Well, like I said, after the Kernel Fork, it became proprietary. Try to modify M$'s source code, and I garantee you that you'll have the lawyers (read: modern-day inquisitors) on your back in no time!
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Close, but no cigar. The idea is not to distribute a book freely, because that's what every editor tries to do: send the book to as many people as possible. It's not to give it for free, though that's a bit rarer.
Rather, a true GPL'ed book would be... The Bible!
Think about it: at first, there was only a couple of books. Then, a lot of people made contributions. A commity (the Vatican) decides what goes in and what doesn't go into a "kernel", or approved dogma. Then they release the new version. People are free to branch the Bible, and indeed, we've seen a few kernel forks over the years. The most important was probably the "Kernel fork 1", where the Old Testament ('Torah' release) and the Old/New Testament forked and formed two separate developper's groups. A few developpers (called apocryphs) saw their contribution cut from the codebase.
Unfortunately, after the kernel fork, the source became closed and proprietary. There's been an attempt to rebuild the codebase by one Muhammed, but it was closed-source and a thousand years later, there's not even been a patch or a single Service Pack.
Oh, did I mention there's also a distro war going on?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Sorry, man. I tried to sell my own issues, dating back to #7 (I bought the hardcovers, and they deserve a place on my bookshelf - the "best of" one, not the other two.) They're a no-sell. Reason is, everyone buys the softcovers or hardcovers, like me. Good luck on selling them, because they're worth less now than when the series was running.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Ah! The kind of opinion I was looking for.:) Thank you.
I won't pick on your opinion, because I respect it. I don't agree with it, but I respect it.
I must say I somewhat agree with you on Good Omens. I think Neil Gaiman is not that good of a writer of pure written fiction... Yes, he writes well, and his flair is for the overall story arc. He's also good with short vignettes, and all that stems from the fact he's written for comics from the get-go. Quite simply, I don't think Gaiman's imagination translates that well into the purely written medium. That's alright; I never expected Mozart to write fiction to save his life, for instance.
Pratchett, on the other hand, masters the written word, and it shows. Often. It makes sense that Prachett's prose would be somewhat dragged down by Gaiman's.
However, I find it interesting to see these two authors work together. It's obvious they had a lot of influence on one another; there's recurring themes that always come across in both their works: very somberly in Gaiman, and out-there ludicrous in Pratchett. Contrast Gaiman's Death to Pratchett's Death: both incarnations are meant to give more 'meat' to the concept of an anthropomorphic death. Gaiman chose to play Death as the exact opposite of tradition (and I think it's fine), and Pratchett designed Death to be a traditionalist; even if he ends up cooking hamburgers in Ankh-Morpok.
Which is better? Bah... I just enjoy both without asking that silly question. Alright, a cat- and curry-loving Death with a scythe and a pale horse named Binky has more of an appeal to me.:)
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I'd like to hear what those people have to say. I mean, honestly. I hate some stuff with a passion yet I know people who consider it brilliant; so I can accept the opposite.
As for Peter David railing an issue of The Kindly Ones; I think this is the kind of stuff that happens when you're not reading a story with the proper perspective of time. I have been reading Sandman as it came out since issue #35, and at times I felt as if the story was going nowhere, or that it wasn't as good as it used to be. Now, when I reread all 75 issues more or less in a row, they form a cohesive whole, and it's as pointless to pick at a single issue than it is to pick at a single paragraph in a novel.
Any people out there who think Sandman is crap? I won't flame. Let's say, I'm looking for perspective.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
The great thing about meteor showers is you get to see tons of shooting stars, and that means many, many wishes! Last year, I saw the Leonids, and now I:
make $1,000,000 a year;
have at least 5 Playboy playmates after my body at all times;
have raised my IQ to the viscinity of 250;
can eat a dozen donuts at every meal and stay slim.
