So if I have a hole in the bottom and a garden hose pouring a compensating amount of water from the top, say a foot between the nozzle and the top of the water, that would do it?
Of course, that means I'm going to have to get a good outdoor carpet, plastic lawn furniture, and shower slippers in the living room.
It might just be easier to get some plastic fish and not worry about how much oxygen is in the water.
My cousin bought a research paper in high school and turned it in.
He got caught.
He didn't take into account that: 1) The teacher was his nearest neighbor. He lived about 1/4 mile down the road from my cousin. 2) The teacher was our school bus driver. We even talked about his buying the paper on the bus. I don't know if our conversation was overheard. 3) The teacher was his Sunday school teacher.
The teacher knew my cousin too well to know that my cousin wrote that paper.
If TCP/IP were under the GPL, then yes, you are very correct that Microsoft would have struck out on their own to create a separate internet.
It would never have happened.
What would have happened is that they would have had to come up with their own stack that was compatible with the TCP/IP protocol.
I haven't said whether or not that would have been better than using the BSD stack. In fact, I think it is better the way it happened because I suspect that Microsoft would have screwed up the stack and caused problems that would still be with us today.
The BSD TCP/IP stack predates the term "Open Source", heck it predates the term "Free Software" as well! So when I say "open" I mean it in the dictionary sense.
You are using "open" in the sense of "non-proprietary". Except that it appears to me that the way you are using it, "open" refers to the TCP/IP protocol, not the BSD TCP/IP stack used by Microsoft.
My dictionary defines "open" in such a way that it seems to cover both uses of the term. And it was published in 1979.
The TCP/IP "ball" was not yours to take and go home with.
I have never claimed that it is mine.
it's not your business to bitch about it
To the best of my knowledge, I have never bitched about it. I merely used it to as an example to illustrate my point.
Here is what I actually said:
They already did that with the TCP stack from what I understand. They incorporated the BSD stack in their code and their use of it is not open at all.
At the time that they used the BSD TCP/IP stack in their own products, Microsoft was trying to catch up in the Internet. Using the BSD TCP/IP stack helped them tremendously by bringing them quickly to the standards that were needed for them to access the Internet. Like I said, that is undoubtedly a good thing because by doing so, they lived with the standards instead of developing their own.
But times have changed. Microsoft is no longer trying to catch up. Instead they want to be the ones to determine the standards. Considering Microsoft's past behavior, the wise course of action is to be very suspicious of Microsoft and how they may use anything you give them against you.
would you rather have had a world in which Microsoft would have created their own incompatible network stack for use on 90% of the world's computers?
That could not have happened. At that point, Microsoft could not have struck out on their own to create a separate Internet. They would still need access to the entire non-Microsoft Internet for such things as routers, server access,... .
Microsoft's use of the TCP/IP stack is very open. If it weren't you would not be able to communicate with a Microsoft system using a different TCP/IP stack.
It is clear that you have no idea of what "open" means.
Open, as in Open Source, means that the users have access to the code, not only to look through it, but to repair and/or extend the code and to redistribute these modifications to everyone else.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing that Microsoft does is really open.
What I meant was that if Linux switched to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own proprietary version of Linux. Under the BSD license, such a release would not have to be open at all.
They already did that with the TCP stack from what I understand. They incorporated the BSD stack in their code and their use of it is not open at all.
I don't see that the GPL does anything at all to prevent code forking.
Say you wanted a different version of Linux that did something differently. So you make the changes, however much they are and you donate them back to Linux.
But the Linus doesn't have to accept those changes. Or he can pick and choose which portions he thinks are good.
But since you donated your modifications back, you are free to use those modifications to release your own version.
In a manner of speaking, there already is a fork of Linux. Except it's a fork that is built into the current release instead of a completely separate fork. I'm talking, of course, about SELinux from the NSA.
What switching to the BSD license would really encourage is everyone else, for example, Microsoft, to be free to use the code for their own commercial purposes.
By switching to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own closed and proprietary version of Linux. For example, they could use the Linux code to enhance Windows and make it able to run any and all Linux programs available.
