My guess is that the plan involves having lots of manpower.
No, its more about getting access to the areas where the toads are advancing into Western Australia.
Basically, the toads are progressing towards WA in an area of the north-west controlled by the army. Civilian volunteers and CALM (Conservation and Land Management) personnel are unable to access massive areas of land as they are restricted to Defence personnel, so (WA) state environment minister, Mark McGowan has asked the federal defence minister for access and help.
Our adaptation is specifically the ability to be smart enough not to ingest the stuff.
You'd think so, wouldn't you? But no, there are actually people who lick them and even make them into tea.
The toad of choice is the Cane Toad, a tropical green and red toad that's a favorite among aquarium habitues. It secretes a toxin, called bufotenine to ward off predators. Ingesting bufotenine - by licking the toad, or killing it and boiling it's skin for a foul-tasting TEA - will give you a high similar to that of psilocybin (a hallucinogen found in certain mushrooms). http://www.erowid.org/animals/toads/toads_media3.s html
I hear this all the time, and I've come to the resignation that it's just a fact of life that people want to think this way, but frankly it's bullshit.
So what has changed since Nicholas Petreley wrote this in 1999?
Right now the future remains uncertain for many trade publications. They aren't ready to buy into the guaranteed success of Linux. For that reason, Microsoft certainly hasn't lost all of its influence.
The company still generates a lot of press with targeted announcements about the future of Windows NT/2000. They are targeted at those specific areas where people find Linux more attractive. And the press dutifully publishes these announcements and supporting quotes without applying critical thinking.
You're kidding, right? All it says is that if key developers leave a project, the project will struggle. Duh, and obviously that's not unique to open source software, it's true of closed source projects too.
What's not said in the article is that if the core engineers leave a closed source project, the project and the company may fail and leave the customers stranded. If the core people of an open source team leave, they are free to take the code with them and fork the project, so the customers have continuity (Xfree, Mamba etc are examples)
From a company's point of view, that's scary - if you upset your developers, you stand to lose your entire product, as well as the people who built it. For the customers and developers though, it's all good. The company has to keep the developers happy so they'll stay, and the customers know their software will outlast the company.
Yeah, it's a joke - pretty funny too when you start looking closely. Apart from the 2.5 kernel hint, here's a few gems.
Already contained code owned by SCO is still included benefiting the stability and overall experience opposed to recent Linux kernel releases.
What you say!! Somebody set us up the bomb!!
SCO is eager to be the only future provider of Linux Systems for the enterprise market.
The "only" provider? Yup, a realistic goal there, if you're a megalomaniac...
As according to the Yankee Group SCO OpenServer products still outbeat Linux' yearly uptime by about 20 percent
Outbeating is good. Not grammatically of course, but still good.
And of course the kicker is the uptime claim - Yankee Group actually claimed that it was Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server that had the 20% better uptime. Funny when you know many people think MS are behind SCO's litigation.
Laugh, people. It's a pisstake, and a pretty good one.
Perhaps, but I like to think it was more a sly amalgamation of both those words as well as "queue", meaning "line up" and the Spanish "que?" or "why?" into an existential analysis of many of the world's malaises.
Clearly he is asking why the lineup of flying chair jokes is allowed or LET be started now. It is plaintive query about the values of a community which would reward those who would mock as august a personage as monkey-boy. An intellectual and insightful comment on the fragility of a society which fails to respect the sweaty and impulsive dancers on the stage of life.
Access can store images and documents as OLE objects I believe.
Sort of. You can embed things like word documents, then launch them from the Access app, but Access does some weird stuff with filesizes. Expect to see even simple documents consume an additional half a meg once they're added, and big documents to chew up even more space.
I once tried to get tech support for a Red Hat 5.2 install.
We all understand your feelings. In 1998, when RH 5.2 was released, you failed at the most basic geek test. You couldn't even install the simplest Linux distro. Your life is in ruins. You can't get any work done, You're not eating properly, your wife is leaving you, the dog won't speak to you etc., etc.
And it's all our fault. Everytime you try to do anything coherent, useful, sensible, constructive etc, etc, like installing BSD or buying a Mac, the anguish of our mocking laughter washes back over you in that familiar hot flush of shame. 'RTFM' comments have destroyed your manhood.
And the worst of it is?
We're still laughing at you.
Did it occur to you that the fence probably had a gate, and the gate probably had an interlock connected to it to stop the robot if the gate was opened, and was probably padlocked to keep people from just wandering in?
