Many students are bringing in machines from home, often times infected.
Well, there's an easy solution to this problem. Use manageable switches/hubs in the dorms, and set up honeypots here and there.
If a machine hits a honeypot, and it can be as simple as a box running snort- your script logs into the switch/hub, and shuts off that port. Email the user registered to that port, because one of the first things they'll probably do is try to check their email from somewhere else, like a lab.
If you want to get really fancy, the script INSTEAD switches them to a different VLAN which is heavily firewalled and doesn't let them do squat- every page turns up a "your system is infected, please go here(link) to download patches/antivirus software"(and of course those are the only places the firewall lets them go). They get a button that shows up a half hour later that lets them re-try connecting their system to the main network, so late-night infections don't keep them from finishing a paper or something.
I do work for the Defense Department, and we won't consider using Microsoft code for anything that's important.
How typical of someone who works in defense- you haven't the slightest idea what goes on anywhere except in your little world.
Remember the destroyer that had to be towed into port because its Windows network crashed and it was dead in the water, because someone entered a 'zero' into a database field, and windows shit the bed? Yeah, the mission-critical functions of a nuclear powered destroyer aren't very important.
They insist Windows NT wasn't the cause of the problems, but the funny thing is, no non-Windows-NT/2k powered 'smart' ship has these problems. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and crashes like a duck...:-)
While NT may not have been the direct cause, the problem propagated(which is typical of windows systems), and never should have happened in the first place- even on crappy programming by an application developer, the DB and OS should not shit the bed because you have a zero in a field.
According to the register articles, Microsoft Federal Systems is now actively engaged in weapons systems integration, not just propulsion and shipboard operations. That is truly frightening...
Ever noticed/. NEVER has a positive article about the IT industry?
This got modded insightful?
Ignoring the fact that most stories come by reader submission...That's like saying "geez, all I see is green, must be something wrong with my eyes" while standing in a park. No shit, sherlock. The IT industry hasn't been doing very well for quite some time. Why should slashdot bias the news towards happy-go-lucky stories, when that doesn't reflect the industry status quo?
I have nothing to fear from overseas labor. Why? Someone in India can't fix the printer. They can't install antivirus software on someone's system. They can't set up the phone+new PC for a new employee. They can't head over to the hosting center and install that new rackmount server. They don't form a working relationship with their coworkers that makes assisting them and understanding their problems easier.
Further, they're not going to speak English very well(or they'll have such a thick accent, they might as well be speaking Martian), and it's going to be very expensive to communicate with them(and most upper management people don't consider "only via email" to be an acceptable communications medium, rightly so- it's damn tedious sometimes). Not to mention the time difference is a royal PITA. Companies are drastically slashing policies on telecommuting employees- remote just doesn't work. You've gotta be there for the over-the-cube-wall conversations, the overheard tidbits of information that contribute to overall 'corporate knowledge', the meetings...
You know what? While developers were making 2x, 3x my salary during the internet boom(and didn't have to deal with emergencies, late night pages, etc), I didn't hear any complaints from 'em. Now, they'll all finding they're replaceable and their salaries are dropping- while sysadmins, network engineers and internal support staff are doing a far better job of holding onto employment because their jobs require physical presence. I have zero sympathy for the programmers- maybe those engineers should have actually saved their money instead of spending it on Porsche Boxsters, the latest PDAs/phones, and expensive clothes. In my experience, the only people who were worse about spending habits were the execs, but the difference is, the execs are still getting paid insane salaries.
This method has an advantage over destroying the RFID tags after purchase because useful information on the tag could help consumers (e.g. laundry instructions)
Man, these RFID people are getting desperate. First it was "it'll stop theft". Then it was "It'll keep food from getting spoiled/infected. And that'll keep food safe from....TERRORISTS!"(Don't worry, I missed that train of thought too, but the T word is like 'dot com' was a couple years ago, so...) Now it's "it'll help you do your laundry." If you can't remember how a certain shirt gets washed by the time the little printed tag wears out, you either need fewer clothing, or a brain. Besides, what's the washing machine gonna do, scream at you like your mom/girlfriend/wife/CowboyNeal would, for mixing the underwear with the christmas socks? How useful.
