I second mplayer. All the flash video I've thrown at it plays well, though I admit I haven't tried a huge amount.
I'm certain there is a firefox plugin for mplayer. I've seen mentioned. I don't use it because...well I am on dialup and I think video in web pages is evil!
I think the problem with perl is all the shorthand commands. With two or so characters you can express many common things, however to other programmers (especially those just starting perl), they end up looking very cryptic. Then there is the fact you can express many things thousands of different ways, and most people aren't able to learn them all, and everyone uses different methods depending how they learned, so no one is able to read other programmer's code.
...that was my experience with Perl anyway. Perhaps I didn't go into it far enough, but it does seem the old saying "Perl: write once, read never" rings true.
Perhaps the guy who created Python assumed everyone knew how to do what you are talking about with a while loop. More or less C's for(x=0; x<10; x++); is the same as x=0; while(x<10) x++;
Pythons's iterate through every element for loop is a very useful thing. Instead of expressing to the computer how to count through the size of the array/whatever and tell it how to pick out each element, you just say I want to do something with every element in this variable then you can just do it. If you need an efficient way of counting, use a while loop, not the for/range combo.
No, but I think maybe the various distros should consider giving the option of allowing end users to choose between a 2.4 kernel or bleeding edge 2.6 kernel. I thought that is what they used to do. Maybe they have had problems with libc built for one having problems on the other?
I know Slackware 12 won't run on a 2.4 kernel, I tried. It just says "kernel too old" every time I try to run any program.
Then stay with the 2.4.x series. It is stable, and I still use it on my main system, though I may switch to 2.6.x soon.
The problem is Linus changed from having the even numbered series rock solid stable to being essentially expermiental releases. I think the even numbered patchlevels (or whatever they are called now--the third number) are supposed to be stable, but they have so much experimental stuff going in it is hard to say. I also find the new numbering system a bit confusing.
I think you will have to wait for 2.7 or 2.8 to come out before 2.6 will remotely be considered stable.
This is certainly a reason to be concerned about having Verison as a carrier, but I suspect most, if not all, wireless carriers and ISPs are doing this. It would be nice to have a list of the carriers who are not opening up their networks to anyone who wants to spy, carriers who have a very strict policy against spying. However, they will probably find a connection to tap somewhere along the line. Isn't that the NSA's primary job?
That is why everyone should use encryption as much as possible: to prevent spying. Both programmers should incorporate it into their programs and users should seek out more secure programs.
Even if the spooks can crack the encryption, they probably need a significant amount of processing time to do so, so they will only target those they think are important. It will also help keep psycho busybody neighbors (meatspace and network) from spying too.
If you are the target of a government investigation, I doubt most people could do much to stop it anyway. They can steal your crypto keys and passwords or compel you to give them after the fact.
However, I think encryption and other tools (such as TOR and Freenet) will at least reduce, if not prevent, wide scale profiling of people, and casual targeting of individuals by lone agents. This seems to me to be a lot of where governments abuse their power, and it will certainly keep out people who have no business at all of ever looking at your private information.
It doesn't seem very new or interesting to me. But then I don't think politics really fit into the "liberal"/"conservative" thing.
I thought something like The Circle[1] would work much better for something like this. It's postings were sorted by a trust based system, so the more you trusted someone, the closer to the top their posts would appear, and you could rate each post as well. Supposedly Advogato's site uses it to, but there membership is closed, so I haven't seen it in action. Their Trust Metric system is described at www.advogato.org/trust-metric.html. Though it seems to be more centralized than the Cicle's system was.
Though I suppose it would require too much processing for a centralized web server with a large userbase to handle.
[1] I don't know what happened to the Circle project--I think their site was thecircle.org.au
I don't know about that. I would think a two candidate system would be the more appropriate choice. Two political parties try to cram all possible vewpoints into two entities. It doesn't work that way. Better to find a reasonable leader who will try to balance the things one must code into law to keep civilized harmony while reducting the restrictions on people's rights and resonable activity.
Re:These people need to crawl in a hole somwhere.
on
IFPI Turning To Lawsuits
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· Score: 2, Informative
What does raiding ships at sea have to do with this discussion?
