Pardon me for replying to what seems to be a troll.
Ralph Nader decreed the Chevelle "Unsafe At Any Speed," certainly no matter unsafe a car is, it would be safe a 0mph, a SPEED.
Clearly you haven't been hit while stopped at a red light.
Or a stop sign for that matter.
In fact, that reminds me of a specific type of car's gas tank that would explode upon impact from the rear. Pinto or something.
Regarding the "impossibility" of hiding stuff in the building, any company that feels the need to keep things secure better have a method of "sterlizing" the corporate workplace so that things are safe when JQ Prospective Investor comes for a tour, or someone else comes in.
I mean, they do this all of the time at Fort Mead (NSA). It's just a simple matter of knowing what areas are cool for normal people to walk through, and where they can't.
Thanks to an AC's post about the pre-nerds faq, I have negated a couple of my more pressing questions, but anyway, to get on with the questions.
I know that you feel that maintaining a valid history of events in the technology world is an important goal of your life. (Or at least I was lead to believe this by most of your work, save Plane Crazy). You mention some of the raw information that you have recieved in your newest pulpit article. However, you don't include links, or information on how to receive access to these historical records.
Do you have any plans to make available the raw materials you have received, either on the web, or in libraries, for scholarship, both by historians of today and tomorrow?
I understand that your shows do a reasonable job of attempting to digest this information for popular consumption, but there are always going to be people who are interested in the actual documentation of this history. Especially, when you mention a rare account of the beginnings of AOL, (Only 12 copies made!) but there seems to be no place where this information is being archived, or being made publicly available. I mean, even your own private machine collection is extreemly interesting. I'm lucky enough to have access to some of these ancient machines at a computer store near my university, but now, it's becomming more and more difficult to get access to them.
I appologize for the long comment, as I am wary about even spending the time to analyze this article, but here goes.
These days, for example, few people will pay for an editor; it is not surprising that many editors are free. Netscape, to take another example, only made its browser free (in two different ways: permitting use of the binary versions at no cost, and releasing the Mozilla product as open source) when Microsoft made its own Internet Explorer available on Windows at no cost, killing the market overnight. Until then, the Netscape browser was sold for a fee.
Umm... no. Netscape was sold for a fee (and still is I think) but it could always be gotten gratis from ftp5.netscape.com since at least the 1.1N days.
Product F is free software. It comes with the standard no-warranty warranty.
Product P is proprietary software. It costs $50 for the binary-only version. It uses the most advanced techniques of software engineering. It never crashes, or departs in any way from its (mathematically expressed) specification. The seller is, in fact, so sure of those qualities that he will commit in writing that any violation of the specification during execution will immediately lead to reimbursement of the purchase price and compensation for any damages incurred.
For me at least, the choice is certain. If I ever need to extend product P, or get product P to work on a system for which it was not originally designed, or if product P's manufacturer goes out of business entirely, I will be out of luck. As I value my worth as a system/network administrator, I cannot use a piece of software that cannot be fixed by me. This is the same reason that I prefer older, user servicable cars to modern "no user-servicable parts inside" cars.
Regarding the no-warranty warranty, there are many groups who are in the market of selling waranties to free software products. For companies (or individuals) that require a high state of waranty that the piece of software will be working and someone can be held accountable, these after-market warranties can make non-warrantied free software viable.
As a final point that has failed to be made, BM doesn't note that there is no way for someone to accertain that product P truely uses the most advance methods of software engineering (Level 5?) unless the source code is open for inspection.
"I've looked at the source, and there are pieces that are good and pieces that are not... My experience and some of my friends' experience is that Linux is quite unreliable. Microsoft is really unreliable but Linux is worse." (IEEE Computer, 32, 5, May 1999, page 61.)
This quote is interesting and kind of funny. I am not sure how KT can compare the linux source to the microsoft source at all. We currently have NT source here on campus, but no one can see it without signing obligitory NDA's. [No, I haven't seen it either.] I suspect that KT's comment may have been taken out of context, possibly talking about the ability of users to run windows vs. linux and not the underlying reliability of the kernel.
In a different case, the newsgroups comp.risks recently published a report of rather horrendous and elementary C errors found in a quick and simple check of the source of the FreeBSD operating system (see http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/20.18.html#subj9.1).
