Exactly. This story is just plain retarded. Millions of people legally have guns and don't hurt anyone with them, so let's stop blaming people who sell firearms, and start blaming the evil criminals who pull the trigger. Cars can and have been used as a deadly weapon, but we don't blame car makers or auto parts stores when someone uses them for an evil purpose... we blame the person behing the wheel, just as we should.
If this guy didn't have access to guns, he would have just found another way to carry out his evil plan. There are plenty of ways to hurt people, and even if we attempt to ban them all and live in a total police state, evil people will still find ways to do evil things. The problem here is the person and his homicidal intent, not how he carried out his plan.
So, they implant livestock, then pets, then immigrants, then convicts, and then they're just going to stop? The logical next step is to implant everyone for the purpose of identification and commerce. We've already heard of proposals to do this so that people can buy things by just waiving their hand over a scanner, rather than swiping a credit card. Doesn't anyone think this is a bit disturbingly similar to the biblical "mark of the beast"? I'm not even a religious nut, but the "coincidences" are hard to ignore.
BBS'es and slow modems... I once spent an hour and a half downloading a 1.5MB DOS game from a local BBS with a 2400 baud modem. I felt horribly behind the times, because a "modern" 9600 baud would have done it in only a little over 20 minutes. And today, I can do that in less time than it takes for me to sneeze. I also remember the Internet being an almost unobtainable thing, just because of the lack of ISPs with local numbers in my state (Colorado).
Old Macs were pretty cool. I remember getting a lot of enjoyment out of that 512x384 B&W screen. Things like Hypercard, ResEdit, and Appletalk games bring back memories. It sure blew the boring PC's of the time out of the water. It was pretty neat to get software for my PC to read 1.4MB Mac floppies, but I had to wait a few more years for the Macintosh emulators to let me run those old games on my PC. I was actually so anxious for that that I wrote the Win32 port of vMac.
Exactly. You really hit the nail on the head. I've been one for 4.5 years now. Also, a "contractor" doesn't neccessarily sign any contract... they are simply an employee of the company that has the contract, but that company is no more than a middle-man that gives you crappy "benefits" and takes a good chunk of your pay. Of course, you pretty much know that from the start.
Sounds like I'll have to try the latest version of Kino... it was a pain to use the last time I tried it, but that was over a year ago. Most of the video that I edit is in-car or on-car footage from my race car, so I just need a simple solution that can do basic editing and doesn't take a lot of my time, but quality is important. Had the MacMini come out a couple of years ago, I would have bought one.
What I've been doing is to do the firewire video capture in Linux using dvgrab and ffmpeg to encode it, then reboot to Windows XP (I know, I know) and use Windows Movie Maker 2, which is surprisingly nice for simple video editing. I have also tried the ULead video editing software, but it's slow and is a pain to use.
I do the capture in Linux because 1) it works better and more reliably, 2) ffmpeg makes deinterlacing easy, and 3) it's higher quality so I can keep the original unedited footage without saving the tapes.
Wow, you're really ignorant! You obviously don't know much about me, my car, performance, or racing. It's funny that you accuse me of speaking out of my ass, because I can prove that's what you are doing. You can call bullshit all you'd like, but I have in-car video of me passing several 911's on a race track, along with several witnesses. The Porsche guys weren't exactly going easy on me... They really didn't seem to like the idea of a mere Integra on their tail, and they sure tried to get away from me, but I was still on their ass in the turns and passing them on the straights. Don't get me wrong... there were three or four race prepped 911's with expert drivers that schooled me, but they were the minority. There were many other 911's out there, and I was giving them a hell of a time.
My horsepower and torque numbers were measured on a dynometer, not just some crap that I made up. And there was no box to read it off of either; it's an entirely custom setup, and the turbocharger was custom built for my car and type of racing. My dyno numbers are actually a bit lower than typical for a turbo LS, due to low load and a couple of minor problems on the day that I took it to the dyno, but those have since been fixed. It's a pretty big upgrade for an Integra, but it mostly just serves to keep me from getting killed on the straights.