Anyway, as far as I have seen, the organizations representing the entertainment industry have done very little to directly attack the actual copyright infringers. Even in the lawsuits the RIAA conducted, they didn't seem to put much effort into finding actual infringers or verifying in any way the person they sued had anything to do with infringement. The whole thing seemed to be "let's find some random people and sue them. Who cares if they even have a computer!"
Instead they attack anyone who creates any new internet technology which may potentially carry music or movies and try to stomp them into the ground. Now they want some new filters?
Your argument is similar to the argument of the ISPs who say that Google becomes rich by using someone else's infrastructure without paying for it. The spammer pays for internet access just like Google pays for internet access.
There is no such connection between Google and spammers. Google is sending information requested by user's web browsers, spammers are not. Not only that, spammers often break into other's computers, forge headers and take advantage of open relays. In fact, if spammers didn't do such unsavory things, I doubt there would be such an outcry over them, as the people who don't want spam could easily filter it, and the spam sent would be much more closly targeted.
The reason ISPs complain about or want to charge Google is because not only do they want to claim they give their customers unlimited service but only wish to give out enough usage for email and light web brosing, they also want to charge everyone (including those on the other side of the pipe) huge unfair amounts of money, just like the cellphone racket.
I am not sure of your point. Yeah, apples are commidities, but there are also apple pies, dried apples, and apple juice in the markets. There will alway be people who want something extra.
However, if you are saying that people are dullards because they don't want to spend lots of extra money for an apple which is a "perfect" specimen, yet tastes more or less the same. Well, why should they? In theory it may seem you are getting a better product, but in practice you are just wasting money.
No, he was talking about POIS and he claimed Google and friends will buy up a bunch of fiber, radio waves and such, then squeeze the telcos out of the internet and cellphone business. I don't think so.
As for your example, I assume Embarq is a telco and you are using their DSL. Doesn't that prove my point? Google and friends may be able to supply much of their bandwidth, but I don't think they will all make the connection all the way from their servers strait through the "last mile" and into people's homes. Even if Google makes their own AOL like service, I doubt others will be able, and I doubt the "GoogleAOL" customer base will as high or higher than the telcos. Cable companies are the only nontelco competitor I have seen for residential broadband internet, and their service sucks really really bad.
Yes, this is stupid. Companies have their own internal telephone system, and some of the larger ones have their own connection between sites, but the telcos are still around.
What kind of crack is this guy smoking? Crack: the super ultimate kan ban SCO edition. Become a member of AOL: get yours now!
These "bad CIOs" just sound like standard psychopaths. Why not identify the real problem? Avoid hiring psychopaths, no matter what job you give them, they will be trouble no matter what you do. They are more interested in causing trouble and seeing people in pain than doing actual work.
... He/she insists all articles be broken up into multiple pages so as to force more page views thus increasing advertising revenue while making the internet suck even more.
Re:It's fine that the source is closed, for them..
on
Spore Hands-On Preview
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· Score: 1
That is because Id uses standards such as OpenGL. Microsoft created this myth that cross platform development is hard. If you use open standards and write your software correctly, all you should only need a recomplie for a new OS, but if you tie your program to proprietary libraries, you have to manually port everything.
For general applications, there is nothing stopping programmers from writing cross platform apps, except Microsoft. This is how they stayed so big: generating incompatiblity. Fooling programmers into using MS Windows only libraries. That is how they ruined Java.
Linux is fundamentally a closed-binary-hostile environment because it makes no promises of enduring binary compatibility, except under specific retro emulation environments.
So you are saying Linux isn't much different than most other operating systems, including Windows? Though I would say the major cause of this "problem" you talk about would be GNU's libc, not linux.
I don't see why so many companies have a problem with releasing source code. You guys also seem to act as if it is instant death for any company who does so. It is not as if they lose their copyright if they also put source code on their disks, and in reality it doesn't make it easier to copy. Copyright infringers have always found ways to get around copy protection. It is only the legitimate paying users who suffer with copy protection.
Did you even read the guy's entire post? Why would you need to cut a cable to break into the network with a wireless connection? You must be clueless because you think it is some amazing feat to run a network sniffing program.
