Most of our computers at the office that still run Microsoft systems are running Windoze 2000. The rest run Linux, OpenBSD, and OSX.
We have one single purpose Windoze 98 still running and the only reason we haven't changed it to 2000 is because the distribution for the single software package it runs is long gone.
And we have two Windoze NT machines. I'd like to get rid of both of them, but can't.
Accounting has a single Windoze XP machine.
The remaining Windoze machines are Windoze 2000.
I wouldn't dream of putting a Windoze machine on the Internet without having a hardware firewall in front of it, though.
Big metros will love this... open plains in Kansas won't...
That could be.
I live on the high plains of Texas. Around here, if you are within 30 meters of another car going the same direction on the highway, one of you is in the act of passing the other. If you don't want to pass, 1/4 mile is a more appropriate following distance.
When an attack on a known port is discovered, all anyone has to do is scan for computers listening on that port to have a reasonable chance of finding vulnerable systems.
Port knocking hides the very existence of the service should a vulnerability for that service to be discovered.
The real problem is that only certain types of services are protectable. Anything that the public needs to be able to access is still exposed by necessity.
So, for those instances where it is applicable, the enhancements to security can be enormous.
The rate at which Titan loses it's atmosphere is considerably smaller than if Titan were closer to the sun.
The moon could support an atmosphere, but it would lose it relatively quickly.
The earth loses atmosphere into space all the time. I saw a figure once for the rate of loss and it was higher than I would have imagined. Supposedly, the atmosphere of the Earth used to be several times what it is now.
Stay around long enough and the Earth may not have enough atmosphere for us to survive.
What do you bet that if they had to do it, they could trounce any patents?
Of course, they won't have to do it. With government funding, they would be willing to pay far higher than any corporation for the same thing. It's not like it's real money for them.
If someone hasn't complained about a spammer or a break-in attempt within four or five days, it is very unlikely that they are going to complain at all.
In most cases, I bet one to two days retention would be more than sufficient.
I bet you're a fan of Radio Shack's practice of requiring a name and address to make a sale.
One Radio Shack salesmoron tried to justify that to me by claiming that if the merchandise is used illegally, it makes it easier for the police to track you down.
One time I bought a battery for a bicycle spedometer at a Radio Shack and when they asked for my name, I told the salesmoron that they didn't need it. As I was walking to my car, I glanced down at the sales slip and did a quick u-turn to go back inside.
I asked the salesmoron just how he chose the name and address for the sales slip. He said he just picked one at random.
The name and address he randomly chose was that of my oldest brother who lives about 100 feet away from me on the family farm.
I don't think that the internal database showing who currently has an IP leased would count as IP records.
But if it were, I think the RIAA, the MPAA, or anyone other such organization would want the user's name and address, not the MAC address of the network card on the user's computer.
So what's your opinion of Morgan Stanley being fined over 1 billion for not keeping email around? It seems like the same sort of case,
Nonsense. There is nothing at all similar about the two.
Morgan Stanley was trashing e-mails, likely so that they could not be used against them in court, at least to some extent. It might be argued that if it weren't for the possibility that they could be used against them, it would be something that might be valuable for them to keep.
There is nothing valuable about the IP data for the ISP after some reasonable period of time. It has a very short shelf life. Neither is there anything in it to use against the ISP. There is no reason to keep it longer than necessary. Any ISP who was concerned about the privacy of their customers would dump it once it was clear they had no need of it.
My ISP doesn't keep the information long term. There is no intention to create problems for anyone. It's just that once the data is no longer necessary, it is dumped.
If a patent is issued for something that is not simply software, can it be used against something that is pure software?
For example, suppose that someone patents a camera that includes a new and improved method for compressing and storing the image. Suppose that someone else uses the compression technique, whether they independently developed the technique or copied it from the patent, to compress miscellaneous data files. Would that be an infringement on the patent?
How about if images taken with other cameras and in other formats are converted to the compression method and format used by the camera in the patent?