Some of those 911s that I passed had better acceleration than me, and some did not, but they got passed either way. You are obviously clueless when it comes to race driving, so you're probably thinking that this is simply not possible. Well, here's the answer: it's all about corner exit speed. He may have better acceleration than me, but if I come out of the turn going faster than him, then I'll overtake him right away. By the time that he matches my speed as I'm accelerating, I will already have a nice gap on him, so he will have to get going much faster than me just to catch up by the end of the straight. That wont happen unless it's a really long straight or he has a huge acceleration advantage, but neither was the case.
It does have a lot to do with skill, but the combination of the driver's skill and the car's setup is what determines the performance. In any case, I can honestly say that I have beaten several 911's on a race track. They weren't professional race car drivers, but neither am I. I think that's a pretty good accomplishment for an Integra, and I certainly wouldn't have done it if it were stock. The same group of Porsches worked me over pretty badly a year earlier on that track (before I had the turbo, many other mods, or much racing experience).
The bottom line is that I built my car well enough that I can use it to pass the average 911 driver who goes to the same track events that I do, and I have proven this. A 911 is obviously an excellent race car, and much more expensive, so that's why I'm pleased that I can compete with many of them.
There are a few electrical mods here and there... a power antenna control switch, and lots of security (hacked the power lock module to keep the doors locked, even if the thief has a key). Those damn Fast & Furious kids are always eyeing the thing like they want to steal it, but they wouldn't get far.
I take this car racing a lot (SCCA stuff), and it was a good car to begin with, but now there are many performance "hacks". I have added a turbo and to "overclock" the engine from 140hp/126tq to 220hp/209tq (which is a lot in a 2600lb FWD car with short gearing), upgraded the cooling system, swapped in some stiffer springs, adjustable shocks, sticky tires, a bunch of other stuff, and I'll be installing a custom-built race transmission in a day or two.
I don't even want to add up how much money I've put into this, but it is a lot of fun to drive around a race track... It's pretty satisfying to pass Porsche 911s, and other highly respected sports cars, when they have it to the floor.:)
Didn't Steve Jobs use to do drugs? I think that explains his comment. There's really nothing new about an electric scooter. Heck, I see people running around on electric scooters all the time here at work. Oh well, this'll just be another dumb trend that we'll all forget about in a few years.
I've been doing that for some time now. I simply consider the 802.11b net to be accessable to the public, and therefore it's firewalled. The problem is that people can still see what I'm doing (with the exception of SSH and HTTPS) or spoof the IP address of my laptop and get Internet access. But here's how I plan to actually solve the problem once and for all:
I'll install Linux (BSD's should work too) on my laptop and tunnel PPP over SSH to my server, thus creating a quick and easy VPN. My server's firewall will then be set to block and log everything except DHCP and SSH that comes over the real 802.11b interface, but allow everything that uses the secured PPP session.
That causes three problems:
1) I'd like to be able to keep Windows on the laptop just for the software compatibility, but I think I can get by with VMware under Linux.
2) It's not very scalable. The best solution I can think of is to make a universal SSH acount that just provides PPP sessions. The client PPP IP address would be selected based on some sort of ID that the client provides, just like DHCP. I suppose I could make the client script pass it's 802.11b adapter's MAC address to the server and then the server would assign it an IP accordingly. But, I still have to give anyone who I want to connect to my network the password for that SSH account and the client side script, and they have to be running a UNIX family OS.
3) I'm still vulnerable to DoS attacks by people in range of my WLAN. A simple broadcast storm would probably be pretty effective. But, I don't think this is a big threat, since my range is pretty limited. I'm also vulnerable to any security holes that may be in DHCP or SSH, but I seriously doubt there are any skilled crackers within range of my WLAN. And, I'll patch any holes myself once they are published on BugTRAQ or something, so script kiddies aren't a threat, if there are any in range.
This is just another example of how ignorant the media has become. Dvorak is obviously just another clueless journalist that's trashing something without really knowing anything about it. Hmm, sounds a lot like Microsoft's statements about Linux.
This is why I try to avoid computer related stories in the general media; they're riddled with illogical assumptions, half-truths, and blatant lies. It's an insult to me and everyone else who knows anything about computers. Dvorak is a fool and shouldn't be allowed to write about technology ever again.
