If you google hard enough you may yet be able to find a pdf of the lecture notes used by the bright young physicist/mathematician who presented the new proof of the mathematical theory. I forget what his name is but reading through the referenced materials in those two articles could lead you to him very quickly.
And why does this take more than one cookie? I don't know what the maximum length of the content field can be but, if it's anything over 32 characters, it would be easy to code username, status (login/logout), and have plenty of room for other fields which could have 255 values each.
Since most sites make it a habit to use 4, 5, 6 or more cookies, often with more than one domain, there are two possibilities: Web designers are complete morons (hey, it could happen), or there's something going on which more users should be made aware of.
If your assertion was really true then MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo, hitbox, advertising, and everything else wouldn't need to set 4-8 cookies each. Heck, even Slashdot has multiple cookies dumped in here for each different section. What the heck good is that doing me? These sites don't need to set 12 different cookies. Maybe the users aren't being tracked per se but there's something going on that should really be made more public to the users.
Very true. The government cannot intrude but a private company can. However, should you bring a case against that company in civil court for releasing your data, it should be found that the Government cannot possibly support the private company in this matter due to the 4th Amendment restriction. By default, since the Government cannot possibly act in favor of the company, any court case should be won by the person whose data was sold.
That's not the way the courts interpret it, though. The government is allowed to act as the muscle-man for corporations nearly each and every time--even if the government itself would have been forbidden for doing what the corporation did. It's easier to get big campaign contributions and keep friends at the local private golf club this way. Imagine having to tell your golfing partner,"Sorry about your company. I couldn't possibly find in favor of you, though, because the 4th Amendment prohibits me from doing what you did."
Some court somewhere should've let corporations know that when they're dealing with private data then they should keep that data private--not sell it to the highest bidder.
Can I buy my neighbor's last grocery checkout receipt? There's something other than business records at work here.
Don't be so certain the experts are getting paid big bucks. It's likely the vast majority of this money will be lost in planning, overhead, and infrastructure--the CEO, the VPs, and the executive board. If any jobs are created for it there will be two middle managers and six entry level desk clerks. That's what $750 million buys for the taxpayers.
This isn't about making numbers meaningful. This is about discussing the topic.
The proper thing to do if someone wants to argue about whether or not the inaccuracies are technically balanced is to categorize them (multiple listings, updates, more than one OS in Linux, 3rd part apps) and then ask them to be moot or, if that's denied, cede them outright.
Then you can move on to the real topics... if there are any left.
I've been trying to maintain a level position on this. Suppose a few things: The list is complete. The list is objective. The list treats similar reports in similar ways (ie. some vulns get multiple listings as happens in both lists). This really truly is just MS vs. just Linux.
So given those suppositions to remove all the usual tired arguments... what's left? What else can we say about the data aggregated in the list?
The best I could come up with was that public reporting is a basic tent of OSS so it could be that OSS hackers are 3x more likely than MS hackers to report a vuln. Aside from that, given the ridiculously easy suppositions above, it's a pretty fair list.
Who really wants to argue anyway? I just want to get to the bottom of it.
That was a good starting point but then, in the interest of honest debating, one could cede the consideration that this may be a comparison of the MS standards of writing an OS with the systems which are more closely aligned with the POSIX standards. Not that it makes it perfect, but one could give the MS people the point on that just to be nice.
So looking at the data set what other inconsistencies do you see which don't line up with the actual reality of the situation?
But they do the same in the Microsoft section. As I was scanning the list I threw that point out as moot after scanning it the second or third time. "The same thing seems to happen in both sections. That's not really arguable."
In the Microsoft section there could be an entire block for : "Clueless user -- installed malware X which caused the propagation of virus Y"
In the Linux section there would be a similar block for : "Clueless user -- caused hard drive format"
Yeah. That was wanton. Sure, okay. I agree. It's probably true that most OSS vulns are reported to public forums while most MS vulns probably get identified in house and rolled into a patch. Maybe. In 6 months or so after the devs have had fun with it for a while.
