130,000 peoples "croudsourced" surveillance leads to the arrest of 21 mostly dope smugglers. What a colossal waste of time and energy this was for this end result.
How about you border watchers go do something useful, learn a trade, contribute something positive to society. Obstructing other people from doing their work, does nothing to make this world a better place. It's a line in the sand!
You know it's funny that Android gets designated as one of the Best OS, and has people like you claiming that it "brought" multitasking to the smartphone, when windows mobile was multitasking long before Android existed.
I'm a windows mobile 6.1 user, I can multitask just find, and I can watch Flash and Silverlight video in my web browser (Skyfire). My mobile OS may be "Way Behind" according to this blatantly anti-Microsoft article, but it does plenty of things that Androids and iPhones can't.
Some related knowledge: The largest Image sensor (that I've heard of) is part of the "Large Synoptic Survey Telescope" in Chile and it weighs in at 3200 Megapixels
"As on our desktop browser tests, we tested standards compliance with the Acid3 test, and JavaScript-rendering abilities with the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark."
These criminals were actively wasting millions of peoples time, even if they did not succumb to getting charged by them, the time it takes to deal with this is significant.
I received nearly 50 calls from these criminals. I spent a lot of time reporting them to donotcall. This time could have been much better spent elsewhere.
Last time they called, I baited them by starting to read a bogus credit card to them, but asked for them and managed to speak to a manager of some sort, who refused to identify the company. I managed to hurl as many insults at them as possible before the click. That was satisfying, but nowhere near as satisfying as seeing justice happen.
I'm overjoyed they have been caught, I had become very cynical about all the time I spent reporting them. Hopefully my reports will help to bolster the case.
> what application can you think of, popular in the Windows Mobile world today, that will not be allowed by Apple?
If you forgot my original post... SlingPlayer. While you and the Apple loyalists seem to be resigned to the fact that certain apps will only work with wifi. I on the other hand shall be enjoying watching live TV streaming onto my mobile device in places where WiFi is not available.
> Holy crap! You obviously have NEVER worked for a large or medium size company! When you grow a company costs are NOT reduced in any way., Companies generally lead to far GREATER overhead.
You are correct in your assumption that I have not worked for a medium to large sized company. Your are also correct in stating that the overhead of a large company is greater. But unless the large company is horribly mismanaged, the expenses should be proportionally smaller compared to the total the total revenue of the company. If this wasn't true the mom-and-pop shop would be the most efficient form of organization... It isn't.
So maybe I am countering my own argument here, but I personally operate a small software company's sales and distribution operations at a cost of less than 25%, including my own salary. Now you might say that giving up 5% of your revenue is no-big deal. But with the present state of the economy, 5% can mean the difference between being in the red and being in the black. Needless to say, we're in no hurry to fire me and replace me with Apple.
> you might find work at Burger King. Not McDonalds though
I should have expected the Apple nut-huggers to come out of the woodwork.
> Apple has shown that, yes it is tenable.
There is a big difference between tenable and sustainable. Have they really proved this? Last time I checked, you can buy software (and music) from distributors other than Apple and put it on your apple computer.
> When you buy a Windows Mobile handheld today, how many other OS'es can you load on it? What about Palm? All these companies have shown what you claim is not tenable.
I wasn't talking about OS's, I was talking about software. Neither palm nor Microsoft force you to buy software from them other than the underlying OS.
> You must not be operating at a very high level then as 30% to include distribution, hosting, update infrastructure, management, servers, scalability, reliability, and so on is very reasonable. Ask Symbian developers what they get (hint, the number starts with a five and is two digits!)
You are correct... I do not operate on the highest level. But economies of scale should dictate that as operations become larger, they become more efficient, not the other way around as you imply.
> I can port any GNu thing I like and sell it on the store.
It wouldn't be free software any more then, would it?
> I can also of course, as a developer, compile and deploy whatever I like to my phone.
That's fine for us developers, but what about everybody else?
> Didn't you get the memo? Those apps, are limited to WiFi.
I'm sure that Apple is glad that its herd of faithful you are so accepting of these "Limits". I, on the other hand do not believe that a caste system dictated by an omnipotent overlord is the best form of governance for a mobile platform.