My home server runs a K6-2 @ 266MHz, and I used to have *lots* of problems running Linux on it. make would sometimes spontaneously die (compiling a kernel would always do it), and it would even crash (several nasty kernel-oops'es) once in a while. "su" and other common programs would sometimes segfault, which usually happened right before it would simply just stop taking network connections. I could ping it, but telnet and ssh were dead, and if I were to try to login locally, it would take my username and password, but then just show me the login screen again! And it apparently didn't log anything during that time either.
My theory was that it was either overheating or that it was memory related. Although the CPU fan was wearing out (it was gradually becoming very noisy), it still kept it really cool, so I dismissed overheating as a possible cause. At the time, the memory was 32MB of 168-pin and 16MB of 72-pin, and that 48MB was horribly inadequate, as it was using it's swap partition heavily.
It now has 96MB (all 168-pin), a new CPU fan, new hard drive, and a clean install of Mandrake 7.1, and it's working better than ever before. It just made 100 hours of uptime today, which would have been nearly impossible before. I would suspect that 16MB of 72-pin memory, but it seems to be working fine in a Windows machine, so maybe it was my motherboard or something to do with the swapping???
Seeing as how you're stuck with US West like I am, they probably screwed you over with an "extender line", aka a DLC (Digital Loop Carrier) line. It limits modem connections to 28.8 (on good days; I usually get 24000 or 26400), and destroys any chance of using real DSL. All of that just so US West can save a dime by putting multiple numbers on one real line.
However, you can get 144kbps "IDSL", but calling it DSL is blatently false advertising. It's much more expensive than real DSL, it's only speed is 144kbps (real DSL is available from 256kbps to 7mbps), and it doesn't allow you to talk on the phone at the same time (in fact, it requires that your line be dedicated to it; no more phone calls on that line, ever). It's really more ISDN than anything. According to US West's site, it's only about $60/mo (twice as much as real DSL), but when I went to check the availability for my area, it only said the $189/mo and $199/mo options were available!!!
Residential fiber connections will be available here (Longmont, CO) in 1-2 years, and it looks like I'll be waiting for that. I really don't see US West giving us real lines (like we payed for) anytime soon. So, it's either wait for fiber or wait for AOL or MSN satellite...
Port scanning isn't used by only those wearing black hats. It can be used for legitimate purposes by those other than admin.
For example, let's say that I don't remember if a server that I have an account on offers IMAP, IMAP/SSL, POP3, etc. access, so instead of starting up Netscape Messenger and trying every possibly combination, I just do a quick port scan and now I know which services are available.
There's also the case of running something such as eggdrop on a shell and forgetting what port you set it for.
I also use port scanning as a cracking deterrant. If I find someone scanning me (PortSentry is great for detecting this), I use nmap to scan them back just to let them know that I'm well aware of what they are doing. I don't do anything with the scan results, other than laugh at the fact that they're Windows boxes almost all of the time. I know that not everyone will be notice my return scan, but some might and hopefully it'll discourage them from messing with my machine. And for those who are going to say "two wrongs don't make a right": well, this is the real world, not 3rd grade, and that kind of thinking won't get you anywhere.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I just gotta ask: what about Nitrogen??? It's my understanding that pure Oxygen is pretty nasty stuff, and we need Nitrogen (and possibly others?) too. This is still a great accomplishment, nonetheless. But, I don't think they're done as far as breathable air is concerned.
I recently received a message from some idiot claiming to report the vMac Project to "GNU Public License HQ" because our code is "sloppy". This guy was obviously an idiot because vMac isn't even under GPL, and we have a disclaimer saying that vMac is "use at your own risk" software (like many other free software projects.) I sent a pretty vulgar reply to the idiot, which clearly explained why he was an idiot. This was the only threat that we have ever received, so I don't think we (the Open Source community) have anything to worry about. Now, I'm just waiting for this idiot to try to threaten me about the Mace Project. The recently created Mace project is a LGPL compatibility layer similar to Wine, except that it brings Macintosh compatibility to Linux (and Windows, ick).
