I like how people keep saying "in the months before 9/11". As if these programs were instituted by der furher the day he was inaugurated. The truth is that these programs have been going on for years but none of you cared.
What you're trying to do is confuse the reader as to what program we're talking about.
Of couse there has always been LEGAL spying, what we're talking about here is ILLEGAL spying that runs directly conter to every american;s constituional rights.
I was under the impression that unlicensed devices are not allowed to interfere with any other device even if that device is not RF based.
They are not allowed to intentionally interfere, as in you are not allowed to deliberately jam you neighbor. However, if you have a legitimate reason for transmitting, you may do so.
A licensed HAM radio operator can radiate up to a THOUSAND WATTS in the 2.4 GHz range, so long as he has a good reason for doing so. That WILL jam you, and you do not have any authority to ask him to stop so long as he has some reason for being at that power level.
Why not set up a comminity wireless network or check if your neighbour already has http:ghostmodernism.com/
Because it's impossible for you guarantee service.
If my neighbor buys a cordless phone that knocks out my wifi connection, legally I can't do squat.
Now if you're talking about liscensed wireless you run into a whole other set of problemss. (Like the cost of liscenses and limited hardware availibility.)
Go be a cop for 18 years, then reply. Focus on what I was saying, not distorting it.
I don't care if you've been a cop for 180 years, if you go around violating the law under color of authority, you are even worse than the people you claim to protect us from.
You claim that cops really aren't that bad, but here you are defending the actions of a department that has obviously comitted both tresspass and wrongful arrest. All you're really proving is that the cops who claim to be decent, really aren't. There's obvious misconduct here but because the criminal was wearing a badge, here you are defending him.
I defy you to provide evidence the father acted illegally. The evidence that the department acted illegally is right there on tape.
We have learned from our mistakes. All newer high voltage buried cable is coaxal in design. The hot conductor is surrounded by a grounded jacket. A fault shorts the cable to the grounded jacket tripping the overcurrent protection instead of putting lots of voltage to the ground.
Unless buried cable tended to fail from the outside in instead of from the inside out.
(Sure, it will catch most cases, but someone has to play devil's advocate.) Since the water has to pass through the outer-shell into the center conductor, it's quite possible that the grounded layer would aready be badly corroded.
Really? I'd like to see those statistics. I live in a country where most private gun ownership was banned ten years ago and I don't believe our crime rate has gone up. And look at the UK, where not even the regular police have guns. So I'm calling bullshit on your unsourced assertion.
Wow, maybe you should actually back up your own opinions within one sentence of chastizing someone else for not backing up theirs? Talk about dishonest!
Right. Unless they also have a gun, or there's several of them, or you're overpowered and have the gun taken. My problem with guns is that they're just so dangerous.
This is just silly.
A) Most guns hold several bullets and can fire them in rapid succession.
B) Being overpowered and having your gun taken is LESS likely than using it properly... unless you like to coat it with vaseline or something.
C)The danger is easily managed by not being a retard. Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. Always treat a gun like it's loaded. You've managed not to stick a fork in a wall outlet so far, right?
I strongly believe that no-one needs a gun in a city or urban environment, and that wide-spread ownership only makes the whole crime situation worse, whether stolen or not.
This runs strongly counter to the ACTUAL EVIDENCE.
I used to think like you, in seventh grade. Then I tried to do a research report to support my viewpoint. Everybody on your side had only halfassed opinions and manipulated data to back them up. (Like the famous, "A gun is X times more likely to kill a family member.." which has been thuroughly debunked.) The pro-right to own/carry side is backed by solid statistical evidence.
The only "real" evidence the gun control crowd comes up with is from foreign countries, where there isn't already a massive number of illegal guns availible, there are major cultural differences, and the capacity to make guns on the sly would likely be much harder to come by than it is in the us. I call bullshit on your comparison to foreign countries. Look at the Swiss who whose citizens to keep "assault" weapons in their houses. If you're viewpoint was actually correct, all those holes in Swiss cheese must be coming from stray bullets and the streets would be running red with blood!
