If you look here, you will notice that our friends at Microsoft have developed a high level decompiler for.Net IL. Basically, it decompiles the IL into an abstract, non binary, human readable form.
The tool for manipulating this new IL (ILX) is F#, an ML family functional language. This is because ILX fits more naturally with a functional language than it would with, say, C# or C++.
C# and the like can still be used, but if you look at the ILX and compare it to F#, the reason for using a functionl language should be obvious.
I don't know if you can do this with Java or not, but if there were such a decompliler, the output would be much easier to work with as in ML than with Java itself.
The Corel product I was referring to is Corel's Smart Studio, a designer and server package for creating and working with SVG.
The price has come down, but the Designer bit is still about 1k and the Server price is variable depending on the modules you purchase for it - about 6k or so.
But, as far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong), there is no product on the market that fully implements the SVG spec, including support for HTML, CSS2, XMLDOM2, SMILx (Animation), MathML, ECMA Script, etc.
Can SVG be expected to take off now if all the developers use flash instead?
Perhaps, but after looking at the 700+ page spec, which, by the way, has dependencies on almost every spec ever issued by the W3C... I kind of doubt it.
To be a bit more specific, SVG encompasses so much that a fully compliant implementation must support not only the massive spec, but also ECMA Script, SMIL, MathML, etc.
What, if any, SVG based graphic tools are there?
The only one I am aware of at the moment is a Corel Product. It costs about 15 grand (USD), or it did the last time I checked.
What other benefit besides native browser support will SVG have to use against Flash?
Complex 2d graphics in non binary form? Honestly, I don't know.
While most people are ignorant of this fact, unlimited access to the Internet requires nothing more than an access point into the global communications infrastucture.
You certainly do not need a so-called Internet Service Provider.
So, what would it take to create your own access point?
Is it not wonderful that your government has found a way to tax you several times for the same service? And at the same time, defy all attempts at spending the cash they have made off with in a common sense manner?
Not to worry though, we here in the former colonies are in the same position as you are!
First, our Federal government trims our paychecks with the income tax. Then, it takes another good bit out via a host of payroll taxes.
Next, the feds reduce the buying power of what little we have left to us, artfully (underhandedly) accomplished through levies, taxes, fees, and inflationary subsidies on virtually every good or service available.
And finally, the state and local governments get a turn... hey, I was wondering why I'm always broke.
If I had to hadicap the animation industry, I'd bet on Dreamworks SKG before I even thought of Pixar.
Why? Well aside from having a lot more cash, an ex-Disney Founder (Katzenberg), and more clout in the industry...
Shrek. And soon, Shrek 2.
For some reason, Richard Stallman is demonized in the US as some eccentric loony. Yet the rest of the world actually holds him in very high regard.
Of course they do.
And of course we don't.
The why of it is pretty easy to understand, if a bit politically incorrect.
In addition to holding the lion's share of the world wealth, we - surprise - own the vast majority of the global economy's intellectual property.
So long as there the world abides by our IP laws. And naturally, we here in the US are persuing a variety of methods to ensure that they do.
Why? Because IP is the foundation of the global economy. We have it, and they don't, and until that changes - never, for those of you who aren't paying attention - nations like France and India have to get down on thier knees and grovel.
Enter RMS. Who advocates giving US IP to everyone who wants it. An event that would sink this country forever.
It has been a very long while since the last time I visited Slashdot. Now I remember why.
I'm not going to refute this post point by point, if only because anyone able to read a newspaper should be able to do so easily.
I shall, however, make the following suggestions to anyone who actually believes a word of the parent post:
1. Get the hell away from Slashdot and go get some news.
2. After that, go study some economics. In particular, you may wish to bone up on the fall of the Japanese economy.
3. Get updated on current political issues - and no, I'm not talking about what RMS is doing. You may well discover that outsourcing to India has become something of a political hot button, and that the US government at all levels is working on killing the practice.
4. Refresh yourself on the history of communism (pay attention to how many regimes are intact vs. how many are no longer with us.)
5. Discover China. They're not ascending, they're imploding.
Basically, come out of whatever idiot stupor you currently find yourself in and come sample a tasty dish I like to call reality.
Well... thank you for correcting all kinds of irrelevant little facts, but you clearly fail to get the big picture.
Who have a word (auslander) in their language that means 'everyone who is not German'
And this must be the dumbest thing I've ever read. Ever heard of the word 'foreigner'? It means the same. Idiot.
