There's definitely Cheese in the family;). I remember reading it in the official python biography, but I can't remember the exact details of what it said - I assumed that the linked website would contain the same information.
Hmm, good point - but this is becoming less and less likely to be attempted in real life. Maybe you leave a keyboard in your apartment that is easily keyloggable to throw them off the scent, and use your safe one only for dissident activities. Maybe you could hack together a special keyboard adapter for a serial port, or connect it to the motherboard by some other method.
I have to admit that the idea of a state-mandated BIOS scares me, but I'm sure that there are ways of preventing it. Not that it would be very likely to happen - I think the other poster is probably right in saying that only the NSA would bother to go that far.
For those of you who think Cleese really hates America, consider for a second that all three of his wives have been American (and blonde). This is one of those posts that seems to need to be prefaced with "this is a joke". I'm amazed how many people just can't get jokes like this, thinking that the author is just poking fun at them, whereas in reality the author is poking fun at himself whilst writing it...
Maybe you didn't know, but Cleese's father actually changed his surname from Cheese to Cleese before signing up for the army in World War I. Interesting how these things work out:)
"Well, stout yeoman, four ounces of Caerphilly, if you please."
What would be really cool is if you could hide your SSL web proxy traffic by disguising it as jpegs or mp3s or other such things. Even better, disguise it as normal, valid http traffic! With this no-one would even suspect you were using an encrypted connection, much less see what you are sending and receiving. As long as the server and client both know the procedure for stegging and de-stegging (maybe the first time this could be done in person, and thereafter each change in procedure could be both stegged and pgp-ed) it would be ok. Together with a (custom?) knoppix cd with the 'noswap' option this could be a winner. Anyone know of anything like this that exists?
When done (or if the government busts in!), reboot your computer - no traces left.
I'd be extra paranoid and make sure to power off the computer, not just reboot it, to be sure all the RAM is reset. If they're super-cunning they could salvage incriminating data from it.
You could also go one step further on the keylogger protection and have your own USB keyboard that you carry around with you. Keylog that!:D Or even just buying a keyboard that you can't take apart might work. Have a look at this and this for ideas.
Not entirely true. Knoppix searches for and uses existing unix swap partitions. To stop it doing this you should pass the 'noswap' option at boot. Look at the Knoppix Cheat Codes page for evidence, and for other boot options.
Hmm, but that doesn't work in all cases. For example, what if you were in line a get inheritance from your rich uncle, and so you killed him, got the money, and managed to not get caught. That's all fine and dandy for you, but it's obviously not very nice for him... Of course, most people would do the ethical thing and *not* kill him. But this is getting silly now;)
This may have been intended as flamebait, but there are probably a lot of Dutch inventions that the author isn't aware of. The Dutch had the first stock exchange to trade continuously; Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman, built the first submarine; and I'm sure I don't need to say too much about Christiaan Huygens. And without Coenraad Johannes Van Houten we wouldn't have cocoa powder - think of that when you're chewing on your next Mars Bar:P. (Also maybe next time you won't assume that all the important things were invented in America...)
There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and a Microsoft engineer.
Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong. The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere.
Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion "Why don't close all the windows, get out, get back in, then open the windows again, and maybe it'll work!?"
Other than its geographic proximity the UK has nothing to do with europe
Well, there is the small matter of the UK being a member of the European Union and of the European Economic Area, with the acceptance of the laws and trade agreements that they control. Or maybe you meant Switzerland?
Actually, it's all to do with the GPL, as most other licenses (notably BSD and MIT) allow you to take source code, modify it, and then sell it in whole as your own product without releasing your modifications as source code.
And you should check your sources; Stallman came up with the GPL long before Microsoft had its monopoly.
Plus, I'm not a consumer. I am a citizen, and I'm damned tired of being thought of as a consumer.
