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User: chrishillman

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  1. Love-able loudmouths at the FSF on Taking Action For Free JavaScript · · Score: 1

    Forgive me if I post comments covered better by smarter people but I have just spent the past hour pacing in the hallway after reading this.

    My initial reaction was "Non-free JavaScript? RMS must have glaucoma because his herbal remedy is really impacting his judgement". JavaScript is open source. As a computer security duck I can tell you that JavaScript is easily altered on any page you visit, and only a fool would license their JavaScript code... or worse "open source" it like Al Gore did to his web page just before we found out what a "chad" was. Calling a set of JavaScript code "closed source" is similar to closing the source on a batch file or shell script, or trademarking/copyrighting an arrangement of flowers or dead bees. It is possible to lay claim to such a "design" but as to how it could be enforced is beyond me.

    Then I read some comments and people seemed to think this had to do with the readability of the JavaScript as "minified" JavaScript is too obfuscated to read by a lay person (by lay person I mean non-JS compiler). But this is silly as many plugins that allow you to alter the JavaScript you run on your browser when you visit a page will also easily de-obfuscate the JavaScript. So readability is more about presentation and the presentation can be trivially altered.

    But, I have come to peace with the basis of the article, that there exists something called "non-free JavaScript" and that pages can implement such a thing. Here is how one can implement Non-Free JavaScript, if you use a JS library such as Sencha ExtJS (with the commercial license) and offer no alternate HTML only page. Sencha ExtJS with the commercial license is not GPL, so the license is not "free". And with the lack of an HTML page (where you kill off your search engines and section 508 ADA usability compliance), then RMS can't use the page in the pristine "free" form he desires as a nutty free software advocate.

    This issue is a lot like having a "death and murder-free dinner party" for insane vegans. Normal people would be happy to throw a burger on the grill and drink some beer but people like RMS would amplify decisions like eating meat kills everything and hurts the environment and that beer prevents kids in Iceland from learning to read (with a 2 hour explanation as to why). Why can't the FSF install Firefox and use the web the way a given developer intended is beyond me. People who block JavaScript are jerks and people who block ads are theives. If you don't like a given web page, don't go there. The rest of us are sick of hearing you old coots yelling "get off my lawn", or more accurately quoting Sheldon "you are in my spot". Take some lithium and enjoy 2013.

  2. With my recent return to Linux... on Are Open-Source Desktops Losing Competitiveness? · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I actually came back to Linux under this Gnome 3 controversy and really don't mind it. The reactions to this post are as predictable as the post itself, a developer gets sick of providing something for nothing and has a public rage-quit, the self-hating Linux users cry out "why do people hate Linux".

    None of it is true!

    I formatted my Windows 7 laptop and joyfully have Ubuntu 12.04 on it. My son's Window 7 netbook was running slow and as an experiment I put Ubuntu 12.04 on that , he loves it. He has less problems than he did under Windows 7. Everyone is accustomed to an "app store" in their phones and Linux is the only OS out there that really has the same type of resource.
    There has never been a better time for Linux on the desktop! With Windows 8 about to mess everyone up and a leaderless Apple (let's face it)... Ubuntu, Mint and a dozen other distros are fantastic! Ausus' latest EeePc netbook is currently shipping with Ubuntu because of Windows 8 being a mess.
    Linux on the desktop is the best option right now.

  3. Another thing I can't bring myself to care about! on Severe Arctic Ozone Loss · · Score: 2

    WTF? So we banned CFCs in the 80s to save the ozone layer but in a cruel twist of fate the increase in CO2 causes the air down here to get warmer and the air way up there to get colder and that makes the CFCs more efficient and therefore better at destroying the ozone? Yeah? So we are supposed to... do... what? How do we know that banning all carbon would not have some other unforeseen issue? These people have no idea what they are talking about or they do but are not saying anything productive. It will be news if one of these guys knew how to fix any of this mess or had something productive to say. The truth is that we are fracked no matter what and we should really focus upon what we will leave in the fossil record and enjoy the time we have left!

  4. I, for one... on Canadian Ice Shelves Halve In Six Years · · Score: 1

    I, for one, welcome our formerly frozen overlords.
    Stuff is melting. Ice that had been there for thousands of years went away "quickly". We really don't know why, an honest person will tell you that. A hack with an ideology/theology will say different...
    Things we should do anyhow:
    -Be more energy efficient - would it hurt us to have lower energy bills and not buy so much gasoline?
    -Get energy from cleaner sources - would it hurt to not burn things in a way that produced hazardous fine particulates into the air people breathe?