I hope to catch the Leonids this year, and if I do, I'll wish that I:
get rid of all that money that attracts unwanted friends;
stop going out with these superficial bimbos with silicone implants;
get a little dumber, because worrying about special groups of non-linear differential equations as applied to a parametrised space-time tensor is no fun.
I'll keep the fat-free donut rampage capacity, though!
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
rde, I understand your reaction. However, this is not the case, I think. The Dream Hunters is no a comic per se, but rather an illustrated story. It's just a way to mark the 10th anniversary, and I think it's a nice touch. There's a lot of stories that can be told, within or without the Sandman mythology, and it's obviously a preferred vehicle of Gaiman.
Neither the anthology, the spin-off or the statuettes are Gaiman's work. Gaiman has kept telling Karen Berger (editor of Vertigo) 'No' every time she tried to convince him to come back to Sandman. He's said yes this time because he was genuinely inspired. I respect that.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
If you've read Gaiman before, and absolutely hated him, avoid this book. If you've seen Amano's work before and hated it, avoid this book.
I'm gonna sound like a raving fanboy here, but how can anyone hate Neil Gaiman? I've seen people who are indifferent to his tales, but hatred?
Truly, Gaiman is one of the greatest fantasy writers ever. The fact he writes comicbooks usually distracts people to that fact, but let it not be said that geniuses are recognised by the mainstream while alive.
That's not to say I liked everything Gaiman wrote, but I never hated any part. The Sandman series in its entirety is a moving, magnificent story; a story for adults, and not a story for violent, sex-crazed children in men's bodies as most so-called "adult" stories are. I'm proud to say the ten hardcovers spanning the story of the Sandman sit on my shelf and are a delight to read to this day.
For those who don't know Neil Gaiman: for gods' sake, do yourself a favour. The Sandman is available in softcovers, so picking one every two weeks or so will definitely not break your budget. I suggest you either start at the beginning ('Preludes and Nocturnes'), although the style was not as defined back then. (The stories remain great, though, just not entirely mature.) Otherwise, try picking Fables and Reflections or The Doll's House. If that doesn't hook you, nothing will.
To get you in the mood for Gaiman's style, here's a short story he wrote for The Matrix. Too good to be true? You bet.
Finally, Yoshitaka Amano. This guy is a god. Check out his artwork. I have to say, he has to be the best artist to come to the Sandman world ever, and that's saying a lot.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Feel free to moderate me down if this is irrevelant, but I'm not sure what kind of news that is. The person who submitted this post linked to the original Slashdot article, which included all of the information it now pretends to report.
And, yes, the moment the virus was reported on Slashdot, it was already in the wild because of that Japanese website, and that story could be found on every major news website a week ago. Wired is just incredibly late.
Additionally: the patch was actually available before the virus broke out. It's a patch for another vulnerability, and BubbleBoy is actually a late-comer in exploiting that fault. It's the manner in which it does that's interesting.
That being said, the threat level of this virus is minimal, and it's just another public scare. It's a mail bomb-type virus a la Melissa, and it's the proof-of-concept that's scary, not the outbreak of a proto-virus.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I have been told this compares to "The Book of the New Sun" cycle by Gene Wolfe. Does it? Which is better? I have read neither, but I'm hesitating between the two books.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
1. The story says that the codebook is scanned. Hello? Know what a scanner is?
2. There's a nifty button on Netscape and Explorer called Stop. There's another one called Back. I'm sure anyone who finds the download too long can hit either of them and don't need someone writing an alarming title as if the site contained a virus or something.
I say starve the karma monster.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Re:What about the lemmings in modern-day USA?
on
The Year 1000
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· Score: 2
beagle, I don't want this to sound like flamebait; I've seen many people get, erm, anal-retentive about this issue, so I'm wondering...
What does it matter if the new Millennium is celebrated in 2000 or in 2001? I know that the Millennium starts in 2001, but it hardly matters to me that the calendar is one year offset from Way Back Then(tm). Celebrating the new Millennium December 31st, 1999 is like celebrating your birthday a saturday because it actually falls on a monday: you're better off celebrating when the timing's right than when it's -really- supposed to happen.
