I know an older man who actually believes the pop-up ad problem will go away when he "upgrades" from an AMD to an Intel machine. There's no talking to him about this, trust me. I think that the share price of his AMD stock has affected his reasoning.
"Well, it'd probably be in the EULA that the company *must* release the source after x dollars have been made. Otherwise people wouldn't really believe it. If you paid and the company doesn't release the source when specified, then you can sue."
Exactly how to you expect to get the balance sheet which shows how much money has been collected? To force the issue, you'd have to sue anyway...
"The Constitution protects rights reserved by the people, but it unfortunately does not list them explicitly."
That's probably more "fortunate" than "unfortunate."
What an 18th century revolutionary politician might have considered important enough to itemize as a list of rights, perhaps even implying excluding anything not on the list is not a right, might not compare to what we find important today.
I think it's quite fortunate that the founders saw fit to spell out one of the most revolutionary concepts ever brought forth in government: That people have all rights, except those limitations which are specifically imposed.
So many people make the claim that people doing dictation would be too noisy for an office. Never seen the secretarial pools of the previous generation? Never worked in a call center where EVERYONE is CONSTANTLY talking on the phone? I just don't see why it's so easy to dismiss "dictation" as being impractical. It hasn't been that long since it was THE NORM in offices, I've personally worked in places where the phone thing is standard fare, and I remember my father's office with all the secretaries and their typewriters -- not the nice "quiet" IBM Selectrics, either. Oh yeah, they had ASR-33 teletypes and a couple of IBM printers going all the time, printing orders and invoices. Sure it was a bit noisy at times, but I've seen worse.
"First off, buying a dictaphone is still much cheaper than a PDA with software."
Yes, but, buying a dictaphone (or a digital voice recorder, or a microcassette recorder, or a minidisc, which I personally prefer) isn't the whole solution. You forgot the price of the Typist. Or failed to consider that the original poster has no hands.
Sometimes in business, especially military and intelligence business, it is important to have your data be Secure, both in the "eyes only" sense and in the "safe from fire/flood/earthquake/mayhem/attack" sense. However, it is also very often important that this data be surely and accountably DESTROYED. These two seemingly oppositional goals must really make for interesting practices in some environments. I need backups, and I also need a way to guarantee that all backups are destroyed on command as well, because, while the data is to be disposed of, it is not to be disposed of until the order is given, at which point, it must be disposed of, let's say, with the consequences being court-martial or summary execution if it doesn't happen. (I'n not just thinking about the kind, gentle, USAn military here:-)
So, who are these legitimate owners? The whole point of the controversy seems to be the fact that Microsoft considers themselves to be the owners of those properties. I wonder how this compares to federal and state laws that govern who owns what, when a product is sold?
I wonder if this protest will raise any question in consumers' minds as to wheter Microsoft even should be using your machine's serial number or ethernet address to identify and monitor a user at all.
So many people posted, focusing on that detail, but few really seem to have properly identified the owner of the problem. It's not the modchipper, and it's not the so-called "legitimate" user.
The problem rests on Microsoft's lap, and in no small way because they have relied on an insecure identifier to serve as a key to secure a system.
Seems to me that the bulk of the problem is that BugTraq has "a name", and, presumably,a heirarchy organization; thus there is a single party who can be held ultimately responsible for actions such as reporting a security flaw.
There is ego at work here, and here we see some of the consequences. People are saying "shoot the messenger" only because they can identify the messenger.
This sort of highly controversial information could just as easily have been released by an anonymous source, with no possibility of it being associated with a single party or individual. But that did not happen in this case, because, whoever released the information has an interest in receiving recognition for it.
We now must entertain the "shoot the messenger" sentiment, because we have a messenger to shoot. If it had not been for the presence of that messenger's ego, messenger's need for gratification, attention, or profit, the discussion would be limited to the exploit itself, the consequences to the victim, and the party responsible for the flaw. Instead of the issues that matter, the questions "who disclosed the information to whom?" and "what were their motivations?" find relevence in a discussion where it should be of no consequence whatsoever.