> Is it nott time to ask yourself, when do you let the hate go? Because you got a lot of hate for Apple there and it's really clouding your judgement, and making you post things that make you look either insane or ignorant. Isn't that going to be pretty embarrassing if you ever go to look for a job? The internet is forever dude!
I stand by all my statements and am OK with the fact that I have perhaps blown my chances of getting hired at Apple. I probably only appear insane and ignorant to zealous Apple apologists (Appleologists?) such as yourself, and I'm OK with that!
1. Imagine Microsoft forcing windows users to subscribe to MSN in order to connect to the internet. Imagine Microsoft forcing their users to purchase all software through microsoft.com. Imagine if windows only ran on official Microsoft hardware? Would this strategy have been effective? Is this kind of practice sustainable?
2. Imagine the Apple/AT&T board room conference call where they debated how much was too much to carve out of developers revenues. They finally arrived at 30 percent. As one involved with software sales, this number is very high for a reseller, and ridiculously high considering the exclusivity Apple demands.
3. Know the difference between prize financing and venture capital. Prize capital allows the winner to retain 100% of the company, while venture capital is giving your equity away in exchange for cash. You will find that most venture capitalists will be seeking a controlling stake of your company (>50%), and will be looking to get acquired, go public, or liquidate their interest within 3-5 years. Furthermore, 100 million is a drop in the pool of total VC fund money out there looking to invest in this space, and nothing will stop you from getting your android project funded that way. This makes the "iFund" announcement about as significant as breaking news about the omnipresence of DiHydrogen monoxide in the environment.
4. So after this you still want to be an iPhone/iFund developer. Let's do a little "new math". So after Apple takes 30% of your revenue, the VCs take 51% of your company, you are left with 19% of what you started with. Invalid equations aside... the moral of the story is that if you choose to go this route, you will be, so to say "Owned". Look how happy musicians are about the pennies on the dollar they get for their sales on the ITunes music store... Should we not be itching to join their ranks?
5. What about free software? If only official apple-authorize software sold through the apple software store is allowed to be installed on your device, then there leaves no room whatsoever for Free/Open Source software to exist on Apple's platform. Sorry GNUbies!
6. What if Apple/AT&T doesn't want you to erode the sales of their content streaming services? They just stamp your software as "Bandwidth hogging", and tell you to politely go fuck yourself (and this means you slingMedia!). You have now officially become a victim of the absence of openness and network neutrality. They probably don't even offer a refund on the $99 you wasted buying their SDK.
It's time to seriously ask yourself, Are you, as a developer, willing to subjugate yourself in such a way?
Phase 1: Sign up on myspace, lie about age Phase 2: Fuck around with your boyfriend Phase 3: Lawyer up and sue! Phase 4: ??? Phase 5: 30 Million Dollars Profit.
I was just involved in writing a routine that involved Base64-encoding something to be included in XML, then GZipping the whole XML file to recover the space the encoding tacks on. Now I can just do a XOP file, Awesome!
I should clarify that I really had no intention of speaking generally about the entire readership or the authors or editors of Phrack. My rant was simply offtopic flamebait and was moderated thus. I've been victimized; I have post traumatic stress from being victimized. In my moment of duress, Slashdot gave me an outlet to vent my rage. My apologies for indicting the innocent.
Don't get so caught up in terminology... I wasn't referring to benevolent ones aligned with the forces good. Those people aren't hackers: they're software engineers, or security experts. I was more referring to those who succumb to the idolization of the illicit behavior that is glorified in Phrack and 2600. If you find my ranting on this subject unfavorable, you could be one of the dickless shitbags I'm talking about.
I don't use the term "script kiddy" because plenty of those I despise are adults, and should be treated as such. I don't use the term "Cracker", because that is someone who breaks the copy protection on software.
No, hacker is exactly the right word for those I despise: someone who hacks. All the whitewashing in the world won't remove the negative connotation that comes with this word. I should have known that I would get modded down by slashdotters who couldn't handle the truth. C'est la vie.
Hackers should use their powers for good, not evil. They should stop spending energy trying to break, take over, invade, infect, and steal from others.