I mean, it's just an excuse to par-tee anyway.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I hate to break it to you, but that's not an exclusive American concept. I know the Canadians, the British and the French, among others, make a habit of making fun of American antics and poking fun at their culture. (Or "culture", as they would put it, I guess!)
I'm sure there's many others, but the point is: everybody pokes fun at everybody else. The Americans are the butts of foreigner jokes because they're so present on the international scene. Foreigners just don't do it often in Americans' faces.
So, in good humour, here's a little joke on Americans:
An American tourist comes into a Montreal library and goes to the counter:
"HELLO MISS," he says out loud, "I'D LIKE A HOTDOG AND A COKE!"
"Sir," whispers the librarian, "this is a library!"
"Oh," answers the American, whispering. "I'd like a hotdog and a coke..."
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
...I didn't know Slashdot reported on Internet crazes before. It's the first time I see the Useless Homepages beating Slashdot to the punchline!
My opinion on this claim of Mahir's is that he's trying to backpedal after all the attention he got. He's trying to say his page is his, but that someone else pirated his site to write 'I like sex'. Yeah right. Mind you, when a million people are looking at your embarrassing little web space, you're bound to deny it en masse.
First it was the 'Mr. T Ate my Balls' pages spinoffs, then the dancing baby, then the dancing hamsters. Mahir sounds like a misguided, naive man trying to look for love in all the wrong places, but the users themselves who buy into this and start fan clubs are just your run-of-the-mill idiots who not only flog a dead horse but make sure they run over it with a steamroller.
And the media who buy into it and give it more publicity (and I'm sorry to see Slashdot join the fray) are just spoon-feeding the masses with the filling junk news they wish for.
So now we're going to Slashdot Mahir as well?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Re:Forget pronunciation: discuss *freeness*
on
Linux on Jeopardy
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· Score: 1
I was struck by the wording "can be obtained for free".
'Is free in the sense that it is about freedom' doesn't have the same ring to it, I think.
And besides, the question (answer, sorry) was technically correct. Linux can be obtained for free. Windows too, I suppose, but that would be endorsing warez...:)
I think it's a case of, wrong interpretation of fact, but correct formulation by accident.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
While I think pondering these issues is a nice way to waste an afternoon (or a nice way to panic during an exam), there's something that bugs me, and in my mind, makes the scope of the exam quite limited. Here's why:
The consideration, here, is to see how perfectly implemented encryption technology can help better a society. This is clearly the point. I have to say I always took a dislike to exams which tried to coerce you to the teacher's side. I think it's obvious from the nature of the test that this man believes technology will defend human rights in the future.
But...
What this theoretical approach ignores is that technology's impact is always moderated by its inherent failures. A technology is never perfect, and you have to examine its potential failures as well to fully understand its impact in the future.
A much better final exam would be:
A new version of the Web springs to life with the following enhanced capabilities:
Theoretically unforgeable psedonymous identities
Bidirectional typed, filterable links
Arbitrage agents
Bonding agents
Escrow agents
Digital Cash
Capability based Security with Strong Encryption
Pick three of these technologies, and discuss the potential promises for enhanced privacy, and balance them with the possible threats for users. Contrast what is lost with what is gained. Are these technologies worthwhile? What are you criteria for this?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
As a Security Professional, I'm sure you realise it's not just in the user/password authentification that lies your security.
Yes, as long as other security concerns are accounted for, a username/password combination is more than enough, and while I think 'paranoia' should be on every security specialist's list of valuable skills, I think you're not focusing your paranoia in the right place.
The concept of username/password is that of unforgeable identity. As long as you're capable of acknowleding without the shadow of a doubt that someone on the network is who they claim to be, you got the security you want. However, in practice, it's a bit harder to implement.
