The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo
by Richard Aronson [aronson@sierratel.com]
In the early seventies, Ed Whitchurch ran "his game", and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson. Eric plays something like a computer. When he games, he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise, in all respects, a superior gamer.
Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed's game. He was on some lord's lands when the following exchange occurred:
ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasn't on a grassy gnoll. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. A little vocabulary is a dangerous thing.
I, for one, do not use peer-to-peer file sharing for any reason. However the answer to secure peer-to-peer file sharing is so simple it's right in front of our noses.
First, encrypt the file you want to send with GPG, make the decrypting password "1" or "A" or something that simple. If "any one else" decrypts the file and prosecutes you for it, you can get off by using the DMCA. That's right, the DMCA works for people too.
Under the DMCA, the sender and receiver are the only two authorized to decrypt that file. If "any one else" decrypts it, even though they know the password, they are guilty of violating the DMCA. Now, from what I understand about the law, without a warrant to decrypt your encrypted file, it's not admissable in court because a law was broken to retrieve the file contents. No court likes "bad" cops, it's bad PR for judges.
Current peer-to-peer technologies that are wide open are sufficient to carry "secure" information. Expending the extra energy to encrypt the file before it's sent is the problem. People need to stop being lazy.
"If technology is plausible, we acheive it. Now pull the lever and 'beer me'."
Come to think of it, Brazil is one of those few countries that does not recognize international copyrights. They don't have a DMCA-type law. Brazil says "Come here, copyright your product here, pay us tons of money to fund our government."
The only copyright violations they recognize are massive high-profile ones that make ALL the international news channels, other than that, they really don't care.
On the dowside to this, I heard a report a while ago that said 90%+ of software used in Brazil is pirated.
In 2003, they bought GeCAD, makers of RAV-AntiVirus.
What I always thought was interesting was the RAV guys were very pro-Linux and sunk a lot of money into AV for Linux. The next day when every heard this (After advertising it Ad Nauseum in Linux Journal), M$ bought them out almost immediately. I was always suspicious that RAV was a "prime buy-out material" just for that reason.
As always, add your own conspiracy theory below by clicking on the [reply to this] button.
...and walk around your neighborhood with it wired to a universal remote control you keep in your pocket. Neighbors playing their TV too loud? Not any more.
Perhaps they can offer enterprise alternatives like Novell SuSE.
Or better yet, just throw a Knoppix CD in the box. This will save tons of time installing an OS image that needs to be (expensively) licenced just to test the hardware.
When I was in grade school, (holy shit, WAY back when!) I failed math horribly. The teacher said I was stupid, even though I was getting straight A's in everything but math. She said "Do the work" with no instruction or assistance. Everything had to be by the book. She flunked me without even looking at me.
Later on, taking another math class, a different teacher saw that I was struggling with math. He took some time to find the problem area, fix the problem and help me understand math better. I got an A in that class at the end of that year.
With an A on my report card, I showed it to my first math teacher. She suggested I cheated. And being the smartass 9-year-old I was, I told her he was a "useless peice of shit", just like daddy used to say to mommy, and walked away.
Slashdot Mirror
No, but three rights make a left. (Ducks)
...maybe that's what we want? Not everyone's life is fairy-tale perfect, ya know.
To the Slashdot moderators:
Why is there an IE icon attached to this story? Shouldn't you have used a FireFox icon?
Microsoft seems to have fogotten that competition benefits everyone, including their own bottom line.
I for one, choose to use Firefox. Not because it's open source, but because it works for me.
No, get it right. It's 'KHAN!'
Okay, this is unrelated and will probably be modded down, but here's a link to new screenshots of Quake IV using the Doom 3 engine.
The Tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo
by Richard Aronson [aronson@sierratel.com]
In the early seventies, Ed Whitchurch ran "his game", and one of the participants was Eric Sorenson. Eric plays something like a computer. When he games, he methodically considers each possibility before choosing his preferred option. If given time, he will invariably pick the optimal solution. It has been known to take weeks. He is otherwise, in all respects, a superior gamer.
Eric was playing a Neutral Paladin in Ed's game. He was on some lord's lands when the following exchange occurred:
ED: You see a well groomed garden. In the middle, on a small hill, you see a gazebo.
ERIC: A gazebo? What color is it?
ED: [pause] It's white, Eric.
ERIC: How far away is it?
ED: About 50 yards.
ERIC: How big is it?
ED: [pause] It's about 30 ft across, 15 ft high, with a pointed top.
ERIC: I use my sword to detect good on it.
ED: It's not good, Eric. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I call out to it.
ED: It won't answer. It's a gazebo.
ERIC: [pause] I sheathe my sword and draw my bow and arrows. Does it respond in any way?