Actually, 'foreigner' doesn't even come close to auslander. 'Foreigner' is not generally an insult. Also, auslander means something like:
Everyone who is not German, who does not have a connection to German soil through blood, and who does not share in the moral and genetic superiority of the German people.
Pretty big fucking difference, if you ask me.
BTW, you might keep in mind that all of those 'irrelevant little facts' are what make up the big picture. Idiot.
Obviously, Mr. Hartmann was asleep during his history class. The ridiculous tripe that constitues this article if full of inaccuracies. Here are some examples...
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack.
This is patently false, as will be demonstrated later. As for the worldwide economic crisis, the economy of the Weimar Republic was actually improving.
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.
Also a load. Chancellors, like Hitler, were not elected, but appointed by the Reichstag and the Weimar Republic president. And while not having a solid majority, the Nazis did hold the most seats in the Reichstag. In fact, Goering was president of that body.
When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference...He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Yet another error... Hitler railed against the Communist Party, which held the second greatest number of seats in the Reichstag. He declared a state of emergency and had his political opponents arrested. Not Jews.
Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)
As mentioned above, Hitler's political opponents, including the leaders of the Communist and Democratic Christian parties were the first to meet the 'police', most of whom were SA brownshirts. As for the rest, Hitler was always a brilliant orator and propagandist. How did you think he took control of the Nazi party (he didn't found it-he joined when it was an insignifigant group of about 20 persons).
Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland,"...
Really? Are we talking about the same Germans who have always been violently xenophobic? Who have a word (auslander) in their language that means 'everyone who is not German', and is considered to be a derisive term?
His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal."...the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.
The German media, with the exeption of some newspapers and magazines, was a state institution long before Hitler came onto the scene. You know, kind of like the same way it is in Europe now.
Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about th
Obviously, Mr. Hartmann was asleep during his history class. The ridiculous tripe that constitues this article if full of inaccuracies. Here are some examples...
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack.
This is patently false, as will be demonstrated later. As for the worldwide economic crisis, the economy of the Weimar Republic was actually improving.
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted.
Also a load. Chancellors, like Hitler, were not elected, but appointed by the Reichstag and the Weimar Republic president. And while not having a solid majority, the Nazis did hold the most seats in the Reichstag. In fact, Goering was president of that body.
When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference...He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Yet another error... Hitler railed against the Communist Party, which held the second greatest number of seats in the Reichstag. He declared a state of emergency and had his political opponents arrested. Not Jews.
Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)
As mentioned above, Hitler's political opponents, including the leaders of the Communist and Democratic Christian parties were the first to meet the 'police', most of whom were SA brownshirts. As for the rest, Hitler was always a brilliant orator and propagandist. How did you think he took control of the Nazi party (he didn't found it-he joined when it was an insignifigant group of about 20 persons).
Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland,"...
Really? Are we talking about the same Germans who have always been violently xenophobic? Who have a word (auslander) in their language that means 'everyone who is not German', and is considered to be a derisive term?
His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal."...the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.
The German media, with the exeption of some newspapers and magazines, was a state institution long before Hitler came onto the scene. You know, kind of like the same way it is in Europe now.
Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about
How much will it harm our country and economy when the world (rightly) turns their back on us for our double-standards in the matters of state and business? I worry that it would be something nigh-repairable.
Get a clue.
The United States is the world's largest and strongest economy.
Virtually every other nation on the planet is indebted to the US or is dependent on some form of US aid (economic bailouts, IMF loans, military support, food grants, etc.)
Every country with hard currency is heavily invested in US business interests.
The point? Simple: any country that turns their back on us (rightly or not) will see the immediate collapse of its economy. (Didn't you notice that the rest of the world economic markets were hit harder after 9-11 than ours were?)
Really, the simple truth of the matter is that there is no concrete relationship between gun control and crime. Except the fact that criminals invariably prey on the weakest victims they can find, and that maybe the notion of those would-be victims paking heat might be a deterent.
The reason for this is exceedingly simple: only persons commit crimes, and the tool of choice for the commision of any particular crime is irrelevant. After all, some of the most gruesome crimes commited in the US have not involved firearms. For example, Ted Bundy seemed to prefer knives. Shepard was not killed with a pistol - he was beaten and left to die. And of course, we have had people dragged to death by trucks.
One could actually make a very good argument that even banning, confiscating, and destroying all firearms in the country would not make one immune to crime. Because, as I have pointed out, you can still be beaten (with fists, baseball bats), stabbed (kitchen knives, shanks), burned(hairspay and lighter), blown up (bathtub plastique - see the AC),etc.
