----- Our microprocessor isn't some tiny silicon die -- it's the size of a sheet of paper, maybe two -----
Where to start? The circuit size will drive up power usage and heat generation. The only way to offset this will be to slow the processor, and to add a huge battery. The result will be one of the biggest and heaviest "laptop" systems on the market that's slower than a P-100 and able to heat an average 3-bedroom house all by itself.
It can be hard to leave a position when you know that your decision will adversely affect others. However, your first loyalty should be to yourself and your family. What is best, long-term, for the financial stability of your family? Of course, if you're single then you have added flexibility here; but you still should look at the long-term.
If you stay, and the company does fail, how long will it take to line up additional offers? Do either of these positions offer anything that could benefit your future career which your current position fails to provide?
Based on what little you've posted, I would recommend accepting one of the new positions; but then work closely with your current management to minimize the impact. If one of your friends is capable and well respected, recommend to management that he/she be promoted into your current position. This would do two things: 1) it leaves someone already known and respected to provide stability for the others, and 2) if the company does fail, that person will have an additional level of experience to put on his/her resume which they would nothave if you were to stay.
That's my take - best of luck.
If the postage-paid envelope is of the "permit imprint" type; then changing the mailing address could be classified as fraud.
A "Permit Imprint" lists in the upper right corner a preprinted box which ends with the line "Permit No. ###". The post office uses that permit number to charge the permit holder for the postage. Once they notice that the address has been changed, a postal inspector would get involved with an investigation. If the envelope contained anything which could link it back to you, you could be charged with fraud.
The USPS points out in their explanation of the Jan 7th rate increase on their site that "...price increases vary some by class of mail in accordance with the legal mandate for each class of mail to cover its own cost."
While there could be some degree of increased costs on a per-unit basis (overall volume would be down, so efficiencies of scale from the larger volume would theoretically be lost), the increase in cost would be extremely small. Partly because the USPS is overloaded at it's current level, and has lost some degree of efficiency at current volumes which can currently be restored either by reducing volumes, or by purchasing expensive new handling equipment - which is a cost that can be eliminated or delayed by a reduction in junk mail. Also, there would be a man-power and transportation (freight and air cargo costs) savings by reducing the volume of junk mail. Overall, if any effect to private first class mail occured, it would be extremely small.
Postage for "junk mail" does not subsidize anything. It merely keeps my recycle bin full. Check this link to the USPS website.
It's a story about the recent rate increases.
The important phrase to note is: Overall, rates are rising 4.6 percent, although price increases vary some by class of mail in accordance with the legal mandate for each class of mail to cover its own cost.
----- hmmmm... try as I might, I still don't think that's funny.
And what does soliciting for donations for (often) worthy causes have to do with spam?
And what flavor of crack are the moderators smoking today? -----
But you forget - the cause is rarely the one doing the actual soliciting. The telemarketing companies solicit business from these causes. The telemarketing companies then can legally use that organization's name when soliciting money from individuals. The problem is that the telemarketers keep anywhere from 50% up to 90% of the funds which they raise in this way
As a result, I NEVER donate money via a phone solicitation. If there's a charitable organization which I wish to support, I always contact that charity directly and mail the money directly to the charity.
At least now everyone who received one for Christmas from a relative that was disturbed enough to actually think it made a good gift, now has a project they can take on with the damn thing. Raises the entertainment level from zero up to the duration of the project (after which, it immediately loses all entertainment value again).
I can't figure out how sales of this thing could actually have been good enough to create all the knock-offs that exist on the market. Someone's obviously buying the things. Fortuneately, it's not anyone I know (or else I would have to seriously reevaluate my friendship with that person).
With most other CPU and Chip Sets, you are correct, you can use PCI cards for video. But, had you read the article attached with that link, you would realize that in the 850 chip set used by the P4, the use of a PCI graphics card results in significant system slowdowns and corruption of video information.
True, technically you could still use the PCI slots for video on the P4 w/ the 850; but with the performance and image quality problems that result from the bug in the chip set, you would not be very productive on any system configured in that way.
With the P-IV being targeted as being a high-end system; this bug becomes a considerably larger issue as a percentage of total users.
The bug in the chip-set limits a user to either accepting a system slowdown when they install a PCI video card for their second display; or using the Matrox card which is at the end of its market life and is outperformed by most, if not all other high-end cards currently on the market.
Many users at my employer who need high-end systems also require multi-monitor support. Due to this bug, we will not be purchasing P-IV's with the current available chip-set. We will either wait for a new chip-set or settle for a P-III (my employer still refuses to accept Athlons, although I personally prefer them).
