Methinks that the designers were influenced by the Dan Brown book "The DaVinci Code". Using "apple" as a password? Could be a coincidence, but I doubt it...
That's the theme of the method I'd propose. You seem to have already chosen your primary target: web programming (AJAX and Apache and SQL and Unix all come together for that purpose). Now you need to chose the objectives for each sub-step to getting there. This, by the way, is similar to "functional programming", which you will use quite frequently, so it is rather fitting that your educational plan mirrors that.
First, I'd build a foundation in your environment. In this case, Unix and Apache. This (as everything) is best learned by doing. Build a Linux box. You don't have to compile from scratch using Linux From Scratch or Slackware - you can use Ubuntu or Fedora. The important part really is that you have a representative example of your target environment when you are done - you'll be using this alot.
Move around in this environment, get comfortable with it. Gain familiarity with the command line. You can use the GUI, but since most production servers won't have one installed, you shouldn't rely on the GUI. The more you can do on the command line, the better.
With this in place, play around with Apache. Install it (if you didn't as part of the OS install) and look through the configuration file. It is well documented, but for the inevitable gaps, use Google and the documentation on the Apache website. To complete your playing with Apache, you will need to start down your path of learning HTML, but we're not there yet. Install a pachage for Apache - maybe a message board system or photo organizer. It really doesn't matter, just so long as it requires you to make changes to the Apache configuration. It will likely also require you to set up PHP or PERL or MySQL in order for it to function. These will have to be set up in such a way so as to work with Apache. This in turn will help you learn more about how Apache works (as well as the languages or databases you install). As an additional bonus, you now have source code to look at, and probably some HTML samples. So lets move on.
HTML comes next. It's quick to learn, and, like scripted languages, it is easy to edit and see immediate results - just save and refresh your browser. There are a ton of HTML resources on the Internet - again, Google is your friend. Look at a site and make prodigious use of your browser's "View Source" option. One of the best ways to learn is to look at other people's examples and make changes from there. Here is where Open Source can really help, because it is an endless supply of examples. Keep in mind, not all of them are good examples, but here is where learning resources on the web or at a school or from a book can help you keep from learning the "wrong way" to do things. An HTML style guide would be good here. And you should then choose an objective - a project, if you will - to achieve. Don't be too ambitious, but design and create a small web site using as wide a variety of HTML knowledge as you can. Start simple - fonts and background colors, images and links, then once you're comfortable with that, expand the site to include tables and style elements, and finally move up to style sheets and CSS. Build them by hand, of course. You can't learn HTML if a tool is doing all of the heavy lifting for you.
Now, let's move into HTML. Others will say you should learn a "real" language first, like C or Pascal. But the reality is that you should learn a language _right_, then the choice of language becomes less important. C and Pascal are very structured, which is why they are often used as introductory languages in college (or even high school) curriculums. While it is still possible to program in them incorrectly, they tend to be more strict than other languages, especially interpereted languages (basic) or scripting languages (PHP, PERL). Though I still recommend prodigious use of example source code for learning these languages, I can't stress enough that you find a good book or two that will encourage you to program correctly and teach you the difference between good and
Go to your Preferences and go to the Homepage tab. You will see a section that allows you to choose how much of articles from each category you wish to see on the slashdot homepage. The thick bar/thin bar icons on the top row determine whether you see "the title only" or "the title and summary" when the article is selected for the homepage. The lower row is the same, but for articles from that category that are not selected for the homepage.
a) It has been pretty firmly established here that "Condi" likely had minimal involvement in this. b) When the letter says "Internet structure", they are, like any well written position piece, sticking to the topic of the letter - in this case the DNS and TLD structure. VOIP is not a vital part of the Internet structure, and quite frankly, the VOIP issue (and P2P issue) you bring up is wildly different, involving enforecement of copyright and fair competition and consumer protection laws already in place. It is already accepted that the US (when involving companies on its soil) is the ultimate arbiter of law. They aren't overstepping their bounds in the VOIP, etc case. c) "Condi" was likely not instructed to do anything. She was probably asked to lend her name to the document to add weight, and at her own volition chose to do so, likely because she agreed with the contents. If she had chosen not to sign it, it probably would have been shopped around until someone else with some weight behind their name did. I won't comment on her motives, as I'm obviously not privvy to them, but there are rules of diplomacy that aren't all that dissimilar to the rules of Poker. If you tip your hand by expressing an interest in something, your opponent can use that item you are interested in as leverage. By the same token, you try not to give anything away. So the question is, did we tip our hand because we REALLY want to keep this power, or because we simply don't want to budge unless we absolutely have to? This is the equivalent of the US saying "I'll call your bet". We're not raising, and we're not folding. d) Doublespeak is not unique to the Bush admin. Note Clinton's waffling on the definition of "intercourse" and his "Slick Willy" nickname (used across party lines, even on rare occasions by his supporters). Doublespeak, non-commital phrases, misdirection, etc, are hallmarks of politics, diplomacy, and sales. Never commit until all the cards are in your favor (or forced to), manipulate your opposition to obtain what you need, share (resource and informationally) only what is needed for your ends to be met. Shades of Sun-Tsu - at one degree or another, these are the basics of most social interaction. The more you have to lose, the more rigorously you adhere to these tenets. This is one of the reasons that power and corruption tend to go hand in hand ("absolute power corrupts absolutely"). You don't amass and maintain power without mastering these skills ("a fool and his money are soon parted"). The Bush administration has arguably made the LEAST use of this, as they tend to speak to the press less frequently than other administrations and therefore have less need of watching their language. I won't exactly defend the Bush administration, but your comment here speaks more of your political leanings than it does any actual thought you put into the argument.