Which brings up another point:
Prohibition.
It's important we learn the lessons of the past lest we are doomed to repeat them.
What's the lesson?
If people want something, they will get it. If you make it illegal, the will still get it and you will make a lot of really nasty people rich and powerful in the process.
Eliminating guns is simply not an option. You could eliminate LEGAL gun ownership, but all the criminals are going to throw a big freakin party if that ever happens. And the party's going to be at YOUR house. What, are you going to stop them? Fat chance, they got guns, and all you've got is the off chance that they wait around to let you call the police and then wait some more to get arrested.
I'm still trying to figure out why "putting in the max value you mean to pay as soon as possible" is not the optimal strategy.
Because you are committing the largest possible sum of money for the longest possible time period.
All the opinions I'm seeing leave out the possibility that there may be TWO items up for bid, of which you would be willing to take either one. Bidding the maximum I'm willing to pay for both of them could leave me buying twice as much as I need for twice as much as I'm willing to spend.
Bidding on just one of them could cause me to loose out if the other item goes for a lower price.
Sniping allows someone to commit the same amount of money, but for a MUCH SHORTER TIME PERIOD. Now someone might say, "Just bid your max on the one that closes first, then check back." That would work equally well, IF NO NEW ITEMS WERE EVER LISTED AND AUCTION LENGTHS WERE ALL THE SAME. Since these things are real factors, you're not just weighing what you would pay for one item in one instance, but also the possibility that a chance to meet the same need better or cheaper might come along.
Use the system as designed and it all works.
Sure it works, that's not the question. The question is, "Does sniping work better?"
It isn't clearly disallowed. But, if somebody notices me using their access point, and comes out to tell me that it isn't allowed, or they call the cops and have them tell me it isn't allowed, that is different. I can longer assume that I have implicit permission to use that access point. I absolutely know that I do not have that permission.
But you shouldn't need permission!
If they don't want him using their wireless network there are any number of technical means at their disposal to prevent him from doing so. He's not FORCING them to keep an OPEN wireless access point or to respond to his packets.
You are depriving the employees of the coffee shop and the customers from a tangible, finite resource (bandwidth, among other things). That's theft. Theft gets you arrested.
It's not theft. Theft is taking tangible property. This guy was taking advantage of a service that was being offered freely and indiscriminately to the community.
It's important to realize that the unlicensed bands, are just that. You as a wifi user have ZERO authority to tell someone else whether they are allowed to use that frequency band, EVEN IF THEY ARE ON YOUR PROPERTY. This has already been test in court both by an airport autority and a university. What even more fun is that a licensed HAM radio operator can radiate up a thousand watts in the 2.4 GHz band, frying your equipment. If you want your own private band, pay for it.
China may have different attitudes and morals standards than the US
If by different you mean none.
Your argument is nothing but bullshit moral relativism.
I've got an idea.... why don't you commit a thought crime so you can spend the rest of your life in jail? You'll never have to worry abou living in poverty again! Or better yet get executed, then you won't be LIVING in poverty either.
Or perhaps do you believe in certain inalienable rights?
What's with all this hate mongering against China?
China is the biggest threat in the world to these rights. Calling a spade a spade is not hate mongering. It's living in reality, recognizing the things that are actually happening.
Re:My Linux Annoyances as a Hardended Windows user
on
Linux Annoyances For Geeks
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. of licensing conflict.
My suggestion is this: Suck it up, you wouldn't believe all the separate programs with seperate liscenses windows users have to deal with!
You have to manually install TWO things?
Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel?
You don't. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and making you.
I've never had to on Windows
Bullshit. You don't honestly know whether you have or not because virtually EVERYTHING requires a reboot. Ever head of service packs?
Item 3 is vendor specfic. I suggest you ask the people you're actually giving money to for a fix.