ED: No, Eric, it's a gazebo!
ERIC: I shoot it with my bow. [roll to hit] What happened?
ED: There is now a gazebo with an arrow sticking out of it.
ERIC: [pause] Wasn't it wounded?
ED: OF COURSE NOT, ERIC! IT'S A GAZEBO!
ERIC: [whimper] But that was a +3 arrow!
ED: It's a gazebo, Eric, a GAZEBO! If you really want to try to destroy it, you could try to chop it with an axe, I suppose, or you could try to burn it, but I don't know why anybody would even try. It's a @#$%!! gazebo!
ERIC: [long pause. He has no axe or fire spells.] I run away.
ED: [thoroughly frustrated] It's too late. You've awakened the gazebo. It catches you and eats you.
ERIC: [reaching for his dice] Maybe I'll roll up a fire-using mage so I can avenge my Paladin.
At this point, the increasingly amused fellow party members restored a modicum of order by explaining to Eric what a gazebo is. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. It could have been worse; at least the gazebo wasn't on a grassy gnoll. Thus ends the tale of Eric and the Dread Gazebo. A little vocabulary is a dangerous thing.
The above is Copyright © 1989 by Richard Aronson. Reprinted with permission. The author grants permission to reprint as long as all copyright notices remain with the text.
I hope there was extra bandwidth charges brought on by the Slashdot Effect. That'll teach him!
Originally, they were known as Umbrella Co. but then someone made a video game from it called it Resident Evil.
I, for one, do not use peer-to-peer file sharing for any reason. However the answer to secure peer-to-peer file sharing is so simple it's right in front of our noses.
First, encrypt the file you want to send with GPG, make the decrypting password "1" or "A" or something that simple. If "any one else" decrypts the file and prosecutes you for it, you can get off by using the DMCA. That's right, the DMCA works for people too.
Under the DMCA, the sender and receiver are the only two authorized to decrypt that file. If "any one else" decrypts it, even though they know the password, they are guilty of violating the DMCA. Now, from what I understand about the law, without a warrant to decrypt your encrypted file, it's not admissable in court because a law was broken to retrieve the file contents. No court likes "bad" cops, it's bad PR for judges.
Current peer-to-peer technologies that are wide open are sufficient to carry "secure" information. Expending the extra energy to encrypt the file before it's sent is the problem. People need to stop being lazy.
"If technology is plausible, we acheive it. Now pull the lever and 'beer me'."
I'd like to know why you're reading Slashdot FROM THE BENCH?
Come to think of it, Brazil is one of those few countries that does not recognize international copyrights. They don't have a DMCA-type law. Brazil says "Come here, copyright your product here, pay us tons of money to fund our government."
The only copyright violations they recognize are massive high-profile ones that make ALL the international news channels, other than that, they really don't care.
On the dowside to this, I heard a report a while ago that said 90%+ of software used in Brazil is pirated.
Three posts and the site's already slashdotted. This must be some kind of record.
What I always thought was interesting was the RAV guys were very pro-Linux and sunk a lot of money into AV for Linux. The next day when every heard this (After advertising it Ad Nauseum in Linux Journal), M$ bought them out almost immediately. I was always suspicious that RAV was a "prime buy-out material" just for that reason.
As always, add your own conspiracy theory below by clicking on the [reply to this] button.
Didn't some federal judge already shoot down a similar law in another state recently as unconstitutional and discriminatory?
Alltheweb has had a video search for years.
I think George Orwell was the 20th century Nostradamus.
Wait a minute!
Lets look at this rationally. Here's some code:
10 PRINT "HELLO WORLD"
20 END
Can't come up with ten holes in this code? You fail.
It's called Firefox.
Remember Brainstorm starring Christopher Walken?
Perhaps they can offer enterprise alternatives like Novell SuSE.
Or better yet, just throw a Knoppix CD in the box. This will save tons of time installing an OS image that needs to be (expensively) licenced just to test the hardware.
When I was in grade school, (holy shit, WAY back when!) I failed math horribly. The teacher said I was stupid, even though I was getting straight A's in everything but math. She said "Do the work" with no instruction or assistance. Everything had to be by the book. She flunked me without even looking at me.
Later on, taking another math class, a different teacher saw that I was struggling with math. He took some time to find the problem area, fix the problem and help me understand math better. I got an A in that class at the end of that year.
With an A on my report card, I showed it to my first math teacher. She suggested I cheated. And being the smartass 9-year-old I was, I told her he was a "useless peice of shit", just like daddy used to say to mommy, and walked away.
Summer detention sucked.
They shouldn't have spent all that money on sending out CDs no one wanted. Then they'd be able to pay everyone.
I remember seeing the same thing in The Omen.