The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.
What you IMHO should learn in university is to become part of that great heritage of rational thought. Or as other poster's have described it: "To learn how to learn".
PS. Great book BTW. It's really worth a read.
PPS. This might be a bit lofty view, when you have to get up at eight in the morning to go to classes;)
This isn't a problem with Windows, it's a problem with your AD servers and by extension with your AD administrators who have fucked up the domain so that users have to deal with shit like this.
At work we have a well-running AD domain (not an advanced setup: small site, no fancy trusted domain stuff,...), but we still get the occasional "Could not connect to domain controller" message, when users try to authenticate against AD. A reboot usually doesn't help - you have to pull the pc of the domain (which requires a reboot) and put it back on (another reboot). I doubt the trouble is with our AD setup, as there isn't any consistency to when, who or where this trouble occurs. These sorts of errors are close to impossible to get rid of in windows, but I (naively, perhaps) believe it would be a lot easier with OpenLDAP (which on the other hand is a bastard to set up). The point I'm trying to make is, that windows will just every once in a while pull these sorts of insane stunts on you.
That being said, I'm impressed with the ease of deployment of AD (had to set up a test domain, as I was doing some coding), and what can be accomplished through Group Policies (some of the goodies you refer to:D).
Built-in Microsoft Exchange Support
Users can communicate directly with built-in WebDAV support, eliminating the need to maintain separate IMAP e-mail server access to support Linux and UNIX users.
From within Novell Evolution, users can view, edit and update e-mail, address books, calendars and task folders on the Exchange server.
Using existing global address lists, users can access names, addresses and contact information from the Exchange Global Address List.
Public folder support allows users to share documents and files in existing Exchange public folders. They can also create new public folders for collaboration.
Through the Manage Permissions feature, users can control access to personal and public folders, calendars and task lists.
With the proper authorization, users can open other users' calendars or shared folders.
The Out-of-Office Assistant helps users create custom vacation or notification messages that run on the Exchange server.
Through the Calendar Delegation feature, users can set permissions to allow others to view their calendars. Users can also delegate permission to a colleague (for example, an administrative assistant) to accept and schedule meetings in their calendars.
Direct resource booking reserves resources such as conference rooms or vehicles for your meetings and appointments.
The new mailbox- and folder-size features display Exchange server quota notifications to keep mailbox sizes down.
As for question 1 & 2 I'm not quite sure, but a colleague uses it, and it looks like he accesses his mail without trouble (And accepts meeting requests, Accesses public folder, etc.).
First of all I can completely understand your frustration - it's a bastard of a situation. You appearently didn't do anything and was hit hard by MAPS.
That being said, I think blacklists are a necessary evil. At the university where I currently work (as a student-aid, not responsible for the whole operation) we employ three different blacklists. Why? Becausse they filter out about 2/3 of the mails sent to our users (roughly 2.500-3.000 on a workday). If we didn't remove theese mails, we would be overrun by users complaining. As the situation is now, we only have to deal with the legit mail, that is accidently blocked.
Of course there are alternatives like bayesian filtering, but theese unfortunately take up processing power and storage. It is perhaps an approach we should investigate further, but I must admit we haven't gotten around to it, as the blacklists are serving us fine.
PS. Are you sure you don't have any zombie's on your network segments? Is smtp (both incoming and outbound) firewalled off for all machines (except perhaps mailservers:)?
Well I suppose you have a good point. However we recently had an election in Denmark (Feb. 8th), where one of the main-themes was employment. In fact both sides of parliament promised to create 50.000 new jobs (a lot in a country with 5-6 million inhabitants).
The current government was also in power before this election, and it would have made their promises look quite ridiculous, if it had been announced, that we were loosing 800 jobs the day before election day.
The articles I've found make no mention of the date of the meeting, but if it was before Feb. 8th, I think Bill Gates would have had quite some leverage.
PS. To comment on the blackmail/extortion threads above: If it was before election day it comes damn close to being illegal, as it could be viewed as a threat to disturb the election process (IMHO, IANAL)
You're propably right about him not being a rhetorical genius - ie. the article states :
Cohen in fact has Asperger's syndrome, a condition on the mild end of the autism spectrum that gives him almost superhuman powers of concentration but can make it difficult for him to relate to other people. I don't imagine many people, who have trouble relating to others, are great speakers.
But his reply to the "an atom bomb" question is IMO actually rather good. Any semi-intelligent person should be able to see, that a comparison between Hiroshima & Nagasaki and downloading copyrighted material is plain stupid.