    No one needs to live in a cave in order to pollute less. Look at Al Gore, he still flies in a private jet. These climate scientists still put carbon in the air (don't give me offset BS, we all know that is a gimmick). I would not mind driving an electric car, if it was more or less the cost of a regular car and could perform in more or less the same way as a regular car. If these clean and green technologies could compete with the old way today then we will all move to them, while they are just fancy science experiments or amount to a ton of rocket fuel in your basement I and many others will stay away.

  5. faith != science on Evangelical Scientists Debate Creation Story · · Score: 1

    Faith in a religion is separate from scientific fact. They are not possible to reconcile. A literal interpretation of the bible flies in the face of all scientific evidence. Fundamental issues that hold back all religions such as the existence of a soul can not be answered scientifically. What is the weight of a soul? The escape velocity of a soul as a person dies? You can't measure these things.

    That is where faith comes in. Religious people have faith in a soul, a God and that their religion gives them purpose and comfort when science can't. For every person who thinks that evolution is a total myth there is a scientist that thinks we are just meat. It is a matter of where you put your faith and therefore find a purpose in your life. I would say that an evangelical evolutionary biologist is the ultimate oxymoron. For a true Christian, if you call a single part of the bible out as less than a literal account of history then the whole things comes into question. If no literal Adam and Eve then no literal original sin and no need for a literal messiah in the form of Jesus.

    Now that these guys and Steven Hawking have disproven most religions we can now live in a scientific utopia or moralistic atheism, right? I prefer not to think of myself as just meat. I prefer to live in a world where suffering has a purpose and it is noble to give up one's life. I think that just as you can't see an atom with a magnifing glass you can't see a soul with one either. Perhaps our technology fails us, perhaps the world is more magical than we can currently understand. Maybe no one is wrong. And maybe faith is important.

  6. The British Military and their Cyber capabilities. on Is the Military Prepared For Cyberwarfare? · · Score: 1

    For those in the USA speaking their mind on the US Cyber capability: They are talking about the British, so move along..

    A military in general preparing for "Cyberwar" will not have every grunt learn metasploit. There will be a few ultra bright people who get access to all the intelligence related to the enemy capability and develop recommendations based upon current threats and capabilities. These recommendations will be taken to the IT management and they will balance everything together to decide what is an acceptable risk so they can do their mission safely. Once such balance is using Windows because we all know how much cheaper a contract for thousands of windows admins vs thousands of Linux admins (plus the endless turf wars of what distro/version/etc). Yes Windows is buggy and less secure, but it is more well known and therefore cheaper when you are contracting support for an entire military.

    In this new age of "cyberwar", there will be hacks and these hacks will not indicate anyone "winning" or "loosing". Just like in real war there will be casualties, but hopefully people are learning from mistakes. "Cyberwar" is also highly misunderstood, by EVERYONE. Anonymous getting 90,000 email addresses and passwords to a website is not a major "win" for them. They hacked the hell out of that site, but if the site was to register for some bullshit mandatory class run by contractors and was a one use deal? What did they really gain? Not much except to learn a bunch of email addresses and maybe try the passwords in case of re-use. No warfighting infrastructure was lost yet the media would lean toward calling it a "cyberwar win" for anonymous.

    Any military is as ready for cyberwar as Sony, AT&T and any other ultra large organization.

  7. Re:TFA? on Internet Explorer From 1.0 To 9.0 · · Score: 1

    I am laughing so hard! This needs a "funny", amirite?

    It sounds like marketing. Build up product, talk of how modern/new/shiny product is. Pick one aspect superior product from competition where there might be an advantage, and pretend that alone, that one feature makes the product superior to everything.

    "With all this IE9 talk, I am constantly surprised by how textual Lynx is. The latest version of Lynx is the most text-oriented of all the Lynx versions. IE9 lacks a decent text-only interface... it is really at a disadvantage over Lynx." I might not have an interest in getting you download and install Lynx (I know you already have it), but it sure seems like it.

    I am sure you are not a shill or paid marketer, if you were there would be a link to this amazingly plugin-sandboxed web browser that makes Firefox look like IE8 in comparison.

  8. Re:Going to be expensive! on ARM Chips Designed For 480-Core Servers · · Score: 1

    I am dying.. you have killed me. Way too funny for a Monday morning. Now I am at work literally laughing out loud and I can't explain what is funny to anyone who will get it... I am dead inside, killed by your humorous post...

