. To put it more plainly, would you be upset about this if it were Microsoft who had created a standard and the HTML committee was disregarding it? My guess from your previous posts is "no" since you seem to be rooted in double-standardism.
your parting note is pedantic - nevermind its condescending mockery of "maturity".
If you are incapable of carrying on a logical argument without resorting to petty namecalling, you're the one meeting the definition of pedantic. Your response to my calling you on it shows I was wrong to assume you can rise above this level.
Second: The HTML standard is an RFC, which largely documents existing functionality, proven through use.
And Microsoft's implementation, which largely documents existing functionality, is also proven through use. IE is on more desktops and sees more websites than all other browsers combined. If this isn't "proven through use" then you're just too blind to see it.
That's where the standard gets its superiority, not from some kind of branding.
And this is where you're wrong. Standards do not automatically gain superiority simply because they are standards. You are making a circular argument. A standard becomes relevant when it is accepted and widely used. In fact, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a "standard" as "something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example." The public's usage of IE certainly meets the condition of "general consent as a model or example" by anyone's definition. Perhaps you ought to rethink your position.
And the multiple vendor composition of the W3C contributes to the all-important cross platform compatibility, which M$ not only lacks, but avoids, in the pursuit of marginalizing competition through leveraging its monopoly market control.
Again, you're trying to say that the HTML committee's standard is "superior" because it's altruistic. This is an emotional argument, not a logical one, and it seems to be rooted in some hatred you have for Microsoft in general. This is clouding your ability to reason. If you thought about this objectively, you'd realize that a standard gains superiority through widespread acceptance, to the point where all other "standards" are marginalized. Altruism has nothing to do with that at all. If Microsoft were to succeed in dominating 100% of the web browser market, Microsoft could define what standard HTML is to the entire world, and all the committees in the world could not change that.
You really do need to think about this logically as opposed to emotionally. Your arguments are circular and make no sense unless you're simply just frothing with hatred for Microsoft.
The HTML standard is by definition and by consensus "accurate". Microsoft deviations from it are errors, broken software.
This is where we cannot agree. You're saying that the HTML standards body is "accurate" because they got together and came up with how they thought HTML ought to work. But when a group of people get together at Microsoft and come up with a standard that they consider to be how HTML ought to work, they're wrong. This is your double standard.
The fact that Microsoft is one entity and the HTML body is several entities is irrelevant to the point of the argument. The argument is, in fact, this: that any group can come up with anything they want and call it a "standard," but the actual relevance of the standard relies solely on whether or not it is adopted. Intel "standardized" on the ATX form-factor motherboard, yet Apple uses a different form factor. Is Apple's implementation "inferior" to Intel's? By your definition, yes. By mine, no.
As a parting note, writing Microsoft as "M$" is generally accepted to be a pedantic, infantile expression. I would hope that you're capable of more maturity than that.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer is not replete with innovations that prevent standards-compliance; it's simply nonstandard. Microsoft didn't implement the standard because they didn't have to. There's really no other justification.
Very true. However, you put too much weight on the motivation of the standard-flouter. It's not justification that I'm talking about, I'm talking about reality and its effects.
Remember that back around 1996, Netscape decided to pre-empt the HTML standards body with the concept of frames. Microsoft haters flocked to Netscape in support, defending Netscape or at the very least remaining silent while Netscape told the standards body to go take a flying leap. Later, when Microsoft put CSS into IE, those same people screamed bloody murder. What I'm pointing out is the double standard.
HTML is a standard that Microsoft employees have tried to subvert in every possible way to perpetuate their corporate hegemony.
So? I fail to see how this makes Microsoft's implementation any less valid. What MS is doing is definitely in bad taste, but that does not mean their "standard" is any less technically correct than any other proposed "standard."
Yet they have failed to enforce their defacto standard on the Web, due to stubborn plurality of the Web, and the superiority of the actual standard.
I'd agree on the stubborn plurality, but "superiority" of the actual standard is debatable. If it's so superior, why hasn't it completely displaced Microsoft's "inferior" one? The answer, of course, is that Microsoft's "inferior" standard works just as well as the "superior" actual standard for most people.
