Aside from the problem of typing cyrillic script from a QWERTY keybord to do searches, I tried learning russian and while learning the cyrillic alphabet was fairly easy I found the language itself with its constantly mutating verbs and nouns a real struggle compared to learning French.
Its one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and the emerging economies in south america almost all speak it (apart from brazil and a few small countries). Also being a european language its not *that* different from english unlike say chinese which might as well be from another planet plus it uses the latin alphabet so an english speaker can read it immediately even if he doesn't understand what it means which makes learning a LOT simpler.
Stop people having so many damn kids. Less people = less food required = less land needed. But even now women having endless kids are seen as heroes by even educated people. Until humanity realises that it can't keep on reproducing exponentially then these problems will never be solved.
And don't any even attempt to use the worn out argument about how agricultural production has kept up with population growth. Sure it has - as long as you ignore the almost total destruction of the natural enviroment where it occurs. Pesticides, fertilizer runoff, stripped forests , farting cows, soil loss etc etc
Well, not entirely true, POTS lines do go down, but here in britain BT tends to get its arse into gear when that happens and fix them pdq. If broadband goes down its usually "We're working on it, we might have it fixed by the end of the week. Maybe.".
"I also tend to use ear buds while on the move. This allows me to hear the conversations better. Lets me get stuff done while I hoof it between people."
Sounds to me like your company has you by the balls. But you probably see it as liberating. Funny how perceptions can be different.
I have to sometimes make long calls for my work and I *really* don't want to do it on a tinky winky little mobile phone, its bloody uncomfortable. And if I want to use a speakerphone then i'll need the mobile plugged into the wall anyway so the battery doesn't die halfway through and how is that any more convenient that having a landline with a cable? Also our Cisco deskphones have the entire company phonebook available on them which is very convenient. Their only downside is being IP phones , when the local LAN goes down so do all the phones.
What do you think all the dead space probes already on the surface are? Besides which , if humanity is to be a permanent presence on mars which is the whole premise behind the mission then "contamination" is inevitable.
"Some people find the geological and potential biological history of Mars intensely interesting."
I doubt many of them find it interesting enough that the prospect of eternal exile and a lingering death will appeal to them.
"there's plenty of people who risk their lives on a regular basis working hazardous jobs and playing extreme sports."
Extreme sports are done by adrenaline junkies - effectively drug addicts. They're the last sort of people you want on a space mission. As for risky jobs , sure there are plenty , but generally they provide financial rewards and you generally get to go out with your family at the w/e - not just have to go back to some small module you're sharing with a load of maladjusted individuals.
"except that you're risking your life for a far more magnificent cause"
Well, thats your opinion. The Apollo astronauts knew they'd be home within 3 days if everything went ok. This is a whole different ball game.
It would contaminate nothing. The body's water would freeze dry within hours and the UV radiation and near vacuum would make sure any organics soon decomposed or evaporated and the ice itself would sublime eventually. All you'd be left with after a few years would be minerals from the bones and teeth.
... is someone who spends their working day just trying to poke holes and find vulnerabilities in software a "researcher"? Glorified tester maybe but thats about it. I somehow don't think these people hang around in white labcoats in clean rooms with clipboards looking at the latest results. More like some fat guy slouching with a pizza running yet another penetration program that someone else wrote.
Newflash numbnuts - cholesterol is a vital part of our biochemistry. Without it cell membranes would fall apart. The problem comes when its eaten in excess. But you could say that about anything - salt, sugar, protein, carbs, even water.
AFWIW a high protein low carb diet is actually quite healthy. Protein doesn't give you heart problems OR make you fat. Ask any athlete. Though if you over indulge over a long period of time it can give you kidney issues. And bad breath.
". I could just as easily remark that ACLs and Mandatory Access Control were bolted onto Linux after the fact;"
My friend, I was using ACLs on HP-UX back in the late 80s before windows even existed so spare me the standard issue argument Windows NT being some sort of earth shattering breakthrough in OS design. Linux simply ported what Unix has had for decades.
"AFAIK you cannot for example grant "create folder" access in Ext3/4 without granting delete folder, create file, delete file, and change permission rights as well-"
You're confusing standard unix permissions with ACLs which are not "bolted on" in Linux, they're a standard shipment and have been for years. Whether many people use them or not is another matter.
"Because various system apps (such as e.g. the help browser) use it to render HTML."
Oh well, thats obviously a crucial component of the OS and I can completely understand why it wouldn't function without it!
Not.
