In any case, the numbers don't have to "fit" with the old Imperial system. Designed for an essentially pre-numerate society (or at least one that had no recourse to electronic calculators), it works very well since it is based on a duodecimal system where divisions or multiples are easily expressed in whole numbers or easily managable fractions.
Err, according to my periodic table, the atomic mass of hydrogen is 1.00794. Sure, nearly every high-school chemistry teacher rounds it off to 1, but it won't do as a basis for the unit.
I've had a few Kodak Ultima CDs fail (burnt with the same drive at the same speed) but I've got plenty of the cheaper TDK jobs with the organic dyes which have outlasted them under the same conditions.
I have a number of CD-RW disks still in active service after 4 years, with verification after every write. But I stopped storing optical media (or at least any that I care about) on spindles when I realised that small movements of the case was causing small particles of dust (or sometimes the CD labels themselves) to grind nice circular tracks into the shiny surface of the adjacent CD.
I never ran any systematic tests to find out how badly that sucked, since I didn't want to learn any lessons the hard way.
Well, it strikes me that the obviously wisest choice here is to leave well enough alone. Mechanical components are so much more reliable, there's no comparison.
Plus, I'm not sure what the regulations are in your country/state, but here in in Australia it is an offence to reset an odometer unless an engine has been replaced (in which case the vehicle has to pass an inspection by agents for the authorities). I'm pretty sure that kind of modification, where the gadget could be easily reset without trace would be illegal.
I'm sure there must be more useful avenues to apply geeky talents.
Why not just go shopping for a decent sound system. Sure, if you're tone deaf you could pipe music through any soundcard, but for any kind of quality you need a dedicated sound system.
And never mind the cabling; either tuck it under a skirting board or run it under the floor.
Name a PC that had even the faintest whisper of success in the mass consumer market that was not ready-to-run out of the box.
Correct, but in TFA the author raises this perfectly valid point before he goes off on his Apple-fanboy rant:
There is nothing else like this phenomenon in the entire consumer culture. If anything else performed as horribly as Windows, and on such a global scale, consumers would scream bloody murder and demand their money back and there would be some sort of investigation, class-action litigation...
With the last computer I bought, getting a refund on the unwanted Winbloze bugware was not possible, so I took a more direct approach. I took the install disk out of its little envelope and broke it into little pieces, showering little silver bits all over the shop, so they had to pay a small price of inconvenience for their evil little deal.
Sure it's petty and childish, but I'm like that sometimes.:-)
Take some currency, put it in an envelope and mail it.
Why not simply write a cheque? the payee can then just bank it in the normal way. Sure, it probably takes 30 days to clear, but it is much more secure than sending cash, and WAY cheaper than direct transfer from your bank account (at least for all the banks I've used here in Australia).
The author of the article makes a big deal of berating sysadmins for treating users as the weak link in any security policy, but he fails to acknowledge that in fact they are.
I spent some years working in system security, and I found the biggest single factor was the humble post-it note. 3M have a lot to answer for.
Hardware keys are very nice, and have the advantage of considerably more "power" as an access code than any memorable password, but they also have the disadvantage of being easily lost or misappropriated. I have had many clients whose users lost their access cards on average twice a week.
Given the time in which it is possible to do some serious damage on a computer, that means any attempt at maintaining security is shot to hell.
At this stage, the best compromise seems to be a password that is simple enough to be memorable, but complex enough not to be bruteforced in a given number of attempts, in combination with simple vigilance. After all, it isn't that hard to put in routines to pull the plug on a line which is showing multiple failed login attempts.
I don't buy the argument that the average truck driver is more highly trained.
Guess it depends on the class of truck. Here in Australia, to drive anything of "Heavy Rigid" class (non-articulated of unlimited size) or larger requires a significant number of training hours, in addition to having held a car licence for 2 years, and to drive road trains you need to pass approved training courses in addition to having held a heavy rigid or combination licence for at least a year.
So a car driver might typically get away with 10 hours of instruction, while a heavy truck driver will have had some 3 to 4 times that.
Almost. A percentage when referring to concentration of a solute in a solvent is typically expressed in terms of weight/weight or, as in this case, weight/volume.
But what of the 100+ other gnu/linux distributions out there?
What of them? Linux distros rise and sink over time, but Slackware has the distinction of being the first; and from where I'm sitting, I don't see any drop in its popularity.
We got a bit of a scare a few months ago when Pat got sick, and some might have got spooked into defecting to other distros, but many (most?) of us stayed put and don't regret doing so.
IANA Belgian, and I won't comment on the dubious merits of their ID card, but the first thing that occurs to me is that the first thing that will happen on integration with Windows is that any associated information will become freely available in association with names and email addresses of everybody in the LookOut address book.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I can think of several very scary situations that could arise from that.
...we used to run a customized slackware distro. It was horrible. Machines would break all the time.
Hmmm. Sounds to me like the problem there is the "customized" bit. Slackware is well known as one of the most stable distros around (because it is so simple). My experience is that you more or less have to go out of your way to break it.
Maybe that explains a few things about the American legal system. Perhaps they should try divination by looking at tea-leaves or animals' entrails instead; it might be a bit more reliable.