  9. Microsoft TV Ads.. on Bing Becomes No.2 Search Engine at 4.37% · · Score: 1

    The ads on the TeeVee.. for Bing (or any Microsoft product in general). It is like they specialize in making ads that are more annoying than the products they are selling. The latest Bing Ad I have watched is the "Animal House" food fight in the grocery store.. so Google makes you a meme shouting zombie? And the Windows Phone ads.. other phones are so sexxy you prefer it to your hot wife in lingerie? (Then that would say the Windows phone is so un-sexy that you have no problem putting it down?) Then the "To the cloud" nonsense? Windows 7 is where users are supposed to discover what *everyone else* has been doing for years?

    No, the ads on the TV are worse than any Microsoft product EVER.. the are the visual entertainment equivelent of Windows Me or even (dare I say it) Bob..

    Horrible.. I can't visit a URL because of bad feelings I have about it from TV watching.

  10. Re:Excellent! on Bing Becomes No.2 Search Engine at 4.37% · · Score: 0

    I think it is the advertising.

    I would use Bing at least once in a while but they have such awful ads that I can't bring myself to even see those letters in that order...

    Search plagiarism aside.. If even they are copying Google search results then you know why they can only get 4%...

  11. Re:Re-imaging != bad administration on The Decline and Fall of System Administration · · Score: 1

    Exactly, I have since moved on from that job a few years ago. Server density has gone up dramatically since then, I would not be surprised to see 50 servers at that location. Waay, way back spending your time "figuring things out" was more important. We should all face software is more complex now but easier to manage. Thanks to tools like Google and automatic updates, administrator's lives are very different now.

    I am thinking this writer is a shill who is trying to drum up controversy to increase page views on his magazine web site.

  12. Re-imaging != bad administration on The Decline and Fall of System Administration · · Score: 2

    Sure it was cool, back in the day, to spend 72 hours working on "the server" because even rebooting was not an option. Back then I had 3 servers, 10 years later I had 15. I didn't have the time to get into why each little snowflake of a problem was happening, I knew reinstalling and upgrading components would be a more prudent use of time. If I can rebuild a server and restore a data backup in 4 hours or I can spend an infinite amount of time "fixing" the existing install, which option do you think my PHB would prefer? It is not bad administration, it is just different.

  13. Retire the BillG Borg on Open Source Guy Takes the Hardest Job At Microsoft · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Isn't it time to get rid of the Borg Microsoft Icon? How about a flying chair? Just wondering...

  14. Let me get this straight... on Facebook, Microsoft Team Up Against Google · · Score: 1

    Google's biggest threat is the ability to hit "like" to a search result?

    The ability to "like" search results will cause people to stop using Google appliances to search documents on corporate networks, stop the use of Google Applications in schools/governments/companies, stop people from advertising on adsense, stop the sale of Android-based phones?

    I think you overestimate the appeal of "Bing"-ing for things...

  15. Dukakis vs Bush... on Microsoft Silverlight 4 vs. Adobe Flash 10.1 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Wow... are those the only choices? No!

    Javascript and HTML do well in a modern browser. That is the first choice.

    Flash would be the second choice, that at least has multiple platforms it can run on. You only exclude the iCrap...

    Silverlight? NOT the 3rd choice. The third choice is Java (and I hate Java). It is multiplatform but developing for it requires you to be a Java Developer and that is a bridge too far.

    Silverlight would be behind Hypercard, RealPlayer, Quicktime and other things that could in no way make a RIA.. because guess what? Silverlight might be able to make a RIA but only on 2 platforms and one of them is worthless...

  16. Re:Permanent archiving is impossible on Our Video Game Heritage Is Rotting Away · · Score: 1

    I bet that clown got in trouble with his Scribe Project Manager for making such redundant inscriptions.

    I search my mind for a time when I looked at my Commodore VIC 20 or 64 and felt I should throw them away.. there was no such time. They just stopped working.

    I think this might be the wrong crowd to call to arms to preserve the past. Most of our basements are in the running as computer museums (much to my wife's dissatisfaction).

    It would be nice to think that the creators of such "classic" games would preserve the code and copies of their work so that we could revisit the past in legally. My youngest son loves to play the republished Dig-Dug on the old Playstation 2, if only he knew how many quarters I spent playing that game.

  17. Re:I admire him but... on Interview With the Man Behind WikiLeaks · · Score: 1

    I agree that classification is often a means to avoid embarrassing exposures. In this case it can show important information to people who are OK with killing US and British troops.

