Law-enforcement isn't your only adversary. It's just a good one to model because it's an adversary with lots of resources at its disposal, and not necessarily completely trustworthy.
No information technology is going to give you significant protection from the courts except in very limited circumstances.
So where's the HOWTO for porting OpenLDAP to Postgres for its datastore? There's some HOWTOs for porting it to MySQL, but MySQL doesn't scale as well as Postgres, and existing Postgres installs are out of luck.
Why would you want to port a hierarchical database to a relational DBMS?
Unix login doesn't have separate "username" and "domain" prompts like WinNT does. So here's what you do: Make "root" always a local user, and if you need an centralized "administrator" user, you create another user and add it to the "wheel" group or to/etc/sudoers or whatever, and that user can run "su" or "sudo -s" to get a root shell when necessary.
Funny story: A few years ago, we were testing Active Directory on some Win2K boxes. One of the security policies you can set is "disable the local administrator account". This can be set on the domain controller and propagated to all the clients. The problem with this is that, if you take a Windows workstation, and have it join a domain with this setting enabled, then almost immediately have it leave the domain, the "disable the local administrator account" will stay set. If you log out, you won't be able to log in again, and without logging in as an administrator, you can't re-join the domain.
If I were in my seventies, I certainly would NOT be getting legal advice from some random techie kid I know. That's what they're essentially what they're encouraging.
Cut the ISPs some slack here. They entered into a free-market, improved their services, then the free market changed so drastically they couldn't adapt without serious backlash.
Free market? For broadband? Where do you live? I would love to live somewhere where that was true!
Then ISPs need to stop their false advertising and start telling their enemies, er, customers what bandwidth they are really paying for.
No kidding! This is especially a problem when you move to a new city. My current cable ISP's claims of "unlimited transfer" gives you 5Mbps/1Mbps (down/up). They throttle you after 60 GB/month of transfer, and they ask people to stay below 40-50 GB/month (this is a non-profit geek-friendly ISP). I emailed another "unlimited" ISP in Ottawa (I'm considering moving there), and they told me that their limit was 10 GB/month---substantially less than what I currently use---unless I could "prove additional traffic was legitimate", though I'm not sure how I'd go about doing that and sitll maintain my privacy (give them my session keys? I don't think so).
Since my small business income depends on my Internet connection, and I typically use about 20-30 GB/month, the decision about which city I'm going to move to depends on what kind of residential Internet service is available. It frustrates me to no end that I can't get any straight answers from these people about what services they actually provide.
Advertising is not typically treated as an offer (at least, not in Canada; I assume the U.S. is similar). It's treated as an "invitation to treat". That's why we have separate laws about advertising, instead of just having everyone sue for breach of contract.
DVDs are exactly the kind of thing to use to explain DRM to the general public. Start with skipping commercials, and then move on to region coding, CSS, Macrovision (I couldn't transfer my old VHS tapes to DVD using a $200 VCR/DVDRW machine because it mistakes a bad-quality tape for the Macrovision signal distortion), etc.
... they didn't qualify it with 'Yes, she's good, for a girl.'"
The fact that there's still that kind of mentality in some places is just disheartening.
Yes, and it's exactly the kind of mentality that's promoted by sexist ("affirmative action") hiring practices. I mean, the entire basis for affirmative action is that certain identifiable groups are inherently disadvantaged when it comes to performing certain jobs, and that those groups require "help" from society.
To support affirmative action while criticizing the mentality that is its rationale is hypocritical. (I'm not accusing you specifically of this.)
And there's your mistake. That's a hilarious story, and you could have made some friends just be telling it. ("Hey, guess what happened to me yesterday?")
As for racism, your story doesn't convince me that there was any racism involved. You said you're a dwarf, right? Does your chair have a high back? It's obvious that the office cleaner didn't see you.
Seriously, while you may be putting up with discrimination in your daily life, this is almost certainly not such a case. Quit making a big deal out of something that is not.
Yes, that's the typical claim, but I have yet to see any convincing evidence of that. Got any?
When you're downloading songs/movies from the Internet, it doesn't matter to you what kind of DRM was used, since by the time you're downloading, the DRM is gone. The only thing DRM can do is to make it harder to make the 'original' free copies of things, but DRM has not made that all that difficult in the real world, to date, and I don't think the ??AA has ever been too worried about friend-to-friend copying.