Now, of course, I have one question- I assume there'll be maybe two bits for water temperature(cold, cold/warm, warm, hot), two bits for fragile-ness(delicate, knit, perm, regular), maybe two bits for color-compatibility(how much it bleeds) and color(dark, color, white, etc).
worthless if it's not gcc compatible to compile the kernal
Believe it or not, people DO sometimes run singular tasks on hardware which they want highly optimized...and believe it or not, you can actually install more than one compiler on your system at a time(yes, I know, amazing!)
Unlike gcc, it is optimized for the G5 and achieves a major boost in speed, as first results show
And is there a particular reason why IBM couldn't apply their work towards gcc? So much for the whole open-source, contribute-to-the-community philosophy.
I'm personally rather tired of companies which consider "contributing to the open-source community" to be "lets send in drivers for our proprietary hardware which only we will ever need." That's NOT contributing to the community, that's getting your foot into the kernel.
I know Watson labs has made many contributions to GCC over the years..and I'm not naive enough to think Big Evil Corporations aren't out for their own interests...but it's still a shame they couldn't have used gcc as a base.
I would certainly hope that we wouldn't stoop so low as to blatantly and openly be trading tips on how to avoid getting caught doing illegal things.
As opposed to, say, an article about all the various types of small-caliber ammunition?:-)
Provided you have a gun permit where necessary , there's nothing illegal about owning a gun in and of itself...but the Kuro5hin article extensively covers armour penetration(including what does/does not penetrate kevlar vests), what bullets do the most damage to living tissue, etc.
Maybe the living-tissue damage stuff applies to hunting, but when was the last time you saw a deer sporting kevlar, mmm?
I'm not sure how the trashcan talks, cause I didn't see the cast members mouth move (ventriloquism?) but there is very possibly a camera in the trash can, which stream video to another cast member who provides the voice.
Ooooor, in reality land, there's a guy a block away with a walkie-talkie and a pair of binoculars:-)
We had enough of a headache handling just two executive secretaries(NEVER piss off She Who Presents Things To Be Signed By God). Now we're gonna have 50 of 'em?
On the plus side, this will save a lot of marriages, since The Boss won't have an affair with the computer, get it pregnant, and run off with it to the cayman islands. So maybe it is a good thing...
Years ago while helping my high school with some card-catalog software, I was flipping through the manual and saw:
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
My first thought was "god, what a bunch of anal-retentive...." So I continued reading, and almost didn't notice that the next blank(or not blank) page was:
THIS PAGE ALSO INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
I smirked a little, and read on. It kept getting better though:
YES, THIS PAGE -ALSO- INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
THIS PAGE SHOULD NOT BE LEFT BLANK. OOPS, JUST KIDDING.
etc. etc...they obviously had some fun with that one, realizing just how stupid those messages are and poking fun at it.
It's almost as good as the Irix workstation which was donated to the HS...it would get increasingly cross if it found someone else was using its IP, and the logs would look something like this:
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is still using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is STILL using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... IS STILL USING MY IP ADDRESS GOD DAMMIT!
(I don't remember the exact wording, but yes, it would finally start cursing mildly).
Why do these people assume that scientists have no ethics?
Mustard gas
Nuclear weapons
DDT
Agent Orange
[any of hundreds of biotoxin weapons(sarin and the like)
[any of hundreds of] engineered biological weapons(helloooo anthrax)
PCBs
Asbestos
Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, etc.
The list goes on. And on. And on. Scientists have an EXCELLENT record of happily developing horrible technology. Further, they ALSO have an excellent track record at developing technologies which appear, on the surface, to be harmless- but turn out to really fuck up us, the environment, etc.
