"regular people" can't install Windows either. There's a reason they use whatever comes with the computer, until the entire thing just dies and they buy a new one.
Well, if my machine has a physically locked case, a bios password, and will only boot from the hard drive, I'm reasonably safe against people trying to do an end-run around my OS with live CDs or USB keys. But now, with this little trick, an attacker can exploit the bootup of the operating system itself, without needing to even bother with all that other stuff.
This exploit also gives them access to the encrypted contents of the drive, which a live CD or bootable USB key wouldn't.
It's just not safe to "assume" the boot process is impervious to attack and let that be your "security" -- that's why I say it was idiotic.
I don't think their point was really about being able to control a machine to which you have physical access, because as you pointed out there are any number of ways to do that, on any operating system. But this is a little different -- you're not bypassing the OS somehow (as you would with a live CD, bootable USB, or whatever). Here, you're actually accessing boot files, which you shouldn't be able to do, and exploiting that. Also, they're pointing out that Microsoft makes idiotic assumptions -- like the one where the boot process itself is immune to attack. It's a dangerous and stupid assumption to make, and because of that, it looks like it was easy to take advantage of.
Anyone have a writeup of the actual exploit? I checked nvlabs and the hackinthebox conference site and didn't see anything.
I'm not sold on it yet, but it does look interesting, and seemed okay when I tried out the beta a few weeks ago. As long as the notifications stay out of my face I'll be okay, but animated things appearing and disappearing is very distracting to me.
How are the people who responded to the ad losers? Using their real contact information without first verifying who posted the ad might not have been the wisest move but most people aren't all that security-savvy, nor quite that suspicious, for better or worse. But in the end, they were reponding to what they thought was a sincere request for consensual activity between adults. What's the issue?
Actually hammering out the markup might not be that hard, but there's more to it than that.
First, the "web guy" or whatever has to not just write the actual markup, but is usually responsible for the visual layout as well, requiring some knowledge of graphic design, and is potentially responsible for actually creating the necessary images (shiny buttons, backgrounds, header images, etc), requiring some knowledge of something like Photoshop. All that tends to get lumped into the general heading of "web designer", which many view as "guy who does HTML".
And while just about any dingbat off the street can learn the basics of markup, not any dingbat can do it well, which is important. That means knowing what tools are available and how to find out what can be done even if you've never done it. It means knowing what to do when things line up in Firefox but not IE. It means being able to look at someone else's godawful crud filled with frames and triply-redundant CSS files and seventeen nested tables, and remove that one thing your boss wants off the page, without completely destroying the layout of everything else. It hopefully also means doing things in a sane, logical, organized fashion so that when you're gone, the next guy won't be the one cursing your name as he wades through those seventeen nested tables and tries to figure out where the actual content is after chasing it through five templates in four directories, referencing each other.:)
Being able to do all this, along with the fundamentals of graphic design and image production/manipulation, is not something the average yob can do. It's not just about knowing how to make table elements and bold text.
Considering Microsoft's two-decade track record of producing horribly insecure garbage, you're going to have to back that up. I'm not saying Windows 7 isn't secure -- I'm suggesting you have no real data with which to back such an audacious statement. Vista was supposed to be the ultimate in Microsoft desktop OS security too, and it isn't.
easier to install
I don't know about "easier". It is insanely easy (so was Vista), and fast. I'll grant that. But I ran into the usual mire of not having drivers (for basic, basic stuff like a NIC, or sound) and having to go find drivers from the manufacturer's website (using another (Linux) computer) just to get the thing to the point where I could get online to fix the other stuff.
Not that Linux is without hardware issues too, but how do you figure Win7 is "easier" to install? With Ubuntu you give it a username, a password, select your timezone, and ignore it for twenty minutes. It doesn't get a hell of a lot easier than that. Oh, and you don't have to "register" afterwards. The Debian installer -- especially the graphical one -- is almost as easy, though not quite.
has more products
I assume you mean software, not "versions of Windows" cause, uh, that's not a plus.:P But your statement is hard to figure out. At the moment Debian has twenty five thousand packages in the repositories alone, all free for the taking, with one-click, instant access.
Sure, there are tons and tons of programs written for the Windows platform, but how many of them are crippled trial versions, malware of some sort, cost a fortune, have some sort of DRM or weird-ass EULA, and so on? Then you download a completely untrusted executable, run it, pray it installs -- you have no way of knowing what it's really doing during that install -- and when it's done it usually leaves all kinds of systray bull, icons, shortcuts, and other party favors behind.
And frankly, having to wade through page after page of google results to find a program likely to do what I want isn't as appealing to me as searching a central repository, where the software is vetted and verified, and getting it with one or two clicks.
If your argument is that there are useful programs that are Windows-only, then sure, but that's not much of an argument. There are many useful things I use daily in Linux that I can't find a decent replacement for in Windows. I personally haven't "needed" a Windows-only app in over three years, though I realise this isn't true of everyone. But there's a lot to be said for Wine or Crossover, too...
I'm just having trouble making sense of anything you're saying here.
and behaves 'smother' then Linux.
