Open source would have a much better security record if Sendmail were killed off.
No need. The neat thing about open source are the choices. I've used sendmail extensively in the past, but these days I'd use, say, postfix. Sure, sendmail's security record is much better than it was, but I'd prefer the performance benefits of a late-model MTA, as well as the security plusses. The point is, whether we are talking about SMTP, HTTP, IMAP, POP, FTP, or whatever, there are secure servers that work great and I can use whichever one of them I please. That's a far cry from some more proprietary environments I've experienced in the past. I also like not having to wonder what gotchas are hidden in a some privileged binary I'm running.
I think everyone's spam relay record would look better if folks'd turn off the MTA daemon on systems that don't need to accept mail, though...
Adams said that Japanese manuals are often jazzed up with creative cartoons. Even program interfaces are festive: Microsoft's much-maligned Clippy the Paperclip is replaced in Japan by an animated dolphin that Adams swears is a hoot to work with.
It's just kind of a distraction since you have to feed it and play with it every so often or it will get sick.;-)
This seems a bit much, if I'm reading it correctly...
Now it is easy to see why the German and European Internets were convenient staging areas for the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States-the perpetrators' Internet traffic had a tiny chance of being surveilled by either the United States or United Kingdom, nations that lost citizens in the New York City attack. Liikanen's emphasis on "human rights" and respect for "rules of law" last September now looks more akin to misplaced delight about keeping American and British snoopers out of the EU communications system rather than support for principles that should govern and pervade Internet use.
First off, it's not very hard to encrypt the data, so wholesale monitoring probably wouldn't have helped anyway. But I don't get why his pre-9/11 motivation would look different in light of 9/11. It's one thing to say that you might change your perspective on such matters, but it seems odd to assume a different motivation retroactively.:-P Like I said, maybe I'm just reading it wrong...
Anyway, it's a safe bet that they will figure out some way to access the flow of data (assuming it hasn't happened already). It's their job, after all.
I loved that review.;-) This part almost induced c|n>k:
After reading Mike Daisey's book, it's finally clear why the company only started making money once he left. The guy spent the whole time stealing office supplies, auctioning off products he was supposed to be reviewing (and not reviewing them), giving away books and refunds to customers at random, hanging up on others, fabricating a report that got him promoted from customer service stooge to BizDev BS artist, and writing long, stalker-style e-mails to Jeff Bezos.
If anything, it was the geeks who said, "Yeah, selling books online. Nice niche. Good luck making money at it."
That was my recollection, as well, but I wasn't sure if it was just the folks I happened to hang around. Most of the head-scratching about Amazon seemed to be more along the lines of wondering why the stock was so high, not predicting how Amazon would revolutionize anything.
Right. The people who would be interested by this article will know what NFS means in this context. Just because *YOU* aren't interested in this field, it doesn't mean that they have to make it more obvious to you.
Well, I ended up following the link since I couldn't be 100% sure than Dan Bernstein hadn't written an NFS implementation...;-)
As you say, though, no biggie. certainly not worth complaining about...
Re:Can We Callanmge the SEC and FAASB?
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Data Quality Act
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· Score: 1
If that already doesn't Don't agree with you about what? That the US policy is flawed?
I'm going to assume you are asking what it is I think the original poster was hoping people would agree with him on. That's not particularly relevant, IMHO, since I was questioning methods, not conclusions. Looking at his post again, the apparent inspiration in his reply was to take issue with the way a previous poster had framed the relative reductions agreed to by developed nations. It doesn't seem to me that he actually states what he would want to be done differently... he seems mostly to be unhappy with a lot of things. So, I'm not too sure what it is he wants people to agree with... I guess that would be another problem with the approach. Anyway, the only part I was commenting on was this one: "The real difference is that the Kyoto treaty mandates an actual reduction of greenhouse gases of 8% for the biggest polluters - which includes the US which is per capita the biggest polluter of all."
How does that make casting the US as the Great Satan a convincing argument?
I don't think it is a convincing argument, that's why I said: "Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you." I'm going to assume you mean: why would it make his argument more attractive to people who already agree with him?
If they agree with him on that, that implies that he also believe that the US is the Great Satan. That he hates America. Thus the most clear meaning was picked and thence contradicted by your words later, seemingly.
aaaah... okay. I think I see where you are coming from now. Meanwhile, my assumption from his posting style was that he was one of those people that needs to build up an utter disdain for people who would hold an opposing opinion. That often leads to casting things in blacker terms than necessary since you want to make the people who are disagreeing you look like they don't have an ethical leg to stand on. Hence, in this case, the US must be the worst polluter, even if that means cooking the stats in some way. How does that make his argument more attractive to the people who agree with him? Because it is also convenient for them to cast people taking the opposing side as having no ethical leg to stand on. I would have thought that was obvious.
Anyway, while I think I can see how you could have interpreted that sentence, taken on its own, as you did, it still doesn't seem to me to be "the most clear meaning" within the context of my post. The post clearly focused on his one choice of statistic. It seems to me that you've interpreted a mountain out of a context-free molehill and a lot of posts have been wasted on it. I don't feel so bad about it now that the article is old enough that we're probably only wasting our own times, but it is still pointless. All we are doing is illustrating problems of communication that already well-known.