Sorry, but in my book, ANYTHING some genius comes up with in a lab is dangerous until proven safe...
I was in a car once where the computer malfunctioned and the fuel-injector was locked full-on. This is equivalent to flooring the accelerator.
You sir, are full of shit and know nothing of what you speak.
A stuck fuel injector will dump a TON of fuel into one cylinder(unless you have throttle-body injection, in which case, all cylinders); the super-rich mixture(throttle hasn't opened proportionately) won't ignite(or if it does, it'll burn so slowly+poorly it won't provide any power), and you'll actually loose an entire cylinder's worth of power. On a TBI car, if all the injectors stuck(even with TBI there are usually multiple injectors), the engine would die on the spot.
A friend's practically-brand-new Corvette had an entire bank(ie, one half of the V8) of injectors short to ground(many injectors are switched ground-side, not supply-side) and the car ran like complete crap, threw numerous error codes, etc.
The FEW out-of-control situations are either caused by stuck throttle linkages or drivers hitting the wrong pedal. Both problems are solved by simply SWITCHING THE FUCKING IGNITION OFF in all cases save diesels(early Rabbit diesels would sometimes start sucking engine oil into the intake and burning it instead of the diesel fuel, resulting in a possible out-of-control situation, as diesels have no ignition system- ignition is by heat of compression). Note- if you turn the ignition off, only turn it to the accessory position, or you'll be finding it mighty hard to steer. Lastly, don't dilly-dally with the brake pedal, the vacuum(or hydraulic fluid pressure reservoir, on some cars) only has a limited capability for brake assist with the engine off.
In this interview he asserts that immunity is built by infection, and without it you would have a much weaker ecosystem.
Okay, so in the perfect world where there are no viruses/trojans/worms...why would you need systems to have resistance to viruses/trojans/worms? You don't.
If you isolate yourself from the world, disinfect everything, etc...yes, you're going to get really sick some day because your immune system will be unprepared. You don't need some rocket-scientist immuniologist to tell you this. However, that doesn't apply to computers- they don't develop an immune response to viruses, adapt, learn, whatever you want to call it. There's no difference between a system you just installed, one that's been sitting behind a firewall for two years w/antivirus software etc, and one that's been sitting outside with antivirus software, etc. If a new virus comes along, they will ALL get infected if left unprotected. One could argue linux and MacOS are succeeding because Windows is slowly killing itself off by pissing off IT departments and users...but that's darwinism.
Seriously, where did they dig up this nutjob who felt he could compare computers to biological immune systems, purely because the term "virus" is used in both contexts?
Exactly what they will be taxing isn't clear, since the tax amounts to 9% of... something
If it's by the byte, for heavily black/jewish democratic networks 1MB= 1024kB. On republican networks 1MB will = 1000kB.
Oh...and will they count hanging patch cords? What about ones that are plugged in, but haven't fully clicked into the port, and fall out during counting?
God help Florida users if the government learns of half versus full duplex...
I noticed immediately that the author turned off SpamAssasin's Bayesnian filter, claiming "it already has 5 points, that's enough". WTF does that mean? The whole point of SpamAssasin is to do a lot of tests, and add the scores together- and then set the threshold you want(something he also doesn't modify- I changed my threshold after looking at the scores spams were getting and such.)
I trained SA's bayesnian filter off of about 3 years of spam and legitimate email sent directly to me. SA as a whole is working nearly flawlessly- the only messages it has tagged as spam were those from users with improperly configured email clients AND suspicious email addresses AND using only HTML. Ie, a message that would damn well look like spam. However, like I said, I lowered SA's threshold by 2 points because I was having too many false positives(that was before I had properly trained the Bayesnian filter, so perhaps I'll kick it up a point now.)