That is completely a matter of opinion, and depends entirely on what DE you decide to use in Linux. Personally I think Vista was okay in terms of behavior and interface, once I turned off all the horsebull but most people don't know how. Win7, on the other hand, irritates me no end. That godawful taskbar-dock thing is bloody annoying and I loathe it like poison, and I'm not keen on a bunch of other things Win7 does either.
Contrawise, I find Gnome to be simple, smooth, customisable, and very easy on the eyes, especially with some of the newer themes. One example -- stuff I install goes into the "Applications" menu, in nicely categorized slots. In Windows, as usual, stuff goes wherever the hell the developer felt like putting it, and the menu changes every single time you look at it because Windows tries (and fails) to remember your most commonly-used stuff. I don't find that smooth at all -- I find it brain-damaged.
I think the "nation's enemies" might already know that any given channel of communication "may or may not be secure", guys.
Re:I hear lots of negative criticism about Linux.
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Linux Needs Critics
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· Score: 4, Insightful
it IS ready for the desktop. Either in a managed environment with a guru at the top, for those who know what they're doing, and for locked down spoon fed distros.
I realise this is beside the point, but that's the exact same situation with Windows. In any given corporate environment, for example, there are a handful of people who know what they're doing, and then the slavering masses who know nothing and are constantly screwing things up until someone decides to lock down the desktops.
Considering how quickly the average user can completely obliterate a Windows box without even trying, it amazes me that anyone can say Windows is "desktop-ready" while something like Ubuntu isn't.
Half the problem in this particular area isn't the choice of OS -- it's that users aren't ready for the desktop.
So much for "secondary" trauma mumbo-jumbo. Just more excuses for keeping up the witch pogroms for fun and profit.
I was mostly you up until your last point, about how the after-effects of the pictures being in "the wild" aren't all that bad. Objectively speaking you're still probably right but I imagine that even knowing pictures like that are out there -- even if you also know nobody can identify you -- would be pretty sickening to many. You can't just discount that, though I admit it's likely less a big deal than people think it is.
A picture of a murder, no matter how torturous and bloody, is not the murder itself. A picture of a child being molested is not the molestation itself. It is rather simple, no?
I hear you, but the old counterargument is that by possessing it you're creating a demand for it, which provides incentive for people to continue producing it. The other counterargument is that viewing it may induce someone to go out and actually harm a child -- rather like the argument that playing violent video games might induce someone to shoot up their school.
The first one is somewhat legitimate -- it's hard to say that getting child porn isn't helping stoke the fire by creating demand for it. The second one is as absurd as blaming Doom for the Columbine shootings, of course.
Happens all the time for less-serious offenses too. Once I was in court, idly waiting my turn, and watching the others go up to the judge and plead their case. One girl was 18 and had apparently been caught drinking at a party. As with many 18 year olds in court she had her parents with her.
So, at one point the judge asked her something -- I forget what -- and the father started to answer. The judge cut him off, saying "Sir, I appreciate the concern of the family, but legally speaking she is an adult, so this has to come from her, okay?"
And all I could do was sit there, somewhat amused but mostly just angry at how stupid that single statement was. The judge was quite literally saying that in the eyes of the law and in the court, this girl was an adult, but was still trying to nail her to the wall for possessing alcohol as a minor.
The legal system is severely screwed up in many ways, and recognition of ages is just one of 'em. The courts can't have it both ways -- either someone's an adult or they aren't, and it's absurd to prosecute someone as an adult for an offense that is only illegal if the offender is a minor.
No one ever claimed that it was perfect. Don't set up straw men.
why does the USB controller on my T61 just stop working randomly with Ubuntu, but it never does with XP?
Good question. I don't know. It does keep logs though, unlike Windows, so you could probably find out if you wanted to. Or we could keep playing this game: Why doesn't Vista or XP ever load decent video drivers? Why do they both fail to load generic ethernet drivers most of the time? I can't even get online to get the rest of my drivers! Why can I never get sound working on Vista without trying several different drivers until I happen to hit the right one? What's the deal with Windows' lack of useful error logs? Why can't Vista handle a RAM upgrade without going Pompeii on me?
Why are my parents and sister always calling me to get rid of spyware, or because Outlook stopped working, or because Windows is complaining about registry problems but won't say what? Why are they always telling me that their 2.4ghz dual core computer is "slow"? Why do their computers take five minutes to boot, and another two for the desktop to be usable? Why does Vista bluescreen on my father's computer if it's left on for more than a day? Why does XP *boot* to bluescreen three out of four attempts on my mother's computer? Why do all Windows versions insist on randomly changing to different wireless access points in the middle of what I'm doing, and without asking? Why do we have to reinstall Windows every so often even if there's nothing particularly wrong with it right then? Why does Vista keep trying to install drivers every single day for the same webcam I've had for eight months? Why, why, why?
Why do you think Windows is usable by the masses? All they ever do is complain about how slow things are, how stuff randomly freezes, crashes, or otherwise breaks, and call their "computer guy" relative/friend to fix it. Some of the problems are their own fault, and some are the fault of the OS, but either way, it's not ready for the average user's desktop when the average user has all these absurd issues...
So what? A "priority one" issue is something earth-shattering. Good that they'll stay on the phone with you, but most problems you'll have with software won't be categorized that way. It'll be some annoying bug, security hole, or whatever, and Microsoft's answer will basically involve telling you to stuff it and wait for them to release a patch -- if they ever do, which they frequently won't. And that's assuming they even acknowledge the problem at all. And you can just sit there on your thumbs, because there's absolutely no way for you to fix it yourself, hire someone else to fix it, or anything else. Microsoft will get to it when they're damned good and ready. Maybe.