Yes, it did occur to me, and it has occurred to a lot of other people besides. I've been doing some work in a facility that uses welding robots to fabricate parts of railway rolling stock, and all of them are protected by multi-zone floor scanners which slow or stop the robot depending where you stand.
I don't see how this is any different from a normal industrial accident with something like a sheet metal press.
It isn't, and the robot in question had less automated safety features than your average modern metal press.
There's no need to invoke Asimov's laws for something which has less AI than an automatic door. Even a few sensors linked to a cutout switch could have prevented the accident. Something like this: http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/FeaturedRobot. html could even have prevented the accident and allowed the robot to continue working.
The point is, however, that malware mostly (ab)uses perfectly legal system instructions.
Yes, that IS the point. And what that means is that by analysing which of those system instructions are being abused and how, you can redesign the system to resist the attacks better. In Windows, for example, the \HKLM\...\Run: registry entries, WINDOWS\Prefetch, etc are the most common points for malware to hook into to ensure they are loaded at starup. Make it easier to protect and clean those areas and you'll eliminate a whole class of malware.
The reason people do write malware is, as/. meme goes, 4) Profit!!!1one
You may make it more difficult, but as long as the motive is plain and simple profit, the motive will remain.
Yep absolutely, but the point I was making was that most of the profit requires the malware to remain on the victims' computers for a significant period. If OS vendors make their products easy to clean, there's less profit, and therefore less motive.
I am stunned at the amount of work it would take to make the move.
1. Download Knoppix iso
2. Burn iso to CD
3. Reboot computer with CD in drive
4. Use Linux
5. If you like it, open a shell and type "knoppix-installer" to make it permanent
6. ???
7. Profit
So, basically, we'll have another anti-virus-like program monitoring our systems.
That's the most attractive option for the big malware prevention/removal companies, and is the most likely scenario in the near future.
The opportunity this type of forensic analysis creates though, is that it exposes and classifies the methods the malware uses to insinuate itself into the host operating system. That means OS vendors can analyse the failure points of their products and harden them against the malware.
At the moment, the two key problems with malware removal are
1. Recognising its presence
2. Removing the malware and returning the computer to a safe state
If you minimise the number of places where programs can start at boot time and make any auto-starting program clearly visible and easily removable, for example, you will have made it easier for users to block or remove an infection and have reduced the motive for crackers to write the malware in the first place.
It's also an example of why an OS vendor who also sells malware tools has such a dangerous conflict of interests.
Slashdot Mirror
Hmmm, maybe this explains the recent exodus from Microsoft.
Fixed that for you.
Well, obviously not. If they had, it wouldn't have been a cold war.
Might've been a flame war though...
No, its more about getting access to the areas where the toads are advancing into Western Australia.
Basically, the toads are progressing towards WA in an area of the north-west controlled by the army. Civilian volunteers and CALM (Conservation and Land Management) personnel are unable to access massive areas of land as they are restricted to Defence personnel, so (WA) state environment minister, Mark McGowan has asked the federal defence minister for access and help.
The most likely role for the army would be to drive the scientists and field workers to the more remote parts of the range. It's pretty tough country.You'd think so, wouldn't you? But no, there are actually people who lick them and even make them into tea.
Cuppa anyone?So what has changed since Nicholas Petreley wrote this in 1999?
Do'h! Hey, can everybody please submit a bunch of good stories and get this off the front page in a hurry. I'm feeling really dumb right now.
You're kidding, right? All it says is that if key developers leave a project, the project will struggle. Duh, and obviously that's not unique to open source software, it's true of closed source projects too.
What's not said in the article is that if the core engineers leave a closed source project, the project and the company may fail and leave the customers stranded. If the core people of an open source team leave, they are free to take the code with them and fork the project, so the customers have continuity (Xfree, Mamba etc are examples)
From a company's point of view, that's scary - if you upset your developers, you stand to lose your entire product, as well as the people who built it. For the customers and developers though, it's all good. The company has to keep the developers happy so they'll stay, and the customers know their software will outlast the company.
Yeah, it's a joke - pretty funny too when you start looking closely. Apart from the 2.5 kernel hint, here's a few gems.
What you say!! Somebody set us up the bomb!! The "only" provider? Yup, a realistic goal there, if you're a megalomaniac... Outbeating is good. Not grammatically of course, but still good.And of course the kicker is the uptime claim - Yankee Group actually claimed that it was Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server that had the 20% better uptime. Funny when you know many people think MS are behind SCO's litigation.
Laugh, people. It's a pisstake, and a pretty good one.
Do you have any evidence to support this statement, or is it just something you trot out in every discussion of evolution?
That's not a recomendation, it's a consequence.
UAC - the UFIA for users...?