I was screwing with it and it looks like I killed it with a cheap and easy buffer overflow. It stopped responding right after I sent it a ton of ASCII code 255 characters. Time of death: Approx. 1:45PM MST 8/3/99
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Exactly. This story is just plain retarded. Millions of people legally have guns and don't hurt anyone with them, so let's stop blaming people who sell firearms, and start blaming the evil criminals who pull the trigger. Cars can and have been used as a deadly weapon, but we don't blame car makers or auto parts stores when someone uses them for an evil purpose... we blame the person behing the wheel, just as we should.
If this guy didn't have access to guns, he would have just found another way to carry out his evil plan. There are plenty of ways to hurt people, and even if we attempt to ban them all and live in a total police state, evil people will still find ways to do evil things. The problem here is the person and his homicidal intent, not how he carried out his plan.
So, they implant livestock, then pets, then immigrants, then convicts, and then they're just going to stop? The logical next step is to implant everyone for the purpose of identification and commerce. We've already heard of proposals to do this so that people can buy things by just waiving their hand over a scanner, rather than swiping a credit card. Doesn't anyone think this is a bit disturbingly similar to the biblical "mark of the beast"? I'm not even a religious nut, but the "coincidences" are hard to ignore.
BBS'es and slow modems... I once spent an hour and a half downloading a 1.5MB DOS game from a local BBS with a 2400 baud modem. I felt horribly behind the times, because a "modern" 9600 baud would have done it in only a little over 20 minutes. And today, I can do that in less time than it takes for me to sneeze. I also remember the Internet being an almost unobtainable thing, just because of the lack of ISPs with local numbers in my state (Colorado).
Old Macs were pretty cool. I remember getting a lot of enjoyment out of that 512x384 B&W screen. Things like Hypercard, ResEdit, and Appletalk games bring back memories. It sure blew the boring PC's of the time out of the water. It was pretty neat to get software for my PC to read 1.4MB Mac floppies, but I had to wait a few more years for the Macintosh emulators to let me run those old games on my PC. I was actually so anxious for that that I wrote the Win32 port of vMac.
Exactly. You really hit the nail on the head. I've been one for 4.5 years now. Also, a "contractor" doesn't neccessarily sign any contract... they are simply an employee of the company that has the contract, but that company is no more than a middle-man that gives you crappy "benefits" and takes a good chunk of your pay. Of course, you pretty much know that from the start.
Sounds like I'll have to try the latest version of Kino... it was a pain to use the last time I tried it, but that was over a year ago. Most of the video that I edit is in-car or on-car footage from my race car, so I just need a simple solution that can do basic editing and doesn't take a lot of my time, but quality is important. Had the MacMini come out a couple of years ago, I would have bought one.
What I've been doing is to do the firewire video capture in Linux using dvgrab and ffmpeg to encode it, then reboot to Windows XP (I know, I know) and use Windows Movie Maker 2, which is surprisingly nice for simple video editing. I have also tried the ULead video editing software, but it's slow and is a pain to use.
I do the capture in Linux because 1) it works better and more reliably, 2) ffmpeg makes deinterlacing easy, and 3) it's higher quality so I can keep the original unedited footage without saving the tapes.
Wow, you're really ignorant! You obviously don't know much about me, my car, performance, or racing. It's funny that you accuse me of speaking out of my ass, because I can prove that's what you are doing. You can call bullshit all you'd like, but I have in-car video of me passing several 911's on a race track, along with several witnesses. The Porsche guys weren't exactly going easy on me... They really didn't seem to like the idea of a mere Integra on their tail, and they sure tried to get away from me, but I was still on their ass in the turns and passing them on the straights. Don't get me wrong... there were three or four race prepped 911's with expert drivers that schooled me, but they were the minority. There were many other 911's out there, and I was giving them a hell of a time.
My horsepower and torque numbers were measured on a dynometer, not just some crap that I made up. And there was no box to read it off of either; it's an entirely custom setup, and the turbocharger was custom built for my car and type of racing. My dyno numbers are actually a bit lower than typical for a turbo LS, due to low load and a couple of minor problems on the day that I took it to the dyno, but those have since been fixed. It's a pretty big upgrade for an Integra, but it mostly just serves to keep me from getting killed on the straights.
