The issue with macro automation is a little overblown in my opion. Yes, there is a lot of power in the VBA approach, but M$ themselves tend to break these from version to version. I was part of a team looking at this issue for a fair sized company and we concluded that the risk of change in the VBA language was too high to use it for much beyond "toy" automation.
YMMV, of course. And I'd like to see better from OO, but it takes a while to catch up to features that have been aded over years in M$ Office.
Why not pay the company's owners some dividends? This looks likely if they are sitting on that much cash. Also, having $3B in cash and market cap of $8.5B makes you a pretty prime takeover target. After all, you can do a leveraged buy out and cover the first $3B in leverage with the cash you acquire. If Apple has moved into the mature cash producer stage, it needs to start paying out dividends. Even Microsoft had to start paying dividends eventually
The Baby Bells do control the Internet in the US-- or at least access to the Internet (which is, basically control-- if I have to use something to get to something I want, the owner of the thing I must use has a control point). There are few consumers/businesses that do not have to use ILEC-owned access lines to get to the Internet backbone providers. The exceptions seem to be copanies housing servers in large, backbone-player owned colos/carrier hotels.
And, this control point ownership guarantees huge cash flow, cash flow that is protected by the industry's regulatory structure. In a perfectly virtuous circle, a small amount of that cash can be used to bribe^H^H^H^H^H gain access to elected representatives (such as Billy Tauzin and John McCain) to explain the ILEC "perspective" on all these confusing technical issues and help, in the US, the elected representative(s) make the "right" decision.
Mindspring and Earthlink merged last year into one conpany, Earthlink. Sprint is a part owner of Earthlink, and has a contractual option (which it is not required to exercise) to purchase the remaining portion of Earthlink.
The Sprint option was a reason why Sprint was an attractive acquisition target for WCom last year.
Sprint also does own some local assets (just not very many, somehthing like a total of 1MM lines).
99.9999% uptime is 2.6 seconds in a 30 day month and up to 2.7 seconds in a 31 day month. For 99.999% uptime, you can be down as much as 25.9 seconds.
So, if you even reboot a router, you're probably out of the running for either level. Any external factor kills youre chances of reaching either level by the time you dial the phone to report the problem.
I don't think marketroids even think about this when they say crap like "five nines!" though.
I think you're confused. What Crispin is writing about is a new security _module_ that allows loadable _modules_ to do more and "better" things with regard to security. This is a good thing, as it will allow for a better "pluggable" security architecture while keeping kernel bloat down.
See module/model. They're different. I don't think that there is any sort of unified "security module" for Linux, as you seem to suggest. Are you referring to something I don't know about?
By the way, I don't believe that you are saying that closed source is a way to enhance security. While open source allows security flaws to be diiscovered, that is the point-- that discovered security flaws in open sourde programs are quickly fixable and easier to find than say, closed source binary-only products.
I was very impressed that Aleph One made the list, and darn glad of it. It is amazing how much time he has devoted to running BugTraq and some of the other Security Focus mailing lists. Even better, he hasn't becoem a self-aggrandizing vendor mouthpiece like Russ Cooper (of NTBugTraq-- a very lame "full disclosure" mailing list).
Aleph One definitely has a place in the moderators hall of fame.
There was a big story in the NY Times recently about the re-emerging drug culture. basincally, just like in the early 80's, a bunch of people have a lot of money and can't figure out what to do with it to make their lives better, so drugs becomes the thing.
That's why I was surprised to see that he was involved in trying to "ban" FTP and Telnet. However, the blub is misleading. SG was saying that there are inadequate protections for student privacy within the University context. I've got to agree. The number of University machines that get cracked (either due to negligence, laziness, or ignorance) is astounding. Then, start shooting unencrypted traffic around, and the cracker has every username/password pair thay might want.
The problem is just what SG says-- there ARE ways to encrypt traffic and make personal data more secure, but there is no infrastructure (in terms of human support and resources for teaching the end-user about these things).