Just because Microsoft doesn't follow someone else's rulebook does not mean Microsoft's own rulebook is any less valid. Microsoft's HTML implementation was formed via a group of human beings the same as the actual HTML standard. You're making an argument that sounds suspiciously akin to "the only way to ascend to heaven is through accepting Christianity, and I know that because the Bible tells me so." That's a slap in the face to any other religion, because each of them have their own book that lists conditions for entering the afterlife (or equivalent) and each of them feel their "standard" is as valid as anyone else's. Who are you to judge which belief is "superior" and which is "inferior?"
Just because you worship M$'s monopoly,
[sigh] Why does it always devolve into this? Has it not crossed your mind that it's possible to disagree with a company's (or person's) actions yet it's still possible to rationally argue in their defense? Have you never heard of the Devil's Advocate? Just because I point out that splashing water makes everyone equally wet, I'm now a Microsoft lackey? That's a ridiculously narrow-minded and intolerant viewpoint you've got there, Doc.
...it takes one individual without access to the source to fix up some of the most glaring errors that have lain there untouched for over two years.
What you're forgetting here is that not following the "standard" doesn't necessarily make Microsoft wrong, or bad, or erroneous. It merely makes them non-compliant with the standard. Now hold on before everyone mods me down as some sort of crackbrained troll, and hear me out.
History is replete with all sorts of "standards" that were completely and totally ignored. In each case where the standard was bypassed, something else eventually became dominant and was eventually recognized as the de facto "standard." How, then, is this "proprietary" standard any less valid than the original "standard" standard?
The short answer is: it isn't, unless you give a great deal of weight to design by standards committee. If Microsoft's market share is ubiquitious enough to force 90% of the world's web pages to be written with that share in mind, they are now a standard whether anyone says they are or not. The argument could logically be made that the HTML specification is lacking, and ultimately it is the HTML spec that is non-standard. In the sheer number of desktops sporting IE versus any other browser, that logic would win the day.
Now, that being said, I'm all for standards compliance whenever and wherever possible. I do, however, acknowledge that many "standards" have been woefully inadequate in the past, and they were rightfully disregarded by the innovators of the field (remember Netscape and frames?). I'd prefer it if Microsoft would play by the rules, but reality says they are actually capable of making the rules by sheer market force.
Whatever. You wanna re-engage this conversation, change your tone. Otherwise, you're indistinguishable from a troll.
By your definition, then, a troll must be anyone who disagrees with you strongly enough to state it out logically, and who requires the same of you. You want to suppot Glenn's position, fine. Be prepared to defend that position logically and you won't be ridiculed. Instead of using logic, you've used innuendo, calculated misunderstandings, and absolute fabrication in some places. If it is your intention to garner respect for these tactics, you've utterly failed.
You wish me to change my tone? Let's make a deal then: you start acting like a logical human being with a logical point to debate and I'll engage you logically. You start tossing in distortions, lies, partisan bickering, and namecalling ("Vulgarian"?) and I'll nail your worthless carcass to the wall with logic.
You know what the sad thing about this argument is? If the Bush and Glenn proposals were reversed, I'd support Glenn's position. You, however, wouldn't support the Bush position because you hate and despise anything that comes out of his administration. You would never let reality stand in the way of being two-faced and partisan, would you?
So, as I see it, you're a true native Vulgarian, too dim to carry an argument on the strength of logic alone, and you have some delusional aspects.
I was wondering when you'd get around to responding, and as I suspected, you're unable to directly attack the logical arguments I presented. Instead, you've resorted to ad hominem attacks. This is truly the typical tactic of the non-thinker, and goes far to prove my point that you have no thought process, only an emotional reaction.
There isn't a paragraph you've written that is worth response,
Yet you chose to respond. How funny!
I challenged you to explain claims only to have you say 'I did' or equally loftless witticisms.
I supposed the fact that I did point your failings out in a previous post escaped you. No doubt on purpose, since you are unlikely to ever admit to fabricating anything. Too bad the evidence condemned you of it several posts ago, you're just too lazy to go back and look at it.
PS: I did get a helluva laugh about you calling Glenn's spaceflight self-serving, since you seem to be championing a draft-dodging reservist pilot who wasted god knows how much to land on a carrier for a photo op. Thanks for the chuckles.
Draft-dodging? When was George W. Bush drafted? Oh, I forget, he wasn't. More lies from someone who's proven themselves to be an adept, but stupid, liar.