I completely understand the thrill that comes with probing a system for vulnerabilities. Hacking is a drug... it's a power trip to take control of another host. But that power comes with karma of the worst kind. Whether a hacker hurts an individual, a company, or corporation... their deeds are not any more acceptable. Even if they're smart enough to cover their tracks, they will be punished for their crimes.
Fuck hackers! Fuck the hackers that shut down my companies when worms or virus compromised security. Fuck the hackers with their clusters of zombie machines running PsyBNC. Fuck every single one of them that constantly pound my servers with brute force attacks. Fuck'em all. Their time for comeuppance will arrive.
If you want to hack: Go try to break a security protocol then publish a whitepaper on it. Track down a hacker and terminate their exploited host by contacting its admin. Go patch an open source project. Go make something of your own instead of just raping other peoples property. Don't destroy... create! Your life is a waste if what you do with it is evil.
Hey don't feel bad.... Nobody modded me down, the post just slipped by and only got 1 mod point. This topic had something like a thousand posts only a few hours in, so it slipped through the cracks. But thanks for your concern. I'm hardly significant in the slashdot universe, but I'm thankful for my 3:-D
The semantics of your faith vs. my faith degrade into condemning and those who are different. It is not so much what somebody believes in, but the effects those beliefs have upon their actions.
The problem with many modern belief systems is that those who sin, repent, and sin again. It's a vicious cycle that gives people an excuse for evil deeds. Repentance only serves the goal of a supposed salvation. It does not in any way correct an evil deed. These beliefs cause people to sin against each other confident that their slates can be wiped clean in the confessional.
I have different beliefs. Their foundation is karma, a form of spiritual energy that connects life, the universe, and everything. What we do in our lives causes repercussions that are instantaneous, and those that echo into eternity long after our flesh is decomposed.
I first began to believe all this nonsense after doing something that was very evil and destructive. Not more than 24 hours after my transgression, something horrible happened to me. Could this have been a complete coincidence? Indeed it could; but what I did, and what happened was destructive, traumatic, and totally unrelated as possible. This led me to believe that there must be some underlying power that isn't properly described by Christian theology. Since getting slapped by karma I've changed my life. I haven't been perfect, but I've done my best. Now I find myself incredibly fortunate and happy in my life. This could be a complete coincidence.
Most modern religions defy science... mine embraces it. Physics has conservation of energy... What about conservation of karma or conservation of souls? If earth was once a cloud of stealer particles brought together by gravity, where did all the souls come from? From the billions of other systems that support life in this universe.
As far as "reincarnation" verses "afterlife", the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. For a soul that might have come from a distant star, or found its way into a different species; their lives now fit all the classic definitions or "afterlife". So with my beliefs it's impossible to say that the core concepts of most organized religions are wrong. But it becomes easy to tell that arguing the semantics of these concepts is pointless.
A final component of my belief system is that it could all be complete bullshit... But if it lays down a good moral code sans religious fanaticism, is it really that bad?
Who is God? A man sitting on a cloud passing judgment? Or a vast entity far beyond our comprehension? Why do religions have to weave such intricate and detailed pictures of what this deity is? Why must people comfort their fears of death by fabricating an imaginary world that lies beyond the grave? Why can't we realize how totally insignificant we and all of our complex illusions really are?
Hey I know what you mean about putty and registry. Here is a solution... It's a hack, but it works! This batch file loads a registry file in with your putty settings, then runs putty, then after putty is done running it removes settings and puts them back to a.reg file. Works like a charm as long as the public station has registry editing enabled.
putty.bat.........:
@ECHO OFF Echo Don't Close this Console Window regedit/s tools\putty.reg regedit/s tools\puttyrnd.reg start/w tools\putty.exe regedit/e tools\puttynew.reg HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTY copy tools\puttynew.reg tools\putty.reg del tools\puttynew.reg regedit/s tools\puttydel.reg
But now that I'm stuck on mod_perl2, I find myself choosing Perl again and again for any purpose it might fill. And it does the job damn well. I can endure the other languages my work requires... They get the job done. But every time I go back to Perl its like a breath of fresh air. It really is a wonderful language. CPAN and cross-platform really seals the deal. Even the simple OOP system in Perl 5 is a thing of beauty, despite being a hack. The syntax grows on you too... If I could program Perl exclusively I would do it in a heart beat.
