>>a) If the answer is "before", then why didn't these paragons of virtue say something and save ~3000 lives?
Because there were many many different plots that appeared to be going on - flying a plane into the world trade center sounded quite a bit tin-foil hat theory - would you have supported military and police action because "it appeared, within the intelligence commite, that the taliban was going to fly an airplane into the world trade centers"? Probably not.
Then the system is *still* worthless because the information will not be acted upon in a timely manner. The future attack will occur despite the enhanced surveillance because the conclusions developed from the intelligence may sound insane to the analyst. In short, all conclusions leading to something outrageous will be ignored. So the reasons for gathering the information cannot be justified based on the prospect that it *might* catch the bad guys.
Despite what you have said about the idea of crashing planes into buildings as a terrorist tool, this scenario was discussed within the intelligence community long before 9-11.
And as a substitution to Pearl Harbor, I conclude that the Murrah Federal Building was bombed by a single white male who claimed to be saving the American people from a tyrannical government.
>>b) If the answer is "after", then the system is worthless as an intelligence tool. The bits and pieces of any conspiracy are always out in the public before an incident occurs. The value of intelligence analysis is the ability to merge these apparently unrelated pieces of information to reach a conclusion. If their system is only capable of making a link after an event, then Florida residents better keep an eye on their wallets.
Not true - it is generall a good idea to figure out who did it with a reasonable amount of certainty for some form of prosecution. I for one like that.
Right. Just like the FBI started dragging in all Arab males just after the Murrah Building was destroyed. The FBI later claimed they had reasonable certainty that the attackers fit the profile.
They were wrong and innocent citizens paid the price.
I like systems that don't violate our collective civil rights.
Asher has also donated services to the FBI, the Secret Service and other agencies. And authorities credit Seisint with helping to turn up links among the hijackers who slammed planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and to some of their associates.
1) If this statement is indeed true, then my first question is "Were the links apparent before, or after the terrorist attacks".
a) If the answer is "before", then why didn't these paragons of virtue say something and save ~3000 lives?
b) If the answer is "after", then the system is worthless as an intelligence tool. The bits and pieces of any conspiracy are always out in the public before an incident occurs. The value of intelligence analysis is the ability to merge these apparently unrelated pieces of information to reach a conclusion. If their system is only capable of making a link after an event, then Florida residents better keep an eye on their wallets.
Here, I'll do the same thing without their database: 'The Japanese were responsible for bombing Pearl Harbor.'
Pretty neat, huh?
2) Who goes to jail if the system is used for political surveillance?
a) Considering the system can be abused (a point that even supporters admit is possible), who will be responsible for rouge elements within a state government that use the system to collect information on political activists who disagree with a sitting administration?
b) Does anyone really believe that Nixon DIDN'T use the IRS and FBI to spy on anti-war activists during Viet Nam?
This system, however worthy it is in stopping potential violent acts, is too dangerous a tool to be placed in the hands of politicians.
I can't look at it from Ximian's perspective. I am responsible for *my* company's interests. Now that they have failed to show up for a sales meeting, they have damaged Ximian's reputation. Now the *potential* sale is the *unlikely* sale.
If Nat bailed to serve his own interests he damaged those of his former colleagues.
If you schedule a sales meeting, you should show up for it.
The company I work for was supposed to get a visit from Ximian last month for a presentation on their technology. They called at the last minute to cancel their meeting. I wondered whether there was more to the cancellation than "Nat had to respond to a personal matter".
I'm deeply suspicious. I am now inclined to believe that Nat bailed on us to attend a meeting to discuss the sale of Ximian to Novel. Considering the fact that I work at a national laboratory and that YOUR tax dollars are buying commercial software, I find it terribly disheartening to see Linux-related companies failing so miserably on customer service.
When you arrange a sales meeting, you should show up for it.
The moderator who rated this as offtopic obviously doesn't recognize the Front: design as the earliest recorded Slashdot article in the accessible database.
Become 007 On The Internet The Internet | Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday December 31, @09:20PM from the large-scale-pests dept. Another entertaining use of the internet is now available- a company is selling photographs taken from satellites of anywhere in the world. Resolution is 10sq/ft per pixel, and it costs a few hundred bucks a pixel, but it's only money, right?