In fact, in following the gun control debate (and many other debates), I am often reminded of George Carlin's rant about living in a world made entirely of Nerf. It is, after all, the only way to be assured of safety.
Microsoft Office file formats are the lynchpin to their dominance of the computer software world.
I am amazed that so many people who should know better - all of the/.ers who claim to be clued in - believe this tripe. Let me enlighten everybody who has fallen for this line...
First, do any of you out there remember a software company named Claris? For those of you who don't, Claris was the software division of Apple, and was responsible for programs such as MacWrite, MacDraw, MacPaint, etc. Claris not only had proprietary file formats for all of its software, they had inside knowledge of every detail of the Mac - the OS, the hardware, everything. What happened to them?
MacWrite was killed off rather effectively by - you could see this coming, right? - Word Perfect and Microsoft Word.
MacDraw was buried completely by Adobe Illustrator.
MacPaint was annihilated by Adobe Photoshop.
The lesson here is simple. If Claris, which had access to every facet of their only target platform could not dominate the Mac software market with proprietary file formats and exclusive knowledge of the OS, no one can.
Microsoft Office will not be taken down because its file formats are open, or because a 'standard' format comes along. Office - and this applies to pretty much anything - will be beaten by something better.
And as an aside, MS Windows is the dominant OS out there because - and think on this for a bit - there was no alternative to Win95 at the time it was introduced. Where was Linux at? BeOS? I owned a Mac IIfx, and it cost three times as much as a PC at the time. No alternative there.
I see three specific areas of work that are key adoption blockers today and ripe for further academic and commercial research. The lack of widely-available trustworthy computing devices, robust trust management engines and a general-purpose rights expression/authorization language all hamper industrial development and deployment of DRM systems for digital content.
Translation:
1: For DRM to work, everyone in the content must be running a secure OS (presumably Windows) on specially designed hardware AND
2: A system in place on the client (presumably the.NET CLR trust management engine) must authenticate every executable on the client before execution AND
3: All content providers must use a language (presumably MS's XRML - eXtensible Rights Management Language) to 'encode' documents and executables for number 2, above.
Basically, MS is saying: if you want DRM, OSS and 'general purpose' computing devices must go away. And of course, you must serve your media using Windows.NET Media Server.
Addresses left in chat rooms were certain to receive spam, they found. In one instance, an e-mail address posted in a chat room started to receive spam eight minutes after it was posted.
Eight minutes?! Damn, that's what those ads for 'make money fast over the internet' are all about. All you have to do is hang around chat rooms and sell email addresses to spammers.
Seriously, though, eight minutes? If it's a bot, I'm really impressed...
While I commend the W3C for demanding royalty-free licenses, I am not exactly sure that this makes a great deal of difference at this time.
There are, AFAIK, currently dozens (hundreds?) of closed and open source implementations of virtually every defined W3C specification, all royalty free. Just as an example, I have used four or five XML/XSL parsers, some OSS, some not. Am I wrong about this?
Perhaps someone out there can inform me if RAND licences are required to implement any of the existing W3C specs?
Really, this is nothing but a stunt by someone who wants to promote Linux / OSS software. Software that will probably be developed by some Taiwanese company with political influence.
The fact is that Microsoft has granted thousands of shared source licences. I have no doubt that the ROC can get one. But that is not what the ROC is asking for. They obviously want permission to modify the source and create derived apps from it.
And of course, MS is not going to allow that. No vendor of proprietary software would.
There is something else as well. For those who are unaware, NT is highly customizable at compile time. The gov't (US) and many major corps (eg, Boeing) request NT with various bit flags set at compile time. There is no reason that the ROC could not do the same.
The ROC wants the source not to see, but to mess with and use in their own apps - perhaps even OSS apps. Is it any wonder that MS would respond FU?
I think you have to remember that Microsoft used to put functionality before security.
Not exactly. Here is the why of Windows security flaws...
Back in the days of Windows 3.x, IBM and Microsoft set out on a joint venture to create a new operating system for PCs that would be similar in functionality to *NIX systems. That is to say that the new OS would be multiuser, timesharing, etc. This project was named, aptly enough, OS/2.
The 16 bit versions of OS/2 versions 1.x and 2.x, were great successes. MS joined with Sybase to port Sybase to OS/2, a project which became SQL Server. In fact, MS created a great deal of software for OS/2.