Perhaps, but I like to think it was more a sly amalgamation of both those words as well as "queue", meaning "line up" and the Spanish "que?" or "why?" into an existential analysis of many of the world's malaises.
Clearly he is asking why the lineup of flying chair jokes is allowed or LET be started now. It is plaintive query about the values of a community which would reward those who would mock as august a personage as monkey-boy. An intellectual and insightful comment on the fragility of a society which fails to respect the sweaty and impulsive dancers on the stage of life.
There's a lesson here for us all..
I thought we were at war with Eastasia. Or was that Oceania?
Being in a constant state of war is useful for demagogues. War justifies extreme measures, like spying on your own citizens.
Sort of. You can embed things like word documents, then launch them from the Access app, but Access does some weird stuff with filesizes. Expect to see even simple documents consume an additional half a meg once they're added, and big documents to chew up even more space.
We all understand your feelings. In 1998, when RH 5.2 was released, you failed at the most basic geek test. You couldn't even install the simplest Linux distro. Your life is in ruins. You can't get any work done, You're not eating properly, your wife is leaving you, the dog won't speak to you etc., etc.
And it's all our fault. Everytime you try to do anything coherent, useful, sensible, constructive etc, etc, like installing BSD or buying a Mac, the anguish of our mocking laughter washes back over you in that familiar hot flush of shame. 'RTFM' comments have destroyed your manhood.
And the worst of it is?
We're still laughing at you.
I might be movin' to Montana soon
Just to raise me up a crop of Mental Floss Raisin' it up
Waxen it down
In a little white box
I can sell uptown
Yes, it did occur to me, and it has occurred to a lot of other people besides. I've been doing some work in a facility that uses welding robots to fabricate parts of railway rolling stock, and all of them are protected by multi-zone floor scanners which slow or stop the robot depending where you stand.
There's also an international standard, ISO 10218, Manipulating Industrial Robots - Safety, which specifies distance zones depending on the time required to stop the machine. There's a pretty good overview of how it all works here: http://www.sick.com/gus/products/product_catalogs/ industrial/en.toolboxpar.0003.file.tmp/SichereMasc hinen_en.pdf - PDF Warning - Sick is the company which supplies most of the sensors at the fabrication workshop, btw.
It isn't, and the robot in question had less automated safety features than your average modern metal press.
There's no need to invoke Asimov's laws for something which has less AI than an automatic door. Even a few sensors linked to a cutout switch could have prevented the accident. Something like this: http://gsfctechnology.gsfc.nasa.gov/FeaturedRobot. html could even have prevented the accident and allowed the robot to continue working.
Yes, that IS the point. And what that means is that by analysing which of those system instructions are being abused and how, you can redesign the system to resist the attacks better. In Windows, for example, the \HKLM\...\Run: registry entries, WINDOWS\Prefetch, etc are the most common points for malware to hook into to ensure they are loaded at starup. Make it easier to protect and clean those areas and you'll eliminate a whole class of malware.
The reason people do write malware is, as /. meme goes, 4) Profit!!!1one
You may make it more difficult, but as long as the motive is plain and simple profit, the motive will remain.
Yep absolutely, but the point I was making was that most of the profit requires the malware to remain on the victims' computers for a significant period. If OS vendors make their products easy to clean, there's less profit, and therefore less motive.
1. Download Knoppix iso
2. Burn iso to CD
3. Reboot computer with CD in drive
4. Use Linux
5. If you like it, open a shell and type "knoppix-installer" to make it permanent
6. ???
7. Profit
That's the most attractive option for the big malware prevention/removal companies, and is the most likely scenario in the near future.
The opportunity this type of forensic analysis creates though, is that it exposes and classifies the methods the malware uses to insinuate itself into the host operating system. That means OS vendors can analyse the failure points of their products and harden them against the malware. At the moment, the two key problems with malware removal are
If you minimise the number of places where programs can start at boot time and make any auto-starting program clearly visible and easily removable, for example, you will have made it easier for users to block or remove an infection and have reduced the motive for crackers to write the malware in the first place.It's also an example of why an OS vendor who also sells malware tools has such a dangerous conflict of interests.
Doctor: Get Richard Simmonds! Stat!
Linux runs.
That's probably more than you want to hear in this context.
Yes, they are edible, and have been on the menu for a long time. http://quest.arc.nasa.gov/antarctica2/ask/new/Peng uins_as_food_for_humans.txt The flavour is ok - sort of halfway between dolphin and bald eagle.
Just run the script. Easier than chasing codecs... http://easyubuntu.freecontrib.org/