That's not true. IF one were to make a computer of, say, quarks and gluons, and all of the sub-sub-atomic particles (excuse my terminiology, it has been a while since my last subatomic physics class) to represent larger structures, then something smaller can represent something larger. It is like a map, or anything else: use a smaller structure to emulate a larger. Protons and Neutrons are relatively simple 'large' objects that one could probably calculate with electrons or gluons or something....
However, the dude who said the original comment aobut 20 Billion G is fucked. I've always heard there were 10^50+ particles in teh universe.... COMPLEX particles, too, not just bianry digits.
20 billion G is, what 20,000,000,000,000,000,000? (I may have missed some, but that is not the point). The number above is 2.0 X 10^19. And remember that is in BINARY. To understand the universe, this would have to be WAY WAY WAY more complex, by orders of magnitude we haven't even thought of.
It seems that the KDE folds are all up in arms since big companies picked Gnome over KDE. Why would companies do this? Because the QPL is for NONCOMMERCIAL USE!! So why should IBM be a slave to Trolltech? It woudln't make sense.
The GPL is OK because then everyone is playing by the rules, kinda like the idea behind CDE. If everyone is on the same playing field, then let the best man win.
As a user, I want free, powerful, easy to use tools. I want a good Gnome interface with reusable code, etc. I want it free and open.
Will I try out KDE2? yes, I will. But most likely I will go back to my helix-gnome desktop... not because it is better, but because it is GPL.
Sorry KDE. When I was first starting to run linux (and after the debacle of fvwm), I thought KDE was a godsend. But now that I program for it, I want a completely free desktop.
I can see how someone who has made KDE their baby would be upset at recent news; There are a lot of big players essentially picking sides, and KDE is the redheaded (but more intelligent, creative, and better behaved) stepchild.
However, this announcement is not a blow to KDE but rather a WIN for Linux! Finally there are companies looking into USABILITY of linux, not just the server end. This is a huge win for Linux, OSS, and the USER in general...
Competition is good. Money pouring FROM big companies INTO a free OS for the people is good.
offtopic (kinda): I looked at Konqueror. Very impressive, and while I am a gnome user, KDE has done some cool stuff. But I just can't help but think that where usability NEEDS to go is not just in making a monolithic container as MS Ineternet explorer and its shells: Linux needs to have an awesome interface for changes configurations. Linuxconf is GETTING to that area, but when yon user needs to jump through hoops and ladders just to install a new piece of hardware, that is bad.
Apt-get/dpkg is already making software asy to upgrdae (alhtough UI improvemnents could me made there, too), but now a user needs to be able to change their screen resolution, hardware, drivers, configure apache, restart services, see what is going toload on boot, etc. etc. etc. from one interface (whether is is a bunch of 'control panels' like MacOS or one interface like in linuxconf makes no difference as long as it is easy).
The article had it all wrong. There is already an essentially open-sourced game out there called FUZION, which is a Fuzion of the R Talsorian Games (Cyberpunk 2020) and Hero (Champions) games.
While you cannot distribute the 'kernel' of the RPG for commericial use, there are SEVERAL rules sets out there (called plugins in the game, it is a cool concept, and very computer-like) that come from teh core rules.
So it is very much like the GPL, except with the restriction that you can't sell the product, but you can add on or modify and post to your hearts content.
The thing is, from what I have seen of d20 and the new generation of TSR products, they are still junk. FUZION is a very streamlined, extensible system designed to be added to and PLAYED: the game play of it is fantastic.
Here here! One excellent point of the Open Source movement is that as an ecology, it is not homogenous. Give us choices!
However, i would also like to add that 3 or 4 solid options are better than 100 crappy options. KDe and GNOME, for instance: i have no problem with 2, or maybe a third if it is obviously technically superior. But to have a million choices, none of which stack up sucks.
you know, first they are going to censor the libraries 'for the protection of the children.'
Then they are going to censor all public places 'for the protection of the children'
Then they are going to start censoring specific internet content 'for the protection of the children'.
Then one day we are going to read that UUnet, etc. can't pass 'pornographic' materials over backbone 'for the protection of the children.'
America is getting out of hand, i hate this 'protection of the children' crap: what ever happened to making good people and not protecting our children? maybe we should be free, and live with the damned consequences of that freedom?
And the problem is, we aren't going to do a damn thing about it.
That's it, i'm moving to a more liberal country than america..... Saudi Arabia, here i come!
I think that the Mac interface is proably the best GUI around (unless you count CLI as a GUI...)