One important note- when you get a falsely classified message, it's REALLY important to tell Spamassasin's bayesnian filter about it. It's as easy as cut+paste if you do sa-learn --spam/--ham --single, hit enter, paste the message, hit control D. Done!
Because this was a university project, KASY0 was assembled entirely by unversity students, which while being a source of cheap labor, is also a good way to get a lot of students of involved in a great project.
At the risk of being flamebait- No. Using university students is almost always purely a way of getting cheap labor to do semi-mindless, or completely mindless, stuff the staff doesn't want to do- it's a common myth that students 'learn' by doing grunt work. I should know- I have several grad student friends, and they've thusfar spent a large part of their academic careers working in labs doing mind-numbingly boring stuff(according to them.)
Imagine if a Bio lab did this. The following would sound pretty absurd: "Help us move our lab, you'll learn about cellular recombination!". No. You'll learn what a bunch of lab equipment looks like, how eccentric the professors are, and how expensive/fragile/heavy the equipment is, and the next morning what sore muscles are like. Let's get a reality check here.
(from the site):Our group develops the systems technology for cluster supercomputing; the more people we can show how to apply these technologies, the better.
Huh? What cluster supercomputing "technology" does assembling a PC and plugging it into ethernet teach you? Did they give a presentation about how clustering technology works, for example? Did they explain to each person, as they put a machine in a particular place and wired it to a particular switch, WHY it was going there etc? Obviously I wasn't there, so perhaps someone from the group can contribute on this point.
LiIon can easily thermal-runaway
on
Flaming Cellphones
·
· Score: 4, Informative
For various reasons, these batteries may overheat and catch fire, or even explode!
Lithium Ion batteries will do this very readily when drained or charged too fast...or if overheated past a certain point under what would otherwise be normal current draw...and it's one of the reasons, for example, Panasonic won't sell me the cells I need to fix my Powerbook G3 Lombard's battery(almost all laptop+camcorder batteries, save the newest, are simply AA-sized LiIon cells in various series+parallel configurations).
Panasonic won't sell to anyone except a 'certified systems designer' who has signed agreements saying they'll design proper charging and current/temperature limiting circuitry. God forbid you should simply want to fix a battery pack which is no longer made. I suspect they do it mostly to keep battery pack repair impossible and force everyone to simply run right out and drop $50(cell phones) to $300(some laptop batteries). Sound conspiracy-theory ripe?:-)
LiIon is actually a pretty crappy technology, at least as far as consumers are concerned. Nobody told consumers that for the extra talk minutes they got, their battery will be damn near worthless in a few months if they use their phone a lot...because LiIon looses a staggering amount of its capacity with every charge/discharge cycle- and the deeper the discharge, the more capacity is lost with each cycle. NiMH batteries don't have this problem. Funny thing, eh?
Even worse, the batteries never get recycled(you think the consumer drives to the town dump and puts the battery in the battery recyling box? Nooooooo), they simply get chucked. There are some really nasty chemicals in LiIon batteries(like just about any battery technology today.)
By the way, speaking of batteries and the environment, a lot of people have trouble with car batteries and simply buy new ones instead of taking care of their car battery better(granted, car batteries are usually recycled better, because it's easier, and there's a lot of material, but still...) This site covers just about anything you ever wanted to know about lead-acid batteries and how to properly care for them: http://uuhome.de/william.darden/
Call me when you've got benchmarks from a real magazine(say a CAD/CAM, 3D graphics and/or animation, etc related magazine), and not two-guys-in-a-dorm-room-who-write-reviews-for-kick backs websites who run Unreal Tournament to benchmark professional graphics cards.
Case and point is their 'testbed' system: they used a "DFI LAN Party 875Pro" motherboard. They used Pentium 4's instead of workstation-class Xeon processors. IDE drives instead of SCSI. Folks, that's NOT a "workstation". A dual Xeon cHomPaq is a workstation.