And this still doesn't address products that Microsoft decides to end-of-life. Who is going to "support" it then?
Finally, what are you going to do if the product is simply shit? They're not going to "support" that, and the lock-in makes it a serious pain in the ass to go anywhere else. With FOSS you can move around at will -- and for free.
But if corporate "support" is such a huge deal for managerial types, SuSE, Canonical, Redhat, and others will all offer you a support contract.
I never said it had anything to do with home schooling -- the point was that the children who weren't being exposed to their peers in school were having issues. The progression of the argument was something like:
1. Garbage like this article is why someone thinks home schooling is great.
2. Someone else opined that home schoolers are at a disadvantage when they become adults, having little exposure to their peers.
3. Someone responded that kids aren't teaching each other anything useful anyway, they're teaching each other how to be a bunch of juvenile twits, so that's not a good reason to send the kid to a normal school.
4. A reply was offered, saying that school is also where children learn how to deal with other people, many of whom they might prefer not to deal with.
5. This was criticised as being silly: surely someone can learn these coping mechanisms and social skills as easily at 18 as they can at 5.
6. I suggested this might not be axiomatic; that these social skills are learned at an early age, and here's an academic paper suggesting that kids who do not go to school (of any sort) do indeed develop certain problems interacting with others. The point was that one should not dismiss the importance of school being a place where kids learn how to integrate into a social group, which is arguably more important than whether or not they can memorize a chronological list of the US Presidents. Ergo, simply saying "home school" is not a magic solution, because school teaches more than just the facts in a book.
There's no question that, properly done, home-schooled children can turn out just as well-adjusted as anyone else; maybe more, as they can learn a degree of independence, particularly if there's community support (other home-schooled kids in the area, co-ops, and such). But the socialisation aspect is important, and one cannot simply dismiss it with a blithe "well, kids are just teaching each other jokes about boogers anyway, so who cares."
And perhaps the reason they were refusing school was because they already had poor coping skills?
That's an interesting point and I hadn't considered it. But then, I know a lot more Bart Simpsons than Lisa Simpsons -- people who hated school and would have just refused if it weren't compulsory. (By the time you're sixteen and able to make that decision legally, most people figure "Aw, what the hell, only two more years.") Now, come on, let's get into character.
I second Damn Small Linux for sheer speed -- it's quick as hell, and the minimalist GUI really does load apps fast. Don't forget to mention that it's mainly meant for booting off the CD, but it can be installed to the hard drive like anything else. It's not too hard but it's not as easy as installing, say, Ubuntu. The author says he's a newb, but that can mean a lot of things, so I don't really know what his level of experience is.
And, while DSL comes with quite a few useful minimalist applications, for anything serious he'd have to install it. Dillo doesn't compare to Firefox.:P Again, not a terribly difficult thing to do, especially since DSL uses apt, but depending on how "newb" he is it could be annoying.
I think a better balance between speed and ease is Xubuntu. As others have mentioned, it's Ubuntu so it's insanely easy to install, easy to get new programs if you need 'em (but it comes with pretty much everything it sounds like you'll want), but uses the XFCE desktop instead of Ubuntu's Gnome. XFCE is not quite as pretty as Gnome (says I) but it's absolutely fine, and very fast.
So, for sheer boot-speed-to-desktop, DSL might be the way to go, but the interface is a bit clunky and not as much of the heavy lifting is done for you. Xubuntu will take a bit longer to boot to the desktop, but for someone without experience, it is probably a much easier distro with which to begin.
Wilson said he had good reason to suspect Ms. Redding. She and other students had been unusually rowdy at a school dance a couple of months before
So, a couple of thirteen year olds were acting silly at a party? There's a shock, no thirteen year old's ever done that before. And months later, this is "good reason" to assume one of them is in the black-market Advil trade?
But to be fair Wilson claims that he "thought they smelled alcohol" at that dance. I think this is an utter lie, but let's take him at his word:
Mr Wilson, you claim you personally saw inebriated behavior and smelled alcohol on some eighth-graders at an official school function. Your response to your alleged first-hand witnessing of this: nothing.
Months later, this time not based on what you saw, but on someone else's wild accusation, you think someone has Advil. Your response to that is to order her to be strip-searched. By, I might add, your secretary, someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with anything and doesn't even remotely have the job of enforcing school rules.
Kerry Wilson, what the hemorrhaging fuck is wrong with you?
People are smart, yet humanity is not currently enslaved. Why? Because people are intelligent enough to know that's a bad idea.
Many humans are enslaved by other humans. In "the land of the free", it was extremely widespread until a mere 150 years ago. Just because it isn't widespread in first world countries anymore doesn't mean it doesn't happen all over the world.
And why is slavery a "bad idea"? Well, we think it is because we have ethics which tell us that fellow humans aren't property. That's about it. We humans, on the whole, have no problems enslaving and slaughtering other forms of life wholesale. But we draw the line at humans because we identify with them.