If they monitored my Internet browsing, they'd learn the following (not necessarily in this order):
1) The most important lawsuits in the U.S. are SCO vs IBM, Novell, Autozone, and Daimler Chrysler. 2) The number one server O.S. in the world is OpenBSD followed by Linux and FreeBSD. 3) The number one shopping site on the Internet is newegg.com. 4) The number one electronic reference is O'Reilly's Safari Tech Books Online. 5) Microsoft has more security holes than you can shake a stick at.
Imagine if they monitored several such people and it was interpreted by the major tv networks as representative of Americans:
1) Fox, CNN, and MNBC would have daily reports on the SCO lawsuits. 2) Whenever a show wanted to provide a tech tip, it would be aimed at OpenBSD, Linux, and FreeBSD. 3) Newegg.com would be advertising in the Super Bowl. 4) So would O'Reilly. 5) We'd have a new TV sitcom about an inept software developer at Microsoft who is responsible for fixing all the security holes. We could call it "Clueless In Seattle" or maybe "MS ER".
Assuming for the sake of argument that SCO really did own the rights to the code, if they did not wish to distribute the code under the GPL, they would necessarily have to cease distributing the code when it was discovered.
SCO's continued knowing distribution of the code under the GPL should clearly indicate their acceptance and intention to do so.
Given a hash scheme that produces X bits, X>1, the set of all possible messages of X bits or less is guaranteed to have collisions.
For example, suppose you had a two bit hash, f, such that f(00)=11, f(01)=00, f(10)=01, and f(11)=10. Then, the hash of f(0) must be either 11, 00, 01, or 10 and so it must collide with one of the previous hashes.
Consider two hash schemes. Assume the first does X bits and the second does Y bits. Then, you basically have a X+Y bit hash. The set of hashes of all messages of X+Y bits or less is guaranteed to have collisions.
I bet you just want to get a tan without leaving your computer.
I wonder how chickens perceive tv (assuming you let one in the house). Birds, fish, and turtles are believed to have far more superior color vision than humans. I would imagine they would see them as drab and colorless.
From Shepherd, Gordon M, The Synaptic Organization of the Brain, 4th Edition, Oxford University Press, 1998, page 210:
Some animals using three cone pigments, such as fish, turtles, and birds, may express up to seven types of cone! This trick is accomplished by fitting the innter segment with an oil droplet of specific color/absorbance (red, yellow/ultraviolet). These serve as filters to limit the spectral composition of the light entering the outter segment (e.g., Ohtsuka, 1985). Also, evolution tunes cone pigments to match the environment's spectral content. For example, Lake Baikal is very clear and depp, but longer wavelengths fail to penetrate at greater depths. Consequently, fish species at greater depths shift their cone pigments down the spectrum (Bowmaker et al., 1994). Equally wonderful in its vision capability is the kestrel (a falcon), which has a cone type tuned to ultraviolet (~350 nm). Soaring high with this receptor, it can identify the urine trails of its prey (meadow vole), which in sunlight fluoresce UV (Vitalia et al., 1995).
That's quite true. That was one of the better first posts in spite of the minor error.
If I had a suggestion to improve the discussions, it would be to come up with a better method for determing the order to display posts instead of chronological order of the parents.
How about coming up with a score for each parent based on it's mod points, the number of child posts and their mod points?
Even just displaying them in decreasing order of total moderator points of the parent and all the children would improve things enormously by moving the more interesting threads to the top with chronological order being preserved only in case of ties.
That would, I think, make the obvious race by some among us to have the first post on a topic rather meaningless. Instead, it would place a higher value on making posts that are more likely to lead to on-topic discussions.
Does Opera have the right to forward me ads because I bought their product?
You must not have tried Opera. If you pay for the license, you don't get the ads. If you don't want to pay, then you get the ads.
I like Opera enough that I did pay for the license. Actually, two licenses - one for Windows and one for Linux.
Personally, I have no problem with a software package having two modes - 1) free but you put up with advertizing and 2) pay with no advertizing.
If the ads are too annoying, I'll never put up with it long enough to decide whether or not I like it enough to pay for it so that there is no advertizing.
