Can Progress Survive Austerity as a Foregone Conclusion?
Yes, austerity is the environment where everyday innovation and new ideas thrive. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.
Austerity is caused by environments that shun new ideas and original thinking. Environments such as software patents, obvious patents and perpetual copyrights.
Today, in news, Michael Pascazi was launched into the sun by a unanimous vote of the worlds population, on charges of being a complete douche.
If we make a habit of this, we probably have enough complete douches here to keep the sun going for a few million extra years. Not to mention what this would do for our population issues...
Assuming the average douche weights 80 KG and is consistent with the human body (10% hydrogen) that's 8 KG of hydrogen per douche, how long until we place enough fuel in the sun before the ratio of hydrogen to helium causes the sun well...
to explode (or at least eject some douche matter)?
B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee.
Interesting fact:
Seattle's Best Coffee, which was the coffee featured in and the focus of the coffee shops in Borders, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Starbucks.
If Starbucks is "Seattle's best coffee" I'm sticking to tea if I ever go to Washington state.
Local bookseller Angus and Robertson, here in Australia has gone broke too. A & R has been operating in Australia for over 100 years. They bought the local Borders in an act of corporate hubris. Then the accumulated debts of Borders took down the whole thing. Very sad.
Actually, it was sites like the Book Depository (UK) that shipped a new book directly to your door for less then half of what it cost to buy one from A&R, Borders or Dymocks in Oz that killed them. I haven't been inside a brick and mortar book store in over a year and I'm buying more books whilst spending less on books in general.
All this because the Paper and Logging industries decided to block importing of books as well as publishers (as per god damned usual) setting high licensing prices for printing locally.
Not that A&R/borders are innocent in this, buying Ebooks still costs twice what it does from US/UK sites and last time I ordered an Ebook from them they couldn't deliver a book they advertised and refused to refund the entire amount (how the hell do you have a restocking fee for an Ebook).
So, as an Australian I'm glad I've typed "anus and robertson" into Google for the last time.
"Remember that most users dont have a password on their home machines simply because they cant be arsed."
What is the point of a password at a home machine anyway? If you must keep people from accessing it while you are around, you are doing something wrong.
To stop the simplest of drive by attacks.
The simplest of cracks is just uses this:
U: Administrator
P:
An admin account with no password is giving root access to anyone who just happens to walk by, physically and metaphorically. For a home machine even a simple password like "bob" will stop a lot of drive by attacks.
Many older phones let you install a recovery partition, which should give you access to the phone via ADB. From there you can do most of the work (AFAIK, YMMV)
I beleive what you're talking about is called Fastboot
I ask why do we need to jail break an android phone?
You dont, you can do everything you can do on a jailbroken Iphone on an un-rooted Android phone.
You only root when you want to properly tinker with the OS itself, not the programs running on it.
Make sure you understand the distinction between jailbreaking and rooting:
Jail Breaking: Getting around the manufacturers restrictions on what you're allowed to install on your phone. Hence you're "breaking" your phone out of its "jail". Rooting: Gaining root level access to the OS itself allowing you access to change (or break) every part of the OS.
Jailbreaking does not grant the level of access Rooting does.
Most people root as a precursor to installing a custom ROM, last time I checked there were not custom IOS ROMs out there.
Please consider that not every character in a password needs to contribute a high level of entropy
Exactly, so repeating patterns are OK as far as brute force is concerned.
The way I tell my users to create a password is to think of a four or five letter word, lets use "bill" and a number, say "4". Now the simple way to get a 10 character complex password is to use the word with the first letter capitalised, follows by the number, then the special character associated with that number followed by the word (again, capitalised), for example:
Bill4$Bil
All the user has to remember is Bill4, simple to remember, not based on a dictionary word (because as soon as a cracker has gone through the dictionary and common names they'll go through he dictionary and common names + $number) as long as its repeated at least once and it can be repeated as many times as you like and it's still only five characters to remember.
Although, with password lengths I think you start to get diminishing returns after a while, the more characters you have, the more likely you'll have a typo and the more frustrating for the user it becomes and then the user will just switch to a simpler password. Remember that most users dont have a password on their home machines simply because they cant be arsed.
Passwords should also be cycled if they are important.
Length, complexity and password cycling are all useful and work together in creating robust security but they do so at the expense of user friendliness. If a security system is too unfriendly to it's users they simply wont use it, so we make trade offs to ensure that the system is used correctly.
