In the dorm my freshman year of college (UTexas), we set up two pods of 8 computers in the common room for an all-day Quake tournament. Now, I was good at Quake, but nowhere near as good as many people in the dorm. This being the honors dorm, there were a *lot* of people who spent a *lot* of time playing Quake over our brand-new Ethernet connections (this was 1996-1997, the year UT dorms added Ethernet.) The night before the tournament started, I took LSD for the first time, which led to me and another person sitting up all night, playing against each other on the computers that were already set up. By the next day, I was already zoning into the game very, very hardcore. (Side note: When I went to lunch the day of the tourney, having been up for 30 hours, and still feeling the drugs, all I could think of when I saw people grouped together at the cashier was that if I fired a rocket right above their heads, I could get all of 'em with one blow.)
I was good enough on my own to make the semis of the tourney, which is where it got interesting. All the lights go down, there are about 40 spectators, and Nine Inch Nails starts blaring. Needless to say, I got locked in very quickly. My mind was swimming, and all I could think was "kill, kill, kill!" 30 minutes into the round, I had 20 kills and was in fourth. Then I got the rocket launcher. By the end 30 minutes later, I had 110 kills, and had doubled the score of the next highest person. The odds on me to win the whole thing went from 50-1 to 4-1 in 30 minutes. So from experience, I can vouch that the average player can go on unreal streaks. With some enhancement, of course.
"If I want directions, I'm not asking a one-armed man. I'm asking the one-legged man, because I guarantee you he knows the shortest way to get anywhere."
I have no idea whether Win2k Home defaults to auto-reboot or not (I'm still running 98, thank you very much), but there's obviously a reason for Server to default to it. Bosses don't really like to hear that the server was down for an hour because it hung and then waited for input to reboot, all while you were driving to work. They'd rather hear that it crashed and came back up on its own, even if that means that finding the initial problem is harder. That's what bosses do.
Remember the old phrase "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"? Well, it seems Win2k just coded it.:P
I've always said that if I ever go Unabomber, one of my first pairs of targets will be the Mediaplayer dev group and the offices of Real. They will each receive a pipe bomb set to go off at the exact same time. When they go off, I envision a little piece of paper floating out, only to be grabbed out of mid-air. Each note will read "This pipe will configure itself to be the default for all future bombs." And then each person will hold the paper to the sky and scream "Khan!" At least in my daydreams.
My supermarket gives me discounts in exchange for knowing what I buy regularly.
No, they don't. They just charge more to people who don't have the discount cards. Depending on the options available to you (I have not a clue where you come from), there are numerous grocery options that don't have "discount cards". Compare prices. Wal-Mart (while evil) has lower prices than the grocery store with a discount card. HEB (a regional chain that's spreading like wildfire) does, too.
Now, I live in the most competitive grocery market (the article is from Fortune, not this hippie rag:) ) in the US, the Dallas/Ft. Worth market, so options are everywhere. I don't like Wal-Mart any more than the next person. But I shop there. Why?
They don't want my shopping information, and they have lower prices.
The normal grocer's notion that I should be willing to give them something valuable, for no better prices than I can get somewhere else, is laughable and irritating. Can't beat Wal-Mart without it? Fine. Go away. And you know who to blame for my attitude (you knew this was coming)? You and your corporate brethren. Change the way you deal with me, and I'll consider changing the way I think about you.
Because it's in their mission statement. I sent an email to a friend about this a while ago, which is why I still have it.
From their job opening page :
In a word, Google's goal is to do important stuff that matters to a lot of people. In pursuit of that goal, we've developed a set of values that drive our work, including one of our most cherished core values: "Don't be evil." (Emphasis mine.)
The headline assumes that since I'm reading Slashdot, I have the remotest of mechanical skills. My fiery death on JW would prove this assumption to be patently (and dangerously) false.
An Army recruiter, calling to tell my parents my score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test (I took it in high school to get out of class): "Your son has some of the highest scores I've seen. Except....on the 'mechanics' section."
My dad: "What'd he get?"
Recruiter: "A 15. You know, sir, the average 11th grade girl scores a 45."
My dad: "That's higher than I would have thought he'd score."
While I'm certainly agreeable and sympathetic to the sentiments of the parent, the problem is, this is exactly how things work. Perhaps things are different in the homeland (Finally, I get to connect with my roots.), but here in America, this is exactly what the movie industry did, and they did it on purpose.