Item 4, shrug. It all depends on your choice of linux flavor. If configuration tools are important to you, choose software that has them. I remember tools where you could at least punch in you monitor model and it knew all the modes and that's five or more years ago.
5. Lack of decent file-browser.
Konqueror rocks. It's not windows explorer, and don't treat it like it is. If you invest all the time you did learning windows explorer into knoqueror, you'll be pretty impressed.
Not until today. It looks like an interesting organization.
Kit building is sort of a lost art these days.
One one hand, I wish more people built kits. On the other, I suspect any packge type used for a decent-sized FPGA would not be (easily) hand solderable.
I suppose the first thing to do would be to develop a manifesto. To ask, "What would hopefully be achieved with an open-source FPGA?"
I'm finding myself weighing the benefits of this vs. "open" hardware using proprietary FPGAs.
Not that I think the effort is not justified, but trying to figure out what the goal is. I have some ideas of my own, but I'd like to hear what yours are.
The protections are lifted at 18, but the restrictions are lifted at 21.
Try buying alcohol, buying a handgun, renting a car, etc when you're 19.
People are expected to contribute to society as full adults but are not given the same freedoms and protections as adults. People in our country aged 18-21 are second class citizens.
to buying a much smaller house with a $250k mortgage
WTF! They bought a $300,000+ house to get decent schools?
I DON'T THINK SO.
They bought a $300,000+ house the have decent schools AND LIVE IN A VERY EXCLUSIVE AREA.
Your argument is stupid. It's like saying:
"My Saab had a dangerous brake problem so I had to go buy a new BMW 7 series for the safety of my children."
I know some great people with, frankly, really shitty kids. I can only assume it's the fact that their kids unavoidably spend more time around their fellow punks (at school and after) than their parents.
Sounds like you know some shitty parents and neglected kids.
A couple good parents can't really compete with Madison Avenue in terms of persuasion.
What a lame-assed excuse. OF COURSE THEY CAN.
But this is about to lead into one of my rants about how we're declining as a civilization
Perhaps a lack of personal accountability is to blame?
Whaaaa! Whaaa! Other people are influencing my kids!
No shit they are. It's a parents job to counteract this influence. You can't expect the rest of society to raise your children for you.
This is a pretty cool idea. I only have one chip design under my belt (using MOSIS and MAGIC), but it certainly seems feasible.
On the larger scale I'm imagining a "Open Source Hardware Foundation". All documentation required to make a production run of anything they produce would be freely available. It might be possible to get a significant amount of university involvement as students would be able to look at a finished design and drill down to the most basic levels to understand how it works.
If you have a mailing list for this project, put me on it. Your first guess at my email at yahoo.com will be correct.
Think about it. This means someone has to fill out all the TPS reports and other mumbo jumbo, then whatever time is left over is all they get to search for prior art!
Eight hours to look though the entire breadth and depth of human invention? I don't think so.
Imagine if they actually tried to be responsible about it and contacted someone who was an expert in the field. Do you think a reputable college professor would say the idea is orignal after say, one hour of searching?
The right way to handle this BS is to drop the presumption of validity from all patentes and to award damages if a patent is found to be invalid or even overly broad. Let validty be decided in a court room on a case by case bais, using real expert witnesses who actually have credentials.
Sure, you might not fall for a renamed executable on a USB drive, but what if it's taken a step farther? ...
each directory has a file named SIGGRAPH_presentation.exe or there is a SIGGRAPH_presentation.jar
Your example is not "taking it a step farther". It is the same damn thing. It requires the user to manually discover that there is an executable and then to deliberately run it.
What it comes down to is that people who are not properly trained should not have access to critical computer systems. In the days before my time these people were given dumb terminals on which software could not be installed. In that case of something important like a credit union, this article gives a great reeason for reinstating this practice.
Do you want an employee bringing in their own USB drive and walking out with everyone's account information?
And how would you compare them? You would have to either put the harddisk in a trusted system, or boot the system from a trusted medium, and then compare the data.
Yep, looks like it's pretty much a non-issue doesn't it?