So realistically, length, complexity, password cycling and user friendliness need to work together in creating robust security and work well in the right mix. However getting 3 IT security to agree on what that mix is like negotiating peace in the Middle East.
And now we have reached the end of anther long and exciting post about passwords.
I choose to leave my wireless open. I view wireless "security" like this: 1) Write a secret message on a plain postcard. 2) Put it in to a safe. 3) Drive the safe to the post office. 4) Take the postcard out of the safe, give the post office people the postcard.
I got this far before I realised your view of security is horribly broken.
The point of WiFi security is to prevent others from using your wifi when you dont want them to. There are a few reasons for this, 1) control what gets put through your network. 2) prevent others from using your bandwidth, slowing your connection down. 3) Prevent others from consuming large chunks of your download cap (very prevalent in Oz).
Now how WPA works is.
1) put your postcard (packet) in a safe (encryption).
2) send that safe to the post office (router).
3) Authorised agent at the post office opens safe with the key you gave them. The post office carries out the instructions on the post card (NAT) on your behalf.
The whole point of this is to prevent anyone sending instructions to the router without your authorisation. This entire process is done completed the internet is even involved, NAT and firewalls on the router is security against internet based attacks, WPA is the defence against local attacks.
Do you now understand that wireless security is completely separate from gateway security and is not broken by it.
I have not read those books but I will definitely look into them.
The only book(s) I've read out of the list in your sig is Foundation, Revelation Space is hard sci-fi so it's applicable but Pandora Star is a bit more space opera-y (but still good).
I'll have to look at the others you've listed. Hopefully Amazon hasn't destroyed the Book Depository yet...
The meaingless sex was a joke in that Slashdot people cannot get laid but you knew that, you just wanted to prove the exception to the rule!;-)
The thing I dont get about the stereotypical nerd not getting laid is that, once you start actually trying to get laid it's quite easy especially if you're a young adult (18-25). Nerds and Geeks aren't shunned any more so long as you can carry on a conversation without devolving into OCD level corrections or nerd quotes (although the odd "It's a Trap" or firefly reference dropped at the right time will be well received).
In the UK we have a binge drinking culture.
We also have a drinking culture here in Oz, but I dont think it's inherently harmful. Granted some people should not drink but the vast majority can enjoy drinking without a problem. I dont think the majority should be inhibited due to the problems of the minority.
WRT your sig, have you read Pandora Star or Revelation Space?
* Not that meaningless sex means anything to Slashdotters
If it meant something, it wouldn't be meaningless wouldn't it?
Believe it or not, I'm someone who engages in a lot of "meaningless" sex. The problem is not that the entire process doesn't have anything more "deep" then sexual gratification but rather that some people try to attach something else then simple gratification to it.
Just as the parent pointed out in his post, people use it as an escape and this is actually a good thing(TM) but the distinction the GP did not make is the difference between "an escape" and "living in a fantasy world". Having a vice does not automatically make one an addict, for example, a person who drinks is not automatically an alcoholic because they can be capable of stopping and exercise it at will, the ability to keep under the legal limit or to say "no thanks, I've had enough".
By the same token, there are people who can have "meaningless" sex without trying to attach anything to it. The same with all the other vices the GP listed, one can enjoy gambling, smoking, drinking or clubbing in moderation without actually becoming a victim to that action.
Actually TFA pointed out that the Android users were the only ones who could correctly answer that they "already own one", since there are 4G Android phones on the market (such as the HTC Evo 4G and the Samsung Infuse 4G). There is no such thing as a 4G iPhone or Blackberry; they don't exist yet.
LTE, WIMAX and HSPA+ are still 3G technologies because they dont meed the ITU standards for 4G
Keep in mind, ISDN (and partial ISDN) is available almost everywhere.. and according to the Feds, 128Kb/s is broadband..
Partial ISDN?
Isn't that Dial Up.
This is why Oz is installing the National Broadband Network, because we cant rely on private industry to install reliable broadband in our cities, let alone to the other 97% of Australia's land mass.
It seems a bit weird to me that they'd hand a passenger a can of thin aluminum that could easily be converted into a cutting weapon, when they won't let you bring nail clippers on-board. But hey, it's a security theater.
Asian airlines still beleive in this weird concept called customer service and trust that their patrons dont want to turn a aluminium can into a poor cutting weapon.
BTW, it's not easy to turn an intact can into a weapon, especially without someone noticing.
BTW2, you will learn to love the metric system. Airlines either serve 250 ml, 33 cl or 0.375 l cans depending on which country they fly out of as different nations use different sizes.