Where does slashdot get posters these days? Oh yeah, they are 12 year old kids. I used to read this site because quite a few posters seemed to be experts in their respective fields--at least the ones who where modded up. Now I don't know why I bother.
Since apparently we have to sign our "name" to be in the club--a lot of you 12 year olds are doing it. Who the hell thought that was cool?
Signed: The slashdot is full of 12 year olds "troll".
... It seems that the content industry isn't really interested in promoting, well, the truly gifted people that make content, but rather, exploiting them,...
It seems most big companies aren't interested in anything but exploiting. Take the software industry as an example. Most of them seem to be taking advantage of unknowing users. You could expand that to lawyers, auto mechanics, and so on.
To have an efficient capitalistic economy...
Psychopaths don't care about the economy in general, they just care about the most efficient way to take advantage of people. Most of them do not seem to care if they harm their own long term welfare, as long as they screw someone over, they've "won."
Oh yeah, I forgot to say, it seems to me even marking legit files as such doesn't work. creative commons is a noble goal and should be used, but how do you know if the real author marked it with that CC licence and not some asshole trying to wrongly claim the work. I have seen people do as much, even with songs they obviously didn't create (such as from pop singers).
When you solve the liar problem, then maybe you can have a legit network, but until then, why not just have social groups anyway? What I propose makes a more friendly atmosphere.;-)
The next step is to ask what we, as the science, engineering and computer-loving community who have been using BitTorrent and various other protocols for legitimate uses before all the kids figured out they could score Amy Winehouse albums for free, can do to either circumvent the policies initiated by the above various groups or to bypass them completely.
I say the most effective way is neighborhood wide lans. If you directly connect to your neighbors, it is very unlikely one of them is a spy. I think this could be practically done with wifi. Maybe if your neighbors are technical people, it would work, I don't know about others though...configureation might be easy enough. Problem is: you have to get to know your neighbors, and who does that anymore?
Though for your sharing over the internet idea, I think you don't need a new protocol, you just need to use existing encryption and servers with perhaps one of the variable ipaddr DNS services, and only connect to friends. This is the way I think it could work: you sign the ssh/ssl keys to friends. Then you can connect to friends and upload/download files messages and whatnot with rsync, usenet daemons, etc. Your friends in turn share with their friends, and so on.
From what I understand, this more or less is how uucp worked with modems and such. BBSes too. It would be hard for someone to launch a general attack against everyone because each are individual groups. I suppose ISPs could block all encryption, but doing so would probably break https too (especially if everyone uses the https port for their sharing). Personal connections are better anyway. For one thing, you'll know who commonly has corrupted files or low quality ones. You may also find things you would never thought to look.
However the real problem is political and not technical. Most of these groups are not trying to prevent illegal / "bad"(1) activity, they are trying to supress free speach and competition. Why do you think the MP/RI AA and other groups are emphasizing attacking the protocols and not the actual people doing it? Because P2P and sharing of files would allow any person who cheaply made a video or song or software or whatever to distribute them for free, and the only way these compainies could sell their products would be to make high quality stuff which is so much better than the free stuff, people would again be willing to pay. They don't want to put effort into their works, they just want to make money and will try to suppress any competition to achieve their goal.
(1) Bad is a very subjective term, but I couldn't think of a better word.
... Of course, the PC this token was generated on would have its hard disk not just erased by DBAN, but physically destroyed to the satisfaction of all parties involved so there is no chance of the key being recovered by a dumpster dive.
Hmmm....I think you need to do more. Why not give the hard drive to a sexually confused, pr0n addicted teen for a few weeks first. Not only will the repeated writing of shemale goat pr0n videos wipe the hard drive well, no worker could be paid enough to find out what is "underneath" all that data!
(Ironically this post's kaptcha word was "organs"...whoa kitty!)
I am not sure you quite understand how this exploit can be used. Yeah, another user on your machine could use it to get root and mess with your files, but also someone who gains access to one of your programs or a daemon through the internet could also get root.