Wasted money? How much money? I'm sure you have a dollar figure since you've thought to include this in your argument. And I suppose all of Bill Clinton's visits to carriers, as well as the current Senator Kerry's visits to U.S. Naval vessels, completely escaped your radar, right?
Why not come out and admit it? You oppose the Bush plan not because it's a bad plan but because it's a Bush plan. You support Glenn's comments not because it's a good plan but because it's a Democratic plan.
In short, you're a dyed-in-the-wool leftist liberal who's more than willing to sacrifice logic in order to push an emotion-based argument. I should be thanking you for the chuckles, but it's acutally repugnant having to converse with someone so bereft of cognitive thought as you.
Don't bring up facial recognition, it doesn't work, false positives are through the roof and false negatives are too high to trust.
This is, of course, assuming that The Powers That Be have nothing more advanced that what's available to the private sector...which is a big assumption.
This is precisely why I advised our COO that we not buy any subscription program when we upgraded to WinXP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft allowed nearly three years to elapse between Win2k and XP/2K3, and the two year interval for subscription pricing just seemed too short. I gambled that Microsoft wouldn't make a major release in the next two years, and it appears it was a good gamble.
I had a long talk with one of the enterprise account reps at CDW, and I asked him just how many of his customers had actually bought into subscription. "Less than 15%," he said. Seems I wasn't the only one with this idea. When (if) we do upgrade to Microsoft's latest and greatest, we'll have to pay full price, but that should be less than the cost of two subscription terms. I'm also betting that Linux pricing pressure will force Microsoft's next product offering to be substantially cheaper than their current lineup.
Correction: you can put a lot of textual data in 8KB. If you start putting other things like fingerprint scans, voiceprints, DNA profiles, mug shots, and other things that aren't character-based, 8KB immediately becomes ridiculously tiny.
Perhaps you're hard of reading. Allow me to speak very slowly: I don't disagree with this point! However, what I do disagree with is the benefits of a Moon base versus a Mars mission. What will we gain by sending half a dozen astronauts to Mars, let them gather some rocks, and send them back? We could send automated sample gathering missions far easier than we could manned missions, and several such missions are already in the planning stages.
A moonbase, however, would give us valuable experience doing something we've never done before, namely the construction of an offworld surface-based permanent habitat. Pretty much anything that would be sent to Mars could be field-tested on the Moon in much greater safety, with faster results, and at a lower cost. You seem to think (as does the senile Senator) that we're just going to plop a moonbase up on 'ole Luna and then sit back and do nothing for the next century. I don't think so. A moonbase would be used to gear up for Mars, and thus it would make any future Mars mission simpler, safer, faster, cheaper, or any combination thereof.
We're *at* 30 years, not 50. And both Glenn and Bush seem to be talkin' short-term plans (less than 20 years)
We're at 30 years. President Bush's plan calls for manned missions by the end of the decade or thereabouts. The last moon mission was in 1971. The time interval would be about 39 years. You want to quibble over minutiae, then quibble. You're just seeming petty at this point.
I need air. I need food. I don't need a trip to mars.
Keep saying that the next time a killer asteroid comes heading our way. Ultimately, we need to establish an offworld presence simple as a means to preserve the race in the face of global catastrophe.
If something goes wrong anywhere in space, you're in Trouble with a capital T.
As proven by Apollo 13, you may be in a lot of trouble, but it's a helluva lot less trouble to get you back on a 2-3 day moon journey than it is to get you back from a 6-9 month Mars journey. With Luna you have the option of a free return trajectory that'll get you back to Earth in a few days even if the engines fail. With Mars...no such option. You head out, you're going to be there for a long, long time if anything goes wrong. Far more dangerous, and that doesn't even take into account the fact that any Mars mission would take you outside the Earth's magnetosphere, making you much more vulnerable to solar flares. With the Moon...that's not a problem. You are severely underestimating the difficulties involved here. Whether it's out of ignorance or malice I can't yet judge.
Also, colonizing mars might be easier than colonizing the moon. Atmosphere? Got some. Water: looks like maybe so. Gravity (for long-term physiological effects, since that seems an issue for zero-g space station residents): near what we're used to. Landing: can air-brake instead of fuel-braked descent (which means fuel usage advantage goes to mars). A day's about the same length. I'm sure there are more. How does a moon-base outweigh those advantages?
Atmosphere? Unbreathable and thinner than most terrestrial vacuums.
