If you really want to be technically corrent, 29th of february is a leap day occuring every fourth year except when it can be divided by 100 but not 400.
A leap year would be a whole new year inserted in the calendar, and it's a possibility in the future that something like this may happen.
This whole stuff reminds me of Xerxes who ordered the punishment of the sea because the sea consumed his war fleet. When i mean punishment, i mean "whipping the sea". Makes sense if you're arrogant enough, i suppose.
Why is this flamebait? As my foggy memory recalls it was due to the direct intervention of Bush that the stem cell research was banned in the USA. In some of the recent National Geographic issues the main topic was stem cell research.
According to them, there are 155 stem cell lines in the world atm, 78 out of them can have federal support in funds, and 22 out of them is usable for research AND can have federal support for them, thats mostly because most of the stem cell cultivations are just too old already and were created with old technology. In the UK for example researchers are experimenting with a new method to get rid of the current method of handling those stem cells. Currently it's very resource intensive and costy to maintain the existing lines, but since the law doesn't allow for new stem cells to be harvested and to get federal funds for them, it means they need to deal with the old ones.
A five day old impregnated zygote is smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.
It has no unique features and there is not even a trace of nervous system. Clearly, people opposing stem cell research should first familiarize themselves first with the "baby" and "murder" they are talking about.
NG quotes some Marie Dooley, who offered her surplus embryos after artificial, in vitro, fertilisation to stem cell research. She said something like that "If they would have a heartbeat, the whole situation would be completely different, but those embryos are only groups of cells and they would have landed in the sewer if not offered for research." or something of that effect. the NG review is very long, it details the issue through 23 pages of informative description from all viewpoints. I'd recommend it for everyone.
It's important to note, that the counter DOES NOT count if it detects a download from a firefox browser (user_agent), so generally the firefox update stuff doesn't count...
Oh btw, (sorry for replying to my own post, but) the cost of Microsoft's monopoly has to DIRECTLY include the costs of all mass scale virus, spam, or any other security issues. That is simple maths.
Let's say, in order a virus to spread, it needs an environment to live in, which is given by Microsoft because they are a monopoly, systems have the same code (windows).
If a virus would manage to infect 10-15% of the systems worldwide and crash them down or make them otherwise impossible to use in a relatively short time, that would be an economical disaster, in the sense of closing the stock market and throwing the key into the ocean because it's useless in the future anyway.
In order a virus to spread, it needs a platform: a vulnerable version of an operating system with a high enough marketshare. 90% is bad, so its anything between 40%-100%. However, if you manage to split the market into shares smaller than 40% each, you basically prevented the mass virus infections. They just can't spread effectively, so this means, if you have 10 INSECURE operating systems, it doesn't matter, the virus still won't spread effectively. This is the case, when one quite good OS would be worse than 10 BAD, but as we know we don't even have one good operating system with a high enough marketshare, although linux is gaining.
The risk is there in today's world, waiting for a smart virus writer to write a good virus and that could collapse economies. We are ALMOST in that state, thanks to the monopoly.
If we would have 10 different operating systems owning the OS market in around equal percentages, then it would mean we would be forced to use open standards in communicating between those systems, which is a good and certainly possible thing, so it's not quite true that by having a heterogenous system we cannot work together efficiently. It would only mean that the virus/malware risk is basically solved, and that would indirectly solve other problems caused by infected windows pcs.
It costs us a heck of a lot money to have a monopoly, it is a bad thing in all cases. How long do you think humanity would have survived if we would be much more similar to each other? One illness would have wiped out our whole species already.
Anyone else feel that the slashdot salad/omlette is just a weak excuse/justification to handpick stories which generate knee-jerk reactions and thus creating more ad revenue?
Hey! Look! There is Microsoft leaving Google off the map!
I'm avaiting the day when some virus writer realises that all he has to do is create a virus which does what viruses do, so infect a bunch of systems, but in addition it also sends the serial key of that windows system to a random ip in some small packet.
The result: millions of legit xp keys in the wild. So much for this scheme.
We all know how well that works judging by the laws protecting intellectual property.