It is neat, efficient, and has a paradigm that is only broken a few times by certain developers. In general, it is consistent and slick.
I think the reason people like Macs is not because they are faster or more stable or whatever, it is because Apple has always worried about its machine-human interfaces. MS just wants money, *nix just wants a good server running, but Mac has always been about interface.
So i think it is great that apple is trying new ideas (even if they really aren't that new) in their interface.
Use of color as a paradigm, use of transparency now that machine can handle it, use of sizable icons, the dock, several ways of using the finder, etc. etc.
However, there is one thing i DO NOT like about the Mac interface, and what i LOVE about GNOME/Enlightenment: G/E is TOTALLY configurable to my speciifications. As of yetr, there has been no setting that i wanted to change that i have been unable to change. Virtual Windows, mouse behavior, background colors/themes for easier vierwing, etc. etc
The problem with the Mac interface, now, is not going to be whether it is a GOOD interface, it is whether or not you can configure it to YOUR work environment. Most geeks don't like the mac interface because it follows ONE paradigm and they happen to not like that paradigm.
So if Apple were REALLY interested in human-machine interface instead of branding and marketing, they would make slick interfaces with the uber-configurability of G/E and beyond...
Let me work this out aloud.... devil's advocate style.
Maybe this is a good thing. Imagine getting advertisements that you WANT for a change. Like one person above stated, how many AOL disks can ya get? These companies are trying to cut down on your annoyance factor.
The problem is that they now, essentially, know more about you than you know about yourself becasue they can take Asmimovian psycho-historical, sociological data and absract it into a 'personality'. The problem here is not privacy, it is that we feel like we are being grouped and categorized, and we geeks and techno-philes don't like that.
But lets TAKE the privacy issue. So what if someone knows what i do? If you are doing something you don't want someone to know about, do it under a guise/anonymously/etc. Its kinda like Neo in THE MATRIX. He does all his normal stuff as Mr. Anderson (pays his taxes, helps with his neighbors groceries....), but then does stuff he WANTS to do as Neo. You want to protect your privacy? create a 'new you' a Neo-persona, and let that persona go wild. Just make sure that the persona is not assocaited with your 'real' persona (if there is such a thing).
On a meta scale, we don't need to stop companies from gathering data, we simply need a way to abstract ourselves FROM that data. We need to make it easy for the average person to make a persona that cannot be traced. Really, it is that simple. Anybody got ideas about that???
Yeah! Right on Anonymous Coward! All people in Biafra need is food in their belly that we give to them. They don't need something like EDUCATION or THINKING. Screw that. I mean, if they can think for themselves instead of relying on us to think for them, then they could eventually figure out how to FEED themselves. And if they feed themselves and educate themselves, then we won't feel good about ourselves every 20 years when we decide to donate food for them or have a concert for them.
There is more to being human than eating and excreting. Even Thoreau, who would be the first to say that 3rd world starving countries should stand for themselves, would agree that the way to MAKE them stand for themselves is to give them as much information and support as possible, and then let them make the decisions that will allow them to function properly.
I got this from a guy who has been doing mainframe security for 16 years.
OK, decide on a really, really uncrackable prefix, like $9_vI4! or something that is SOOOOO not a dictionary word.
Then, every time you make a password, prefix (or suffix) this SAME set of characters to a word or other password (for the really paraoid, use something just as esoteric as the prefix. for simplicy, use a word) and WIRTE DOWN this word.
Now, memorize the prefix/suffix and make sure that you know the current password.
For example, in week one I have a password of: $9_vI4!engel and have 'engel' on a piece of paper on my desk (and memorized $9_vI4!)
the second week i change the passwd to: $9_vI4!marx and I have 'marx' written on a piece of paper on my desk.
Now, anyone who sees the paper will still not be able to get into the account becuase they don't know the prefix/suffix. BUT you use the prefix/suffix so much you aren't going to forget it, so that is safe, too.
There is no such thing as an easily-memorizable password that is secure, but this is about as secure as it gets without getting rid of 'memorizability'.
This is ridiculous. I think it is about time to start a bit of Civil Disobedience: everyone should just ignore stupid patents like this one. Just make the patent system go away by simply ignoring it in Thoreauean fashion.
Yes, I realize that this idea needs work because it is not 'realistic'. Is there a way to make this suggestion realistic?
What has happened to Postmodern Science Fiction?! I read an essay/article that you wrote saying that the cyberpunks were going to die, but that a new (counter)culture would rise from its ashes. So where are the brave souls pushing the envelope of Science Fiction like the cyberpunks? If they exist, who are they; and if they don't exist, was cyberpunk a failed philosophy because of its inability to create a succeeding generation?