Do I believe you are choked with hatred? Yes, I do. Do I think you "hate America"? Actually, my guess is you just like to hate and spew bile in general.
Ah, so he doesn't hate America in specific, he just hates everything.
You seem to favor being very literal in your readings in some cases and not others. In this case, not so much. I don't think he hates everything and I didn't say that, either in that sentence or in the context. That comment is a reference to my impression of his arguing style. I went into that above so I won't repeat it now.
If you will look at the post you will see that all I actually said was that the way he presented a particular piece of data was misleading and I explained why I thought that. I also said I didn't think it was useful since it would only play well with people who already agreed with him.
Indeed, and -in particular- you said his argument would only play well with people who agreed with him because it portrayed the US as the Great Satan.
If you define "his argument" as the way he presented the one statistic I was talking about in the post, then I don't take issue with that interpretation (although I'm not sure why the one sentence in the post that you choose to obsess on gets to be "-in particular-"). The statistic is misleading and would, I think, turn off anyone who saw that (like the WoD example I provided), unless they were similarly committed to casting support for opposing arguments in the worst possible light (with the opponents occupying the moral low ground of supporting the actions of "the worst polluter" to mitigate the effects of reductions).
Again, you confuse (or presuppose a confusion on my part) regarding
what you meant and what the words you typed meant.
I assumed we both understood the difference... I'm just taking issue with what you are doing with the difference. It raises an interpretation taken out of context to the level of an absolute. You even use the phrase "what the words you typed meant" when you really are talking about "how I interpreted the words you typed". It makes your out-of-context interpretation of words used in one part of the communication more important than the actual communication itself. As I said, you are free to interpret my words however you please. In the absence of my explaining the meaning you are even justified in speculating on what I meant when I wrote the words. The thing is, I have explained what I meant, a number of times. I'm sorry if that one sentence in the first post was too inflammatory for your tastes. And, perhaps, in the circles you travel in the entertainingly over-the-top phrase "the Great Satan" isn't used with the same humorous connotations that it is in mine. I think I can see how, divorced from context, it could be interpreted by someone particularly sensitive to mean what you say. We don't need to divorce it from context, however. That's the beauty of having all this text available.
If the most important thing about posting to/. is that every line in every post should immune to misinterpretation out of context, then just about every post is a failure. Even if we spent the kind of time NASA might spend in crafting a message they are going to stick on the side of a deep space probe, we would still fail (and nobody sane spends that kind of time on a/. post anyway). If the point is to communicate ideas and to say interesting/insightful/funny things, OTOH, then you add the possibility of clearing up the inevitable misinterpretations in subsequent posts. I assume that is one of the ways in which the mechanism for posting follow-ups was intended to be used. You seem in this case to be more interested in defending a particular interpretation of one sentence in the original post than in actually receiving a communication of ideas. I don't see the point. Everyone knows things can be misinterpreted. Once a misinterpretation is stated and corrected, however, the fact that it could have been misinterpreted is moot. If your goal was to convey the particular nature of your misinterpretation, however, then okay, I think you have done that. If the fact that I am not impressed by how important you consider your ablity to misinterpret a line of one of my posts makes me "full of shit" or "an idiot", in your opinion, then so be it.
Re:Can We Callanmge the SEC and FAASB?
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Data Quality Act
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· Score: 1
You know what the great thing about arguing on/. is? Well, in real life a person can say something stupid, and then deny that they said it a moment later, claiming you aren't remembering correctly what they said. But, on/., when you say:
sigh
Maybe the idea of having a history of what you post is novel to you. It isn't to me. I've spent years posting to Usenet and mailing lists. I expect that people will have seen the earlier posts here at about the same time that they will see the later ones. The thing is, when I look at all the posts, I don't see an inconsistency.
I don't think that makes you "anti-american" or a member of "Al-Qaeda" or any of the other things you made up...
And I don't... I just think it is convenient for him to make the US out to be some great evil in his argument so that it's easier to ignore what other people have to say. As I said, I also think it makes him a pathetic spokesman for his cause. Which, oddly enough, considering how inconsistent you say I am, brings us back to the theme of my initial post.
I can respond by simply by quoting your post thusly:
Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you.
omfg... did I actually originally say he was casting his argument in such a way that the US is some great evil? Wow... not only was that justified by the way he cast his argument, it is also eerily consistent with what I said in every post after it. Wow... great example, you really showed me what I meant. Really... I don't get your gripe. He interpreted the above to mean "anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american, if not a member of Al-Qaeda!" I assume you agree since you are taking issue with my defense against that interpretation. And yet, I had said nothing about US policy, the Bush administration, Republicans, or any of the other crap he came up with during his unsuccessful career of trying to find hidden meaning in my rather straightforward statements. If you will look at the post you will see that all I actually said was that the way he presented a particular piece of data was misleading and I explained why I thought that. I also said I didn't think it was useful since it would only play well with people who already agreed with him. So, he was off trying to play the hero in some crazy McCarthy fantasy and I [attempted to] set him straight. Where's the crime in doing that? I'm sorry that I'm not the kind of right-wing America First nut that you always dream of successfully arguing with when you are in the shower, but that's just the way it is. Going through all sorts of contortions to convince yourself that that I am one just ain't gonna make it so.
and, with evidence unhindered by the frailties of memory, say that you're full of shit.