Oh, and try resistance every once in a while. I think you'll find it quite effective, especially in electronics.
I have to admit I take issue with the evidence as reporterd in the articles, especially the Guardian.
The analysis showed that during the past 5,000 years, sea levels rose at a rate of around 1mm each year, caused largely by the residual melting of icesheets from the previous ice age. But in the past 150 years, data from tide gauges and satellites show sea levels are rising at 2mm a year.
They don't mention what the core says about the last 150 years. They say the core says 1mm/year for the last 5000 years, but instead of comparing like evidence to like evidence, they inexplicably switch to alternative evidence for the last 150 years. This seems fishy to me.
The research, published in the US journal Science, comes a week before the countries that embraced the Kyoto protocol meet
And yes, the timing seems quite suspicious. Can you say "political agenda"?
According to Prof Miller, there is little chance of slowing the rising tide caused by global warming... "The Bush administration should stop asking whether temperatures are globally rising and admit the scientific fact that they are, but then turn the question around politically and say: 'We can't really do anything about this on any kind of cost basis at all'," he said.
Blatant fearmongering. "It's really bad and we're all doomed and your government has been lying to you. But we have no idea how to fix it. Your government should just use this evidence to dodge the question." I honestly don't see the relevance of this entire paragraph in the article except to stir up distrust and fear. Bad journalism, but the fact that it is a quote from a professor who led the study? Yeah, I'm not critical of his results...
"If you really want to make a case for global warming, you just have to look at the past 1,000 years, because the current increase in carbon dioxide stands out dramatically," said lead author Dr Thomas Stocker
"Since I want to make a case for global warming, just ignore evidence that includes a similar period from a previous interglacial period". Now, yes, I realize that such evidence is available and in fact supports his statement, but the fact that he says it's irrelevant really makes me question his understanding of the matter.
Now, I don't argue we humans have had our impact on the environment, but I'm more inclined to believe that clear-cutting the rainforests is responsible for the vast majority of the human component of the increase in greenhouse gasses (much of which is now done by countries other than US), and this type of reporting (and the statements of the researchers themselves) is more likely to make me distrust their results.
And one last "WTF?" for you - according to the article (and their quotes from our friend Kenneth), the 2mm/year increase in the tide will apparently result in the tides being 40cm higher by 2100. Maybe I don't know some super secret math technique that makes 95 years * 2mm = 40cm (I get 19cm), but I really think that Dennis Miller had it right - the detectable change over 100 years is pretty minor. Should we be concerned? Certainly, but over the next 500 years our temperature will have raised a comfortable 10 degrees (Fahrenheit I believe), and the ocean level will be a chill inducing 1 meter higher. If we can't eliminate the need for fossil fuels (which are due to run out well before then, apparently) and colonize space for resources in 500 years, well, maybe we should all suffocate on this rock.
So, I see this, at best, as a hack reporting job on valid evidence, and at worst another mis-interpreting of evidence to further a political agenda. Further evidence of why you should take everything you read on the Internet or a newspaper or, really, anywhere, with a grain of salt. Or two, for good measure.
One's freedom **SHALL NEVER** infringe on someone else's freedom.
Maybe we're reading from a different book, but I thought that was the basis of Libertarianism. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism, "libertarianism holds that a person's freedom to dispose of his body and private property as he sees fit should be unlimited as long as that person does not initiate coercion on others". Further, "libertarians define "coercion" as the use of physical force, the threat of such, or deception (fraud), that alters, or is intended to alter, the way individuals would use their body or property". So, now explain to me how we jump from the above definition of Libertarianism (which I have quoted you stating strongly as sometheing you agree with) to a means of controlling slaves?
Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.
I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian Overlords.