Oh, and the benchmarks? One no-name benchmark, and 3D Studio Max. Oh, and Unreal Tournament. No fill rates, no polygon counts, no NOTHIN. No mention of Linux, which is tearing into the market like crazy among top computer animation houses.
This is pathetic- they're just a bunch of guys who compile daily linkages to other cheeseball review sites. They have no industry background, no experience, no nothing...just a P4 3GHz and a (probably pirated) copy of 3D Studio Max.
Slashdot Mirror
DUDES. It's a JOKE. Oh well, serves me right for posting during labor day weekened, when the lusers are the only people around.
Oh wait...
That's better than the Dognut Counting Competition...
That's DotGNU/GNU you insensitive clod!
So much for the warm fuzzy feelings.
Well, there's an easy solution to this problem. Use manageable switches/hubs in the dorms, and set up honeypots here and there.
If a machine hits a honeypot, and it can be as simple as a box running snort- your script logs into the switch/hub, and shuts off that port. Email the user registered to that port, because one of the first things they'll probably do is try to check their email from somewhere else, like a lab.
If you want to get really fancy, the script INSTEAD switches them to a different VLAN which is heavily firewalled and doesn't let them do squat- every page turns up a "your system is infected, please go here(link) to download patches/antivirus software"(and of course those are the only places the firewall lets them go). They get a button that shows up a half hour later that lets them re-try connecting their system to the main network, so late-night infections don't keep them from finishing a paper or something.
How typical of someone who works in defense- you haven't the slightest idea what goes on anywhere except in your little world.
Remember the destroyer that had to be towed into port because its Windows network crashed and it was dead in the water, because someone entered a 'zero' into a database field, and windows shit the bed? Yeah, the mission-critical functions of a nuclear powered destroyer aren't very important.
Register article about land-attack destroyer
Carrier with windows network(including a joke prediction about how the USS Ronald Regan be running SP2).
Report about the USS Yorktown
They insist Windows NT wasn't the cause of the problems, but the funny thing is, no non-Windows-NT/2k powered 'smart' ship has these problems. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and crashes like a duck...:-)
While NT may not have been the direct cause, the problem propagated(which is typical of windows systems), and never should have happened in the first place- even on crappy programming by an application developer, the DB and OS should not shit the bed because you have a zero in a field.
According to the register articles, Microsoft Federal Systems is now actively engaged in weapons systems integration, not just propulsion and shipboard operations. That is truly frightening...
This got modded insightful?
Ignoring the fact that most stories come by reader submission...That's like saying "geez, all I see is green, must be something wrong with my eyes" while standing in a park. No shit, sherlock. The IT industry hasn't been doing very well for quite some time. Why should slashdot bias the news towards happy-go-lucky stories, when that doesn't reflect the industry status quo?
I have nothing to fear from overseas labor. Why? Someone in India can't fix the printer. They can't install antivirus software on someone's system. They can't set up the phone+new PC for a new employee. They can't head over to the hosting center and install that new rackmount server. They don't form a working relationship with their coworkers that makes assisting them and understanding their problems easier.
Further, they're not going to speak English very well(or they'll have such a thick accent, they might as well be speaking Martian), and it's going to be very expensive to communicate with them(and most upper management people don't consider "only via email" to be an acceptable communications medium, rightly so- it's damn tedious sometimes). Not to mention the time difference is a royal PITA. Companies are drastically slashing policies on telecommuting employees- remote just doesn't work. You've gotta be there for the over-the-cube-wall conversations, the overheard tidbits of information that contribute to overall 'corporate knowledge', the meetings...
You know what? While developers were making 2x, 3x my salary during the internet boom(and didn't have to deal with emergencies, late night pages, etc), I didn't hear any complaints from 'em. Now, they'll all finding they're replaceable and their salaries are dropping- while sysadmins, network engineers and internal support staff are doing a far better job of holding onto employment because their jobs require physical presence. I have zero sympathy for the programmers- maybe those engineers should have actually saved their money instead of spending it on Porsche Boxsters, the latest PDAs/phones, and expensive clothes. In my experience, the only people who were worse about spending habits were the execs, but the difference is, the execs are still getting paid insane salaries.