I would have zero compunctions toward specifying a consulting rate. Expressed hourly, and with an understanding of the work at hand, and a further understanding that if the scope of the work changes, then more negotiation will be required. Since the example was an emergency, it would have been appropriate to *quickly* negotiate fixing the immediate problem.
It would be unprofessional to do this under any other circumstances! Going to a for-profit business to do counsulting work on a strictly volunteer basis, off all records, etc., is not at all professional behavior! Even if you are willing to volunteer your time and resources, there should be some accontability. Consider this: Volunteer workers at nonprofit organizations report their hours.
Anyhow, there are good and bad ways to say "My consulting rate is 50 dollars an hour for short term projects, and is negotiable for long term projects. My weekend and holiday rate is $250.00 an hour, and if travel is involved, 42 cents a mile is expected."
"Go look at how much post-doctorate researchers make, and you tell me how a $70K salary is justified."
Um, I'm looking forward to the grad school existence. There's much more to it than salary. For one thing, the typical $30,000/year you'd be giving the university, is waived. For another thing, when you need the time to do academic work, take courses, field research, etc., there won't be a pinhead boss who fails to understand the importance of you doing all that "school stuff".
All in all, it's not so bad making $40k as a postdoc, if you pick up all the perks. Especially in a recession, where you would not have a job anyway!
There seems to be a widespread notion that school is some necessary evil, a stepping stone to something else. Rarely does anyone reflect to me the understanding that education is not something that one can ever "be done with."
>I wouldn't mind 4 hours of previews on the new >format that I could watch when I want.
You just made me realize something: Where is the line between what will and will not be tolerated by the consumers? We seem to be willing to accept the forced (effectively forced, for most viewers, at least) exposure to ads in the intro to dvd movies, the FBI stuff, trailers, and commercials. Would we take a full minute of this? How about a full five minutes? At what threshold would we return to the video store for a refund and/or to cancel our club membership?
VWOA has been on a rampage of intimidation and stifling trade for quite a few years. Seems they are not happy that the hobbyist market for aircooled volkswagens continues to thrive. You will hardly find an aftermarket parts dealer, dunebuggy shop, bus club, or independent mechanic who has not been harassed by VWOA.
It is precisely because of these shenanigans that I bought a Volvo instead of a VW last year. As a longtime afficianado of aircooled bugs and buses, it's been very disappointing to see this sort of thing happen. VW is getting a lot in return for the popularity of the bug and the bus, but they are very hostile in taking a crap on the folks who bring them the very same popularity. And for that, I did indeed take my business elsewhere.
"Doubtfull. Some might be grumbling, but most would not care as long as they get thier email. "
I think the original poster may be speaking from the point of view of having witnessed the Uproar. The one you doubt will be a problem. Clearly you have not seen the effect of migrating an empowered userbase from one application standard to another. Sure, if your whole staff is comprised of entry-level temps or whatever, you can probably get away with anything without too much backlash. When your office is staffed with professionals who know how to make critical assessments themselves and aren't afraid to do so, you should include them in every step of the process, from decision to implementation. Think, "IT support for Math/Biology professors", not "data entry sweatshop" here.
In some offices, complaining might get you fired. In others, being the catalyst which causes others to complain might get you fired. This is not a situation where one value system fits everywhere.
First of all, the strain resistant to vancomycian has been known since 1993, so sensationalism aside, it's hardly news. I myself experienced this in 1996, after getting the same infection from a stream in Missouri; and I *almost* lost a toe because of it. A more powerful antibiotic, that I wish I could remember the name of, took care of it. By the time I realized it was a serious enough infection to go to the hospital, it was almost too late. (I discussed it in a usenet thread way back then, perhaps I can google it back out).