You can stick with a username/password scheme, but here are the other concerns you need to keep in mind:
Password encryption: Having passwords is one thing, but you want them to be unreachable to everyone. A shadow password scheme with good encryption on the passwords is invaluable! Also make sure password information always transits securely.
Single step authentification: Seems simple enough if username and/or password are incorrect, you shouldn't tell which one is wrong.
User management: Another important fact is to make sure no one can create an identity out of the blue.
Password rules enforcement: You don't want people to set their passwords to 'Fido' or to 'Password'. Code a password enforcement scheme. If you're really paranoid, enforce min. 7 chars length, mixed case, alphanumeric chars, and make a dictionary check. Also, make sure users are forced to change their passwords each month.
User awareness: The most important, and often most neglected aspect of password management. You want your users to understand that writing down their passwords in their agenda is not a good idea. They should not spread them around or lend them to others. Informed users are the best way to keep a system secure.
So, is the username/password scheme still revelant in this day and age? Yeah. The theory behind it is sound; whether you simply give a password prompt, or use biometrics, it's the same concept applied a different way: that of 100% authentification.
I think you're wasting your energies in the wrong direction. Making your system fool-proof against intrusions, monitoring your security output, these are all safe and sound practices and the issue is not the concept of passwords itself.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
This feature describes a reaction to Linux that goes far beyond the browser battle. Simply, I don't think the "Browser War" will make or break Linux, but I believe there is a lot to learn about it if we want Linux to continue to grow.
Let's face it, Linux is fighting an uphill battle. Programmers have to include features in their applications that appear in MS applications, while the reverse is not true: before switching to Linux, people will complain that they'll lose features they're accustomed to in Microsoft Office, for instance. But when you tell them about the features of, say, Star Office, they'll merely consider them carefully and judge their merits.
This is why Mozilla can't strike back, for instance, by putting features of their own that are not supported by Internet Explorer. People would just hesitate to consider that technology, because they figure the majority out there wouldn't be able to use it anyway.
So what's the solution? I'm not sure. I think Linux needs to keep fighting the uphill battle until it has common ground. Then, the battle will be one of features, where the best features will win.
It is true that a very good browser for Linux would be one of these fabled "killer apps". Unfortunately, I don't think it's Mozilla. I think Linux needs more browser projects than it needs office projects right now. I don't know why energy is not being put more into creating a slew of unique browsers, then putting these resources in common.
It's doable... Linux developpers have done it or are doing it for everything else. I'm sure no one expected the quality Office suites looming on the horizon or already in place for Linux. And I figure it must be more complicated to build a complete, integrated Office suite than a Web browser, no?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
And what's in it for us?
on
NetSlaves
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· Score: 1
I wonder; buying a book like this sounds like a bit redundant. It seems to me most professional geeks go through what this book covers on a daily basis.
So what's in it for geeks? Insiders? Why should I care for this book if it's targeted to outsiders to the hi-tech industry? (Aside as a present idea for my mother, that is?)
Additionally, what has it to say that hasn't been flogged to death by Dilbert yet?
Is this News for Nerds or News about Nerds?
Why not review a dated by classic novel on the subject, such as Douglas Coupland's Microserfs?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, like I said, after the Kernel Fork, it became proprietary. Try to modify M$'s source code, and I garantee you that you'll have the lawyers (read: modern-day inquisitors) on your back in no time!
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
(Just to illustrate the kinds of questions we'd be likely to see moderated up to 5... No wonder he keeps saying no. :) )
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Rather, a true GPL'ed book would be... The Bible!
Think about it: at first, there was only a couple of books. Then, a lot of people made contributions. A commity (the Vatican) decides what goes in and what doesn't go into a "kernel", or approved dogma. Then they release the new version. People are free to branch the Bible, and indeed, we've seen a few kernel forks over the years. The most important was probably the "Kernel fork 1", where the Old Testament ('Torah' release) and the Old/New Testament forked and formed two separate developper's groups. A few developpers (called apocryphs) saw their contribution cut from the codebase.
