Star Trek has a fairly well defined set of races and a good environment. A big issue is with those producing the episodes and/or those doing the acting.
It's not that Star Trek needs to die, it just needs to stop having the same stupid ideas pumped through it. Think of some books/TV-series where a new author in a given universe has added a whole new dimension to the plot... or where one bad author taking over has killed it.
I think a lot of this has to do with directors turning sci-fi into low-rate action flicks with lasers. Star Trek used to have a lot of theory and possibility, now it's a race over an alien landscape with chasing aliens firing lasers... just as easily done with horses and six-shooters if you ask me.
ActiveX has been this way from the beginning. ActiveX applets can be entire programs, just ones that run inside your browser or another container. The only limitations are the security settings of the containing program.
That being said, with a trusted ActiveX app you can do a lot with the OS. The problem is that most users are too trusting (or their browsers are, if the security settings are too low).
I think a big probably is not only the "clueless users" as it were, but the ISPs who put them online. They advertise all the wonders of the modern internet (blazing speeds, media downloads, etc) with complete lack of reference to such problems.
Some ISPs do offer firewall/antivirus services, though most I've seen either suck or cost an additional fee.
But the thing is, it's probably not that difficult to tell if the users on your ISP are owned. And the ISP can disconnect those users until they are patched, or at the very least stick them on a limited subnet wherein they can download patches/fixed but not continue to contribute to the degredation of the internet.
The problem is that the ISPs are following the money trail and ignoring all these problems. Cutting off a "bad" customer is risking loss of capital... nevermind the cumulative money-loss effect that ISPs share in hosting spambots, cracked machines,etc
not sure who lacked the brains enough to mark the parent as troll. Hacker is not really a proper definition (cracker perhaps better), but script-kiddy is worse. Script-kiddy implies, however, a younger or less experienced individual working from predesigned tools. An annoyance, but not a pro.
In contrast, many of the DDOS attackers are in groups of multiple individual, often with a good set of computer knowledge, and ties to organized crime. Sure, you might get the odd script-kiddy, but they're also the ones that probably get caught the easiest.
The really nasty ones are skilled, organized, offshore groups.
You're a little off here. If not for SPAM, we wouldn't need antispam programs and bays-filters. The filter is a response to the annoyance of the spam. You might argue that the SPAM is due to the lacks in SMTP et al but in that case why make new SPAMs once it's pointed out
The programs written by the kid, however, are targetted at vulnerabilities that already exist. Had he not written the code to expose the weakness, the weakness would still exist. Therefore he is responding to the weakness (and the weakness is the problem) whereas bays-filters are responding to SPAM (and SPAM is the problem).
Besides, which is more likely to lead to improvements? A sense of quiet pride tempered by some humility, or a superiorist attitude that Firefox is "da shiznat."
Projects that play catch-up (as happened for the first while) tend to go faster up to the point where they are more secure in themselves. Firefox is past the point of catch-up in many ways, but hopefully it will continue to show new features/improvements so that it can continue to become even greater, rather than maintaining a short lead.
For a country that generally ignores foreign patents and IP, this is an unusual move. Markets in major Chinese cities tend to have many vendors hawking ripped/copied/cammed DVD/VCD movies of various quality, audio CD's, and cheap imitations that bear a startling likeness to the real thing (such as the "swiss" watch I'm wearing at this moment).
Generally police would ignore such activities, so what makes law enforcement so much attention to this particular case?
Then it would fark any email in which somebody mistyped a URL, or if it interprets something as a url and it comes up invalid.
Could be as bad as if I wrote "I'll meet you 8pm@work." It might interpret the 8pm@work as an email address and scan for valid domain. Or I might just have a typo such as http://www.slahsdot.org which would also bork an email. Perhaps even a domain that isn't in DNS (one specific though a local shared HOSTS file)
Remember, antispam is not only designed to crapfilter out spam, it should be priority to allowing legitimate emails.
I download warez all the time. CD ISO's, and sometimes movies etc.
It's not illegal (not here), because I have the originals. The software I've yet to find a program for that will successfully rip an ISO mountable with daemontools (most ones I download don't work either, but eventually I usually get lucky). Movies I've just not the time to rip-and-reencode. But it's much nicer to have a bunch of 600MB DivX files so I can fit multiple movies onto a DVD (for travelling with my laptop) or CD-images so I don't need to constantly disc-swap.
