Some large (internet scale) services run without a firewall, although typically ACLs on the router serve a similar function. The issue is that firewalls have a hard time scaling to internet scale volumes. (source: I have served as the lead systems architect on very large scale internet infrastructure).
The accusations against bitcoin could be applied to many of the citizens of the united states. Stop and think about how you have handled money over the last money - buying things for folks, getting paid back, trading small amounts of cash for services etc.
I am no Microsoft fan however I am glad to see them responding to customer feedback on their product. IT is good to see large companies shape products based on customer response - particularly when they command a very large share of a market.
Thanks - I didn't mention licensing, sounds as though you read that into my comment.
This is a violation of trust more than anything else.
What this has to do with open source is that open source provides the means to identify impostors more readily - and the nicest thing is that there is a means to work around them without being required to use their "version".
This is one of the big reasons for supporting open source applications - violations like this can be exposed without relying on a single central authority to uncover it and trusting that the central authority will not be beholden to other interests.
Based on my experience (26 years in the software development industry), I am unconvinced that "old" programmers are any less likely to change - I have seen plenty of young programmers unwilling to adapt to new technologies. I think the more important answer lies with the attitude and disposition of the programmer than their age.
I am ready to admit that I might be biased since I fall into the old category a lot more easily than the young category - but I am comfortable with my own subjective conclusion on this issue;)
The whole idea of an academic ecosystem distinct from the reality that the rest of the world operates in is an elitist adaptation of medieval socio-political structures. Granting someone an insulated job from which they can not be removed is ridiculous under any conditions. Whether someone publishes a peer reviewed article on something is irrelevant to whether they know what they are talking about in the current model.
The REAL peers are the folks doing work in the profession day in and day out. As a rule most peer reviews are conducted by people with a decidedly academic focus - the experts in the field are working day jobs that don't afford them time to participate in silly self congratulatory exercises.
The only non-academic institutions that have something like tenure are US federal government jobs - yours to loose. Neither one provides us an example of healthy thinking or efficient and innovative work products.
Both right and left wing economics are Keynsian at their roots. The Austrian model is the only one that works - economies are more organic than formulaic because they are comprised of organic components.
Maybe I misunderstood your use of left/right - it may be a symptom of context. In the US, the "right" typically fights for the right to bear arms while the left typically pushes for gun control. This is not universally true, but I suspect that more than 90% of the candidates that identify themselves as "left" are pro gun control.
The assertion regarding taxes on the wealthy is disingenuous. I have been directly affected by high tax rates and I am not in the 1%. The question is not who's hands you put money in, the question is how do you generate more money. Giving money to the poor has been proven to seize the recipients in an iron grip of dependency.
There is no FACT that taking money from business owners increases investment. When I pay the taxes I pay now I simply can't afford to pay someone else to do jobs that I can do on my own. THAT is a fact. The government is the single least efficient means for putting oney into anyones hands.
Our (US) founders knew these - they wrote that when more than 50% of the population becomes dependent on the remaining portion of the population due to government influence then their experiment would have failed.
The right are far more interested in infringing on your liberties than the left.
Cite evidence please. While I think both parties are a joke, this statement is just plain silly
The police state is a right wing construct.
And the Democrats are less right wing than the Republicans.
Why do you hate America? Not only are the Republicans hell bent on stripping away the freedom of religion, expression, privacy, fair trial, etc. But they are pushing for a road to abject economic annihilation. The only balanced budget proposal is from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It has been objectively proven that deregulation has destroyed the economy and directly lead to this last great recession, as it led to the great depression almost a hundred years ago. Republican economics are an abject disaster.
I think you may be confused. Is gun control typically a platform for the left or right? Are property rights more often abused by the left or right (think about the effects of profound regulation via EPA etc.).
De-regulation destroyed the economy? Really? You might want to brush up on your history and economics.
I am constantly amazed at arguments in favor of whatever government action folks want that base their premise on the trustworthiness of government. Why does anyone think they can trust a government? Now I am certainly not an anarchist, however I take the same view of centralized government that the founders of the US took - powerful central governments will inevitably grow and be corrupted because they are comprised of humans who are imminently corruptible.
It amuses me to see folks distrust a corporation and turn to the government as if the people in a government job are somehow more moral or ethical than those in private sector. They are all made of the same human stuff, all just as corruptible - the only meaningful difference is that the humans in government wield the power of massive force to accomplish their goals.
The government has NO business getting involved with cyber security any more than they do getting involved with how I secure my house or car. The government sucks at doing things efficiently and using best practices - the examples are legion.
