I'd have to argue that history is an important part of a curiculuum for teaching *thought*. Why?
Mathematics is fundamentally artificial. In addition, it's rule-based. Are you familiar with the Searle's "Chinese Box" argument? The logical conclusion of it is that rule-based symbol processing is perhaps not the best measurement of cognition...
On the other hand, history has one redeeming feature: in many aspects, there are few clear-cut answers. Asking for an essay on, say, the reasons behind the First Crusade should result in a detailed analysis of not just the superficial reasons, but also the socio-economic status of medieval Europe; the dangers of having idle troops on one's soil; and sporadic neighbor-neighbor conflicts that can be averted if they happen to work "together" against a common enemy -- not to mention the prospects for looting and pillaging on the way.
*THAT* requires analytical thought, not just rule application.
You're thinking of a recent (in my view...) CNN report, in which a couple of reporters conveyed the impression that US forces used chemical weapons to spray defectors in 'Nam. As it turns out, they didn't have hard evidence, did a goodly bit of selective quoting (with their interviewees repudiating the conclusions), and both got canned. CNN had at least (some) reputation to keep, and there had been a rash of reporters found to have twisted or sometimes completely made up "facts" to write sometimes-Pulitzer-prize-winning articles.
I don't recall any suit, however, and given how often the Gov't *is* libelled, they may not actually have the power to do more than call a press conference.
Sounds like your capital's mayor should meet our capital's mayor, and have an ex-con convention...
*chuckle*
Oh, justice here is pretty darn freaky. Locally, we've got judges being nailed for drug use, soliciting prostitutes... we had a local judge flee to Yugoslavia to avoid arrest once. Expect more of the same.
Erm, sure. It's been done -- Nader versus, well, just about all the Big Three, and he's still around, right? Ask random people what they think about when they hear "Ford Pinto".
Rachel Carson definitely made an *impact* with "Silent Spring"...
Philip Agee worked with the KGB in publicly, repeatedly betraying his former employers -- the CIA -- and believe it or not, no hit teams were sent after him; the KGB has had its share of defectors (who sometimes *did* have to avoid kidnapping/assassination) as well.
A pair of reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, broke the Watergate story and explored the malfeasance of the Nixonian CRP.
If you rant and rave, you'll probably be largely ignored corner like "Redmond Rose"; if you start by documenting actual _hard evidence_ and articulate a cogent argument, perhaps starting with Letters to the Editor and such, then you will be heard. It's easy to ignore the bizarre (those that still espouse the _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_, say), and the shrill (those that rely on entirely emotional arguments), but it's tough for most large targets to dodge facts.
That's why groups like the Sierra Club have better reputations than "Earth First!" -- discussion being considered better than sabotage -- and folks like Sam Nunn and Phil Gramm are more respected than Lyndon LaRouche or Vladimir Zhironovsky.
I don't know whether there's any coordinated attempts by MS to thusly "infiltrate" public discussion forums; when I was there [intern only], I was purely on the software development side, and never involved with dealing with the Outside. It's very possible to work there for quite some time without being involved with company policy, marketing, any form of PR, and so forth...
I do know, however, that:
* They were concerned with their public image, and have more reason to keep that concern nowadays.
* They do not operate in ignorance of potential competition; for instance, Unix experience does not appear to be a negative when hiring, and their are employees that experiment with other operating systems such as Linux in their free time.
* They do have an extensive marketing department. Chances are, there's at least a few of 'em who are no-holds-barred when promoting their products, just as there are employees who don't evangelize about every MS product as the solution to all problems.
* While one might *think* that they'd have some limits, the repeated violations of the implicit rule "Don't EVER piss off the Judge" (remember the "dramatized" videotaped demos?) suggest strongly that at least somebody there makes seriously bad judgement calls.
Re:Far More Sophisticated than "Key Phrases"
on
Spies in the Forests
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· Score: 2
Ummm, no.
If you're a known member of the Abu Nidal Fan Club, Black September, Islamic Jihaad, Hizbollah... they're going to have a vested interest in monitoring you even if you're ostensibly discussing your favorite laundry detergent.
