Normally you have to manually add &threshold=-2 or whatever to the URL to see those posts, but this post tells you how to do it permanently with a little hacking. Then you can browse all of the posts, even the "/. censored" ones.
Perhaps so. But does that make MS look better, or worse?
Depends on your perspective I suppse - you could argue it either way. This level of incompetence in such a serious project for MS - given their push to dominate the server business - would seriously harm their credibility in the market, and could lose them a lot of business and the trust (don't ask me why) of a lot of current clients. They will now be wary of other holes as you say, and I agree that, intentional or not, this will be a huge blow for MS.
Heads will be rolling at MS's programming team - they'll be needing plenty of scapegoats for this one:)
Who are you? I love your posts, they make me laugh. Thanks.
Re:I don't think this is a film about scientology.
on
Battlefield Earth
·
· Score: 1
I like a good bit of politics in my SF - have you read the Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, or the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton? As for aliens I've found some of the aliens in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence to be fascination - the Qax, the Spline and the Xeelee themselves. For truly bizzare and interesting life forms, hard SF excels IMHO.
Yeah, but considering the amount of bloat present in all of MS's products, code review is probably an uphill struggle. There are always going to be small things which can get through, and I doubt this hole takes much code to implement.
Okay, this is a truly bad hole in Microsoft's server software, and one which should never have been there in the first place. And while many people here may scream conspiracy, I don't think that it was. Rather I think this was a case of coders doing something without the knowledge of the designers / policy makers or whatever.
Think about it. Why would Microsoft want this put into their software, when if it was found out, which would be likely, would lead to a massive publicity scandal, and possible legal action? This wouldn't be in their best interests at all, especially given the current events.
Rather, this sounds like the sort of thing coders would do, especially the part about Netscape employees being "weenies". Given that MS employees are loyal to MS, this kind of thing sounds like something they would choose on their own, just because they thought no-one would notice it.
Re:I don't think this is a film about scientology.
on
Battlefield Earth
·
· Score: 2
You can (should) be against sicentology but I don't think this film has anything to do with this pseudo-religion.
No I don't either, but even if it is I don't think it will matter, that was the point I was trying to make.
You confess that you have never read more than 10 pages of the books or anything Ron Hubbard, then how can you criticise the books?
Okay, that was a slight under-exaggeration. I did *try* and get into it, after all some books do just start poorly, but the terrible prose and childish concept really put me off. I'm an avid SF fan, but I prefer more hard SF where there are interesting concepts a plenty, but based on solid physical foundations e.g. Stephen Baxter.
Anyway, I don't know of any good SF book that made a great movie in the last 20 years...(except the Matrix;-) Holliwood has a gift to remove all the interresting bits of a SF story to make it a dull action-movie...
Contact was OK, not nearly as good as the book of course, but not too butchered for a Hollywood film. Same with Sphere. Apart from that I can't think of any really. As an aside have you seen Cube? Now there is a truly intersting film.
And as you can guess, I'm not going to see the film:)
Ok, instead of Furbies, how about cocaine? Or LSD? Or pre-teen prostitutes?
Well, the illegal drugs were pretty much illegal due to the actions of business propaganda earlier on in this century. Marijuana was made illegal because a large paper-maker was worried about how hemp could make cheaper paper than the process and materials he used, so he funded a campaign saying that it made blacks extremely violent when they smoked it. Soon, it was made illegal. Opium was originally smoked by the Chinese in their wash houses and it made them efficient workers. Other rival businesses didn't like this and campaigned to have it made illegal.
Since then drugs have fallen under the influence of the Putian work ethic, and have been made illegal without real consideration into their effects. Their dangers are far less than is typically presented in the government's "War on Drugs", and indeed, even heroin is less addictive than nicotene, a substance which causes illness and death but is still legal.
As for pre-teen prostitutes, well, that is the sort of thing which sensible legislation does prevent. Since it is clearly a case where someone's liberty is being oppressed against their will then it is completely different from the situation of drugs, where someone is prevented from making a decision based upon a law with distinctly shaky foundations.