People need to take personal responsibility for their systems and decisions.
Our home standby generator runs itself for 20 minutes every 7 days - just a low end 15kW model. It doesn't provide any metrics via remote (that requires add-in modules from Generac).
I sure hope you fire them more often than every 6 months! Weekly maintenance runs make a lot more sense. Leave an engine unused for 6 months over a long period of time and you will create more maintenance problems than you can imagine.
I don't think it is fair to accuse me of being disingenuous - while it is true that I don't agree with evolution I would like to see an honest and open dialog in which people can present facts as facts, theories as theories and be free to disagree with theories until they are established as fact.
It may be true that this bill is intended to discourage critical thinking about science, but what many folks (not necessarily you) seem to be pushing for is to censor the discussion rather than engage in open debate about theories that we simply don't know to be fact.
No, I am not holding anybody to an impossible standard. We can make whatever claims we need to about geological processes, stellar evolution etc. I am only asking that we distinguish between things we can know as fact and things that we must suppose as theory.
It is important to understand the distinction between fact and theory so that further improvements can be made in any discipline. If a researcher finds facts that collide with a theory, he must be comfortable declaring a theory to be in error.
What we should teach in schools is that a fact is distinguished from a theory in certain ways, that facts and theories both provide meaningful aids in understanding our world but that they are not equivalent. Further, when we teach a theory in school, we should teach it as a theory not as a fact. Student should know what we know for certain and what we have had to derive from the facts available to us.
While there may be subtle (or not so subtle) shifts in meaning based on context, I think it is fair to say that no one would assert that we can use the words theory and fact interchangeably in science or any other discipline.
No reasonable scientist would accept a theory as having the same weight as a fact. In the event that an observed fact conflicts with a theory, good science calls for us to reformulate the theory based on the facts. We do not discard facts when they conflict with a theory.
"All modern life forms" is one of things that has not been proven, in fact has not been repeated a single time - this is a theory. So far we have been unable to evolve a complex life form from a simple one even a single time. Whether you agree with the theory, the bottom line is that it is no more than a theory (at best) and has certainly not been proven through observation of repeatable scientific experiments.
In other disciplines we would never accept an assertion as fact that could not be proven demonstrably - software engineering is a simple case. If you tell me that a program can perform some task, you prove it by writing a piece of software to perform that task. Does biology get a pass on this requirement?
You are correct, we as a society tend to be a little sloppy/ambiguous about how things are named and referred to.
I suspect that most of the folks engaged in this discussion are thinking of the theory of evolution as the set of ideas that provide a description of how life began on Earth and how the various more complex species evolved from a single celled organism.
The creationist view also suggests common descent from a universal ancestor, most creationists (though not all) would argue that common ancestor was in the same species.
What has been observed in nature is the principle of natural selection and function of genetic mutations - these are components of the theory of evolution rather than a comprehensive treatment of the theory. What has not been observed is the process of evolution as the "origin of the species", the beginning of life on this planet.
Theories explain and interpret facts, but theories are not facts.
I am simply asserting that these things are indeed theories, not facts and can not be presented as facts.
Whether I agree with the theory isn't the issue. I believe that when a society chooses to teach theory as fact it begins the descent into a valley of ignorance that will take a long time to climb out of. I think it is important to be impartial when we teach the next generation, things are what they are - be objective. No matter how much you like an idea, classify it fairly and be open minded enough to allow it to be labelled properly so that the young minds can see a consistent treatment of the reality they are coming to grips with.
I would go so far as to suggest that even theory is a bit strong since we can not verify the hypothesis via repeatable experiment. If we could even know what the conditions were at the time the evolutionary process began that would at least be a start, however we don't even have the most basic facts to work with in this case.
Does it make sense to suggest that I am a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type simply because I take issue with people characterizing theory with fact? That seems like a non-sequiter to me.
How many times has evolution been shown to be accurate? The last time I checked the conditions under which life supposedly evolved have not been recreated a single time. No "live" organisms have been synthesized from primordial ooze even once. In fact, we aren't' even sure what comprised the primordial ooze.
There are plenty of theories about what the conditions might have been, however the bottom line is that we really don't know. We can only theorize about what might have been going on at the time - and that isn't based on observation (another key element of real science).
This discussion is not about whether the theory of evolution is correct, but rather whether it is a theory or a fact.
Is it reasonable to assert that a fact can be an idea that has never been observed and can not be confirmed by even a single complete test (since the conditions of the test can not be known)?
Some of the facts that are used to construct the theory of evolution are testable and observable, however the theory is an interpretation of a mixture of facts and assumptions and the theory itself is simply not a fact.