Please, please, "Industries built on Intellectual Property Theft have further imperiled other sectors of the economy during the recent economic downturn."
xoxo, RIAA/MPAA.
The hooker and blow industries may never recover if more drastic Intellectual property protection measures are not enacted immediately.
What do you fly? I fly coach and have touched just about every major US airline in the past 3 years.. they always give me a full can of soda and if I get thirsty later in the flight they will give me a 2nd can if I request.
Who do you fly with, I fly on Malaysian, Singapore or Thai and they poor the drink into a cup with ice for you, and you dont even need to request it, they bring around trays of soft drink, water, juice and beer at semi regular intervals.
The worst service I received on a Thai flight was when the flight attendant handed me a beer and a cup expecting me to pour it myself. But they served cognac after the meal so I let it slide.
BTW, this is all in economy class.
I agree with you about the snack, though. Need 4 or 5 of those to tide me over on a cross-country filght. But again, usually once everyone has gotten 1 they will let you have more.
On a 5 hour Singapore flight, you'll be served a full meal shortly after reaching cruising altitude plus a snack (normally fruit and ice cream) shortly before descent.
Last time I had an inedible airline meal was the last time I flew QANTAS.
The granparent addressed this, actually. The war started with the first act of war, which was the attacks on Israeli ships in the Gulf of Aquaba.
Unless you have some really weird definition of "started" here...
Israel did take the most aggressive first strikes, but that was because Israel had such good Intel that they knew when the Arabs were going to attack and from where.
Started does have a strange definition in the six day war. Israel fired the first shot decimating Egyptian air bases but the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians had been building up forces along Israel's borders as well as closing shipping lanes Israel relied on, both of which could easily be considered an act of war.
Yeah, I have double standards. Unfortunately, a lot of people deny having their own double standards. And, least of all, can they be expected to understand those double standards.
I wouldn't call that a double standard because you can explain the reasons you have and they make sense.
Double standards is when you have to engineers of the same age and skill level but Bob gets the promotion because Phil has red hair.
Slashdot Mirror
Can Progress Survive Austerity as a Foregone Conclusion?
Yes, austerity is the environment where everyday innovation and new ideas thrive. Necessity is the mother of invention after all.
Austerity is caused by environments that shun new ideas and original thinking. Environments such as software patents, obvious patents and perpetual copyrights.
Today, in news, Michael Pascazi was launched into the sun by a unanimous vote of the worlds population, on charges of being a complete douche.
If we make a habit of this, we probably have enough complete douches here to keep the sun going for a few million extra years. Not to mention what this would do for our population issues...
Assuming the average douche weights 80 KG and is consistent with the human body (10% hydrogen) that's 8 KG of hydrogen per douche, how long until we place enough fuel in the sun before the ratio of hydrogen to helium causes the sun well...
to explode (or at least eject some douche matter)?
B&N also has Starbucks in their stores, which gives them a hipster mystique for those who just want to come in and sit and read and have some Starbucks coffee.
Interesting fact:
Seattle's Best Coffee, which was the coffee featured in and the focus of the coffee shops in Borders, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Starbucks.
If Starbucks is "Seattle's best coffee" I'm sticking to tea if I ever go to Washington state.
Local bookseller Angus and Robertson, here in Australia has gone broke too. A & R has been operating in Australia for over 100 years. They bought the local Borders in an act of corporate hubris. Then the accumulated debts of Borders took down the whole thing. Very sad.
Actually, it was sites like the Book Depository (UK) that shipped a new book directly to your door for less then half of what it cost to buy one from A&R, Borders or Dymocks in Oz that killed them. I haven't been inside a brick and mortar book store in over a year and I'm buying more books whilst spending less on books in general.
All this because the Paper and Logging industries decided to block importing of books as well as publishers (as per god damned usual) setting high licensing prices for printing locally.
Not that A&R/borders are innocent in this, buying Ebooks still costs twice what it does from US/UK sites and last time I ordered an Ebook from them they couldn't deliver a book they advertised and refused to refund the entire amount (how the hell do you have a restocking fee for an Ebook).
So, as an Australian I'm glad I've typed "anus and robertson" into Google for the last time.
What is the point of a password at a home machine anyway? If you must keep people from accessing it while you are around, you are doing something wrong.
To stop the simplest of drive by attacks.
The simplest of cracks is just uses this:
U: Administrator
P:
An admin account with no password is giving root access to anyone who just happens to walk by, physically and metaphorically. For a home machine even a simple password like "bob" will stop a lot of drive by attacks.