Water? Yes, but surveys indicate there's water ice on the moon as well. You can always get water from fuel cells, though, and any space vehicle is going to have these.
Gravity? Yes, it's there, and stronger than the moon's gravity. That's a hindrance if you're trying to get off the damned planet, you know. Physiologically, 1/3rd G isn't much different from 1/6th G. Zero G is the primary bone and muscle mass killer, but even small amounts of gravity counteract this.
Landing: can air-brake instead of fuel-braked descent (which means fuel usage advantage goes to mars).
Only for landing. For taking off you have a higher gravity well to climb out of and you have atmosp
Slashdot Mirror
How do you know the MD5 wasn't made after the intruder got in? It wouldn't be very valuable then, would it?
The point is, after a breakin you must determine when the breakin occured, because everything after that is suspect. The problem is it can sometimes be very difficult -- or impossible -- to determine when the breakin happened. Then you're really, really screwed.
Ah, but this has been tried elsewhere. Look up the design history of the swing-wing pivots on the B-1 bomber. The pivots are two large hollow metal cylinders, slightly asymmetrical. One side is clearly marked "THIS SIDE UP."
However, the manufacturer stamped the wrong side of the pivot, and it was dutifully installed upside-down. Murphy wins again no matter what you do.
This doesn't occur for much the same reason people are often jerks in traffic and don't give someone room to enter their lane.
Perhaps if people would try manipulating that funny stalk poking out of the steering column called a "blinker," then I'd consider letting them over. If they're too lazy to put on a blinker, they can try to get in front of someone else. I certainly don't want them in front of me.
What if you propose something, but then don't do anything about it? Does that count for anything?
My, what little patience you have. Bush has made a grand proposal, yes. And, true, the money hasn't been allocated yet. How about giving the guy some time to actually do what he said he was going to do before you tar and feather him? It could be that he's just spouting smoke and mirrors for election year politics, but it also could be that he genuinely wants this country to get back into space for the betterment of humanity. Until he's actually failed to make good on his promise you have no business saying "See! He's lying!"
1) Bush does not really care if it is funded or not. The speech and goals are just political mumbo-jumbo, like his AIDS research promises...
And if Bush had failed to put forth any spending for Mars or for AIDS, you'd have been right there screaming "you see? He doesn't care about people or space exploration, he's just an insenstive conservative politician!" That's the problem with Bush-haters: if you don't do anything, you get lambasted for being uncaring. If you do propose something, you get lambasted for posturing and being uncaring.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Hmm, a reporter writing a story for a liberal news outlet (AP) inflating the cost of a conservative administration's plan for space exploration, with other reporters gleefully carrying and amplifying the story for their news outlets. Nope, no liberal media bias here folks! Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Fine, but it still doesn't remove the basic issue that the PC is certainly capable of doing the job. 100Mbit being saturated? Get a Gigabit card, or load-share across multiple 100Mbit cards. There are multiport Ethernet cards that do internal port-to-port switching as well, completely bypassing the PCI bus limitations.
As one of the other posters pointed out, it's not bandwidth that's your problem, it's pps (packets per second). The limiting factor there is going to be how quickly your system can handle interrupts, which is where polling driver support comes in.
"true...sort of. if those 3000 users aren't doing much other than checking email and browsing the web. If they are doing some serious stuff; which they may not be who knows?; then chances are good that 3000 users means a heck of a lot of traffic."
You're just not grasping this concept very well, are you? Let me spell it out to you very slowly: the limiting rate here is his T3 connection! No matter what these 3000+ users are doing, they cannot generate more than 45Mbit/sec of traffic because that's the max the T3 will handle (actually it's slightly less than even that due to overhead). So, with a single 100Mbit Ethernet card for the internal net and a single 100Mbit Ethernet card for the external net (or a T3 PCI adapter, it doesn't matter which), what's the max traffic you're ever going to have to deal with? Bingo! 45Mbit/sec, which is well within the capabilities of a single 100Mbit Ethernet card. It sure as hell isn't a problem for the PCI bus, which maxes out at 133MB (bytes, not bits) per second. That's 1064Mbit/sec, compared to the T3's 45Mbit/sec.