Re:"Those who refuse to see are the true blind..."
on
Perverts and Consumers
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· Score: 2
Controlled by corporate interests? Ummm, sure. Next thing, you'll be telling us that Chomsky's an unbiased, level-headed observer, rather than somebody picking-and-choosing to foster an agenda; that Moscow Centre really *wasn't* being naive when they tried to cultivate, of all people, Patrick Buchanan; fluoridation is a Commie plot to sap our "essence"...
Look at the Federal government -- if it were "controlled by corporate interest" it'd be tearing down regulations left and right, going towards flat taxes, not trying to legislate *any* benefits, and increasing the DoD at the expense of social spending instead of the exact reverse.
You also wouldn't have a mostly New Left/Third-Way administration...
Perhaps it cost a bit to figure out *where* the initial entry was made? Even if you bust a guy and extract a confession, it may not be complete...
...and if you have a box cracked, I'd *hope* you do more than simply reach for the tapes. There was obviously at least one way in; there may be many more, some new; and you may simply be keeping the doors unlocked while straightening up a few tilted pictures. At that point, you need to study what went wrong and how to prevent it -- and that takes time and $.
Re:The humans rights violations are irksome
on
China Enters Space
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· Score: 3
* The Soviet Union's status as a nuclear superpower was largely due to espionage. Fuchs, Rosenberg, and other sympathizers funneled information including plans for atomic devices to the NKVD; without this information, they would have been hard pressed to come close to the US.
* Much of the initial rocketry research was done by Nazi scientists working on the V series weapons; if memory serves, a few ended up in the States as researchers instead of war prisoners. That's about as far from the Communist ideal as you can get.
With that sort of system, are they completely sure of correctness and stability?
For instance, is it still inadvisable to run computational tasks where the arithmetic *must* be reproducible on other platforms, and where the system must be able to keep this up for, oh, a week while a job completes?
As a program manager, dev tools? Probably do planning/organization for at least some of MS development software line; figure that the company has a decent number of people who *aren't* SDEs (Software Development Engineers) but do get to coordinate them.
Remember that MacArthur proposed escalating the Korean conflict dramatically into an all-out war on Communism, by targetting the PRC with nuclear weapons and lacing the Yalu when Co-60?
To a degree. But there's still a lot of deviation, like how you get full information about everything your units can see, instantaneously; how units are always identifiable; how marines never run out of ammo; how you can't do something like give attack plans to groups of units (e.g. at clock tick N, the Wraiths should cloak and head for the Pylons, then attack. Simultaneously, the siege tanks open up on perimiter defenses, while a ghost cloaks, takes a certain path, and prepares a nuclear strike. When the nuclear strike starts, the Wraiths are to head elsewhere while a set of transports picks up marines/Goliaths and attacks the units harvesting crystals -- and let this plan be, and shift focus elsewhere while all this takes place). This clicks with the rule that you can't order more than 12 units at once...
Remember how those ugly orcs and trolls were so *obviously* evil, and how the fair Elves were the righteous defenders of the land? Clearly that's a metaphor for how the Man keeps down minorities and seeks to oppress them. The peons must be struck down if they rise! Let the fair rule! And so forth.
That article could have been written by a Green or a staff writer for the "Militant" (a local socialist rag) for all its ramblings about Western "hegemony" and military force.
It does raise an interesting question, though. Military sims on the desktop are generally *not* exactly complete training programs; even those that *try* to a degree (e.g. games that attract grognards) do not model things like communications issues, intelligence (down to profiles of leaders...), logistics (not that many games have the concept of moving ammunition, fuel, or food), delegation (generals did NOT have to order infantry sergeants to get their men to seek cover if, say, an MG42 starts firing towards their lines), and so forth.
What they *might* *possibly* suggest is the usefulness of warfare as a useful tool. Frankly, that's one that I firmly believe should stay in the toolbox; remember that one logical consequence of civil disobedience / pacifism is martyrdom...
That, and the fact that there *are* often sides that can arguably be considered "bad", despite what some would have us believe. It's hard to argue that, say, the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria -- known for raiding villages and brutally murdering / mutilating civillians by the scores -- is *not* in the wrong; nor, arguably, were the Flying Tigers on as low a moral level as the SS Totenkopf on the other front. There's nothing wrong with labelling an aggressor as such...