Yes, using assignment when you mean comparison is a rather stupid error, that should have been caught by the BSD team. However, the fact that it was able to be caught by someone lends credit to the OSS development model. If such a simple error existed in Solaris, we would have to wait for the Solaris design team to find it, and release a patch. While in BSD or Linux, if such an error is found, it can be corrected rapidly, without a cover-up. [Who knows what fixes were actually done in a service pack? (I might cringe if I knew)]
Yuck. I am rapidly becomming disgusted with myself for spending the time to go through and deal with what is clearly a rant that is substantiated in some cases and not substantiated in others. If this were a peer reviewed publication, I believe that competent reviewers would reject this article. Nevertheless, BM does occasionally make some valid points, such as criticizing the code correctness, reliability, and zelotness of OSS. As a community, we should acknowledge these points, realize that we may not be as bad as BM leads us to believe, and make motions to correct them if possible.
Wouldn't it be wonderfull if Linux (or *BSD) could get Level 5 certification?)
Strangely enough, even the Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain seems to have been sensored, and are now scrambling to find offshore sites. I am not entirely certain of the events surrounding this particular event, as not enough information was posted on their website, but I hope to find out more soon. [If anybody knows why cacib got censored, or knows of anything that they need, hosting or whatever, contact me.]
This kind of idocy is intollerable in any country in the world today that prides itself on freedom of expression, speech and press. It seems extreemly odd to me as well, that a country such as Brittain which has a relatively long history of being tollerant could allow such a twisted chain of events to take place.
It seems strange to me as well, that people who have a long history of being discriminated against seem to quickly forget the discrimination that they have faced, and perpetrate the same discrimination against others. But I guess that is unfortunatly, the way of things.
I eagerly await the outcome of these events, and I hope that saner heads prevail, both in the judicator's seat, and in the consul of the Pink Paper.
Newton was also a religious fanatic who beleived in the Aryan religion, a virulent anti-catholic bigot, an incredible egomainiac who held personal grudges for decades
However, I am aware of no evidence to support this. Can you please point us to primary literature that indicates that Sir Newton was outwardly anti-catholic? Claims are great and all, but without any sort of linkage or documentation, you might as well be claiming that the earth was flat.
As I was piqued by the article on the use of vpr as an anti cancer drug, and the fact that it maintained that vpr did not have a "known" method of killing cells, I did a little search on melvyl to educate myself, and found that there actually is some extensive research on the "method" of vpr mediated cell apostasis.
It seems that vpr does indeed kill cells (indiscriminatly... a vesicle bound delivery mechanism is needed to deliver vpr on contact) in a manner quite different from that of p53. vpr induces caspases [1] which in turn causes the "cleavage of critical cellular substrates, including poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase and lamins, so precipitating the dramatic morphological changes of apoptosis[,]" [2] resulting in cell death. (Of course, the article was absolutely correct, p53 is a totally separate mechanism[1])
Notably, the key with using such a drug against cancer, as with all cancer drugs, is a finely targeted delivery system. I suspect that if vpr sees clinical usage, it will either be in a vesical bound delivery system (antibody mediated vesical fusion) or a one time viral borne delivery system (such as HIV minus the ability to manufacture protein coats with the appropriate antibody mounted on the protein.)
1: Shostak LD; Ludlow J; Fisk J; Pursell S; Rimel BJ; Nguyen D; Rosenblatt JD; Planelles V. Roles of p53 and caspases in the induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by HIV-1 vpr. Experimental Cell Research, 1999 Aug 25, 251(1):156-65.
2: Cohen GM. Caspases: the executioners of apoptosis. Biochemical Journal, 1997 Aug 15, 326 ( Pt 1):1-16.
I was at a party yesterday night and the test appeared to be visible in the northern sky right at sunset.
A long fat contrail (do minutemen use H2-02?) streaked through the sky brilliantly illuminated by the then setting sun. After about two minutes or so (I wasn't timing...) the contrail spread as if the second stage had separated and the first state was slowing down. (At least so I though at the time.)