And whose fault is it I'm downloading? The MPAA/Software venders, because they've installed anti-piracy measures that suck against piracy but restrict my legitimate imaging/etc. Is my downloading hurting anyone... no, but if the MPAA/RIAA seeds a network with virii it certainly could hurt my computer.
If anything, I think that this article shows IBM's donation of 500 patents as a drop in the barrel (though a nice gesture nonetheless). However I do remember that there can be 2 reasons for patenting something:
a) Personal profit based on royalties, etc (or preventing a competitor from reproductions)
b) Not having a competitor patent something. You don't personally have to enforce the patent against somebody... but in the end it's a useful trump card (if somebody applies their own patents against you, you can play yours back) as well as a nice way to reward your allies (if you hold the patent and share, somebody else can't sue your friends over them either).
I've often wondered about this. This trick I suppose would work well on a Linux box... but IBM doesn't own linux. Can you put a patent on doing something a particular way with a product you don't have ownership over?
If a hack a certain device (say find something really cool to do with a cellphone/PDA/etc that the creators hadn't planned for it), can I patent that even though I didn't make the original device?
Not that I have such a patent, but I've often wondered if this happens.
I've found that Sony in general is milking a brand-name... but that cow is beginning to run dry. I haven't seen many sony products that - were they even the same price of their competitors (they're more) - I would buy on a quality basis. They make a lot of stuff that might be considered trendy. Asian students here especially seem to think Vaio is the shiznat, though really the last few of those I saw died sooner and generally sucked more than competitors (no, I'm not racist, my gf is Chinese and between her and her friends I've had my work convincing them that Sony != good).
On the other hand, I won't say I know too much about Matsushita, but I haven't done too badly by their Panasonic division.
What was that, your typical think-of-the-children response?
So what if it's not in the car. It's still being put on my property. Does this mean that the police can attach whatever they want to my vehicle, so long as they don't open the doors, etc?
The point is that the vehicle was tampered with: without a warrant and without notification of the owner.
Maybe it's because some of us like to have human contact? No, I'm not talking about the kid who would rather yack on the phone that meet up with their friends 2 blocks away.
I spend my weekends generally away from home. Being that I don't stay specifically in one place, the cell is my only reliable means of contact. Much easier to ring up my friends and see when they're getting off of work on Friday night, or have them call me when they're off.
Kids, on the other hand, are a different story. The tend to have a fixed home-base. If the need to call home from Billy's house then I'm sure Billy's mom has a phone.
The addicts and annoyance tend to paint a dim view of cellphone users, but do keep in mind that there are many people (travellers, businesspeople, etc) that have perfectly legitimate uses for them. Just turn them off in the damn car and theatre please, people!
I seem to remember that another type of primate (Baboons I think) was also found immune to HIV, though they weren't sure why. It was either a gene they had that prevented it, or a lack of something else that it needed to propogate.
How about this: What are good divergent fields of study for those that are returning to school. Bonus points to field that aren't specifically IT.
For example, for the code-monkeys, what's a good course to take that is different enough from what we're doing now, but still likely to be of interest. Same for the sysadmins, etc.
Personally I'm somewhat of both (more sysadmin, but code-monkey too as we don't have any programmers on hire). I'd like to do more with my hands though, and have an interest in automotive mechanics. Of course, a mechanics course is not very close to what I do now (except for basic simularities between computer and car repair) but it would definately be a decent fallback field should IT suffer another major bubble burst. If I were to apply the mechanics concept to an IT-style field, perhaps I might look at something like robotics or some of the more hardware-intimate fields...
Would love to go back to school (time and money providing), but not sure what I'd go back for. My experience with degrees is that they're often not very useful in comparison to good ol' fashioned experience.
Hmmm... well it would be easy to get most geeks on the shuttle. Tell them that they're to help start a new human colony on a distant planet, 1-2 females per each male.
The only problem then will be to keep the females from cancelling their shuttle bookings...
I think there are several layers of stupidity. Around my gf's place, not are there a few of the standard "linksys" and "default" gateways... but upon trying to connect to the gateway itself I was able to login with the "admin" username (no password) which is generally default.
I didn't do anything, but the temptation was there to play around. Perhaps a good slashdot poll would be for what one should rename such open gateways to?
It's about result. End result, old lady still helped. We're talking about global affect, not moral scaling.
If we suddenly discovered life on another planet and we all stopped warring on each other in order to look good for them... bad or good.
Intentions irrelevant, so long as one doesn't start warring again or doing something equally underhanded it's a net good result. Now if somebody stopped the war just to plot a secret coup when the enemy is unsuspecting... final result bad.