The discussion is on jail breaking, not rooting. If we are talking about rooting, then people should use that word, not jail break.
Actually Mr AC,
The discussion is about Rooting as you cant "jailbreak" an Android phone (because, as I pointed out it's not in jail to begin with).
The author of the (terrible) article thought he'd use that word instead of Rooting, which is what he was actually doing.
Many older phones let you install a recovery partition, which should give you access to the phone via ADB. From there you can do most of the work (AFAIK, YMMV)
I beleive what you're talking about is called Fastboot
I ask why do we need to jail break an android phone?
You dont, you can do everything you can do on a jailbroken Iphone on an un-rooted Android phone.
You only root when you want to properly tinker with the OS itself, not the programs running on it.
Make sure you understand the distinction between jailbreaking and rooting:
Jail Breaking: Getting around the manufacturers restrictions on what you're allowed to install on your phone. Hence you're "breaking" your phone out of its "jail".
Rooting: Gaining root level access to the OS itself allowing you access to change (or break) every part of the OS.
Jailbreaking does not grant the level of access Rooting does.
Most people root as a precursor to installing a custom ROM, last time I checked there were not custom IOS ROMs out there.
Exactly, so repeating patterns are OK as far as brute force is concerned.
The way I tell my users to create a password is to think of a four or five letter word, lets use "bill" and a number, say "4". Now the simple way to get a 10 character complex password is to use the word with the first letter capitalised, follows by the number, then the special character associated with that number followed by the word (again, capitalised), for example:
Bill4$Bil
All the user has to remember is Bill4, simple to remember, not based on a dictionary word (because as soon as a cracker has gone through the dictionary and common names they'll go through he dictionary and common names + $number) as long as its repeated at least once and it can be repeated as many times as you like and it's still only five characters to remember.
Although, with password lengths I think you start to get diminishing returns after a while, the more characters you have, the more likely you'll have a typo and the more frustrating for the user it becomes and then the user will just switch to a simpler password. Remember that most users dont have a password on their home machines simply because they cant be arsed.
Passwords should also be cycled if they are important. Length, complexity and password cycling are all useful and work together in creating robust security but they do so at the expense of user friendliness. If a security system is too unfriendly to it's users they simply wont use it, so we make trade offs to ensure that the system is used correctly.
So realistically, length, complexity, password cycling and user friendliness need to work together in creating robust security and work well in the right mix. However getting 3 IT security to agree on what that mix is like negotiating peace in the Middle East.
And now we have reached the end of anther long and exciting post about passwords.
I choose to leave my wireless open. I view wireless "security" like this: 1) Write a secret message on a plain postcard. 2) Put it in to a safe. 3) Drive the safe to the post office. 4) Take the postcard out of the safe, give the post office people the postcard.
I got this far before I realised your view of security is horribly broken.
The point of WiFi security is to prevent others from using your wifi when you dont want them to. There are a few reasons for this,
1) control what gets put through your network.
2) prevent others from using your bandwidth, slowing your connection down.
3) Prevent others from consuming large chunks of your download cap (very prevalent in Oz).
Now how WPA works is.
1) put your postcard (packet) in a safe (encryption).
2) send that safe to the post office (router).
3) Authorised agent at the post office opens safe with the key you gave them. The post office carries out the instructions on the post card (NAT) on your behalf.
The whole point of this is to prevent anyone sending instructions to the router without your authorisation. This entire process is done completed the internet is even involved, NAT and firewalls on the router is security against internet based attacks, WPA is the defence against local attacks.
Do you now understand that wireless security is completely separate from gateway security and is not broken by it.
Newsworthy you ask?
This is a blatant slashvertisement for Australia's largest Wireless ISP, Linksys.
.. .providing a nice free service for their customers? heck, I even use the free unsecured internet access on the bus these days!
This, Every McD's has an unsecured wifi these days. Almost every Cafe too.
The only book(s) I've read out of the list in your sig is Foundation, Revelation Space is hard sci-fi so it's applicable but Pandora Star is a bit more space opera-y (but still good). I'll have to look at the others you've listed. Hopefully Amazon hasn't destroyed the Book Depository yet...
But global warming is caused by a lack of pirates!
Ergo we need to deploy sensors near an area of high pirate activity.
The thing I dont get about the stereotypical nerd not getting laid is that, once you start actually trying to get laid it's quite easy especially if you're a young adult (18-25). Nerds and Geeks aren't shunned any more so long as you can carry on a conversation without devolving into OCD level corrections or nerd quotes (although the odd "It's a Trap" or firefly reference dropped at the right time will be well received).