Want to know what sucks about arguing on/.? You can actually tell someone what was going on in your head when you posted something, but there will always be some tool, hindered by the frailties of intellect perhaps, who thinks that he knows what you meant better than you do.
If you want to tell me that you interpreted something I posted in such and such a way, knock yourself out. If, OTOH, you want to tell me what I meant when I wrote it, even when I have already explicitly told you what I meant when I wrote it, then I can safely say that I can't possibly be full of shit... since you're apparently stuffed with most of the world's supply already.
If you were going to blow 4000$ on a gaming laptop [...]
I expect you could spend that much if you tried, but the review claimed theirs would go for $3000. I've seen sub-2k laptops with the G4 mobile. Prices are pretty amazing these days. On top of that even the cheapest laptops have more than enough CPU crank these days for most anyone. Of course, you probably want to max the drive and the memory, but those are modular additions for any decent laptop.
They're running out of reasons to get you to buy the top-of-the-line...
Security seminars are geared so that everyone learns, cons are geared so that people who already know can have fun.
Based on my experience at the cons, I'd have to say that is a fair assessment. On the plus side, some were very cheap. You pay for your hotel room, but your actual conference fee was kicking in a share for the booze...:-P
Anyway, they weren't a complete waste of time, but the primary benefit was meeting folks, not learning lore.
I am finding myself unable to get anything out of going to seminars.
They don't do much for me, either. The thing is, if all you are looking for is info on how to better secure your systems, there is loads and loads of it available on the net. The plus is that you can proceed at your own rate and dive however deep you want. If your boss is really twisting your arm about taking courses, I'd see if you can get something detailed on advanced firewall configuration or performance tuning something like that. Those are areas where it's common to only take the self-training as far as the immediate job requires... a course might cover things that would be nice to know in the future, as well. If the boss'll spring for books, that can be good, too.
Re:Can We Callanmge the SEC and FAASB?
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Data Quality Act
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· Score: 1
I realize this is hopeless, but what the hell...
Republican spin technique at work here. First you claim that anyone who disagrees with Bush administration policy 'hates America', then when called on it you deny the accusation while simultaneously repeating it.
As a matter of fact I never said anything about the Bush administration or Republicans or anything. That is baggage that you are bringing to the discussion. I suggested to you that your desire to craft the data so that the US is the worst is not useful in convincing anyone who doesn't already share your special perspective. You then had a jolly time using my post to argue with someone else. Do I believe you are choked with hatred? Yes, I do. Do I think you "hate America"? Actually, my guess is you just like to hate and spew bile in general. Based on how you post, I would not be at all surpised to find that you bring the same level of hatred to bear whenever you enter into an argument about anything. That's what I was referring to in my follow-on.
I note that you don't dispute the facts of the post, all you do is resort to name calling.
Actually, all I responded to was the name-calling in your post. I don't see how it is name-calling on my part to say that your characterization of my post was unfair. I also don't see how it is name-calling to point out the obvious degree of hatred in your posts.
As for disputing your contentions, I didn't see much point since you were just repeating yourself. You already said you think per capita makes sense in this case and I already pointed out why I don't think it makes sense. You criticize using production because you don't like some of the kinds of production that are included in some metrics. Contrary to what you appear to believe, this does not, in any way, argue against using production. At best, it only argues in favor of using different production figures. The point remains that, as with miles per gallon and other metrics we use, you weigh cost and benefit by comparing cost and benefit. Choosing to use raw population makes no more sense than choosing to use surface area or median IQ or number of species or whatever. You have yet to make any kind of a case for how the benefit of population relates to the cost of the pollution. The relationship between the two seems to me to be so complicated that using them together has nothing useful to say about the quality of the production at all.
In the end, the reason why I didn't bother going into all of that after your response is that I got the impression that you don't really care what I have to say. I think you just want to hate something. I don't think that makes you "anti-american" or a member of "Al-Qaeda" or any of the other things you made up... I just think it makes you a pathetic spokesman for your cause.
Re:Can We Callanmge the SEC and FAASB?
on
Data Quality Act
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
Spot the straw man time, anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american, if not a member of Al-Qaeda!
Well, I must bow to you on this one. You are so good at it that you can spot strawmen that even the poster wasn't aware of. Bravo!
Have fun nursing your hatred... it's coming along really well.
I must be the only one who wants TV shows to be tracked.
If there was some sort of optional Neilsen rating-style show tracking (that couldn't be tracked back to you as an individual), I agree, I think a lot of people would participate. IOW, if it would just be used to rate the shows, that's fine.
That's not what this was about at all, though. The earlier ruling required SonicBlue to collect data on "what works are copied, stored, viewed with commercials omitted, or distributed" so that the people bringing the suit could use that data to go bonk-bonk on SonicBlue's head.
It'd take an extremely over-simplified point of view to say 'oh this happens all the time'.
It seems like there's a trend to post "That's nothing new..." posts in response to every article. I just assumed this was another one of those trolls...
I'd say it is, given the situation...
on
Buying Unix?
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For less than half the cost of that Sun POS, you can build a box that will handle quite a load if you build it from generic parts.
Yes, and then he could get cursed out by his bosses if/when a part fails. Look, I build my own machines for my own personal uses, like most people here. But for a real corporate/institutional server, that isn't a safe, accepted option.