Government debt bothers me. Nothing beats being able to borrow and spend on someone else's credit. It's become the mortgage that never ends. I've often wondered what portion of yearly taxes goes just to pay the interest on that debt. How's that interest being calculated? Does the government get the good discout rate or are the bankers raking us over the coals because they know we'll never pay it anyway?
there is no evidence that your trickle-down economics argument truly works
Consider a water fountain of 20 tiers. The fountain is shaped like an evergreen tree. The topmost tier is smaller than the one below it and so on to the bottom. At each tier the diameter increases rather quickly but, over the course of all 20 tiers, the height of each bowl only just more than doubles. At each tier is a small screw for adjusting how quickly the water is pulled from the bottom of that tier and fed back into the main trunk of the fountain to go back to the top. The wealth of the tier can be loosely approximated by a ratio of height to volume (capacity). The top tier, with the smallest height and smallest volume, has a higher ratio than the bottom tier with an only slightly larger height but enormously greater volume.
The government and the bankers are the caretakers of the fountain. They adjust the level of withdrawal at each tier such that three conditions are satisfied: The flow at the top of the fountain is maximized. The amount of overflow of each tier to the tier below it is minimized. The flow of water from the bottom tier to the trunk is maximized.
Give it only what it needs. Make sure the rest goes up. So, sure, trickle-down economy works but only to the point that it prevents the fountain from going dry at the bottom. The way it's being run now the fountain flow is enormous, the trickle down is enormous, but the flow out of the bottom is so rapid that the maintained volume of water in the bottom tier is hardly a drop. The wealth of the top tier is maximized and the wealth of the bottom tier is minimized... but it makes a gusher fountain.
will require the software of touch-screen voting machines used in elections to be open-source.
Likely, the moment the lobbyists get their move on this, open source will be redefined to be source code printed on punch cards submitted to the state archives under an NDA to be kept in a vault next to Hoffa's shoes and The Ring of Power.
The printed receipt is fine. Governments have known how to manipulate those for centuries.
Look at the cage, the walls are guilded gold, the prison food hors' dourves and caviar
Some people get that guilded golden cage. Others of us are given a few bare walls and threatened to be evicted into the cold darkness outside (where the barbarian hordes are howling for our blood) if we don't agree to be beaten for sport by the people living in the golden cages. Living in a golden cage becomes boring and soon a source of entertainment is necessary. That's why there are whipping posts outside of each bare cell but no whipping posts outside of the golden cages.
As I write this there are people dying in there hundreds and thousands
The swallows of Africa don't care much about the swallows in Europe. They only see the height of the trees in their own area. There's nothing wrong about that.
And we have the audacity to sit here on slashdot and complain
I'd be at work but I'm not enough fun to beat anymore. I was fired because they grew tired of beating me. Eviction isn't that far off. I hope the barbarians aren't too hungry.
For the most part I've been agreeing with your position. We do need to be fair to Clinton, though. The only reason why he did so well, economically, is because he and the other controlling politicians at the time signed the legislation which primed the pump for the stock market bubble. I recall, even as late as '99, some predictions that the federal government would actually be running a surplus by 2005. It was all based on that technology bubble. Seriously. The tech sector came out of nowhere and, in a span of 5 years, made itself something like 40% (I only saw a color pie graph, but it was huge) of a market which has existed for decades. The projected profits from that made everything look rosy. Now in the last 5 years we've got more companies restating their IRS filings than people ever arrested for making false filings.
Not that Clinton was necessarily good or bad. Clinton looked good economically but I bet the Republicans say it was just because he was setting them up with an overinflated balloon. Politics gets so dirty.
The notion that the tax burden should depend on ones "Wealth" is dangerous
I'm not so much concered with how the tax is gathered or who pays it anymore. The more important consideration to prove the point is to consider where it goes.