Then, Intel went 32 bit. IBM was at bat to create the 32 bit version of OS/2 (ver 3.x). However, there were problems. IBM's latest release of OS/2 was severely flawed. In fact, OS 2.x was both faster and more stable.
MS and IBM began to have problems. Sybase and IBM began to have problems. MS and Sybase began to have problems.
So MS and IBM and Sybase terminated their various agreements. IBM went forward with OS/2, MS went forward with a renamed and redesigned version of OS/2 dubbed Windows NT.
Problem: MS has a very large installed base of OS/2 systems. NT's new API, Win32 is not exactly compatable with OS/2 or Windows 3.x.
Solution: Add compatability with OS/2 networks by keeping IBM's LanMan networking and security protocols. Just Rename it NTLM. Also, 'break' some of Win32 to make it easy for 'Win16' and DOS developers to port their apps to the new system.
Result: Windows NT got crappy security. Windows 95, never supposed to be released, was.* MS security has sucked big time ever since.
*Take a look at the Windows version numbers: 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.11, NT 3.51, NT 4, NT 5, NT 5.1. Exactly where does Win9x fit? It doesn't. WinNT was the chosen successor to Win3.x.
The Social Security Administration will require that you prove to an administrive board that the use of your SSN by an identity thief is severe enough to merit the issue of a new SSN and the deactivation of your old one.
I was told after someone had stolen my SSN and used it to acquire a Driver's license and a slew of credit cards that that was not good enough. Nothing is good enough. The official I talked to came out and clearly stated that the review board was a formality, and that no one ever got a new SSN.
The reason is simple. The government and major credit institutions use Socials to identify individuals uniquely for life. The government especially is loathe to remove that identifier.
Hell, my kids were issued Socials on the days they were born. The only way to escape a Social is to die.
This will hurt Microsoft. Since IIS has the largest market share on web servers, they will be hit hardest when these security breaches come to light. People will realize that Linux is a more secure, easier-to-maintain alternative.
What? Since when did IIS overtake Apache in web server market share?
This will create jobs. Small businesses who might have otherwise adopted IIS and foregone the overhead of an IT staff will be forced to take a more active role in keeping their systems secure. Although it may hurt some small businesses, the net overall effect is to redistribute wealth into our pockets and increase our pay overall, which is indisputably a Good Thing(tm).
Never opened a small business, eh? Let me enlighten you. Most small business (under 50 employees) are sole proprietorships or partnerships started by either a single person or a small group of individuals with limited resources.
These shops use MS Windows and IIS for the following reasons:
1: It is similar to the machine used at home. For someone who has used Win9x or NTx Workstation, Windows Servers are pretty easy to get started with.
2: Most of the services (file sharing, email, web) are free as in beer with Windows.
3: It is prety easy to set up a decent site with Front Page.
Debian will benefit. Debian's "apt" facility is extremely simple for end-users to use and understand, and helps system administrators keep large numbers of boxes up to date without causing RPM hell or any other conflicts that one may experience when using a distribution like RH that does not regression test their patches.
Only in Linux Land. Since when did apt become easier than Windows Update?
Script kiddies will have to find new targets. The logical next step for script kiddies, once e-commerce sites have been secured, is government sites. This will encourage the government to adopt Linux more widely, in place of insecure and unreliable Windows NT systems. In fact, it may even create grounds for breaking their contract with Microsoft.
Wrong again. I have contracted for the Fed and much of their critical stuff not only runs on MS, it is secure as all hell. In fact, the biggest vulnerabilty in the gov't systems I have seen has been the fact that several different platforms and apps are in use - a network admin's nightmare.
(e.g. MS Windows of all vintages, SOLARIS, AS/400, OS/390, a dozen different databases, etc.)
Please, not everything in the world that takes place is related to Linux. Give it a rest.
I support the general idea of informing people theat their supposedly confidential or private information has been leaked or stolen.
Even though I don't think it will do any good for the prevention of such crimes as identity theft, perhaps it will send a message that a tighter grip is required for confidential data.
However, I see some problems. As one poster already noted, how do you enforce this if an admission has to be made voluntarily?
Also, the 'loophole' is wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. It would prove very handy to business or government entities that did not want to disclose that they had been hacked.
Of course, if the goverment really wants to help people who have had their private stuff lifted, perhaps the Feds should change the law so it is possible to get a new Social in case of theft. Your SSN can be used to create all sorts of havoc, but the Gov't will not give you another one, even if you can prove that someone is ruining your life with it. Very sad.