In other words, would it be a patent infringement if only the software portion is used by someone else without using the hardware portion? Are the non-hardware formats independently covered?
about 75 pounds of boneless meat (moose, deer, elk, beef - try chicken too). For reference this is roughly an entire large dressed (Alberta size) whitetail deer, with some moose and beef thrown in for good measure. I've never tried finding enough chickens for a hackathon.
Mix all of the above together, and marinate meat for a few hours before grilling. dribble marinade over meat while grilling. Also works well with vegetables on the grill, or meat and vegetable kebabs. The above proportions will require about 50 bell peppers and 25 large onions to make decent kebabs (for a large family meal, divide everything by about 20, and leave out the drunk Germans providing the ambience while you grill) % Hackathon Raisin Rice
10 cups rice 5 Onions, chopped fine 10 cloves garlic, crushed Butter 2.5 cups raisins 2.5 tsp oregano 22 cups water 40 chicken bouillon cubes (or equivalent - you want to make double
strength chicken stock - chicken-in-a-mug
works well made double strength).
Saute Rice, onion and garlic in a little butter until slightly brown. I manage this in the (large) pot(s) necessary by throwing together the onion, garlic, and butter to brown up, then faking it a bit with the dry rice thrown in while threatening kitchen interlopers with sharp instruments if they come in to ask how it's going. Dissolve bouillon in water, add along with remaining ingredients. Cook until rice is done. (for more intimate proportions, divide down to an appropriate amount of rice for your occasion).
A Mercedes owner was driving down the road when he saw a man walking down the road. Being as he was in a remarkedly good mood, he decided to offer the man a ride.
The man was kind of hesitant at first, but climbed in. Within a mile or so, the man was asking all kinds of questions. It was clear that he had never ridden in a modern car.
At one point the man asked about the hood ornament. The driver decided to have some fun and told him, "That's part of a game us Mercedes owners play. That's used to aim at pedestrians and other obstacles. We get points depending on what we hit. For example, a little old lady crossing the road with a walker is only 10 points but an alert jogger is 100 points."
A few minutes later, the passenger saw a couple of nuns ahead and asked "How much for a nun?"
The driver responded "50 points each. Those two up there would be 100 points total."
He then decided to really tease the passenger and pretended to aim at the nuns. At the last moment, he scooted over a bit out of the way to avoid them, but his heart sank when he heard a thud and the car shook slightly.
"I thought I was going to miss them!" the driver said.
"I thought you were going to miss them, too" said the passenger. "But I saved the day for you when I caught them with the door."
The actions of the Hunt brothers caused silver prices to rise quite dramatically. I figure that would be good for the silver industry.
Or was it the silver speculation industry? A lot of people lost a lot of money because of speculation. But I figure they went into it with their eyes open and knew, or should have known, that they could lose a whole lot in the process.
The price of silver, I believe, still ended up quite a bit higher than it started.
There was at least one joke that came out of all that: What's the easiest way to become a Texas oil millionaire? Start as a Texas oil billionaire.
And Arthur Andersen was completely obliterated for actions that the vast majority of its employees knew nothing about.
I detested Arthur Andersen and felt that there were not too many companies more deserving of obliteration.
About twenty five years ago, I worked for a company that had Arthur Andersen as their auditors. They also used Arthur Andersen consultants as well.
I expect consultants to try to do what is best for their customers. If they don't, they are nothing more than salesmen being paid directly by the customer under false pretenses.
A year or so before I went to work there, that company wanted to buy their own computer and build their own computer department to handle their accounting and other corporate needs. Prior to that, they were purchasing time on someone else's computer to do their accounting.
So they hired someone to accomplish that. He ended up recommending a PDP 11/70 for the job.
The Arthur Andersen consultants were really upset with that recommendation. After all, if the company bought an IBM mainframe, they were set to have thousands more billable hours every year in consulting. With a PDP 11/70, most or all of those consulting hours would disappear.
So they told the senior vice president that a PDP was an engineering machine and could not be used for accounting. They convinced the senior vice president to fire the computer department manager he had hired.