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In any case, the numbers don't have to "fit" with the old Imperial system. Designed for an essentially pre-numerate society (or at least one that had no recourse to electronic calculators), it works very well since it is based on a duodecimal system where divisions or multiples are easily expressed in whole numbers or easily managable fractions.
If I were to be offered a 350 mL "pint" of beer, I would return it, as the glass would only be just over half full.
Or just under half empty, depending on how generous my disposition happened to be...
Err, according to my periodic table, the atomic mass of hydrogen is 1.00794. Sure, nearly every high-school chemistry teacher rounds it off to 1, but it won't do as a basis for the unit.
I've had a few Kodak Ultima CDs fail (burnt with the same drive at the same speed) but I've got plenty of the cheaper TDK jobs with the organic dyes which have outlasted them under the same conditions.
I never ran any systematic tests to find out how badly that sucked, since I didn't want to learn any lessons the hard way.
Well, it strikes me that the obviously wisest choice here is to leave well enough alone. Mechanical components are so much more reliable, there's no comparison.
Plus, I'm not sure what the regulations are in your country/state, but here in in Australia it is an offence to reset an odometer unless an engine has been replaced (in which case the vehicle has to pass an inspection by agents for the authorities). I'm pretty sure that kind of modification, where the gadget could be easily reset without trace would be illegal.
I'm sure there must be more useful avenues to apply geeky talents.
And never mind the cabling; either tuck it under a skirting board or run it under the floor.
Seriously though, I do find this business of having to hold down the key at the same time as clicking a bit like rubbing my head and patting my tummy.
But then, I've come to like the middle-click paste and all the other functions under the right-click...
Correct, but in TFA the author raises this perfectly valid point before he goes off on his Apple-fanboy rant:
There is nothing else like this phenomenon in the entire consumer culture. If anything else performed as horribly as Windows, and on such a global scale, consumers would scream bloody murder and demand their money back and there would be some sort of investigation, class-action litigation...
With the last computer I bought, getting a refund on the unwanted Winbloze bugware was not possible, so I took a more direct approach. I took the install disk out of its little envelope and broke it into little pieces, showering little silver bits all over the shop, so they had to pay a small price of inconvenience for their evil little deal.
Sure it's petty and childish, but I'm like that sometimes. :-)
Why not simply write a cheque? the payee can then just bank it in the normal way. Sure, it probably takes 30 days to clear, but it is much more secure than sending cash, and WAY cheaper than direct transfer from your bank account (at least for all the banks I've used here in Australia).
Sometimes a low-tech approach is best.
Heh... wump is still cool if you're drunk enough. :-)
I spent some years working in system security, and I found the biggest single factor was the humble post-it note. 3M have a lot to answer for.
Hardware keys are very nice, and have the advantage of considerably more "power" as an access code than any memorable password, but they also have the disadvantage of being easily lost or misappropriated. I have had many clients whose users lost their access cards on average twice a week.
Given the time in which it is possible to do some serious damage on a computer, that means any attempt at maintaining security is shot to hell.
At this stage, the best compromise seems to be a password that is simple enough to be memorable, but complex enough not to be bruteforced in a given number of attempts, in combination with simple vigilance. After all, it isn't that hard to put in routines to pull the plug on a line which is showing multiple failed login attempts.
Guess it depends on the class of truck. Here in Australia, to drive anything of "Heavy Rigid" class (non-articulated of unlimited size) or larger requires a significant number of training hours, in addition to having held a car licence for 2 years, and to drive road trains you need to pass approved training courses in addition to having held a heavy rigid or combination licence for at least a year.
So a car driver might typically get away with 10 hours of instruction, while a heavy truck driver will have had some 3 to 4 times that.
Err, no. Proof has a number of definitions, but a common one is twice the percentage of alcohol by volume.
Almost. A percentage when referring to concentration of a solute in a solvent is typically expressed in terms of weight/weight or, as in this case, weight/volume.
Hmmm, there are those who might whine about the etiquette of linking to your own posts, but that one was quite well said.
What of them? Linux distros rise and sink over time, but Slackware has the distinction of being the first; and from where I'm sitting, I don't see any drop in its popularity.
We got a bit of a scare a few months ago when Pat got sick, and some might have got spooked into defecting to other distros, but many (most?) of us stayed put and don't regret doing so.
No; there's a statically-compiled binary .bz2 that should work, unless it's compiled against a later glibc.
Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I can think of several very scary situations that could arise from that.
Good point, but following that logic, it would make sense to point to Linux From Scratch instead.
Perhaps this is simply (yet) another indication that Microsoft is populated with illiter8 ba5tards... :-)
Are you multiplying by two, or are you counting in pairs?
I've scrolled down over half of the posts on this thread, and so far it has been almost entirely dominated by Apple fanboys.
Just to remind ye with the attention span of a flea, this thread was supposed to be about Solaris.
Hmmm. Sounds to me like the problem there is the "customized" bit. Slackware is well known as one of the most stable distros around (because it is so simple). My experience is that you more or less have to go out of your way to break it.
Maybe that explains a few things about the American legal system. Perhaps they should try divination by looking at tea-leaves or animals' entrails instead; it might be a bit more reliable.