Seriously, being a libertarian myself, I find this sort of blanket statement baseless and uninformed. I won't even comment as to the rudeness of it as such things are to be expected in a political discussion. I think that Pig Hogger (a hillbilly name if ever I heard one) forgot to check the "post anonymously" box.
And for those too dense to pick up on it, my "hillbilly" insult is meant to show how silly such stereotype insults are. If anybody takes it seriously, well, I'm happy to have pissed in your Wheaties as it is likely to be the least offensive percieved sleight in your dim witted paranoid day.
All this will accomplish is to either cut further into their profit margins or raise the price for their legitimate customers (or both), thus alienating them further with worthless anti-piracy efforts that only serve to reduce fair use and prevent their target market from using the product as they wish.
It's a downward spiral, and you know that the customers are the biggest losers, followed by the studio execs that are being advised into this by even less scrupulous people that are successfully bilking them for millions. It's like those con men that scam the elderly out of their retirement savings, only these elderly should know better as they invented much of the game.
It'd be funny if the bill wasn't ultimately being footed by the honest consumers.
I wish Microsoft would fix their most fundamental user interface problem: Never, ever, ever, ever, ever steal my input directed to one window and start providing it to another. I don't care if the applications are not playing ball properly. Don't allow it. How many times have I hit "enter" while typing, say, in a word processor, but just before I hit "enter" a message box pops up and my enter key is swallowed by it, taking the default action, and I don't even know what happened because I never got the chance to see the question. Or my password being entered into one window's field but ending up in another. Bad.
QFT
And as for screen corners, I think that an option for the start bar (or whatever equivalent your UI uses) should be to minimize to a corner (or, if so inclined, all corners). The mouse ends up on a screen edge, unhiding a hidden utility bar, way to often. I think that a corner would be just as easy to hit intentionally as a screen edge, but a much smaller accidental target.
Also, there is the issue of "color", so yes, if there was a way that they could link a color to that number, and prove that you had intent to disseminate that data, knowing its color, then they could bust you.
According to this page, a store with a closing time of say 2am actually is closed at 1:59am. So, technically, the jerk was right (and may have been explicitly instructed by his boss to do that). Also, according to the page, many bars do stay open the additional hour, milking the time change for additional business. That's up to the establishment, though I would imagine that an officer that's had a bad day could ticket them for violating whatever public code forces them to close at 2am.
Chances are that if you had had the time/inclination, you could have found someone willing to sell you alcohol after the time change, but it probably wouldn't have been worth it to drive all over looking.
You miss the point - dyndns only redirects them, so they start by looking for www.mysite.com on port 80, which points them to dyndns, that then directs them to your home computer at whatever port you've chosen. Their company's firewall will STILL block access to your web page since it isn't being served on port 80.
And this doesn't help with SMTP. For a fee, there are services that will act as a relay and then send the mail to your computer on whatever port you want, but that sort of eliminates the possibilty of doing things like greylisting as your home server will only ever recieve email from the relay server. And if your asshat ISP (like Cox) blocks outbound 25, you have to use their server as a relay, which is a GIANT PitA since they aggressively check for forged headers, so anything from root@localhost will get rejected, forcing a considerable amount of configuration. Not being a Sendmail master, I'm still struggling with this one. And yes, I realize I should be using Qmail.
Heh - you aren't a big fan of open source, are you? Poor/inaccurate documentation and a disclaimer of all responsibility abounds, even on some of the most trusted OS security software (SSH/SSL, GPG, etc).
So? Don't use Metropipe's proxy. It's a fully operational Linux - configure SSH to connect to your preffered proxy server and use that.
Of course, from there on out it STILL goes over someone else's network (your ISP's network and your destination's ISP's network at a minimum). But bottom line is that their tool simply automagically configures that proxy. If you have the knowledge to configure your own (which it sounds like you are already doing), then do so, and use the tool for its other features (which I've already gone over in another post). Or don't - I just wanted to make sure you weren't passing up a potentially useful tool just because you weren't aware of a way to circumvent a single feature you didn't like.