You do realize you would have to do one of these same things to start from scratch?
In fact, you would need to check the harddisk at the raw data level, since something might be hidden beyond 'visible files'.
You need to check the boot sector. You do not need to check every byte on the disc.
If it's not a file and it's not your boot image, then it can't run without something else helping it. If you find the "helper" application, any hidden junk like that will be declawed.
Taking all necessary measures to make sure you don't miss anything (which incidentally is something beyond the grasp of all but the most technically minded), it would be a process that would rival if not exceed a full wipe and reinstall in required time and effort.
Obviously. It's going to be easier to just revert to backups, but you loose everything you did since that backup. To most people, their files are worth some time and effort to preserve.
True if you know the nature of the compromise to the last detail. But otherwise, "recovering" a compromised system is taking a chance, since you can't be 100% sure that no bad stuff remains sneaking around.
If you're really on the ball, you do regular backups.
This means that you can compare your current system to your backups and then you need only examine the files that have changed.
People of religion have been studying science for decades.
There is no disparity.
I don't think you understand science or religion.
Religion requires a belief in the supernatural. "Faith" if you will. This runs directly counter to rational thought and the scientific method.
Yes, religious people have studied science, but fundamentally "faith" is not science, runs directly counter to it, and has held science back in areas where it intersects with scientific endevor. (See: Heliocentric theory, evolution, quantum theory, etc.)
Your argument that religious scientists prove that there is no conflict, is like making the argument that the special olympics prove that handicaps are not a problem for those who wish to partake in physical activities. Sure it has been done but that does not mean there is no conflict.
And as in "just work" I mean any noob can press a button and they just work.
First off, that's something that Microsoft doesn't have. Why do you think companies have IT departments?
Second, everything you've listed DOES exist (to extent that your demands aren't flat out INSANE, like drivers for every device in existence) and works.
You are really distorting the contrast in usability here. Just last week one of my windows using friends wasted hours trying to get windows to properly recognize his DVD burner. (Linux reconized mine immediately.) People run into usability problems with windows ALL THE TIME. Why do you think there are all those geek squad commercails on TV?
Could desktop Linux use some improvement? Sure, but desktop windows sure could use some as well. Perfection is not the point that will have to be reached, just as it has not been with windows.
A market based around copyright is inherently not a free market, because the government is involved.
The free market is a myth.
It's an intellectual construction of economics teachers. It's not real, it will never be real. There are ALWAYS restrictions on the market. Even if you were to disband every government in the world, it's not as if everyone would sudden;y start playing by the rules or even that those trying would play be the same set of rules. And the rules themselves are just an arbitrary construction.
The "free market" is a mental abstraction useful for teaching basic economics, it is not a fundamental rule of the universe. If taken too seriously it leads to all sorts of stupid logical contradictions.
For example:
In a "free market" I could hire someone to kill you and anyone else who is compting with me. This means that I am manipluating the market, therefore it is not free. I have essentaily become the government (whatever I want happens or people die), thus the market is no longer "free".
No, another reason for the GPL is to keep anyone from taking free software, changing it, and not releasing the changes to the world.
Well, there's a tradeoff. Yes if copyright were to disappear then companies could take GPL'ed works modify them and distribute them under whatever terms they wanter, BUT:
Whatever means the corporations are using to force us to agree to their terms could also be used to force the companies to agree to the GPL.
The GPL would still work (although not as written), but you would have to really sign it BEFORE you took posession of the work. (In the same way that one might agree to an NDA.)
So a huge body of GPL'ed work would suddenly become BSD licensed, a huge body of proprietary work would become BSD licensed, and both sides would begin anew, this time with the burden of getting actual signed contracts and lawyers involved.
Slashdot Mirror
I like how people keep saying "in the months before 9/11". As if these programs were instituted by der furher the day he was inaugurated. The truth is that these programs have been going on for years but none of you cared.
What you're trying to do is confuse the reader as to what program we're talking about.