Hey, maybe we should outsource executives :-)
Man, these RFID people are getting desperate. First it was "it'll stop theft". Then it was "It'll keep food from getting spoiled/infected. And that'll keep food safe from....TERRORISTS!"(Don't worry, I missed that train of thought too, but the T word is like 'dot com' was a couple years ago, so...) Now it's "it'll help you do your laundry." If you can't remember how a certain shirt gets washed by the time the little printed tag wears out, you either need fewer clothing, or a brain. Besides, what's the washing machine gonna do, scream at you like your mom/girlfriend/wife/CowboyNeal would, for mixing the underwear with the christmas socks? How useful.
Now, of course, I have one question- I assume there'll be maybe two bits for water temperature(cold, cold/warm, warm, hot), two bits for fragile-ness(delicate, knit, perm, regular), maybe two bits for color-compatibility(how much it bleeds) and color(dark, color, white, etc).
The question is- can we get an Evil Bit added?
Believe it or not, people DO sometimes run singular tasks on hardware which they want highly optimized...and believe it or not, you can actually install more than one compiler on your system at a time(yes, I know, amazing!)
And is there a particular reason why IBM couldn't apply their work towards gcc? So much for the whole open-source, contribute-to-the-community philosophy.
I'm personally rather tired of companies which consider "contributing to the open-source community" to be "lets send in drivers for our proprietary hardware which only we will ever need." That's NOT contributing to the community, that's getting your foot into the kernel.
I know Watson labs has made many contributions to GCC over the years..and I'm not naive enough to think Big Evil Corporations aren't out for their own interests...but it's still a shame they couldn't have used gcc as a base.
As opposed to, say, an article about all the various types of small-caliber ammunition? :-)
Provided you have a gun permit where necessary , there's nothing illegal about owning a gun in and of itself...but the Kuro5hin article extensively covers armour penetration(including what does/does not penetrate kevlar vests), what bullets do the most damage to living tissue, etc.
Maybe the living-tissue damage stuff applies to hunting, but when was the last time you saw a deer sporting kevlar, mmm?
Considering slashdot readers don't do a great job of reading the actual sites that are posted here, I don't see what the problem is.
Ooooor, in reality land, there's a guy a block away with a walkie-talkie and a pair of binoculars :-)
(or, gasp, they've got canned phrases/noises!)
We had enough of a headache handling just two executive secretaries(NEVER piss off She Who Presents Things To Be Signed By God). Now we're gonna have 50 of 'em?
On the plus side, this will save a lot of marriages, since The Boss won't have an affair with the computer, get it pregnant, and run off with it to the cayman islands. So maybe it is a good thing...
THIS PAGE INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
My first thought was "god, what a bunch of anal-retentive...." So I continued reading, and almost didn't notice that the next blank(or not blank) page was:
THIS PAGE ALSO INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
I smirked a little, and read on. It kept getting better though:
YES, THIS PAGE -ALSO- INTENTIONALLY LEFT BLANK
THIS PAGE SHOULD NOT BE LEFT BLANK. OOPS, JUST KIDDING.
etc. etc...they obviously had some fun with that one, realizing just how stupid those messages are and poking fun at it.
It's almost as good as the Irix workstation which was donated to the HS...it would get increasingly cross if it found someone else was using its IP, and the logs would look something like this:
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is still using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... is STILL using my IP address
Computer with MAC Address 34:23:23... IS STILL USING MY IP ADDRESS GOD DAMMIT!
(I don't remember the exact wording, but yes, it would finally start cursing mildly).
The list goes on. And on. And on. Scientists have an EXCELLENT record of happily developing horrible technology. Further, they ALSO have an excellent track record at developing technologies which appear, on the surface, to be harmless- but turn out to really fuck up us, the environment, etc.