"You know, much like e.g. help in Gnome uses GtkWebView"
I wouldn't know , I don't use Gnome because unlike in Windows I have a choice of window managers I can use and the OS will even function without a GUI at all. Something Windows has only just managed in the last few years and even now its still requires a lightweight GUI for initial setup and admin!
"Tell a security research that chroot is a security feature and they'd laugh at you, it's useful, but don't confuse it for what it's not, because there are issues with it."
If you're thinking about the double chroot issue thats been fixed in most setups and FreeBSD has its "jails". So no, they wouldn't laugh.
"UNIX started out without hardware memory protection,"
Yeah, back in the early 70s. We're in 2012.
"Remember ftp and telnet?"
Those were designed in the 80s and the fact that they used plaintext wasn't a bug unlike all the Windows exploits. How about we compare apples with oranges?
Go to any large council estate (or housing project in the US) and you'll see plenty of unschooled kids who learn nothing because no one makes them go to school and so they know nothing and end up on societies scrapheap because they're unemployable.
And the sort of "unschooled" kids you're talking about are usually bright middle class kids who's parents actually home school them but don't call it that.
"And are you telling me you can remove Safari from OSX?"
Dunno, but you sure as hell can remove every browser from Linux and it'll still function fine. Why does Windows need IE dlls at all?
"your driver "processes" in OSX run with kernel privileges."
Dunno, but in linux system daemons run under all sorts of users. eg apache, smmsp, daemon. They don't all need to run as root.
"you generally dont want a normal user launching a program that runs with root, and Windows already has a method of stripping privileges from a process."
Generally they fire up with root privs, carry out a few tasks then setuid() to something innocuous. But if you're really worried then google "chroot" , its something thats been around since the year dot in unix which Windows still hasn't got. Also SE Linux has lots of extra stuff.
Unix started out with security built in , Windows was a free for all desktop OS thats been upgraded piecemeal over the years and it shows.
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Hmm , I'm not so sure.
Aside from the problem of typing cyrillic script from a QWERTY keybord to do searches, I tried learning russian and while learning the cyrillic alphabet was fairly easy I found the language itself with its constantly mutating verbs and nouns a real struggle compared to learning French.
Its one of the most widely spoken languages in the world and the emerging economies in south america almost all speak it (apart from brazil and a few small countries). Also being a european language its not *that* different from english unlike say chinese which might as well be from another planet plus it uses the latin alphabet so an english speaker can read it immediately even if he doesn't understand what it means which makes learning a LOT simpler.
Stop people having so many damn kids. Less people = less food required = less land needed. But even now women having endless kids are seen as heroes by even educated people. Until humanity realises that it can't keep on reproducing exponentially then these problems will never be solved.
And don't any even attempt to use the worn out argument about how agricultural production has kept up with population growth. Sure it has - as long as you ignore the almost total destruction of the natural enviroment where it occurs. Pesticides, fertilizer runoff, stripped forests , farting cows, soil loss etc etc
They know the cost of everything but the value of nothing. Unless its related to re-election campaigns.
That would be most of the population. The religious nutters are a small percentage.
To be as comfortable as my deskphone it would have to be the size and shape of a 1980s model. Which arn't terribly convenient to carry around.
You're welcome :o)
Though to be fair - there is the company LAN and the "local" LAN connecting my PC and about a dozen others to the nearest bridge.
"POTS lines never go down. Ever. "
Well, not entirely true, POTS lines do go down, but here in britain BT tends to get its arse into gear when that happens and fix them pdq. If broadband goes down its usually "We're working on it, we might have it fixed by the end of the week. Maybe.".
"I also tend to use ear buds while on the move. This allows me to hear the conversations better. Lets me get stuff done while I hoof it between people."
Sounds to me like your company has you by the balls. But you probably see it as liberating. Funny how perceptions can be different.
It doesn't happen often , maybe once or twice a year, but its a nuisance when it does.
I have to sometimes make long calls for my work and I *really* don't want to do it on a tinky winky little mobile phone, its bloody uncomfortable. And if I want to use a speakerphone then i'll need the mobile plugged into the wall anyway so the battery doesn't die halfway through and how is that any more convenient that having a landline with a cable? Also our Cisco deskphones have the entire company phonebook available on them which is very convenient. Their only downside is being IP phones , when the local LAN goes down so do all the phones.
What do you think all the dead space probes already on the surface are? Besides which , if humanity is to be a permanent presence on mars which is the whole premise behind the mission then "contamination" is inevitable.
"Some people find the geological and potential biological history of Mars intensely interesting."
I doubt many of them find it interesting enough that the prospect of eternal exile and a lingering death will appeal to them.