Are you suggesting that I am equivocating? I am asserting the evolution for example is simply a theory and NOT a fact. It is based on facts, in some cases dubiously interpreted, however evolution is simply not a "proven fact".
Equivocating on theory and fact occurs when one decides to describe a favorite theory as fact in order to try to give it more weight in a discussion.
I think I have the definitions of fact and theory well in hand:
From Merriam Webster:
theory noun \th--r, thir-\ plural theories Definition of THEORY 1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another 2: abstract thought : speculation 3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art 4a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory 5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena 6a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : conjecture c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
See theory defined for English-language learners See theory defined for kids Examples of THEORY
a widely accepted scientific theory Her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn. There are a number of different theories about the cause of the disease. She proposed a theory of her own. Investigators rejected the theory that the death was accidental. There is no evidence to support such a theory. He is a specialist in film theory and criticism. The immune surveillance theory of cancer holds that in a way we all do have cancer, that a healthy immune system fights off rogue cells as they appear. —Sallie Tisdale, Harper's, June 2007 [+]more
fact noun \fakt\ Definition of FACT
1: a thing done: as a obsolete : feat b : crime c archaic : action 2 archaic : performance, doing 3: the quality of being actual : actuality 4a : something that has actual existence b : an actual occurrence 5 : a piece of information presented as having objective reality — in fact : in truth
See fact defined for English-language learners See fact defined for kids Examples of FACT
Rapid electronic communication is now a fact. The book is filled with interesting facts and figures. He did it, and that's a fact.
The folks that are religious about the "truth" of the big bang, evolution, climate change or any other theory try to defend presenting the THEORY as scientific fact in the name of good science. Whether you believe in it or not, it is just plain silly to present it as fact. Theory and fact are two very different things.
It is dishonest to present these theories as fact, no matter how convinced you are of their truthfulness, they remain theories. There are plenty of goons on both sides of the argument, but you have to admit that there are just as many people who are closed minded and simply unwilling to accept reality who are in favor of these theories as are against them.
Slashdot Mirror
Some large (internet scale) services run without a firewall, although typically ACLs on the router serve a similar function. The issue is that firewalls have a hard time scaling to internet scale volumes. (source: I have served as the lead systems architect on very large scale internet infrastructure).
The accusations against bitcoin could be applied to many of the citizens of the united states. Stop and think about how you have handled money over the last money - buying things for folks, getting paid back, trading small amounts of cash for services etc.
I am no Microsoft fan however I am glad to see them responding to customer feedback on their product. IT is good to see large companies shape products based on customer response - particularly when they command a very large share of a market.
Thanks - I didn't mention licensing, sounds as though you read that into my comment.
This is a violation of trust more than anything else.
What this has to do with open source is that open source provides the means to identify impostors more readily - and the nicest thing is that there is a means to work around them without being required to use their "version".
This is one of the big reasons for supporting open source applications - violations like this can be exposed without relying on a single central authority to uncover it and trusting that the central authority will not be beholden to other interests.
Kudos to the firefox team!
Am I the only one that is decidedly uncomfortable with drinking from anything with a septum?
Based on my experience (26 years in the software development industry), I am unconvinced that "old" programmers are any less likely to change - I have seen plenty of young programmers unwilling to adapt to new technologies. I think the more important answer lies with the attitude and disposition of the programmer than their age.
I am ready to admit that I might be biased since I fall into the old category a lot more easily than the young category - but I am comfortable with my own subjective conclusion on this issue ;)
The whole idea of an academic ecosystem distinct from the reality that the rest of the world operates in is an elitist adaptation of medieval socio-political structures. Granting someone an insulated job from which they can not be removed is ridiculous under any conditions. Whether someone publishes a peer reviewed article on something is irrelevant to whether they know what they are talking about in the current model.
The REAL peers are the folks doing work in the profession day in and day out. As a rule most peer reviews are conducted by people with a decidedly academic focus - the experts in the field are working day jobs that don't afford them time to participate in silly self congratulatory exercises.
The only non-academic institutions that have something like tenure are US federal government jobs - yours to loose. Neither one provides us an example of healthy thinking or efficient and innovative work products.
Both right and left wing economics are Keynsian at their roots. The Austrian model is the only one that works - economies are more organic than formulaic because they are comprised of organic components.
Maybe I misunderstood your use of left/right - it may be a symptom of context. In the US, the "right" typically fights for the right to bear arms while the left typically pushes for gun control. This is not universally true, but I suspect that more than 90% of the candidates that identify themselves as "left" are pro gun control.