Some of those 911s that I passed had better acceleration than me, and some did not, but they got passed either way. You are obviously clueless when it comes to race driving, so you're probably thinking that this is simply not possible. Well, here's the answer: it's all about corner exit speed. He may have better acceleration than me, but if I come out of the turn going faster than him, then I'll overtake him right away. By the time that he matches my speed as I'm accelerating, I will already have a nice gap on him, so he will have to get going much faster than me just to catch up by the end of the straight. That wont happen unless it's a really long straight or he has a huge acceleration advantage, but neither was the case.
It does have a lot to do with skill, but the combination of the driver's skill and the car's setup is what determines the performance. In any case, I can honestly say that I have beaten several 911's on a race track. They weren't professional race car drivers, but neither am I. I think that's a pretty good accomplishment for an Integra, and I certainly wouldn't have done it if it were stock. The same group of Porsches worked me over pretty badly a year earlier on that track (before I had the turbo, many other mods, or much racing experience).
The bottom line is that I built my car well enough that I can use it to pass the average 911 driver who goes to the same track events that I do, and I have proven this. A 911 is obviously an excellent race car, and much more expensive, so that's why I'm pleased that I can compete with many of them.
I "hacked" my 1997 Acura Integra LS...
:)
There are a few electrical mods here and there... a power antenna control switch, and lots of security (hacked the power lock module to keep the doors locked, even if the thief has a key). Those damn Fast & Furious kids are always eyeing the thing like they want to steal it, but they wouldn't get far.
I take this car racing a lot (SCCA stuff), and it was a good car to begin with, but now there are many performance "hacks". I have added a turbo and to "overclock" the engine from 140hp/126tq to 220hp/209tq (which is a lot in a 2600lb FWD car with short gearing), upgraded the cooling system, swapped in some stiffer springs, adjustable shocks, sticky tires, a bunch of other stuff, and I'll be installing a custom-built race transmission in a day or two.
I don't even want to add up how much money I've put into this, but it is a lot of fun to drive around a race track... It's pretty satisfying to pass Porsche 911s, and other highly respected sports cars, when they have it to the floor.
Didn't Steve Jobs use to do drugs? I think that explains his comment. There's really nothing new about an electric scooter. Heck, I see people running around on electric scooters all the time here at work. Oh well, this'll just be another dumb trend that we'll all forget about in a few years.
I've been doing that for some time now. I simply consider the 802.11b net to be accessable to the public, and therefore it's firewalled. The problem is that people can still see what I'm doing (with the exception of SSH and HTTPS) or spoof the IP address of my laptop and get Internet access. But here's how I plan to actually solve the problem once and for all:
I'll install Linux (BSD's should work too) on my laptop and tunnel PPP over SSH to my server, thus creating a quick and easy VPN. My server's firewall will then be set to block and log everything except DHCP and SSH that comes over the real 802.11b interface, but allow everything that uses the secured PPP session.
That causes three problems:
1) I'd like to be able to keep Windows on the laptop just for the software compatibility, but I think I can get by with VMware under Linux.
2) It's not very scalable. The best solution I can think of is to make a universal SSH acount that just provides PPP sessions. The client PPP IP address would be selected based on some sort of ID that the client provides, just like DHCP. I suppose I could make the client script pass it's 802.11b adapter's MAC address to the server and then the server would assign it an IP accordingly. But, I still have to give anyone who I want to connect to my network the password for that SSH account and the client side script, and they have to be running a UNIX family OS.
3) I'm still vulnerable to DoS attacks by people in range of my WLAN. A simple broadcast storm would probably be pretty effective. But, I don't think this is a big threat, since my range is pretty limited. I'm also vulnerable to any security holes that may be in DHCP or SSH, but I seriously doubt there are any skilled crackers within range of my WLAN. And, I'll patch any holes myself once they are published on BugTRAQ or something, so script kiddies aren't a threat, if there are any in range.