Now, to the "Antibacterial Soap"
What gives "Antibacterial" soap it's antibacterial property is mainly the molecular structure of the soap. It is lipophilic detergent, which impedes the cell membrane (of the bacterium), essentially stopping it from passing water either way (study the Fluid Mosaic Model to understand cell membranes).
I would imagine that olive oil has as much "antibacterial" properties as a grocery store "antibacterial" soap; so would a soap made from animal fat for that matter.
My understanding is that what makes Triclosan so special is, it simplifies (economizes) the manufacturing process, because it is less expensive to formulate triclosan than the alternatives with similar properties. I'm not trying to say that it doesn't kill bacteria -- it DOES kill bacteria, but the WAY it kills them is through a simple physical process.
I wonder if the patent has had any relationship to the sudden adoption of this chem in practically every personal care product on the shelf?
You are probably joking, but there is some credibility to the theory that, when we started living indoors, sterilizing our environment, using lipid soaps ("antibacterial" is only new in the Marketing sense), taking antibiotics, and so on, we diminished our exposure to pathogens. Way back when, routine exposure to such things as polio and smallpox led to infant mortality rates that we would not tolerate today, but also bestowed on those who survived much more immunity to disease.
You are referring to the *default* installation, not the base system. Look at base2_2.tgz by untarring it in/tmp or something. It has a lot of essential stuff. If space were truly at a premium, it would be a great place to start.
What you installed that took 200MB was not the base system, but, many packages which (1) supersede some bins and libs in the base, and (2) adds packages that are considered "basic", but perhaps not "essential".
In some instances, all I want is a terminal (the console will do) and an ssh client. With a bit of work, I believe I can make that happen given a debian distribution to start with, in 10 megs. I probably need more than that to install and then delete stuff, but still, it's pretty easy to pare the system down to essentials.
You are not mistaken, and the replies to my original post seem to all be from the point of view of installing the *default* debian distribution. I'm not talking about that at all. I'm saying, get your kernel to boot through whatever means necessary (I tend to use floppies), and on your filesystem, untar base2_2.tgz. So nowadays it's closer to 50 megs than 10, but it's as lightweight a system (in all resources, not just disk) as linux gets. There is quite a bit that can be deleted from base if you know what you are doing. I think you can shave 16 mb off, just by deleting the locales and conole fonts for languages you don't need.
Now on the other hand, I've actually had a debian install run a 4 GB partition out of space -- all bets are off once you start adding packages. I still think it's a useful exercise to look at base2_2.tgz, and note what it contains. Carefully consider what you need besides that, because it might not be much! SSH, and what else?:-)
There are about a dozen keystrokes that you need to memorize, and you're productive with vi. If that takes you more than 24 hours, you should have started with a simpler task. Of course you can keep learning vi forever, because what you type after:%! is open-ended. But the basics aren't that much to learn. Different from what most people seem to be exposed to before they get to vi, for some reason, but I think that's cultural and not technical in nature.
Debian is already lightweight. Install the base system and whatever drivers you need. Don't select anything in dselect, and you're done; installs in under 10 megs.
Does anyone else read that as an endorsement of the usefulness of buffering and other performance technologies applied to disk drives?
I'd imagine that applications in ruggedized systems or devices that need to be exposed to significant acceleration or zero gravity will be more important than the speed increases, but, I'm quite surprised that a 15krpm SCSI drive comes this close to a RAM device.
One other benchmark that would be useful, would be to compare the speed to the normal RAM in a given system. Is it a net gain to have your RAM on an expansion card? Or would a RAM drive on the regular memory space be better? Is this more or less expensive than system RAM?
Slashdot Mirror
"Once a year they even take old oil and other truely hazardous things...."
So does that encourage people to keep hazardous stuff around for up to a year in anticipation of trash day?
I know an older man who actually believes the pop-up ad problem will go away when he "upgrades" from an AMD to an Intel machine. There's no talking to him about this, trust me. I think that the share price of his AMD stock has affected his reasoning.