Meanwhile, on an issue unrelated to the bug, most home users who prefer multi-monitor support would, I suspect, prefer to wait for the next generation of P-IV, so there actually exists an upgrade path for the system.
The home power user market will be avoiding the P-IV for now anyways; and the corporate market will have limited use for it at this time due to the chip set bug. Intel's PR department will have to work a lot of overtime to get these things to move off the shelves while they wait for a fixed chip set to come out onto the market.
I'm just north of Seattle, WA and had GTE (now Verizon) ADSL service at my old location. When I first called, I was told that they were out of available circuits, but were installing more and to check back in a month. Sounded good to me, rather than oversell their service, they were waiting until they added more capacity. A month later I called back, and had installation scheduled. Less than five months later, I was up and running. The advertising was for 768kb down/128kb up and I generally received 700kb down/ 120kb up - not bad!
Now, at my new address (just bought a house), I'm too far from the CO to get ADSL service. Tried the cable route and it's not available yet in my area. DAMN - back to the crappy slow 56k. Oh well, cable modems should be here in another year (assuming they keep on schedule).
My experience with Verizon (old GTE/Verizon, not the BA/Verizon) is that they're good when they work - but if service goes down you're in deep trouble. In over a year of service, my line only dropped out twice. Their level 1 and 2 tech support are their dial-up techs who work from scripts when supporting ADSL. The second time, I already knew the script, so did all those tests first to save time - they still insisted on running thru them again. Then writing up a ticket to the next level.
I love ADSL, and wish I could get it where I live now. But if you don't know enough about the technology to support yourself - find someone other than Verizon or go with a cable modem!
There are actually multiple flaws in this part of the argument.
As you pointed out, there's the problem with the time period required for galactic colonization. Specifically, the statement "The greatest uncertainty is the time required for a colony to establish itself and spawn new settlements. A reasonable upper limit might be 5,000 years, the time it has taken human civilization to develop from the earliest cities to spaceflight. In that case, full galactic colonization would take about 50 million years".
However, previously in the article, it's stated "If civilizations form at a constant rate and live an average of 1,000 years each". Based on this, the civilization would likely collapse prior to the 5,000 years assumed as needed for the colony to establish itself. Either a colony can establish itself much quicker than assumed; or the average life of each civilization is much longer than assumed. In which case, the total number of civilizations in the history of the galaxy would drop.
Even if the 5,000 year colony establishment issue can be resolved; there's still the 50 million year civilization life problem. How do you maintain a civilization spread over 100,000 light-years (the distance from one end of our galaxy to the other) when your only means of communication are either radio waves or ships that travel up to 20% the speed of life? By the time a message is received at a colony; the sender's great-great grandchildren would have been dead for thousands of years (assuming life spans even ten times our own).
The logistics of maintaining a single civilization over such vast distances makes the likelihood of total galactic colonization extremely unlikely, if not impossible. It becomes much more likely that a colony would become entirely independant of the parent civilization. This would almost be a necesity as it would have its own priorities and requirements to survive in an alien environment while having little to no contact with the home world.
As a result; if life does exist on other worlds, it does not surprise me at all that they have not made physical contact with the Earth. On a side note: I tend to agree technological life does exist elsewhere, although for reasons I won't go into here I would expect the number to be significantly lower than the 1,000 technological civilizations assumed by Paul Horowitz of Harvard University (as stated in the article).
Per posts in NTBugTraq, the actual bug is within Internet Explorer, and is made visible in Outlook and Outlook Express due to calls to the faulty code.
The bug has been fixed in IE 5.01 SP1; so there already exists a solution to avoid the bug on a Win box. Also, on Win-9x, IE 5.5 also avoids the bug; but on W2K, IE 5.5 still carries this bug (go figure).
In my opinion, any bug fix from MS isn't going to accomplish much. The majority of systems which are reportedly vulverable are home systems where the users have failed to download the readilly available SW upgrades. If the users failed to download the upgrades, I doubt it's likely that they'll get around to downloading the bug fix either.
"Where ping fits in, I dunno, other than perhaps it provides the IP addresses for traceroute to digest. And there is useful information in being able to ping a machine and identify that it's still online in the dead of night: that implies it's a full-time connection, which means you're a cut above the average dial-up user."
The ping time also provides a way to target advertisements based on the user's available bandwidth. If a fast ping time exists, they can sell more interactive advertisements; while slow ping time could default to a standard banner ad.