So, in short, it doesn't matter whether you've got one user, 5,000 users, or 50,000 users -- they are restricted by the smallest pipe in the system, and that's the T3. This should be obvious, but for some reason you keep thinking that more users can somehow generate more than 45Mbit/sec of traffic through a T3. Sorry, it can't be done. Perhaps you're thinking about using a PC as a switch instead of a firewall or something, but as a firewall you are completely and totally wrong.
Interesting idea: have you heard of floppyfw? I've used it in a variety of small-office locations and found it to be a fantastic little one-floppy firewall. You can totally dispense with the need for a hard drive, which removes the possibility of mechanical failure. Now the only mechanical things left to fail are fans.
The other nice thing about using a floppy instead of a hard drive? Just write protect the floppy when you're done building the firewall. If someone ever "breaks into" your firewall, you can simply reboot the firewall knowing that there's no way the floppy's been muddled with. Takes a lot of the guesswork out of recovering from a break in.
Just my $0.02 worth, adjusted for inflation.
Guess what ... the concept of ownership is completely human. In reality, we can't lay claim to anything we can't hold on to.
Not to be heading too far off topic, but the concept of ownership is just blatant reality and has nothing to do with humanity at all. A chimp can claim ownership to a female, and he will exercise that ownership until another, bigger chimp comes along to make him give up. Nature is full of territorial plant and animal life, and last I checked, plants weren't human.
But the bare fact of the matter is that ownership is real. If I lay claim to Jupiter itself, and if I'm in a position to defend that ownership from anyone who would take it from me, I own Jupiter. As soon as my fleet of intergalactic battlecruisers is ready, I'm gonna lay claim to Saturn as well. What's NASA gonna do, send the Shuttle out to stop me?
If you're in a position to exercise control over something or someone, you own that something or someone. That's the essence of ownership.
You again prove you're incapable of making an argument, and fall down to sputtering and frothing. I see I'm wasting my time with an ardent Microsoft-basher who has no logical thought process to back up his vitriol. You argue that Microsoft's "standard" is broken, but the only ruler you hold it up to is the HTML committee. May I remind you that large companies have singlehandedly come up with "standards" before? Ever hear of TN3270? Alas, you are too deaf to hear history. I'm sure it's intentional.
Good day to you, and may you one day grow up.
According to Merriam-Webster:
/-'dan-ti-k(&-)lE/ adverb
Main Entry: pedantic
Pronunciation: pi-'dan-tik
Function: adjective
1 : of, relating to, or being a pedant
2 : narrowly, stodgily, and often ostentatiously learned
3 : UNIMAGINATIVE, PEDESTRIAN
- pedantically
I think Doc meets the third definition quite well with his immature usage of the "M$" label. Apparently he's incapable of making a logical argument on merit, so he sinks to ad hominem attacks.
You seem too emotional to make a reasoned argument. Even the slightest criticism of your reasoning ignites you into rhetoric. And again you sink to the level of trying to pin some silly little label on Microsoft with your usage of the dollar sign. Is that really necessary? Aren't you capable of making your point without being so childish?
However, I'll give you one last chance. You state the following:
The M$ de facto standard is a problem, not a solution.
Please explain to me exactly why this is a problem. Please explain why any company, individual, or group imposing a de facto standard is always, without question, a bad thing. You seem to be so immensely sure of it, I'm sure you've got a sound, logical reason that isn't based on some preconceived hatred of Microsoft. I'd like to hear it.
First: Money and Microsoft (M$) is the name of their game
So? I fail to see what relevance this has on the suitability of one "standard" over another. Unless you're just anti-capitalist to begin with, you ought to be able to weigh the technical merits of each regardless of who it comes from. To put it more plainly, would you be upset about this if it were Microsoft who had created a standard and the HTML committee was disregarding it? My guess from your previous posts is "no" since you seem to be rooted in double-standardism.
your parting note is pedantic - nevermind its condescending mockery of "maturity".
If you are incapable of carrying on a logical argument without resorting to petty namecalling, you're the one meeting the definition of pedantic. Your response to my calling you on it shows I was wrong to assume you can rise above this level.
Second: The HTML standard is an RFC, which largely documents existing functionality, proven through use.
And Microsoft's implementation, which largely documents existing functionality, is also proven through use. IE is on more desktops and sees more websites than all other browsers combined. If this isn't "proven through use" then you're just too blind to see it.
That's where the standard gets its superiority, not from some kind of branding.