The article also talks about using cel phones as a homing device. Crazy stuff. check out the story sent to us by Garrett
Back:
Last Chance for Slashdot T-Shirt Contest Slashdot.org | Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 31, @03:22PM from the here-we-go-again dept. This is your last chance to enter Slashdot's T-Shirt Design Contest that we announced a few weeks ago. The contest officially ends tomorrow. We've had over 200 submissions, and some of them are pretty cool, but I don't think there yet is a Lock for the winner. So if you've got what it takes to design a T-Shirt (we're too cheap/lazy to do it ourselves!) you can win store credit at ThinkGeek plus free shirts with your winning design on them! Here are the Official Rules. Read the original story for submission details.
Watching these whiney little anonymous cowards take nearly an hour to respond to my posts gives me the impression that they are either parked behind 300 baud modems, or they are beating their responses out on large drums.
Heh, how about sending them invitations to sue us, complete with address, phone, email, and kernel version?
I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't received a few of those already. Considering that not everyone has migrated to v2.4, it is entirely possible that someone running v2.2 could sue SCO in an effort to get a declarative judgement. They could argue that migration to v2.4 has been hampered by SCO's allegations and is hurting their business.
Of course, monkeys could fly out of my ass too....
Enough WordPerfect code has been stolen for the OSS project...our hard earned IP"
1) As a mid-level manager you never coded anything. 2)*Your* IP amounted to bringing home a paycheck every week. 3) The IP you claim was stolen never belonged to you, it belonged to the shareholders. 4) The IP you claim was stolen never made it into the OSS project, unless you can prove your claim with documentation (not SCO-FUD). 5) You are a whiney little wanker who will soon join the millions of un(der)-employed IT workers.
>>...tear Darl's nuts off and feed them to him will do nothing but harm to you...
surely that would hurt Darl also?
Well, we weren't concerned too much with Darl's feelings in this discussion, were we?
I'm just looking out for the interests of individuals from the Linux community who might get swept up in this mess and be dragged into court.
In considering this risk, I'm just saying that it would be advisable to refrain from referring to anyone from SCO as 'asshole sucking parasite', or making a comparison of Darl to a drag queen (without first determining his sexual preference).
The code that was stuffed into your "GPL Legal" linux source code was stolen.
Well, we all know McBride's handle now!
You have, of course, proven that allegation in a US court, right?
You can believe in magic faeries if you want, if that helps rationalize where all the code magically came from.
Actually, the kernel development process has been remarkably well documented. The process operates like nearly all scientific studies in that information is published only after significant peer review. The entire Linux kernel tree is documented in one form or another all the way back to the first lines contributed by Linus.
The process has been conducted in the open, with the whole world watching.
What part do you claim was magically produced and what parts are stolen code?
Head over to kernel.org to see the entire tree back to pre-1.0. I have a 0.99 version lying about somewhere in my library I could post on an FTP site for you copy.
There has been a lot of anger expressed throughout all of the SCO threads of late, most with venom bordering on violence. Keep this advice in mind, however, as you discuss this issue.
If you are a Linux kernel developer, explore your legal options. With SCO's market cap soaring near $175MUSD, there are a few attorney's who might consider contingency representation. If you want to file a class action suit, file it in Madison County, Illinois.
As for your personal comments, keep in mind that Slashdot cannot stop SCO from supoenaing their user records for discovery should you ever decide to sue. If so, be prepared to be REALLY pissed off when you are deposed. They will imply you've been engaging in copyright theft in an attempt to get an emotional response that they can drag out in court against you. I've been deposed; it an emotional roller-coaster.
Remain calm. That is your best strategy. Do not rise to their bait. Refrain from name calling or empty threats. If you truly believe you have been harmed by SCO's actions, then take your case to court or hold off until the IBM/SCO dust settles. Your shouting about the GPL and making threats to tear Darl's nuts off and feed them to him will do nothing but harm to you and any potential case you may have.
I'm not sure just what their contribution amounts to. When I've made comments about Sun's support to Linux I'm always confronted with examples of code they've contributed (perhaps it is NFS and NIS support). Rather than get into a twisted discussion about their *absolute* level of support, I now just acknowledge that they've made contributions to Linux.