Actually, several news sources (including a story on the cover of the WSJ) suggests that, once MS recognized that the judge was likely to side with the DOJ, they (MS) intentionally began "pushing the judges buttons". Basically seeing how far they could push the law, knowing that the judge has a reputation of being impulsive, in order to attempt to try and produce procedural errors on the judge's part.
To some extent, it seems to have worked. Reguardless of the relative merits for each side in the case, the Court of Appeals could choose to overturn the ruling simply because of these procedural errors. If so, then MS is unlikely to argue the "findings of fact" from this court, but rather try to get it thrown out on a technicality. If that fails, then they'll begin arguing that the DOJ failed to adequately prove antitrust violations by MS.
It seems that they're trying to define "point of sale" as the buyer's computer, rather than the server which operates the website. Yet they then turn around and require the selling company to apply the VAT of the one country in which it registers; implying that the "point of sale" is now potentially a third country which contains neither the buyer nor the seller.
Anyone have a link to a more in-depth story that explains the enforcement of this? The EU can easilly identify violators (just try to buy something and see if a VAT is added); but how do they plan to attempt enforceing the VAT on a company if that company has no physical presence in the EU?
It's not definition, it's the one that the state of PA uses in this bill. I did not say that I agree with it, only that I find it interresting that for the first time one has been defined in law. Don't argue with me, write to the state of PA if you have problems with their definition.
What I see most significant about this bill is that, for the first time that I'm aware, the term "computer virus" has been defined in law. I doubt the "special features" that large corporations will fall into the definition because of the requirement that they replicate themselves in order for the PA legislation to be applicable. Here's the definition as listed in the PA bill that was signed:
-"Computer virus." A computer program copied to or installed on a computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system without the informed consent of the owner of the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system that may replicate itself and that causes unauthorized activities within or by the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system.
It's a slow day at work; so I cut-n-pasted the full text of the bill for all to read (below). I think the most significant aspect of the bill is that, for the first time the term "computer virus" is defined by law.
I am curious about one thing. IF a virus like "Melissa" or "I Love You" were to strike again, and IF the person who initially launched the virus lived in PA; what would the number of resulting lawsuits against the perpetrator do to the court system? The PA courts would get backed up as badly, if not worse, than the mail servers that handled the virus.
----------- Full text of the Bill ----------- THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SENATE BILL No. 1077 Session of 1999
INTRODUCED BY EARLL, O'PAKE, WHITE, HART, LEMMOND, TILGHMAN, ROBBINS, WAUGH, KASUNIC, WOZNIAK, SCHWARTZ, RHOADES, THOMPSON AND BOSCOLA, SEPTEMBER 7, 1999
SENATE AMENDMENTS TO HOUSE AMENDMENTS, MAY 8, 2000
AN ACT
Amending Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, further providing for unlawful use of a computer.
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hereby enacts as follows: Section 1. Section 3933 of Title 18 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes is amended to read: 3933. Unlawful use of computer. (a) Offense defined.--A person commits [an] the offense [if he] of unlawful use of a computer if he, whether in person, electronically or through the intentional distribution of a computer virus: (1) accesses, exceeds authorization to access, alters, damages or destroys any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or data base or any part thereof, with the intent: (i) to interrupt the normal functioning of an organization [or]; or (ii) to devise or execute any scheme or artifice to defraud [or], deceive or control property or services by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises; (2) intentionally and without authorization accesses, alters, interferes with the operation of, damages or destroys any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or computer data base or any part thereof; [or] (3) intentionally or knowingly and without authorization gives or publishes a password, identifying code, personal identification number or other confidential information about a computer, computer system, computer network or data base[.]; or (4) intentionally or knowingly engages in a scheme or artifice, including, but not limited to, a denial of service attack, upon any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program, computer server or data base or any part thereof that is designed to block, impede or deny the access of information or initiation or completion of any sale or transaction by users of that computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program, computer server or data base or any part thereof. (b) Grading.--An offense under subsection (a)(1) is a felony of the third degree. An offense under subsection (a)(2) [or (3)], (3) or (4) is a misdemeanor of the first degree. (c) Definitions.