The point is... IBM is still being helpful, and the old lady still got across the street. If they in the future turn around and use this in a bad way, it's a different story, but the net result is good without harm done to anyone else.
I'd suggest that all you negetive people STFU whenever somebody does something good. It doesn't mean you have to accept group X as a bunch of saints, just accept that they've done a good thing.
Yes. A virus writer could sue. Anyone can sue. It just requires money and/or a lawyer. Sueing successfully is different from launching a suit, and there are lots of stupid suits.
Moreover, a virus writer would - by sueing on such a basis - admit to being the virus author and thus to breaking various laws. The penalties outweigh the potential gains.
This is a stupid case too. Remember that the plaintiff has a right to sue. We just hope that the laws don't uphold such idiocy, or if they do (DCMA *sigh*) then the courts will be smart enough to strike them down because they are, in fact, idiotic/unrealistic/vague/innapropriate laws.
Meanwhilst, this lawsuit is probably not good for Tegam's reputation... as by doing so they validate his claim that there are, in fact, bugs in their product.
In the case of the example given by the parent to your post... removing a piece of tape does not contractually obligate you. Signing off on a (legally binding) contract does. This is why clickthrough EULA's are so dubious.
No, they might be able to enforce that by removing the tape you can't return the unit or sue them (successfully, you can try to sue for almost anything but success is not so certain) when you get electrocuted for opening something you shouldn't have etc.
The musician's licensing deal is totally different concept, and it pisses me off that people compare the two. You have a full, legally binding contract. Read over, signed in the view of a witness. This is much different from removing the tape on the TV example or checking "OK" on an EULA screen.
Just out of curiousity, is there a way to use DD (or another utility) to make a copy of just a bootrecord. When I'm making images of windows drives I have to DD the entire partition, which doesn't work right if the destination partition isn't the same size as the original. A tar.bz2 of the OS drive works nicely, except that it's missing the bootsector...
Slashdot Mirror
Star Trek has a fairly well defined set of races and a good environment. A big issue is with those producing the episodes and/or those doing the acting.
It's not that Star Trek needs to die, it just needs to stop having the same stupid ideas pumped through it. Think of some books/TV-series where a new author in a given universe has added a whole new dimension to the plot... or where one bad author taking over has killed it.
I think a lot of this has to do with directors turning sci-fi into low-rate action flicks with lasers. Star Trek used to have a lot of theory and possibility, now it's a race over an alien landscape with chasing aliens firing lasers... just as easily done with horses and six-shooters if you ask me.
ActiveX has been this way from the beginning. ActiveX applets can be entire programs, just ones that run inside your browser or another container. The only limitations are the security settings of the containing program.
That being said, with a trusted ActiveX app you can do a lot with the OS. The problem is that most users are too trusting (or their browsers are, if the security settings are too low).
I think a big probably is not only the "clueless users" as it were, but the ISPs who put them online. They advertise all the wonders of the modern internet (blazing speeds, media downloads, etc) with complete lack of reference to such problems.
,etc
Some ISPs do offer firewall/antivirus services, though most I've seen either suck or cost an additional fee.
But the thing is, it's probably not that difficult to tell if the users on your ISP are owned. And the ISP can disconnect those users until they are patched, or at the very least stick them on a limited subnet wherein they can download patches/fixed but not continue to contribute to the degredation of the internet.
The problem is that the ISPs are following the money trail and ignoring all these problems. Cutting off a "bad" customer is risking loss of capital... nevermind the cumulative money-loss effect that ISPs share in hosting spambots, cracked machines
not sure who lacked the brains enough to mark the parent as troll. Hacker is not really a proper definition (cracker perhaps better), but script-kiddy is worse. Script-kiddy implies, however, a younger or less experienced individual working from predesigned tools. An annoyance, but not a pro.
In contrast, many of the DDOS attackers are in groups of multiple individual, often with a good set of computer knowledge, and ties to organized crime. Sure, you might get the odd script-kiddy, but they're also the ones that probably get caught the easiest.
The really nasty ones are skilled, organized, offshore groups.
You're a little off here. If not for SPAM, we wouldn't need antispam programs and bays-filters. The filter is a response to the annoyance of the spam. You might argue that the SPAM is due to the lacks in SMTP et al but in that case why make new SPAMs once it's pointed out
The programs written by the kid, however, are targetted at vulnerabilities that already exist. Had he not written the code to expose the weakness, the weakness would still exist. Therefore he is responding to the weakness (and the weakness is the problem) whereas bays-filters are responding to SPAM (and SPAM is the problem).