Actually, the scenario he laid out sounded like a perfect fit for Linux on x86. Their budget probably won't end up covering a Sun support contract anyway, so they will probably fall back on local resources if there's a problem. It will be much easier to get parts and support at budgetable prices if they go Lintel. The University probably has a healthy *nix user group, too.
If they really want to use something with "Sun" on it, they should look into the Sun Cobalt line. They are pretty streamlined so that they are dead-simple to admin, etc. It would make a lot more sense for his scenario then a general-purpose Sun server box.
OTOH, the enterainment industry might wreck that product by not providing a commercial skip/fast forward feature.
They might have the courage to add some features the others wouldn't, though. For instance, whenever you pause the unit, instead of showing the same screen forever, they could automatically replay recent commercials! They could also autosave commercials you might be interested in based on their similarity to other commercials that you enjoyed (i.e. watched). Then there would be the "Content Advance" feature (only works for channels that preserve the commercial marking signals) which would let you skip the tedious filler that is crammed between our beloved commercials. Just be careful! That content is there for a reason... if you only see the commercials you might start taking them for granted and getting tired of them! I think I read a science fiction story that had a scenario like that, but I can't recall the name...
For infrastructure, it's top notch, for ease of use, it's a lumbering elephant.
I'm not really sure I want to see it spread to the desktop since I'm afraid the process will involves changes that might make it a less effective for "infrastructure". Whether I like it or not, however, it's happening. There seem to be enough projects focusing on the desktop now (like Ximian Evolution,
Nautilus, StarOffice/OpenOffice, etc., etc.) that we are reaching some kind of eerie critical mass. I keep hearing about folks who are using those tools to make the switch from a Windows desktop to a Linux one (in fact, I was just talking to a buddy who just switched 2 folks at his site at their request). Installation is not a biggie if the admin is involved since they can make install images for generic Linux desktop boxen as easily as they can for the Windows ones.
Like I said, I'm not sure I like it, but it really looks like it's starting to happen...
Linux is a variant on the 30-year-old open source Unix operating system, which is generally held to be almost indestructible and by far the most reliable core for computer systems for whom crashing is not an option.
Unix? Open source? I don't think so
Actually, they may be [unintentionally?] right. I used to have source for various nixes I used way back when (15-20 years ago). While I never used a 30-year-old version, it wouldn't surprise me if the source for that was available to folks, as well. I would be surprised if it was free in the rms sense, of course, but that isn't a requirement for it being "open source".
Of course, if they really were referring to the 30-year-old version then you could then ask, "Why bring that up... there were enough closed source versions between then and now to indicate that *nix and 0SS are not synonymous." Oh, well...
Re:Can We Callanmge the SEC and FAASB?
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Data Quality Act
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· Score: 1
The real difference is that the Kyoto treaty mandates an actual reduction of greenhouse gases of 8% for the biggest polluters - which includes the US which is per capita the biggest polluter of all.
Since the pollution is a product of production and not the size of the population, it doesn't make much sense to measure it per capita. Measuring it against production would obviously provide a much better indication of how "environmentally efficient" a nation is. In fact, if you measure it by how much the US produces, the US is not the biggest polluter of all.
If you use a misleading approach like measuring it per capita, you run the risk of having people dismiss your whole position once they realize you've misled them on this point (It's like the WoD ads that pretend that anyone who uses MJ becomes like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High). And, really, what do you get in return for the false impression? Does it really matter if the US was the "biggest polluter" or not? It's still a good idea to explore ways to reduce environmental impact even if the US isn't the biggest polluter, isn't it?
The fact is that the US, like the other established, prosperous nations, is producing cleaner and cleaner all the time, because they can afford to now that they are established and prosperous. Why not give them a pat on the back for current efforts even as you encourage them to continue their efforts? Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you.
It's interesting to see the two movies side-by-side, because they're close enough to see how different they really are.
Too true. It's pretty rare not to have one of the versions (usu the remake) suck so badly that it spoils the fun of comparing. When they are both interesting versions, though, it can be fascinating to notice the differences. Sometimes the change isn't much on paper... a number of the earlier Hollywood remakes of previous Hollywood movies were not much more than a change of actors. Those are often the most interesting, though, since they really highlight the different styles those actors brought to the role. More than once I've actually preferred the remake but, come to think of it, I'm not sure I could come up with any recently-made examples of that. I think the remakes, like many adaptations, usu come off as weaker in comparision since they so often involve more pander^H^H^H^H^H^Htargeting to a different audience than the original.
Anyway, sounds like folks who are planning to see this one might find renting the earlier version worth the time, and not just for comparison purposes alone.
Re:Williams not fitting the role?
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Review: Insomnia
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· Score: 1
Why would you think Williams can't play a serious role? Have you ever seen Dead Poets Society or Good Will Hunting?
I may be misremembering the previews, but this wasn't a "beard movie" was it? That may have been the source of the confusion.
Why should we be worried that it's too late? Because when the products lose too much popularity, they get yanked. If Netscape and the rest can't keep a decent footing, we may end up with no choice but to use MSIE.
And worrying about whether it is already too late or not will help us avoid that future how exactly? That's my point. Assuming that it can be too late, it's already either too late or it isn't, right? Your optional worry won't be logged in some special timestream-distorting kharma pool.