He-said, she-said. That's how. Sexual harassment in the workplace is like child porn. It doesn't matter if the accusations are true, because once they're made, you're blacklisted.
I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but how do you know it's a gender clique? Perhaps your coworkers simply aren't interested in you, specifically.
How competent are you, technically-speaking? If these guys are geeks, it's quite possible that they're actually being completely non-sexist, which means they're going to be just as harsh, critical, and obnoxious with you as they would be with any man. Of course, women tend to take such criticism a lot more personally than men do, so it might seem worse than it is really intended to be. If that's the case, the best thing to do would be to be a little more assertive, rather than crying to Slashdot.;)
On the other hand, it's also possible that these guys are misogynist jerks who therefore aren't worth your time.
It could also be somewhere in between, i.e. there is some sexism but the guys are mostly unaware of it, and would probably be willing to change their behaviour if you pointed it out. In that case, proceed to point out an individual's sexist behaviour, BUT:
Do it with as few people around as possible. You are perceived to be at an advantage with anti-discrimination laws, and the bigger the scene that you make, the more threatened the other person is going to feel. This will make them less receptive to you.
Try not to have any records of the discussion. Again, if you're perceived as really trying to collect evidence for disciplinary action or a sexual harassment lawsuit, you're not going to make any friends.
Discuss specific behaviours, not blanket accusations of sexism. You're not going to make any progress with anyone who is consciously sexist, so there's no point in trying. Your goal is to change old habits of people who probably aren't sexist (and certainly don't view themselves as such) but are simply used to only interacting with other males.
Be prepared to support your claims with specific examples and sound reasoning. "I feel isolated and you are a male ergo you are sexist" will not win you any support. If you find that you cannot do so, then don't fall back on fallacious arguments like "I can't explain it but you're wrong anyway." No rational man wants to deal with "arguments" like that from anyone.
Be prepared to change your behaviour, too.
Finally, if nothing works, then just quit your job and go someplace more deserving of your talents. Don't make a big stink (or, at least, think very carefully before doing so) because that is guaranteed to isolate you, and it'll also have the effect of getting yourself labeled as a "troublemaker", making it harder to find a job at the aforementioned place that is more deserving of your talents.
Slashdot Mirror
Law-enforcement isn't your only adversary. It's just a good one to model because it's an adversary with lots of resources at its disposal, and not necessarily completely trustworthy.
No information technology is going to give you significant protection from the courts except in very limited circumstances.
Why would you want to port a hierarchical database to a relational DBMS?
Do you mean previously proprietary? I have a hard time believing that very many LDAP installations are non-commercial.
Not if you're the vendor!
Unix login doesn't have separate "username" and "domain" prompts like WinNT does. So here's what you do: Make "root" always a local user, and if you need an centralized "administrator" user, you create another user and add it to the "wheel" group or to /etc/sudoers or whatever, and that user can run "su" or "sudo -s" to get a root shell when necessary.
Funny story: A few years ago, we were testing Active Directory on some Win2K boxes. One of the security policies you can set is "disable the local administrator account". This can be set on the domain controller and propagated to all the clients. The problem with this is that, if you take a Windows workstation, and have it join a domain with this setting enabled, then almost immediately have it leave the domain, the "disable the local administrator account" will stay set. If you log out, you won't be able to log in again, and without logging in as an administrator, you can't re-join the domain.
It's a nice way to hose a Windows install.
If I were in my seventies, I certainly would NOT be getting legal advice from some random techie kid I know. That's what they're essentially what they're encouraging.
Satellite isn't even the same service, unless all you're doing is downloading porn, due to the high latencies.
And what the other guy said: a duopoly is not a free market. Well, technically it can be, but it's unlikely and certainly not necessarily so.
Free market? For broadband? Where do you live? I would love to live somewhere where that was true!
I'm planning to move to soon, and I would *love* to deal with a no-nonsense ISP like this.