Unfortunately, after the kernel fork, the source became closed and proprietary. There's been an attempt to rebuild the codebase by one Muhammed, but it was closed-source and a thousand years later, there's not even been a patch or a single Service Pack.
Oh, did I mention there's also a distro war going on?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I'm not a native English speaker. You try writing French as well as I write English. Hah!
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Sorry, man. I tried to sell my own issues, dating back to #7 (I bought the hardcovers, and they deserve a place on my bookshelf - the "best of" one, not the other two.) They're a no-sell. Reason is, everyone buys the softcovers or hardcovers, like me. Good luck on selling them, because they're worth less now than when the series was running.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I won't pick on your opinion, because I respect it. I don't agree with it, but I respect it.
I must say I somewhat agree with you on Good Omens. I think Neil Gaiman is not that good of a writer of pure written fiction... Yes, he writes well, and his flair is for the overall story arc. He's also good with short vignettes, and all that stems from the fact he's written for comics from the get-go. Quite simply, I don't think Gaiman's imagination translates that well into the purely written medium. That's alright; I never expected Mozart to write fiction to save his life, for instance.
Pratchett, on the other hand, masters the written word, and it shows. Often. It makes sense that Prachett's prose would be somewhat dragged down by Gaiman's.
However, I find it interesting to see these two authors work together. It's obvious they had a lot of influence on one another; there's recurring themes that always come across in both their works: very somberly in Gaiman, and out-there ludicrous in Pratchett. Contrast Gaiman's Death to Pratchett's Death: both incarnations are meant to give more 'meat' to the concept of an anthropomorphic death. Gaiman chose to play Death as the exact opposite of tradition (and I think it's fine), and Pratchett designed Death to be a traditionalist; even if he ends up cooking hamburgers in Ankh-Morpok.
Which is better? Bah... I just enjoy both without asking that silly question. Alright, a cat- and curry-loving Death with a scythe and a pale horse named Binky has more of an appeal to me. :)
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
As for Peter David railing an issue of The Kindly Ones; I think this is the kind of stuff that happens when you're not reading a story with the proper perspective of time. I have been reading Sandman as it came out since issue #35, and at times I felt as if the story was going nowhere, or that it wasn't as good as it used to be. Now, when I reread all 75 issues more or less in a row, they form a cohesive whole, and it's as pointless to pick at a single issue than it is to pick at a single paragraph in a novel.
Any people out there who think Sandman is crap? I won't flame. Let's say, I'm looking for perspective.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
make $1,000,000 a year;
have at least 5 Playboy playmates after my body at all times;
have raised my IQ to the viscinity of 250;
can eat a dozen donuts at every meal and stay slim.
I hope to catch the Leonids this year, and if I do, I'll wish that I:
get rid of all that money that attracts unwanted friends;
stop going out with these superficial bimbos with silicone implants;
get a little dumber, because worrying about special groups of non-linear differential equations as applied to a parametrised space-time tensor is no fun.
I'll keep the fat-free donut rampage capacity, though!
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Neither the anthology, the spin-off or the statuettes are Gaiman's work. Gaiman has kept telling Karen Berger (editor of Vertigo) 'No' every time she tried to convince him to come back to Sandman. He's said yes this time because he was genuinely inspired. I respect that.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I'm gonna sound like a raving fanboy here, but how can anyone hate Neil Gaiman? I've seen people who are indifferent to his tales, but hatred?
Truly, Gaiman is one of the greatest fantasy writers ever. The fact he writes comicbooks usually distracts people to that fact, but let it not be said that geniuses are recognised by the mainstream while alive.