The simple answer as to what utility this has is that it solves a number of issues all at the same time. First, all of your settings are immediately available - your bookmarks, your cookies, your saved emails, etc, on any computer anywhere without any complicated configuration. Second, it is very portable - much moreso that a laptop. And as they say, you don't have to demonstrate that it isn't a bomb to the airport security guard. Thirdly, it leaves no lasting record of your activities on the host machine. Yes, if the machine is compromized with memory scanners and key loggers and remote viewing applications (oh my!), this provides no appreciable increase in security. But if you go to your local library's computer you don't have to remember to clear the browser cache, you don't have to be restricted by their web filter, and you don't have to configure their mail client to check your pop3 account (and remember to have it not delete messages it checks for fear of wanting to keep a message that you have now deleted from the server when you checked your mail account). So, for a computer that you have a reasonable level of assurance that it is not compromized, this provides some nice utility. Plus, this gives you a portable version of Linux that you can use even if surrounded by Windows machines, and it fits in your pocket more conveniently than a CD. It provides a significant amount of utility in a small, portable package. Is it perfect? No. Is it circumventable? Yes. Should you rely on it explicitly? No. But if you don't know what layered security is, this is STILL a better solution than none at all. My question is whether or not the QEMU image is encrypted or not, should I lose my USB key and it end up in the wrong hands. If you want a solution that is more resistant to the vagaries of untrusted machines, boot the computer off of your own Knoppix CD, then run this from a terminal window. You have eliminated the possibility of any spyware in the machine compromizing your session, and you still have a nice modifiable virtual playground to keep all of your passwords, cookies, email messages, etc. Just be sure to make sure no one is looking over your shoulder and that there are no hardware keyloggers hooked up to the machine. For me, it can provide a convenient way to keep commonly used data available to me whether I am on my work laptop (which I have complete control over) or my home computer (which I also have complete control over). That is why I bought the USB key in the first place - to move data back and forth between these two computers and keep some commonly used software/documents available when working on client computers. This just makes parts of that easier.
Andreessen warned that 'competition could compel the company [Microsoft] to use aggressive tactics to protect its Windows operating system monopoly'.
Top story for Saturday, October 11, 2008:
Microsoft strikes back as browser war rages on
"Thousands more found dead today as orbital lasers owned by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) were deployed to eliminate useres of competing browser products. Using code that interfaces with the GPS component of the DRM system now part of every home PC and relaying this information to Microsoft, the beams were very precisely targeted, according to a Microsoft press release. Though many are outraged, the acts are uncontestable in court as each of the victims were also users of Microsoft Windows and had agreed to the "No Open Source" clause in the EULA."
I think I spent too much time playing Cyberpunk 2020 as a kid...
Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.
Could not connect to JRun Server.
Obviously, the Slashdot effect has brought pretty much every language to its knees and depends more on the hardware than the language the app is written on, but when the server hosting a page defending a language is itself run on that language and generating errors, it makes me laugh.
In all seriousness, on problem I have with Java as an end user is that many Java apps seem to be coded to a specific version of the JVM such that even subreleases from the same major (or even minor) version of the JVM will cause the app to not run. Ciscoworks is one of these. It drives me nuts havibg to have 2 or 3 versions of the JVM on every computer I use simply because one Java app or another is REALLY finicky. I don't know if this is a problem of Java attracting/creating bad programmers (as posited in the article this story is responding to) or if the JVM developers have no interest in backwards compatibility.
Other than that issue, I, as an end user, think Java is great. But then again, I program mostly in PHP or (*gasp*) Visual Basic (including VBA and VBScript), so I'm not really qualified to discuss what languages are a "real man's" language.
...because most pirated copies (widely distributed ones, anyway) are Telesync, meaning they are done with the cooperation of (or BY) a projectionist, usually during off hours when there is no pesky audience to get in the frame (or report your camera). And the sentence is ludicrous - how about fining them enough that this covers its own enforcement costs, or even turns a profit? Okay, I didn't RTFL(egislation), so maybe there is a fine as well, but I have an excuse - I'm not fluent in legalese.
Also, can the perpetrators still be tried for damages in civil court? I'm pretty sure they can, so basically the movie industry has gotten the taxpayers to foot the bill for enforcement, and they can STILL sue for every penny they can squeeze from the perpetrators. Yay corporate lobbying!
Unix has provided this feature for YEARS. It's called "ln -s". You can use it to create an alternate directory structure to your liking, and still keep the simple, short, easy to type, common file structure that we all love.
As far as the package manager, it seems to me that it (like all other package managers) is just reinventing the wheel. "./configure;make;make install" is pretty easy. Most reasonably well written configure scripts already check for dependencies. If you want to write a really good package manager, design one that parses the configure and make files to build a dependency list and present the user with build time options. Include a defaults capability (like Gentoo's USE variable) so that the package manager bugs you less about what options to choose when configuring, and you are all set. The package manager then just does the "./configure;make;make install" for the user and it's done. The only problem are any programs that have poor configure scripts (or those that don't use them). Since the package manager would likely have to hit some central library to be made aware of what "packages" are available and where to get them, this library could contain custom info where needed (read: a proper configure file, or a dummy one if the "package" is just a script that has to be copied to a directory, etc).