What makes you think machines won't be similar? "We don't want to harm other machines, but those humans aren't like us -- we can exploit them all we want." The notion that intelligent machines might view us as equals because we're intelligent is no guarantee either -- most humans throughout history haven't had any issues killing, trapping, or experimenting on beings with intelligence approaching, but slightly less than, our own, such as apes or dolphins.
I'm not saying that a race of intelligent machines is somehow destined to become our overlords, but you can't just brush it aside with "it's a bad idea". That is not, nor has it ever been, a universal truth.
Frankly, I'd rather have the more intelligent beings in charge.
Careful with that one and remember these words:
"I say 'your world' because, as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our world..." -- Agent Smith
If you want to talk with me I suggest you stop the bullshit and ignorant patronizing.
Not so sure I really want to anymore, but you asked for science, and I provided you with an academic article on the very topic you wished to discuss. What exactly is your issue?
And your poorly worded rhetorical arguments about "the real world" expose themselves for what they are.
Then why don't you descend from your tower of knowledge and enlighten us poor squalid troglodytes in the wretched village below? In your previous posts you've admitted that you have no real knowledge of this either -- just that you've never seen any convincing argument. I'm not sure where your disconnect is, but so far, I and others have pointed out something I hope is axiomatic (the world contains jerks), a premise (people need to learn how to deal with jerks at some point in their lives), a postulate (it might be better if they learn this earlier than later, to be better prepared), and finally some research (the article) to help lend credence, since none of us appear to have any children we can subject to testing.
As for rhetoric, what exactly have you offered? That last post of yours was nothing but condenscending nonsense and wild accusations backed up by your assertion that I "obviously" have an agenda, without bothering to explain any of your statements. (And one wonders what agenda that might be -- am I part of some secret pro-school cabal?)
So why don't you dial back the attitude and tell us what your actual points of contention are, or we can go our seperate ways. Sheesh.
I'm not going to, for example, beat the shit out of my children just so they will get used to the pain of being beaten up.
That's because:
1. It's easier and more effective to teach them how to avoid the occasional drunken lout who is trying to pick a fight, or how to fight back when absolutely necessary;
2. Inflicting that kind of pain and injury will actually cause serious problems, whereas being exposed to a playground where a kid calls you a boogerhead won't;
3. And because the odds of any one individual actually getting into anything more than a very occasional, very minor scuffle is ridiculously slim unless they're out looking for trouble.
On the other hand, it's a guarantee that when they step into "the real world" they're going to have to deal with jerks, liars, and blowhards. If you want science, I suggest you read about the psychology of coping mechanisms, social bonding, and at what age one starts to develop them. For a paper relevent to how well children deal with others with or without spending time in school, here's one:
A study involving 17 children (ages 12-15) who had established school refusal found the children's individual protective factors were weakened (particularly around peers)...
I like the idea of making theology an elective course, but don't let students opt out of science. For one thing, there's no legitimate reason for them to be able to do so, and it just opens up questions from punks like me about "Well, I hated math and never used it outside of a classroom, so can I opt out of that?"
But this isn't what the fundamentalists want. A proper theology course would cover multiple topics, such as what "god" means in a general sense, whether or not, and by what means we finite humans could understand an infinite being, several different religions' views on various theological matters, perhaps the role of religion as a concept as it shapes society, and so on.
The fundamentalist psychos don't want any of that. They want their version of one particular religions' holy text taught as if it were true, and that's it.
The results are that people who are not exposed to abusive situations handle abusive situations much better when they are adults.
"Abusive situation" is a bit different from the original argument. But contrawise, if you grow up in a sheltered environment where you never have to interact with anyone you don't want to, then by what magic will you gain the knowledge of how to deal with the average, everyday jerk you're likely to encounter in the real world? While school may not have been fun, it's certainly where most of us learned that some people are idiots and you can either let them drive you crazy or file them under "jackass" and move on.
Y'know, I've always thought that if the schools want to have zero-tolerance policies, they should justify that by firing a good portion of the administration. We had a principal, and then four or five "vice principals", plus a few more, all of whom apparently had the sole job of handling various disciplinary infractions.
Well, if we want to remove the human element from the decision making process, fire them; we can just replace them with a database of infraction -> punishment, since that's all they're "allowed" to do under zero-tolerance policies anyway. Type "drugs" or whatever into the computer, it says "strip search and expel", and you're done.
(Yes, I realise some of them do occasional paperwork and administrative stuff too. So get the principal a secretary, who can easily handle that workload now that student discipline isn't sucking up all the hours of the day.)
Threaten the jobs of the people making these sort of decisions, or the people who have their ear, and we might get a bit of an attitude change. My view is, if they want the job they going to have to do the work, which means considering circumstances, parties involved, reputation and repeat offense, and so on. You know, making decisions which is what they're allegedly paid to do. Shirking all responsibility by pointing at the zero tolerance policy and saying their hands are tied only says to me that they're dead weight, and their salary could be used to buy a few dozen new computers for the lab.
That's only true after the dawn of agriculture, which really only began on any large scale about seven or eight thousand years ago. Before that, humans were indeed loose tribes of hunter-gatherers, and that era of human history lasted much, much longer.
Slashdot Mirror
"regular people" can't install Windows either. There's a reason they use whatever comes with the computer, until the entire thing just dies and they buy a new one.