I once, long ago, remember picking up this book in a library and taking it home to read. Ten pages into it, I put it down in disgust, and since then I have never ventured into the truly dire world of Hubbard's books. And there aren't many books I can say that about. If the film is anything like the book it will be yet another shallow, pretty film in the vein of Armageddon.
And as for the people claiming this will be the worst kind of scientologist propaganda, well, remember - it's a film. And considering the genre of the film, the people who watch it aren't going to be looking for any kind of message in it - most people will forget the entire film within the week.
Any blatently obvious propaganda will be noticed and decried by the media, and any subtle indoctrination will probably fly over the top of the average film-goer looking for another action flick.
No, I think the greatest danger this film poses is that of dislocating your jaw after yawning through the entire film.
For the obligatory scientology refernce, see The Road To Xenu, a narrative account of life in scientology.
The premise of the Inflationary model is that initially, the Universe was in a "false vacuum" state where the energy density of empty space was high, but this state was only psuedo-stable. Thanks to quantum tunneling effects at some point this state could "tunnel" down into the true vacuum state we see today, thus releasing all of this energy into the Universe and driving its exponential expansion for a period of 10^-32 sec.
The "matter" (most likely in the form of free quarks, gluons and various bosons) was already present from the Big Band event rather than being created through inflation.
Similarly, if you inflate the interior of a wormhole, unless you put energy into it then you are simply decreasing the energy density, making the creation of new exotic matter less likely rather than more likely.
The recent demon et al. decisions, which hold ISP's responsible for defamatory material on their servers.
There was no decision - Demon settled out of court. No legal precedent has been set. I've seen several posts get this wrong here, but I can't be bothered to reply to all of them:)
Why are we encouraging children to be more cruel and calluous?
I see what you're saying, but I think the problem is not so much we're encouraging our children, more that we're not discouraging them. It's more apathy than malice. And that is the true sickness, since apathy can lead to any number of evils coming into play without resistance of any kind.
Agreed. I've read all his articles since I started reading/., and while a lot of them are somewhat overdone, a few have stood out, and this is by far the best of the lot. Definitely very thought provoking.
Yes, but they've been the enemies of "upstanding" Americans for years anyway - see here for a Christian perspective on D&D and here for a Time magazine article, both of which are anti RPGs. There is a good overview of the whole situation with lots of links here at about.com.
While I can appreciate Jon's frustration about Pinkerton's apathy toward the points he raised, I have to say I'm not even slightly suprised that this was what happened. A sad fact of modern corporate culture is that they need to be ruthless in order to prosper - if the majority of companies are ruthless then their competitors also have to be ruthless to compete. And this is what breeds the amoral attitude that corporations have. They are required to make money for their shareholders, and this requires them to go for anything which can make money legally.
No, the real issue here is education. In recent years we have seen the culture of hysteria grow from the Weekly World News to encompass practically all mainstream media. People often aren't educated enough, or educated wrongly, and as such don't possess the necessary scepticism to see that the media is always biased towards getting a good story, whether it bears any relation to the real issues or not.
The trouble is, once the hysteria has set in it is almost impossible to stop. Rational arguments and facts have little impact, especially in a society where most of the populace lack the education to understand or apply them. The government, or whichever body is appropriate to the hysteria, is then forced to give in to this hysteria, since if they are up for election they require public support. This is probably one of the major failings of democracy, but the only real way around it is to have a well-educated populace who can consider issues rather than being force-fed opinions from the media.
Will this ever happen? Not for a long time in my opinion. Education is a slow process, and changes in society seem to be running ahead of people's ability to encompass and adapt to them. That's what we really need - the ability to adapt to new circumstances without holding back or fearing the future.
Lionhead have developed a new technology - 'Gesture Recognition' technology - which allows spells to be cast, practised and perfected by mouse movement. To cast a firewall, for example, you must sweep the mouse in a circle. From this gesture, Lionhead's GR technology can sense the type of spell you wish to cast and (according to how accurately the spell was executed) determine how strong it was.
Now this sounds all very well in theory, but how does it actually work out in real life? My mouse here at work is a bit of a bastard - when you try and move it left the ball sometimes sticks and doesn't move. Wouldn't this make playing the game pretty much impossible, or at the very least cut down on the available options?