And this is where you're wrong. Standards do not automatically gain superiority simply because they are standards. You are making a circular argument. A standard becomes relevant when it is accepted and widely used. In fact, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a "standard" as "something established by authority, custom, or general consent as a model or example." The public's usage of IE certainly meets the condition of "general consent as a model or example" by anyone's definition. Perhaps you ought to rethink your position.
And the multiple vendor composition of the W3C contributes to the all-important cross platform compatibility, which M$ not only lacks, but avoids, in the pursuit of marginalizing competition through leveraging its monopoly market control.
Again, you're trying to say that the HTML committee's standard is "superior" because it's altruistic. This is an emotional argument, not a logical one, and it seems to be rooted in some hatred you have for Microsoft in general. This is clouding your ability to reason. If you thought about this objectively, you'd realize that a standard gains superiority through widespread acceptance, to the point where all other "standards" are marginalized. Altruism has nothing to do with that at all. If Microsoft were to succeed in dominating 100% of the web browser market, Microsoft could define what standard HTML is to the entire world, and all the committees in the world could not change that.
You really do need to think about this logically as opposed to emotionally. Your arguments are circular and make no sense unless you're simply just frothing with hatred for Microsoft.
The HTML standard is by definition and by consensus "accurate". Microsoft deviations from it are errors, broken software.
This is where we cannot agree. You're saying that the HTML standards body is "accurate" because they got together and came up with how they thought HTML ought to work. But when a group of people get together at Microsoft and come up with a standard that they consider to be how HTML ought to work, they're wrong. This is your double standard.
The fact that Microsoft is one entity and the HTML body is several entities is irrelevant to the point of the argument. The argument is, in fact, this: that any group can come up with anything they want and call it a "standard," but the actual relevance of the standard relies solely on whether or not it is adopted. Intel "standardized" on the ATX form-factor motherboard, yet Apple uses a different form factor. Is Apple's implementation "inferior" to Intel's? By your definition, yes. By mine, no.
As a parting note, writing Microsoft as "M$" is generally accepted to be a pedantic, infantile expression. I would hope that you're capable of more maturity than that.
Microsoft's Internet Explorer is not replete with innovations that prevent standards-compliance; it's simply nonstandard. Microsoft didn't implement the standard because they didn't have to. There's really no other justification.
Very true. However, you put too much weight on the motivation of the standard-flouter. It's not justification that I'm talking about, I'm talking about reality and its effects.
Remember that back around 1996, Netscape decided to pre-empt the HTML standards body with the concept of frames. Microsoft haters flocked to Netscape in support, defending Netscape or at the very least remaining silent while Netscape told the standards body to go take a flying leap. Later, when Microsoft put CSS into IE, those same people screamed bloody murder. What I'm pointing out is the double standard.
HTML is a standard that Microsoft employees have tried to subvert in every possible way to perpetuate their corporate hegemony.
So? I fail to see how this makes Microsoft's implementation any less valid. What MS is doing is definitely in bad taste, but that does not mean their "standard" is any less technically correct than any other proposed "standard."
Yet they have failed to enforce their defacto standard on the Web, due to stubborn plurality of the Web, and the superiority of the actual standard.
I'd agree on the stubborn plurality, but "superiority" of the actual standard is debatable. If it's so superior, why hasn't it completely displaced Microsoft's "inferior" one? The answer, of course, is that Microsoft's "inferior" standard works just as well as the "superior" actual standard for most people.
Just because Microsoft doesn't follow someone else's rulebook does not mean Microsoft's own rulebook is any less valid. Microsoft's HTML implementation was formed via a group of human beings the same as the actual HTML standard. You're making an argument that sounds suspiciously akin to "the only way to ascend to heaven is through accepting Christianity, and I know that because the Bible tells me so." That's a slap in the face to any other religion, because each of them have their own book that lists conditions for entering the afterlife (or equivalent) and each of them feel their "standard" is as valid as anyone else's. Who are you to judge which belief is "superior" and which is "inferior?"
Just because you worship M$'s monopoly,
[sigh] Why does it always devolve into this? Has it not crossed your mind that it's possible to disagree with a company's (or person's) actions yet it's still possible to rationally argue in their defense? Have you never heard of the Devil's Advocate? Just because I point out that splashing water makes everyone equally wet, I'm now a Microsoft lackey? That's a ridiculously narrow-minded and intolerant viewpoint you've got there, Doc.