Picture a production executive: "Why should I not agree to do this terrible movie? People will see it anyway." A theater owner: "Why should I not perpetrate the single largest price gouge that the average American sees over some kernels of 'popped corn' and sugar water? People will pay." A person in charge of showing the movie: "Let's put this movie in 8 screens, so everybody sees it all at once, and everybody forgets about it in 3 weeks. Then, let's do it again!"
The problem is that the problem feeds itself. So does this one. You know what the solution is? 'tis like a marketer's dream... More solutions! Bigger broadband, better broadband, different broadband!® And some will buy it, and some won't, and some will still be on dialup, but it will be different, and that's good, right?
You're right. But once you let the average person into something, they usually ruin it.
Don't try to justify your behavior. You can't. It's like using drugs. You don't use them to make you a better person. You use them because you can and it's fun. So please, don't try to make yourself out as any better than the 'scum' that would try to stop you. There is no honor among thieves.
There are many ways of justifying actions other than through the morality of those actions. I don't read books to make me a better person, I read them "because I can and it's fun." Perhaps reading makes me a better person (sometimes yes, sometimes no), but that's not why I do it. Does that mean I can't justify reading? And yes, sometimes drugs can make people better, too. Recreational drugs can make people less tense, they can give people new perspective, they can introduce people to whole new worlds of experience. Do they do this for most who use them? Probably not. But there is more "honor among thieves" among recreational drug users than exists between record labels and their consumers.
It's this puritanical stance that has really started to get me over the last few years. "Just because it's legal, doesn't make it right", true, but just because someone doesn't think it's right, doesn't make it so. Everything doesn't have to make the world a better place to have justification.
That aside, I do agree with your thesis. "P2P makes the world a better place" is one of the most specious and nebulous statements I've heard in a great while.
The royal "we" might not be right in selling it, but corporations exist for one reason: to make money. For good or for ill, there are no moral obligations placed on them. They develop a product, someone wants to buy it, they sell it. End of story. Stop anthropomorphizing them.
On one hand, I perfectly respect the need for anonymous reporting for publicly traded companies and/or companies that spend an appropriate amount on network security. It obviously can be very damaging to their reputations if they happen to be on the front end of the vulnerability cycle and get hit before the exploit has been disseminated to the masses. The average stockholder doesn't recognize that sometimes shit happens, and perfect network security is a pipe-dream (especially if those same stockholders want costs cut, meaning the infosec department is running on a shoestring.)
However, in the case of companies that don't spend an appropriate amount on infosec, fear of public knowledge of their lack of security is often the only impetus to spend any money at all. Case in point: as the only "computer guy" (read:webmaster) at work, any problems with systems, be they internal or external, get blamed on me. I've fought tooth and nail for training (nope), a new network architecture (confidential documents, including employee data and customer financials, are stored on a Win2k box that has no firewall, no A/V, nothing), even just the ability to install freeware solutions (fuck spending an appropriate amount of money, just let me spend some time, please) have all gone by the wayside. The only time I can get approval for anything is when I lay out specific scenarios of stolen data being released publicly and the ensuing customer backlash over the lack of security. Without that hammer, I've got nothing. And since the only infosec experience I have is that which I can get for free, on my own time, I need all the hammers I can get.
When GNN was purchased by AOL (fall of 1996), AOL grandfathered me at $9.99 for 6 months. Once my dorm got ethernet, I called to cancel AOL. I wish I had had a program to do it for me. It took me an hour (!) to convince them that yes, I really was serious, and no, a free month wouldn't change my mind.
But, "DJ Ed White" sounds like the SNL skit Jerrod's Room (Jimmy Fallon) with "DJ Jonathan Feinstein". After years of hearing DJ Shadow, DJ Quik, & DJ "Whatever noise my saucepan made when I threw it", it's just weird to hear DJ followed by an actual name. How about using Eazy-E? I think the name is free.;)
Section 5 of Part 1 of Bruce Sterling's The Hacker Crackdown. None of this was done from the outside. AT&T only wanted people to think it did. What happened was the complete result of programming failure.
Bruce describes the problem thusly: "Within the C software was a long "do... while" construct. The "do... while" construct contained a "switch" statement. The "switch" statement contained an "if" clause. The "if" clause contained a "break." The "break" was supposed to "break" the "if" clause. Instead, the "break" broke the "switch" statement."