Sorry, but in my book, ANYTHING some genius comes up with in a lab is dangerous until proven safe...
You sir, are full of shit and know nothing of what you speak.
A stuck fuel injector will dump a TON of fuel into one cylinder(unless you have throttle-body injection, in which case, all cylinders); the super-rich mixture(throttle hasn't opened proportionately) won't ignite(or if it does, it'll burn so slowly+poorly it won't provide any power), and you'll actually loose an entire cylinder's worth of power. On a TBI car, if all the injectors stuck(even with TBI there are usually multiple injectors), the engine would die on the spot.
A friend's practically-brand-new Corvette had an entire bank(ie, one half of the V8) of injectors short to ground(many injectors are switched ground-side, not supply-side) and the car ran like complete crap, threw numerous error codes, etc.
The FEW out-of-control situations are either caused by stuck throttle linkages or drivers hitting the wrong pedal. Both problems are solved by simply SWITCHING THE FUCKING IGNITION OFF in all cases save diesels(early Rabbit diesels would sometimes start sucking engine oil into the intake and burning it instead of the diesel fuel, resulting in a possible out-of-control situation, as diesels have no ignition system- ignition is by heat of compression). Note- if you turn the ignition off, only turn it to the accessory position, or you'll be finding it mighty hard to steer. Lastly, don't dilly-dally with the brake pedal, the vacuum(or hydraulic fluid pressure reservoir, on some cars) only has a limited capability for brake assist with the engine off.
Okay, so in the perfect world where there are no viruses/trojans/worms...why would you need systems to have resistance to viruses/trojans/worms? You don't.
If you isolate yourself from the world, disinfect everything, etc...yes, you're going to get really sick some day because your immune system will be unprepared. You don't need some rocket-scientist immuniologist to tell you this. However, that doesn't apply to computers- they don't develop an immune response to viruses, adapt, learn, whatever you want to call it. There's no difference between a system you just installed, one that's been sitting behind a firewall for two years w/antivirus software etc, and one that's been sitting outside with antivirus software, etc. If a new virus comes along, they will ALL get infected if left unprotected. One could argue linux and MacOS are succeeding because Windows is slowly killing itself off by pissing off IT departments and users...but that's darwinism.
Seriously, where did they dig up this nutjob who felt he could compare computers to biological immune systems, purely because the term "virus" is used in both contexts?
A, uh, shorter nick? :-)
If it's by the byte, for heavily black/jewish democratic networks 1MB= 1024kB. On republican networks 1MB will = 1000kB.
Oh...and will they count hanging patch cords? What about ones that are plugged in, but haven't fully clicked into the port, and fall out during counting?
God help Florida users if the government learns of half versus full duplex...
Nah, I like this one better: Big Cup of Shut the #$@! up
I can see it now, on Kuro5hin. "How to brew the perfect cup of shut the #$@! up"...
I noticed immediately that the author turned off SpamAssasin's Bayesnian filter, claiming "it already has 5 points, that's enough". WTF does that mean? The whole point of SpamAssasin is to do a lot of tests, and add the scores together- and then set the threshold you want(something he also doesn't modify- I changed my threshold after looking at the scores spams were getting and such.)
I trained SA's bayesnian filter off of about 3 years of spam and legitimate email sent directly to me. SA as a whole is working nearly flawlessly- the only messages it has tagged as spam were those from users with improperly configured email clients AND suspicious email addresses AND using only HTML. Ie, a message that would damn well look like spam. However, like I said, I lowered SA's threshold by 2 points because I was having too many false positives(that was before I had properly trained the Bayesnian filter, so perhaps I'll kick it up a point now.)
One important note- when you get a falsely classified message, it's REALLY important to tell Spamassasin's bayesnian filter about it. It's as easy as cut+paste if you do sa-learn --spam/--ham --single, hit enter, paste the message, hit control D. Done!