There's also nothing wrong with pointing out the nature of the land. Vietnam's territory includes a decent number of rice paddies -- and if you're going to fight there, you'd better know about that. It's no more "racist" to note this, than it would be to suggest that the Khyber Pass is a salient feature in its locality, or that should one attempt to attack Washington, D.C., that the Potomac is wide enough that throwing a coin across it would be tricky for most of us...
As for balance, examine existing games. Consider, for instance, MS/Atomic's "Close Combat" series, which allows you to play as either side (German Wehrmacht/SS, and the Allies (British/Polish/US/USSR) on the other. CC1 and CC2, at least (I've never tried CC3) don't particularly issue judgements on either side, with the possible exception that it seems that playing Germany in CC1, you *have* to let the Allies take St. Lo in order to end the game; you can defend it all you want but as long as you do, it'll continue. CC2 lets you *win* as either (as the Germans, by, say, eliminating the paratroopers and blocking the British XXX Corps at Son Town for the duration of the game; the Allies, by linking XXX Corps with the besieged paratroopers and securing all bridges). Anything wrong with that?
Nice reminder. *thinks back to the previous Slashdot discussion on this*
It makes one wonder why they did *this* hacky thing, instead of a Netrek-style method. For those that never played (bronco) Netrek, the "official" clients were compiled with blessed RSA keys. The servers sent (sometimes periodic) challenges to the clients; the clients had to respond in such a way that the server could tell whether it was a valid client, and which it was. If a key was cracked, it could be invalidated at the server side.
It's not fool-proof, but it doesn't open the user up to remote exploits...
If MS can get rile enough people with a remote exploit of AIM, then perhaps these folks (angry users? Or if they managed to convince sysadmins that the risks were high enough to merit banning AIM from their networks...) will go in and finish the job.
By claiming that the reason they're backing off is to avoid replicating the security hole, they may be seemingly on the high ground, and diverting attention from the fact that it's AOL's servers that are involved, and AOL can arguably ban arbitrary networks from their servers at will.
...and don't forget the celebrity appeal. IIRC, the Scientology folks have a habit of recruiting 'ollywood folks as members and spokespeople, although who's to say that they're being bilked as much as everybody else...
It might amuse y'all to know that there was, and probably still is, a Scientology office within walking distance of MS main campus in Bellevue, WA... both would appear to be profit-motivated, but only one admits it.
[Is Germany still cracking down on them? They once started treating it basically as a cult, but I seem to remember that some politcos over on this side of the pond got involved.]
That's 'bout the only physical presence of theirs I've personally seen; AFAIK, they've never recruited hear at Carnegie Mellon.
It might be reasonable at least for an OEM to do it.
It's certainly reasonable for either MS or an OEM to include some documentation that drops the hysteria (along the lines that "Viruses are mysterious things that can destroy all your files, anytime, anywhere... so you'd better buy our AV product!") in favor of some sanity (like "Be aware of the risks when getting files from untrusted sources, but if you just do WWW browsing, no explicit sharing, and don't use a let's-try-to-do-everything-under-the-sun mail client, you're pretty safe...").
Only if it can also silently remount as rw, do 'chattr -i', obfuscate itself so it cannot be read, *and* be installed by enough users before anybody happens to notice.
Not to mention that chroot jails are an option, and that there's often little reason for using a script when the binaries can be copied separately and there's no centralized registry that must be edited in oh-so-special ways...
Unclued posts arguably deserve a negative moderation. A deceptive post with faulty logic based on non-existent facts that utterly defy reality qualifies.
That includes the idea that Linux is just as vulnerable. It isn't; no remotely-decent truly multi-user system with permissions is.
A clued Windows 9X user is functioning as root 100% of the time. A clued Linux user, perhaps a couple % at most, if they're still testing their hardware configuration or installing additional system-wide software. Read up on permissions, and you'll see that there's a fundamental difference.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd have to argue that history is an important part of a curiculuum for teaching *thought*. Why?