Nobody can disrespect Perl out of ignorance and call themselves a software engineer.
The conclusion is that between version 1.6.1 to 1.6.2 NetBSD went from performing dramatically worse than FreeBSD-5.1 to performing marginally better. Congratulations NetBSD! I haven't tried it, and I'm sure it's a fine operating system, so I'm not going to flame it. But although I'd be curious to se an updated benchmark, minute improvements in scalability really mean nothing to me. I care more about port availability/maintenance, binary package availability, stability, hardware, and community support than I do about benchmarks.
Disliking something because the code isn't pretty is laughable. If it works great, I could care less. Their mailing list is very active, the errata is comprehensive. And thus so is the feature set. To an overcritical eye this might seem like a "mess". But it's just because the level of development and usage of FreeBSD is much greater than any of its relations.
I could care less about how the source looks. I only care about what it can do, and how reliably it can do it. I am not a maintainer, I am an end-user. I track the Current branch to see the latest progression, and I like what I see. The setaglib's and Matt Dillon's of the world who say FreeBSD is getting worse have yet to convince me. All I see in FreeBSD's detractors are anal retentive control freaks who can't handle the catastrophic success that FreeBSD has had, and can't communicate their frustration in a constructive manner. These people run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to convince the world that FreeBSD is locked in some sort of downward spiral. So they fork the code, they call FreeBSD crap, and generally try to bite at its ankles. But it will take a lot more to siphon support away from FreeBSD.
Maybe I need to go start sifting through source code, dust off some ancient hardware and fire up a load simulation benchmark to find out how awful this operating really is. No thanks... I'll just stay faithful to it until it stops doing what it claims: Granting the power to serve.
FreeBSD is okay for many users but it has slowed down tremendously, lost a lot of cleanliness too
Regretfully admitting that FreeBSD 5.3 is crap
You my friend, are a Troll. As an avid user of FreeBSD 4,5, 4.10, 5.1, 5.2.1, and now 5.3RC2, I can personally guarantee that you have no fucking Idea what you are talking about. Lost cleanliness, my ass! The improvements in 5.3 are awesome. The integration of BIND 9 into the base inside a chroot jail is excellent. The separation of Perl from the base also helped to clean it up. The user experience is awesome in 5.3... My Ghz athlon server has 500+ ports installed, every service you could imagine, and runs X.org with OpenGL flawlessly. I notice a distinct increase in performance and functionality after CVSUPing from 5.2.1 to 5.3 RC2. With a streamlined kernel and good old SCHED_4BSD what exactly is so "unclean"? Have you had a personal experience with 5.3 or are you just spouting mindless zealotry? Why are you on a personal quest for schism in the BSD community?
Calling anything so massively successful "crap" is just pure ignorance. Are Linux and Windows, or anything that's not NetBSD also crap? Please share.... The/. mods obviously can't get enough of your idiotic pontification.
Doon... Nice Daemon and Hash-Bang tats! You are an oficial BSD gangster. Once you get a BSD beat-down, there's no getting out. You also proved my point about OpenBSD users being a tad essentric. Don't worry, the nice men in white coats will be here for us soon!
Oh and how could I forget...
OS X - You are a metrosexual. You are a wolf in sheeps clothing. Beneath your cool stylish exterior lies a firey daemon!
the "state of the demon" address has nothing on me! Haha!!
No disresect to my Linux homies now. Didn't mean to encroach on your "turf" here. Nothing but love for my fellow POSIX gangsters.
Slashdot Mirror
130,000 peoples "croudsourced" surveillance leads to the arrest of 21 mostly dope smugglers. What a colossal waste of time and energy this was for this end result.
How about you border watchers go do something useful, learn a trade, contribute something positive to society. Obstructing other people from doing their work, does nothing to make this world a better place. It's a line in the sand!
You know it's funny that Android gets designated as one of the Best OS, and has people like you claiming that it "brought" multitasking to the smartphone, when windows mobile was multitasking long before Android existed.