That's not to say I liked everything Gaiman wrote, but I never hated any part. The Sandman series in its entirety is a moving, magnificent story; a story for adults, and not a story for violent, sex-crazed children in men's bodies as most so-called "adult" stories are. I'm proud to say the ten hardcovers spanning the story of the Sandman sit on my shelf and are a delight to read to this day.
For those who don't know Neil Gaiman: for gods' sake, do yourself a favour. The Sandman is available in softcovers, so picking one every two weeks or so will definitely not break your budget. I suggest you either start at the beginning ('Preludes and Nocturnes'), although the style was not as defined back then. (The stories remain great, though, just not entirely mature.) Otherwise, try picking Fables and Reflections or The Doll's House. If that doesn't hook you, nothing will.
To get you in the mood for Gaiman's style, here's a short story he wrote for The Matrix . Too good to be true? You bet.
Finally, Yoshitaka Amano. This guy is a god. Check out his artwork. I have to say, he has to be the best artist to come to the Sandman world ever, and that's saying a lot.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
And, yes, the moment the virus was reported on Slashdot, it was already in the wild because of that Japanese website, and that story could be found on every major news website a week ago. Wired is just incredibly late.
Additionally: the patch was actually available before the virus broke out. It's a patch for another vulnerability, and BubbleBoy is actually a late-comer in exploiting that fault. It's the manner in which it does that's interesting.
That being said, the threat level of this virus is minimal, and it's just another public scare. It's a mail bomb-type virus a la Melissa, and it's the proof-of-concept that's scary, not the outbreak of a proto-virus.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I have been told this compares to "The Book of the New Sun" cycle by Gene Wolfe. Does it? Which is better? I have read neither, but I'm hesitating between the two books.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
1. The story says that the codebook is scanned. Hello? Know what a scanner is?
2. There's a nifty button on Netscape and Explorer called Stop. There's another one called Back. I'm sure anyone who finds the download too long can hit either of them and don't need someone writing an alarming title as if the site contained a virus or something.
I say starve the karma monster.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
What does it matter if the new Millennium is celebrated in 2000 or in 2001? I know that the Millennium starts in 2001, but it hardly matters to me that the calendar is one year offset from Way Back Then(tm). Celebrating the new Millennium December 31st, 1999 is like celebrating your birthday a saturday because it actually falls on a monday: you're better off celebrating when the timing's right than when it's -really- supposed to happen.
I mean, it's just an excuse to par-tee anyway.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Yeah! Forget about the Brits, what I want to know is, what happened in the good old US of A in the year 1000!
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Yeah, can't say that much about Mr. T Ate My Balls. :)
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I'm sure there's many others, but the point is: everybody pokes fun at everybody else. The Americans are the butts of foreigner jokes because they're so present on the international scene. Foreigners just don't do it often in Americans' faces.
So, in good humour, here's a little joke on Americans:
My opinion on this claim of Mahir's is that he's trying to backpedal after all the attention he got. He's trying to say his page is his, but that someone else pirated his site to write 'I like sex'. Yeah right. Mind you, when a million people are looking at your embarrassing little web space, you're bound to deny it en masse.
First it was the 'Mr. T Ate my Balls' pages spinoffs, then the dancing baby, then the dancing hamsters. Mahir sounds like a misguided, naive man trying to look for love in all the wrong places, but the users themselves who buy into this and start fan clubs are just your run-of-the-mill idiots who not only flog a dead horse but make sure they run over it with a steamroller.
And the media who buy into it and give it more publicity (and I'm sorry to see Slashdot join the fray) are just spoon-feeding the masses with the filling junk news they wish for.
So now we're going to Slashdot Mahir as well?
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
'Is free in the sense that it is about freedom' doesn't have the same ring to it, I think.
And besides, the question (answer, sorry) was technically correct. Linux can be obtained for free. Windows too, I suppose, but that would be endorsing warez... :)
I think it's a case of, wrong interpretation of fact, but correct formulation by accident.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
The consideration, here, is to see how perfectly implemented encryption technology can help better a society. This is clearly the point. I have to say I always took a dislike to exams which tried to coerce you to the teacher's side. I think it's obvious from the nature of the test that this man believes technology will defend human rights in the future.