"Well, it'd probably be in the EULA that the company *must* release the source after x dollars have been made. Otherwise people wouldn't really believe it. If you paid and the company doesn't release the source when specified, then you can sue."
Exactly how to you expect to get the balance sheet which shows how much money has been collected? To force the issue, you'd have to sue anyway...
"The Constitution protects rights reserved by the people, but it unfortunately does not list them explicitly."
That's probably more "fortunate" than "unfortunate."
What an 18th century revolutionary politician might have considered important enough to itemize as a list of rights, perhaps even implying excluding anything not on the list is not a right, might not compare to what we find important today.
I think it's quite fortunate that the founders saw fit to spell out one of the most revolutionary concepts ever brought forth in government: That people have all rights, except those limitations which are specifically imposed.
So many people make the claim that people doing dictation would be too noisy for an office. Never seen the secretarial pools of the previous generation? Never worked in a call center where EVERYONE is CONSTANTLY talking on the phone? I just don't see why it's so easy to dismiss "dictation" as being impractical. It hasn't been that long since it was THE NORM in offices, I've personally worked in places where the phone thing is standard fare, and I remember my father's office with all the secretaries and their typewriters -- not the nice "quiet" IBM Selectrics, either. Oh yeah, they had ASR-33 teletypes and a couple of IBM printers going all the time, printing orders and invoices. Sure it was a bit noisy at times, but I've seen worse.
"First off, buying a dictaphone is still much cheaper than a PDA with software."
Yes, but, buying a dictaphone (or a digital voice recorder, or a microcassette recorder, or a minidisc, which I personally prefer) isn't the whole solution. You forgot the price of the Typist. Or failed to consider that the original poster has no hands.
"And have you ever actually tried speaking for eight to ten hours at a stretch? "
Never been a telemarketer? A teacher? A tech support rep? A salesperson?
"Think of an office full of people using speach recognition. Not pretty. "
Almost as frightening as an office full of people all using telephones.
You don't remember typewriters and adding machines, or for that matter, the dictaphone, do you?
Sometimes in business, especially military and intelligence business, :-)
it is important to have your data be Secure, both in the "eyes only" sense and in
the "safe from fire/flood/earthquake/mayhem/attack" sense.
However, it is also very often important that this data be surely and accountably
DESTROYED. These two seemingly oppositional goals must really make for
interesting practices in some environments. I need backups, and I also
need a way to guarantee that all backups are destroyed on command as well, because,
while the data is to be disposed of, it is not to be
disposed of until the order is given, at which point, it
must be disposed of, let's say, with the consequences being
court-martial or summary execution if it doesn't happen.
(I'n not just thinking about the kind, gentle, USAn military
here
"the legitimate owners of the Serial/MAC"
So, who are these legitimate owners? The whole point of the controversy seems to be
the fact that Microsoft considers themselves to be the owners of those properties.
I wonder how this compares to federal and state laws that govern who owns what, when a
product is sold?
I wonder if this protest will raise any question in consumers' minds
as to wheter Microsoft even should be using your machine's serial number or ethernet address
to identify and monitor a user at all.
So many people posted, focusing on that detail, but few really
seem to have properly identified the owner of the problem. It's
not the modchipper, and it's not the so-called "legitimate" user.
The problem rests on Microsoft's lap, and in no small way because they
have relied on an insecure identifier to serve as a key
to secure a system.
Seems to me that the bulk of the problem is that BugTraq has "a name", and, presumably,a heirarchy organization; thus there is a single party who can be held ultimately responsible for actions such as reporting a security flaw.
There is ego at work here, and here we see some of the consequences. People are saying "shoot the messenger" only because they can identify the messenger.
This sort of highly controversial information could just as easily have been released by an anonymous source, with no possibility of it being associated with a single party or individual. But that did not happen in this case, because, whoever released the information has an interest in receiving recognition for it.