I'm a windows mobile 6.1 user, I can multitask just find, and I can watch Flash and Silverlight video in my web browser (Skyfire). My mobile OS may be "Way Behind" according to this blatantly anti-Microsoft article, but it does plenty of things that Androids and iPhones can't.
Some related knowledge: The largest Image sensor (that I've heard of) is part of the "Large Synoptic Survey Telescope" in Chile and it weighs in at 3200 Megapixels
http://www.megapixelmyth.com/?p=127
Shameless plug: check out my blog at megapixelmyth.com
Reading comprehension fail:
"As on our desktop browser tests, we tested standards compliance with the Acid3 test, and JavaScript-rendering abilities with the SunSpider JavaScript benchmark."
These criminals were actively wasting millions of peoples time, even if they did not succumb to getting charged by them, the time it takes to deal with this is significant.
I received nearly 50 calls from these criminals. I spent a lot of time reporting them to donotcall. This time could have been much better spent elsewhere.
Last time they called, I baited them by starting to read a bogus credit card to them, but asked for them and managed to speak to a manager of some sort, who refused to identify the company. I managed to hurl as many insults at them as possible before the click. That was satisfying, but nowhere near as satisfying as seeing justice happen.
I'm overjoyed they have been caught, I had become very cynical about all the time I spent reporting them. Hopefully my reports will help to bolster the case.
> what application can you think of, popular in the Windows Mobile world today, that will not be allowed by Apple?
If you forgot my original post... SlingPlayer. While you and the Apple loyalists seem to be resigned to the fact that certain apps will only work with wifi. I on the other hand shall be enjoying watching live TV streaming onto my mobile device in places where WiFi is not available.
> Holy crap! You obviously have NEVER worked for a large or medium size company! When you grow a company costs are NOT reduced in any way., Companies generally lead to far GREATER overhead.
You are correct in your assumption that I have not worked for a medium to large sized company. Your are also correct in stating that the overhead of a large company is greater. But unless the large company is horribly mismanaged, the expenses should be proportionally smaller compared to the total the total revenue of the company. If this wasn't true the mom-and-pop shop would be the most efficient form of organization... It isn't.
So maybe I am countering my own argument here, but I personally operate a small software company's sales and distribution operations at a cost of less than 25%, including my own salary. Now you might say that giving up 5% of your revenue is no-big deal. But with the present state of the economy, 5% can mean the difference between being in the red and being in the black. Needless to say, we're in no hurry to fire me and replace me with Apple.
> you might find work at Burger King. Not McDonalds though
*cry*
I should have expected the Apple nut-huggers to come out of the woodwork. > Apple has shown that, yes it is tenable. There is a big difference between tenable and sustainable. Have they really proved this? Last time I checked, you can buy software (and music) from distributors other than Apple and put it on your apple computer. > When you buy a Windows Mobile handheld today, how many other OS'es can you load on it? What about Palm? All these companies have shown what you claim is not tenable. I wasn't talking about OS's, I was talking about software. Neither palm nor Microsoft force you to buy software from them other than the underlying OS. > You must not be operating at a very high level then as 30% to include distribution, hosting, update infrastructure, management, servers, scalability, reliability, and so on is very reasonable. Ask Symbian developers what they get (hint, the number starts with a five and is two digits!) You are correct... I do not operate on the highest level. But economies of scale should dictate that as operations become larger, they become more efficient, not the other way around as you imply. > I can port any GNu thing I like and sell it on the store. It wouldn't be free software any more then, would it? > I can also of course, as a developer, compile and deploy whatever I like to my phone. That's fine for us developers, but what about everybody else? > Didn't you get the memo? Those apps, are limited to WiFi. I'm sure that Apple is glad that its herd of faithful you are so accepting of these "Limits". I, on the other hand do not believe that a caste system dictated by an omnipotent overlord is the best form of governance for a mobile platform. > Is it nott time to ask yourself, when do you let the hate go? Because you got a lot of hate for Apple there and it's really clouding your judgement, and making you post things that make you look either insane or ignorant. Isn't that going to be pretty embarrassing if you ever go to look for a job? The internet is forever dude! I stand by all my statements and am OK with the fact that I have perhaps blown my chances of getting hired at Apple. I probably only appear insane and ignorant to zealous Apple apologists (Appleologists?) such as yourself, and I'm OK with that!