The truth is, they should secure their systems to keep the honest man honest, the script kiddies outside and the crackers in jail. Their current defenses wouldn't have stopped a honest man, as we can see that it didn't stop the script kiddie in the article and for sure it wouldn't have stopped a cracker.
Let's just point it out: he's a script kiddie. He basically didn't do anything that 6 month experience using the internet and an interest in UFOs wouldn't teach him.
He got into a bloody cemetary ffs! He only got in because the military personnel there were too stupid to change the default password. He used his own email address for god's sake!
a 70 year penalty for something a script kiddie can do is more than harsh: it's outrageous.
If the root servers and the assignment of TLDs and numbers were controlled by Europe, would you like it to stay that way? Or would you, maybe, perhaps, want the US to have some part in it?
I find it amazing that the citizens arguing about keeping the power of root servers in the USA can't make the obvious parallel with their own history. Let me illustrate:
"Oh that british government is perfectly fine to look after the citizens of the british empire, you need no say (vote) in that after all everything is well taken care of..."
Dear citizens of the USA, how did your ancestors react to this? They said: no friggin way and started the war of independence. Less than 250 years later you're siding with that very same idea your country was founded in opposition of.
Because it's not right, not democratic and not fair. It's like a good dictator. Even if someone is a good dictator THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT. And in time it can turn out that good dictator isn't that good at all.
Slashdot Mirror
"things were invented - things like representative democracy that you might just have heard of?"
No, thats Athens...
If you really want to be technically corrent, 29th of february is a leap day occuring every fourth year except when it can be divided by 100 but not 400.
A leap year would be a whole new year inserted in the calendar, and it's a possibility in the future that something like this may happen.
This whole stuff reminds me of Xerxes who ordered the punishment of the sea because the sea consumed his war fleet. When i mean punishment, i mean "whipping the sea". Makes sense if you're arrogant enough, i suppose.
Why is this flamebait? As my foggy memory recalls it was due to the direct intervention of Bush that the stem cell research was banned in the USA. In some of the recent National Geographic issues the main topic was stem cell research.
According to them, there are 155 stem cell lines in the world atm, 78 out of them can have federal support in funds, and 22 out of them is usable for research AND can have federal support for them, thats mostly because most of the stem cell cultivations are just too old already and were created with old technology. In the UK for example researchers are experimenting with a new method to get rid of the current method of handling those stem cells. Currently it's very resource intensive and costy to maintain the existing lines, but since the law doesn't allow for new stem cells to be harvested and to get federal funds for them, it means they need to deal with the old ones.
A five day old impregnated zygote is smaller than the dot at the end of this sentence.
It has no unique features and there is not even a trace of nervous system. Clearly, people opposing stem cell research should first familiarize themselves first with the "baby" and "murder" they are talking about.
NG quotes some Marie Dooley, who offered her surplus embryos after artificial, in vitro, fertilisation to stem cell research. She said something like that "If they would have a heartbeat, the whole situation would be completely different, but those embryos are only groups of cells and they would have landed in the sewer if not offered for research." or something of that effect. the NG review is very long, it details the issue through 23 pages of informative description from all viewpoints. I'd recommend it for everyone.
Actually, Sarge made it not necessary but i think they are keeping it around for people using older versions, like woody or potato.
If it's necessary i'm sure it could be used to host otherwise "patent-threatened" stuff there until such time the situation solves itself in the USA.
We already have non-us in debian. As of today software patents are not valid in Europe, so i'd like to see MS try messing here.
As for the USA, you need to deal away with software patents.
The Overall Stupidity Quotient of the world just reached a record level...
Unbe-fucking-leavable...
It's important to note, that the counter DOES NOT count if it detects a download from a firefox browser (user_agent), so generally the firefox update stuff doesn't count...
The big planet-sized MS is starting to feel the Linux moon's effects. Oh wait, that's no moon!
Oh btw, (sorry for replying to my own post, but) the cost of Microsoft's monopoly has to DIRECTLY include the costs of all mass scale virus, spam, or any other security issues. That is simple maths.
Let's say, in order a virus to spread, it needs an environment to live in, which is given by Microsoft because they are a monopoly, systems have the same code (windows).