Choose your browser based on what's best for you... that's all you can really do. That's the way it works. Will you be forced to use IE if you want to work on some future job? Will you be forced to wear a tie if you want that job? Will you have to cut your hair if you want to work there? Those things are all up to you and, frankly, they have nothing to do with whether or not it is worth it for the moz team to produce the best browser they can. IMHO it's never too late for that.
Except that you forget that MS can do what Mozilla did but in a fraction of the time. Turning off javascript, adding tabbed windows, etc is a 30-minute project for a skilled engineer.
It's not a question of ability, it is a question of philosophy. If you let a user turn off popups, for example, you are essentially saying that the user gets to decide what their browser does. It's their browser and it acts on their behalf. It's my guess that IE will only get a feature like that if MS is dragged kicking and screaming to that point by some unforeseen and inescapable market reality. That's because MS seems to prefer to think of the browser as theirs to control rather than yours. They are "selling" their browser to the content providers at least as much as they are to the user. For similar reasons, the popup feature will supposedly be hidden when the moz tech makes its way into AOL-Time-Warner Netscape (you can still enable it by poking the preference file itself, I'm told, but the point is it wouldn't be in the GUI preferences).
I assume MS will eventually get around to adding tabbed browsing to IE... or, at least, I can't see how that will hurt them with the content crowd.
In fact, I could whip one up for you right now with either MFC or VB if you wanted.
That's okay... those features come with the browsers I use. No need to hook a bag on the side of them...
Slashdot Mirror
Open source would have a much better security record if Sendmail were killed off.
No need. The neat thing about open source are the choices. I've used sendmail extensively in the past, but these days I'd use, say, postfix. Sure, sendmail's security record is much better than it was, but I'd prefer the performance benefits of a late-model MTA, as well as the security plusses. The point is, whether we are talking about SMTP, HTTP, IMAP, POP, FTP, or whatever, there are secure servers that work great and I can use whichever one of them I please. That's a far cry from some more proprietary environments I've experienced in the past. I also like not having to wonder what gotchas are hidden in a some privileged binary I'm running.
I think everyone's spam relay record would look better if folks'd turn off the MTA daemon on systems that don't need to accept mail, though...
Nah... I bet it's just that they have enlightened policies on light pollution, ;-)
It's just kind of a distraction since you have to feed it and play with it every so often or it will get sick. ;-)
This seems a bit much, if I'm reading it correctly...
First off, it's not very hard to encrypt the data, so wholesale monitoring probably wouldn't have helped anyway. But I don't get why his pre-9/11 motivation would look different in light of 9/11. It's one thing to say that you might change your perspective on such matters, but it seems odd to assume a different motivation retroactively. :-P Like I said, maybe I'm just reading it wrong...
Anyway, it's a safe bet that they will figure out some way to access the flow of data (assuming it hasn't happened already). It's their job, after all.
I loved that review. ;-) This part almost induced c|n>k:
If anything, it was the geeks who said, "Yeah, selling books online. Nice niche. Good luck making money at it."
That was my recollection, as well, but I wasn't sure if it was just the folks I happened to hang around. Most of the head-scratching about Amazon seemed to be more along the lines of wondering why the stock was so high, not predicting how Amazon would revolutionize anything.
Right. The people who would be interested by this article will know what NFS means in this context. Just because *YOU* aren't interested in this field, it doesn't mean that they have to make it more obvious to you.
Well, I ended up following the link since I couldn't be 100% sure than Dan Bernstein hadn't written an NFS implementation... ;-)
As you say, though, no biggie. certainly not worth complaining about...
I'm going to assume you are asking what it is I think the original poster was hoping people would agree with him on. That's not particularly relevant, IMHO, since I was questioning methods, not conclusions. Looking at his post again, the apparent inspiration in his reply was to take issue with the way a previous poster had framed the relative reductions agreed to by developed nations. It doesn't seem to me that he actually states what he would want to be done differently... he seems mostly to be unhappy with a lot of things. So, I'm not too sure what it is he wants people to agree with... I guess that would be another problem with the approach. Anyway, the only part I was commenting on was this one: "The real difference is that the Kyoto treaty mandates an actual reduction of greenhouse gases of 8% for the biggest polluters - which includes the US which is per capita the biggest polluter of all."
I don't think it is a convincing argument, that's why I said: "Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you." I'm going to assume you mean: why would it make his argument more attractive to people who already agree with him?
aaaah... okay. I think I see where you are coming from now. Meanwhile, my assumption from his posting style was that he was one of those people that needs to build up an utter disdain for people who would hold an opposing opinion. That often leads to casting things in blacker terms than necessary since you want to make the people who are disagreeing you look like they don't have an ethical leg to stand on. Hence, in this case, the US must be the worst polluter, even if that means cooking the stats in some way. How does that make his argument more attractive to the people who agree with him? Because it is also convenient for them to cast people taking the opposing side as having no ethical leg to stand on. I would have thought that was obvious.