I hacked around in a GUI world for so long that i had forgotten the pleasures of line command. Then, three years ago, I kept beating my head against Linux. It took me three years, but now I feel confident that I could do pretty much anything to which I set my mind.
And I remmeber at first, it took me 50 hours to do ANYTHING useful..... at the 50 hour mark i had just then untarred GIMP and was in the process of making it.... that is quite a bit o' time just to do something that I learned in windows in about 5 minutes, but I am a better person because of it.... no really, i mean it!
Once you UNDERSTAND Linux, the everything becomes easy. its just that until you get that Zen experience, everything is hard.
America is currently in one of its longest periods of prosperity ever. The labor market is tight. Companies can't find or afford enough highly qualified system administrators. Why do several of us (who say they are highly-trained UNIX admins, for instance) get paid WAY too much money for what we do??
I'll tell you simply: because there aren't enough of us out there! There aren't enough people that know how to install, user, administer, and fix UNIX machines.
So while i agree that a company that doens't have a highly trained UNIX Admin at their beck and call (or for that matter a good MCSE in an MS world) is just ASKING to to cracked, I would also say that to say it is their fault is BS.
If computers were only used by people that 100% could administer them, there would be about 1/100th the computers out there.
The point is that given a default install, then the platform should be relatively secure. Instead of making the defaults wide open, it should be closed. Or maybe give a setting in install to make it more secure. I don't know what the solution is, but the problem is not in the EU here. To say that NT is secure would be a joke, but that means we have to be better than them and make a simple solution for semi-trained sysadmins to have a secure box.
All that said (shew!), I think that the whole 'crack an X box' idea is stupid, as well as the benchmarks and 'how hard is it to install' junk. It is funny, but even something objective like that can be incredibly subjective, based on a million factors.
I WAS ON THE SHOW!!! IT WAS SO COOL!! I know I'm gunna sound like a hopeless groupie, but it was cool to actually talk to someone that helped me get into linux: Matt Welsh. Without RUNNING LINUX, I would have never had the resources to get into linux. Shallow and stupid of me? yes, but Matt did what the linux movement still needs: make truly human readable documentation and instructions. Amazing how things tie together.
Seriously. I don't know how many times in the past 6 months of HAVING to use windows95b (with patches) that i have crashed, even on a rock-solid machine. Today JOY i lost about 2 weeks of work! If MS played well with others and had the best of everything out there (which they could do with all their money)_ people would still be leery but wouldn't hate them. People hate them because they shovel crap to us and expect us to like it.
Does IE support PNG? Who cares? No, not a flame, but any geek (see the title of the site) would be using linux/unix/bsd/or even NeXT (diguised as macOSX). Somthing like that.
Realities are created. They are active, not passive. They are dynamic not static.
So what will probably happen? Yeah, you're right. Megacorps and mental slavery. I am not blind to reality.
But as Voltaire said (big ol' paraphrase here): "I despise what you have to say, but I will fight to my last breath your right to say it."
Or, for a more recent quote from (the very cool) Babylon 5: Torturer: You know, I will just keep torturing you until I get what I want. Face reality. I will beat you. You can't win. Sheridan: Yes I can. Every time I say 'no'.
Hello everyone. My name is engel, and I am a contractor.
My experience with contracting is this: The shop I work at has 'permanent contractors': contractors that are there for the long term, not just a few months. We don't have the problems that most other contractors have, that is sloppy 'good enough' systems, but we STILL have major problems.
Most of my fellow contractors are a lot better than the 'regulars'. They are smarter, faster, and have more skills.
Therefore, the regulars hate them.
I mean, WITH A PASSION. Every day I get some comment about how I am worthless, and I constantly get harassed because I am a contractor. There are times when I have seriously considered seeking legal counsel, and I've only been here 7 months. Why should the regulars like the contractors? We aren't responsible for anything (meaning we get more done because we aren't in constant meetings or having to brown-nose) and we get paid more.
So what would I suggest? I would suggest not having contractors at all. I would rather BE a contractor (more pay, and insurance isn't that high for me), but I don't see my role as being especially well suited to a corporate environ. The suits just don't get it that there is more to a decision than a paycheck. The point is to make a good working environment, which contractors do not create.
So for a VERY short term job that does not leave legacy code, I would say 'maybe' to a contractor. Else, don't ruin your company that way.
Oh, and I agree with the statement above that contractors IN GENERAL aren't better skilled, they just want more money...