--As used in this section the following words and phrases shall have the meanings given to them in this subsection: -"Access." To intercept, instruct, communicate with, store data in, retrieve data from or otherwise make use of any resources of a computer, computer system, computer network or data base. -"Computer." An electronic, magnetic, optical, hydraulic, organic or other high speed data processing device or system which performs logic, arithmetic or memory functions and includes all input, output, processing, storage, software or communication facilities which are connected or related to the device in a system or network. -"Computer network." The interconnection of two or more computers through the usage of satellite, microwave, line or other communication medium. -"Computer program." An ordered set of instructions or statements and related data that, when automatically executed in actual or modified form in a computer system, causes it to perform specified functions. -"Computer software." A set of computer programs, procedures and associated documentation concerned with the operation of a computer system. -"Computer system." A set of related, connected or unconnected computer equipment, devices and software. -"Computer virus." A computer program copied to or installed on a computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system without the informed consent of the owner of the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system that may replicate itself and that causes unauthorized activities within or by the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system. -"Data base." A representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions which are being prepared or processed or have been prepared or processed in a formalized manner and are intended for use in a computer, computer system or computer network, including, but not limited to, computer printouts, magnetic storage media, punched cards or data stored internally in the memory of the computer. -"Financial instrument." Includes, but is not limited to, any check, draft, warrant, money order, note, certificate of deposit, letter of credit, bill of exchange, credit or debit card, transaction authorization mechanism, marketable security or any computer system representation thereof. -"Property." Includes, but is not limited to, financial instruments, computer software and programs in either machine or human readable form, and anything of value, tangible or intangible. -"Services." Includes, but is not limited to, computer time, data processing and storage functions. (d) Restitution.--Upon conviction under this section for the intentional distribution of a computer virus, the sentence shall include an order for the defendant to reimburse the victim for: (1) the cost of repairing or, if necessary, replacing the affected computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or data base; (2) lost profit for the period that the computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or data base is not usable; or (3) the cost of replacing or restoring the data lost or damaged as a result of a violation of this section. Section 2. This act shall take effect in 60 days.
Thanks for making assumptions about me. I'm curious what makes you think that I don't flip burgers for a living? I don't, but when I first moved to the area, I wasn't far from it (reservation desk of a hotel).
Actually, I know exactly where you're talking about. When I first moved to the area, I was forced to live in a trailer park for about a year and I looked at the one you mentioned (I ended up living in one in Federal Way, a bit cleaner than the one in Redmond). "Fortuneately", I was later able to move into a shared house in the U district. All the while, I saved my money; and finally bought a condo in Renton. It's small, but I've lived there for years, so while rents have skyrocketed, my mortgage payment has remained to now being less than I would pay for a similarly sized apartment anywhere else in the Seattle area.
I now work for an engineering company. Not in development (where the money is made) but in support, where we're tollerated as a necessary evil. I live comfortably, but certainly not well off. Don't even begin trying to preach to me. I've worked long and hard to work myself up from that point; I know damn well from where I came and I know just as well how damn lucky I am to have managed to get to where I am now.
On the upside for those of us who live in Seattle:
Housing prices have gone to levels that only MS (and a select few other software co) employees can afford, especially anything within 30 miles of Redmond or anything in the "fashionable" Seattle neighborhoods.
If MS moves, that'll be the homes of 20,000 employees suddenly coming on the market. I could move out of my condo and actually afford a real house that wouldn't require me driving over an hour to work. Okay, so there are downsides to the local economy too; but those should be manageable. More important to MS: how are they going to compensate their employees for the loss in their home's value caused by a mass exodus? Sure, they can blow off the non-critical employees; but they'll want to keep as many of the technical people that they can. Punch a big hole in their wallets, and the employees are more likely to find new employers than to follow MS. MS has a history of caring for its employees, so to move they would need to compensate the employees for the loss on their housing investments. That would be a huge cost in addition to the move itself.
You can prevent it from ever showing its coiled, metalic face ever again by using these instructions from Microsoft. But after doing that, you still need the patch (I believe) because the underlying scripts would still be able to run.
I followed the Microsoft instructions for disabling Office Assistant. But from the looks of the ZDnet article, even after removing the damn thing, I still have the threat because the scripts underlying it are still marked as safe.
Damn it, even when I've completely eradicated the blasted thing from showing on my screen ever again; it's still a problem. Hopefully this patch will let me eliminate the last vestiges of clippy's influence on my Win box. It (clippy) was a bad idea that should be forgotten and buried.
Slashdot Mirror
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Our microprocessor isn't some tiny silicon die -- it's the size of a sheet of paper, maybe two
-----
Where to start? The circuit size will drive up power usage and heat generation. The only way to offset this will be to slow the processor, and to add a huge battery. The result will be one of the biggest and heaviest "laptop" systems on the market that's slower than a P-100 and able to heat an average 3-bedroom house all by itself.