Oh well. Hackers get bored if they aren't reinventing some wheel, trying to make it better. And, admittedly, some package managers have some handy features that may qualify as better (allowing for precompiled binaries for the impatient/lazy is one of them). Who am I to judge?
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, first we were expected to read the linked article(s), now we have to read the actual post as well?
Damned elitist reading Nazis...
Methinks that the designers were influenced by the Dan Brown book "The DaVinci Code". Using "apple" as a password? Could be a coincidence, but I doubt it...
That's the theme of the method I'd propose. You seem to have already chosen your primary target: web programming (AJAX and Apache and SQL and Unix all come together for that purpose). Now you need to chose the objectives for each sub-step to getting there. This, by the way, is similar to "functional programming", which you will use quite frequently, so it is rather fitting that your educational plan mirrors that.
First, I'd build a foundation in your environment. In this case, Unix and Apache. This (as everything) is best learned by doing. Build a Linux box. You don't have to compile from scratch using Linux From Scratch or Slackware - you can use Ubuntu or Fedora. The important part really is that you have a representative example of your target environment when you are done - you'll be using this alot.
Move around in this environment, get comfortable with it. Gain familiarity with the command line. You can use the GUI, but since most production servers won't have one installed, you shouldn't rely on the GUI. The more you can do on the command line, the better.
With this in place, play around with Apache. Install it (if you didn't as part of the OS install) and look through the configuration file. It is well documented, but for the inevitable gaps, use Google and the documentation on the Apache website. To complete your playing with Apache, you will need to start down your path of learning HTML, but we're not there yet. Install a pachage for Apache - maybe a message board system or photo organizer. It really doesn't matter, just so long as it requires you to make changes to the Apache configuration. It will likely also require you to set up PHP or PERL or MySQL in order for it to function. These will have to be set up in such a way so as to work with Apache. This in turn will help you learn more about how Apache works (as well as the languages or databases you install). As an additional bonus, you now have source code to look at, and probably some HTML samples. So lets move on.
HTML comes next. It's quick to learn, and, like scripted languages, it is easy to edit and see immediate results - just save and refresh your browser. There are a ton of HTML resources on the Internet - again, Google is your friend. Look at a site and make prodigious use of your browser's "View Source" option. One of the best ways to learn is to look at other people's examples and make changes from there. Here is where Open Source can really help, because it is an endless supply of examples. Keep in mind, not all of them are good examples, but here is where learning resources on the web or at a school or from a book can help you keep from learning the "wrong way" to do things. An HTML style guide would be good here. And you should then choose an objective - a project, if you will - to achieve. Don't be too ambitious, but design and create a small web site using as wide a variety of HTML knowledge as you can. Start simple - fonts and background colors, images and links, then once you're comfortable with that, expand the site to include tables and style elements, and finally move up to style sheets and CSS. Build them by hand, of course. You can't learn HTML if a tool is doing all of the heavy lifting for you.
Now, let's move into HTML. Others will say you should learn a "real" language first, like C or Pascal. But the reality is that you should learn a language _right_, then the choice of language becomes less important. C and Pascal are very structured, which is why they are often used as introductory languages in college (or even high school) curriculums. While it is still possible to program in them incorrectly, they tend to be more strict than other languages, especially interpereted languages (basic) or scripting languages (PHP, PERL). Though I still recommend prodigious use of example source code for learning these languages, I can't stress enough that you find a good book or two that will encourage you to program correctly and teach you the difference between good and
Go to your Preferences and go to the Homepage tab. You will see a section that allows you to choose how much of articles from each category you wish to see on the slashdot homepage. The thick bar/thin bar icons on the top row determine whether you see "the title only" or "the title and summary" when the article is selected for the homepage. The lower row is the same, but for articles from that category that are not selected for the homepage.
That depends - does he KNOW you are using his router? Because his lawyerliness can cut both ways...
Didn't Jack Black do this (or pretend to) in School of Rock?
Also , never forget the Animaniacs' Warner Bros (and sister!) doing the countries of the world, among others (http://www2.cruzio.com/~keeper/00.html).
Mr. of Borg,
a) It has been pretty firmly established here that "Condi" likely had minimal involvement in this.
b) When the letter says "Internet structure", they are, like any well written position piece, sticking to the topic of the letter - in this case the DNS and TLD structure. VOIP is not a vital part of the Internet structure, and quite frankly, the VOIP issue (and P2P issue) you bring up is wildly different, involving enforecement of copyright and fair competition and consumer protection laws already in place. It is already accepted that the US (when involving companies on its soil) is the ultimate arbiter of law. They aren't overstepping their bounds in the VOIP, etc case.