The senior vp interviewed several people with a strong IBM mainframe background and hired one for the job. He then called the computer manager to a meeting in his office where he was to be fired.
Just that day, the latest issue of Datamation arrived and had a story about one of the really big banks buying something like a hundred or more PDP-11's for their financial operations. The soon to be fired computer department manager took the issue with him to the meeting.
When he pointed out that the big bank was buying a hundred or more PDP-11's (suitable only for engineering purposes according to the Arthur Andersen consultants) for their banking operations and showed the issue to the senior vice president, the senior vp adjourned the meeting without firing him and read the article. He then called up the new department manager and told him that he wouldn't be hired after all. And he called up Arthur Andersen's senior management and chewed them out royally.
The point is that Arthur Andersen, as part of their consulting, was giving advice that was nothing but lies. Their sole purpose was to increase their consulting hours at all costs and had been billing the company for the time it took to produce their lies.
So it didn't bother me at all to see Arthur Andersen disappear.
Slashdot Mirror
I tried it.
But it must think passwords are limited to a few characters.
I got tired of having to scroll through the text box.
I agree entirely.
Most of our computers at the office that still run Microsoft systems are running Windoze 2000. The rest run Linux, OpenBSD, and OSX.
We have one single purpose Windoze 98 still running and the only reason we haven't changed it to 2000 is because the distribution for the single software package it runs is long gone.
And we have two Windoze NT machines. I'd like to get rid of both of them, but can't.
Accounting has a single Windoze XP machine.
The remaining Windoze machines are Windoze 2000.
I wouldn't dream of putting a Windoze machine on the Internet without having a hardware firewall in front of it, though.
That could be.
I live on the high plains of Texas. Around here, if you are within 30 meters of another car going the same direction on the highway, one of you is in the act of passing the other. If you don't want to pass, 1/4 mile is a more appropriate following distance.
I've had e-mail accounts since the late 80s. Back then, you rarely received anything, but when you did, it was usually worth reading.
These days, I've gotten to the point where I have little use for e-mail.
99% of the non-spam (and of course, 100% of the spam) is completely useless.
The net result is that if you send me an e-mail these days, you have to call me up to tell me you sent it so that I'll check the e-mail box.
I don't believe the 30 miles radius bullshit.
I'd believe 30 meters, but not 30 miles.
What do you bet that the reporter saw 30 m and took the m to be miles, not meters?
When an attack on a known port is discovered, all anyone has to do is scan for computers listening on that port to have a reasonable chance of finding vulnerable systems.
Port knocking hides the very existence of the service should a vulnerability for that service to be discovered.
The real problem is that only certain types of services are protectable. Anything that the public needs to be able to access is still exposed by necessity.
So, for those instances where it is applicable, the enhancements to security can be enormous.
Where I live, one is far more likely to be attacked by a rabid animal than by an armed criminal.
Disarm the honest folk and that could change real quick.
It's a silly little list made by silly little people.
It has no use other than to amuse those who are so stupid as to be actually interested in what Time magazine has to say on the issue.
Actually, Microsoft has matured into a company that cannot afford to pay such fines for long.
The hit on Microsoft's bottom line and the failure to meet earnings projections would have adverse effects on its share price.
The rate at which Titan loses it's atmosphere is considerably smaller than if Titan were closer to the sun.
The moon could support an atmosphere, but it would lose it relatively quickly.
The earth loses atmosphere into space all the time. I saw a figure once for the rate of loss and it was higher than I would have imagined. Supposedly, the atmosphere of the Earth used to be several times what it is now.
Stay around long enough and the Earth may not have enough atmosphere for us to survive.
We'd also need more gravity to hold the atmosphere to the moon.
It is unlikely that anyone in their right mind would try to create a regular atmosphere around the moon.
But NASA is the government. Part of it, anyways.
What do you bet that if they had to do it, they could trounce any patents?