Good point, good point. My statement was a little unclear. I KNOW that Apple is a moneymaking machine. I KNOW that Apple is run by its marketing. I KNOW that it is a dirty, evil corporation. But that isn't the point.
Despite what you may think, Apple has been trying to create communities, cultures, societies. Yeah, it may all be a gimmick, a marketing trick for idiots like myself, but it is a gimmick in the right direction. Computers are not good for computers' sake, they are good because you USE them for something. Apple reinforces that motif: Use your computer to change the world, to make a difference.
Isn't that kinda the point of Our Little Movement? "World Domination"? Changing the World?
My point is that MS has no agenda, positive or negative just money making. They don't care if you buy their product and then put it in a landfill. Actually, they would probably support that. As evil as Jobs is, at least he (and others at Apple.... didn't Guy Kawasaki come from Apple? ANd Wozniak?) wants computers to DO something, to CHANGE something. MS just wants the money, they want to squeeze ever
A company CAN have good intentions and still make money. Is Apple doing this? I think so. I may be wrong. Maybe in this whole thing, MS is the white hat becuase they wanted to spread computer technology to everyone. Maybe us Open Source pukes are just getting in the way because we are lowering corporate profits, therefore forestalling growth.
Whatever. Think what you want. I realize the realities, I realize that greed and capitalism has eaten at Apple's core. But I'll tell ya, some intuition tells me that there is more to the story....
Let's face it: Apple is cool because it has CULTURE. Microsoft has no culture. Not even corporate culture. It exists solely as a money making machine. Apple makes a cutlural statement, a leap into the imaginations of its users.
From everything I've seen, Jobs is an evil bastard, even more so than Gates. But he's a bastard in the right way. He really beleives that by giving people 'insanely great' technology, he can change the world. Of course it is a world and culture that HE envisions, but at least it is something more than more and more money.
The best thing that could happen is when OSX really gets going that geeks will be attracted to it (Anyone ever used a NeXT machine? Weren't they just THE COOLEST?). Then, between a real OS like OSX, a movement like Linux and OpenSource, and real technology like the G4 instead of X86, we'll do what Jobs envisioned: change the world.
So the new Apple Renaissance is simply a revival of culture in Apple, a thing they have missed since Jobs the Conqueror left (dang he can do a great keynote, can't he?)
Of course, it won't be in Jobs' image, but the geeks....
Red hat is values at some 5 billion (most likely a large chunk of which is 'liquid') while SGI is around 2 billion. Imagine if all of SGIs technologies and manufacturing and research and... and.... and.... etc were all at red hat's disposal.
Screw SCO (although for the price it may not be a bad idea), but SGI would rock. Oh yeah, and I do agree that QT, APLIX and otehrs would be a good buy, too. Maybe better than SGI considering what is really wrong with linux is not the OS (it is great) but the fact that there isn't a "Killer App" for people to choose OVER microsoft. Until Linux gets an app that MS can't do, no one "will be fired for buying MS."
The point of the $40,000 is not the absolute number $40,000 (that is simply inflation). The point of the quote is to say that if everyone is fed, clothed, well educated, and living in a decent lifestyle where they aren't forced to work crappy jobs and have financial freedom.... then they won't steal the hubcaps from your 'mobile. The point of the whole thing is to make everyone as free as possible, and instead of doing it through a communist revolution, we can do it trhough capitalism.
"Can't happen," you say? Well then why does Free Software ahve any meaning. We CAN change the world for the better.
two more points: "Welfare recipients in our country live better than the European monarchy did two centuries ago."
No, they don't, becuase they have little to no freedom. If I hadn't gotten college scholarships, I would still be 'back in the holler' stripping tobacco. Education and the financial freedom to get computer time, etc. has made all the difference. Yeah, the standard of living may be better, but we still have serfs (read Das Kapital about that one....)
Second, No Michael Moore is not the god of scoail commentary. But he does make some compelling points. Would he last 2 seconds with George Will or Willaim F. Buckley in a debate? Heck no. But that doesn't mean he can't make compelling points. You made an ad hominem remark about the guy to discredit him. Screw that. When a good, logical point is made it matters little who made it.... otherwise you trivialize other people. And who said debate is the onl.y form of discourse, anyhow??
Slashdot Mirror
That's not true. IF one were to make a computer of, say, quarks and gluons, and all of the sub-sub-atomic particles (excuse my terminiology, it has been a while since my last subatomic physics class) to represent larger structures, then something smaller can represent something larger. It is like a map, or anything else: use a smaller structure to emulate a larger. Protons and Neutrons are relatively simple 'large' objects that one could probably calculate with electrons or gluons or something....