Say your email program (or web browser or web server or rpc daemon, etc...) has a code execution exploit. Someone who wants to break into your machine could send you an email (or get you to visit a web page, or send a packet to the server's port), and the code they sent will be executed. All they have to do to get complete control over your machine is include some code for the exploit in the article, and they will be able to do anything with your computer--delete/corrupt files, add/modify programs, write zeros to your hard drive, instruct the robot attached to your computer to shove a plunger handle up your anus, whatever.
So if you have any programs which are connected to the internet, you should worry at least a little...
This has nothing to do with the Linux kernel, distribution is up to the individual distros. They are all their own entities. However, most current distros I've seen have some sort of automatic system or system to easily make updates automatic. The only one I can think of which doesn't do that would be Slackware, and I doubt some newbie or "couldn't be bothered to update" user would even touch that distro...
Slashdot Mirror
I second mplayer. All the flash video I've thrown at it plays well, though I admit I haven't tried a huge amount.
I'm certain there is a firefox plugin for mplayer. I've seen mentioned. I don't use it because...well I am on dialup and I think video in web pages is evil!
I think the problem with perl is all the shorthand commands. With two or so characters you can express many common things, however to other programmers (especially those just starting perl), they end up looking very cryptic. Then there is the fact you can express many things thousands of different ways, and most people aren't able to learn them all, and everyone uses different methods depending how they learned, so no one is able to read other programmer's code.
...that was my experience with Perl anyway. Perhaps I didn't go into it far enough, but it does seem the old saying "Perl: write once, read never" rings true.
Perhaps the guy who created Python assumed everyone knew how to do what you are talking about with a while loop. More or less C's for(x=0; x<10; x++); is the same as x=0; while(x<10) x++;
Pythons's iterate through every element for loop is a very useful thing. Instead of expressing to the computer how to count through the size of the array/whatever and tell it how to pick out each element, you just say I want to do something with every element in this variable then you can just do it. If you need an efficient way of counting, use a while loop, not the for/range combo.
No, but I think maybe the various distros should consider giving the option of allowing end users to choose between a 2.4 kernel or bleeding edge 2.6 kernel. I thought that is what they used to do. Maybe they have had problems with libc built for one having problems on the other?
I know Slackware 12 won't run on a 2.4 kernel, I tried. It just says "kernel too old" every time I try to run any program.
Then stay with the 2.4.x series. It is stable, and I still use it on my main system, though I may switch to 2.6.x soon.
The problem is Linus changed from having the even numbered series rock solid stable to being essentially expermiental releases. I think the even numbered patchlevels (or whatever they are called now--the third number) are supposed to be stable, but they have so much experimental stuff going in it is hard to say. I also find the new numbering system a bit confusing.
I think you will have to wait for 2.7 or 2.8 to come out before 2.6 will remotely be considered stable.
This is certainly a reason to be concerned about having Verison as a carrier, but I suspect most, if not all, wireless carriers and ISPs are doing this. It would be nice to have a list of the carriers who are not opening up their networks to anyone who wants to spy, carriers who have a very strict policy against spying. However, they will probably find a connection to tap somewhere along the line. Isn't that the NSA's primary job?
That is why everyone should use encryption as much as possible: to prevent spying. Both programmers should incorporate it into their programs and users should seek out more secure programs.
Even if the spooks can crack the encryption, they probably need a significant amount of processing time to do so, so they will only target those they think are important. It will also help keep psycho busybody neighbors (meatspace and network) from spying too.
If you are the target of a government investigation, I doubt most people could do much to stop it anyway. They can steal your crypto keys and passwords or compel you to give them after the fact.
However, I think encryption and other tools (such as TOR and Freenet) will at least reduce, if not prevent, wide scale profiling of people, and casual targeting of individuals by lone agents. This seems to me to be a lot of where governments abuse their power, and it will certainly keep out people who have no business at all of ever looking at your private information.
It doesn't seem very new or interesting to me. But then I don't think politics really fit into the "liberal"/"conservative" thing.
I thought something like The Circle[1] would work much better for something like this. It's postings were sorted by a trust based system, so the more you trusted someone, the closer to the top their posts would appear, and you could rate each post as well. Supposedly Advogato's site uses it to, but there membership is closed, so I haven't seen it in action. Their Trust Metric system is described at www.advogato.org/trust-metric.html. Though it seems to be more centralized than the Cicle's system was.