So - I really have to wonder what crack Microsoft is smoking. They seem to be desperately out of tune with their users in the server market, and the Linux acceptance is proof. Professional users like backwards compatibility, and incremental changes. That is something UNIX and Linux provides.
Obviously not what you've been smoking.
Let me let you in on a little secret: Microsoft is not interested in maintaining or incrementally improving the status quo. Microsoft is trying to change the game. And.NET is the lever they will try to use.
Delaying the next release of a server OS could be a good move for them. It will give customers time to roll out.NET before MS releases a fully.NET OS. Some major players (Like Robert Half) are already rolling out.NET.
I have never seen a work environment where the in house software was not going through constant changes. What will MS customers be looking at when it's time to upgrade?.NET, anyone?
They are going to look at.NET components, with their prepackaged remoting and serialization interfaces, language neutrality, etc as replacements for COM components.
They are going to look at ASP.NET, with its automatic browser detection and code generation, tightly integrated XML binding, cleaner setup, and performance enhancements.
They are going to look at ADO.NET, with its native XML handling, simplified programming model, true UDA, and its own performance enhancements - not to mention its custom drivers for MS SQL.NET.
Make no mistake. MS has bet everything on.NET. If is successful, all MS has to do is make sure that Windows runs.NET better than any other OS.
How hard will that be?
Slashdot Mirror
The tool for manipulating this new IL (ILX) is F#, an ML family functional language. This is because ILX fits more naturally with a functional language than it would with, say, C# or C++.
C# and the like can still be used, but if you look at the ILX and compare it to F#, the reason for using a functionl language should be obvious.
I don't know if you can do this with Java or not, but if there were such a decompliler, the output would be much easier to work with as in ML than with Java itself.
The price has come down, but the Designer bit is still about 1k and the Server price is variable depending on the modules you purchase for it - about 6k or so.
But, as far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong), there is no product on the market that fully implements the SVG spec, including support for HTML, CSS2, XMLDOM2, SMILx (Animation), MathML, ECMA Script, etc.
Perhaps, but after looking at the 700+ page spec, which, by the way, has dependencies on almost every spec ever issued by the W3C... I kind of doubt it.
To be a bit more specific, SVG encompasses so much that a fully compliant implementation must support not only the massive spec, but also ECMA Script, SMIL, MathML, etc.
What, if any, SVG based graphic tools are there?
The only one I am aware of at the moment is a Corel Product. It costs about 15 grand (USD), or it did the last time I checked.
What other benefit besides native browser support will SVG have to use against Flash?
Complex 2d graphics in non binary form? Honestly, I don't know.
You certainly do not need a so-called Internet Service Provider.
So, what would it take to create your own access point?
Is it not wonderful that your government has found a way to tax you several times for the same service? And at the same time, defy all attempts at spending the cash they have made off with in a common sense manner?
Not to worry though, we here in the former colonies are in the same position as you are!
First, our Federal government trims our paychecks with the income tax. Then, it takes another good bit out via a host of payroll taxes.
Next, the feds reduce the buying power of what little we have left to us, artfully (underhandedly) accomplished through levies, taxes, fees, and inflationary subsidies on virtually every good or service available.
And finally, the state and local governments get a turn... hey, I was wondering why I'm always broke.
According to Microsoft, Iterix is the interim solution to porting your *nix apps to Windows.
In reality, Iterix is a set of Unix shells and apps that run atop a WinNT kernel.
Ahh, the irony.
If I had to hadicap the animation industry, I'd bet on Dreamworks SKG before I even thought of Pixar. Why? Well aside from having a lot more cash, an ex-Disney Founder (Katzenberg), and more clout in the industry... Shrek. And soon, Shrek 2.
Of course they do.
And of course we don't.
The why of it is pretty easy to understand, if a bit politically incorrect.
In addition to holding the lion's share of the world wealth, we - surprise - own the vast majority of the global economy's intellectual property.
So long as there the world abides by our IP laws. And naturally, we here in the US are persuing a variety of methods to ensure that they do.
Why? Because IP is the foundation of the global economy. We have it, and they don't, and until that changes - never, for those of you who aren't paying attention - nations like France and India have to get down on thier knees and grovel.
Enter RMS. Who advocates giving US IP to everyone who wants it. An event that would sink this country forever.
Get it now?
I'm not going to refute this post point by point, if only because anyone able to read a newspaper should be able to do so easily.