We now must entertain the "shoot the messenger" sentiment, because we have a messenger to shoot. If it had not been for the presence of that messenger's ego, messenger's need for gratification, attention, or profit, the discussion would be limited to the exploit itself, the consequences to the victim, and the party responsible for the flaw. Instead of the issues that matter, the questions "who disclosed the information to whom?" and "what were their motivations?" find relevence in a discussion where it should be of no consequence whatsoever.
I would have zero compunctions toward specifying a consulting rate. Expressed hourly, and with an understanding of the work at hand, and a further understanding that if the scope of the work changes, then more negotiation will be required. Since the example was an emergency, it would have been appropriate to *quickly* negotiate fixing the immediate problem.
It would be unprofessional to do this under any other circumstances! Going to a for-profit business to do counsulting work on a strictly volunteer basis, off all records, etc., is not at all professional behavior! Even if you are willing to volunteer your time and resources, there should be some accontability. Consider this: Volunteer workers at nonprofit organizations report their hours.
Anyhow, there are good and bad ways to say "My consulting rate is 50 dollars an hour for short term projects, and is negotiable for long term projects. My weekend and holiday rate is $250.00 an hour, and if travel is involved, 42 cents a mile is expected."
"Go look at how much post-doctorate researchers make, and you tell me how a $70K salary is justified."
Um, I'm looking forward to the grad school existence. There's much more to it than salary. For one thing, the typical $30,000/year you'd be giving the university, is waived. For another thing, when you need the time to do academic work, take courses, field research, etc., there won't be a pinhead boss who fails to understand the importance of you doing all that "school stuff".
All in all, it's not so bad making $40k as a postdoc, if you pick up all the perks. Especially in a recession, where you would not have a job anyway!
There seems to be a widespread notion that school is some necessary evil, a stepping stone to something else. Rarely does anyone reflect to me the understanding that education is not something that one can ever "be done with."
>I wouldn't mind 4 hours of previews on the new
>format that I could watch when I want.
You just made me realize something: Where is the line between what will and will not be tolerated by the consumers? We seem to be willing to accept the forced (effectively forced, for most viewers, at least) exposure to ads in the intro to dvd movies, the FBI stuff, trailers, and commercials. Would we take a full minute of this? How about a full five minutes? At what threshold would we return to the video store for a refund and/or to cancel our club membership?
VWOA has been on a rampage of intimidation and stifling trade for quite a few years. Seems they are not happy that the hobbyist market for aircooled volkswagens continues to thrive. You will hardly find an aftermarket parts dealer, dunebuggy shop, bus club, or independent mechanic who has not been harassed by VWOA.
It is precisely because of these shenanigans that I bought a Volvo instead of a VW last year. As a longtime afficianado of aircooled bugs and buses, it's been very disappointing to see this sort of thing happen. VW is getting a lot in return for the popularity of the bug and the bus, but they are very hostile in taking a crap on the folks who bring them the very same popularity. And for that, I did indeed take my business elsewhere.
"Doubtfull. Some might be grumbling, but most would not care as long as they get thier email. "
I think the original poster may be speaking from the point of view of having witnessed the Uproar. The one you doubt will be a problem. Clearly you have not seen the effect of migrating an empowered userbase from one application standard to another. Sure, if your whole staff is comprised of entry-level temps or whatever, you can probably get away with anything without too much backlash. When your office is staffed with professionals who know how to make critical assessments themselves and aren't afraid to do so, you should include them in every step of the process, from decision to implementation. Think, "IT support for Math/Biology professors", not "data entry sweatshop" here.
In some offices, complaining might get you fired. In others, being the catalyst which causes others to complain might get you fired. This is not a situation where one value system fits everywhere.
See "A Bug's Life"
One ant can do nothing.
First of all, the strain resistant to vancomycian has been known since 1993, so sensationalism aside, it's hardly news. I myself experienced this in 1996, after getting the same infection from a stream in Missouri; and I *almost* lost a toe because of it. A more powerful antibiotic, that I wish I could remember the name of, took care of it. By the time I realized it was a serious enough infection to go to the hospital, it was almost too late. (I discussed it in a usenet thread way back then, perhaps I can google it back out).