Instead of suggesting for him to hire someone with a little better speaking skills, my suggestion would be for the radiostation to hire someone with a bit better interviewing skills:)
I'm not saying that the specs cannot be gathered or that a system that meet theese specs cannot be constructed. As this has been done already, it obviously can. I was merely trying to say, that to implement such a system is a non-trivial excercise. In other words you need more than a dozen of webprogrammers working for a few months, especially if it's going to be organizing the work of 32000+ people and you want it to be (close to) bug-free.
BTW. The airline is deploying a new system, so they must agree with you on "the horrible solution" bit. And I'm inclined to also agree (your description of the setup sounds like hack upon hack), but as stated above there is always a lot of considerations to make when endeavouring a rewrite of a major piece of software.
This stuff could be handled by a team of a dozen web based programmers (Java? C? ASP? LAMP? You pick.) in a few months. It's not difficult.
I think you're underestemating the complexity of the problem. Sure it's easy to just assign people randomly, but there's a lot of constraints on the system:
1) Crewmembers should only work for so long before resting (security).
2) Crewmembers should only work for so many hours a month.
3) Crewmembers should end up home at some point.
4) All planes should have so many crewmembers (pilots, flight attendants,...).
6) The airline should spend as little money as possible on salaries.
And there a probably a lot more. Anyway, the point is that the algorithm for assigning crew in an (near) optimal way is probably quite tricky - a wildshot would be that it requires some sort of linear programming.
NO ONE forces you to install windows updates, but usually they contain something important. On a side note they might break compatability with Samba or some other open source project, that Microsoft views as a competitor (And some of the time this may be a coincidence - the rest of the time?).
I'll give you that the firmware update probably isn't as necessary to install as service packs. But usually firmware upgrades makes whatever device you apply them to run (significantly) better.
If Apple had choosen to make a seperate "don't-play-real-networks-mp3s-on-Ipod" upgrade, that did nothing else, then the situation would be different. But I bet you they bundled it with some significant gain of functionality, speed, etc. Thus the users are forced to apply the update to gain these benefits. As a side-effect one of Apple's competitors are locked out of the Ipods.
BTW the broken compatibility might just be a coincidence (In which case it is hard to blame Apple), but given the history of the whole affair, I don't think it is.
You can also hope that some kid (or her/his parents) , preferably one with a perfect attendance record, refuses.
If the school allows it, then it will spread. On the other hand if it is decided to expell the student, there should be plenty of possibilities for causing enough controversy about this in the mainstream media, maybe even a lawsuit.
One could always hope that a event like that, would shut the proponnents of such an idea up (at least for a couple of years).
Re:Bring back procedural languages
on
Holub on Patterns
·
· Score: 0
Every time I sit down to a piece of "bad" old code, I notice just how much easier it is to maintain. I add an "if-then", but the OOP guy is screaming factor-factor-factor so much that you have to shlep the whole thing off to india to because that's the only way you can afford the thousand programmers to sort out.
You are aware of the fact, that most OO languages have the (really usefull) if-then construct. If you only need to change that, it can also be done quite easy in those languages.
I was thinking something along those lines - there must be a simpler way for solving the "Wiki defacing problem". My solution was what I sometimes have heard referred to as a "reverse Turing test" - make a human do a job that computers are really bad at. Examples include picture (widely in use) or audio recognition.
Of course this wastes some serverside cpu-cycles/bandwith, so it is a question of whether this is more desirable than having your Wiki defaced.
sounds to me like utilitarianism , with the "utility principle" being fun.
A good guiding principle, but the criticism mentioned on Wikipedia still holds.
I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart (having read Naomi Klein's No Logo), but in this case what are they doing: Trying to sell (mostly stupid pop) CDs cheap.
Of course there will be record executives saying
"I don't think there is a music supplier in America who really enjoys doing business with Wal-Mart,"
They want to earn as much money as they can - and have more or less succeeded in having a fixed price policy.
Finally they get hit back by a major retailer.
As for the impact on independent retailers I can muster a bit more of sympathy, but my hope is that these businesses can make a living by having a much broader selection.
It is a nice idea, and it is in accordance with one of the purpose statements made by the UN:
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
However in reality giving the UN control of the internet is a dream:
It would require all countries to give up their own laws regarding computers placed in their country (eg. Germany could not forbid nazi-propaganda spread by german servers). A sacrifice few governments will make - and even fewer to the UN.