We also have a drinking culture here in Oz, but I dont think it's inherently harmful. Granted some people should not drink but the vast majority can enjoy drinking without a problem. I dont think the majority should be inhibited due to the problems of the minority.
WRT your sig, have you read Pandora Star or Revelation Space?
* Not that meaningless sex means anything to Slashdotters
If it meant something, it wouldn't be meaningless wouldn't it?
Believe it or not, I'm someone who engages in a lot of "meaningless" sex. The problem is not that the entire process doesn't have anything more "deep" then sexual gratification but rather that some people try to attach something else then simple gratification to it.
Just as the parent pointed out in his post, people use it as an escape and this is actually a good thing(TM) but the distinction the GP did not make is the difference between "an escape" and "living in a fantasy world". Having a vice does not automatically make one an addict, for example, a person who drinks is not automatically an alcoholic because they can be capable of stopping and exercise it at will, the ability to keep under the legal limit or to say "no thanks, I've had enough".
By the same token, there are people who can have "meaningless" sex without trying to attach anything to it. The same with all the other vices the GP listed, one can enjoy gambling, smoking, drinking or clubbing in moderation without actually becoming a victim to that action.
Actually TFA pointed out that the Android users were the only ones who could correctly answer that they "already own one", since there are 4G Android phones on the market (such as the HTC Evo 4G and the Samsung Infuse 4G). There is no such thing as a 4G iPhone or Blackberry; they don't exist yet.
LTE, WIMAX and HSPA+ are still 3G technologies because they dont meed the ITU standards for 4G
Keep in mind, ISDN (and partial ISDN) is available almost everywhere.. and according to the Feds, 128Kb/s is broadband..
Partial ISDN?
Isn't that Dial Up.
This is why Oz is installing the National Broadband Network, because we cant rely on private industry to install reliable broadband in our cities, let alone to the other 97% of Australia's land mass.
It seems a bit weird to me that they'd hand a passenger a can of thin aluminum that could easily be converted into a cutting weapon, when they won't let you bring nail clippers on-board. But hey, it's a security theater.
Asian airlines still beleive in this weird concept called customer service and trust that their patrons dont want to turn a aluminium can into a poor cutting weapon.
BTW, it's not easy to turn an intact can into a weapon, especially without someone noticing.
BTW2, you will learn to love the metric system. Airlines either serve 250 ml, 33 cl or 0.375 l cans depending on which country they fly out of as different nations use different sizes.
If I were drinking coffee at the time, it would now be over both keyboards.
Pronto are damn quick to EOL old versions of their software, far faster then MS are. This doesn't force all of their clients to upgrade though.
Please, please, "Industries built on Intellectual Property Theft have further imperiled other sectors of the economy during the recent economic downturn."
xoxo, RIAA/MPAA.
The hooker and blow industries may never recover if more drastic Intellectual property protection measures are not enacted immediately.
What do you fly? I fly coach and have touched just about every major US airline in the past 3 years.. they always give me a full can of soda and if I get thirsty later in the flight they will give me a 2nd can if I request.
Who do you fly with, I fly on Malaysian, Singapore or Thai and they poor the drink into a cup with ice for you, and you dont even need to request it, they bring around trays of soft drink, water, juice and beer at semi regular intervals.
The worst service I received on a Thai flight was when the flight attendant handed me a beer and a cup expecting me to pour it myself. But they served cognac after the meal so I let it slide.
BTW, this is all in economy class.
On a 5 hour Singapore flight, you'll be served a full meal shortly after reaching cruising altitude plus a snack (normally fruit and ice cream) shortly before descent.
Last time I had an inedible airline meal was the last time I flew QANTAS.
> Who started the 6-day war? Israel.
The granparent addressed this, actually. The war started with the first act of war, which was the attacks on Israeli ships in the Gulf of Aquaba.
Unless you have some really weird definition of "started" here...
Israel did take the most aggressive first strikes, but that was because Israel had such good Intel that they knew when the Arabs were going to attack and from where.
Started does have a strange definition in the six day war. Israel fired the first shot decimating Egyptian air bases but the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians had been building up forces along Israel's borders as well as closing shipping lanes Israel relied on, both of which could easily be considered an act of war.
I wouldn't call that a double standard because you can explain the reasons you have and they make sense.
Double standards is when you have to engineers of the same age and skill level but Bob gets the promotion because Phil has red hair.
He was stuck in that compound for months with three wives, he probably called the seal team himself.