After about another minute or so the contrail stoped and the projectile (missle/mirv/ufo) which was very slightly visible winked out of the twilight sky.
Sidenote: At first I thought it was a plane, but I have never seen a plane contrail that large. Then when the contrail fattened out, it looked as if the missle/projectile had turned and was aimed at me/party.
Request: If anyone happened to take any good pictures of that, it might be interesting to see them. I didn't have a camera with me so I can only post my observations...(sorry)
Quite correct. However, differences in mitochondrial DNA are not really all that exciting. We have known for quite a long time that mitochondria are basically totally separate organisms that have evolved {except in Kansas} in a symbiotic relationship with eukariotic cells.
As such, their genitic makeup is totally separate from the host. You could remove all the mitochondia from a given cell, and stick in new ones... why? I have no idea... mitochondria are basically glorified power supplies...so long as they work, they do very little to influence the overall makeup of the underlying system... (I haven't ever heard of someone surving long enough to even be aborted with malfunctioning mitochondria)
Finally, mitochondria are passed down the female line for the simple reason that male sperm don't have mitochondria. Male sperm are not designed [in Kansas, evolved elsewhere] to do oxidative reduction, (Make ATP via Citric Acid Cycle) and therefore do not need mitochondria...
Finaly, as near as I can remember, (I haven't studied this part of biology in a while) foreign mitochondria are attacked, not by the mitochondria inside, but by the host cell itself... (if they even manage to get inside, which is highly unlikely...)
I guess I really don't see this as a great revelation that the scientists did not have a complete clone, and I am pretty sure that the scientists did not either... they probably were just verifying in a new way something that had been known for quite some time.
While I don't claim to agree with the authors examples, (In fact I think many of them are just plain wrong), I do see that in the future, as we attempt to use more centralized forms of data storage, a single crack can cause more damage than ever before.
I kind of feel that this comes back to the old addage, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket." While there is nothing evil about centralizing information, the consequences of a single crack are far greater... while the danger is still the same...
From a users standpoint, when you put your money in a bank, you kind of expected to be there when you need to withdraw it... the bank should not be loosing your money all over the place...or have your money stolen by Kro0kS... you don't really need to know how the FDIC (I think) insures the funds... you just expect your money to be safe. I don't know if any of us (well, most of us?) really understand the safe guards on our bank accounts, nor on the global ATM network...
Ideally, a system, such as Hotmail should be secure. Granted, total security is never possible, but it should at least be reasonably secure...
In short, distributed computing poses the same series of dangers as a centralized network, but generally the reprocussions of a crack are not nearly as bad on a distributed network...
As far as illegal formats go, in the pure sense, I am not aware of any.
However, as you probably are well aware, it is illegal to export strong encryption, which in it's own way could be viewed as a file format. While it isn't illegal to posses, it is illegal to export from the US.
But realistically, we are talking about the US government here... come on, these people have almost no clue at all when it comes to what a file format is... if they attempted to outlaw a file format, they would probably end up outlawing 95% of computer programs on the market... such a law would be virtually (entirely?) useless....
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly you haven't been hit while stopped at a red light.
Or a stop sign for that matter.
In fact, that reminds me of a specific type of car's gas tank that would explode upon impact from the rear. Pinto or something.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
Regarding the "impossibility" of hiding stuff in the building, any company that feels the need to keep things secure better have a method of "sterlizing" the corporate workplace so that things are safe when JQ Prospective Investor comes for a tour, or someone else comes in.
I mean, they do this all of the time at Fort Mead (NSA). It's just a simple matter of knowing what areas are cool for normal people to walk through, and where they can't.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
Thanks to an AC's post about the pre-nerds faq, I have negated a couple of my more pressing questions, but anyway, to get on with the questions.
I know that you feel that maintaining a valid history of events in the technology world is an important goal of your life. (Or at least I was lead to believe this by most of your work, save Plane Crazy). You mention some of the raw information that you have recieved in your newest pulpit article. However, you don't include links, or information on how to receive access to these historical records.
Do you have any plans to make available the raw materials you have received, either on the web, or in libraries, for scholarship, both by historians of today and tomorrow?