It would require the UN to make (many & complex) laws about theese sort of things. Seing how hard it is to agree on something in the UN now, this could not be done.
So even John Kerry voted not to ratify Kyoto. Hell, even fathead Ted Kennedy did. Because it's not about "the environment", it's about shackling the economies of the west.
If I remember correctly the two countries. who did not (Russia just did) ratify the aggreement were USA and Australia. These countries were asked to reduce their CO2 emission by 7%, which is not an unreasonable figure considering the fact that these countries discharge the most (per capita). Especially since countries that emit less (eg. Germany & Denmark) woved to reduce their discharge with 21% (!).
The argument presented by the USA was, that the developing countries should also reduce their emission. An argument that, IMHO, does not make much sense as these countries emit very litte (eg. they would have to give up public transportation to reduce emissions, contrasted with the fact that it would only require americans to drop their SUVs).
And if you look deeper, you will see the huge trade concessions made to Russia (by EU member states) in order for them to sign.
I believe the "trade concessions" you talk of, namely allowing Russia to keep their discharge constant, was made in an attempt to get them to sign. It could also be argued that it was not an unreasonable compromise, as Russia has had a disastrous economy since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and is still struggling to regain it's footing.
BTW. This is not to be considered an critique of neither Republicans nor Democrats. This is an internal affair, and as I am not an US citizen I will keep out of it (although I have my opinions;). It is however a critique of the twocountries that did not sign the Kyoto agreement.
Slashdot Mirror
When seing "my college doesn't teach me anything useful" debates, I am always reminded of Robert M Pirsig's description of a university in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:
;)
The real University, he said, has no specific location. It owns no property, pays no salaries and receives no material dues. The real University is a state of mind. It is that great heritage of rational thought that has been brought down to us through the centuries and which does not exist at any specific location. It's a state of mind which is regenerated throughout the centuries by a body of people who traditionally carry the title of professor, but even that title is not part of the real University. The real University is nothing less than the continuing body of reason itself.
What you IMHO should learn in university is to become part of that great heritage of rational thought. Or as other poster's have described it: "To learn how to learn".
PS. Great book BTW. It's really worth a read.
PPS. This might be a bit lofty view, when you have to get up at eight in the morning to go to classes
This isn't a problem with Windows, it's a problem with your AD servers and by extension with your AD administrators who have fucked up the domain so that users have to deal with shit like this.
...), but we still get the occasional "Could not connect to domain controller" message, when users try to authenticate against AD. A reboot usually doesn't help - you have to pull the pc of the domain (which requires a reboot) and put it back on (another reboot). I doubt the trouble is with our AD setup, as there isn't any consistency to when, who or where this trouble occurs. These sorts of errors are close to impossible to get rid of in windows, but I (naively, perhaps) believe it would be a lot easier with OpenLDAP (which on the other hand is a bastard to set up). The point I'm trying to make is, that windows will just every once in a while pull these sorts of insane stunts on you.
:D).
At work we have a well-running AD domain (not an advanced setup: small site, no fancy trusted domain stuff,
That being said, I'm impressed with the ease of deployment of AD (had to set up a test domain, as I was doing some coding), and what can be accomplished through Group Policies (some of the goodies you refer to
You should have a look at Evolution:
v olution.html
Built-in Microsoft Exchange Support
Users can communicate directly with built-in WebDAV support, eliminating the need to maintain separate IMAP e-mail server access to support Linux and UNIX users.
From within Novell Evolution, users can view, edit and update e-mail, address books, calendars and task folders on the Exchange server.
Using existing global address lists, users can access names, addresses and contact information from the Exchange Global Address List.
Public folder support allows users to share documents and files in existing Exchange public folders. They can also create new public folders for collaboration.
Through the Manage Permissions feature, users can control access to personal and public folders, calendars and task lists.
With the proper authorization, users can open other users' calendars or shared folders.
The Out-of-Office Assistant helps users create custom vacation or notification messages that run on the Exchange server.
Through the Calendar Delegation feature, users can set permissions to allow others to view their calendars. Users can also delegate permission to a colleague (for example, an administrative assistant) to accept and schedule meetings in their calendars.
Direct resource booking reserves resources such as conference rooms or vehicles for your meetings and appointments.
The new mailbox- and folder-size features display Exchange server quota notifications to keep mailbox sizes down.