I shall, however, make the following suggestions to anyone who actually believes a word of the parent post:
1. Get the hell away from Slashdot and go get some news.
2. After that, go study some economics. In particular, you may wish to bone up on the fall of the Japanese economy.
3. Get updated on current political issues - and no, I'm not talking about what RMS is doing. You may well discover that outsourcing to India has become something of a political hot button, and that the US government at all levels is working on killing the practice.
4. Refresh yourself on the history of communism (pay attention to how many regimes are intact vs. how many are no longer with us.)
5. Discover China. They're not ascending, they're imploding.
Basically, come out of whatever idiot stupor you currently find yourself in and come sample a tasty dish I like to call reality.
Everyone who is not German, who does not have a connection to German soil through blood, and who does not share in the moral and genetic superiority of the German people.
Pretty big fucking difference, if you ask me.
BTW, you might keep in mind that all of those 'irrelevant little facts' are what make up the big picture. Idiot.
This is patently false, as will be demonstrated later. As for the worldwide economic crisis, the economy of the Weimar Republic was actually improving.
Also a load. Chancellors, like Hitler, were not elected, but appointed by the Reichstag and the Weimar Republic president. And while not having a solid majority, the Nazis did hold the most seats in the Reichstag. In fact, Goering was president of that body.
Yet another error... Hitler railed against the Communist Party, which held the second greatest number of seats in the Reichstag. He declared a state of emergency and had his political opponents arrested. Not Jews.
As mentioned above, Hitler's political opponents, including the leaders of the Communist and Democratic Christian parties were the first to meet the 'police', most of whom were SA brownshirts. As for the rest, Hitler was always a brilliant orator and propagandist. How did you think he took control of the Nazi party (he didn't found it-he joined when it was an insignifigant group of about 20 persons).
Really? Are we talking about the same Germans who have always been violently xenophobic? Who have a word (auslander) in their language that means 'everyone who is not German', and is considered to be a derisive term?
The German media, with the exeption of some newspapers and magazines, was a state institution long before Hitler came onto the scene. You know, kind of like the same way it is in Europe now.
This is patently false, as will be demonstrated later. As for the worldwide economic crisis, the economy of the Weimar Republic was actually improving.
Also a load. Chancellors, like Hitler, were not elected, but appointed by the Reichstag and the Weimar Republic president. And while not having a solid majority, the Nazis did hold the most seats in the Reichstag. In fact, Goering was president of that body.
Yet another error... Hitler railed against the Communist Party, which held the second greatest number of seats in the Reichstag. He declared a state of emergency and had his political opponents arrested. Not Jews.
As mentioned above, Hitler's political opponents, including the leaders of the Communist and Democratic Christian parties were the first to meet the 'police', most of whom were SA brownshirts. As for the rest, Hitler was always a brilliant orator and propagandist. How did you think he took control of the Nazi party (he didn't found it-he joined when it was an insignifigant group of about 20 persons).
Really? Are we talking about the same Germans who have always been violently xenophobic? Who have a word (auslander) in their language that means 'everyone who is not German', and is considered to be a derisive term?
The German media, with the exeption of some newspapers and magazines, was a state institution long before Hitler came onto the scene. You know, kind of like the same way it is in Europe now.
Get a clue.
The United States is the world's largest and strongest economy.
Virtually every other nation on the planet is indebted to the US or is dependent on some form of US aid (economic bailouts, IMF loans, military support, food grants, etc.)
Every country with hard currency is heavily invested in US business interests.
The point? Simple: any country that turns their back on us (rightly or not) will see the immediate collapse of its economy. (Didn't you notice that the rest of the world economic markets were hit harder after 9-11 than ours were?)
Damn, that girl has some nice legs.
(Yes, I know it's bad, but...)
The reason for this is exceedingly simple: only persons commit crimes, and the tool of choice for the commision of any particular crime is irrelevant. After all, some of the most gruesome crimes commited in the US have not involved firearms. For example, Ted Bundy seemed to prefer knives. Shepard was not killed with a pistol - he was beaten and left to die. And of course, we have had people dragged to death by trucks.
One could actually make a very good argument that even banning, confiscating, and destroying all firearms in the country would not make one immune to crime. Because, as I have pointed out, you can still be beaten (with fists, baseball bats), stabbed (kitchen knives, shanks), burned(hairspay and lighter), blown up (bathtub plastique - see the AC),etc.
In fact, in following the gun control debate (and many other debates), I am often reminded of George Carlin's rant about living in a world made entirely of Nerf. It is, after all, the only way to be assured of safety.
Microsoft Office file formats are the lynchpin to their dominance of the computer software world.