1. Imagine Microsoft forcing windows users to subscribe to MSN in order to connect to the internet. Imagine Microsoft forcing their users to purchase all software through microsoft.com. Imagine if windows only ran on official Microsoft hardware? Would this strategy have been effective? Is this kind of practice sustainable?
2. Imagine the Apple/AT&T board room conference call where they debated how much was too much to carve out of developers revenues. They finally arrived at 30 percent. As one involved with software sales, this number is very high for a reseller, and ridiculously high considering the exclusivity Apple demands.
3. Know the difference between prize financing and venture capital. Prize capital allows the winner to retain 100% of the company, while venture capital is giving your equity away in exchange for cash. You will find that most venture capitalists will be seeking a controlling stake of your company (>50%), and will be looking to get acquired, go public, or liquidate their interest within 3-5 years. Furthermore, 100 million is a drop in the pool of total VC fund money out there looking to invest in this space, and nothing will stop you from getting your android project funded that way. This makes the "iFund" announcement about as significant as breaking news about the omnipresence of DiHydrogen monoxide in the environment.
4. So after this you still want to be an iPhone/iFund developer. Let's do a little "new math". So after Apple takes 30% of your revenue, the VCs take 51% of your company, you are left with 19% of what you started with. Invalid equations aside... the moral of the story is that if you choose to go this route, you will be, so to say "Owned". Look how happy musicians are about the pennies on the dollar they get for their sales on the ITunes music store... Should we not be itching to join their ranks?
5. What about free software? If only official apple-authorize software sold through the apple software store is allowed to be installed on your device, then there leaves no room whatsoever for Free/Open Source software to exist on Apple's platform. Sorry GNUbies!
6. What if Apple/AT&T doesn't want you to erode the sales of their content streaming services? They just stamp your software as "Bandwidth hogging", and tell you to politely go fuck yourself (and this means you slingMedia!). You have now officially become a victim of the absence of openness and network neutrality. They probably don't even offer a refund on the $99 you wasted buying their SDK.
It's time to seriously ask yourself, Are you, as a developer, willing to subjugate yourself in such a way?
Phase 1: Sign up on myspace, lie about age
Phase 2: Fuck around with your boyfriend
Phase 3: Lawyer up and sue!
Phase 4: ???
Phase 5: 30 Million Dollars Profit.
Who says you can't make a silk purse out of a pigs ear? ...Not a mac zealot!
Just remember: doing sensible things like using clients as clients and servers as servers, isn't profound enough to get you onto slashdot.
I was just involved in writing a routine that involved Base64-encoding something to be included in XML, then GZipping the whole XML file to recover the space the encoding tacks on. Now I can just do a XOP file, Awesome!
I should clarify that I really had no intention of speaking generally about the entire readership or the authors or editors of Phrack. My rant was simply offtopic flamebait and was moderated thus. I've been victimized; I have post traumatic stress from being victimized. In my moment of duress, Slashdot gave me an outlet to vent my rage. My apologies for indicting the innocent.
Don't get so caught up in terminology... I wasn't referring to benevolent ones aligned with the forces good. Those people aren't hackers: they're software engineers, or security experts. I was more referring to those who succumb to the idolization of the illicit behavior that is glorified in Phrack and 2600. If you find my ranting on this subject unfavorable, you could be one of the dickless shitbags I'm talking about.
I don't use the term "script kiddy" because plenty of those I despise are adults, and should be treated as such. I don't use the term "Cracker", because that is someone who breaks the copy protection on software.
No, hacker is exactly the right word for those I despise: someone who hacks. All the whitewashing in the world won't remove the negative connotation that comes with this word. I should have known that I would get modded down by slashdotters who couldn't handle the truth. C'est la vie.
Hackers should use their powers for good, not evil. They should stop spending energy trying to break, take over, invade, infect, and steal from others.