Even if I had a fully flowing mouse I still don't know if I like the sound of this all that much. Why should the strength of a spell be linked to how well you can sweep the mouse in a circle? For an action game then sure, but for a strategy game this seems more like a gimmick than a genuine aid to play.
Can anyone who has played Black&White tell me what this is like in practice?
One thing I read about a long, long time ago was that Bullfrog were developing this great new game based on the idea of you being a god and controlling people, and that in order to test this idea they built landscapes out of Lego in order to test the various effects and game rules. There was a picture of this large Lego landscape complete with people and trees, just like in the actual game:)
For some time now we have been hearing about how the "end of the CPU" is in sight - how we will reach the barrier at which quantum effects will prevent any further reductions in chip size, and that this will essentially halt all further CPU enhancements.
But if you look at the technical literature it is full of examples like this of ingenious new processes which overcome this so-called "barrier" and will allow us to push CPUs into ever faster realms. Like this one, they will take some time to make it into practical use, but once the initial breakthrough, the idea, is made and successfully tried, then it is only ever a matter of time before a working product is produced.
Personally I think all these people who harp on about the end of technology are unwilling to accept that innovation will always proceed, and that you should never fully base your predictions of future technology on the technology today. All it takes is one good idea for a whole new branch of technology to open.
I'd disagree there - read this post by OOG and then this one. The idea AFAIK is a sort of troll on form rather than content - posting clever stuff in a stupid way and seeing how it gets moderated. After all it should be what the poster says and not how they say it that counts.
How difficult is it to burn a CD with source on it? Not very hard at all, actually, seeing as you're only including the source for one thing (when you're including the source to many things, as is done with a Linux distro, that's another subject). Plus, there's this little thing called volume. This is not Linux we're talking about. Who's going to want the source for the OS on a wristwatch?
True, but.... Seeing as how no-one (in terms of percentage of buyers) is likely to want the source to the OS, then providing the source for those few is going to be a waste of *some* money, even if it is a very small amount. It will require some resources, no matter how small, and margins are always of concern to companies.
But the real point is, if no-one is going to want the source then why use the GPL? Think of it in terms of a company's perspective - they have Minix as the core of their embedded OS, with certain proprietary extensions designed for the technology it is controlling. Under the GPL, this source would have to be made available to anyone asking for it. Given the intense competition in the embedded market, this is not a path that a company would be willing to take, and thus if Minix was GPLed, it wouldn't be taken up as a solution.
I know/. is a place full of GPL supporters, and yes, it's a great way of keeping source open and free, but it doesn't always make sense from a business's (is that right?) perspective. When you're in a competitive market, the slighest advantage can win the day, and companies won't adopt an OS that could compromise that. It's sad, but it's capitalism.
... download a Jon Katz article without having to go for a cup of tea?
But seriously, this sounds like a great technology, and one needed to implement the "Internet of the Future", whatever that may be, put it is only one technology out of a host which are required. Sure, in the short term this will give rise to improvements in data transmission, but until a series of other breakthroughs are made this won't reveal its true potential.
So yeah, 100Gb/second is possible, but not for quite a while yet.
Yeah, I work for a company doing an MIS for printers, and our MD is Dutch and the Dutch subsiduary is almost as large as our UK branch now. Actually, quite a few of our employees are Dutch as well... Shit, they're taking over!:)
Do you think that a greater understanding of the human brain and how intelligence has emerged in us is crucial to the creation of AI, or do you think that the two are unconnected? Will a greater understanding of memory and thought aid in development, or will AI be different enough so that such knowledge isn't required?
Also, what do you think about the potential of the models used today to attempt to achieve a working AI? Do you think that the models themselves (e.g. the neural net model) are correct and have the potential to produce an AI given enough power and configuration, or do you think that our current models are just a stepping stone along the way to a better model which is required for success?