c) "Condi" was likely not instructed to do anything. She was probably asked to lend her name to the document to add weight, and at her own volition chose to do so, likely because she agreed with the contents. If she had chosen not to sign it, it probably would have been shopped around until someone else with some weight behind their name did. I won't comment on her motives, as I'm obviously not privvy to them, but there are rules of diplomacy that aren't all that dissimilar to the rules of Poker. If you tip your hand by expressing an interest in something, your opponent can use that item you are interested in as leverage. By the same token, you try not to give anything away. So the question is, did we tip our hand because we REALLY want to keep this power, or because we simply don't want to budge unless we absolutely have to? This is the equivalent of the US saying "I'll call your bet". We're not raising, and we're not folding.
d) Doublespeak is not unique to the Bush admin. Note Clinton's waffling on the definition of "intercourse" and his "Slick Willy" nickname (used across party lines, even on rare occasions by his supporters). Doublespeak, non-commital phrases, misdirection, etc, are hallmarks of politics, diplomacy, and sales. Never commit until all the cards are in your favor (or forced to), manipulate your opposition to obtain what you need, share (resource and informationally) only what is needed for your ends to be met. Shades of Sun-Tsu - at one degree or another, these are the basics of most social interaction. The more you have to lose, the more rigorously you adhere to these tenets. This is one of the reasons that power and corruption tend to go hand in hand ("absolute power corrupts absolutely"). You don't amass and maintain power without mastering these skills ("a fool and his money are soon parted"). The Bush administration has arguably made the LEAST use of this, as they tend to speak to the press less frequently than other administrations and therefore have less need of watching their language. I won't exactly defend the Bush administration, but your comment here speaks more of your political leanings than it does any actual thought you put into the argument.
Oh, and try resistance every once in a while. I think you'll find it quite effective, especially in electronics.
I have to admit I take issue with the evidence as reporterd in the articles, especially the Guardian.
They don't mention what the core says about the last 150 years. They say the core says 1mm/year for the last 5000 years, but instead of comparing like evidence to like evidence, they inexplicably switch to alternative evidence for the last 150 years. This seems fishy to me.
And yes, the timing seems quite suspicious. Can you say "political agenda"?
Blatant fearmongering. "It's really bad and we're all doomed and your government has been lying to you. But we have no idea how to fix it. Your government should just use this evidence to dodge the question." I honestly don't see the relevance of this entire paragraph in the article except to stir up distrust and fear. Bad journalism, but the fact that it is a quote from a professor who led the study? Yeah, I'm not critical of his results...
"Since I want to make a case for global warming, just ignore evidence that includes a similar period from a previous interglacial period". Now, yes, I realize that such evidence is available and in fact supports his statement, but the fact that he says it's irrelevant really makes me question his understanding of the matter.
Now, I don't argue we humans have had our impact on the environment, but I'm more inclined to believe that clear-cutting the rainforests is responsible for the vast majority of the human component of the increase in greenhouse gasses (much of which is now done by countries other than US), and this type of reporting (and the statements of the researchers themselves) is more likely to make me distrust their results.
And one last "WTF?" for you - according to the article (and their quotes from our friend Kenneth), the 2mm/year increase in the tide will apparently result in the tides being 40cm higher by 2100. Maybe I don't know some super secret math technique that makes 95 years * 2mm = 40cm (I get 19cm), but I really think that Dennis Miller had it right - the detectable change over 100 years is pretty minor. Should we be concerned? Certainly, but over the next 500 years our temperature will have raised a comfortable 10 degrees (Fahrenheit I believe), and the ocean level will be a chill inducing 1 meter higher. If we can't eliminate the need for fossil fuels (which are due to run out well before then, apparently) and colonize space for resources in 500 years, well, maybe we should all suffocate on this rock.
So, I see this, at best, as a hack reporting job on valid evidence, and at worst another mis-interpreting of evidence to further a political agenda. Further evidence of why you should take everything you read on the Internet or a newspaper or, really, anywhere, with a grain of salt. Or two, for good measure.
One's freedom **SHALL NEVER** infringe on someone else's freedom.
Maybe we're reading from a different book, but I thought that was the basis of Libertarianism. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarianism, "libertarianism holds that a person's freedom to dispose of his body and private property as he sees fit should be unlimited as long as that person does not initiate coercion on others". Further, "libertarians define "coercion" as the use of physical force, the threat of such, or deception (fraud), that alters, or is intended to alter, the way individuals would use their body or property". So, now explain to me how we jump from the above definition of Libertarianism (which I have quoted you stating strongly as sometheing you agree with) to a means of controlling slaves?
Remember kids: libertarians want a minimal state whose sole function is to protect them from the wrath of their slaves.
I, for one, welcome our new Libertarian Overlords.