Imagine any run of the mill $84 billion dollar federal appropriation. How many pockets does that go through until it gets to the guy moving boxes in the back of the warehouse? If you could take that $84 billion and plot it as a set of day-by-day payments from the very day that was signed by the President until it's completely spent what would you see? Personally I'd rather be the guy taking a one-time payment of $500k in the first few days than the poor fellow who has the privelege of making $9.50/hour for the next 30 years. With a $500k startup allowance I can invest in a company to provide competing services moving those boxes at $8.50/hour. When the guy making $9.50/hour is put out of work I can hire him at $7.50/hour to mow my lawn. That's the start of a gravy train.
The myth is that, at the end of the day, you get just as much free stuff with their tax dollars. It doesn't really work out that way but that's the argument. One side claims "will of the people" and the other side claims "pyramid scheme". Look at the distribution of wealth and tell me which is more likely to fit the model.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent point.
Stay current!
There is no more event horizon. Read the Newscientist and BBC articles from 2004.
There is no more event horizon.
If you google hard enough you may yet be able to find a pdf of the lecture notes used by the bright young physicist/mathematician who presented the new proof of the mathematical theory. I forget what his name is but reading through the referenced materials in those two articles could lead you to him very quickly.
I am appalled at the use of the term ghetto. Go ahead. Blame the victim.
I am a meat popsicle
And why does this take more than one cookie? I don't know what the maximum length of the content field can be but, if it's anything over 32 characters, it would be easy to code username, status (login/logout), and have plenty of room for other fields which could have 255 values each.
Since most sites make it a habit to use 4, 5, 6 or more cookies, often with more than one domain, there are two possibilities: Web designers are complete morons (hey, it could happen), or there's something going on which more users should be made aware of.
If your assertion was really true then MSN, Hotmail, Yahoo, hitbox, advertising, and everything else wouldn't need to set 4-8 cookies each. Heck, even Slashdot has multiple cookies dumped in here for each different section. What the heck good is that doing me? These sites don't need to set 12 different cookies. Maybe the users aren't being tracked per se but there's something going on that should really be made more public to the users.
That's really the sad truth of the business world. Don't do anything outstanding. The boss is always looking for a new target.
Very true. The government cannot intrude but a private company can. However, should you bring a case against that company in civil court for releasing your data, it should be found that the Government cannot possibly support the private company in this matter due to the 4th Amendment restriction. By default, since the Government cannot possibly act in favor of the company, any court case should be won by the person whose data was sold.
That's not the way the courts interpret it, though. The government is allowed to act as the muscle-man for corporations nearly each and every time--even if the government itself would have been forbidden for doing what the corporation did. It's easier to get big campaign contributions and keep friends at the local private golf club this way. Imagine having to tell your golfing partner,"Sorry about your company. I couldn't possibly find in favor of you, though, because the 4th Amendment prohibits me from doing what you did."
Some court somewhere should've let corporations know that when they're dealing with private data then they should keep that data private--not sell it to the highest bidder.
Can I buy my neighbor's last grocery checkout receipt? There's something other than business records at work here.
Don't be so certain the experts are getting paid big bucks. It's likely the vast majority of this money will be lost in planning, overhead, and infrastructure--the CEO, the VPs, and the executive board. If any jobs are created for it there will be two middle managers and six entry level desk clerks. That's what $750 million buys for the taxpayers.
This isn't about making numbers meaningful. This is about discussing the topic.
The proper thing to do if someone wants to argue about whether or not the inaccuracies are technically balanced is to categorize them (multiple listings, updates, more than one OS in Linux, 3rd part apps) and then ask them to be moot or, if that's denied, cede them outright.
Then you can move on to the real topics... if there are any left.
I've been trying to maintain a level position on this. Suppose a few things: The list is complete. The list is objective. The list treats similar reports in similar ways (ie. some vulns get multiple listings as happens in both lists). This really truly is just MS vs. just Linux.
So given those suppositions to remove all the usual tired arguments... what's left? What else can we say about the data aggregated in the list?
The best I could come up with was that public reporting is a basic tent of OSS so it could be that OSS hackers are 3x more likely than MS hackers to report a vuln. Aside from that, given the ridiculously easy suppositions above, it's a pretty fair list.