Those contributions, however significant or insignificant they may be, do not make amends for the dismissive attitude Sun projects regarding Linux specifically, and Open Source in general.
In summary, fuck Microsoft, fuck SCO, and fuck Sun. They are all scum of the same genus and I will never purchase another product or service from any of them.
...which means I'll never buy their products and/or services.
Sun has always been a fair weather friend to Linux. I know they donated a lot of code to Linux, but their motives have always seemed rather suspicious to me. Their kindness is always tempered with a distain for what Open Source hopes to achieve. Perhaps they are correctly reading the tea leaves and realize that an Open Source world will not make them one penny, but their schizophrenic attitude toward Linux has always bothered me.
I take this latest disclosure as more proof that Sun does not have the interest of the Open Source Community at heart. I don't trust them, I won't buy from them, and I am actively working to replace every one of our Sun workstations and servers at work with commodity PCs running Linux.
Slashdot Mirror
>>who will be responsible for rouge elements
I dunno, maybe the cosmetics department?
Which only goes to prove that what separates something pretty from something vulgar is where 'U' are positioned.
Okay, that one stunk.....
>>a) If the answer is "before", then why didn't these paragons of virtue say something and save ~3000 lives?
Because there were many many different plots that appeared to be going on - flying a plane into the world trade center sounded quite a bit tin-foil hat theory - would you have supported military and police action because "it appeared, within the intelligence commite, that the taliban was going to fly an airplane into the world trade centers"? Probably not.
Then the system is *still* worthless because the information will not be acted upon in a timely manner. The future attack will occur despite the enhanced surveillance because the conclusions developed from the intelligence may sound insane to the analyst. In short, all conclusions leading to something outrageous will be ignored. So the reasons for gathering the information cannot be justified based on the prospect that it *might* catch the bad guys.
Despite what you have said about the idea of crashing planes into buildings as a terrorist tool, this scenario was discussed within the intelligence community long before 9-11.
And as a substitution to Pearl Harbor, I conclude that the Murrah Federal Building was bombed by a single white male who claimed to be saving the American people from a tyrannical government.
>>b) If the answer is "after", then the system is worthless as an intelligence tool. The bits and pieces of any conspiracy are always out in the public before an incident occurs. The value of intelligence analysis is the ability to merge these apparently unrelated pieces of information to reach a conclusion. If their system is only capable of making a link after an event, then Florida residents better keep an eye on their wallets.
Not true - it is generall a good idea to figure out who did it with a reasonable amount of certainty for some form of prosecution. I for one like that.
Right. Just like the FBI started dragging in all Arab males just after the Murrah Building was destroyed. The FBI later claimed they had reasonable certainty that the attackers fit the profile.
They were wrong and innocent citizens paid the price.
I like systems that don't violate our collective civil rights.
Asher has also donated services to the FBI, the Secret Service and other agencies. And authorities credit Seisint with helping to turn up links among the hijackers who slammed planes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and to some of their associates.
1) If this statement is indeed true, then my first question is "Were the links apparent before, or after the terrorist attacks".
a) If the answer is "before", then why didn't these paragons of virtue say something and save ~3000 lives?
b) If the answer is "after", then the system is worthless as an intelligence tool. The bits and pieces of any conspiracy are always out in the public before an incident occurs. The value of intelligence analysis is the ability to merge these apparently unrelated pieces of information to reach a conclusion. If their system is only capable of making a link after an event, then Florida residents better keep an eye on their wallets.
Here, I'll do the same thing without their database: 'The Japanese were responsible for
bombing Pearl Harbor.'
Pretty neat, huh?
2) Who goes to jail if the system is used for political surveillance?
a) Considering the system can be abused (a point that even supporters admit is possible), who will be responsible for rouge elements within a state government that use the system to collect information on political activists who disagree with a sitting administration?
b) Does anyone really believe that Nixon DIDN'T use the IRS and FBI to spy on anti-war activists during Viet Nam?
This system, however worthy it is in stopping potential violent acts, is too dangerous a tool to be placed in the hands of politicians.