However, the dude who said the original comment aobut 20 Billion G is fucked. I've always heard there were 10^50+ particles in teh universe.... COMPLEX particles, too, not just bianry digits.
20 billion G is, what 20,000,000,000,000,000,000? (I may have missed some, but that is not the point). The number above is 2.0 X 10^19. And remember that is in BINARY. To understand the universe, this would have to be WAY WAY WAY more complex, by orders of magnitude we haven't even thought of.
It seems that the KDE folds are all up in arms since big companies picked Gnome over KDE. Why would companies do this? Because the QPL is for NONCOMMERCIAL USE!! So why should IBM be a slave to Trolltech? It woudln't make sense.
The GPL is OK because then everyone is playing by the rules, kinda like the idea behind CDE. If everyone is on the same playing field, then let the best man win.
As a user, I want free, powerful, easy to use tools. I want a good Gnome interface with reusable code, etc. I want it free and open.
Will I try out KDE2? yes, I will. But most likely I will go back to my helix-gnome desktop... not because it is better, but because it is GPL.
Sorry KDE. When I was first starting to run linux (and after the debacle of fvwm), I thought KDE was a godsend. But now that I program for it, I want a completely free desktop.
I can see how someone who has made KDE their baby would be upset at recent news; There are a lot of big players essentially picking sides, and KDE is the redheaded (but more intelligent, creative, and better behaved) stepchild.
However, this announcement is not a blow to KDE but rather a WIN for Linux! Finally there are companies looking into USABILITY of linux, not just the server end. This is a huge win for Linux, OSS, and the USER in general...
Competition is good. Money pouring FROM big companies INTO a free OS for the people is good.
offtopic (kinda): I looked at Konqueror. Very impressive, and while I am a gnome user, KDE has done some cool stuff. But I just can't help but think that where usability NEEDS to go is not just in making a monolithic container as MS Ineternet explorer and its shells: Linux needs to have an awesome interface for changes configurations. Linuxconf is GETTING to that area, but when yon user needs to jump through hoops and ladders just to install a new piece of hardware, that is bad.
Apt-get/dpkg is already making software asy to upgrdae (alhtough UI improvemnents could me made there, too), but now a user needs to be able to change their screen resolution, hardware, drivers, configure apache, restart services, see what is going toload on boot, etc. etc. etc. from one interface (whether is is a bunch of 'control panels' like MacOS or one interface like in linuxconf makes no difference as long as it is easy).
PLEASE MODERATE THIS UP. IT IS IMPORTANT
The article had it all wrong. There is already an essentially open-sourced game out there called FUZION, which is a Fuzion of the R Talsorian Games (Cyberpunk 2020) and Hero (Champions) games.
While you cannot distribute the 'kernel' of the RPG for commericial use, there are SEVERAL rules sets out there (called plugins in the game, it is a cool concept, and very computer-like) that come from teh core rules.
So it is very much like the GPL, except with the restriction that you can't sell the product, but you can add on or modify and post to your hearts content.
The thing is, from what I have seen of d20 and the new generation of TSR products, they are still junk. FUZION is a very streamlined, extensible system designed to be added to and PLAYED: the game play of it is fantastic.
Another Links page:
http://www.herogames.com/index2.html
Here here! One excellent point of the Open Source movement is that as an ecology, it is not homogenous. Give us choices!
However, i would also like to add that 3 or 4 solid options are better than 100 crappy options. KDe and GNOME, for instance: i have no problem with 2, or maybe a third if it is obviously technically superior. But to have a million choices, none of which stack up sucks.
you know, first they are going to censor the libraries 'for the protection of the children.'
Then they are going to censor all public places 'for the protection of the children'
Then they are going to start censoring specific internet content 'for the protection of the children'.
Then one day we are going to read that UUnet, etc. can't pass 'pornographic' materials over backbone 'for the protection of the children.'
America is getting out of hand, i hate this
'protection of the children' crap: what ever happened to making good people and not protecting our children? maybe we should be free, and live with the damned consequences of that freedom?
And the problem is, we aren't going to do a damn thing about it.
That's it, i'm moving to a more liberal country than america..... Saudi Arabia, here i come!
I know i will get flamed for this, but...
I think that the Mac interface is proably the best GUI around (unless you count CLI as a GUI...)
It is neat, efficient, and has a paradigm that is only broken a few times by certain developers. In general, it is consistent and slick.
I think the reason people like Macs is not because they are faster or more stable or whatever, it is because Apple has always worried about its machine-human interfaces. MS just wants money, *nix just wants a good server running, but Mac has always been about interface.