    If you had a meeting with 7 people and the discussion was to remain confidential, but then the information suddenly becomes public knowledge you are aware there was a leak of some sort. If you hear that "someone from accounting" told everyone then you can narrow it down to the two accounting people who were at the meeting. Or if all the meetings in conference room A are the ones where information is getting out, then you know it might be the room. When the information itself is life or death level information the stakes are much higher.

    The information itself is good, and probably should be available via FOIA request (so it can be properly redacted by people in the know who can remove data which would get people killed). Having FOIA fail us in a world where it all is hopelessly classified due to terms like "recruiting tool", then wikileaks CAN provide valuable information to the public.

    But this was no "leak" by a "whistle blower", this was irresponsible release of information which WILL get people killed.

  18. Re:I admire him but... on Interview With the Man Behind WikiLeaks · · Score: 1, Insightful

    This is not whistle blowing! It is divulging classified material. Yes, some of it includes "Oops, blew up 3 civilians.. my bad." But a lot of the data reveals the inner workings of military intelligence and WILL result in the people who have helped us fight the Taliban and other militant extremist DYING for their work with us. You can complain all you want about the military or the war, but if I were an Afgan villager who was sick of war and wanted a stable government, I'd like to think I'd cooperate with the US. But I'd like to think they would protect me for my help.

    The person who leaked this information put a LOT of lives on the line. The blood the Taliban will spill is on the hands of this "whistle blower", the same with the blood of the US and British troops who will be killed because of this leak. They are scum. I am OK with the gunsight video, that is a story that needed telling for good of bad. But this database is too much raw intel, and it is too valuable for "bad guys".

  19. My experience with AIU on Your Online Education Experience? · · Score: 0

    I Received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Visual Communications from American Intercontinental University. That is a fancy term for Graphic Arts or Digital Design/Web Design. I have a very technical background but didn't want to get a technical degree ( I can code but knew the programming degree would be just "can write in C#" and didn't want a technology degree because it would be just "design a network in Visio"). I always wanted to get an art degree but since my parents were going to pay the bill when I first went they wanted something more "practical". So I showed them and flunked out of college.

    Years later I wanted that degree but work and my location prevented a traditional college education. So I looked into an online degree. I found American Intercontinental University (AIU). They were pushy and expensive, but at the time everyone was pushy and expensive (lets face the fact that online schools are there to make money). University of Phoenix wanted you to buy all the books and such, AIU the books and software were free. This is a big deal for graphic arts since they sent me a copy of Adobe Creative Suite, 2 copies of Windows XP and 1 copy of Microsoft Office -- all formats they required but it didn't stop me from doing some projects in GIMP, Blender and Open Office. The AIU classes were online lectures streamed via Adobe Breeze as well as required bulletin board posts. Each week there was a participation grade for bulletin board posts and a weekly project. The projects were intense and I had to work as a designer to meet their expectations, it was like an intense internship at a graphic design house with a picky client. I loved it.

    When it was all said and done I have a big student loan, a degree that confuses people on my resume (15 years as a network manager, with an Art degree). I met someone from my classes who helped me find a great job with a great company in the Washington DC area and moved to almost double my income. In the right area, the right degree and experience will open doors. You will not get an online degree that will open doors all by itself. Landing a cool job has a lot to do with luck (you in the right place at the right time doing the right thing) and desperation (you wanting badly enough to leave your present situation and the employer needing "you"). When all that comes together it is magic.

    Information Security is a hot topic right now, a lot of people are getting into it (including me). Depending on what you want to do with it, learn programming (to the point where Assembly makes sense), learn web development (where you can de-obfuscate JavaScript and see SQL injections), know TCP/IP (so PCAPs make sense) and never stop reading... I am not sure about specific degrees for Information Security. If you are trying to get into the government there are a lot of Federal regulations which are required reading for IA people. I'd focus on the skills the classes teach, as well as considering taking some SANS classes as well as certifications (not just CISSP but maybe CEH or some of the newer and better certifications). Good luck! The most important part is to love what you do so you can do what you love.

  20. Try it yourself... on Windows 7 "Not Much Faster" Than Vista · · Score: 0

    I downloaded the Beta last night and installed it. A few hours to download and maybe an hour to actually install.

    Part of the installation was for it to go on the internet and download patches. It quickly detected my wireless and very quickly I was watching it download and install patches (before asking me my favorite color and all the other typical setup BS).