Taken from http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/e
As for question 1 & 2 I'm not quite sure, but a colleague uses it, and it looks like he accesses his mail without trouble (And accepts meeting requests, Accesses public folder, etc.).
First of all I can completely understand your frustration - it's a bastard of a situation. You appearently didn't do anything and was hit hard by MAPS.
:)?
That being said, I think blacklists are a necessary evil. At the university where I currently work (as a student-aid, not responsible for the whole operation) we employ three different blacklists. Why? Becausse they filter out about 2/3 of the mails sent to our users (roughly 2.500-3.000 on a workday). If we didn't remove theese mails, we would be overrun by users complaining. As the situation is now, we only have to deal with the legit mail, that is accidently blocked.
Of course there are alternatives like bayesian filtering, but theese unfortunately take up processing power and storage. It is perhaps an approach we should investigate further, but I must admit we haven't gotten around to it, as the blacklists are serving us fine.
PS. Are you sure you don't have any zombie's on your network segments? Is smtp (both incoming and outbound) firewalled off for all machines (except perhaps mailservers
First time they did something similar, they appearently got hacked in 45 seconds
But as the old slashdot article also states the 2nd generation was able to stay afloat.
Seems like a great way to learn how to secure a system though - let the best hackers/crackers out there have a go, and learn what went wrong.
Well I suppose you have a good point. However we recently had an election in Denmark (Feb. 8th), where one of the main-themes was employment. In fact both sides of parliament promised to create 50.000 new jobs (a lot in a country with 5-6 million inhabitants).
The current government was also in power before this election, and it would have made their promises look quite ridiculous, if it had been announced, that we were loosing 800 jobs the day before election day.
The articles I've found make no mention of the date of the meeting, but if it was before Feb. 8th, I think Bill Gates would have had quite some leverage.
PS. To comment on the blackmail/extortion threads above: If it was before election day it comes damn close to being illegal, as it could be viewed as a threat to disturb the election process (IMHO, IANAL)
That would be :)
1) Virus scanner.
2) Firewall.
3) Spybot-SD Resident
Leaving a lot of room for the customer to play
You're propably right about him not being a rhetorical genius - ie. the article states :
:)
Cohen in fact has Asperger's syndrome, a condition on the mild end of the autism spectrum that gives him almost superhuman powers of concentration but can make it difficult for him to relate to other people.
I don't imagine many people, who have trouble relating to others, are great speakers.
But his reply to the "an atom bomb" question is IMO actually rather good. Any semi-intelligent person should be able to see, that a comparison between Hiroshima & Nagasaki and downloading copyrighted material is plain stupid.
Instead of suggesting for him to hire someone with a little better speaking skills, my suggestion would be for the radiostation to hire someone with a bit better interviewing skills
I'm not saying that the specs cannot be gathered or that a system that meet theese specs cannot be constructed. As this has been done already, it obviously can. I was merely trying to say, that to implement such a system is a non-trivial excercise. In other words you need more than a dozen of webprogrammers working for a few months, especially if it's going to be organizing the work of 32000+ people and you want it to be (close to) bug-free.
BTW. The airline is deploying a new system, so they must agree with you on "the horrible solution" bit. And I'm inclined to also agree (your description of the setup sounds like hack upon hack), but as stated above there is always a lot of considerations to make when endeavouring a rewrite of a major piece of software.
This stuff could be handled by a team of a dozen web based programmers (Java? C? ASP? LAMP? You pick.) in a few months. It's not difficult.
...).
I think you're underestemating the complexity of the problem. Sure it's easy to just assign people randomly, but there's a lot of constraints on the system:
1) Crewmembers should only work for so long before resting (security).
2) Crewmembers should only work for so many hours a month.
3) Crewmembers should end up home at some point.
4) All planes should have so many crewmembers (pilots, flight attendants,
6) The airline should spend as little money as possible on salaries.
And there a probably a lot more. Anyway, the point is that the algorithm for assigning crew in an (near) optimal way is probably quite tricky - a wildshot would be that it requires some sort of linear programming.
100 TBs is a lot of p0rn.
NO ONE forces you to install windows updates, but usually they contain something important. On a side note they might break compatability with Samba or some other open source project, that Microsoft views as a competitor (And some of the time this may be a coincidence - the rest of the time?).
I'll give you that the firmware update probably isn't as necessary to install as service packs. But usually firmware upgrades makes whatever device you apply them to run (significantly) better.