I completely understand the thrill that comes with probing a system for vulnerabilities. Hacking is a drug... it's a power trip to take control of another host. But that power comes with karma of the worst kind. Whether a hacker hurts an individual, a company, or corporation... their deeds are not any more acceptable. Even if they're smart enough to cover their tracks, they will be punished for their crimes.
Fuck hackers! Fuck the hackers that shut down my companies when worms or virus compromised security. Fuck the hackers with their clusters of zombie machines running PsyBNC. Fuck every single one of them that constantly pound my servers with brute force attacks. Fuck'em all. Their time for comeuppance will arrive.
If you want to hack: Go try to break a security protocol then publish a whitepaper on it. Track down a hacker and terminate their exploited host by contacting its admin. Go patch an open source project. Go make something of your own instead of just raping other peoples property. Don't destroy... create! Your life is a waste if what you do with it is evil.
Hey don't feel bad.... Nobody modded me down, the post just slipped by and only got 1 mod point. This topic had something like a thousand posts only a few hours in, so it slipped through the cracks. But thanks for your concern. I'm hardly significant in the slashdot universe, but I'm thankful for my 3 :-D
The semantics of your faith vs. my faith degrade into condemning and those who are different. It is not so much what somebody believes in, but the effects those beliefs have upon their actions.
The problem with many modern belief systems is that those who sin, repent, and sin again. It's a vicious cycle that gives people an excuse for evil deeds. Repentance only serves the goal of a supposed salvation. It does not in any way correct an evil deed. These beliefs cause people to sin against each other confident that their slates can be wiped clean in the confessional.
I have different beliefs. Their foundation is karma, a form of spiritual energy that connects life, the universe, and everything. What we do in our lives causes repercussions that are instantaneous, and those that echo into eternity long after our flesh is decomposed.
I first began to believe all this nonsense after doing something that was very evil and destructive. Not more than 24 hours after my transgression, something horrible happened to me. Could this have been a complete coincidence? Indeed it could; but what I did, and what happened was destructive, traumatic, and totally unrelated as possible. This led me to believe that there must be some underlying power that isn't properly described by Christian theology. Since getting slapped by karma I've changed my life. I haven't been perfect, but I've done my best. Now I find myself incredibly fortunate and happy in my life. This could be a complete coincidence.
Most modern religions defy science... mine embraces it. Physics has conservation of energy... What about conservation of karma or conservation of souls? If earth was once a cloud of stealer particles brought together by gravity, where did all the souls come from? From the billions of other systems that support life in this universe.
As far as "reincarnation" verses "afterlife", the two concepts are not mutually exclusive. For a soul that might have come from a distant star, or found its way into a different species; their lives now fit all the classic definitions or "afterlife". So with my beliefs it's impossible to say that the core concepts of most organized religions are wrong. But it becomes easy to tell that arguing the semantics of these concepts is pointless.
A final component of my belief system is that it could all be complete bullshit... But if it lays down a good moral code sans religious fanaticism, is it really that bad?
Who is God? A man sitting on a cloud passing judgment? Or a vast entity far beyond our comprehension? Why do religions have to weave such intricate and detailed pictures of what this deity is? Why must people comfort their fears of death by fabricating an imaginary world that lies beyond the grave? Why can't we realize how totally insignificant we and all of our complex illusions really are?
Hey I know what you mean about putty and registry. Here is a solution... It's a hack, but it works! This batch file loads a registry file in with your putty settings, then runs putty, then after putty is done running it removes settings and puts them back to a .reg file. Works like a charm as long as the public station has registry editing enabled.
.........:
/s tools\putty.reg /s tools\puttyrnd.reg /w tools\putty.exe /e tools\puttynew.reg HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\SimonTatham\PuTTYy tools\puttynew.reg tools\putty.reg /s tools\puttydel.reg
putty.bat
@ECHO OFF
Echo Don't Close this Console Window
regedit
regedit
start
regedit
cop
del tools\puttynew.reg
regedit
Some day, when our minds are deprecated, legacy third party integration will be but a fond memory!
Just wondering if the SMBFS kernel option in EreeBSD has the same vulnerability
$FreeBSD: src/sys/fs/smbfs/smbfs.h,v 1.8 2003/02/08 05:48:04 tjr
A hack... a "worn-out horse for hire". "harsh coughing", a "rough, irregular cut". a "quick job that produces what is needed, but not well".