I understand that your shows do a reasonable job of attempting to digest this information for popular consumption, but there are always going to be people who are interested in the actual documentation of this history. Especially, when you mention a rare account of the beginnings of AOL, (Only 12 copies made!) but there seems to be no place where this information is being archived, or being made publicly available. I mean, even your own private machine collection is extreemly interesting. I'm lucky enough to have access to some of these ancient machines at a computer store near my university, but now, it's becomming more and more difficult to get access to them.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
I appologize for the long comment, as I am wary about even spending the time to analyze this article, but here goes.
Umm... no. Netscape was sold for a fee (and still is I think) but it could always be gotten gratis from ftp5.netscape.com since at least the 1.1N days.
For me at least, the choice is certain. If I ever need to extend product P, or get product P to work on a system for which it was not originally designed, or if product P's manufacturer goes out of business entirely, I will be out of luck. As I value my worth as a system/network administrator, I cannot use a piece of software that cannot be fixed by me. This is the same reason that I prefer older, user servicable cars to modern "no user-servicable parts inside" cars.
Regarding the no-warranty warranty, there are many groups who are in the market of selling waranties to free software products. For companies (or individuals) that require a high state of waranty that the piece of software will be working and someone can be held accountable, these after-market warranties can make non-warrantied free software viable.
As a final point that has failed to be made, BM doesn't note that there is no way for someone to accertain that product P truely uses the most advance methods of software engineering (Level 5?) unless the source code is open for inspection.
This quote is interesting and kind of funny. I am not sure how KT can compare the linux source to the microsoft source at all. We currently have NT source here on campus, but no one can see it without signing obligitory NDA's. [No, I haven't seen it either.] I suspect that KT's comment may have been taken out of context, possibly talking about the ability of users to run windows vs. linux and not the underlying reliability of the kernel.
Yes, using assignment when you mean comparison is a rather stupid error, that should have been caught by the BSD team. However, the fact that it was able to be caught by someone lends credit to the OSS development model. If such a simple error existed in Solaris, we would have to wait for the Solaris design team to find it, and release a patch. While in BSD or Linux, if such an error is found, it can be corrected rapidly, without a cover-up. [Who knows what fixes were actually done in a service pack? (I might cringe if I knew)]
Yuck. I am rapidly becomming disgusted with myself for spending the time to go through and deal with what is clearly a rant that is substantiated in some cases and not substantiated in others. If this were a peer reviewed publication, I believe that competent reviewers would reject this article. Nevertheless, BM does occasionally make some valid points, such as criticizing the code correctness, reliability, and zelotness of OSS. As a community, we should acknowledge these points, realize that we may not be as bad as BM leads us to believe, and make motions to correct them if possible.
Wouldn't it be wonderfull if Linux (or *BSD) could get Level 5 certification?)
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
Strangely enough, even the Campaign Against Censorship of the Internet in Britain seems to have been sensored, and are now scrambling to find offshore sites. I am not entirely certain of the events surrounding this particular event, as not enough information was posted on their website, but I hope to find out more soon. [If anybody knows why cacib got censored, or knows of anything that they need, hosting or whatever, contact me.]
This kind of idocy is intollerable in any country in the world today that prides itself on freedom of expression, speech and press. It seems extreemly odd to me as well, that a country such as Brittain which has a relatively long history of being tollerant could allow such a twisted chain of events to take place.
It seems strange to me as well, that people who have a long history of being discriminated against seem to quickly forget the discrimination that they have faced, and perpetrate the same discrimination against others. But I guess that is unfortunatly, the way of things.
I eagerly await the outcome of these events, and I hope that saner heads prevail, both in the judicator's seat, and in the consul of the Pink Paper.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
However, I am aware of no evidence to support this. Can you please point us to primary literature that indicates that Sir Newton was outwardly anti-catholic? Claims are great and all, but without any sort of linkage or documentation, you might as well be claiming that the earth was flat.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
As I was piqued by the article on the use of vpr as an anti cancer drug, and the fact that it maintained that vpr did not have a "known" method of killing cells, I did a little search on melvyl to educate myself, and found that there actually is some extensive research on the "method" of vpr mediated cell apostasis.