So i think it is great that apple is trying new ideas (even if they really aren't that new) in their interface.
Use of color as a paradigm, use of transparency now that machine can handle it, use of sizable icons, the dock, several ways of using the finder, etc. etc.
However, there is one thing i DO NOT like about the Mac interface, and what i LOVE about GNOME/Enlightenment: G/E is TOTALLY configurable to my speciifications. As of yetr, there has been no setting that i wanted to change that i have been unable to change. Virtual Windows, mouse behavior, background colors/themes for easier vierwing, etc. etc
The problem with the Mac interface, now, is not going to be whether it is a GOOD interface, it is whether or not you can configure it to YOUR work environment. Most geeks don't like the mac interface because it follows ONE paradigm and they happen to not like that paradigm.
So if Apple were REALLY interested in human-machine interface instead of branding and marketing, they would make slick interfaces with the uber-configurability of G/E and beyond...
THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO DO IT!
He must want to actually use a computer.
Let me work this out aloud.... devil's advocate style.
Maybe this is a good thing. Imagine getting advertisements that you WANT for a change. Like one person above stated, how many AOL disks can ya get? These companies are trying to cut down on your annoyance factor.
The problem is that they now, essentially, know more about you than you know about yourself becasue they can take Asmimovian psycho-historical, sociological data and absract it into a 'personality'. The problem here is not privacy, it is that we feel like we are being grouped and categorized, and we geeks and techno-philes don't like that.
But lets TAKE the privacy issue. So what if someone knows what i do? If you are doing something you don't want someone to know about, do it under a guise/anonymously/etc. Its kinda like Neo in THE MATRIX. He does all his normal stuff as Mr. Anderson (pays his taxes, helps with his neighbors groceries....), but then does stuff he WANTS to do as Neo. You want to protect your privacy? create a 'new you' a Neo-persona, and let that persona go wild. Just make sure that the persona is not assocaited with your 'real' persona (if there is such a thing).
On a meta scale, we don't need to stop companies from gathering data, we simply need a way to abstract ourselves FROM that data. We need to make it easy for the average person to make a persona that cannot be traced. Really, it is that simple. Anybody got ideas about that???
Yeah! Right on Anonymous Coward! All people in Biafra need is food in their belly that we give to them. They don't need something like EDUCATION or THINKING. Screw that. I mean, if they can think for themselves instead of relying on us to think for them, then they could eventually figure out how to FEED themselves. And if they feed themselves and educate themselves, then we won't feel good about ourselves every 20 years when we decide to donate food for them or have a concert for them.
There is more to being human than eating and excreting. Even Thoreau, who would be the first to say that 3rd world starving countries should stand for themselves, would agree that the way to MAKE them stand for themselves is to give them as much information and support as possible, and then let them make the decisions that will allow them to function properly.
Crusoe=sourCe
I got this from a guy who has been doing mainframe security for 16 years.
OK, decide on a really, really uncrackable prefix, like $9_vI4! or something that is SOOOOO not a dictionary word.
Then, every time you make a password, prefix (or suffix) this SAME set of characters to a word or other password (for the really paraoid, use something just as esoteric as the prefix. for simplicy, use a word) and WIRTE DOWN this word.
Now, memorize the prefix/suffix and make sure that you know the current password.
For example, in week one I have a password of:
$9_vI4!engel
and have 'engel' on a piece of paper on my desk (and memorized $9_vI4!)
the second week i change the passwd to:
$9_vI4!marx
and I have 'marx' written on a piece of paper on my desk.
Now, anyone who sees the paper will still not be able to get into the account becuase they don't know the prefix/suffix. BUT you use the prefix/suffix so much you aren't going to forget it, so that is safe, too.
There is no such thing as an easily-memorizable password that is secure, but this is about as secure as it gets without getting rid of 'memorizability'.
This is ridiculous. I think it is about time to start a bit of Civil Disobedience: everyone should just ignore stupid patents like this one. Just make the patent system go away by simply ignoring it in Thoreauean fashion.
Yes, I realize that this idea needs work because it is not 'realistic'. Is there a way to make this suggestion realistic?
What has happened to Postmodern Science Fiction?! I read an essay/article that you wrote saying that the cyberpunks were going to die, but that a new (counter)culture would rise from its ashes. So where are the brave souls pushing the envelope of Science Fiction like the cyberpunks? If they exist, who are they; and if they don't exist, was cyberpunk a failed philosophy because of its inability to create a succeeding generation?