They aren't specifying the types of security measures that will be used (security through obscurity?) Am I the only one who thinks that this is a very bad idea?
Of course you're not the only one that thinks that is a very bad idea. There are hordes of technical people who think in terms of bad slogans.
The problem with "security through obscurity" is that when that is your primary, or only, protection, it is usually very poor security.
On the other hand, if you start with very good security and don't publish any details of additional steps, and you guard your network as if everyone does know the details anyway, then obscurity enhances your security.
In other words, obscurity does not provide much security, but it can enhance your security.
In 1982 or so, I was working for a pipeline engineering company.
One Saturday afternoon, I went to the office to do something on the computer (PDP 11/70). I was doing some disk work on the computer and didn't want anyone logged on accessing the disk while I did it.
Before starting, I did a "systat" (system status command) and saw someone had dialed in from outside and was logged onto a games account.
So I kicked him off, but he just dialed back in again. Every time I kicked him off, he was back in a minute.
So I modified the login utility so that if you dialed in, it would tell you to call the number in the computer room and then drop the line.
After a few minutes, he called! It sounded like a high school kid.
I told him what I was doing and suggested he wait a while before calling back.
After I finished what I was doing, I started wrote a little utility to take a snapshot of the system every six seconds and save the differences. I had a simple version working that evening and made some nice modifications to it the next couple of days.
From then on, if he had ever logged back in, we could have detected just about anything he might do. But he never did log back onto the computer again.
I never did know who the kid was, but my best guess was that it was the son of someone at the office.
I know a former IBM engineer who accepted early retirement a few years ago. He worked on NASA related projects in Clear Lake, Texas.
As part of the early retirement, he agreed not to work on any projects that were in competition with IBM and that he would forfeit all benefits if he bought a lawsuit against IBM.
When he accepted the early retirement, he had an offer from another company to go to work for them. He arranged it so that he had a 30 day vacation between the jobs.
About half way through his vacation, he found out that he was prohibited from taking the job at the other company even though the project did not compete against IBM in any way at all. IBM's objection was that they might want to bid on that project in the future and he would then be violating the agreement.
Slashdot Mirror
In The Wizard of Oz, there were good witches and bad witches.
It's amazing how many people object to Harry Potter because of the witchcraft but don't also object to The Wizard of Oz.
So if I have a hole in the bottom and a garden hose pouring a compensating amount of water from the top, say a foot between the nozzle and the top of the water, that would do it?
Of course, that means I'm going to have to get a good outdoor carpet, plastic lawn furniture, and shower slippers in the living room.
It might just be easier to get some plastic fish and not worry about how much oxygen is in the water.
I've always wanted to build a fish tank that is only a foot or so in diameter but goes from the floor to the ceiling.
Of course, one that is six feet in diameter and twenty feet tall would be more interesting. But I'd have to put one like that out in the barn.
In some cases it is easier than in other.
My cousin bought a research paper in high school and turned it in.
He got caught.
He didn't take into account that:
1) The teacher was his nearest neighbor. He lived about 1/4 mile down the road from my cousin.
2) The teacher was our school bus driver. We even talked about his buying the paper on the bus. I don't know if our conversation was overheard.
3) The teacher was his Sunday school teacher.
The teacher knew my cousin too well to know that my cousin wrote that paper.
It would never have happened.
What would have happened is that they would have had to come up with their own stack that was compatible with the TCP/IP protocol.
I haven't said whether or not that would have been better than using the BSD stack. In fact, I think it is better the way it happened because I suspect that Microsoft would have screwed up the stack and caused problems that would still be with us today.
You are using "open" in the sense of "non-proprietary". Except that it appears to me that the way you are using it, "open" refers to the TCP/IP protocol, not the BSD TCP/IP stack used by Microsoft.
My dictionary defines "open" in such a way that it seems to cover both uses of the term. And it was published in 1979.
I have never claimed that it is mine.
To the best of my knowledge, I have never bitched about it. I merely used it to as an example to illustrate my point.