Besides, which is more likely to lead to improvements? A sense of quiet pride tempered by some humility, or a superiorist attitude that Firefox is "da shiznat."
Projects that play catch-up (as happened for the first while) tend to go faster up to the point where they are more secure in themselves. Firefox is past the point of catch-up in many ways, but hopefully it will continue to show new features/improvements so that it can continue to become even greater, rather than maintaining a short lead.
For a country that generally ignores foreign patents and IP, this is an unusual move. Markets in major Chinese cities tend to have many vendors hawking ripped/copied/cammed DVD/VCD movies of various quality, audio CD's, and cheap imitations that bear a startling likeness to the real thing (such as the "swiss" watch I'm wearing at this moment).
Generally police would ignore such activities, so what makes law enforcement so much attention to this particular case?
Then it would fark any email in which somebody mistyped a URL, or if it interprets something as a url and it comes up invalid.
Could be as bad as if I wrote "I'll meet you 8pm@work." It might interpret the 8pm@work as an email address and scan for valid domain. Or I might just have a typo such as http://www.slahsdot.org which would also bork an email. Perhaps even a domain that isn't in DNS (one specific though a local shared HOSTS file)
Remember, antispam is not only designed to crapfilter out spam, it should be priority to allowing legitimate emails.
I download warez all the time. CD ISO's, and sometimes movies etc.
It's not illegal (not here), because I have the originals. The software I've yet to find a program for that will successfully rip an ISO mountable with daemontools (most ones I download don't work either, but eventually I usually get lucky). Movies I've just not the time to rip-and-reencode. But it's much nicer to have a bunch of 600MB DivX files so I can fit multiple movies onto a DVD (for travelling with my laptop) or CD-images so I don't need to constantly disc-swap.
And whose fault is it I'm downloading? The MPAA/Software venders, because they've installed anti-piracy measures that suck against piracy but restrict my legitimate imaging/etc. Is my downloading hurting anyone... no, but if the MPAA/RIAA seeds a network with virii it certainly could hurt my computer.
If anything, I think that this article shows IBM's donation of 500 patents as a drop in the barrel (though a nice gesture nonetheless). However I do remember that there can be 2 reasons for patenting something:
a) Personal profit based on royalties, etc (or preventing a competitor from reproductions)
b) Not having a competitor patent something. You don't personally have to enforce the patent against somebody... but in the end it's a useful trump card (if somebody applies their own patents against you, you can play yours back) as well as a nice way to reward your allies (if you hold the patent and share, somebody else can't sue your friends over them either).
I've often wondered about this. This trick I suppose would work well on a Linux box... but IBM doesn't own linux. Can you put a patent on doing something a particular way with a product you don't have ownership over?
If a hack a certain device (say find something really cool to do with a cellphone/PDA/etc that the creators hadn't planned for it), can I patent that even though I didn't make the original device?
Not that I have such a patent, but I've often wondered if this happens.
I've found that Sony in general is milking a brand-name... but that cow is beginning to run dry. I haven't seen many sony products that - were they even the same price of their competitors (they're more) - I would buy on a quality basis. They make a lot of stuff that might be considered trendy. Asian students here especially seem to think Vaio is the shiznat, though really the last few of those I saw died sooner and generally sucked more than competitors (no, I'm not racist, my gf is Chinese and between her and her friends I've had my work convincing them that Sony != good).
On the other hand, I won't say I know too much about Matsushita, but I haven't done too badly by their Panasonic division.
Legally:
In persuit of a crime
In conjunction with arrest in relation to a crime
As part of their duties as an officer, I'm not sure about in peacetime
It's plenty fair, when they don't abuse the fact that these things are done under certain conditions, with a certain procedure.
They aren't random cars, they are plants. The parent was referencing to private vehicles.
What was that, your typical think-of-the-children response?
So what if it's not in the car. It's still being put on my property. Does this mean that the police can attach whatever they want to my vehicle, so long as they don't open the doors, etc?
The point is that the vehicle was tampered with: without a warrant and without notification of the owner.
Maybe it's because some of us like to have human contact? No, I'm not talking about the kid who would rather yack on the phone that meet up with their friends 2 blocks away.
I spend my weekends generally away from home. Being that I don't stay specifically in one place, the cell is my only reliable means of contact. Much easier to ring up my friends and see when they're getting off of work on Friday night, or have them call me when they're off.