I hacked around in a GUI world for so long that i had forgotten the pleasures of line command. Then, three years ago, I kept beating my head against Linux. It took me three years, but now I feel confident that I could do pretty much anything to which I set my mind.
.... no really, i mean it!
And I remmeber at first, it took me 50 hours to do ANYTHING useful..... at the 50 hour mark i had just then untarred GIMP and was in the process of making it.... that is quite a bit o' time just to do something that I learned in windows in about 5 minutes, but I am a better person because of it
Once you UNDERSTAND Linux, the everything becomes easy. its just that until you get that Zen experience, everything is hard.
OK, here's the deal:
America is currently in one of its longest periods of prosperity ever. The labor market is tight. Companies can't find or afford enough highly qualified system administrators. Why do several of us (who say they are highly-trained UNIX admins, for instance) get paid WAY too much money for what we do??
I'll tell you simply: because there aren't enough of us out there! There aren't enough people that know how to install, user, administer, and fix UNIX machines.
So while i agree that a company that doens't have a highly trained UNIX Admin at their beck and call (or for that matter a good MCSE in an MS world) is just ASKING to to cracked, I would also say that to say it is their fault is BS.
If computers were only used by people that 100% could administer them, there would be about 1/100th the computers out there.
The point is that given a default install, then the platform should be relatively secure. Instead of making the defaults wide open, it should be closed. Or maybe give a setting in install to make it more secure. I don't know what the solution is, but the problem is not in the EU here. To say that NT is secure would be a joke, but that means we have to be better than them and make a simple solution for semi-trained sysadmins to have a secure box.
All that said (shew!), I think that the whole 'crack an X box' idea is stupid, as well as the benchmarks and 'how hard is it to install' junk. It is funny, but even something objective like that can be incredibly subjective, based on a million factors.
I WAS ON THE SHOW!!! IT WAS SO COOL!! I know I'm gunna sound like a hopeless groupie, but it was cool to actually talk to someone that helped me get into linux: Matt Welsh. Without RUNNING LINUX, I would have never had the resources to get into linux. Shallow and stupid of me? yes, but Matt did what the linux movement still needs: make truly human readable documentation and instructions. Amazing how things tie together.
"i think it's people MS hate." Freudian slip?
Seriously. I don't know how many times in the past 6 months of HAVING to use windows95b (with patches) that i have crashed, even on a rock-solid machine. Today JOY i lost about 2 weeks of work! If MS played well with others and had the best of everything out there (which they could do with all their money)_ people would still be leery but wouldn't hate them. People hate them because they shovel crap to us and expect us to like it.
Does IE support PNG? Who cares? No, not a flame, but any geek (see the title of the site) would be using linux/unix/bsd/or even NeXT (diguised as macOSX). Somthing like that.
Realities are created. They are active, not passive. They are dynamic not static.
So what will probably happen? Yeah, you're right. Megacorps and mental slavery. I am not blind to reality.
But as Voltaire said (big ol' paraphrase here):
"I despise what you have to say, but I will fight to my last breath your right to say it."
Or, for a more recent quote from (the very cool) Babylon 5:
Torturer: You know, I will just keep torturing you until I get what I want. Face reality. I will beat you. You can't win.
Sheridan: Yes I can. Every time I say 'no'.
So I say fight.
Hello everyone. My name is engel, and I am a contractor.
My experience with contracting is this: The shop I work at has 'permanent contractors': contractors that are there for the long term, not just a few months. We don't have the problems that most other contractors have, that is sloppy 'good enough' systems, but we STILL have major problems.
Most of my fellow contractors are a lot better than the 'regulars'. They are smarter, faster, and have more skills.
Therefore, the regulars hate them.
I mean, WITH A PASSION. Every day I get some comment about how I am worthless, and I constantly get harassed because I am a contractor. There are times when I have seriously considered seeking legal counsel, and I've only been here 7 months. Why should the regulars like the contractors? We aren't responsible for anything (meaning we get more done because we aren't in constant meetings or having to brown-nose) and we get paid more.
So what would I suggest? I would suggest not having contractors at all. I would rather BE a contractor (more pay, and insurance isn't that high for me), but I don't see my role as being especially well suited to a corporate environ. The suits just don't get it that there is more to a decision than a paycheck. The point is to make a good working environment, which contractors do not create.
So for a VERY short term job that does not leave legacy code, I would say 'maybe' to a contractor. Else, don't ruin your company that way.
Oh, and I agree with the statement above that contractors IN GENERAL aren't better skilled, they just want more money...