But...
What this theoretical approach ignores is that technology's impact is always moderated by its inherent failures. A technology is never perfect, and you have to examine its potential failures as well to fully understand its impact in the future.
A much better final exam would be:
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Man walking down a street of Beijing: "I like the flawless beauty of the streets!"
Translator: The virginity of these pretty [women] turns me on in the road!"
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
Yes, as long as other security concerns are accounted for, a username/password combination is more than enough, and while I think 'paranoia' should be on every security specialist's list of valuable skills, I think you're not focusing your paranoia in the right place.
The concept of username/password is that of unforgeable identity. As long as you're capable of acknowleding without the shadow of a doubt that someone on the network is who they claim to be, you got the security you want. However, in practice, it's a bit harder to implement.
You can stick with a username/password scheme, but here are the other concerns you need to keep in mind:
Password encryption: Having passwords is one thing, but you want them to be unreachable to everyone. A shadow password scheme with good encryption on the passwords is invaluable! Also make sure password information always transits securely.
Single step authentification: Seems simple enough if username and/or password are incorrect, you shouldn't tell which one is wrong.
User management: Another important fact is to make sure no one can create an identity out of the blue.
Password rules enforcement: You don't want people to set their passwords to 'Fido' or to 'Password'. Code a password enforcement scheme. If you're really paranoid, enforce min. 7 chars length, mixed case, alphanumeric chars, and make a dictionary check. Also, make sure users are forced to change their passwords each month.
User awareness: The most important, and often most neglected aspect of password management. You want your users to understand that writing down their passwords in their agenda is not a good idea. They should not spread them around or lend them to others. Informed users are the best way to keep a system secure.
So, is the username/password scheme still revelant in this day and age? Yeah. The theory behind it is sound; whether you simply give a password prompt, or use biometrics, it's the same concept applied a different way: that of 100% authentification.
I think you're wasting your energies in the wrong direction. Making your system fool-proof against intrusions, monitoring your security output, these are all safe and sound practices and the issue is not the concept of passwords itself.
"The wages of sin is death but so is the salary of virtue, and at least the evil get to go home early on Fridays."
I can just see a followup to those article...
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
Let's face it, Linux is fighting an uphill battle. Programmers have to include features in their applications that appear in MS applications, while the reverse is not true: before switching to Linux, people will complain that they'll lose features they're accustomed to in Microsoft Office, for instance. But when you tell them about the features of, say, Star Office, they'll merely consider them carefully and judge their merits.
This is why Mozilla can't strike back, for instance, by putting features of their own that are not supported by Internet Explorer. People would just hesitate to consider that technology, because they figure the majority out there wouldn't be able to use it anyway.
So what's the solution? I'm not sure. I think Linux needs to keep fighting the uphill battle until it has common ground. Then, the battle will be one of features, where the best features will win.
It is true that a very good browser for Linux would be one of these fabled "killer apps". Unfortunately, I don't think it's Mozilla. I think Linux needs more browser projects than it needs office projects right now. I don't know why energy is not being put more into creating a slew of unique browsers, then putting these resources in common.
It's doable... Linux developpers have done it or are doing it for everything else. I'm sure no one expected the quality Office suites looming on the horizon or already in place for Linux. And I figure it must be more complicated to build a complete, integrated Office suite than a Web browser, no?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"
So what's in it for geeks? Insiders? Why should I care for this book if it's targeted to outsiders to the hi-tech industry? (Aside as a present idea for my mother, that is?)
Additionally, what has it to say that hasn't been flogged to death by Dilbert yet?
Is this News for Nerds or News about Nerds?
Why not review a dated by classic novel on the subject, such as Douglas Coupland's Microserfs?
"Knowledge = Power = Energy = Mass"