It can be hard to leave a position when you know that your decision will adversely affect others. However, your first loyalty should be to yourself and your family. What is best, long-term, for the financial stability of your family? Of course, if you're single then you have added flexibility here; but you still should look at the long-term.
If you stay, and the company does fail, how long will it take to line up additional offers? Do either of these positions offer anything that could benefit your future career which your current position fails to provide?
Based on what little you've posted, I would recommend accepting one of the new positions; but then work closely with your current management to minimize the impact. If one of your friends is capable and well respected, recommend to management that he/she be promoted into your current position. This would do two things: 1) it leaves someone already known and respected to provide stability for the others, and 2) if the company does fail, that person will have an additional level of experience to put on his/her resume which they would nothave if you were to stay.
That's my take - best of luck.
If the postage-paid envelope is of the "permit imprint" type; then changing the mailing address could be classified as fraud.
A "Permit Imprint" lists in the upper right corner a preprinted box which ends with the line "Permit No. ###". The post office uses that permit number to charge the permit holder for the postage. Once they notice that the address has been changed, a postal inspector would get involved with an investigation. If the envelope contained anything which could link it back to you, you could be charged with fraud.
The USPS points out in their explanation of the Jan 7th rate increase on their site that "...price increases vary some by class of mail in accordance with the legal mandate for each class of mail to cover its own cost."
While there could be some degree of increased costs on a per-unit basis (overall volume would be down, so efficiencies of scale from the larger volume would theoretically be lost), the increase in cost would be extremely small. Partly because the USPS is overloaded at it's current level, and has lost some degree of efficiency at current volumes which can currently be restored either by reducing volumes, or by purchasing expensive new handling equipment - which is a cost that can be eliminated or delayed by a reduction in junk mail. Also, there would be a man-power and transportation (freight and air cargo costs) savings by reducing the volume of junk mail. Overall, if any effect to private first class mail occured, it would be extremely small.
Postage for "junk mail" does not subsidize anything. It merely keeps my recycle bin full. Check this link to the USPS website.
It's a story about the recent rate increases.
The important phrase to note is: Overall, rates are rising 4.6 percent, although price increases vary some by class of mail in accordance with the legal mandate for each class of mail to cover its own cost.
-----
hmmmm... try as I might, I still don't think that's funny.
And what does soliciting for donations for (often) worthy causes have to do with spam?
And what flavor of crack are the moderators smoking today?
-----
But you forget - the cause is rarely the one doing the actual soliciting. The telemarketing companies solicit business from these causes. The telemarketing companies then can legally use that organization's name when soliciting money from individuals. The problem is that the telemarketers keep anywhere from 50% up to 90% of the funds which they raise in this way
As a result, I NEVER donate money via a phone solicitation. If there's a charitable organization which I wish to support, I always contact that charity directly and mail the money directly to the charity.
At least now everyone who received one for Christmas from a relative that was disturbed enough to actually think it made a good gift, now has a project they can take on with the damn thing. Raises the entertainment level from zero up to the duration of the project (after which, it immediately loses all entertainment value again).
I can't figure out how sales of this thing could actually have been good enough to create all the knock-offs that exist on the market. Someone's obviously buying the things. Fortuneately, it's not anyone I know (or else I would have to seriously reevaluate my friendship with that person).
With most other CPU and Chip Sets, you are correct, you can use PCI cards for video. But, had you read the article attached with that link, you would realize that in the 850 chip set used by the P4, the use of a PCI graphics card results in significant system slowdowns and corruption of video information.
True, technically you could still use the PCI slots for video on the P4 w/ the 850; but with the performance and image quality problems that result from the bug in the chip set, you would not be very productive on any system configured in that way.
With the P-IV being targeted as being a high-end system; this bug becomes a considerably larger issue as a percentage of total users.
The bug in the chip-set limits a user to either accepting a system slowdown when they install a PCI video card for their second display; or using the Matrox card which is at the end of its market life and is outperformed by most, if not all other high-end cards currently on the market.
Many users at my employer who need high-end systems also require multi-monitor support. Due to this bug, we will not be purchasing P-IV's with the current available chip-set. We will either wait for a new chip-set or settle for a P-III (my employer still refuses to accept Athlons, although I personally prefer them).
Meanwhile, on an issue unrelated to the bug, most home users who prefer multi-monitor support would, I suspect, prefer to wait for the next generation of P-IV, so there actually exists an upgrade path for the system.