If a virus would manage to infect 10-15% of the systems worldwide and crash them down or make them otherwise impossible to use in a relatively short time, that would be an economical disaster, in the sense of closing the stock market and throwing the key into the ocean because it's useless in the future anyway.
In order a virus to spread, it needs a platform: a vulnerable version of an operating system with a high enough marketshare. 90% is bad, so its anything between 40%-100%. However, if you manage to split the market into shares smaller than 40% each, you basically prevented the mass virus infections. They just can't spread effectively, so this means, if you have 10 INSECURE operating systems, it doesn't matter, the virus still won't spread effectively. This is the case, when one quite good OS would be worse than 10 BAD, but as we know we don't even have one good operating system with a high enough marketshare, although linux is gaining.
The risk is there in today's world, waiting for a smart virus writer to write a good virus and that could collapse economies. We are ALMOST in that state, thanks to the monopoly.
If we would have 10 different operating systems owning the OS market in around equal percentages, then it would mean we would be forced to use open standards in communicating between those systems, which is a good and certainly possible thing, so it's not quite true that by having a heterogenous system we cannot work together efficiently. It would only mean that the virus/malware risk is basically solved, and that would indirectly solve other problems caused by infected windows pcs.
It costs us a heck of a lot money to have a monopoly, it is a bad thing in all cases. How long do you think humanity would have survived if we would be much more similar to each other? One illness would have wiped out our whole species already.
...and costs $1 trillion in virus/trojan/spam/malware costs because of homogenity.
Anyone else feel that the slashdot salad/omlette is just a weak excuse/justification to handpick stories which generate knee-jerk reactions and thus creating more ad revenue?
Hey! Look! There is Microsoft leaving Google off the map!
I'm avaiting the day when some virus writer realises that all he has to do is create a virus which does what viruses do, so infect a bunch of systems, but in addition it also sends the serial key of that windows system to a random ip in some small packet.
The result: millions of legit xp keys in the wild. So much for this scheme.
I don't think you're the majority to be honest.
/tmp and swap are for temporary data, so no biggie if it is just ram. You can do that currently aswell at least on linux, to use ram as a fs.
The
Actually he is preparing for the fall of the empire, looking at how the world looks like at the moment.
For those not getting the reference
We all know how well that works judging by the laws protecting intellectual property.
The truth is, they should secure their systems to keep the honest man honest, the script kiddies outside and the crackers in jail. Their current defenses wouldn't have stopped a honest man, as we can see that it didn't stop the script kiddie in the article and for sure it wouldn't have stopped a cracker.
I think an insanity defense could work well for him.
If you're insane, you're not responsible for your actions, you're just as guilty though. Big difference...
Let's just point it out: he's a script kiddie. He basically didn't do anything that 6 month experience using the internet and an interest in UFOs wouldn't teach him.
He got into a bloody cemetary ffs! He only got in because the military personnel there were too stupid to change the default password. He used his own email address for god's sake!
a 70 year penalty for something a script kiddie can do is more than harsh: it's outrageous.
So, where is the unfunny/insensitive/tasteless mod when you need it?
if you reply to a troll with a dupe post and get modded up.
I've seen the GP troll and the Parent post already. Probably a quick search would turn the previous posts up quickly.
Speak for yourself.
I can stare at arcane newspapers searching for secret encrypted messages and look at me! I'm perfectly sane.
Now i just need to find my roommate, he doesn't seem to be around just right now...
If the root servers and the assignment of TLDs and numbers were controlled by Europe, would you like it to stay that way? Or would you, maybe, perhaps, want the US to have some part in it?
I find it amazing that the citizens arguing about keeping the power of root servers in the USA can't make the obvious parallel with their own history. Let me illustrate:
"Oh that british government is perfectly fine to look after the citizens of the british empire, you need no say (vote) in that after all everything is well taken care of..."
Dear citizens of the USA, how did your ancestors react to this? They said: no friggin way and started the war of independence. Less than 250 years later you're siding with that very same idea your country was founded in opposition of.
Because it's not right, not democratic and not fair. It's like a good dictator. Even if someone is a good dictator THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT RIGHT. And in time it can turn out that good dictator isn't that good at all.