Good point, good point. My statement was a little unclear. I KNOW that Apple is a moneymaking machine. I KNOW that Apple is run by its marketing. I KNOW that it is a dirty, evil corporation. But that isn't the point.
Despite what you may think, Apple has been trying to create communities, cultures, societies. Yeah, it may all be a gimmick, a marketing trick for idiots like myself, but it is a gimmick in the right direction. Computers are not good for computers' sake, they are good because you USE them for something. Apple reinforces that motif: Use your computer to change the world, to make a difference.
Isn't that kinda the point of Our Little Movement? "World Domination"? Changing the World?
My point is that MS has no agenda, positive or negative just money making. They don't care if you buy their product and then put it in a landfill. Actually, they would probably support that. As evil as Jobs is, at least he (and others at Apple.... didn't Guy Kawasaki come from Apple? ANd Wozniak?) wants computers to DO something, to CHANGE something. MS just wants the money, they want to squeeze ever
A company CAN have good intentions and still make money. Is Apple doing this? I think so. I may be wrong. Maybe in this whole thing, MS is the white hat becuase they wanted to spread computer technology to everyone. Maybe us Open Source pukes are just getting in the way because we are lowering corporate profits, therefore forestalling growth.
Whatever. Think what you want. I realize the realities, I realize that greed and capitalism has eaten at Apple's core. But I'll tell ya, some intuition tells me that there is more to the story....
Let's face it: Apple is cool because it has CULTURE. Microsoft has no culture. Not even corporate culture. It exists solely as a money making machine. Apple makes a cutlural statement, a leap into the imaginations of its users.
From everything I've seen, Jobs is an evil bastard, even more so than Gates. But he's a bastard in the right way. He really beleives that by giving people 'insanely great' technology, he can change the world. Of course it is a world and culture that HE envisions, but at least it is something more than more and more money.
The best thing that could happen is when OSX really gets going that geeks will be attracted to it (Anyone ever used a NeXT machine? Weren't they just THE COOLEST?). Then, between a real OS like OSX, a movement like Linux and OpenSource, and real technology like the G4 instead of X86, we'll do what Jobs envisioned: change the world.
So the new Apple Renaissance is simply a revival of culture in Apple, a thing they have missed since Jobs the Conqueror left (dang he can do a great keynote, can't he?)
Of course, it won't be in Jobs' image, but the geeks....
Shoot: the preview didn't work right. The SGI thestreet.com page is at:u otes?tkr=SGI
http://quote.thestreet.com/cgi-bin/texis/StockQ
or:
SGI
OK, it may be I am impressed with SGI, but I think if red hat is going to chunker out a bunch of cash, they should buy SGI.
... and.... and .... etc were all at red hat's disposal.
And they can do it:
SGI
Red Hat
SCO
Red hat is values at some 5 billion (most likely a large chunk of which is 'liquid') while SGI is around 2 billion. Imagine if all of SGIs technologies and manufacturing and research and
Screw SCO (although for the price it may not be a bad idea), but SGI would rock. Oh yeah, and I do agree that QT, APLIX and otehrs would be a good buy, too. Maybe better than SGI considering what is really wrong with linux is not the OS (it is great) but the fact that there isn't a "Killer App" for people to choose OVER microsoft. Until Linux gets an app that MS can't do, no one "will be fired for buying MS."
The point of the $40,000 is not the absolute number $40,000 (that is simply inflation). The point of the quote is to say that if everyone is fed, clothed, well educated, and living in a decent lifestyle where they aren't forced to work crappy jobs and have financial freedom.... then they won't steal the hubcaps from your 'mobile. The point of the whole thing is to make everyone as free as possible, and instead of doing it through a communist revolution, we can do it trhough capitalism.
"Can't happen," you say? Well then why does Free Software ahve any meaning. We CAN change the world for the better.
two more points:
"Welfare recipients in our country live better than the European monarchy did two centuries ago."
No, they don't, becuase they have little to no freedom. If I hadn't gotten college scholarships, I would still be 'back in the holler' stripping tobacco. Education and the financial freedom to get computer time, etc. has made all the difference. Yeah, the standard of living may be better, but we still have serfs (read Das Kapital about that one....)
Second, No Michael Moore is not the god of scoail commentary. But he does make some compelling points. Would he last 2 seconds with George Will or Willaim F. Buckley in a debate? Heck no. But that doesn't mean he can't make compelling points. You made an ad hominem remark about the guy to discredit him. Screw that. When a good, logical point is made it matters little who made it.... otherwise you trivialize other people. And who said debate is the onl.y form of discourse, anyhow??