Of couse there has always been LEGAL spying, what we're talking about here is ILLEGAL spying that runs directly conter to every american;s constituional rights.
I was under the impression that unlicensed devices are not allowed to interfere with any other device even if that device is not RF based.
They are not allowed to intentionally interfere, as in you are not allowed to deliberately jam you neighbor. However, if you have a legitimate reason for transmitting, you may do so.
A licensed HAM radio operator can radiate up to a THOUSAND WATTS in the 2.4 GHz range, so long as he has a good reason for doing so. That WILL jam you, and you do not have any authority to ask him to stop so long as he has some reason for being at that power level.
Why not set up a comminity wireless network or check if your neighbour already has http:ghostmodernism.com/
Because it's impossible for you guarantee service.
If my neighbor buys a cordless phone that knocks out my wifi connection, legally I can't do squat.
Now if you're talking about liscensed wireless you run into a whole other set of problemss. (Like the cost of liscenses and limited hardware availibility.)
Go be a cop for 18 years, then reply. Focus on what I was saying, not distorting it.
I don't care if you've been a cop for 180 years, if you go around violating the law under color of authority, you are even worse than the people you claim to protect us from.
You claim that cops really aren't that bad, but here you are defending the actions of a department that has obviously comitted both tresspass and wrongful arrest. All you're really proving is that the cops who claim to be decent, really aren't. There's obvious misconduct here but because the criminal was wearing a badge, here you are defending him.
I defy you to provide evidence the father acted illegally. The evidence that the department acted illegally is right there on tape.
We have learned from our mistakes. All newer high voltage buried cable is coaxal in design. The hot conductor is surrounded by a grounded jacket. A fault shorts the cable to the grounded jacket tripping the overcurrent protection instead of putting lots of voltage to the ground.
Unless buried cable tended to fail from the outside in instead of from the inside out.
(Sure, it will catch most cases, but someone has to play devil's advocate.) Since the water has to pass through the outer-shell into the center conductor, it's quite possible that the grounded layer would aready be badly corroded.
Really? I'd like to see those statistics. I live in a country where most private gun ownership was banned ten years ago and I don't believe our crime rate has gone up. And look at the UK, where not even the regular police have guns. So I'm calling bullshit on your unsourced assertion.
Wow, maybe you should actually back up your own opinions within one sentence of chastizing someone else for not backing up theirs? Talk about dishonest!
Right. Unless they also have a gun, or there's several of them, or you're overpowered and have the gun taken. My problem with guns is that they're just so dangerous.
This is just silly.
A) Most guns hold several bullets and can fire them in rapid succession.
B) Being overpowered and having your gun taken is LESS likely than using it properly... unless you like to coat it with vaseline or something.
C)The danger is easily managed by not being a retard. Never point a gun at anything you don't intend to shoot. Always treat a gun like it's loaded. You've managed not to stick a fork in a wall outlet so far, right?
I strongly believe that no-one needs a gun in a city or urban environment, and that wide-spread ownership only makes the whole crime situation worse, whether stolen or not.
This runs strongly counter to the ACTUAL EVIDENCE.
I used to think like you, in seventh grade. Then I tried to do a research report to support my viewpoint. Everybody on your side had only halfassed opinions and manipulated data to back them up. (Like the famous, "A gun is X times more likely to kill a family member.." which has been thuroughly debunked.) The pro-right to own/carry side is backed by solid statistical evidence.
The only "real" evidence the gun control crowd comes up with is from foreign countries, where there isn't already a massive number of illegal guns availible, there are major cultural differences, and the capacity to make guns on the sly would likely be much harder to come by than it is in the us. I call bullshit on your comparison to foreign countries. Look at the Swiss who whose citizens to keep "assault" weapons in their houses. If you're viewpoint was actually correct, all those holes in Swiss cheese must be coming from stray bullets and the streets would be running red with blood!
Which brings up another point:
Prohibition.
It's important we learn the lessons of the past lest we are doomed to repeat them.