I am amazed that so many people who should know better - all of the /.ers who claim to be clued in - believe this tripe. Let me enlighten everybody who has fallen for this line...
First, do any of you out there remember a software company named Claris? For those of you who don't, Claris was the software division of Apple, and was responsible for programs such as MacWrite, MacDraw, MacPaint, etc. Claris not only had proprietary file formats for all of its software, they had inside knowledge of every detail of the Mac - the OS, the hardware, everything. What happened to them?
MacWrite was killed off rather effectively by - you could see this coming, right? - Word Perfect and Microsoft Word.
MacDraw was buried completely by Adobe Illustrator.
MacPaint was annihilated by Adobe Photoshop.
The lesson here is simple. If Claris, which had access to every facet of their only target platform could not dominate the Mac software market with proprietary file formats and exclusive knowledge of the OS, no one can.
Microsoft Office will not be taken down because its file formats are open, or because a 'standard' format comes along. Office - and this applies to pretty much anything - will be beaten by something better.
And as an aside, MS Windows is the dominant OS out there because - and think on this for a bit - there was no alternative to Win95 at the time it was introduced. Where was Linux at? BeOS? I owned a Mac IIfx, and it cost three times as much as a PC at the time. No alternative there.
I see three specific areas of work that are key adoption blockers today and ripe for further academic and commercial research. The lack of widely-available trustworthy computing devices, robust trust management engines and a general-purpose rights expression/authorization language all hamper industrial development and deployment of DRM systems for digital content.
Translation:
1: For DRM to work, everyone in the content must be running a secure OS (presumably Windows) on specially designed hardware AND
2: A system in place on the client (presumably the .NET CLR trust management engine) must authenticate every executable on the client before execution AND
3: All content providers must use a language (presumably MS's XRML - eXtensible Rights Management Language) to 'encode' documents and executables for number 2, above.
Basically, MS is saying: if you want DRM, OSS and 'general purpose' computing devices must go away. And of course, you must serve your media using Windows.NET Media Server.
Eight minutes?! Damn, that's what those ads for 'make money fast over the internet' are all about. All you have to do is hang around chat rooms and sell email addresses to spammers.
Seriously, though, eight minutes? If it's a bot, I'm really impressed...
There are, AFAIK, currently dozens (hundreds?) of closed and open source implementations of virtually every defined W3C specification, all royalty free. Just as an example, I have used four or five XML/XSL parsers, some OSS, some not. Am I wrong about this?
Perhaps someone out there can inform me if RAND licences are required to implement any of the existing W3C specs?
The fact is that Microsoft has granted thousands of shared source licences. I have no doubt that the ROC can get one. But that is not what the ROC is asking for. They obviously want permission to modify the source and create derived apps from it.
And of course, MS is not going to allow that. No vendor of proprietary software would.
There is something else as well. For those who are unaware, NT is highly customizable at compile time. The gov't (US) and many major corps (eg, Boeing) request NT with various bit flags set at compile time. There is no reason that the ROC could not do the same.
The ROC wants the source not to see, but to mess with and use in their own apps - perhaps even OSS apps. Is it any wonder that MS would respond FU?
Not exactly. Here is the why of Windows security flaws...
Back in the days of Windows 3.x, IBM and Microsoft set out on a joint venture to create a new operating system for PCs that would be similar in functionality to *NIX systems. That is to say that the new OS would be multiuser, timesharing, etc. This project was named, aptly enough, OS/2.
The 16 bit versions of OS/2 versions 1.x and 2.x, were great successes. MS joined with Sybase to port Sybase to OS/2, a project which became SQL Server. In fact, MS created a great deal of software for OS/2.
Then, Intel went 32 bit. IBM was at bat to create the 32 bit version of OS/2 (ver 3.x). However, there were problems. IBM's latest release of OS/2 was severely flawed. In fact, OS 2.x was both faster and more stable.
MS and IBM began to have problems. Sybase and IBM began to have problems. MS and Sybase began to have problems.
So MS and IBM and Sybase terminated their various agreements. IBM went forward with OS/2, MS went forward with a renamed and redesigned version of OS/2 dubbed Windows NT.
Problem: MS has a very large installed base of OS/2 systems. NT's new API, Win32 is not exactly compatable with OS/2 or Windows 3.x.
Solution: Add compatability with OS/2 networks by keeping IBM's LanMan networking and security protocols. Just Rename it NTLM. Also, 'break' some of Win32 to make it easy for 'Win16' and DOS developers to port their apps to the new system.