This reminds me of my favourite quote from the Prisoner: "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" - #6
I agree with you and number six - it does sound like the whole purpose of your life is to buy things if you're called a consumer. I don't like the word, and I think a better one would be a very good idea. However, not every consumer is a citizen - think tourists and foreign residents. When the marketing people talk about consumers it's because that is currently the best word to describe a particular demographic, not because they get some kind of evil delight from people 'consuming' products (well most of them, I hope;). And a consumer isn't the same thing as a customer either, as a customer buys (some of their) products from a specific company, whereas a consumer is someone who buys things from unspecified companies.
I'm beginning to think more and more that what the editors need is some sort of automatic dupe checker. Something that takes the less common words in each submission and compares them to the common words in all/. stories for the last few weeks. With a system like that, the words "hibernating" and "mice" would have marked this story out as a likely dupe straight away. In fact, a well-crafted Google query could bring most of this functionality...
Yeah, but they already do this (well at least the good ones do). Surely if a single word can replace a lengthy explanation of a concept it can be an advantage for understanding, though, as long as you are able to read the definition? Language does this a lot, and I don't see why computing terms should be any different. And as for virus*es* being easy to clean, tell it to Microsoft;)
Ah well, you'll have to pardon my old-fashioned spelling, due to my geographical location. Maybe you're right - I think both versions are ok though, and don't really care which I use.
Slashdot Mirror
There's definitely Cheese in the family ;). I remember reading it in the official python biography, but I can't remember the exact details of what it said - I assumed that the linked website would contain the same information.
Hmm, not so sure about that. It is funny without knowing this bit of trivia, after all...
Hmm, good point - but this is becoming less and less likely to be attempted in real life. Maybe you leave a keyboard in your apartment that is easily keyloggable to throw them off the scent, and use your safe one only for dissident activities. Maybe you could hack together a special keyboard adapter for a serial port, or connect it to the motherboard by some other method.
I have to admit that the idea of a state-mandated BIOS scares me, but I'm sure that there are ways of preventing it. Not that it would be very likely to happen - I think the other poster is probably right in saying that only the NSA would bother to go that far.
For those of you who think Cleese really hates America, consider for a second that all three of his wives have been American (and blonde). This is one of those posts that seems to need to be prefaced with "this is a joke". I'm amazed how many people just can't get jokes like this, thinking that the author is just poking fun at them, whereas in reality the author is poking fun at himself whilst writing it...
Maybe you didn't know, but Cleese's father actually changed his surname from Cheese to Cleese before signing up for the army in World War I. Interesting how these things work out :)
"Well, stout yeoman, four ounces of Caerphilly, if you please."
What would be really cool is if you could hide your SSL web proxy traffic by disguising it as jpegs or mp3s or other such things. Even better, disguise it as normal, valid http traffic! With this no-one would even suspect you were using an encrypted connection, much less see what you are sending and receiving. As long as the server and client both know the procedure for stegging and de-stegging (maybe the first time this could be done in person, and thereafter each change in procedure could be both stegged and pgp-ed) it would be ok. Together with a (custom?) knoppix cd with the 'noswap' option this could be a winner. Anyone know of anything like this that exists?
Although bear in mind that terrorists are a subset of dissidents. Dissidents are people who dissent, no matter how they choose to do it.
When done (or if the government busts in!), reboot your computer - no traces left.
:D Or even just buying a keyboard that you can't take apart might work. Have a look at this and this for ideas.
I'd be extra paranoid and make sure to power off the computer, not just reboot it, to be sure all the RAM is reset. If they're super-cunning they could salvage incriminating data from it.
You could also go one step further on the keylogger protection and have your own USB keyboard that you carry around with you. Keylog that!
Knoppix stores everything in RAM
Not entirely true. Knoppix searches for and uses existing unix swap partitions. To stop it doing this you should pass the 'noswap' option at boot. Look at the Knoppix Cheat Codes page for evidence, and for other boot options.