Be advised that our response will likely include counterclaims for copyright infringement and conspiracy.
Cue theme song from the X Files!
I can't look at it from Ximian's perspective. I am responsible for *my* company's interests. Now that they have failed to show up for a sales meeting, they have damaged Ximian's reputation. Now the *potential* sale is the *unlikely* sale.
If Nat bailed to serve his own interests he damaged those of his former colleagues.
If you schedule a sales meeting, you should show up for it.
The company I work for was supposed to get a visit from Ximian last month for a presentation on their technology. They called at the last minute to cancel their meeting. I wondered whether there was more to the cancellation than "Nat had to respond to a personal matter".
I'm deeply suspicious. I am now inclined to believe that Nat bailed on us to attend a meeting to discuss the sale of Ximian to Novel. Considering the fact that I work at a national laboratory and that YOUR tax dollars are buying commercial software, I find it terribly disheartening to see Linux-related companies failing so miserably on customer service.
When you arrange a sales meeting, you should show up for it.
The moderator who rated this as offtopic obviously doesn't recognize the Front: design as the earliest recorded Slashdot article in the accessible database.
Because other countries don't matter to most Americans.
Unless an American company can outsource jobs to a foreign country, that is.
Front:
Become 007 On The Internet
The Internet | Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday December 31, @09:20PM
from the large-scale-pests dept.
Another entertaining use of the internet is now available- a company is selling photographs taken from satellites of anywhere in the world. Resolution is 10sq/ft per pixel, and it costs a few hundred bucks a pixel, but it's only money, right?
The article also talks about using cel phones as a homing device. Crazy stuff. check out the story sent to us by Garrett
Back:
Last Chance for Slashdot T-Shirt Contest
Slashdot.org | Posted by CmdrTaco on Thursday July 31, @03:22PM
from the here-we-go-again dept.
This is your last chance to enter Slashdot's T-Shirt Design Contest that we announced a few weeks ago. The contest officially ends tomorrow. We've had over 200 submissions, and some of them are pretty cool, but I don't think there yet is a Lock for the winner. So if you've got what it takes to design a T-Shirt (we're too cheap/lazy to do it ourselves!) you can win store credit at ThinkGeek plus free shirts with your winning design on them! Here are the Official Rules. Read the original story for submission details.
Great. Now I can watch "The Apple Dumpling Gang IX - Clovis' Revenge!".
Seriously though, ever since Disney began the ruinous process of serializing every one of its classics, I can do without their fare.
They will probably pressure Congress to *force* us to subscribe.
Watching these whiney little anonymous cowards take nearly an hour to respond to my posts gives me the impression that they are either parked behind 300 baud modems, or they are beating their responses out on large drums.
Heh, how about sending them invitations to sue us, complete with address, phone, email, and kernel version?
I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't received a few of those already. Considering that not everyone has migrated to v2.4, it is entirely possible that someone running v2.2 could sue SCO in an effort to get a declarative judgement. They could argue that migration to v2.4 has been hampered by SCO's allegations and is hurting their business.
Of course, monkeys could fly out of my ass too....
You failed, like you fail with every post. A well worded intelligent troll got your pis-poor response.
Read the scores, suckers, and weep.
My counter-troll landed a 4 (informative). Another response to the troll landed a 5.
Can't argue with the mods, boys.
And here you are, down at score:1.
You obviously dont know enough to know the parent post was just a bunch of fancy sounding words in sentences that made absolutely no sense.
And you are too inane to realize that what I wrote was a parody of all the posts in the SCO/IBM debacle.
Here's a penny kid: Go buy yourself a clue.
But you still had to comment on it.
Fishing for idiots like yourself certainly has gotten easier in the last few months.
How brave you were, too, to post anonymously.
"As an upper mid-level management member..."
and
Enough WordPerfect code has been stolen for the OSS project...our hard earned IP"
1) As a mid-level manager you never coded anything.
2)*Your* IP amounted to bringing home a paycheck every week.
3) The IP you claim was stolen never belonged to you, it belonged to the shareholders.
4) The IP you claim was stolen never made it into the OSS project, unless you can prove your claim with documentation (not SCO-FUD).
5) You are a whiney little wanker who will soon join the millions of un(der)-employed IT workers.