Seriously, being a libertarian myself, I find this sort of blanket statement baseless and uninformed. I won't even comment as to the rudeness of it as such things are to be expected in a political discussion. I think that Pig Hogger (a hillbilly name if ever I heard one) forgot to check the "post anonymously" box.
And for those too dense to pick up on it, my "hillbilly" insult is meant to show how silly such stereotype insults are. If anybody takes it seriously, well, I'm happy to have pissed in your Wheaties as it is likely to be the least offensive percieved sleight in your dim witted paranoid day.
... includes yours.
Three words: Doomed to fail.
All this will accomplish is to either cut further into their profit margins or raise the price for their legitimate customers (or both), thus alienating them further with worthless anti-piracy efforts that only serve to reduce fair use and prevent their target market from using the product as they wish.
It's a downward spiral, and you know that the customers are the biggest losers, followed by the studio execs that are being advised into this by even less scrupulous people that are successfully bilking them for millions. It's like those con men that scam the elderly out of their retirement savings, only these elderly should know better as they invented much of the game.
It'd be funny if the bill wasn't ultimately being footed by the honest consumers.
QFT
And as for screen corners, I think that an option for the start bar (or whatever equivalent your UI uses) should be to minimize to a corner (or, if so inclined, all corners). The mouse ends up on a screen edge, unhiding a hidden utility bar, way to often. I think that a corner would be just as easy to hit intentionally as a screen edge, but a much smaller accidental target.
All your socks are belong to us!
Also, there is the issue of "color", so yes, if there was a way that they could link a color to that number, and prove that you had intent to disseminate that data, knowing its color, then they could bust you.
Polls show that many Americans do not trust electronic voting in its current form
:p
Were these electronic polls?
According to this page, a store with a closing time of say 2am actually is closed at 1:59am. So, technically, the jerk was right (and may have been explicitly instructed by his boss to do that). Also, according to the page, many bars do stay open the additional hour, milking the time change for additional business. That's up to the establishment, though I would imagine that an officer that's had a bad day could ticket them for violating whatever public code forces them to close at 2am.
Chances are that if you had had the time/inclination, you could have found someone willing to sell you alcohol after the time change, but it probably wouldn't have been worth it to drive all over looking.
You miss the point - dyndns only redirects them, so they start by looking for www.mysite.com on port 80, which points them to dyndns, that then directs them to your home computer at whatever port you've chosen. Their company's firewall will STILL block access to your web page since it isn't being served on port 80.
And this doesn't help with SMTP. For a fee, there are services that will act as a relay and then send the mail to your computer on whatever port you want, but that sort of eliminates the possibilty of doing things like greylisting as your home server will only ever recieve email from the relay server. And if your asshat ISP (like Cox) blocks outbound 25, you have to use their server as a relay, which is a GIANT PitA since they aggressively check for forged headers, so anything from root@localhost will get rejected, forcing a considerable amount of configuration. Not being a Sendmail master, I'm still struggling with this one. And yes, I realize I should be using Qmail.
Heh - you aren't a big fan of open source, are you? Poor/inaccurate documentation and a disclaimer of all responsibility abounds, even on some of the most trusted OS security software (SSH/SSL, GPG, etc).
So? Don't use Metropipe's proxy. It's a fully operational Linux - configure SSH to connect to your preffered proxy server and use that.
Of course, from there on out it STILL goes over someone else's network (your ISP's network and your destination's ISP's network at a minimum). But bottom line is that their tool simply automagically configures that proxy. If you have the knowledge to configure your own (which it sounds like you are already doing), then do so, and use the tool for its other features (which I've already gone over in another post). Or don't - I just wanted to make sure you weren't passing up a potentially useful tool just because you weren't aware of a way to circumvent a single feature you didn't like.
The simple answer as to what utility this has is that it solves a number of issues all at the same time.
First, all of your settings are immediately available - your bookmarks, your cookies, your saved emails, etc, on any computer anywhere without any complicated configuration.
Second, it is very portable - much moreso that a laptop. And as they say, you don't have to demonstrate that it isn't a bomb to the airport security guard.
Thirdly, it leaves no lasting record of your activities on the host machine. Yes, if the machine is compromized with memory scanners and key loggers and remote viewing applications (oh my!), this provides no appreciable increase in security. But if you go to your local library's computer you don't have to remember to clear the browser cache, you don't have to be restricted by their web filter, and you don't have to configure their mail client to check your pop3 account (and remember to have it not delete messages it checks for fear of wanting to keep a message that you have now deleted from the server when you checked your mail account). So, for a computer that you have a reasonable level of assurance that it is not compromized, this provides some nice utility.
Plus, this gives you a portable version of Linux that you can use even if surrounded by Windows machines, and it fits in your pocket more conveniently than a CD. It provides a significant amount of utility in a small, portable package.