Result: Windows NT got crappy security. Windows 95, never supposed to be released, was.* MS security has sucked big time ever since.
*Take a look at the Windows version numbers: 1, 2, 3, 3.1, 3.11, NT 3.51, NT 4, NT 5, NT 5.1. Exactly where does Win9x fit? It doesn't. WinNT was the chosen successor to Win3.x.
The Social Security Administration will require that you prove to an administrive board that the use of your SSN by an identity thief is severe enough to merit the issue of a new SSN and the deactivation of your old one.
I was told after someone had stolen my SSN and used it to acquire a Driver's license and a slew of credit cards that that was not good enough. Nothing is good enough. The official I talked to came out and clearly stated that the review board was a formality, and that no one ever got a new SSN.
The reason is simple. The government and major credit institutions use Socials to identify individuals uniquely for life. The government especially is loathe to remove that identifier.
Hell, my kids were issued Socials on the days they were born. The only way to escape a Social is to die.
What? Since when did IIS overtake Apache in web server market share?
This will create jobs. Small businesses who might have otherwise adopted IIS and foregone the overhead of an IT staff will be forced to take a more active role in keeping their systems secure. Although it may hurt some small businesses, the net overall effect is to redistribute wealth into our pockets and increase our pay overall, which is indisputably a Good Thing(tm). Never opened a small business, eh? Let me enlighten you. Most small business (under 50 employees) are sole proprietorships or partnerships started by either a single person or a small group of individuals with limited resources.
These shops use MS Windows and IIS for the following reasons:
1: It is similar to the machine used at home. For someone who has used Win9x or NTx Workstation, Windows Servers are pretty easy to get started with.
2: Most of the services (file sharing, email, web) are free as in beer with Windows.
3: It is prety easy to set up a decent site with Front Page.
Debian will benefit. Debian's "apt" facility is extremely simple for end-users to use and understand, and helps system administrators keep large numbers of boxes up to date without causing RPM hell or any other conflicts that one may experience when using a distribution like RH that does not regression test their patches.
Only in Linux Land. Since when did apt become easier than Windows Update?
Script kiddies will have to find new targets. The logical next step for script kiddies, once e-commerce sites have been secured, is government sites. This will encourage the government to adopt Linux more widely, in place of insecure and unreliable Windows NT systems. In fact, it may even create grounds for breaking their contract with Microsoft.
Wrong again. I have contracted for the Fed and much of their critical stuff not only runs on MS, it is secure as all hell. In fact, the biggest vulnerabilty in the gov't systems I have seen has been the fact that several different platforms and apps are in use - a network admin's nightmare. (e.g. MS Windows of all vintages, SOLARIS, AS/400, OS/390, a dozen different databases, etc.)
Please, not everything in the world that takes place is related to Linux. Give it a rest.
Even though I don't think it will do any good for the prevention of such crimes as identity theft, perhaps it will send a message that a tighter grip is required for confidential data.
However, I see some problems. As one poster already noted, how do you enforce this if an admission has to be made voluntarily?
Also, the 'loophole' is wide enough to drive a Mack truck through. It would prove very handy to business or government entities that did not want to disclose that they had been hacked.
Of course, if the goverment really wants to help people who have had their private stuff lifted, perhaps the Feds should change the law so it is possible to get a new Social in case of theft. Your SSN can be used to create all sorts of havoc, but the Gov't will not give you another one, even if you can prove that someone is ruining your life with it. Very sad.
Obviously not what you've been smoking.
Let me let you in on a little secret: Microsoft is not interested in maintaining or incrementally improving the status quo. Microsoft is trying to change the game. And .NET is the lever they will try to use.
Delaying the next release of a server OS could be a good move for them. It will give customers time to roll out .NET before MS releases a fully .NET OS. Some major players (Like Robert Half) are already rolling out .NET.
I have never seen a work environment where the in house software was not going through constant changes. What will MS customers be looking at when it's time to upgrade? .NET, anyone?
They are going to look at .NET components, with their prepackaged remoting and serialization interfaces, language neutrality, etc as replacements for COM components.
They are going to look at ASP.NET, with its automatic browser detection and code generation, tightly integrated XML binding, cleaner setup, and performance enhancements.
They are going to look at ADO.NET, with its native XML handling, simplified programming model, true UDA, and its own performance enhancements - not to mention its custom drivers for MS SQL.NET.
Make no mistake. MS has bet everything on .NET. If is successful, all MS has to do is make sure that Windows runs .NET better than any other OS.
How hard will that be?