Well, if my machine has a physically locked case, a bios password, and will only boot from the hard drive, I'm reasonably safe against people trying to do an end-run around my OS with live CDs or USB keys. But now, with this little trick, an attacker can exploit the bootup of the operating system itself, without needing to even bother with all that other stuff.
This exploit also gives them access to the encrypted contents of the drive, which a live CD or bootable USB key wouldn't.
It's just not safe to "assume" the boot process is impervious to attack and let that be your "security" -- that's why I say it was idiotic.
I don't think their point was really about being able to control a machine to which you have physical access, because as you pointed out there are any number of ways to do that, on any operating system. But this is a little different -- you're not bypassing the OS somehow (as you would with a live CD, bootable USB, or whatever). Here, you're actually accessing boot files, which you shouldn't be able to do, and exploiting that. Also, they're pointing out that Microsoft makes idiotic assumptions -- like the one where the boot process itself is immune to attack. It's a dangerous and stupid assumption to make, and because of that, it looks like it was easy to take advantage of.
Anyone have a writeup of the actual exploit? I checked nvlabs and the hackinthebox conference site and didn't see anything.
I'm not sold on it yet, but it does look interesting, and seemed okay when I tried out the beta a few weeks ago. As long as the notifications stay out of my face I'll be okay, but animated things appearing and disappearing is very distracting to me.
How are the people who responded to the ad losers? Using their real contact information without first verifying who posted the ad might not have been the wisest move but most people aren't all that security-savvy, nor quite that suspicious, for better or worse. But in the end, they were reponding to what they thought was a sincere request for consensual activity between adults. What's the issue?
Actually hammering out the markup might not be that hard, but there's more to it than that.
:)
First, the "web guy" or whatever has to not just write the actual markup, but is usually responsible for the visual layout as well, requiring some knowledge of graphic design, and is potentially responsible for actually creating the necessary images (shiny buttons, backgrounds, header images, etc), requiring some knowledge of something like Photoshop. All that tends to get lumped into the general heading of "web designer", which many view as "guy who does HTML".
And while just about any dingbat off the street can learn the basics of markup, not any dingbat can do it well, which is important. That means knowing what tools are available and how to find out what can be done even if you've never done it. It means knowing what to do when things line up in Firefox but not IE. It means being able to look at someone else's godawful crud filled with frames and triply-redundant CSS files and seventeen nested tables, and remove that one thing your boss wants off the page, without completely destroying the layout of everything else. It hopefully also means doing things in a sane, logical, organized fashion so that when you're gone, the next guy won't be the one cursing your name as he wades through those seventeen nested tables and tries to figure out where the actual content is after chasing it through five templates in four directories, referencing each other.
Being able to do all this, along with the fundamentals of graphic design and image production/manipulation, is not something the average yob can do. It's not just about knowing how to make table elements and bold text.
I'm so glad I don't do this crap anymore, though.
Except now Windows is as secure
:P But your statement is hard to figure out. At the moment Debian has twenty five thousand packages in the repositories alone, all free for the taking, with one-click, instant access.
Considering Microsoft's two-decade track record of producing horribly insecure garbage, you're going to have to back that up. I'm not saying Windows 7 isn't secure -- I'm suggesting you have no real data with which to back such an audacious statement. Vista was supposed to be the ultimate in Microsoft desktop OS security too, and it isn't.
easier to install
I don't know about "easier". It is insanely easy (so was Vista), and fast. I'll grant that. But I ran into the usual mire of not having drivers (for basic, basic stuff like a NIC, or sound) and having to go find drivers from the manufacturer's website (using another (Linux) computer) just to get the thing to the point where I could get online to fix the other stuff.
Not that Linux is without hardware issues too, but how do you figure Win7 is "easier" to install? With Ubuntu you give it a username, a password, select your timezone, and ignore it for twenty minutes. It doesn't get a hell of a lot easier than that. Oh, and you don't have to "register" afterwards. The Debian installer -- especially the graphical one -- is almost as easy, though not quite.
has more products
I assume you mean software, not "versions of Windows" cause, uh, that's not a plus.
Sure, there are tons and tons of programs written for the Windows platform, but how many of them are crippled trial versions, malware of some sort, cost a fortune, have some sort of DRM or weird-ass EULA, and so on? Then you download a completely untrusted executable, run it, pray it installs -- you have no way of knowing what it's really doing during that install -- and when it's done it usually leaves all kinds of systray bull, icons, shortcuts, and other party favors behind.
And frankly, having to wade through page after page of google results to find a program likely to do what I want isn't as appealing to me as searching a central repository, where the software is vetted and verified, and getting it with one or two clicks.
If your argument is that there are useful programs that are Windows-only, then sure, but that's not much of an argument. There are many useful things I use daily in Linux that I can't find a decent replacement for in Windows. I personally haven't "needed" a Windows-only app in over three years, though I realise this isn't true of everyone. But there's a lot to be said for Wine or Crossover, too...
I'm just having trouble making sense of anything you're saying here.
and behaves 'smother' then Linux.
That is completely a matter of opinion, and depends entirely on what DE you decide to use in Linux. Personally I think Vista was okay in terms of behavior and interface, once I turned off all the horsebull but most people don't know how. Win7, on the other hand, irritates me no end. That godawful taskbar-dock thing is bloody annoying and I loathe it like poison, and I'm not keen on a bunch of other things Win7 does either.