What's the lesson?
If people want something, they will get it. If you make it illegal, the will still get it and you will make a lot of really nasty people rich and powerful in the process.
Eliminating guns is simply not an option. You could eliminate LEGAL gun ownership, but all the criminals are going to throw a big freakin party if that ever happens. And the party's going to be at YOUR house. What, are you going to stop them? Fat chance, they got guns, and all you've got is the off chance that they wait around to let you call the police and then wait some more to get arrested.
I'm still trying to figure out why "putting in the max value you mean to pay as soon as possible" is not the optimal strategy.
Because you are committing the largest possible sum of money for the longest possible time period.
All the opinions I'm seeing leave out the possibility that there may be TWO items up for bid, of which you would be willing to take either one. Bidding the maximum I'm willing to pay for both of them could leave me buying twice as much as I need for twice as much as I'm willing to spend.
Bidding on just one of them could cause me to loose out if the other item goes for a lower price.
Sniping allows someone to commit the same amount of money, but for a MUCH SHORTER TIME PERIOD. Now someone might say, "Just bid your max on the one that closes first, then check back." That would work equally well, IF NO NEW ITEMS WERE EVER LISTED AND AUCTION LENGTHS WERE ALL THE SAME. Since these things are real factors, you're not just weighing what you would pay for one item in one instance, but also the possibility that a chance to meet the same need better or cheaper might come along.
Use the system as designed and it all works.
Sure it works, that's not the question. The question is, "Does sniping work better?"
It isn't clearly disallowed. But, if somebody notices me using their access point, and comes out to tell me that it isn't allowed, or they call the cops and have them tell me it isn't allowed, that is different. I can longer assume that I have implicit permission to use that access point. I absolutely know that I do not have that permission.
But you shouldn't need permission!
If they don't want him using their wireless network there are any number of technical means at their disposal to prevent him from doing so. He's not FORCING them to keep an OPEN wireless access point or to respond to his packets.
You are depriving the employees of the coffee shop and the customers from a tangible, finite resource (bandwidth, among other things). That's theft. Theft gets you arrested.
It's not theft. Theft is taking tangible property. This guy was taking advantage of a service that was being offered freely and indiscriminately to the community.
It's important to realize that the unlicensed bands, are just that. You as a wifi user have ZERO authority to tell someone else whether they are allowed to use that frequency band, EVEN IF THEY ARE ON YOUR PROPERTY. This has already been test in court both by an airport autority and a university. What even more fun is that a licensed HAM radio operator can radiate up a thousand watts in the 2.4 GHz band, frying your equipment. If you want your own private band, pay for it.
Funny, I was sure that was the USA. Clean up your own damn backyard before focusing on other people's problems.
China makes Bush look like an amateur.
China may have different attitudes and morals standards than the US
If by different you mean none.
Your argument is nothing but bullshit moral relativism.
I've got an idea.... why don't you commit a thought crime so you can spend the rest of your life in jail? You'll never have to worry abou living in poverty again! Or better yet get executed, then you won't be LIVING in poverty either.
Or perhaps do you believe in certain inalienable rights?
What's with all this hate mongering against China?
China is the biggest threat in the world to these rights. Calling a spade a spade is not hate mongering. It's living in reality, recognizing the things that are actually happening.
No fecking media support! I get XMMS inform me on first attempt at playing an MP3 that it won't because of licensing conflict. of licensing conflict.
My suggestion is this: Suck it up, you wouldn't believe all the separate programs with seperate liscenses windows users have to deal with!
You have to manually install TWO things?
Why the hell do I have to install a new kernel?
You don't. Nobody's holding a gun to your head and making you.
I've never had to on Windows
Bullshit. You don't honestly know whether you have or not because virtually EVERYTHING requires a reboot. Ever head of service packs?
Item 3 is vendor specfic. I suggest you ask the people you're actually giving money to for a fix.