Who really wants to argue anyway? I just want to get to the bottom of it.
That was a good starting point but then, in the interest of honest debating, one could cede the consideration that this may be a comparison of the MS standards of writing an OS with the systems which are more closely aligned with the POSIX standards. Not that it makes it perfect, but one could give the MS people the point on that just to be nice.
So looking at the data set what other inconsistencies do you see which don't line up with the actual reality of the situation?
But they do the same in the Microsoft section. As I was scanning the list I threw that point out as moot after scanning it the second or third time. "The same thing seems to happen in both sections. That's not really arguable."
In the Microsoft section there could be an entire block for : "Clueless user -- installed malware X which caused the propagation of virus Y"
In the Linux section there would be a similar block for : "Clueless user -- caused hard drive format"
Yeah. That was wanton. Sure, okay. I agree. It's probably true that most OSS vulns are reported to public forums while most MS vulns probably get identified in house and rolled into a patch. Maybe. In 6 months or so after the devs have had fun with it for a while.
Government debt bothers me. Nothing beats being able to borrow and spend on someone else's credit. It's become the mortgage that never ends. I've often wondered what portion of yearly taxes goes just to pay the interest on that debt. How's that interest being calculated? Does the government get the good discout rate or are the bankers raking us over the coals because they know we'll never pay it anyway?
The government and the bankers are the caretakers of the fountain. They adjust the level of withdrawal at each tier such that three conditions are satisfied: The flow at the top of the fountain is maximized. The amount of overflow of each tier to the tier below it is minimized. The flow of water from the bottom tier to the trunk is maximized.
Give it only what it needs. Make sure the rest goes up. So, sure, trickle-down economy works but only to the point that it prevents the fountain from going dry at the bottom. The way it's being run now the fountain flow is enormous, the trickle down is enormous, but the flow out of the bottom is so rapid that the maintained volume of water in the bottom tier is hardly a drop. The wealth of the top tier is maximized and the wealth of the bottom tier is minimized... but it makes a gusher fountain.
The printed receipt is fine. Governments have known how to manipulate those for centuries.
The swallows of Africa don't care much about the swallows in Europe. They only see the height of the trees in their own area. There's nothing wrong about that.
I'd be at work but I'm not enough fun to beat anymore. I was fired because they grew tired of beating me. Eviction isn't that far off. I hope the barbarians aren't too hungry.
Especially so when spending someone else's money.
For the most part I've been agreeing with your position. We do need to be fair to Clinton, though. The only reason why he did so well, economically, is because he and the other controlling politicians at the time signed the legislation which primed the pump for the stock market bubble. I recall, even as late as '99, some predictions that the federal government would actually be running a surplus by 2005. It was all based on that technology bubble. Seriously. The tech sector came out of nowhere and, in a span of 5 years, made itself something like 40% (I only saw a color pie graph, but it was huge) of a market which has existed for decades. The projected profits from that made everything look rosy. Now in the last 5 years we've got more companies restating their IRS filings than people ever arrested for making false filings.
Not that Clinton was necessarily good or bad. Clinton looked good economically but I bet the Republicans say it was just because he was setting them up with an overinflated balloon. Politics gets so dirty.
Imagine any run of the mill $84 billion dollar federal appropriation. How many pockets does that go through until it gets to the guy moving boxes in the back of the warehouse? If you could take that $84 billion and plot it as a set of day-by-day payments from the very day that was signed by the President until it's completely spent what would you see? Personally I'd rather be the guy taking a one-time payment of $500k in the first few days than the poor fellow who has the privelege of making $9.50/hour for the next 30 years. With a $500k startup allowance I can invest in a company to provide competing services moving those boxes at $8.50/hour. When the guy making $9.50/hour is put out of work I can hire him at $7.50/hour to mow my lawn. That's the start of a gravy train.
The myth is that, at the end of the day, you get just as much free stuff with their tax dollars. It doesn't really work out that way but that's the argument. One side claims "will of the people" and the other side claims "pyramid scheme". Look at the distribution of wealth and tell me which is more likely to fit the model.