Now, to the "Antibacterial Soap"
What gives "Antibacterial" soap it's antibacterial property is mainly the molecular structure of the soap. It is lipophilic detergent, which impedes the cell membrane (of the bacterium), essentially stopping it from passing water either way (study the Fluid Mosaic Model to understand cell membranes).
I would imagine that olive oil has as much "antibacterial" properties as a grocery store "antibacterial" soap; so would a soap made from animal fat for that matter.
My understanding is that what makes Triclosan so special is, it simplifies (economizes) the manufacturing process, because it is less expensive to formulate triclosan than the alternatives with similar properties. I'm not trying to say that it doesn't kill bacteria -- it DOES kill bacteria, but the WAY it kills them is through a simple physical process.
I wonder if the patent has had any relationship to the sudden adoption of this chem in practically every personal care product on the shelf?
You are probably joking, but there is some credibility to the theory that, when we started living indoors, sterilizing our environment, using lipid soaps ("antibacterial" is only new in the Marketing sense), taking antibiotics, and so on, we diminished our exposure to pathogens. Way back when, routine exposure to such things as polio and smallpox led to infant mortality rates that we would not tolerate today, but also bestowed on those who survived much more immunity to disease.
You are referring to the *default* installation, not the base system. Look at base2_2.tgz by untarring it in /tmp or something. It has a lot of essential stuff. If space were truly at a premium, it would be a great place to start.
What you installed that took 200MB was not the base system, but, many packages which (1) supersede some bins and libs in the base, and (2) adds packages that are considered "basic", but perhaps not "essential".
In some instances, all I want is a terminal (the console will do) and an ssh client. With a bit of work, I believe I can make that happen given a debian distribution to start with, in 10 megs. I probably need more than that to install and then delete stuff, but still, it's pretty easy to pare the system down to essentials.
You are not mistaken, and the replies to my original post seem to all be from the point of view of installing the *default* debian distribution. I'm not talking about that at all.
I'm saying, get your kernel to boot through whatever means necessary (I tend to use floppies), and on your filesystem, untar base2_2.tgz. So nowadays it's closer to 50 megs than 10, but it's as lightweight a system (in all resources, not just disk) as linux gets. There is quite a bit that can be deleted from base if you know what you are doing. I think you can shave 16 mb off, just by deleting the locales and conole fonts for languages you don't need.
Now on the other hand, I've actually had a debian install run a 4 GB partition out of space -- all bets are off once you start adding packages. I still think it's a useful exercise to look at base2_2.tgz, and note what it contains. Carefully consider what you need besides that, because it might not be much! SSH, and what else?
There are about a dozen keystrokes that you need to memorize, and you're productive with vi. If that takes you more than 24 hours, you should have started with a simpler task. :%! is open-ended. But the basics aren't that much to learn. Different from what most people seem to be exposed to before they get to vi, for some reason, but I think that's cultural and not technical in nature.
Of course you can keep learning vi forever, because what you type after
You saying you can dance to Tori Amos?
That's something I'd love to see.
Debian is already lightweight. Install the base system and whatever drivers you need. Don't select anything in dselect, and you're done; installs in under 10 megs.
Performance gains of "almost a factor of two?"
Does anyone else read that as an endorsement of the usefulness of buffering and other performance technologies applied to disk drives?
I'd imagine that applications in ruggedized systems or devices that need to be exposed to significant acceleration or zero gravity will be more important than the speed increases, but, I'm quite surprised that a 15krpm SCSI drive comes this close to a RAM device.
One other benchmark that would be useful, would be to compare the speed to the normal RAM in a given system. Is it a net gain to have your RAM on an expansion card? Or would a RAM drive on the regular memory space be better? Is this more or less expensive than system RAM?