It seems that vpr does indeed kill cells (indiscriminatly... a vesicle bound delivery mechanism is needed to deliver vpr on contact) in a manner quite different from that of p53. vpr induces caspases [1] which in turn causes the "cleavage of critical cellular substrates, including poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase and lamins, so precipitating the dramatic morphological changes of apoptosis[,]" [2] resulting in cell death. (Of course, the article was absolutely correct, p53 is a totally separate mechanism[1])
Notably, the key with using such a drug against cancer, as with all cancer drugs, is a finely targeted delivery system. I suspect that if vpr sees clinical usage, it will either be in a vesical bound delivery system (antibody mediated vesical fusion) or a one time viral borne delivery system (such as HIV minus the ability to manufacture protein coats with the appropriate antibody mounted on the protein.)
1: Shostak LD; Ludlow J; Fisk J; Pursell S; Rimel BJ; Nguyen D; Rosenblatt JD; Planelles V. Roles of p53 and caspases in the induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis by HIV-1 vpr. Experimental Cell Research, 1999 Aug 25, 251(1):156-65.
2: Cohen GM. Caspases: the executioners of apoptosis. Biochemical Journal, 1997 Aug 15, 326 ( Pt 1):1-16.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
I was at a party yesterday night and the test appeared to be visible in the northern sky right at sunset.
A long fat contrail (do minutemen use H2-02?) streaked through the sky brilliantly illuminated by the then setting sun. After about two minutes or so (I wasn't timing...) the contrail spread as if the second stage had separated and the first state was slowing down. (At least so I though at the time.)
After about another minute or so the contrail stoped and the projectile (missle/mirv/ufo) which was very slightly visible winked out of the twilight sky.
Sidenote: At first I thought it was a plane, but I have never seen a plane contrail that large. Then when the contrail fattened out, it looked as if the missle/projectile had turned and was aimed at me/party.
Request: If anyone happened to take any good pictures of that, it might be interesting to see them. I didn't have a camera with me so I can only post my observations...(sorry)
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
As such, their genitic makeup is totally separate from the host. You could remove all the mitochondia from a given cell, and stick in new ones... why? I have no idea... mitochondria are basically glorified power supplies...so long as they work, they do very little to influence the overall makeup of the underlying system... (I haven't ever heard of someone surving long enough to even be aborted with malfunctioning mitochondria)
Finally, mitochondria are passed down the female line for the simple reason that male sperm don't have mitochondria. Male sperm are not designed [in Kansas, evolved elsewhere] to do oxidative reduction, (Make ATP via Citric Acid Cycle) and therefore do not need mitochondria...
Finaly, as near as I can remember, (I haven't studied this part of biology in a while) foreign mitochondria are attacked, not by the mitochondria inside, but by the host cell itself... (if they even manage to get inside, which is highly unlikely...)
I guess I really don't see this as a great revelation that the scientists did not have a complete clone, and I am pretty sure that the scientists did not either... they probably were just verifying in a new way something that had been known for quite some time.
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
I kind of feel that this comes back to the old addage, "Don't put all of your eggs in one basket." While there is nothing evil about centralizing information, the consequences of a single crack are far greater... while the danger is still the same...
From a users standpoint, when you put your money in a bank, you kind of expected to be there when you need to withdraw it... the bank should not be loosing your money all over the place...or have your money stolen by Kro0kS... you don't really need to know how the FDIC (I think) insures the funds... you just expect your money to be safe. I don't know if any of us (well, most of us?) really understand the safe guards on our bank accounts, nor on the global ATM network...
Ideally, a system, such as Hotmail should be secure. Granted, total security is never possible, but it should at least be reasonably secure...
In short, distributed computing poses the same series of dangers as a centralized network, but generally the reprocussions of a crack are not nearly as bad on a distributed network...
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"
However, as you probably are well aware, it is illegal to export strong encryption, which in it's own way could be viewed as a file format. While it isn't illegal to posses, it is illegal to export from the US.
But realistically, we are talking about the US government here... come on, these people have almost no clue at all when it comes to what a file format is... if they attempted to outlaw a file format, they would probably end up outlawing 95% of computer programs on the market... such a law would be virtually (entirely?) useless....
Don Armstrong -".naidnE elttiL etah I"