Though I suppose it would require too much processing for a centralized web server with a large userbase to handle.
[1] I don't know what happened to the Circle project--I think their site was thecircle.org.au
I don't know about that. I would think a two candidate system would be the more appropriate choice. Two political parties try to cram all possible vewpoints into two entities. It doesn't work that way. Better to find a reasonable leader who will try to balance the things one must code into law to keep civilized harmony while reducting the restrictions on people's rights and resonable activity.
What does raiding ships at sea have to do with this discussion?
Anyway, as far as I have seen, the organizations representing the entertainment industry have done very little to directly attack the actual copyright infringers. Even in the lawsuits the RIAA conducted, they didn't seem to put much effort into finding actual infringers or verifying in any way the person they sued had anything to do with infringement. The whole thing seemed to be "let's find some random people and sue them. Who cares if they even have a computer!"
Instead they attack anyone who creates any new internet technology which may potentially carry music or movies and try to stomp them into the ground. Now they want some new filters?
It looks like Povray is experimenting with one.
There is no such connection between Google and spammers. Google is sending information requested by user's web browsers, spammers are not. Not only that, spammers often break into other's computers, forge headers and take advantage of open relays. In fact, if spammers didn't do such unsavory things, I doubt there would be such an outcry over them, as the people who don't want spam could easily filter it, and the spam sent would be much more closly targeted.
The reason ISPs complain about or want to charge Google is because not only do they want to claim they give their customers unlimited service but only wish to give out enough usage for email and light web brosing, they also want to charge everyone (including those on the other side of the pipe) huge unfair amounts of money, just like the cellphone racket.
I am not sure of your point. Yeah, apples are commidities, but there are also apple pies, dried apples, and apple juice in the markets. There will alway be people who want something extra.
However, if you are saying that people are dullards because they don't want to spend lots of extra money for an apple which is a "perfect" specimen, yet tastes more or less the same. Well, why should they? In theory it may seem you are getting a better product, but in practice you are just wasting money.
As for your example, I assume Embarq is a telco and you are using their DSL. Doesn't that prove my point? Google and friends may be able to supply much of their bandwidth, but I don't think they will all make the connection all the way from their servers strait through the "last mile" and into people's homes. Even if Google makes their own AOL like service, I doubt others will be able, and I doubt the "GoogleAOL" customer base will as high or higher than the telcos. Cable companies are the only nontelco competitor I have seen for residential broadband internet, and their service sucks really really bad.
Yes, this is stupid. Companies have their own internal telephone system, and some of the larger ones have their own connection between sites, but the telcos are still around.
What kind of crack is this guy smoking? Crack: the super ultimate kan ban SCO edition. Become a member of AOL: get yours now!
These "bad CIOs" just sound like standard psychopaths. Why not identify the real problem? Avoid hiring psychopaths, no matter what job you give them, they will be trouble no matter what you do. They are more interested in causing trouble and seeing people in pain than doing actual work.
... He/she insists all articles be broken up into multiple pages so as to force more page views thus increasing advertising revenue while making the internet suck even more.
That is because Id uses standards such as OpenGL. Microsoft created this myth that cross platform development is hard. If you use open standards and write your software correctly, all you should only need a recomplie for a new OS, but if you tie your program to proprietary libraries, you have to manually port everything.
For general applications, there is nothing stopping programmers from writing cross platform apps, except Microsoft. This is how they stayed so big: generating incompatiblity. Fooling programmers into using MS Windows only libraries. That is how they ruined Java.
So you are saying Linux isn't much different than most other operating systems, including Windows? Though I would say the major cause of this "problem" you talk about would be GNU's libc, not linux.
I don't see why so many companies have a problem with releasing source code. You guys also seem to act as if it is instant death for any company who does so. It is not as if they lose their copyright if they also put source code on their disks, and in reality it doesn't make it easier to copy. Copyright infringers have always found ways to get around copy protection. It is only the legitimate paying users who suffer with copy protection.
Did you even read the guy's entire post? Why would you need to cut a cable to break into the network with a wireless connection? You must be clueless because you think it is some amazing feat to run a network sniffing program.