Anyway, while I think I can see how you could have interpreted that sentence, taken on its own, as you did, it still doesn't seem to me to be "the most clear meaning" within the context of my post. The post clearly focused on his one choice of statistic. It seems to me that you've interpreted a mountain out of a context-free molehill and a lot of posts have been wasted on it. I don't feel so bad about it now that the article is old enough that we're probably only wasting our own times, but it is still pointless. All we are doing is illustrating problems of communication that already well-known.
You seem to favor being very literal in your readings in some cases and not others. In this case, not so much. I don't think he hates everything and I didn't say that, either in that sentence or in the context. That comment is a reference to my impression of his arguing style. I went into that above so I won't repeat it now.
If you define "his argument" as the way he presented the one statistic I was talking about in the post, then I don't take issue with that interpretation (although I'm not sure why the one sentence in the post that you choose to obsess on gets to be "-in particular-"). The statistic is misleading and would, I think, turn off anyone who saw that (like the WoD example I provided), unless they were similarly committed to casting support for opposing arguments in the worst possible light (with the opponents occupying the moral low ground of supporting the actions of "the worst polluter" to mitigate the effects of reductions).
I assumed we both understood the difference... I'm just taking issue with what you are doing with the difference. It raises an interpretation taken out of context to the level of an absolute. You even use the phrase "what the words you typed meant" when you really are talking about "how I interpreted the words you typed". It makes your out-of-context interpretation of words used in one part of the communication more important than the actual communication itself. As I said, you are free to interpret my words however you please. In the absence of my explaining the meaning you are even justified in speculating on what I meant when I wrote the words. The thing is, I have explained what I meant, a number of times. I'm sorry if that one sentence in the first post was too inflammatory for your tastes. And, perhaps, in the circles you travel in the entertainingly over-the-top phrase "the Great Satan" isn't used with the same humorous connotations that it is in mine. I think I can see how, divorced from context, it could be interpreted by someone particularly sensitive to mean what you say. We don't need to divorce it from context, however. That's the beauty of having all this text available.
If the most important thing about posting to /. is that every line in every post should immune to misinterpretation out of context, then just about every post is a failure. Even if we spent the kind of time NASA might spend in crafting a message they are going to stick on the side of a deep space probe, we would still fail (and nobody sane spends that kind of time on a /. post anyway). If the point is to communicate ideas and to say interesting/insightful/funny things, OTOH, then you add the possibility of clearing up the inevitable misinterpretations in subsequent posts. I assume that is one of the ways in which the mechanism for posting follow-ups was intended to be used. You seem in this case to be more interested in defending a particular interpretation of one sentence in the original post than in actually receiving a communication of ideas. I don't see the point. Everyone knows things can be misinterpreted. Once a misinterpretation is stated and corrected, however, the fact that it could have been misinterpreted is moot. If your goal was to convey the particular nature of your misinterpretation, however, then okay, I think you have done that. If the fact that I am not impressed by how important you consider your ablity to misinterpret a line of one of my posts makes me "full of shit" or "an idiot", in your opinion, then so be it.
sigh
Maybe the idea of having a history of what you post is novel to you. It isn't to me. I've spent years posting to Usenet and mailing lists. I expect that people will have seen the earlier posts here at about the same time that they will see the later ones. The thing is, when I look at all the posts, I don't see an inconsistency.
And I don't... I just think it is convenient for him to make the US out to be some great evil in his argument so that it's easier to ignore what other people have to say. As I said, I also think it makes him a pathetic spokesman for his cause. Which, oddly enough, considering how inconsistent you say I am, brings us back to the theme of my initial post.
omfg... did I actually originally say he was casting his argument in such a way that the US is some great evil? Wow... not only was that justified by the way he cast his argument, it is also eerily consistent with what I said in every post after it. Wow... great example, you really showed me what I meant. Really... I don't get your gripe. He interpreted the above to mean "anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american, if not a member of Al-Qaeda!" I assume you agree since you are taking issue with my defense against that interpretation. And yet, I had said nothing about US policy, the Bush administration, Republicans, or any of the other crap he came up with during his unsuccessful career of trying to find hidden meaning in my rather straightforward statements. If you will look at the post you will see that all I actually said was that the way he presented a particular piece of data was misleading and I explained why I thought that. I also said I didn't think it was useful since it would only play well with people who already agreed with him. So, he was off trying to play the hero in some crazy McCarthy fantasy and I [attempted to] set him straight. Where's the crime in doing that? I'm sorry that I'm not the kind of right-wing America First nut that you always dream of successfully arguing with when you are in the shower, but that's just the way it is. Going through all sorts of contortions to convince yourself that that I am one just ain't gonna make it so.
Want to know what sucks about arguing on /.? You can actually tell someone what was going on in your head when you posted something, but there will always be some tool, hindered by the frailties of intellect perhaps, who thinks that he knows what you meant better than you do.
If you want to tell me that you interpreted something I posted in such and such a way, knock yourself out. If, OTOH, you want to tell me what I meant when I wrote it, even when I have already explicitly told you what I meant when I wrote it, then I can safely say that I can't possibly be full of shit... since you're apparently stuffed with most of the world's supply already.
Have a nice day!
If you were going to blow 4000$ on a gaming laptop [...]
I expect you could spend that much if you tried, but the review claimed theirs would go for $3000. I've seen sub-2k laptops with the G4 mobile. Prices are pretty amazing these days. On top of that even the cheapest laptops have more than enough CPU crank these days for most anyone. Of course, you probably want to max the drive and the memory, but those are modular additions for any decent laptop.