The home power user market will be avoiding the P-IV for now anyways; and the corporate market will have limited use for it at this time due to the chip set bug. Intel's PR department will have to work a lot of overtime to get these things to move off the shelves while they wait for a fixed chip set to come out onto the market.
I'm just north of Seattle, WA and had GTE (now Verizon) ADSL service at my old location. When I first called, I was told that they were out of available circuits, but were installing more and to check back in a month. Sounded good to me, rather than oversell their service, they were waiting until they added more capacity. A month later I called back, and had installation scheduled. Less than five months later, I was up and running. The advertising was for 768kb down/128kb up and I generally received 700kb down/ 120kb up - not bad! Now, at my new address (just bought a house), I'm too far from the CO to get ADSL service. Tried the cable route and it's not available yet in my area. DAMN - back to the crappy slow 56k. Oh well, cable modems should be here in another year (assuming they keep on schedule). My experience with Verizon (old GTE/Verizon, not the BA/Verizon) is that they're good when they work - but if service goes down you're in deep trouble. In over a year of service, my line only dropped out twice. Their level 1 and 2 tech support are their dial-up techs who work from scripts when supporting ADSL. The second time, I already knew the script, so did all those tests first to save time - they still insisted on running thru them again. Then writing up a ticket to the next level. I love ADSL, and wish I could get it where I live now. But if you don't know enough about the technology to support yourself - find someone other than Verizon or go with a cable modem!
Of course, that should read "up to 20% the speed of light", not "up to 20% the speed of life". The other typos are too minor to correct here ...
There are actually multiple flaws in this part of the argument.
As you pointed out, there's the problem with the time period required for galactic colonization. Specifically, the statement "The greatest uncertainty is the time required for a colony to establish itself and spawn new settlements. A reasonable upper limit might be 5,000 years, the time it has taken human civilization to develop from the earliest cities to spaceflight. In that case, full galactic colonization would take about 50 million years".
However, previously in the article, it's stated "If civilizations form at a constant rate and live an average of 1,000 years each". Based on this, the civilization would likely collapse prior to the 5,000 years assumed as needed for the colony to establish itself. Either a colony can establish itself much quicker than assumed; or the average life of each civilization is much longer than assumed. In which case, the total number of civilizations in the history of the galaxy would drop.
Even if the 5,000 year colony establishment issue can be resolved; there's still the 50 million year civilization life problem. How do you maintain a civilization spread over 100,000 light-years (the distance from one end of our galaxy to the other) when your only means of communication are either radio waves or ships that travel up to 20% the speed of life? By the time a message is received at a colony; the sender's great-great grandchildren would have been dead for thousands of years (assuming life spans even ten times our own).
The logistics of maintaining a single civilization over such vast distances makes the likelihood of total galactic colonization extremely unlikely, if not impossible. It becomes much more likely that a colony would become entirely independant of the parent civilization. This would almost be a necesity as it would have its own priorities and requirements to survive in an alien environment while having little to no contact with the home world.
As a result; if life does exist on other worlds, it does not surprise me at all that they have not made physical contact with the Earth. On a side note: I tend to agree technological life does exist elsewhere, although for reasons I won't go into here I would expect the number to be significantly lower than the 1,000 technological civilizations assumed by Paul Horowitz of Harvard University (as stated in the article).
Per posts in NTBugTraq, the actual bug is within Internet Explorer, and is made visible in Outlook and Outlook Express due to calls to the faulty code.
The bug has been fixed in IE 5.01 SP1; so there already exists a solution to avoid the bug on a Win box. Also, on Win-9x, IE 5.5 also avoids the bug; but on W2K, IE 5.5 still carries this bug (go figure).
In my opinion, any bug fix from MS isn't going to accomplish much. The majority of systems which are reportedly vulverable are home systems where the users have failed to download the readilly available SW upgrades. If the users failed to download the upgrades, I doubt it's likely that they'll get around to downloading the bug fix either.
"Where ping fits in, I dunno, other than perhaps it provides the IP addresses for traceroute to digest. And there is useful information in being able to ping a machine and identify that it's still online in the dead of night: that implies it's a full-time connection, which means you're a cut above the average dial-up user."
The ping time also provides a way to target advertisements based on the user's available bandwidth. If a fast ping time exists, they can sell more interactive advertisements; while slow ping time could default to a standard banner ad.