Here is what I actually said:
At the time that they used the BSD TCP/IP stack in their own products, Microsoft was trying to catch up in the Internet. Using the BSD TCP/IP stack helped them tremendously by bringing them quickly to the standards that were needed for them to access the Internet. Like I said, that is undoubtedly a good thing because by doing so, they lived with the standards instead of developing their own.
But times have changed. Microsoft is no longer trying to catch up. Instead they want to be the ones to determine the standards. Considering Microsoft's past behavior, the wise course of action is to be very suspicious of Microsoft and how they may use anything you give them against you.
That could not have happened. At that point, Microsoft could not have struck out on their own to create a separate Internet. They would still need access to the entire non-Microsoft Internet for such things as routers, server access, ... .
It is clear that you have no idea of what "open" means.
Open, as in Open Source, means that the users have access to the code, not only to look through it, but to repair and/or extend the code and to redistribute these modifications to everyone else.
To the best of my knowledge, nothing that Microsoft does is really open.
Let me clarify that point.
What I meant was that if Linux switched to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own proprietary version of Linux. Under the BSD license, such a release would not have to be open at all.
They already did that with the TCP stack from what I understand. They incorporated the BSD stack in their code and their use of it is not open at all.
I don't see that the GPL does anything at all to prevent code forking.
Say you wanted a different version of Linux that did something differently. So you make the changes, however much they are and you donate them back to Linux.
But the Linus doesn't have to accept those changes. Or he can pick and choose which portions he thinks are good.
But since you donated your modifications back, you are free to use those modifications to release your own version.
In a manner of speaking, there already is a fork of Linux. Except it's a fork that is built into the current release instead of a completely separate fork. I'm talking, of course, about SELinux from the NSA.
What switching to the BSD license would really encourage is everyone else, for example, Microsoft, to be free to use the code for their own commercial purposes.
By switching to the BSD license, Microsoft could release their own closed and proprietary version of Linux. For example, they could use the Linux code to enhance Windows and make it able to run any and all Linux programs available.
If they monitored my Internet browsing, they'd learn the following (not necessarily in this order):
1) The most important lawsuits in the U.S. are SCO vs IBM, Novell, Autozone, and Daimler Chrysler.
2) The number one server O.S. in the world is OpenBSD followed by Linux and FreeBSD.
3) The number one shopping site on the Internet is newegg.com.
4) The number one electronic reference is O'Reilly's Safari Tech Books Online.
5) Microsoft has more security holes than you can shake a stick at.
Imagine if they monitored several such people and it was interpreted by the major tv networks as representative of Americans:
1) Fox, CNN, and MNBC would have daily reports on the SCO lawsuits.
2) Whenever a show wanted to provide a tech tip, it would be aimed at OpenBSD, Linux, and FreeBSD.
3) Newegg.com would be advertising in the Super Bowl.
4) So would O'Reilly.
5) We'd have a new TV sitcom about an inept software developer at Microsoft who is responsible for fixing all the security holes. We could call it "Clueless In Seattle" or maybe "MS ER".
From my home here in Texas, it would have been closer to go to the University of Wyoming than to Texas A&M University.
Simple -- compile it and see if it runs correctly.
Assuming for the sake of argument that SCO really did own the rights to the code, if they did not wish to distribute the code under the GPL, they would necessarily have to cease distributing the code when it was discovered.
SCO's continued knowing distribution of the code under the GPL should clearly indicate their acceptance and intention to do so.
Given a hash scheme that produces X bits, X>1, the set of all possible messages of X bits or less is guaranteed to have collisions.
For example, suppose you had a two bit hash, f, such that f(00)=11, f(01)=00, f(10)=01, and f(11)=10. Then, the hash of f(0) must be either 11, 00, 01, or 10 and so it must collide with one of the previous hashes.
Consider two hash schemes. Assume the first does X bits and the second does Y bits. Then, you basically have a X+Y bit hash. The set of hashes of all messages of X+Y bits or less is guaranteed to have collisions.
In the meantime until something new and better is found, you could use multiple hashes and concatenate the results.
- 1(A).