Hmm, but that doesn't work in all cases. For example, what if you were in line a get inheritance from your rich uncle, and so you killed him, got the money, and managed to not get caught. That's all fine and dandy for you, but it's obviously not very nice for him... Of course, most people would do the ethical thing and *not* kill him. But this is getting silly now ;)
This may have been intended as flamebait, but there are probably a lot of Dutch inventions that the author isn't aware of. The Dutch had the first stock exchange to trade continuously; Cornelius Drebbel, a Dutchman, built the first submarine; and I'm sure I don't need to say too much about Christiaan Huygens. And without Coenraad Johannes Van Houten we wouldn't have cocoa powder - think of that when you're chewing on your next Mars Bar :P. (Also maybe next time you won't assume that all the important things were invented in America...)
A good thing is where your life becomes sweeter, funnier, easier or more pleasant in some way.
What about other people's lives?
There are three engineers in a car; an electrical engineer, a chemical engineer and a Microsoft engineer. Suddenly the car just stops by the side of the road, and the three engineers look at each other wondering what could be wrong. The electrical engineer suggests stripping down the electronics of the car and trying to trace where a fault might have occurred. The chemical engineer, not knowing much about cars, suggests that maybe the fuel is becoming emulsified and getting blocked somewhere. Then, the Microsoft engineer, not knowing much about anything, comes up with a suggestion "Why don't close all the windows, get out, get back in, then open the windows again, and maybe it'll work!?"
This joke doesn't seem too funny anymore...
Other than its geographic proximity the UK has nothing to do with europe
Well, there is the small matter of the UK being a member of the European Union and of the European Economic Area, with the acceptance of the laws and trade agreements that they control. Or maybe you meant Switzerland?
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Nixon, ... Comet, Cupid, Donna Dixon.
Actually, it's all to do with the GPL, as most other licenses (notably BSD and MIT) allow you to take source code, modify it, and then sell it in whole as your own product without releasing your modifications as source code.
And you should check your sources; Stallman came up with the GPL long before Microsoft had its monopoly.
Plus, I'm not a consumer. I am a citizen, and I'm damned tired of being thought of as a consumer.
;). And a consumer isn't the same thing as a customer either, as a customer buys (some of their) products from a specific company, whereas a consumer is someone who buys things from unspecified companies.
This reminds me of my favourite quote from the Prisoner:
"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" - #6
I agree with you and number six - it does sound like the whole purpose of your life is to buy things if you're called a consumer. I don't like the word, and I think a better one would be a very good idea. However, not every consumer is a citizen - think tourists and foreign residents. When the marketing people talk about consumers it's because that is currently the best word to describe a particular demographic, not because they get some kind of evil delight from people 'consuming' products (well most of them, I hope
This slashdot article shoots to the top of Google's ranking for the search query "viva".
Here's the original. It's a classic :D. Check out the top 100 too, if you haven't already.
I'm beginning to think more and more that what the editors need is some sort of automatic dupe checker. Something that takes the less common words in each submission and compares them to the common words in all /. stories for the last few weeks. With a system like that, the words "hibernating" and "mice" would have marked this story out as a likely dupe straight away. In fact, a well-crafted Google query could bring most of this functionality...
Actually, it's the British Broadcasting Corporation...
;)
(and they turned me down for a job last week, the ignorant fools
Hmm, it didn't find mine, although I did see this interesting Google Ad:
:)
Fish And Chips
Aff. Huge selection, great deals on
Fish And Chips.
eBay.co.uk
This is still miles ahead of yell.co.uk though
Yeah, but they already do this (well at least the good ones do). Surely if a single word can replace a lengthy explanation of a concept it can be an advantage for understanding, though, as long as you are able to read the definition? Language does this a lot, and I don't see why computing terms should be any different. And as for virus*es* being easy to clean, tell it to Microsoft ;)
Ah well, you'll have to pardon my old-fashioned spelling, due to my geographical location. Maybe you're right - I think both versions are ok though, and don't really care which I use.
? Surely that would be the argument that you would use, not me?