These books might not be all about hacking... But the title might make the reader feel special about themselves.
Are these hack books trying to Capitalize on 'leet-ness, or are they simply the antipathy of the "for dummies" series?
Is self inflation and self deprecation really such a critical component to technical literature sales?
I'm going back to NCSA Mosaic
Cold Fusion, Visual Basic, Matlab, C, C++, Javascript, Java, C#, XSL, SQL, and PHP.
But now that I'm stuck on mod_perl2, I find myself choosing Perl again and again for any purpose it might fill. And it does the job damn well. I can endure the other languages my work requires... They get the job done. But every time I go back to Perl its like a breath of fresh air. It really is a wonderful language. CPAN and cross-platform really seals the deal. Even the simple OOP system in Perl 5 is a thing of beauty, despite being a hack. The syntax grows on you too... If I could program Perl exclusively I would do it in a heart beat.
Nobody can disrespect Perl out of ignorance and call themselves a software engineer.
As little as benchmarks mater to my functional needs, I went and looked some up.
Benchmarking BSD and Linux
The conclusion is that between version 1.6.1 to 1.6.2 NetBSD went from performing dramatically worse than FreeBSD-5.1 to performing marginally better. Congratulations NetBSD! I haven't tried it, and I'm sure it's a fine operating system, so I'm not going to flame it. But although I'd be curious to se an updated benchmark, minute improvements in scalability really mean nothing to me. I care more about port availability/maintenance, binary package availability, stability, hardware, and community support than I do about benchmarks.
Disliking something because the code isn't pretty is laughable. If it works great, I could care less. Their mailing list is very active, the errata is comprehensive. And thus so is the feature set. To an overcritical eye this might seem like a "mess". But it's just because the level of development and usage of FreeBSD is much greater than any of its relations.
I could care less about how the source looks. I only care about what it can do, and how reliably it can do it. I am not a maintainer, I am an end-user. I track the Current branch to see the latest progression, and I like what I see. The setaglib's and Matt Dillon's of the world who say FreeBSD is getting worse have yet to convince me. All I see in FreeBSD's detractors are anal retentive control freaks who can't handle the catastrophic success that FreeBSD has had, and can't communicate their frustration in a constructive manner. These people run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to convince the world that FreeBSD is locked in some sort of downward spiral. So they fork the code, they call FreeBSD crap, and generally try to bite at its ankles. But it will take a lot more to siphon support away from FreeBSD.
Maybe I need to go start sifting through source code, dust off some ancient hardware and fire up a load simulation benchmark to find out how awful this operating really is. No thanks... I'll just stay faithful to it until it stops doing what it claims: Granting the power to serve.
You my friend, are a Troll. As an avid user of FreeBSD 4,5, 4.10, 5.1, 5.2.1, and now 5.3RC2, I can personally guarantee that you have no fucking Idea what you are talking about. Lost cleanliness, my ass! The improvements in 5.3 are awesome. The integration of BIND 9 into the base inside a chroot jail is excellent. The separation of Perl from the base also helped to clean it up. The user experience is awesome in 5.3... My Ghz athlon server has 500+ ports installed, every service you could imagine, and runs X.org with OpenGL flawlessly. I notice a distinct increase in performance and functionality after CVSUPing from 5.2.1 to 5.3 RC2. With a streamlined kernel and good old SCHED_4BSD what exactly is so "unclean"? Have you had a personal experience with 5.3 or are you just spouting mindless zealotry? Why are you on a personal quest for schism in the BSD community?
Calling anything so massively successful "crap" is just pure ignorance. Are Linux and Windows, or anything that's not NetBSD also crap? Please share.... The /. mods obviously can't get enough of your idiotic pontification.
Oh and how could I forget...
OS X - You are a metrosexual. You are a wolf in sheeps clothing. Beneath your cool stylish exterior lies a firey daemon!
the "state of the demon" address has nothing on me! Haha!!
No disresect to my Linux homies now. Didn't mean to encroach on your "turf" here. Nothing but love for my fellow POSIX gangsters.