The assertion regarding taxes on the wealthy is disingenuous. I have been directly affected by high tax rates and I am not in the 1%. The question is not who's hands you put money in, the question is how do you generate more money. Giving money to the poor has been proven to seize the recipients in an iron grip of dependency.
There is no FACT that taking money from business owners increases investment. When I pay the taxes I pay now I simply can't afford to pay someone else to do jobs that I can do on my own. THAT is a fact. The government is the single least efficient means for putting oney into anyones hands.
Our (US) founders knew these - they wrote that when more than 50% of the population becomes dependent on the remaining portion of the population due to government influence then their experiment would have failed.
Why do you hate the constitution?
The right are far more interested in infringing on your liberties than the left.
Cite evidence please. While I think both parties are a joke, this statement is just plain silly
The police state is a right wing construct.
And the Democrats are less right wing than the Republicans.
Why do you hate America? Not only are the Republicans hell bent on stripping away the freedom of religion, expression, privacy, fair trial, etc. But they are pushing for a road to abject economic annihilation. The only balanced budget proposal is from the Congressional Progressive Caucus. It has been objectively proven that deregulation has destroyed the economy and directly lead to this last great recession, as it led to the great depression almost a hundred years ago. Republican economics are an abject disaster.
I think you may be confused. Is gun control typically a platform for the left or right? Are property rights more often abused by the left or right (think about the effects of profound regulation via EPA etc.).
De-regulation destroyed the economy? Really? You might want to brush up on your history and economics.
I am constantly amazed at arguments in favor of whatever government action folks want that base their premise on the trustworthiness of government. Why does anyone think they can trust a government? Now I am certainly not an anarchist, however I take the same view of centralized government that the founders of the US took - powerful central governments will inevitably grow and be corrupted because they are comprised of humans who are imminently corruptible.
It amuses me to see folks distrust a corporation and turn to the government as if the people in a government job are somehow more moral or ethical than those in private sector. They are all made of the same human stuff, all just as corruptible - the only meaningful difference is that the humans in government wield the power of massive force to accomplish their goals.
The government has NO business getting involved with cyber security any more than they do getting involved with how I secure my house or car. The government sucks at doing things efficiently and using best practices - the examples are legion.
People need to take personal responsibility for their systems and decisions.
Our home standby generator runs itself for 20 minutes every 7 days - just a low end 15kW model. It doesn't provide any metrics via remote (that requires add-in modules from Generac).
I sure hope you fire them more often than every 6 months! Weekly maintenance runs make a lot more sense. Leave an engine unused for 6 months over a long period of time and you will create more maintenance problems than you can imagine.
I don't think it is fair to accuse me of being disingenuous - while it is true that I don't agree with evolution I would like to see an honest and open dialog in which people can present facts as facts, theories as theories and be free to disagree with theories until they are established as fact.
It may be true that this bill is intended to discourage critical thinking about science, but what many folks (not necessarily you) seem to be pushing for is to censor the discussion rather than engage in open debate about theories that we simply don't know to be fact.
No, I am not holding anybody to an impossible standard. We can make whatever claims we need to about geological processes, stellar evolution etc. I am only asking that we distinguish between things we can know as fact and things that we must suppose as theory.
It is important to understand the distinction between fact and theory so that further improvements can be made in any discipline. If a researcher finds facts that collide with a theory, he must be comfortable declaring a theory to be in error.
What we should teach in schools is that a fact is distinguished from a theory in certain ways, that facts and theories both provide meaningful aids in understanding our world but that they are not equivalent. Further, when we teach a theory in school, we should teach it as a theory not as a fact. Student should know what we know for certain and what we have had to derive from the facts available to us.
Are you suggesting that there is no meaningful distinction between what we (or the sound scientist) might call a fact versus a theory?
While there may be subtle (or not so subtle) shifts in meaning based on context, I think it is fair to say that no one would assert that we can use the words theory and fact interchangeably in science or any other discipline.
No reasonable scientist would accept a theory as having the same weight as a fact. In the event that an observed fact conflicts with a theory, good science calls for us to reformulate the theory based on the facts. We do not discard facts when they conflict with a theory.
"All modern life forms" is one of things that has not been proven, in fact has not been repeated a single time - this is a theory. So far we have been unable to evolve a complex life form from a simple one even a single time. Whether you agree with the theory, the bottom line is that it is no more than a theory (at best) and has certainly not been proven through observation of repeatable scientific experiments.
In other disciplines we would never accept an assertion as fact that could not be proven demonstrably - software engineering is a simple case. If you tell me that a program can perform some task, you prove it by writing a piece of software to perform that task. Does biology get a pass on this requirement?