Kids, on the other hand, are a different story. The tend to have a fixed home-base. If the need to call home from Billy's house then I'm sure Billy's mom has a phone.
The addicts and annoyance tend to paint a dim view of cellphone users, but do keep in mind that there are many people (travellers, businesspeople, etc) that have perfectly legitimate uses for them. Just turn them off in the damn car and theatre please, people!
I seem to remember that another type of primate (Baboons I think) was also found immune to HIV, though they weren't sure why. It was either a gene they had that prevented it, or a lack of something else that it needed to propogate.
How about this: What are good divergent fields of study for those that are returning to school. Bonus points to field that aren't specifically IT.
For example, for the code-monkeys, what's a good course to take that is different enough from what we're doing now, but still likely to be of interest. Same for the sysadmins, etc.
Personally I'm somewhat of both (more sysadmin, but code-monkey too as we don't have any programmers on hire). I'd like to do more with my hands though, and have an interest in automotive mechanics. Of course, a mechanics course is not very close to what I do now (except for basic simularities between computer and car repair) but it would definately be a decent fallback field should IT suffer another major bubble burst. If I were to apply the mechanics concept to an IT-style field, perhaps I might look at something like robotics or some of the more hardware-intimate fields...
Would love to go back to school (time and money providing), but not sure what I'd go back for. My experience with degrees is that they're often not very useful in comparison to good ol' fashioned experience.
Hmmm... well it would be easy to get most geeks on the shuttle. Tell them that they're to help start a new human colony on a distant planet, 1-2 females per each male.
The only problem then will be to keep the females from cancelling their shuttle bookings...
I think there are several layers of stupidity. Around my gf's place, not are there a few of the standard "linksys" and "default" gateways... but upon trying to connect to the gateway itself I was able to login with the "admin" username (no password) which is generally default.
I didn't do anything, but the temptation was there to play around. Perhaps a good slashdot poll would be for what one should rename such open gateways to?
It's about result. End result, old lady still helped. We're talking about global affect, not moral scaling.
If we suddenly discovered life on another planet and we all stopped warring on each other in order to look good for them... bad or good.
Intentions irrelevant, so long as one doesn't start warring again or doing something equally underhanded it's a net good result. Now if somebody stopped the war just to plot a secret coup when the enemy is unsuspecting... final result bad.
The point is... IBM is still being helpful, and the old lady still got across the street. If they in the future turn around and use this in a bad way, it's a different story, but the net result is good without harm done to anyone else.
I'd suggest that all you negetive people STFU whenever somebody does something good. It doesn't mean you have to accept group X as a bunch of saints, just accept that they've done a good thing.
Once again I must say this:
Yes. A virus writer could sue. Anyone can sue. It just requires money and/or a lawyer. Sueing successfully is different from launching a suit, and there are lots of stupid suits.
Moreover, a virus writer would - by sueing on such a basis - admit to being the virus author and thus to breaking various laws. The penalties outweigh the potential gains.
This is a stupid case too. Remember that the plaintiff has a right to sue. We just hope that the laws don't uphold such idiocy, or if they do (DCMA *sigh*) then the courts will be smart enough to strike them down because they are, in fact, idiotic/unrealistic/vague/innapropriate laws.
Meanwhilst, this lawsuit is probably not good for Tegam's reputation... as by doing so they validate his claim that there are, in fact, bugs in their product.
In the case of the example given by the parent to your post... removing a piece of tape does not contractually obligate you. Signing off on a (legally binding) contract does. This is why clickthrough EULA's are so dubious.
No, they might be able to enforce that by removing the tape you can't return the unit or sue them (successfully, you can try to sue for almost anything but success is not so certain) when you get electrocuted for opening something you shouldn't have etc.
The musician's licensing deal is totally different concept, and it pisses me off that people compare the two. You have a full, legally binding contract. Read over, signed in the view of a witness. This is much different from removing the tape on the TV example or checking "OK" on an EULA screen.
I had an 88 Camry (Toyota). The key for it opened:
My parent's car (87 Accord)
Friend's car (Corolla)
Other Friend's car (Accord)
Only on the driver's side door though (and no ignition). That being the lock used most often, the tumblers can become worn and easier to open.
Just out of curiousity, is there a way to use DD (or another utility) to make a copy of just a bootrecord. When I'm making images of windows drives I have to DD the entire partition, which doesn't work right if the destination partition isn't the same size as the original. A tar.bz2 of the OS drive works nicely, except that it's missing the bootsector...