This is just another example of how ignorant the media has become. Dvorak is obviously just another clueless journalist that's trashing something without really knowing anything about it. Hmm, sounds a lot like Microsoft's statements about Linux. This is why I try to avoid computer related stories in the general media; they're riddled with illogical assumptions, half-truths, and blatant lies. It's an insult to me and everyone else who knows anything about computers. Dvorak is a fool and shouldn't be allowed to write about technology ever again.
My theory was that it was either overheating or that it was memory related. Although the CPU fan was wearing out (it was gradually becoming very noisy), it still kept it really cool, so I dismissed overheating as a possible cause. At the time, the memory was 32MB of 168-pin and 16MB of 72-pin, and that 48MB was horribly inadequate, as it was using it's swap partition heavily.
It now has 96MB (all 168-pin), a new CPU fan, new hard drive, and a clean install of Mandrake 7.1, and it's working better than ever before. It just made 100 hours of uptime today, which would have been nearly impossible before. I would suspect that 16MB of 72-pin memory, but it seems to be working fine in a Windows machine, so maybe it was my motherboard or something to do with the swapping???
Seeing as how you're stuck with US West like I am, they probably screwed you over with an "extender line", aka a DLC (Digital Loop Carrier) line. It limits modem connections to 28.8 (on good days; I usually get 24000 or 26400), and destroys any chance of using real DSL. All of that just so US West can save a dime by putting multiple numbers on one real line. However, you can get 144kbps "IDSL", but calling it DSL is blatently false advertising. It's much more expensive than real DSL, it's only speed is 144kbps (real DSL is available from 256kbps to 7mbps), and it doesn't allow you to talk on the phone at the same time (in fact, it requires that your line be dedicated to it; no more phone calls on that line, ever). It's really more ISDN than anything. According to US West's site, it's only about $60/mo (twice as much as real DSL), but when I went to check the availability for my area, it only said the $189/mo and $199/mo options were available!!! Residential fiber connections will be available here (Longmont, CO) in 1-2 years, and it looks like I'll be waiting for that. I really don't see US West giving us real lines (like we payed for) anytime soon. So, it's either wait for fiber or wait for AOL or MSN satellite...
wotsit.org has info on lots of file formats, including JPEG.
Hey everybody, check out The MACE project!
Port scanning isn't used by only those wearing black hats. It can be used for legitimate purposes by those other than admin. For example, let's say that I don't remember if a server that I have an account on offers IMAP, IMAP/SSL, POP3, etc. access, so instead of starting up Netscape Messenger and trying every possibly combination, I just do a quick port scan and now I know which services are available. There's also the case of running something such as eggdrop on a shell and forgetting what port you set it for. I also use port scanning as a cracking deterrant. If I find someone scanning me (PortSentry is great for detecting this), I use nmap to scan them back just to let them know that I'm well aware of what they are doing. I don't do anything with the scan results, other than laugh at the fact that they're Windows boxes almost all of the time. I know that not everyone will be notice my return scan, but some might and hopefully it'll discourage them from messing with my machine. And for those who are going to say "two wrongs don't make a right": well, this is the real world, not 3rd grade, and that kind of thinking won't get you anywhere.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, I just gotta ask: what about Nitrogen??? It's my understanding that pure Oxygen is pretty nasty stuff, and we need Nitrogen (and possibly others?) too. This is still a great accomplishment, nonetheless. But, I don't think they're done as far as breathable air is concerned.
I recently received a message from some idiot claiming to report the vMac Project to "GNU Public License HQ" because our code is "sloppy". This guy was obviously an idiot because vMac isn't even under GPL, and we have a disclaimer saying that vMac is "use at your own risk" software (like many other free software projects.) I sent a pretty vulgar reply to the idiot, which clearly explained why he was an idiot. This was the only threat that we have ever received, so I don't think we (the Open Source community) have anything to worry about. Now, I'm just waiting for this idiot to try to threaten me about the Mace Project. The recently created Mace project is a LGPL compatibility layer similar to Wine, except that it brings Macintosh compatibility to Linux (and Windows, ick).
I was screwing with it and it looks like I killed it with a cheap and easy buffer overflow. It stopped responding right after I sent it a ton of ASCII code 255 characters. Time of death: Approx. 1:45PM MST 8/3/99