Mathematics is fundamentally artificial. In addition, it's rule-based. Are you familiar with the Searle's "Chinese Box" argument? The logical conclusion of it is that rule-based symbol processing is perhaps not the best measurement of cognition...
On the other hand, history has one redeeming feature: in many aspects, there are few clear-cut answers. Asking for an essay on, say, the reasons behind the First Crusade should result in a detailed analysis of not just the superficial reasons, but also the socio-economic status of medieval Europe; the dangers of having idle troops on one's soil; and sporadic neighbor-neighbor conflicts that can be averted if they happen to work "together" against a common enemy -- not to mention the prospects for looting and pillaging on the way.
*THAT* requires analytical thought, not just rule application.
They don't have time to comment on every allegation, no matter how geeky...
Cynically? The local residents decided to impose a _100%-Off Sale_ at many of the local shops.
Oh, hell. Been reading comp.os.linux.misc lately?
You're thinking of a recent (in my view...) CNN report, in which a couple of reporters conveyed the impression that US forces used chemical weapons to spray defectors in 'Nam. As it turns out, they didn't have hard evidence, did a goodly bit of selective quoting (with their interviewees repudiating the conclusions), and both got canned. CNN had at least (some) reputation to keep, and there had been a rash of reporters found to have twisted or sometimes completely made up "facts" to write sometimes-Pulitzer-prize-winning articles.
I don't recall any suit, however, and given how often the Gov't *is* libelled, they may not actually have the power to do more than call a press conference.
Sounds like your capital's mayor should meet our capital's mayor, and have an ex-con convention...
*chuckle*
Oh, justice here is pretty darn freaky. Locally, we've got judges being nailed for drug use, soliciting prostitutes... we had a local judge flee to Yugoslavia to avoid arrest once. Expect more of the same.
Erm, sure. It's been done -- Nader versus, well, just about all the Big Three, and he's still around, right? Ask random people what they think about when they hear "Ford Pinto".
Rachel Carson definitely made an *impact* with "Silent Spring"...
Philip Agee worked with the KGB in publicly, repeatedly betraying his former employers -- the CIA -- and believe it or not, no hit teams were sent after him; the KGB has had its share of defectors (who sometimes *did* have to avoid kidnapping/assassination) as well.
A pair of reporters, Woodward and Bernstein, broke the Watergate story and explored the malfeasance of the Nixonian CRP.
If you rant and rave, you'll probably be largely ignored corner like "Redmond Rose"; if you start by documenting actual _hard evidence_ and articulate a cogent argument, perhaps starting with Letters to the Editor and such, then you will be heard. It's easy to ignore the bizarre (those that still espouse the _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_, say), and the shrill (those that rely on entirely emotional arguments), but it's tough for most large targets to dodge facts.
That's why groups like the Sierra Club have better reputations than "Earth First!" -- discussion being considered better than sabotage -- and folks like Sam Nunn and Phil Gramm are more respected than Lyndon LaRouche or Vladimir Zhironovsky.
I don't know whether there's any coordinated attempts by MS to thusly "infiltrate" public discussion forums; when I was there [intern only], I was purely on the software development side, and never involved with dealing with the Outside. It's very possible to work there for quite some time without being involved with company policy, marketing, any form of PR, and so forth...
I do know, however, that:
* They were concerned with their public image, and have more reason to keep that concern nowadays.
* They do not operate in ignorance of potential competition; for instance, Unix experience does not appear to be a negative when hiring, and their are employees that experiment with other operating systems such as Linux in their free time.
* They do have an extensive marketing department. Chances are, there's at least a few of 'em who are no-holds-barred when promoting their products, just as there are employees who don't evangelize about every MS product as the solution to all problems.
* While one might *think* that they'd have some limits, the repeated violations of the implicit rule "Don't EVER piss off the Judge" (remember the "dramatized" videotaped demos?) suggest strongly that at least somebody there makes seriously bad judgement calls.
Ummm, no.
If you're a known member of the Abu Nidal Fan Club, Black September, Islamic Jihaad, Hizbollah... they're going to have a vested interest in monitoring you even if you're ostensibly discussing your favorite laundry detergent.