They're running out of reasons to get you to buy the top-of-the-line...
Based on my experience at the cons, I'd have to say that is a fair assessment. On the plus side, some were very cheap. You pay for your hotel room, but your actual conference fee was kicking in a share for the booze... :-P
Anyway, they weren't a complete waste of time, but the primary benefit was meeting folks, not learning lore.
They don't do much for me, either. The thing is, if all you are looking for is info on how to better secure your systems, there is loads and loads of it available on the net. The plus is that you can proceed at your own rate and dive however deep you want. If your boss is really twisting your arm about taking courses, I'd see if you can get something detailed on advanced firewall configuration or performance tuning something like that. Those are areas where it's common to only take the self-training as far as the immediate job requires... a course might cover things that would be nice to know in the future, as well. If the boss'll spring for books, that can be good, too.
I realize this is hopeless, but what the hell...
Republican spin technique at work here. First you claim that anyone who disagrees with Bush administration policy 'hates America', then when called on it you deny the accusation while simultaneously repeating it.
As a matter of fact I never said anything about the Bush administration or Republicans or anything. That is baggage that you are bringing to the discussion. I suggested to you that your desire to craft the data so that the US is the worst is not useful in convincing anyone who doesn't already share your special perspective. You then had a jolly time using my post to argue with someone else. Do I believe you are choked with hatred? Yes, I do. Do I think you "hate America"? Actually, my guess is you just like to hate and spew bile in general. Based on how you post, I would not be at all surpised to find that you bring the same level of hatred to bear whenever you enter into an argument about anything. That's what I was referring to in my follow-on.
I note that you don't dispute the facts of the post, all you do is resort to name calling.
Actually, all I responded to was the name-calling in your post. I don't see how it is name-calling on my part to say that your characterization of my post was unfair. I also don't see how it is name-calling to point out the obvious degree of hatred in your posts.
As for disputing your contentions, I didn't see much point since you were just repeating yourself. You already said you think per capita makes sense in this case and I already pointed out why I don't think it makes sense. You criticize using production because you don't like some of the kinds of production that are included in some metrics. Contrary to what you appear to believe, this does not, in any way, argue against using production. At best, it only argues in favor of using different production figures. The point remains that, as with miles per gallon and other metrics we use, you weigh cost and benefit by comparing cost and benefit. Choosing to use raw population makes no more sense than choosing to use surface area or median IQ or number of species or whatever. You have yet to make any kind of a case for how the benefit of population relates to the cost of the pollution. The relationship between the two seems to me to be so complicated that using them together has nothing useful to say about the quality of the production at all.
In the end, the reason why I didn't bother going into all of that after your response is that I got the impression that you don't really care what I have to say. I think you just want to hate something. I don't think that makes you "anti-american" or a member of "Al-Qaeda" or any of the other things you made up... I just think it makes you a pathetic spokesman for your cause.
Spot the straw man time, anyone who disagrees with US policy is anti-american, if not a member of Al-Qaeda!
Well, I must bow to you on this one. You are so good at it that you can spot strawmen that even the poster wasn't aware of. Bravo!
Have fun nursing your hatred... it's coming along really well.
I must be the only one who wants TV shows to be tracked.
If there was some sort of optional Neilsen rating-style show tracking (that couldn't be tracked back to you as an individual), I agree, I think a lot of people would participate. IOW, if it would just be used to rate the shows, that's fine.
That's not what this was about at all, though. The earlier ruling required SonicBlue to collect data on "what works are copied, stored, viewed with commercials omitted, or distributed" so that the people bringing the suit could use that data to go bonk-bonk on SonicBlue's head.
It'd take an extremely over-simplified point of view to say 'oh this happens all the time'.
It seems like there's a trend to post "That's nothing new..." posts in response to every article. I just assumed this was another one of those trolls...
Actually, the scenario he laid out sounded like a perfect fit for Linux on x86. Their budget probably won't end up covering a Sun support contract anyway, so they will probably fall back on local resources if there's a problem. It will be much easier to get parts and support at budgetable prices if they go Lintel. The University probably has a healthy *nix user group, too.
If they really want to use something with "Sun" on it, they should look into the Sun Cobalt line. They are pretty streamlined so that they are dead-simple to admin, etc. It would make a lot more sense for his scenario then a general-purpose Sun server box.
OTOH, the enterainment industry might wreck that product by not providing a commercial skip/fast forward feature.
They might have the courage to add some features the others wouldn't, though. For instance, whenever you pause the unit, instead of showing the same screen forever, they could automatically replay recent commercials! They could also autosave commercials you might be interested in based on their similarity to other commercials that you enjoyed (i.e. watched). Then there would be the "Content Advance" feature (only works for channels that preserve the commercial marking signals) which would let you skip the tedious filler that is crammed between our beloved commercials. Just be careful! That content is there for a reason... if you only see the commercials you might start taking them for granted and getting tired of them! I think I read a science fiction story that had a scenario like that, but I can't recall the name...
I want to be rid of word documents in my mailbox. When we reach that point I will be happy.
hmmmm... that should be doable via procmail.
Oh wait... maybe you didn't mean deleting them... ;-)
For infrastructure, it's top notch, for ease of use, it's a lumbering elephant.