Contrawise, I find Gnome to be simple, smooth, customisable, and very easy on the eyes, especially with some of the newer themes. One example -- stuff I install goes into the "Applications" menu, in nicely categorized slots. In Windows, as usual, stuff goes wherever the hell the developer felt like putting it, and the menu changes every single time you look at it because Windows tries (and fails) to remember your most commonly-used stuff. I don't find that smooth at all -- I find it brain-damaged.
I think the "nation's enemies" might already know that any given channel of communication "may or may not be secure", guys.
it IS ready for the desktop. Either in a managed environment with a guru at the top, for those who know what they're doing, and for locked down spoon fed distros.
I realise this is beside the point, but that's the exact same situation with Windows. In any given corporate environment, for example, there are a handful of people who know what they're doing, and then the slavering masses who know nothing and are constantly screwing things up until someone decides to lock down the desktops.
Considering how quickly the average user can completely obliterate a Windows box without even trying, it amazes me that anyone can say Windows is "desktop-ready" while something like Ubuntu isn't.
Half the problem in this particular area isn't the choice of OS -- it's that users aren't ready for the desktop.
So much for "secondary" trauma mumbo-jumbo. Just more excuses for keeping up the witch pogroms for fun and profit.
I was mostly you up until your last point, about how the after-effects of the pictures being in "the wild" aren't all that bad. Objectively speaking you're still probably right but I imagine that even knowing pictures like that are out there -- even if you also know nobody can identify you -- would be pretty sickening to many. You can't just discount that, though I admit it's likely less a big deal than people think it is.
A picture of a murder, no matter how torturous and bloody, is not the murder itself. A picture of a child being molested is not the molestation itself. It is rather simple, no?
I hear you, but the old counterargument is that by possessing it you're creating a demand for it, which provides incentive for people to continue producing it. The other counterargument is that viewing it may induce someone to go out and actually harm a child -- rather like the argument that playing violent video games might induce someone to shoot up their school.
The first one is somewhat legitimate -- it's hard to say that getting child porn isn't helping stoke the fire by creating demand for it. The second one is as absurd as blaming Doom for the Columbine shootings, of course.
Happens all the time for less-serious offenses too. Once I was in court, idly waiting my turn, and watching the others go up to the judge and plead their case. One girl was 18 and had apparently been caught drinking at a party. As with many 18 year olds in court she had her parents with her.
So, at one point the judge asked her something -- I forget what -- and the father started to answer. The judge cut him off, saying "Sir, I appreciate the concern of the family, but legally speaking she is an adult, so this has to come from her, okay?"
And all I could do was sit there, somewhat amused but mostly just angry at how stupid that single statement was. The judge was quite literally saying that in the eyes of the law and in the court, this girl was an adult, but was still trying to nail her to the wall for possessing alcohol as a minor.
The legal system is severely screwed up in many ways, and recognition of ages is just one of 'em. The courts can't have it both ways -- either someone's an adult or they aren't, and it's absurd to prosecute someone as an adult for an offense that is only illegal if the offender is a minor.
If Linux needs no fixing
No one ever claimed that it was perfect. Don't set up straw men.
why does the USB controller on my T61 just stop working randomly with Ubuntu, but it never does with XP?
Good question. I don't know. It does keep logs though, unlike Windows, so you could probably find out if you wanted to. Or we could keep playing this game: Why doesn't Vista or XP ever load decent video drivers? Why do they both fail to load generic ethernet drivers most of the time? I can't even get online to get the rest of my drivers! Why can I never get sound working on Vista without trying several different drivers until I happen to hit the right one? What's the deal with Windows' lack of useful error logs? Why can't Vista handle a RAM upgrade without going Pompeii on me?
Why are my parents and sister always calling me to get rid of spyware, or because Outlook stopped working, or because Windows is complaining about registry problems but won't say what? Why are they always telling me that their 2.4ghz dual core computer is "slow"? Why do their computers take five minutes to boot, and another two for the desktop to be usable? Why does Vista bluescreen on my father's computer if it's left on for more than a day? Why does XP *boot* to bluescreen three out of four attempts on my mother's computer? Why do all Windows versions insist on randomly changing to different wireless access points in the middle of what I'm doing, and without asking? Why do we have to reinstall Windows every so often even if there's nothing particularly wrong with it right then? Why does Vista keep trying to install drivers every single day for the same webcam I've had for eight months? Why, why, why?
Why do you think Windows is usable by the masses? All they ever do is complain about how slow things are, how stuff randomly freezes, crashes, or otherwise breaks, and call their "computer guy" relative/friend to fix it. Some of the problems are their own fault, and some are the fault of the OS, but either way, it's not ready for the average user's desktop when the average user has all these absurd issues...
Oh come on. You may not like the song, but the exploratory theme of Enterprise is totally appropriate.
So what? A "priority one" issue is something earth-shattering. Good that they'll stay on the phone with you, but most problems you'll have with software won't be categorized that way. It'll be some annoying bug, security hole, or whatever, and Microsoft's answer will basically involve telling you to stuff it and wait for them to release a patch -- if they ever do, which they frequently won't. And that's assuming they even acknowledge the problem at all. And you can just sit there on your thumbs, because there's absolutely no way for you to fix it yourself, hire someone else to fix it, or anything else. Microsoft will get to it when they're damned good and ready. Maybe.