The upshot was this: the new System 7 software provided a safety net in case a switch had issues. It would rid itself of all calls, then reboot itself, and when it came back online, it would send out an "OK" signal. The problem was, the "OK" signal would cause all the switches on the net to bookkeep the fact that the other switch was back online. While bookkeeping, the flaw arose: If two calls came in at almost exactly the same time while in bookkeeping mode, the data would get garbled due to the glitch. Then the switch would drop all calls, reboot itself, and then send out an "OK" signal to all the other switches. See the problem forming? A cascade of ups, downs, and "OK" signals floods within ten minutes, and nightmare scenario occurs.
Remember this, it was not a hack. It was simply poor programming.
Really? I mean, for all the posturing and evil acts they've committed over the past few years, I had no earthly idea that the RIAA was trying to make it more expensive (via penalties, subscription costs, or whatever they're shooting for these days) for me to trade music.
However, I disagree with the first thesis of the article on face. The RIAA could not give two shits less where their fees come from. I promise you, if Satan himself (the real one, not Hillary Rosen) were to bring them a business plan, they'd jump on it. So, why do they care about the startup costs of traditional, "terrestrial" radio stations? They don't. They just want to receive money whenever "their" music is played. They don't care if it's net stream, radio, or on TV commercials. Say what you want about the RIAA (and you can start by saying they're rat-bastard pieces of shit), but one thing they're not about is caring who it is that gives them money.
This whole article reads like it was written for the back of a cereal box.
Slashdot Mirror
I was good enough on my own to make the semis of the tourney, which is where it got interesting. All the lights go down, there are about 40 spectators, and Nine Inch Nails starts blaring. Needless to say, I got locked in very quickly. My mind was swimming, and all I could think was "kill, kill, kill!" 30 minutes into the round, I had 20 kills and was in fourth. Then I got the rocket launcher. By the end 30 minutes later, I had 110 kills, and had doubled the score of the next highest person. The odds on me to win the whole thing went from 50-1 to 4-1 in 30 minutes. So from experience, I can vouch that the average player can go on unreal streaks. With some enhancement, of course.
"If I want directions, I'm not asking a one-armed man. I'm asking the one-legged man, because I guarantee you he knows the shortest way to get anywhere."
Remember the old phrase "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"? Well, it seems Win2k just coded it. :P
Yes!
I've always said that if I ever go Unabomber, one of my first pairs of targets will be the Mediaplayer dev group and the offices of Real. They will each receive a pipe bomb set to go off at the exact same time. When they go off, I envision a little piece of paper floating out, only to be grabbed out of mid-air. Each note will read "This pipe will configure itself to be the default for all future bombs." And then each person will hold the paper to the sky and scream "Khan!" At least in my daydreams.
No, they don't. They just charge more to people who don't have the discount cards. Depending on the options available to you (I have not a clue where you come from), there are numerous grocery options that don't have "discount cards". Compare prices. Wal-Mart (while evil) has lower prices than the grocery store with a discount card. HEB (a regional chain that's spreading like wildfire) does, too.
Now, I live in the most competitive grocery market (the article is from Fortune, not this hippie rag :) ) in the US, the Dallas/Ft. Worth market, so options are everywhere. I don't like Wal-Mart any more than the next person. But I shop there. Why?
They don't want my shopping information, and they have lower prices.
The normal grocer's notion that I should be willing to give them something valuable, for no better prices than I can get somewhere else, is laughable and irritating. Can't beat Wal-Mart without it? Fine. Go away. And you know who to blame for my attitude (you knew this was coming)? You and your corporate brethren. Change the way you deal with me, and I'll consider changing the way I think about you.
Because it's in their mission statement. I sent an email to a friend about this a while ago, which is why I still have it.
From their job opening page : In a word, Google's goal is to do important stuff that matters to a lot of people. In pursuit of that goal, we've developed a set of values that drive our work, including one of our most cherished core values: "Don't be evil." (Emphasis mine.)
An Army recruiter, calling to tell my parents my score on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery test (I took it in high school to get out of class): "Your son has some of the highest scores I've seen. Except....on the 'mechanics' section."
My dad: "What'd he get?"
Recruiter: "A 15. You know, sir, the average 11th grade girl scores a 45."
My dad: "That's higher than I would have thought he'd score."
Picture a production executive: "Why should I not agree to do this terrible movie? People will see it anyway." A theater owner: "Why should I not perpetrate the single largest price gouge that the average American sees over some kernels of 'popped corn' and sugar water? People will pay." A person in charge of showing the movie: "Let's put this movie in 8 screens, so everybody sees it all at once, and everybody forgets about it in 3 weeks. Then, let's do it again!"
The problem is that the problem feeds itself. So does this one. You know what the solution is? 'tis like a marketer's dream... More solutions! Bigger broadband, better broadband, different broadband!® And some will buy it, and some won't, and some will still be on dialup, but it will be different, and that's good, right?