...it takes one individual without access to the source to fix up some of the most glaring errors that have lain there untouched for over two years.
What you're forgetting here is that not following the "standard" doesn't necessarily make Microsoft wrong, or bad, or erroneous. It merely makes them non-compliant with the standard. Now hold on before everyone mods me down as some sort of crackbrained troll, and hear me out.
History is replete with all sorts of "standards" that were completely and totally ignored. In each case where the standard was bypassed, something else eventually became dominant and was eventually recognized as the de facto "standard." How, then, is this "proprietary" standard any less valid than the original "standard" standard?
The short answer is: it isn't, unless you give a great deal of weight to design by standards committee. If Microsoft's market share is ubiquitious enough to force 90% of the world's web pages to be written with that share in mind, they are now a standard whether anyone says they are or not. The argument could logically be made that the HTML specification is lacking, and ultimately it is the HTML spec that is non-standard. In the sheer number of desktops sporting IE versus any other browser, that logic would win the day.
Now, that being said, I'm all for standards compliance whenever and wherever possible. I do, however, acknowledge that many "standards" have been woefully inadequate in the past, and they were rightfully disregarded by the innovators of the field (remember Netscape and frames?). I'd prefer it if Microsoft would play by the rules, but reality says they are actually capable of making the rules by sheer market force.
Whatever. You wanna re-engage this conversation, change your tone. Otherwise, you're indistinguishable from a troll.
By your definition, then, a troll must be anyone who disagrees with you strongly enough to state it out logically, and who requires the same of you. You want to suppot Glenn's position, fine. Be prepared to defend that position logically and you won't be ridiculed. Instead of using logic, you've used innuendo, calculated misunderstandings, and absolute fabrication in some places. If it is your intention to garner respect for these tactics, you've utterly failed.
You wish me to change my tone? Let's make a deal then: you start acting like a logical human being with a logical point to debate and I'll engage you logically. You start tossing in distortions, lies, partisan bickering, and namecalling ("Vulgarian"?) and I'll nail your worthless carcass to the wall with logic.
You know what the sad thing about this argument is? If the Bush and Glenn proposals were reversed, I'd support Glenn's position. You, however, wouldn't support the Bush position because you hate and despise anything that comes out of his administration. You would never let reality stand in the way of being two-faced and partisan, would you?
So, as I see it, you're a true native Vulgarian, too dim to carry an argument on the strength of logic alone, and you have some delusional aspects.
I was wondering when you'd get around to responding, and as I suspected, you're unable to directly attack the logical arguments I presented. Instead, you've resorted to ad hominem attacks. This is truly the typical tactic of the non-thinker, and goes far to prove my point that you have no thought process, only an emotional reaction.
There isn't a paragraph you've written that is worth response,
Yet you chose to respond. How funny!
I challenged you to explain claims only to have you say 'I did' or equally loftless witticisms.
I supposed the fact that I did point your failings out in a previous post escaped you. No doubt on purpose, since you are unlikely to ever admit to fabricating anything. Too bad the evidence condemned you of it several posts ago, you're just too lazy to go back and look at it.
PS: I did get a helluva laugh about you calling Glenn's spaceflight self-serving, since you seem to be championing a draft-dodging reservist pilot who wasted god knows how much to land on a carrier for a photo op. Thanks for the chuckles.
Draft-dodging? When was George W. Bush drafted? Oh, I forget, he wasn't. More lies from someone who's proven themselves to be an adept, but stupid, liar.
Wasted money? How much money? I'm sure you have a dollar figure since you've thought to include this in your argument. And I suppose all of Bill Clinton's visits to carriers, as well as the current Senator Kerry's visits to U.S. Naval vessels, completely escaped your radar, right?
Why not come out and admit it? You oppose the Bush plan not because it's a bad plan but because it's a Bush plan. You support Glenn's comments not because it's a good plan but because it's a Democratic plan.
In short, you're a dyed-in-the-wool leftist liberal who's more than willing to sacrifice logic in order to push an emotion-based argument. I should be thanking you for the chuckles, but it's acutally repugnant having to converse with someone so bereft of cognitive thought as you.
Don't bring up facial recognition, it doesn't work, false positives are through the roof and false negatives are too high to trust.