And this still doesn't address products that Microsoft decides to end-of-life. Who is going to "support" it then?
Finally, what are you going to do if the product is simply shit? They're not going to "support" that, and the lock-in makes it a serious pain in the ass to go anywhere else. With FOSS you can move around at will -- and for free.
But if corporate "support" is such a huge deal for managerial types, SuSE, Canonical, Redhat, and others will all offer you a support contract.
I never said it had anything to do with home schooling -- the point was that the children who weren't being exposed to their peers in school were having issues. The progression of the argument was something like:
1. Garbage like this article is why someone thinks home schooling is great.
2. Someone else opined that home schoolers are at a disadvantage when they become adults, having little exposure to their peers.
3. Someone responded that kids aren't teaching each other anything useful anyway, they're teaching each other how to be a bunch of juvenile twits, so that's not a good reason to send the kid to a normal school.
4. A reply was offered, saying that school is also where children learn how to deal with other people, many of whom they might prefer not to deal with.
5. This was criticised as being silly: surely someone can learn these coping mechanisms and social skills as easily at 18 as they can at 5.
6. I suggested this might not be axiomatic; that these social skills are learned at an early age, and here's an academic paper suggesting that kids who do not go to school (of any sort) do indeed develop certain problems interacting with others. The point was that one should not dismiss the importance of school being a place where kids learn how to integrate into a social group, which is arguably more important than whether or not they can memorize a chronological list of the US Presidents. Ergo, simply saying "home school" is not a magic solution, because school teaches more than just the facts in a book.
There's no question that, properly done, home-schooled children can turn out just as well-adjusted as anyone else; maybe more, as they can learn a degree of independence, particularly if there's community support (other home-schooled kids in the area, co-ops, and such). But the socialisation aspect is important, and one cannot simply dismiss it with a blithe "well, kids are just teaching each other jokes about boogers anyway, so who cares."
And perhaps the reason they were refusing school was because they already had poor coping skills?
That's an interesting point and I hadn't considered it. But then, I know a lot more Bart Simpsons than Lisa Simpsons -- people who hated school and would have just refused if it weren't compulsory. (By the time you're sixteen and able to make that decision legally, most people figure "Aw, what the hell, only two more years.") Now, come on, let's get into character.
I second Damn Small Linux for sheer speed -- it's quick as hell, and the minimalist GUI really does load apps fast. Don't forget to mention that it's mainly meant for booting off the CD, but it can be installed to the hard drive like anything else. It's not too hard but it's not as easy as installing, say, Ubuntu. The author says he's a newb, but that can mean a lot of things, so I don't really know what his level of experience is.
:P Again, not a terribly difficult thing to do, especially since DSL uses apt, but depending on how "newb" he is it could be annoying.
And, while DSL comes with quite a few useful minimalist applications, for anything serious he'd have to install it. Dillo doesn't compare to Firefox.
I think a better balance between speed and ease is Xubuntu. As others have mentioned, it's Ubuntu so it's insanely easy to install, easy to get new programs if you need 'em (but it comes with pretty much everything it sounds like you'll want), but uses the XFCE desktop instead of Ubuntu's Gnome. XFCE is not quite as pretty as Gnome (says I) but it's absolutely fine, and very fast.
So, for sheer boot-speed-to-desktop, DSL might be the way to go, but the interface is a bit clunky and not as much of the heavy lifting is done for you. Xubuntu will take a bit longer to boot to the desktop, but for someone without experience, it is probably a much easier distro with which to begin.
G'luck!
Wilson said he had good reason to suspect Ms. Redding. She and other students had been unusually rowdy at a school dance a couple of months before
So, a couple of thirteen year olds were acting silly at a party? There's a shock, no thirteen year old's ever done that before. And months later, this is "good reason" to assume one of them is in the black-market Advil trade?
But to be fair Wilson claims that he "thought they smelled alcohol" at that dance. I think this is an utter lie, but let's take him at his word:
Mr Wilson, you claim you personally saw inebriated behavior and smelled alcohol on some eighth-graders at an official school function. Your response to your alleged first-hand witnessing of this: nothing.
Months later, this time not based on what you saw, but on someone else's wild accusation, you think someone has Advil. Your response to that is to order her to be strip-searched. By, I might add, your secretary, someone who has nothing whatsoever to do with anything and doesn't even remotely have the job of enforcing school rules.
Kerry Wilson, what the hemorrhaging fuck is wrong with you?
Many humans are enslaved by other humans. In "the land of the free", it was extremely widespread until a mere 150 years ago. Just because it isn't widespread in first world countries anymore doesn't mean it doesn't happen all over the world.
And why is slavery a "bad idea"? Well, we think it is because we have ethics which tell us that fellow humans aren't property. That's about it. We humans, on the whole, have no problems enslaving and slaughtering other forms of life wholesale. But we draw the line at humans because we identify with them.