Is it perfect? No. Is it circumventable? Yes. Should you rely on it explicitly? No. But if you don't know what layered security is, this is STILL a better solution than none at all.
My question is whether or not the QEMU image is encrypted or not, should I lose my USB key and it end up in the wrong hands.
If you want a solution that is more resistant to the vagaries of untrusted machines, boot the computer off of your own Knoppix CD, then run this from a terminal window. You have eliminated the possibility of any spyware in the machine compromizing your session, and you still have a nice modifiable virtual playground to keep all of your passwords, cookies, email messages, etc. Just be sure to make sure no one is looking over your shoulder and that there are no hardware keyloggers hooked up to the machine.
For me, it can provide a convenient way to keep commonly used data available to me whether I am on my work laptop (which I have complete control over) or my home computer (which I also have complete control over). That is why I bought the USB key in the first place - to move data back and forth between these two computers and keep some commonly used software/documents available when working on client computers. This just makes parts of that easier.
Andreessen warned that 'competition could compel the company [Microsoft] to use aggressive tactics to protect its Windows operating system monopoly'.
Top story for Saturday, October 11, 2008:
Microsoft strikes back as browser war rages on
"Thousands more found dead today as orbital lasers owned by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) were deployed to eliminate useres of competing browser products. Using code that interfaces with the GPS component of the DRM system now part of every home PC and relaying this information to Microsoft, the beams were very precisely targeted, according to a Microsoft press release. Though many are outraged, the acts are uncontestable in court as each of the victims were also users of Microsoft Windows and had agreed to the "No Open Source" clause in the EULA."
I think I spent too much time playing Cyberpunk 2020 as a kid...
From the article link in question:
Server Error
The server encountered an internal error and was unable to complete your request.
Could not connect to JRun Server.
Obviously, the Slashdot effect has brought pretty much every language to its knees and depends more on the hardware than the language the app is written on, but when the server hosting a page defending a language is itself run on that language and generating errors, it makes me laugh.
In all seriousness, on problem I have with Java as an end user is that many Java apps seem to be coded to a specific version of the JVM such that even subreleases from the same major (or even minor) version of the JVM will cause the app to not run. Ciscoworks is one of these. It drives me nuts havibg to have 2 or 3 versions of the JVM on every computer I use simply because one Java app or another is REALLY finicky. I don't know if this is a problem of Java attracting/creating bad programmers (as posited in the article this story is responding to) or if the JVM developers have no interest in backwards compatibility.
Other than that issue, I, as an end user, think Java is great. But then again, I program mostly in PHP or (*gasp*) Visual Basic (including VBA and VBScript), so I'm not really qualified to discuss what languages are a "real man's" language.
"Mol-e Mol-e Mole- Mol-e. Would you like some GuacaMOLE?" Ad nauseum a la Austin Powers in Goldmember.
...because most pirated copies (widely distributed ones, anyway) are Telesync, meaning they are done with the cooperation of (or BY) a projectionist, usually during off hours when there is no pesky audience to get in the frame (or report your camera). And the sentence is ludicrous - how about fining them enough that this covers its own enforcement costs, or even turns a profit? Okay, I didn't RTFL(egislation), so maybe there is a fine as well, but I have an excuse - I'm not fluent in legalese.
Also, can the perpetrators still be tried for damages in civil court? I'm pretty sure they can, so basically the movie industry has gotten the taxpayers to foot the bill for enforcement, and they can STILL sue for every penny they can squeeze from the perpetrators. Yay corporate lobbying!
Unix has provided this feature for YEARS. It's called "ln -s". You can use it to create an alternate directory structure to your liking, and still keep the simple, short, easy to type, common file structure that we all love.
As far as the package manager, it seems to me that it (like all other package managers) is just reinventing the wheel. "./configure;make;make install" is pretty easy. Most reasonably well written configure scripts already check for dependencies. If you want to write a really good package manager, design one that parses the configure and make files to build a dependency list and present the user with build time options. Include a defaults capability (like Gentoo's USE variable) so that the package manager bugs you less about what options to choose when configuring, and you are all set. The package manager then just does the "./configure;make;make install" for the user and it's done. The only problem are any programs that have poor configure scripts (or those that don't use them). Since the package manager would likely have to hit some central library to be made aware of what "packages" are available and where to get them, this library could contain custom info where needed (read: a proper configure file, or a dummy one if the "package" is just a script that has to be copied to a directory, etc).
Oh well. Hackers get bored if they aren't reinventing some wheel, trying to make it better. And, admittedly, some package managers have some handy features that may qualify as better (allowing for precompiled binaries for the impatient/lazy is one of them). Who am I to judge?