Controlled by corporate interests? Ummm, sure. Next thing, you'll be telling us that Chomsky's an unbiased, level-headed observer, rather than somebody picking-and-choosing to foster an agenda; that Moscow Centre really *wasn't* being naive when they tried to cultivate, of all people, Patrick Buchanan; fluoridation is a Commie plot to sap our "essence"...
Look at the Federal government -- if it were "controlled by corporate interest" it'd be tearing down regulations left and right, going towards flat taxes, not trying to legislate *any* benefits, and increasing the DoD at the expense of social spending instead of the exact reverse.
You also wouldn't have a mostly New Left/Third-Way administration...
Perhaps it cost a bit to figure out *where* the initial entry was made? Even if you bust a guy and extract a confession, it may not be complete...
...and if you have a box cracked, I'd *hope* you do more than simply reach for the tapes. There was obviously at least one way in; there may be many more, some new; and you may simply be keeping the doors unlocked while straightening up a few tilted pictures. At that point, you need to study what went wrong and how to prevent it -- and that takes time and $.
* The Soviet Union's status as a nuclear superpower was largely due to espionage. Fuchs, Rosenberg, and other sympathizers funneled information including plans for atomic devices to the NKVD; without this information, they would have been hard pressed to come close to the US.
* Much of the initial rocketry research was done by Nazi scientists working on the V series weapons; if memory serves, a few ended up in the States as researchers instead of war prisoners. That's about as far from the Communist ideal as you can get.
With that sort of system, are they completely sure of correctness and stability?
For instance, is it still inadvisable to run computational tasks where the arithmetic *must* be reproducible on other platforms, and where the system must be able to keep this up for, oh, a week while a job completes?
As a program manager, dev tools? Probably do planning/organization for at least some of MS development software line; figure that the company has a decent number of people who *aren't* SDEs (Software Development Engineers) but do get to coordinate them.
It's *not* a coding position.
Sure it does, depending on the reason.
Remember that MacArthur proposed escalating the Korean conflict dramatically into an all-out war on Communism, by targetting the PRC with nuclear weapons and lacing the Yalu when Co-60?
It wasn't good for his career, or his popularity.
To a degree. But there's still a lot of deviation, like how you get full information about everything your units can see, instantaneously; how units are always identifiable; how marines never run out of ammo; how you can't do something like give attack plans to groups of units (e.g. at clock tick N, the Wraiths should cloak and head for the Pylons, then attack. Simultaneously, the siege tanks open up on perimiter defenses, while a ghost cloaks, takes a certain path, and prepares a nuclear strike. When the nuclear strike starts, the Wraiths are to head elsewhere while a set of transports picks up marines/Goliaths and attacks the units harvesting crystals -- and let this plan be, and shift focus elsewhere while all this takes place). This clicks with the rule that you can't order more than 12 units at once...
Ah. Remember _Warcraft II_?
Remember how those ugly orcs and trolls were so *obviously* evil, and how the fair Elves were the righteous defenders of the land? Clearly that's a metaphor for how the Man keeps down minorities and seeks to oppress them. The peons must be struck down if they rise! Let the fair rule! And so forth.
;-)
So now we know who to call when the Zerg come a-knockin'...
...in the Metamute article.
That article could have been written by a Green or a staff writer for the "Militant" (a local socialist rag) for all its ramblings about Western "hegemony" and military force.
It does raise an interesting question, though. Military sims on the desktop are generally *not* exactly complete training programs; even those that *try* to a degree (e.g. games that attract grognards) do not model things like communications issues, intelligence (down to profiles of leaders...), logistics (not that many games have the concept of moving ammunition, fuel, or food), delegation (generals did NOT have to order infantry sergeants to get their men to seek cover if, say, an MG42 starts firing towards their lines), and so forth.
What they *might* *possibly* suggest is the usefulness of warfare as a useful tool. Frankly, that's one that I firmly believe should stay in the toolbox; remember that one logical consequence of civil disobedience / pacifism is martyrdom...