Of course, they won't have to do it. With government funding, they would be willing to pay far higher than any corporation for the same thing. It's not like it's real money for them.
If someone hasn't complained about a spammer or a break-in attempt within four or five days, it is very unlikely that they are going to complain at all.
In most cases, I bet one to two days retention would be more than sufficient.
I bet you're a fan of Radio Shack's practice of requiring a name and address to make a sale.
One Radio Shack salesmoron tried to justify that to me by claiming that if the merchandise is used illegally, it makes it easier for the police to track you down.
One time I bought a battery for a bicycle spedometer at a Radio Shack and when they asked for my name, I told the salesmoron that they didn't need it. As I was walking to my car, I glanced down at the sales slip and did a quick u-turn to go back inside.
I asked the salesmoron just how he chose the name and address for the sales slip. He said he just picked one at random.
The name and address he randomly chose was that of my oldest brother who lives about 100 feet away from me on the family farm.
I don't think that the internal database showing who currently has an IP leased would count as IP records.
But if it were, I think the RIAA, the MPAA, or anyone other such organization would want the user's name and address, not the MAC address of the network card on the user's computer.
Nonsense. There is nothing at all similar about the two.
Morgan Stanley was trashing e-mails, likely so that they could not be used against them in court, at least to some extent. It might be argued that if it weren't for the possibility that they could be used against them, it would be something that might be valuable for them to keep.
There is nothing valuable about the IP data for the ISP after some reasonable period of time. It has a very short shelf life. Neither is there anything in it to use against the ISP. There is no reason to keep it longer than necessary. Any ISP who was concerned about the privacy of their customers would dump it once it was clear they had no need of it.
My ISP doesn't keep the information long term. There is no intention to create problems for anyone. It's just that once the data is no longer necessary, it is dumped.
If a patent is issued for something that is not simply software, can it be used against something that is pure software?
For example, suppose that someone patents a camera that includes a new and improved method for compressing and storing the image. Suppose that someone else uses the compression technique, whether they independently developed the technique or copied it from the patent, to compress miscellaneous data files. Would that be an infringement on the patent?
How about if images taken with other cameras and in other formats are converted to the compression method and format used by the camera in the patent?
In other words, would it be a patent infringement if only the software portion is used by someone else without using the hardware portion? Are the non-hardware formats independently covered?
Maybe that's part of why they objected to the use of Lindows.
They wanted it for themselves for the next generation. Actually, I think that "Windows TNG" would be more likely.
/usr/share/games/fortune/recipes
Hackathon Moose (or other Ex-Magnificent-Forest-Creature) Barbecue
30 cups oil
15 cups Soy sauce
5 cups Worcestershire Sauce
40 tsp dry mustard
20 tsp black pepper
10 cups lemon juice
10 cups white vinegar
80 cloves crushed garlic
about 75 pounds of boneless meat (moose, deer, elk, beef - try chicken
too). For reference this is roughly an entire large dressed (Alberta
size) whitetail deer, with some moose and beef thrown in for good
measure. I've never tried finding enough chickens for a hackathon.
Mix all of the above together, and marinate meat for a few hours
before grilling. dribble marinade over meat while grilling. Also
works well with vegetables on the grill, or meat and vegetable
kebabs. The above proportions will require about 50 bell peppers and
25 large onions to make decent kebabs (for a large family meal, divide
everything by about 20, and leave out the drunk Germans providing the
ambience while you grill)
%
Hackathon Raisin Rice
10 cups rice
5 Onions, chopped fine
10 cloves garlic, crushed
Butter
2.5 cups raisins
2.5 tsp oregano
22 cups water
40 chicken bouillon cubes (or equivalent - you want to make double
strength chicken stock - chicken-in-a-mug
works well made double strength).
Saute Rice, onion and garlic in a little butter until slightly brown.
I manage this in the (large) pot(s) necessary by throwing together
the onion, garlic, and butter to brown up, then faking it a bit with
the dry rice thrown in while threatening kitchen interlopers with
sharp instruments if they come in to ask how it's going.