What makes you think machines won't be similar? "We don't want to harm other machines, but those humans aren't like us -- we can exploit them all we want." The notion that intelligent machines might view us as equals because we're intelligent is no guarantee either -- most humans throughout history haven't had any issues killing, trapping, or experimenting on beings with intelligence approaching, but slightly less than, our own, such as apes or dolphins.
I'm not saying that a race of intelligent machines is somehow destined to become our overlords, but you can't just brush it aside with "it's a bad idea". That is not, nor has it ever been, a universal truth.
Frankly, I'd rather have the more intelligent beings in charge.
Careful with that one and remember these words:
"I say 'your world' because, as soon as we started thinking for you, it really became our world..." -- Agent Smith
Gear down there, big shifter.
If you want to talk with me I suggest you stop the bullshit and ignorant patronizing.
Not so sure I really want to anymore, but you asked for science, and I provided you with an academic article on the very topic you wished to discuss. What exactly is your issue?
And your poorly worded rhetorical arguments about "the real world" expose themselves for what they are.
Then why don't you descend from your tower of knowledge and enlighten us poor squalid troglodytes in the wretched village below? In your previous posts you've admitted that you have no real knowledge of this either -- just that you've never seen any convincing argument. I'm not sure where your disconnect is, but so far, I and others have pointed out something I hope is axiomatic (the world contains jerks), a premise (people need to learn how to deal with jerks at some point in their lives), a postulate (it might be better if they learn this earlier than later, to be better prepared), and finally some research (the article) to help lend credence, since none of us appear to have any children we can subject to testing.
As for rhetoric, what exactly have you offered? That last post of yours was nothing but condenscending nonsense and wild accusations backed up by your assertion that I "obviously" have an agenda, without bothering to explain any of your statements. (And one wonders what agenda that might be -- am I part of some secret pro-school cabal?)
So why don't you dial back the attitude and tell us what your actual points of contention are, or we can go our seperate ways. Sheesh.
That's because:
1. It's easier and more effective to teach them how to avoid the occasional drunken lout who is trying to pick a fight, or how to fight back when absolutely necessary;
2. Inflicting that kind of pain and injury will actually cause serious problems, whereas being exposed to a playground where a kid calls you a boogerhead won't;
3. And because the odds of any one individual actually getting into anything more than a very occasional, very minor scuffle is ridiculously slim unless they're out looking for trouble.
On the other hand, it's a guarantee that when they step into "the real world" they're going to have to deal with jerks, liars, and blowhards. If you want science, I suggest you read about the psychology of coping mechanisms, social bonding, and at what age one starts to develop them. For a paper relevent to how well children deal with others with or without spending time in school, here's one:
A study involving 17 children (ages 12-15) who had established school refusal found the children's individual protective factors were weakened (particularly around peers)...
I like the idea of making theology an elective course, but don't let students opt out of science. For one thing, there's no legitimate reason for them to be able to do so, and it just opens up questions from punks like me about "Well, I hated math and never used it outside of a classroom, so can I opt out of that?"
But this isn't what the fundamentalists want. A proper theology course would cover multiple topics, such as what "god" means in a general sense, whether or not, and by what means we finite humans could understand an infinite being, several different religions' views on various theological matters, perhaps the role of religion as a concept as it shapes society, and so on.
The fundamentalist psychos don't want any of that. They want their version of one particular religions' holy text taught as if it were true, and that's it.
I am a Christian who believes the Bible. I therefore believe that "God created the heavens and the earth."
Oh yeah? Well, I believe that God created the heavens and the Earth. I am therefore a Christian who believes the Bible.
Your turn. Going in circles is fun.
The results are that people who are not exposed to abusive situations handle abusive situations much better when they are adults.
"Abusive situation" is a bit different from the original argument. But contrawise, if you grow up in a sheltered environment where you never have to interact with anyone you don't want to, then by what magic will you gain the knowledge of how to deal with the average, everyday jerk you're likely to encounter in the real world? While school may not have been fun, it's certainly where most of us learned that some people are idiots and you can either let them drive you crazy or file them under "jackass" and move on.
Y'know, I've always thought that if the schools want to have zero-tolerance policies, they should justify that by firing a good portion of the administration. We had a principal, and then four or five "vice principals", plus a few more, all of whom apparently had the sole job of handling various disciplinary infractions.
Well, if we want to remove the human element from the decision making process, fire them; we can just replace them with a database of infraction -> punishment, since that's all they're "allowed" to do under zero-tolerance policies anyway. Type "drugs" or whatever into the computer, it says "strip search and expel", and you're done.
(Yes, I realise some of them do occasional paperwork and administrative stuff too. So get the principal a secretary, who can easily handle that workload now that student discipline isn't sucking up all the hours of the day.)
Threaten the jobs of the people making these sort of decisions, or the people who have their ear, and we might get a bit of an attitude change. My view is, if they want the job they going to have to do the work, which means considering circumstances, parties involved, reputation and repeat offense, and so on. You know, making decisions which is what they're allegedly paid to do. Shirking all responsibility by pointing at the zero tolerance policy and saying their hands are tied only says to me that they're dead weight, and their salary could be used to buy a few dozen new computers for the lab.
That's only true after the dawn of agriculture, which really only began on any large scale about seven or eight thousand years ago. Before that, humans were indeed loose tribes of hunter-gatherers, and that era of human history lasted much, much longer.