That is, given some text A, use the hashh MD4(A)+MD5(A)+HAVAL-128(A)+RIPEMD(A)+SHA-0(A)+SHA
Even if they are all broken, it is still going to be very difficult to find a collision for all of them simultaneously.
Does it handle NFS, AppleTalk, and NetBIOS?
I'm looking at the data sheet and don't see any mention of it anywhere. But maybe I'm just skimming over it too fast.
I bet you just want to get a tan without leaving your computer.
I wonder how chickens perceive tv (assuming you let one in the house). Birds, fish, and turtles are believed to have far more superior color vision than humans. I would imagine they would see them as drab and colorless.
From Shepherd, Gordon M, The Synaptic Organization of the Brain, 4th Edition, Oxford University Press, 1998, page 210:
That's quite true. That was one of the better first posts in spite of the minor error.
If I had a suggestion to improve the discussions, it would be to come up with a better method for determing the order to display posts instead of chronological order of the parents.
How about coming up with a score for each parent based on it's mod points, the number of child posts and their mod points?
Even just displaying them in decreasing order of total moderator points of the parent and all the children would improve things enormously by moving the more interesting threads to the top with chronological order being preserved only in case of ties.
That would, I think, make the obvious race by some among us to have the first post on a topic rather meaningless. Instead, it would place a higher value on making posts that are more likely to lead to on-topic discussions.
CA is Computer Associates, not Canada.
One other thing.
That only applies if they are up front about the ads and they don't involve spyware.
If they sneaked them in or installed spyware, then they would have to pay me to use their software.
You must not have tried Opera. If you pay for the license, you don't get the ads. If you don't want to pay, then you get the ads.
I like Opera enough that I did pay for the license. Actually, two licenses - one for Windows and one for Linux.
Personally, I have no problem with a software package having two modes - 1) free but you put up with advertizing and 2) pay with no advertizing.
If the ads are too annoying, I'll never put up with it long enough to decide whether or not I like it enough to pay for it so that there is no advertizing.
Of course you're not the only one that thinks that is a very bad idea. There are hordes of technical people who think in terms of bad slogans.
The problem with "security through obscurity" is that when that is your primary, or only, protection, it is usually very poor security.
On the other hand, if you start with very good security and don't publish any details of additional steps, and you guard your network as if everyone does know the details anyway, then obscurity enhances your security.
In other words, obscurity does not provide much security, but it can enhance your security.
Didn't Microsoft send a DMCA take-down notice to someone disbributing SP2 with BitTorrent?
In 1982 or so, I was working for a pipeline engineering company.
One Saturday afternoon, I went to the office to do something on the computer (PDP 11/70). I was doing some disk work on the computer and didn't want anyone logged on accessing the disk while I did it.
Before starting, I did a "systat" (system status command) and saw someone had dialed in from outside and was logged onto a games account.
So I kicked him off, but he just dialed back in again. Every time I kicked him off, he was back in a minute.
So I modified the login utility so that if you dialed in, it would tell you to call the number in the computer room and then drop the line.
After a few minutes, he called! It sounded like a high school kid.
I told him what I was doing and suggested he wait a while before calling back.
After I finished what I was doing, I started wrote a little utility to take a snapshot of the system every six seconds and save the differences. I had a simple version working that evening and made some nice modifications to it the next couple of days.
From then on, if he had ever logged back in, we could have detected just about anything he might do. But he never did log back onto the computer again.
I never did know who the kid was, but my best guess was that it was the son of someone at the office.
An interstellar yoyo?
I know a former IBM engineer who accepted early retirement a few years ago. He worked on NASA related projects in Clear Lake, Texas.
As part of the early retirement, he agreed not to work on any projects that were in competition with IBM and that he would forfeit all benefits if he bought a lawsuit against IBM.
When he accepted the early retirement, he had an offer from another company to go to work for them. He arranged it so that he had a 30 day vacation between the jobs.
About half way through his vacation, he found out that he was prohibited from taking the job at the other company even though the project did not compete against IBM in any way at all. IBM's objection was that they might want to bid on that project in the future and he would then be violating the agreement.