This is, of course, assuming that The Powers That Be have nothing more advanced that what's available to the private sector...which is a big assumption.
This is precisely why I advised our COO that we not buy any subscription program when we upgraded to WinXP and Windows Server 2003. Microsoft allowed nearly three years to elapse between Win2k and XP/2K3, and the two year interval for subscription pricing just seemed too short. I gambled that Microsoft wouldn't make a major release in the next two years, and it appears it was a good gamble.
I had a long talk with one of the enterprise account reps at CDW, and I asked him just how many of his customers had actually bought into subscription. "Less than 15%," he said. Seems I wasn't the only one with this idea. When (if) we do upgrade to Microsoft's latest and greatest, we'll have to pay full price, but that should be less than the cost of two subscription terms. I'm also betting that Linux pricing pressure will force Microsoft's next product offering to be substantially cheaper than their current lineup.
Correction: you can put a lot of textual data in 8KB. If you start putting other things like fingerprint scans, voiceprints, DNA profiles, mug shots, and other things that aren't character-based, 8KB immediately becomes ridiculously tiny.
A mars MISSION is easier than a moon BASE.
Perhaps you're hard of reading. Allow me to speak very slowly: I don't disagree with this point! However, what I do disagree with is the benefits of a Moon base versus a Mars mission. What will we gain by sending half a dozen astronauts to Mars, let them gather some rocks, and send them back? We could send automated sample gathering missions far easier than we could manned missions, and several such missions are already in the planning stages.
A moonbase, however, would give us valuable experience doing something we've never done before, namely the construction of an offworld surface-based permanent habitat. Pretty much anything that would be sent to Mars could be field-tested on the Moon in much greater safety, with faster results, and at a lower cost. You seem to think (as does the senile Senator) that we're just going to plop a moonbase up on 'ole Luna and then sit back and do nothing for the next century. I don't think so. A moonbase would be used to gear up for Mars, and thus it would make any future Mars mission simpler, safer, faster, cheaper, or any combination thereof.
We're *at* 30 years, not 50. And both Glenn and Bush seem to be talkin' short-term plans (less than 20 years)
We're at 30 years. President Bush's plan calls for manned missions by the end of the decade or thereabouts. The last moon mission was in 1971. The time interval would be about 39 years. You want to quibble over minutiae, then quibble. You're just seeming petty at this point.
I need air. I need food. I don't need a trip to mars.
Keep saying that the next time a killer asteroid comes heading our way. Ultimately, we need to establish an offworld presence simple as a means to preserve the race in the face of global catastrophe.
If something goes wrong anywhere in space, you're in Trouble with a capital T.
As proven by Apollo 13, you may be in a lot of trouble, but it's a helluva lot less trouble to get you back on a 2-3 day moon journey than it is to get you back from a 6-9 month Mars journey. With Luna you have the option of a free return trajectory that'll get you back to Earth in a few days even if the engines fail. With Mars...no such option. You head out, you're going to be there for a long, long time if anything goes wrong. Far more dangerous, and that doesn't even take into account the fact that any Mars mission would take you outside the Earth's magnetosphere, making you much more vulnerable to solar flares. With the Moon...that's not a problem. You are severely underestimating the difficulties involved here. Whether it's out of ignorance or malice I can't yet judge.
Also, colonizing mars might be easier than colonizing the moon. Atmosphere? Got some. Water: looks like maybe so. Gravity (for long-term physiological effects, since that seems an issue for zero-g space station residents): near what we're used to. Landing: can air-brake instead of fuel-braked descent (which means fuel usage advantage goes to mars). A day's about the same length. I'm sure there are more. How does a moon-base outweigh those advantages?
Atmosphere? Unbreathable and thinner than most terrestrial vacuums.
Water? Yes, but surveys indicate there's water ice on the moon as well. You can always get water from fuel cells, though, and any space vehicle is going to have these.
Gravity? Yes, it's there, and stronger than the moon's gravity. That's a hindrance if you're trying to get off the damned planet, you know. Physiologically, 1/3rd G isn't much different from 1/6th G. Zero G is the primary bone and muscle mass killer, but even small amounts of gravity counteract this.
Landing: can air-brake instead of fuel-braked descent (which means fuel usage advantage goes to mars).
Only for landing. For taking off you have a higher gravity well to climb out of and you have atmosp