"there's plenty of people who risk their lives on a regular basis working hazardous jobs and playing extreme sports."
Extreme sports are done by adrenaline junkies - effectively drug addicts. They're the last sort of people you want on a space mission. As for risky jobs , sure there are plenty , but generally they provide financial rewards and you generally get to go out with your family at the w/e - not just have to go back to some small module you're sharing with a load of maladjusted individuals.
"except that you're risking your life for a far more magnificent cause"
Well, thats your opinion. The Apollo astronauts knew they'd be home within 3 days if everything went ok. This is a whole different ball game.
"That would contaminate the soil forever."
It would contaminate nothing. The body's water would freeze dry within hours and the UV radiation and near vacuum would make sure any organics soon decomposed or evaporated and the ice itself would sublime eventually. All you'd be left with after a few years would be minerals from the bones and teeth.
Creating something is a lot more fun than picking it apart.
... is someone who spends their working day just trying to poke holes and find vulnerabilities in software a "researcher"? Glorified tester maybe but thats about it. I somehow don't think these people hang around in white labcoats in clean rooms with clipboards looking at the latest results. More like some fat guy slouching with a pizza running yet another penetration program that someone else wrote.
Newflash numbnuts - cholesterol is a vital part of our biochemistry. Without it cell membranes would fall apart. The problem comes when its eaten in excess. But you could say that about anything - salt, sugar, protein, carbs, even water.
AFWIW a high protein low carb diet is actually quite healthy. Protein doesn't give you heart problems OR make you fat. Ask any athlete. Though if you over indulge over a long period of time it can give you kidney issues. And bad breath.
Ok , its just a lot easier to turn my wrist 90 degrees than unzip a pocket pull out a phone, wake it up and check the time on that.
"Most people don't even wear watches anymore"
I do. A flick of the wrist is a lot more convenient than searching around for my phone in my pocket or bag.
...trying to outcompete each other without noticing that a 3rd party has created internal combustion engine.
". I could just as easily remark that ACLs and Mandatory Access Control were bolted onto Linux after the fact;"
My friend, I was using ACLs on HP-UX back in the late 80s before windows even existed so spare me the standard issue argument Windows NT being some sort of earth shattering breakthrough in OS design. Linux simply ported what Unix has had for decades.
"AFAIK you cannot for example grant "create folder" access in Ext3/4 without granting delete folder, create file, delete file, and change permission rights as well-"
You're confusing standard unix permissions with ACLs which are not "bolted on" in Linux, they're a standard shipment and have been for years. Whether many people use them or not is another matter.
"Because various system apps (such as e.g. the help browser) use it to render HTML."
Oh well, thats obviously a crucial component of the OS and I can completely understand why it wouldn't function without it!
Not.
"You know, much like e.g. help in Gnome uses GtkWebView"
I wouldn't know , I don't use Gnome because unlike in Windows I have a choice of window managers I can use and the OS will even function without a GUI at all. Something Windows has only just managed in the last few years and even now its still requires a lightweight GUI for initial setup and admin!
"Tell a security research that chroot is a security feature and they'd laugh at you, it's useful, but don't confuse it for what it's not, because there are issues with it."
If you're thinking about the double chroot issue thats been fixed in most setups and FreeBSD has its "jails". So no, they wouldn't laugh.
"UNIX started out without hardware memory protection,"
Yeah, back in the early 70s. We're in 2012.
"Remember ftp and telnet?"
Those were designed in the 80s and the fact that they used plaintext wasn't a bug unlike all the Windows exploits. How about we compare apples with oranges?
Go to any large council estate (or housing project in the US) and you'll see plenty of unschooled kids who learn nothing because no one makes them go to school and so they know nothing and end up on societies scrapheap because they're unemployable.
And the sort of "unschooled" kids you're talking about are usually bright middle class kids who's parents actually home school them but don't call it that.
"And are you telling me you can remove Safari from OSX?"
Dunno, but you sure as hell can remove every browser from Linux and it'll still function fine. Why does Windows need IE dlls at all?
"your driver "processes" in OSX run with kernel privileges."
Dunno, but in linux system daemons run under all sorts of users. eg apache, smmsp, daemon. They don't all need to run as root.
"you generally dont want a normal user launching a program that runs with root, and Windows already has a method of stripping privileges from a process."
Generally they fire up with root privs, carry out a few tasks then setuid() to something innocuous. But if you're really worried then google "chroot" , its something thats been around since the year dot in unix which Windows still hasn't got. Also SE Linux has lots of extra stuff.
Unix started out with security built in , Windows was a free for all desktop OS thats been upgraded piecemeal over the years and it shows.