Where does slashdot get posters these days? Oh yeah, they are 12 year old kids. I used to read this site because quite a few posters seemed to be experts in their respective fields--at least the ones who where modded up. Now I don't know why I bother.
Since apparently we have to sign our "name" to be in the club--a lot of you 12 year olds are doing it. Who the hell thought that was cool?
Signed: The slashdot is full of 12 year olds "troll".
It seems most big companies aren't interested in anything but exploiting. Take the software industry as an example. Most of them seem to be taking advantage of unknowing users. You could expand that to lawyers, auto mechanics, and so on.
Psychopaths don't care about the economy in general, they just care about the most efficient way to take advantage of people. Most of them do not seem to care if they harm their own long term welfare, as long as they screw someone over, they've "won."
Oh yeah, I forgot to say, it seems to me even marking legit files as such doesn't work. creative commons is a noble goal and should be used, but how do you know if the real author marked it with that CC licence and not some asshole trying to wrongly claim the work. I have seen people do as much, even with songs they obviously didn't create (such as from pop singers).
When you solve the liar problem, then maybe you can have a legit network, but until then, why not just have social groups anyway? What I propose makes a more friendly atmosphere. ;-)
I say the most effective way is neighborhood wide lans. If you directly connect to your neighbors, it is very unlikely one of them is a spy. I think this could be practically done with wifi. Maybe if your neighbors are technical people, it would work, I don't know about others though...configureation might be easy enough. Problem is: you have to get to know your neighbors, and who does that anymore?
Though for your sharing over the internet idea, I think you don't need a new protocol, you just need to use existing encryption and servers with perhaps one of the variable ipaddr DNS services, and only connect to friends. This is the way I think it could work: you sign the ssh/ssl keys to friends. Then you can connect to friends and upload/download files messages and whatnot with rsync, usenet daemons, etc. Your friends in turn share with their friends, and so on.
From what I understand, this more or less is how uucp worked with modems and such. BBSes too. It would be hard for someone to launch a general attack against everyone because each are individual groups. I suppose ISPs could block all encryption, but doing so would probably break https too (especially if everyone uses the https port for their sharing). Personal connections are better anyway. For one thing, you'll know who commonly has corrupted files or low quality ones. You may also find things you would never thought to look.
However the real problem is political and not technical. Most of these groups are not trying to prevent illegal / "bad"(1) activity, they are trying to supress free speach and competition. Why do you think the MP/RI AA and other groups are emphasizing attacking the protocols and not the actual people doing it? Because P2P and sharing of files would allow any person who cheaply made a video or song or software or whatever to distribute them for free, and the only way these compainies could sell their products would be to make high quality stuff which is so much better than the free stuff, people would again be willing to pay. They don't want to put effort into their works, they just want to make money and will try to suppress any competition to achieve their goal.
(1) Bad is a very subjective term, but I couldn't think of a better word.
Hmmm....I think you need to do more. Why not give the hard drive to a sexually confused, pr0n addicted teen for a few weeks first. Not only will the repeated writing of shemale goat pr0n videos wipe the hard drive well, no worker could be paid enough to find out what is "underneath" all that data!
(Ironically this post's kaptcha word was "organs"...whoa kitty!)
I am not sure you quite understand how this exploit can be used. Yeah, another user on your machine could use it to get root and mess with your files, but also someone who gains access to one of your programs or a daemon through the internet could also get root.
Say your email program (or web browser or web server or rpc daemon, etc...) has a code execution exploit. Someone who wants to break into your machine could send you an email (or get you to visit a web page, or send a packet to the server's port), and the code they sent will be executed. All they have to do to get complete control over your machine is include some code for the exploit in the article, and they will be able to do anything with your computer--delete/corrupt files, add/modify programs, write zeros to your hard drive, instruct the robot attached to your computer to shove a plunger handle up your anus, whatever.
So if you have any programs which are connected to the internet, you should worry at least a little...
This has nothing to do with the Linux kernel, distribution is up to the individual distros. They are all their own entities. However, most current distros I've seen have some sort of automatic system or system to easily make updates automatic. The only one I can think of which doesn't do that would be Slackware, and I doubt some newbie or "couldn't be bothered to update" user would even touch that distro...