Item 4, shrug. It all depends on your choice of linux flavor. If configuration tools are important to you, choose software that has them. I remember tools where you could at least punch in you monitor model and it knew all the modes and that's five or more years ago.
5. Lack of decent file-browser.
Konqueror rocks. It's not windows explorer, and don't treat it like it is. If you invest all the time you did learning windows explorer into knoqueror, you'll be pretty impressed.
Do you know about TAPR?
Not until today. It looks like an interesting organization.
Kit building is sort of a lost art these days.
One one hand, I wish more people built kits. On the other, I suspect any packge type used for a decent-sized FPGA would not be (easily) hand solderable.
I suppose the first thing to do would be to develop a manifesto. To ask, "What would hopefully be achieved with an open-source FPGA?"
I'm finding myself weighing the benefits of this vs. "open" hardware using proprietary FPGAs.
Not that I think the effort is not justified, but trying to figure out what the goal is. I have some ideas of my own, but I'd like to hear what yours are.
societal protections/restrictions
The protections are lifted at 18, but the restrictions are lifted at 21.
Try buying alcohol, buying a handgun, renting a car, etc when you're 19.
People are expected to contribute to society as full adults but are not given the same freedoms and protections as adults. People in our country aged 18-21 are second class citizens.
to buying a much smaller house with a $250k mortgage
WTF! They bought a $300,000+ house to get decent schools?
I DON'T THINK SO.
They bought a $300,000+ house the have decent schools AND LIVE IN A VERY EXCLUSIVE AREA.
Your argument is stupid. It's like saying:
"My Saab had a dangerous brake problem so I had to go buy a new BMW 7 series for the safety of my children."
What a load of crap.
I know some great people with, frankly, really shitty kids. I can only assume it's the fact that their kids unavoidably spend more time around their fellow punks (at school and after) than their parents.
Sounds like you know some shitty parents and neglected kids.
A couple good parents can't really compete with Madison Avenue in terms of persuasion.
What a lame-assed excuse. OF COURSE THEY CAN.
But this is about to lead into one of my rants about how we're declining as a civilization
Perhaps a lack of personal accountability is to blame?
Whaaaa! Whaaa! Other people are influencing my kids!
No shit they are. It's a parents job to counteract this influence. You can't expect the rest of society to raise your children for you.
This is a pretty cool idea. I only have one chip design under my belt (using MOSIS and MAGIC), but it certainly seems feasible.
On the larger scale I'm imagining a "Open Source Hardware Foundation". All documentation required to make a production run of anything they produce would be freely available. It might be possible to get a significant amount of university involvement as students would be able to look at a finished design and drill down to the most basic levels to understand how it works.
If you have a mailing list for this project, put me on it. Your first guess at my email at yahoo.com will be correct.
Yes, but process does not mean approve.
Think about it. This means someone has to fill out all the TPS reports and other mumbo jumbo, then whatever time is left over is all they get to search for prior art!
Eight hours to look though the entire breadth and depth of human invention? I don't think so.
Imagine if they actually tried to be responsible about it and contacted someone who was an expert in the field. Do you think a reputable college professor would say the idea is orignal after say, one hour of searching?
The right way to handle this BS is to drop the presumption of validity from all patentes and to award damages if a patent is found to be invalid or even overly broad. Let validty be decided in a court room on a case by case bais, using real expert witnesses who actually have credentials.
Please read this earlier comment, which points out that the drive itself is being relied upon to decide whether it is a "fixed" disc.
This is a security hole you could drive a truck through.
Sure, you might not fall for a renamed executable on a USB drive, but what if it's taken a step farther?
...
each directory has a file named SIGGRAPH_presentation.exe or there is a SIGGRAPH_presentation.jar
Your example is not "taking it a step farther". It is the same damn thing. It requires the user to manually discover that there is an executable and then to deliberately run it.
What it comes down to is that people who are not properly trained should not have access to critical computer systems. In the days before my time these people were given dumb terminals on which software could not be installed. In that case of something important like a credit union, this article gives a great reeason for reinstating this practice.