Dissolve bouillon in water, add along with remaining ingredients.
Cook until rice is done. (for more intimate proportions, divide down
to an appropriate amount of rice for your occasion).
You're a bat?
A Mercedes owner was driving down the road when he saw a man walking down the road. Being as he was in a remarkedly good mood, he decided to offer the man a ride.
The man was kind of hesitant at first, but climbed in. Within a mile or so, the man was asking all kinds of questions. It was clear that he had never ridden in a modern car.
At one point the man asked about the hood ornament. The driver decided to have some fun and told him, "That's part of a game us Mercedes owners play. That's used to aim at pedestrians and other obstacles. We get points depending on what we hit. For example, a little old lady crossing the road with a walker is only 10 points but an alert jogger is 100 points."
A few minutes later, the passenger saw a couple of nuns ahead and asked "How much for a nun?"
The driver responded "50 points each. Those two up there would be 100 points total."
He then decided to really tease the passenger and pretended to aim at the nuns. At the last moment, he scooted over a bit out of the way to avoid them, but his heart sank when he heard a thud and the car shook slightly.
"I thought I was going to miss them!" the driver said.
"I thought you were going to miss them, too" said the passenger. "But I saved the day for you when I caught them with the door."
If he with-holds your final pay check, file a complaint with your state's labor commission. There shouldn't be any need to get a lawyer involved.
Using the same logic, my old '64 International Harvester pickup could be shown to be faster than a Formula 1 race car.
I have the ideal road for the test in mind.
Now all I need is for someone to loan me a Formula 1 race car for the test.
I'm curious about that.
The actions of the Hunt brothers caused silver prices to rise quite dramatically. I figure that would be good for the silver industry.
Or was it the silver speculation industry? A lot of people lost a lot of money because of speculation. But I figure they went into it with their eyes open and knew, or should have known, that they could lose a whole lot in the process.
The price of silver, I believe, still ended up quite a bit higher than it started.
There was at least one joke that came out of all that: What's the easiest way to become a Texas oil millionaire? Start as a Texas oil billionaire.
I detested Arthur Andersen and felt that there were not too many companies more deserving of obliteration.
About twenty five years ago, I worked for a company that had Arthur Andersen as their auditors. They also used Arthur Andersen consultants as well.
I expect consultants to try to do what is best for their customers. If they don't, they are nothing more than salesmen being paid directly by the customer under false pretenses.
A year or so before I went to work there, that company wanted to buy their own computer and build their own computer department to handle their accounting and other corporate needs. Prior to that, they were purchasing time on someone else's computer to do their accounting.
So they hired someone to accomplish that. He ended up recommending a PDP 11/70 for the job.
The Arthur Andersen consultants were really upset with that recommendation. After all, if the company bought an IBM mainframe, they were set to have thousands more billable hours every year in consulting. With a PDP 11/70, most or all of those consulting hours would disappear.
So they told the senior vice president that a PDP was an engineering machine and could not be used for accounting. They convinced the senior vice president to fire the computer department manager he had hired.
The senior vp interviewed several people with a strong IBM mainframe background and hired one for the job. He then called the computer manager to a meeting in his office where he was to be fired.
Just that day, the latest issue of Datamation arrived and had a story about one of the really big banks buying something like a hundred or more PDP-11's for their financial operations. The soon to be fired computer department manager took the issue with him to the meeting.
When he pointed out that the big bank was buying a hundred or more PDP-11's (suitable only for engineering purposes according to the Arthur Andersen consultants) for their banking operations and showed the issue to the senior vice president, the senior vp adjourned the meeting without firing him and read the article. He then called up the new department manager and told him that he wouldn't be hired after all. And he called up Arthur Andersen's senior management and chewed them out royally.
The point is that Arthur Andersen, as part of their consulting, was giving advice that was nothing but lies. Their sole purpose was to increase their consulting hours at all costs and had been billing the company for the time it took to produce their lies.
So it didn't bother me at all to see Arthur Andersen disappear.