Actually, several news sources (including a story on the cover of the WSJ) suggests that, once MS recognized that the judge was likely to side with the DOJ, they (MS) intentionally began "pushing the judges buttons". Basically seeing how far they could push the law, knowing that the judge has a reputation of being impulsive, in order to attempt to try and produce procedural errors on the judge's part.
To some extent, it seems to have worked. Reguardless of the relative merits for each side in the case, the Court of Appeals could choose to overturn the ruling simply because of these procedural errors. If so, then MS is unlikely to argue the "findings of fact" from this court, but rather try to get it thrown out on a technicality. If that fails, then they'll begin arguing that the DOJ failed to adequately prove antitrust violations by MS.
It seems that they're trying to define "point of sale" as the buyer's computer, rather than the server which operates the website. Yet they then turn around and require the selling company to apply the VAT of the one country in which it registers; implying that the "point of sale" is now potentially a third country which contains neither the buyer nor the seller.
Anyone have a link to a more in-depth story that explains the enforcement of this? The EU can easilly identify violators (just try to buy something and see if a VAT is added); but how do they plan to attempt enforceing the VAT on a company if that company has no physical presence in the EU?
oops, meant to say "It's not my definition, it's the one that the state of PA uses in this bill" ...
It's not definition, it's the one that the state of PA uses in this bill. I did not say that I agree with it, only that I find it interresting that for the first time one has been defined in law. Don't argue with me, write to the state of PA if you have problems with their definition.
What I see most significant about this bill is that, for the first time that I'm aware, the term "computer virus" has been defined in law. I doubt the "special features" that large corporations will fall into the definition because of the requirement that they replicate themselves in order for the PA legislation to be applicable. Here's the definition as listed in the PA bill that was signed:
-"Computer virus." A computer program copied to or installed on a computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system without the informed consent of the owner of the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system that may replicate itself and that causes unauthorized activities within or by the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system.
It's a slow day at work; so I cut-n-pasted the full text of the bill for all to read (below). I think the most significant aspect of the bill is that, for the first time the term "computer virus" is defined by law.
I am curious about one thing. IF a virus like "Melissa" or "I Love You" were to strike again, and IF the person who initially launched the virus lived in PA; what would the number of resulting lawsuits against the perpetrator do to the court system? The PA courts would get backed up as badly, if not worse, than the mail servers that handled the virus.
----------- Full text of the Bill -----------
THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF PENNSYLVANIA
SENATE BILL
No. 1077 Session of 1999
INTRODUCED BY EARLL, O'PAKE, WHITE, HART, LEMMOND, TILGHMAN, ROBBINS, WAUGH, KASUNIC, WOZNIAK, SCHWARTZ, RHOADES, THOMPSON AND BOSCOLA, SEPTEMBER 7, 1999
SENATE AMENDMENTS TO HOUSE AMENDMENTS, MAY 8, 2000
AN ACT
Amending Title 18 (Crimes and Offenses) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, further providing for unlawful use of a computer.
The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania hereby enacts as follows:
Section 1. Section 3933 of Title 18 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes is amended to read:
3933. Unlawful use of computer.
(a) Offense defined.--A person commits [an] the offense [if he] of unlawful use of a computer if he, whether in person, electronically or through the intentional distribution of a computer virus:
(1) accesses, exceeds authorization to access, alters, damages or destroys any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or data base or any part thereof, with the intent:
(i) to interrupt the normal functioning of an organization [or]; or
(ii) to devise or execute any scheme or artifice to defraud [or], deceive or control property or services by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations or promises;
(2) intentionally and without authorization accesses, alters, interferes with the operation of, damages or destroys any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or computer data base or any part thereof; [or]
(3) intentionally or knowingly and without authorization gives or publishes a password, identifying code, personal identification number or other confidential information about a computer, computer system, computer network or data base[.]; or
(4) intentionally or knowingly engages in a scheme or artifice, including, but not limited to, a denial of service attack, upon any computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program, computer server or data base or any part thereof that is designed to block, impede or deny the access of information or initiation or completion of any sale or transaction by users of that computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program, computer server or data base or any part thereof.
(b) Grading.--An offense under subsection (a)(1) is a felony of the third degree. An offense under subsection (a)(2) [or (3)], (3) or (4) is a misdemeanor of the first degree.
(c) Definitions.--As used in this section the following words and phrases shall have the meanings given to them in this subsection:
-"Access." To intercept, instruct, communicate with, store data in, retrieve data from or otherwise make use of any resources of a computer, computer system, computer network or data base.