I'm not really sure I want to see it spread to the desktop since I'm afraid the process will involves changes that might make it a less effective for "infrastructure". Whether I like it or not, however, it's happening. There seem to be enough projects focusing on the desktop now (like Ximian Evolution, Nautilus, StarOffice/OpenOffice, etc., etc.) that we are reaching some kind of eerie critical mass. I keep hearing about folks who are using those tools to make the switch from a Windows desktop to a Linux one (in fact, I was just talking to a buddy who just switched 2 folks at his site at their request). Installation is not a biggie if the admin is involved since they can make install images for generic Linux desktop boxen as easily as they can for the Windows ones.
Like I said, I'm not sure I like it, but it really looks like it's starting to happen...
Actually, they may be [unintentionally?] right. I used to have source for various nixes I used way back when (15-20 years ago). While I never used a 30-year-old version, it wouldn't surprise me if the source for that was available to folks, as well. I would be surprised if it was free in the rms sense, of course, but that isn't a requirement for it being "open source".
Of course, if they really were referring to the 30-year-old version then you could then ask, "Why bring that up... there were enough closed source versions between then and now to indicate that *nix and 0SS are not synonymous." Oh, well...
The real difference is that the Kyoto treaty mandates an actual reduction of greenhouse gases of 8% for the biggest polluters - which includes the US which is per capita the biggest polluter of all.
Since the pollution is a product of production and not the size of the population, it doesn't make much sense to measure it per capita. Measuring it against production would obviously provide a much better indication of how "environmentally efficient" a nation is. In fact, if you measure it by how much the US produces, the US is not the biggest polluter of all.
If you use a misleading approach like measuring it per capita, you run the risk of having people dismiss your whole position once they realize you've misled them on this point (It's like the WoD ads that pretend that anyone who uses MJ becomes like Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High). And, really, what do you get in return for the false impression? Does it really matter if the US was the "biggest polluter" or not? It's still a good idea to explore ways to reduce environmental impact even if the US isn't the biggest polluter, isn't it?
The fact is that the US, like the other established, prosperous nations, is producing cleaner and cleaner all the time, because they can afford to now that they are established and prosperous. Why not give them a pat on the back for current efforts even as you encourage them to continue their efforts? Constantly casting everything like the US is the Great Satan isn't going to be very convincing to the people who don't already agree with you.
It's interesting to see the two movies side-by-side, because they're close enough to see how different they really are.
Too true. It's pretty rare not to have one of the versions (usu the remake) suck so badly that it spoils the fun of comparing. When they are both interesting versions, though, it can be fascinating to notice the differences. Sometimes the change isn't much on paper... a number of the earlier Hollywood remakes of previous Hollywood movies were not much more than a change of actors. Those are often the most interesting, though, since they really highlight the different styles those actors brought to the role. More than once I've actually preferred the remake but, come to think of it, I'm not sure I could come up with any recently-made examples of that. I think the remakes, like many adaptations, usu come off as weaker in comparision since they so often involve more pander^H^H^H^H^H^Htargeting to a different audience than the original.
Anyway, sounds like folks who are planning to see this one might find renting the earlier version worth the time, and not just for comparison purposes alone.
Why would you think Williams can't play a serious role? Have you ever seen Dead Poets Society or Good Will Hunting?
I may be misremembering the previews, but this wasn't a "beard movie" was it? That may have been the source of the confusion.
Why should we be worried that it's too late? Because when the products lose too much popularity, they get yanked. If Netscape and the rest can't keep a decent footing, we may end up with no choice but to use MSIE.
And worrying about whether it is already too late or not will help us avoid that future how exactly? That's my point. Assuming that it can be too late, it's already either too late or it isn't, right? Your optional worry won't be logged in some special timestream-distorting kharma pool.
Choose your browser based on what's best for you... that's all you can really do. That's the way it works. Will you be forced to use IE if you want to work on some future job? Will you be forced to wear a tie if you want that job? Will you have to cut your hair if you want to work there? Those things are all up to you and, frankly, they have nothing to do with whether or not it is worth it for the moz team to produce the best browser they can. IMHO it's never too late for that.
Except that you forget that MS can do what Mozilla did but in a fraction of the time. Turning off javascript, adding tabbed windows, etc is a 30-minute project for a skilled engineer.
It's not a question of ability, it is a question of philosophy. If you let a user turn off popups, for example, you are essentially saying that the user gets to decide what their browser does. It's their browser and it acts on their behalf. It's my guess that IE will only get a feature like that if MS is dragged kicking and screaming to that point by some unforeseen and inescapable market reality. That's because MS seems to prefer to think of the browser as theirs to control rather than yours. They are "selling" their browser to the content providers at least as much as they are to the user. For similar reasons, the popup feature will supposedly be hidden when the moz tech makes its way into AOL-Time-Warner Netscape (you can still enable it by poking the preference file itself, I'm told, but the point is it wouldn't be in the GUI preferences).
I assume MS will eventually get around to adding tabbed browsing to IE... or, at least, I can't see how that will hurt them with the content crowd.
In fact, I could whip one up for you right now with either MFC or VB if you wanted.
That's okay... those features come with the browsers I use. No need to hook a bag on the side of them...