That, and the fact that there *are* often sides that can arguably be considered "bad", despite what some would have us believe. It's hard to argue that, say, the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria -- known for raiding villages and brutally murdering / mutilating civillians by the scores -- is *not* in the wrong; nor, arguably, were the Flying Tigers on as low a moral level as the SS Totenkopf on the other front. There's nothing wrong with labelling an aggressor as such...
There's also nothing wrong with pointing out the nature of the land. Vietnam's territory includes a decent number of rice paddies -- and if you're going to fight there, you'd better know about that. It's no more "racist" to note this, than it would be to suggest that the Khyber Pass is a salient feature in its locality, or that should one attempt to attack Washington, D.C., that the Potomac is wide enough that throwing a coin across it would be tricky for most of us...
As for balance, examine existing games. Consider, for instance, MS/Atomic's "Close Combat" series, which allows you to play as either side (German Wehrmacht/SS, and the Allies (British/Polish/US/USSR) on the other. CC1 and CC2, at least (I've never tried CC3) don't particularly issue judgements on either side, with the possible exception that it seems that playing Germany in CC1, you *have* to let the Allies take St. Lo in order to end the game; you can defend it all you want but as long as you do, it'll continue. CC2 lets you *win* as either (as the Germans, by, say, eliminating the paratroopers and blocking the British XXX Corps at Son Town for the duration of the game; the Allies, by linking XXX Corps with the besieged paratroopers and securing all bridges). Anything wrong with that?
Nice reminder. *thinks back to the previous Slashdot discussion on this*
It makes one wonder why they did *this* hacky thing, instead of a Netrek-style method. For those that never played (bronco) Netrek, the "official" clients were compiled with blessed RSA keys. The servers sent (sometimes periodic) challenges to the clients; the clients had to respond in such a way that the server could tell whether it was a valid client, and which it was. If a key was cracked, it could be invalidated at the server side.
It's not fool-proof, but it doesn't open the user up to remote exploits...
Mmm, Cannae/Austerlitz...
If MS can get rile enough people with a remote exploit of AIM, then perhaps these folks (angry users? Or if they managed to convince sysadmins that the risks were high enough to merit banning AIM from their networks...) will go in and finish the job.
By claiming that the reason they're backing off is to avoid replicating the security hole, they may be seemingly on the high ground, and diverting attention from the fact that it's AOL's servers that are involved, and AOL can arguably ban arbitrary networks from their servers at will.
...and don't forget the celebrity appeal. IIRC, the Scientology folks have a habit of recruiting 'ollywood folks as members and spokespeople, although who's to say that they're being bilked as much as everybody else...
It might amuse y'all to know that there was, and probably still is, a Scientology office within walking distance of MS main campus in Bellevue, WA... both would appear to be profit-motivated, but only one admits it.
[Is Germany still cracking down on them? They once started treating it basically as a cult, but I seem to remember that some politcos over on this side of the pond got involved.]
That's 'bout the only physical presence of theirs I've personally seen; AFAIK, they've never recruited hear at Carnegie Mellon.
It might be reasonable at least for an OEM to do it.
It's certainly reasonable for either MS or an OEM to include some documentation that drops the hysteria (along the lines that "Viruses are mysterious things that can destroy all your files, anytime, anywhere... so you'd better buy our AV product!") in favor of some sanity (like "Be aware of the risks when getting files from untrusted sources, but if you just do WWW browsing, no explicit sharing, and don't use a let's-try-to-do-everything-under-the-sun mail client, you're pretty safe...").
Only if it can also silently remount as rw, do 'chattr -i', obfuscate itself so it cannot be read, *and* be installed by enough users before anybody happens to notice.
Not to mention that chroot jails are an option, and that there's often little reason for using a script when the binaries can be copied separately and there's no centralized registry that must be edited in oh-so-special ways...
Unclued posts arguably deserve a negative moderation. A deceptive post with faulty logic based on non-existent facts that utterly defy reality qualifies.
That includes the idea that Linux is just as vulnerable. It isn't; no remotely-decent truly multi-user system with permissions is.
A clued Windows 9X user is functioning as root 100% of the time. A clued Linux user, perhaps a couple % at most, if they're still testing their hardware configuration or installing additional system-wide software. Read up on permissions, and you'll see that there's a fundamental difference.