Do you want an employee bringing in their own USB drive and walking out with everyone's account information?
And how would you compare them? You would have to either put the harddisk in a trusted system, or boot the system from a trusted medium, and then compare the data.
Yep, looks like it's pretty much a non-issue doesn't it?
You do realize you would have to do one of these same things to start from scratch?
In fact, you would need to check the harddisk at the raw data level, since something might be hidden beyond 'visible files'.
You need to check the boot sector. You do not need to check every byte on the disc.
If it's not a file and it's not your boot image, then it can't run without something else helping it. If you find the "helper" application, any hidden junk like that will be declawed.
Taking all necessary measures to make sure you don't miss anything (which incidentally is something beyond the grasp of all but the most technically minded), it would be a process that would rival if not exceed a full wipe and reinstall in required time and effort.
Obviously. It's going to be easier to just revert to backups, but you loose everything you did since that backup. To most people, their files are worth some time and effort to preserve.
True if you know the nature of the compromise to the last detail. But otherwise, "recovering" a compromised system is taking a chance, since you can't be 100% sure that no bad stuff remains sneaking around.
If you're really on the ball, you do regular backups.
This means that you can compare your current system to your backups and then you need only examine the files that have changed.
People of religion have been studying science for decades. There is no disparity.
I don't think you understand science or religion.
Religion requires a belief in the supernatural. "Faith" if you will. This runs directly counter to rational thought and the scientific method.
Yes, religious people have studied science, but fundamentally "faith" is not science, runs directly counter to it, and has held science back in areas where it intersects with scientific endevor. (See: Heliocentric theory, evolution, quantum theory, etc.)
Your argument that religious scientists prove that there is no conflict, is like making the argument that the special olympics prove that handicaps are not a problem for those who wish to partake in physical activities. Sure it has been done but that does not mean there is no conflict.
And as in "just work" I mean any noob can press a button and they just work.
First off, that's something that Microsoft doesn't have. Why do you think companies have IT departments?
Second, everything you've listed DOES exist (to extent that your demands aren't flat out INSANE, like drivers for every device in existence) and works.
You are really distorting the contrast in usability here.
Just last week one of my windows using friends wasted hours trying to get windows to properly recognize his DVD burner. (Linux reconized mine immediately.) People run into usability problems with windows ALL THE TIME. Why do you think there are all those geek squad commercails on TV?
Could desktop Linux use some improvement? Sure, but desktop windows sure could use some as well. Perfection is not the point that will have to be reached, just as it has not been with windows.
A market based around copyright is inherently not a free market, because the government is involved.
The free market is a myth.
It's an intellectual construction of economics teachers. It's not real, it will never be real. There are ALWAYS restrictions on the market. Even if you were to disband every government in the world, it's not as if everyone would sudden;y start playing by the rules or even that those trying would play be the same set of rules. And the rules themselves are just an arbitrary construction.
The "free market" is a mental abstraction useful for teaching basic economics, it is not a fundamental rule of the universe. If taken too seriously it leads to all sorts of stupid logical contradictions.
For example:
In a "free market" I could hire someone to kill you and anyone else who is compting with me. This means that I am manipluating the market, therefore it is not free. I have essentaily become the government (whatever I want happens or people die), thus the market is no longer "free".
No, another reason for the GPL is to keep anyone from taking free software, changing it, and not releasing the changes to the world.
Well, there's a tradeoff. Yes if copyright were to disappear then companies could take GPL'ed works modify them and distribute them under whatever terms they wanter, BUT:
Whatever means the corporations are using to force us to agree to their terms could also be used to force the companies to agree to the GPL.
The GPL would still work (although not as written), but you would have to really sign it BEFORE you took posession of the work. (In the same way that one might agree to an NDA.)
So a huge body of GPL'ed work would suddenly become BSD licensed, a huge body of proprietary work would become BSD licensed, and both sides would begin anew, this time with the burden of getting actual signed contracts and lawyers involved.