Up until the latest version generators were mono only, true, but they can now be stereo as of the latest beta version. This means that the hack used by one generator of being coded as an effect which required a dummy generator connected to its input can now thankfully be avoided:)
Damn I wish my PC were running, I really want to start using it now:)
Slashdot Mirror
Normally you have to manually add &threshold=-2 or whatever to the URL to see those posts, but this post tells you how to do it permanently with a little hacking. Then you can browse all of the posts, even the "/. censored" ones.
Perhaps so. But does that make MS look better, or worse?
Depends on your perspective I suppse - you could argue it either way. This level of incompetence in such a serious project for MS - given their push to dominate the server business - would seriously harm their credibility in the market, and could lose them a lot of business and the trust (don't ask me why) of a lot of current clients. They will now be wary of other holes as you say, and I agree that, intentional or not, this will be a huge blow for MS.
Heads will be rolling at MS's programming team - they'll be needing plenty of scapegoats for this one :)
Who are you? I love your posts, they make me laugh. Thanks.
I like a good bit of politics in my SF - have you read the Gap series by Stephen Donaldson, or the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton? As for aliens I've found some of the aliens in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee sequence to be fascination - the Qax, the Spline and the Xeelee themselves. For truly bizzare and interesting life forms, hard SF excels IMHO.
Yeah, but considering the amount of bloat present in all of MS's products, code review is probably an uphill struggle. There are always going to be small things which can get through, and I doubt this hole takes much code to implement.
Okay, this is a truly bad hole in Microsoft's server software, and one which should never have been there in the first place. And while many people here may scream conspiracy, I don't think that it was. Rather I think this was a case of coders doing something without the knowledge of the designers / policy makers or whatever.
Think about it. Why would Microsoft want this put into their software, when if it was found out, which would be likely, would lead to a massive publicity scandal, and possible legal action? This wouldn't be in their best interests at all, especially given the current events.
Rather, this sounds like the sort of thing coders would do, especially the part about Netscape employees being "weenies". Given that MS employees are loyal to MS, this kind of thing sounds like something they would choose on their own, just because they thought no-one would notice it.
You can (should) be against sicentology but I don't think this film has anything to do with this pseudo-religion.
No I don't either, but even if it is I don't think it will matter, that was the point I was trying to make.
You confess that you have never read more than 10 pages of the books or anything Ron Hubbard, then how can you criticise the books?
Okay, that was a slight under-exaggeration. I did *try* and get into it, after all some books do just start poorly, but the terrible prose and childish concept really put me off. I'm an avid SF fan, but I prefer more hard SF where there are interesting concepts a plenty, but based on solid physical foundations e.g. Stephen Baxter.
Anyway, I don't know of any good SF book that made a great movie in the last 20 years...(except the Matrix ;-) Holliwood has a gift to remove all the interresting bits of a SF story to make it a dull action-movie...
Contact was OK, not nearly as good as the book of course, but not too butchered for a Hollywood film. Same with Sphere. Apart from that I can't think of any really. As an aside have you seen Cube? Now there is a truly intersting film.
And as you can guess, I'm not going to see the film :)
Ok, instead of Furbies, how about cocaine? Or LSD? Or pre-teen prostitutes?
Well, the illegal drugs were pretty much illegal due to the actions of business propaganda earlier on in this century. Marijuana was made illegal because a large paper-maker was worried about how hemp could make cheaper paper than the process and materials he used, so he funded a campaign saying that it made blacks extremely violent when they smoked it. Soon, it was made illegal. Opium was originally smoked by the Chinese in their wash houses and it made them efficient workers. Other rival businesses didn't like this and campaigned to have it made illegal.
Since then drugs have fallen under the influence of the Putian work ethic, and have been made illegal without real consideration into their effects. Their dangers are far less than is typically presented in the government's "War on Drugs", and indeed, even heroin is less addictive than nicotene, a substance which causes illness and death but is still legal.
As for pre-teen prostitutes, well, that is the sort of thing which sensible legislation does prevent. Since it is clearly a case where someone's liberty is being oppressed against their will then it is completely different from the situation of drugs, where someone is prevented from making a decision based upon a law with distinctly shaky foundations.
I once, long ago, remember picking up this book in a library and taking it home to read. Ten pages into it, I put it down in disgust, and since then I have never ventured into the truly dire world of Hubbard's books. And there aren't many books I can say that about. If the film is anything like the book it will be yet another shallow, pretty film in the vein of Armageddon.