If Apple had choosen to make a seperate "don't-play-real-networks-mp3s-on-Ipod" upgrade, that did nothing else, then the situation would be different. But I bet you they bundled it with some significant gain of functionality, speed, etc. Thus the users are forced to apply the update to gain these benefits. As a side-effect one of Apple's competitors are locked out of the Ipods.
BTW the broken compatibility might just be a coincidence (In which case it is hard to blame Apple), but given the history of the whole affair, I don't think it is.
It isn't an internet ad. That would explain it ;)
And there really is nothing to argue about - bigendian is clearly superior ;)
It's taken this long to decide on what is the Least Significant Bit?
Don't worry, they're still arguing over that.
You can also hope that some kid (or her/his parents) , preferably one with a perfect attendance record, refuses.
If the school allows it, then it will spread. On the other hand if it is decided to expell the student, there should be plenty of possibilities for causing enough controversy about this in the mainstream media, maybe even a lawsuit.
One could always hope that a event like that, would shut the proponnents of such an idea up (at least for a couple of years).
Every time I sit down to a piece of "bad" old code, I notice just how much easier it is to maintain. I add an "if-then", but the OOP guy is screaming factor-factor-factor so much that you have to shlep the whole thing off to india to because that's the only way you can afford the thousand programmers to sort out.
You are aware of the fact, that most OO languages have the (really usefull) if-then construct. If you only need to change that, it can also be done quite easy in those languages.
Imagine my suprise when the following occured:
Once againg sorry
I was thinking something along those lines - there must be a simpler way for solving the "Wiki defacing problem". My solution was what I sometimes have heard referred to as a "reverse Turing test" - make a human do a job that computers are really bad at. Examples include picture (widely in use) or audio recognition.
Of course this wastes some serverside cpu-cycles/bandwith, so it is a question of whether this is more desirable than having your Wiki defaced.
sounds to me like utilitarianism , with the "utility principle" being fun. A good guiding principle, but the criticism mentioned on Wikipedia still holds.
I'm not a big fan of Wal-Mart (having read Naomi Klein's No Logo), but in this case what are they doing: Trying to sell (mostly stupid pop) CDs cheap.
Of course there will be record executives saying
"I don't think there is a music supplier in America who really enjoys doing business with Wal-Mart,"
They want to earn as much money as they can - and have more or less succeeded in having a fixed price policy. Finally they get hit back by a major retailer.
As for the impact on independent retailers I can muster a bit more of sympathy, but my hope is that these businesses can make a living by having a much broader selection.
or even worse info pages. Does anybody use those ??
3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and
However in reality giving the UN control of the internet is a dream:
- It would require all countries to give up their own laws regarding computers placed in their country (eg. Germany could not forbid nazi-propaganda spread by german servers). A sacrifice few governments will make - and even fewer to the UN.
- It would require the UN to make (many & complex) laws about theese sort of things. Seing how hard it is to agree on something in the UN now, this could not be done.
As I said: nice idea, butSo even John Kerry voted not to ratify Kyoto. Hell, even fathead Ted Kennedy did. Because it's not about "the environment", it's about shackling the economies of the west.
;). It is however a critique of the twocountries that did not sign the Kyoto agreement.
If I remember correctly the two countries. who did not (Russia just did) ratify the aggreement were USA and Australia. These countries were asked to reduce their CO2 emission by 7%, which is not an unreasonable figure considering the fact that these countries discharge the most (per capita). Especially since countries that emit less (eg. Germany & Denmark) woved to reduce their discharge with 21% (!).
The argument presented by the USA was, that the developing countries should also reduce their emission. An argument that, IMHO, does not make much sense as these countries emit very litte (eg. they would have to give up public transportation to reduce emissions, contrasted with the fact that it would only require americans to drop their SUVs).
And if you look deeper, you will see the huge trade concessions made to Russia (by EU member states) in order for them to sign.
I believe the "trade concessions" you talk of, namely allowing Russia to keep their discharge constant, was made in an attempt to get them to sign. It could also be argued that it was not an unreasonable compromise, as Russia has had a disastrous economy since the fall of the Iron Curtain, and is still struggling to regain it's footing.
BTW. This is not to be considered an critique of neither Republicans nor Democrats. This is an internal affair, and as I am not an US citizen I will keep out of it (although I have my opinions
- Shoes.
- Shoelaces.
- Undergarments.
- Trousers (in any form)
So either you owe me obscene amounts of money, or your coworkers are having a laugh.