You are correct, we as a society tend to be a little sloppy/ambiguous about how things are named and referred to.
I suspect that most of the folks engaged in this discussion are thinking of the theory of evolution as the set of ideas that provide a description of how life began on Earth and how the various more complex species evolved from a single celled organism.
The creationist view also suggests common descent from a universal ancestor, most creationists (though not all) would argue that common ancestor was in the same species.
What has been observed in nature is the principle of natural selection and function of genetic mutations - these are components of the theory of evolution rather than a comprehensive treatment of the theory. What has not been observed is the process of evolution as the "origin of the species", the beginning of life on this planet.
Theories explain and interpret facts, but theories are not facts.
I am simply asserting that these things are indeed theories, not facts and can not be presented as facts.
Whether I agree with the theory isn't the issue. I believe that when a society chooses to teach theory as fact it begins the descent into a valley of ignorance that will take a long time to climb out of. I think it is important to be impartial when we teach the next generation, things are what they are - be objective. No matter how much you like an idea, classify it fairly and be open minded enough to allow it to be labelled properly so that the young minds can see a consistent treatment of the reality they are coming to grips with.
I would go so far as to suggest that even theory is a bit strong since we can not verify the hypothesis via repeatable experiment. If we could even know what the conditions were at the time the evolutionary process began that would at least be a start, however we don't even have the most basic facts to work with in this case.
Does it make sense to suggest that I am a flat earth, sun revolving around the earth type simply because I take issue with people characterizing theory with fact? That seems like a non-sequiter to me.
How many times has evolution been shown to be accurate? The last time I checked the conditions under which life supposedly evolved have not been recreated a single time. No "live" organisms have been synthesized from primordial ooze even once. In fact, we aren't' even sure what comprised the primordial ooze.
There are plenty of theories about what the conditions might have been, however the bottom line is that we really don't know. We can only theorize about what might have been going on at the time - and that isn't based on observation (another key element of real science).
This discussion is not about whether the theory of evolution is correct, but rather whether it is a theory or a fact.
Is it reasonable to assert that a fact can be an idea that has never been observed and can not be confirmed by even a single complete test (since the conditions of the test can not be known)?
Some of the facts that are used to construct the theory of evolution are testable and observable, however the theory is an interpretation of a mixture of facts and assumptions and the theory itself is simply not a fact.
Are you suggesting that I am equivocating? I am asserting the evolution for example is simply a theory and NOT a fact. It is based on facts, in some cases dubiously interpreted, however evolution is simply not a "proven fact".
Equivocating on theory and fact occurs when one decides to describe a favorite theory as fact in order to try to give it more weight in a discussion.
I think I have the definitions of fact and theory well in hand:
From Merriam Webster:
theory noun \th--r, thir-\
plural theories
Definition of THEORY
1: the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2: abstract thought : speculation
3: the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
4a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action
b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances —often used in the phrase in theory
5: a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
6a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation
b : an unproved assumption : conjecture
c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
See theory defined for English-language learners
See theory defined for kids
Examples of THEORY
a widely accepted scientific theory
Her method is based on the theory that all children want to learn.
There are a number of different theories about the cause of the disease.
She proposed a theory of her own.
Investigators rejected the theory that the death was accidental.
There is no evidence to support such a theory.
He is a specialist in film theory and criticism.
The immune surveillance theory of cancer holds that in a way we all do have cancer, that a healthy immune system fights off rogue cells as they appear. —Sallie Tisdale, Harper's, June 2007
[+]more
fact noun \fakt\
Definition of FACT
1: a thing done: as
a obsolete : feat
b : crime
c archaic : action
2 archaic : performance, doing
3: the quality of being actual : actuality
4a : something that has actual existence
b : an actual occurrence
5
: a piece of information presented as having objective reality
— in fact
: in truth
See fact defined for English-language learners
See fact defined for kids
Examples of FACT
Rapid electronic communication is now a fact.
The book is filled with interesting facts and figures.
He did it, and that's a fact.
These stories always amuse me.
The folks that are religious about the "truth" of the big bang, evolution, climate change or any other theory try to defend presenting the THEORY as scientific fact in the name of good science. Whether you believe in it or not, it is just plain silly to present it as fact. Theory and fact are two very different things.
It is dishonest to present these theories as fact, no matter how convinced you are of their truthfulness, they remain theories. There are plenty of goons on both sides of the argument, but you have to admit that there are just as many people who are closed minded and simply unwilling to accept reality who are in favor of these theories as are against them.