And as for the people claiming this will be the worst kind of scientologist propaganda, well, remember - it's a film. And considering the genre of the film, the people who watch it aren't going to be looking for any kind of message in it - most people will forget the entire film within the week.
Any blatently obvious propaganda will be noticed and decried by the media, and any subtle indoctrination will probably fly over the top of the average film-goer looking for another action flick.
No, I think the greatest danger this film poses is that of dislocating your jaw after yawning through the entire film.
For the obligatory scientology refernce, see The Road To Xenu, a narrative account of life in scientology.
The premise of the Inflationary model is that initially, the Universe was in a "false vacuum" state where the energy density of empty space was high, but this state was only psuedo-stable. Thanks to quantum tunneling effects at some point this state could "tunnel" down into the true vacuum state we see today, thus releasing all of this energy into the Universe and driving its exponential expansion for a period of 10^-32 sec.
The "matter" (most likely in the form of free quarks, gluons and various bosons) was already present from the Big Band event rather than being created through inflation.
Similarly, if you inflate the interior of a wormhole, unless you put energy into it then you are simply decreasing the energy density, making the creation of new exotic matter less likely rather than more likely.
The recent demon et al. decisions, which hold ISP's responsible for defamatory material on their servers.
There was no decision - Demon settled out of court. No legal precedent has been set. I've seen several posts get this wrong here, but I can't be bothered to reply to all of them :)
Why are we encouraging children to be more cruel and calluous?
I see what you're saying, but I think the problem is not so much we're encouraging our children, more that we're not discouraging them. It's more apathy than malice. And that is the true sickness, since apathy can lead to any number of evils coming into play without resistance of any kind.
Agreed. I've read all his articles since I started reading /., and while a lot of them are somewhat overdone, a few have stood out, and this is by far the best of the lot. Definitely very thought provoking.
Yes, but they've been the enemies of "upstanding" Americans for years anyway - see here for a Christian perspective on D&D and here for a Time magazine article, both of which are anti RPGs. There is a good overview of the whole situation with lots of links here at about.com.
While I can appreciate Jon's frustration about Pinkerton's apathy toward the points he raised, I have to say I'm not even slightly suprised that this was what happened. A sad fact of modern corporate culture is that they need to be ruthless in order to prosper - if the majority of companies are ruthless then their competitors also have to be ruthless to compete. And this is what breeds the amoral attitude that corporations have. They are required to make money for their shareholders, and this requires them to go for anything which can make money legally.
No, the real issue here is education. In recent years we have seen the culture of hysteria grow from the Weekly World News to encompass practically all mainstream media. People often aren't educated enough, or educated wrongly, and as such don't possess the necessary scepticism to see that the media is always biased towards getting a good story, whether it bears any relation to the real issues or not.
The trouble is, once the hysteria has set in it is almost impossible to stop. Rational arguments and facts have little impact, especially in a society where most of the populace lack the education to understand or apply them. The government, or whichever body is appropriate to the hysteria, is then forced to give in to this hysteria, since if they are up for election they require public support. This is probably one of the major failings of democracy, but the only real way around it is to have a well-educated populace who can consider issues rather than being force-fed opinions from the media.
Will this ever happen? Not for a long time in my opinion. Education is a slow process, and changes in society seem to be running ahead of people's ability to encompass and adapt to them. That's what we really need - the ability to adapt to new circumstances without holding back or fearing the future.
Lionhead have developed a new technology - 'Gesture Recognition' technology - which allows spells to be cast, practised and perfected by mouse movement. To cast a firewall, for example, you must sweep the mouse in a circle. From this gesture, Lionhead's GR technology can sense the type of spell you wish to cast and (according to how accurately the spell was executed) determine how strong it was.
Now this sounds all very well in theory, but how does it actually work out in real life? My mouse here at work is a bit of a bastard - when you try and move it left the ball sometimes sticks and doesn't move. Wouldn't this make playing the game pretty much impossible, or at the very least cut down on the available options?