    My laptop: came with but could barely run Vista. Even after a memory upgrade I still went to XP on it.

    Vista was just too interruptive(UAC) and needed a lot of tweaking to run well on the hardware it came on.. My anti-virus didn't work with Vista, my phone would not sync with it, etc...

    But so far windows 7 is good. The installation was great, a departure from the in-your-face "what can windows (not) do for you" crap they have been doing since Windows 95.

  21. The issue is MONEY and the supremecy of the MBA!!! on Congress Considers Reform On Orphaned Works · · Score: 0

    International copyright law holds that copyright starts at the moment of creation and applies to the creator. This law makes it so that the Library of Congress is no longer the body for copyright but Bill Gates' Corbis and other large media houses. Basically only works registered with these places (for a cost of $5 each) will be copyrighted. ANYTHING available anywhere that is not registered with pieces of silver to these organizations is fair game (as far as the US is concerned, the rest of the world will still hold to the idea that the stuff people make belongs to them).

    Imagine for a moment that a picture of some friends at a party that you took and posted to Flickr ends up in an ad for anything from beer (good) to STD treatment medication (bad). Worst is that the photo is yours, but a company paid a agency to create this ad and you don't get a cent or have any say on how they use it.

    That is the gist from the previous versions of the bill.

    It does not matter where you stand on software patents or intellectual property, this is about the rights of a creator to dictate where and when a work is used. If you deny Corbis it's money, the work is not yours. That is fundamentally wrong.

    If the Library of Congress is so behind that they can't keep up with copyright claims or these ownership issues need a central registry then it should be a public, free registry. Not a paid registry that furthers the ideal that a MBA is the only one that can truly manage creative people and also the only one really making any money in an office of programmers/developers/designers/artists/etc.

  22. Re:Firewalls on Bush Cyber Initiative Aims To Monitor, Restrict Access To Federal Network · · Score: 0

    Wha?? ...there is so much to address...


    Do you run an SMTP server for a major corporation? If you were to block every "probably forged" email then your users would beat your door down with their torches and pitchforks. The truth is that thanks to the nature of SMTP email you (as a "knowledgeable" user) can't trust the email in your inbox, let alone a PHB and their inbox.

    Normally forged email is obvious. The gist of this article is that the mail contained specific information that made the email look more legit than usual.

    If you were at a bolt factory and your CEO got an email from a nut fab that you normally do business with about a specific deal that was in the works, that just happened to contain an attachment - would your CEO be crazy to open the attachment?

    DNS/PKI blah, blah, blah.. SMTP by nature (and email clients) do not make it easy to see if the email was forged. PKI would be nice but has yet to come to common use (corporations get silly amounts of emails from equally sill numbers of unique servers, who would hold the public keys? Could they be hacked?)

    Monoculture is another word for managed infrastructure. Would your CEO be best served by having a totally oddball configuration just to prevent a keylogger from getting installed? How would you support such an infrastructure? With 24 different OSs on your network, how do you determine what traffic is legit and what is a bot calling home? What do you pay your helpdesk people to support all those OSs? Admins to keep them patched?

    The posted article points to the possibility to finally manage all federal networks from a single point in the same way.

    To have boundary protection you have to establish a boundary -- this would be the "Fednet" or whatever and there would be protection at those 100 points instead of thousands of unique points.

    I think it is a great move and about time, it is what people had expected to be in place already. "They weren't doing that before?"
    "No"
    "Well that is dumb, they should do it now then."

  23. Re:Funny that on Young Employees Pose Increasing Risk to Networks · · Score: 0

    I was going to say that what you describe was a previous experience of mine, but no longer the case..
    but upon looking at your memberID number and mine, maybe I am one of those old folk you mentioned.

    I hate feeling old.
    By the way... get off my lawn!

  24. Maybe they can just grab Russia's lost RTGs on US Plans "Disposable" Nuclear Batteries · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Nuclear batteries have been in place for a long time, resulting in bad things: http://www.bellona.no/bellona.org/english_import_area/international/russia/navy/northern_fleet/incidents/31772

    But maybe that is because Russia lost so many of them and people broke into them to get warm.

  25. "Why don't we invent that tomorrow?" on Why Don't We Invent That Tomorrow? · · Score: 0

    Sounds like a procrastinator's approach to invention.

    I like the idea of the "finglonger", since they are close the the Smell-o-scope
    (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/13/1418216&from=rss "Smell of Space").