>>...tear Darl's nuts off and feed them to him will do nothing but harm to you...
surely that would hurt Darl also?
Well, we weren't concerned too much with Darl's feelings in this discussion, were we?
I'm just looking out for the interests of individuals from the Linux community who might get swept up in this mess and be dragged into court.
In considering this risk, I'm just saying that it would be advisable to refrain from referring to anyone from SCO as 'asshole sucking parasite', or making a comparison of Darl to a drag queen (without first determining his sexual preference).
The code that was stuffed into your "GPL Legal" linux source code was stolen.
Well, we all know McBride's handle now!
You have, of course, proven that allegation in a US court, right?
You can believe in magic faeries if you want, if that helps rationalize where all the code magically came from.
Actually, the kernel development process has been remarkably well documented. The process operates like nearly all scientific studies in that information is published only after significant peer review. The entire Linux kernel tree is documented in one form or another all the way back to the first lines contributed by Linus.
The process has been conducted in the open, with the whole world watching.
What part do you claim was magically produced and what parts are stolen code?
Head over to kernel.org to see the entire tree back to pre-1.0. I have a 0.99 version lying about somewhere in my library I could post on an FTP site for you copy.
So, Mr. McBride, put up or shut up.
Nice start. Perhaps you could post this as a webpage somewhere to avoid the lameness filter.
Thanks for your efforts.
There has been a lot of anger expressed throughout all of the SCO threads of late, most with venom bordering on violence. Keep this advice in mind, however, as you discuss this issue.
If you are a Linux kernel developer, explore your legal options. With SCO's market cap soaring near $175MUSD, there are a few attorney's who might consider contingency representation. If you want to file a class action suit, file it in Madison County, Illinois.
As for your personal comments, keep in mind that Slashdot cannot stop SCO from supoenaing their user records for discovery should you ever decide to sue. If so, be prepared to be REALLY pissed off when you are deposed. They will imply you've been engaging in copyright theft in an attempt to get an emotional response that they can drag out in court against you. I've been deposed; it an emotional roller-coaster.
Remain calm. That is your best strategy. Do not rise to their bait. Refrain from name calling or empty threats. If you truly believe you have been harmed by SCO's actions, then take your case to court or hold off until the IBM/SCO dust settles. Your shouting about the GPL and making threats to tear Darl's nuts off and feed them to him will do nothing but harm to you and any potential case you may have.
Cripes, dude....
Shove your dick back in your pants.
Yes but in the movies they do cool computery things except with lots of flashy graphics around it.
/homer mode on
/homer mode off
AND they get great looking people to operate the machines.
Mmmmmm...Carrie Ann Moss (drools)
They will bail on you.
I'm not sure just what their contribution amounts to. When I've made comments about Sun's support to Linux I'm always confronted with examples of code they've contributed (perhaps it is NFS and NIS support). Rather than get into a twisted discussion about their *absolute* level of support, I now just acknowledge that they've made contributions to Linux.
Those contributions, however significant or insignificant they may be, do not make amends for the dismissive attitude Sun projects regarding Linux specifically, and Open Source in general.
In summary, fuck Microsoft, fuck SCO, and fuck Sun. They are all scum of the same genus and I will never purchase another product or service from any of them.
And thanks for the link....
...which means I'll never buy their products and/or services.
Sun has always been a fair weather friend to Linux. I know they donated a lot of code to Linux, but their motives have always seemed rather suspicious to me. Their kindness is always tempered with a distain for what Open Source hopes to achieve. Perhaps they are correctly reading the tea leaves and realize that an Open Source world will not make them one penny, but their schizophrenic attitude toward Linux has always bothered me.
I take this latest disclosure as more proof that Sun does not have the interest of the Open Source Community at heart. I don't trust them, I won't buy from them, and I am actively working to replace every one of our Sun workstations and servers at work with commodity PCs running Linux.
I hope Sun sets for good.
>>"Doesn't that imply that if you get your first wish, you will not have a job?"
Not when we're low-bid, and we get cheap, crappy hardware that blows out (like 3,200 DEER 250watt ATX Power supplies)
Good point. No shortage of work regardless of the OS choice.