Even if I had a fully flowing mouse I still don't know if I like the sound of this all that much. Why should the strength of a spell be linked to how well you can sweep the mouse in a circle? For an action game then sure, but for a strategy game this seems more like a gimmick than a genuine aid to play.
Can anyone who has played Black&White tell me what this is like in practice?
One thing I read about a long, long time ago was that Bullfrog were developing this great new game based on the idea of you being a god and controlling people, and that in order to test this idea they built landscapes out of Lego in order to test the various effects and game rules. There was a picture of this large Lego landscape complete with people and trees, just like in the actual game :)
For some time now we have been hearing about how the "end of the CPU" is in sight - how we will reach the barrier at which quantum effects will prevent any further reductions in chip size, and that this will essentially halt all further CPU enhancements.
But if you look at the technical literature it is full of examples like this of ingenious new processes which overcome this so-called "barrier" and will allow us to push CPUs into ever faster realms. Like this one, they will take some time to make it into practical use, but once the initial breakthrough, the idea, is made and successfully tried, then it is only ever a matter of time before a working product is produced.
Personally I think all these people who harp on about the end of technology are unwilling to accept that innovation will always proceed, and that you should never fully base your predictions of future technology on the technology today. All it takes is one good idea for a whole new branch of technology to open.
I'd disagree there - read this post by OOG and then this one. The idea AFAIK is a sort of troll on form rather than content - posting clever stuff in a stupid way and seeing how it gets moderated. After all it should be what the poster says and not how they say it that counts.
Now I'm far more confused than I was after reading the Finnish version :) Cheers.
How difficult is it to burn a CD with source on it? Not very hard at all, actually, seeing as you're only including the source for one thing (when you're including the source to many things, as is done with a Linux distro, that's another subject). Plus, there's this little thing called volume. This is not Linux we're talking about. Who's going to want the source for the OS on a wristwatch?
True, but.... Seeing as how no-one (in terms of percentage of buyers) is likely to want the source to the OS, then providing the source for those few is going to be a waste of *some* money, even if it is a very small amount. It will require some resources, no matter how small, and margins are always of concern to companies.
But the real point is, if no-one is going to want the source then why use the GPL? Think of it in terms of a company's perspective - they have Minix as the core of their embedded OS, with certain proprietary extensions designed for the technology it is controlling. Under the GPL, this source would have to be made available to anyone asking for it. Given the intense competition in the embedded market, this is not a path that a company would be willing to take, and thus if Minix was GPLed, it wouldn't be taken up as a solution.
I know /. is a place full of GPL supporters, and yes, it's a great way of keeping source open and free, but it doesn't always make sense from a business's (is that right?) perspective. When you're in a competitive market, the slighest advantage can win the day, and companies won't adopt an OS that could compromise that. It's sad, but it's capitalism.
... download a Jon Katz article without having to go for a cup of tea?
But seriously, this sounds like a great technology, and one needed to implement the "Internet of the Future", whatever that may be, put it is only one technology out of a host which are required. Sure, in the short term this will give rise to improvements in data transmission, but until a series of other breakthroughs are made this won't reveal its true potential.
So yeah, 100Gb/second is possible, but not for quite a while yet.
Yeah, I work for a company doing an MIS for printers, and our MD is Dutch and the Dutch subsiduary is almost as large as our UK branch now. Actually, quite a few of our employees are Dutch as well... Shit, they're taking over! :)
Do you think that a greater understanding of the human brain and how intelligence has emerged in us is crucial to the creation of AI, or do you think that the two are unconnected? Will a greater understanding of memory and thought aid in development, or will AI be different enough so that such knowledge isn't required?
Also, what do you think about the potential of the models used today to attempt to achieve a working AI? Do you think that the models themselves (e.g. the neural net model) are correct and have the potential to produce an AI given enough power and configuration, or do you think that our current models are just a stepping stone along the way to a better model which is required for success?
Up until the latest version generators were mono only, true, but they can now be stereo as of the latest beta version. This means that the hack used by one generator of being coded as an effect which required a dummy generator connected to its input can now thankfully be avoided :)
Damn I wish my PC were running, I really want to start using it now :)