You're right. But once you let the average person into something, they usually ruin it.
Well, sure. Would you want to be the guy to tell Jim-Bob the serial masturbator that he was getting a cut in pay?
There are many ways of justifying actions other than through the morality of those actions. I don't read books to make me a better person, I read them "because I can and it's fun." Perhaps reading makes me a better person (sometimes yes, sometimes no), but that's not why I do it. Does that mean I can't justify reading? And yes, sometimes drugs can make people better, too. Recreational drugs can make people less tense, they can give people new perspective, they can introduce people to whole new worlds of experience. Do they do this for most who use them? Probably not. But there is more "honor among thieves" among recreational drug users than exists between record labels and their consumers.
It's this puritanical stance that has really started to get me over the last few years. "Just because it's legal, doesn't make it right", true, but just because someone doesn't think it's right, doesn't make it so. Everything doesn't have to make the world a better place to have justification.
That aside, I do agree with your thesis. "P2P makes the world a better place" is one of the most specious and nebulous statements I've heard in a great while.
This is a longer version of what I used to yell before throwing the NES controller against the wall.
The royal "we" might not be right in selling it, but corporations exist for one reason: to make money. For good or for ill, there are no moral obligations placed on them. They develop a product, someone wants to buy it, they sell it. End of story. Stop anthropomorphizing them.
However, in the case of companies that don't spend an appropriate amount on infosec, fear of public knowledge of their lack of security is often the only impetus to spend any money at all. Case in point: as the only "computer guy" (read:webmaster) at work, any problems with systems, be they internal or external, get blamed on me. I've fought tooth and nail for training (nope), a new network architecture (confidential documents, including employee data and customer financials, are stored on a Win2k box that has no firewall, no A/V, nothing), even just the ability to install freeware solutions (fuck spending an appropriate amount of money, just let me spend some time, please) have all gone by the wayside. The only time I can get approval for anything is when I lay out specific scenarios of stolen data being released publicly and the ensuing customer backlash over the lack of security. Without that hammer, I've got nothing. And since the only infosec experience I have is that which I can get for free, on my own time, I need all the hammers I can get.
When GNN was purchased by AOL (fall of 1996), AOL grandfathered me at $9.99 for 6 months. Once my dorm got ethernet, I called to cancel AOL. I wish I had had a program to do it for me. It took me an hour (!) to convince them that yes, I really was serious, and no, a free month wouldn't change my mind.
But, "DJ Ed White" sounds like the SNL skit Jerrod's Room (Jimmy Fallon) with "DJ Jonathan Feinstein". After years of hearing DJ Shadow, DJ Quik, & DJ "Whatever noise my saucepan made when I threw it", it's just weird to hear DJ followed by an actual name. How about using Eazy-E? I think the name is free. ;)
Bruce describes the problem thusly: "Within the C software was a long "do... while" construct. The "do... while" construct contained a "switch" statement. The "switch" statement contained an "if" clause. The "if" clause contained a "break." The "break" was supposed to "break" the "if" clause. Instead, the "break" broke the "switch" statement."
The upshot was this: the new System 7 software provided a safety net in case a switch had issues. It would rid itself of all calls, then reboot itself, and when it came back online, it would send out an "OK" signal. The problem was, the "OK" signal would cause all the switches on the net to bookkeep the fact that the other switch was back online. While bookkeeping, the flaw arose: If two calls came in at almost exactly the same time while in bookkeeping mode, the data would get garbled due to the glitch. Then the switch would drop all calls, reboot itself, and then send out an "OK" signal to all the other switches. See the problem forming? A cascade of ups, downs, and "OK" signals floods within ten minutes, and nightmare scenario occurs.
Remember this, it was not a hack. It was simply poor programming.
However, I disagree with the first thesis of the article on face. The RIAA could not give two shits less where their fees come from. I promise you, if Satan himself (the real one, not Hillary Rosen) were to bring them a business plan, they'd jump on it. So, why do they care about the startup costs of traditional, "terrestrial" radio stations? They don't. They just want to receive money whenever "their" music is played. They don't care if it's net stream, radio, or on TV commercials. Say what you want about the RIAA (and you can start by saying they're rat-bastard pieces of shit), but one thing they're not about is caring who it is that gives them money.
This whole article reads like it was written for the back of a cereal box.
And then try to board an airplane.
"Look, Johnson, here comes that light blue '96 'technical issue' again."
"I fucking hate pikeys."