No kidding! This is especially a problem when you move to a new city. My current cable ISP's claims of "unlimited transfer" gives you 5Mbps/1Mbps (down/up). They throttle you after 60 GB/month of transfer, and they ask people to stay below 40-50 GB/month (this is a non-profit geek-friendly ISP). I emailed another "unlimited" ISP in Ottawa (I'm considering moving there), and they told me that their limit was 10 GB/month---substantially less than what I currently use---unless I could "prove additional traffic was legitimate", though I'm not sure how I'd go about doing that and sitll maintain my privacy (give them my session keys? I don't think so).
Since my small business income depends on my Internet connection, and I typically use about 20-30 GB/month, the decision about which city I'm going to move to depends on what kind of residential Internet service is available. It frustrates me to no end that I can't get any straight answers from these people about what services they actually provide.
Advertising is not typically treated as an offer (at least, not in Canada; I assume the U.S. is similar). It's treated as an "invitation to treat". That's why we have separate laws about advertising, instead of just having everyone sue for breach of contract.
ISP "free markets" only exist where the last mile is owned/regulated by the public.
Who uses their computer to learn a musical instrument?
Get Firefox, and use it to order scores and a real metronome---and to find yourself a real music instructor---online.
The Windows startup sound is an integral part of Windows. See? [shows faked video] Look how poor the Windows experience without the sound.
It's a series of microscopic PVC tubes... stuffed, full of illegal pirated communist terror music about our children.
Nope, that's Venus and Earth. Mars is about one-third the mass of earth, IIRC.
... you'll always be able to disable the sound by changing your master boot record.
DVDs are exactly the kind of thing to use to explain DRM to the general public. Start with skipping commercials, and then move on to region coding, CSS, Macrovision (I couldn't transfer my old VHS tapes to DVD using a $200 VCR/DVDRW machine because it mistakes a bad-quality tape for the Macrovision signal distortion), etc.
Frickin morons who produced it ruined it by misspelling "belief".
Isn't the real question whether is it acceptable for an ISP to block mail that is not spam?
Yes, and it's exactly the kind of mentality that's promoted by sexist ("affirmative action") hiring practices. I mean, the entire basis for affirmative action is that certain identifiable groups are inherently disadvantaged when it comes to performing certain jobs, and that those groups require "help" from society.
To support affirmative action while criticizing the mentality that is its rationale is hypocritical. (I'm not accusing you specifically of this.)
And there's your mistake. That's a hilarious story, and you could have made some friends just be telling it. ("Hey, guess what happened to me yesterday?")
As for racism, your story doesn't convince me that there was any racism involved. You said you're a dwarf, right? Does your chair have a high back? It's obvious that the office cleaner didn't see you.
Seriously, while you may be putting up with discrimination in your daily life, this is almost certainly not such a case. Quit making a big deal out of something that is not.
Alternatively, quit trolling.
Yes, that's the typical claim, but I have yet to see any convincing evidence of that. Got any?
When you're downloading songs/movies from the Internet, it doesn't matter to you what kind of DRM was used, since by the time you're downloading, the DRM is gone. The only thing DRM can do is to make it harder to make the 'original' free copies of things, but DRM has not made that all that difficult in the real world, to date, and I don't think the ??AA has ever been too worried about friend-to-friend copying.
He-said, she-said. That's how. Sexual harassment in the workplace is like child porn. It doesn't matter if the accusations are true, because once they're made, you're blacklisted.
I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but how do you know it's a gender clique? Perhaps your coworkers simply aren't interested in you, specifically.
How competent are you, technically-speaking? If these guys are geeks, it's quite possible that they're actually being completely non-sexist, which means they're going to be just as harsh, critical, and obnoxious with you as they would be with any man. Of course, women tend to take such criticism a lot more personally than men do, so it might seem worse than it is really intended to be. If that's the case, the best thing to do would be to be a little more assertive, rather than crying to Slashdot. ;)
On the other hand, it's also possible that these guys are misogynist jerks who therefore aren't worth your time.
It could also be somewhere in between, i.e. there is some sexism but the guys are mostly unaware of it, and would probably be willing to change their behaviour if you pointed it out. In that case, proceed to point out an individual's sexist behaviour, BUT:
Finally, if nothing works, then just quit your job and go someplace more deserving of your talents. Don't make a big stink (or, at least, think very carefully before doing so) because that is guaranteed to isolate you, and it'll also have the effect of getting yourself labeled as a "troublemaker", making it harder to find a job at the aforementioned place that is more deserving of your talents.