At the risk of being flamebait- No. Using university students is almost always purely a way of getting cheap labor to do semi-mindless, or completely mindless, stuff the staff doesn't want to do- it's a common myth that students 'learn' by doing grunt work. I should know- I have several grad student friends, and they've thusfar spent a large part of their academic careers working in labs doing mind-numbingly boring stuff(according to them.)
Imagine if a Bio lab did this. The following would sound pretty absurd: "Help us move our lab, you'll learn about cellular recombination!". No. You'll learn what a bunch of lab equipment looks like, how eccentric the professors are, and how expensive/fragile/heavy the equipment is, and the next morning what sore muscles are like. Let's get a reality check here.
(from the site):Our group develops the systems technology for cluster supercomputing; the more people we can show how to apply these technologies, the better.
Huh? What cluster supercomputing "technology" does assembling a PC and plugging it into ethernet teach you? Did they give a presentation about how clustering technology works, for example? Did they explain to each person, as they put a machine in a particular place and wired it to a particular switch, WHY it was going there etc? Obviously I wasn't there, so perhaps someone from the group can contribute on this point.
Lithium Ion batteries will do this very readily when drained or charged too fast...or if overheated past a certain point under what would otherwise be normal current draw...and it's one of the reasons, for example, Panasonic won't sell me the cells I need to fix my Powerbook G3 Lombard's battery(almost all laptop+camcorder batteries, save the newest, are simply AA-sized LiIon cells in various series+parallel configurations).
Panasonic won't sell to anyone except a 'certified systems designer' who has signed agreements saying they'll design proper charging and current/temperature limiting circuitry. God forbid you should simply want to fix a battery pack which is no longer made. I suspect they do it mostly to keep battery pack repair impossible and force everyone to simply run right out and drop $50(cell phones) to $300(some laptop batteries). Sound conspiracy-theory ripe? :-)
LiIon is actually a pretty crappy technology, at least as far as consumers are concerned. Nobody told consumers that for the extra talk minutes they got, their battery will be damn near worthless in a few months if they use their phone a lot...because LiIon looses a staggering amount of its capacity with every charge/discharge cycle- and the deeper the discharge, the more capacity is lost with each cycle. NiMH batteries don't have this problem. Funny thing, eh?
Even worse, the batteries never get recycled(you think the consumer drives to the town dump and puts the battery in the battery recyling box? Nooooooo), they simply get chucked. There are some really nasty chemicals in LiIon batteries(like just about any battery technology today.)
By the way, speaking of batteries and the environment, a lot of people have trouble with car batteries and simply buy new ones instead of taking care of their car battery better(granted, car batteries are usually recycled better, because it's easier, and there's a lot of material, but still...) This site covers just about anything you ever wanted to know about lead-acid batteries and how to properly care for them: http://uuhome.de/william.darden/
HotHardware
Um, pardon me, but...who?
Call me when you've got benchmarks from a real magazine(say a CAD/CAM, 3D graphics and/or animation, etc related magazine), and not two-guys-in-a-dorm-room-who-write-reviews-for-kick backs websites who run Unreal Tournament to benchmark professional graphics cards.
Case and point is their 'testbed' system: they used a "DFI LAN Party 875Pro" motherboard. They used Pentium 4's instead of workstation-class Xeon processors. IDE drives instead of SCSI. Folks, that's NOT a "workstation". A dual Xeon cHomPaq is a workstation.
Oh, and the benchmarks? One no-name benchmark, and 3D Studio Max. Oh, and Unreal Tournament. No fill rates, no polygon counts, no NOTHIN. No mention of Linux, which is tearing into the market like crazy among top computer animation houses.
This is pathetic- they're just a bunch of guys who compile daily linkages to other cheeseball review sites. They have no industry background, no experience, no nothing...just a P4 3GHz and a (probably pirated) copy of 3D Studio Max.