-"Computer." An electronic, magnetic, optical, hydraulic, organic or other high speed data processing device or system which performs logic, arithmetic or memory functions and includes all input, output, processing, storage, software or communication facilities which are connected or related to the device in a system or network.
-"Computer network." The interconnection of two or more computers through the usage of satellite, microwave, line or other communication medium.
-"Computer program." An ordered set of instructions or statements and related data that, when automatically executed in actual or modified form in a computer system, causes it to perform specified functions.
-"Computer software." A set of computer programs, procedures and associated documentation concerned with the operation of a computer system.
-"Computer system." A set of related, connected or unconnected computer equipment, devices and software.
-"Computer virus." A computer program copied to or installed on a computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system without the informed consent of the owner of the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system that may replicate itself and that causes unauthorized activities within or by the computer, computer network, computer program, computer software or computer system.
-"Data base." A representation of information, knowledge, facts, concepts or instructions which are being prepared or processed or have been prepared or processed in a formalized manner and are intended for use in a computer, computer system or computer network, including, but not limited to, computer printouts, magnetic storage media, punched cards or data stored internally in the memory of the computer.
-"Financial instrument." Includes, but is not limited to, any check, draft, warrant, money order, note, certificate of deposit, letter of credit, bill of exchange, credit or debit card, transaction authorization mechanism, marketable security or any computer system representation thereof.
-"Property." Includes, but is not limited to, financial instruments, computer software and programs in either machine or human readable form, and anything of value, tangible or intangible.
-"Services." Includes, but is not limited to, computer time, data processing and storage functions.
(d) Restitution.--Upon conviction under this section for the intentional distribution of a computer virus, the sentence shall include an order for the defendant to reimburse the victim for:
(1) the cost of repairing or, if necessary, replacing the affected computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or data base;
(2) lost profit for the period that the computer, computer system, computer network, computer software, computer program or data base is not usable; or
(3) the cost of replacing or restoring the data lost or damaged as a result of a violation of this section.
Section 2. This act shall take effect in 60 days.
Thanks for making assumptions about me. I'm curious what makes you think that I don't flip burgers for a living? I don't, but when I first moved to the area, I wasn't far from it (reservation desk of a hotel).
Actually, I know exactly where you're talking about. When I first moved to the area, I was forced to live in a trailer park for about a year and I looked at the one you mentioned (I ended up living in one in Federal Way, a bit cleaner than the one in Redmond). "Fortuneately", I was later able to move into a shared house in the U district. All the while, I saved my money; and finally bought a condo in Renton. It's small, but I've lived there for years, so while rents have skyrocketed, my mortgage payment has remained to now being less than I would pay for a similarly sized apartment anywhere else in the Seattle area.
I now work for an engineering company. Not in development (where the money is made) but in support, where we're tollerated as a necessary evil. I live comfortably, but certainly not well off. Don't even begin trying to preach to me. I've worked long and hard to work myself up from that point; I know damn well from where I came and I know just as well how damn lucky I am to have managed to get to where I am now.
Here's the full text of the PA bill as it was signed.
/. two days ago when it was signed - go figure.
I had submitted this to
On the upside for those of us who live in Seattle:
Housing prices have gone to levels that only MS (and a select few other software co) employees can afford, especially anything within 30 miles of Redmond or anything in the "fashionable" Seattle neighborhoods.
If MS moves, that'll be the homes of 20,000 employees suddenly coming on the market. I could move out of my condo and actually afford a real house that wouldn't require me driving over an hour to work. Okay, so there are downsides to the local economy too; but those should be manageable. More important to MS: how are they going to compensate their employees for the loss in their home's value caused by a mass exodus? Sure, they can blow off the non-critical employees; but they'll want to keep as many of the technical people that they can. Punch a big hole in their wallets, and the employees are more likely to find new employers than to follow MS. MS has a history of caring for its employees, so to move they would need to compensate the employees for the loss on their housing investments. That would be a huge cost in addition to the move itself.
You can prevent it from ever showing its coiled, metalic face ever again by using these instructions from Microsoft. But after doing that, you still need the patch (I believe) because the underlying scripts would still be able to run.
I followed the Microsoft instructions for disabling Office Assistant. But from the looks of the ZDnet article, even after removing the damn thing, I still have the threat because the scripts underlying it are still marked as safe.
Damn it, even when I've completely eradicated the blasted thing from showing on my screen ever again; it's still a problem. Hopefully this patch will let me eliminate the last vestiges of clippy's influence on my Win box. It (clippy) was a bad idea that should be forgotten and buried.