Bzzt! Wrong, scientists are part of the cult of atheism which has attempted to have decent Christian teachings banned in our schools to be replaced with their cold mechanistic view of a "clockwork universe" in which the love of God has no place. Ultimately their aim is to have us all in our place, our lives ordered by the "scientific" elite according to their deterministic principles.
Um, since you live in the UK I can't say for sure about this, but it seems that I recall a bunch of Christians trying to push their specific flaovor of Christian agenda in the schools all over the US. I also don't really grasp the point about scientists trying to control us all (cue the spooky organ music). I have a pretty good grasp of history, and I recall that one of the primary uses of organized Christianity has been to have [everyone] all in [their] place, lives ordered by the [religious hierarchy] according to their [religious?] principles. Or maybe I missed how these incidents were just funny wrappers for the love of God?
Disclaimer: I like to refer to manuals, too, especially ones with good indicies.
Some software, however, you know that you don't need a manual for, and I think it would be nice (if perhaps a hassle to the companies) to offer me the chance to buy software in the following forms:
Max docs- everything, including technical references, electronic searchable database, subscription to updated docs online
Base docs- a single user manual
Electronic docs- pretty obvious
No docs
It would be nice if I could get a rebate or discount if I wanted a lower-docs version, too, but I'd likely pay the same and just feel better about not throwing a lot of paper away or having it clutter up my office or house.
Better yet, for most of the software that I use, I'd like to just get a discount coupon for the relevant O'Reilly book.
For games that you don't know well (I mean, c'mon, you didn't need the Doom II manual) I think that the manual is necessary. But, too often, it's overkill.
No way. The Ewok song/dance was awful, but limited (even if I was rooting for the stormtroopers to kill more) to the end of the movie. Jar Jar was an everpresent annoyance throughout the entire Episode I.
I don't think that it will be possible to delete Jar Jar from the Episode I Special Edition.
I'd take two Ewok song and dance numbers over another movie featuring Jar Jar any day.
Agreed. The VC industry has really changed over the last 10 years. Why?
1. More people becoming VCs. I mean, it's not as if every VC firm was a Draper Jurvetson or Battery Ventures before-- now, if more people are bent on becoming VCs, you can bet that one outcome is bad VCs
2. VCs have more money than ever before under management. Peolpe don't give VCs money in order to draw interest-- they want VCs to DO SOMETHING. This means that the pressure is on to invest, even if the ideas or opportunity aren't that great.
3. Many VCs (although not all) don't have the appropriate experience to validate technical claims. This is fine, they can hire people to do it. However, this fact, combined with #1 and #2 means that there is a rush to invest that may lead to investment in bogus technology.
Just in a hurry and browsing at 2+ due to slow connection. Moderators must not have thought too much of either of our posts. If they had, I would have seen yours and not posted.
I post in plain text, thus no active links. Your link to the text was more correct, however, when pressed for time I think that the information that I gave would have gotten them to the same place that you pointed them.
Oh, and I am not a fucking idiot, but thanks for asking.
Open Sources Voices from the Open Source Revolution Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman & Mark Stone 1st Edition January 1999 1-56592-582-3, Order Number: 5823 280 pages, $24.95 http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/
In either the chapter
The Open Source Definition Bruce Perens
or in
Freeing the Source: The Story of Mozilla Jim Hamerly and Tom Paquin with Susan Walton
You'd think they'd check the licences before they decided to include the code...
I've seen this phrase before, methinks, as "You'd think they'd check all the return codes from system calls-- don't they even think about security?" This ignores the basic fact tham many people who are coding don't care (about security, licensing, or other/. topic of the day).
I guess the solution would be some high-profile enforcement of these licensing terms-- however, many open source or free software projects (pick your term based on current politics), although they care deeply about the license used, don't have the time/inclination/budget/resources to have a follow-on licensing enforcement group.
This is correct, and it is because the GPL is, by design, meant to be viral. Stallman wanted the GPL to be this way. That is why the LGPL was created-- so that there is a choice of non-viral license for entities that wanted to make a non-GPL'd product that lionks to the open source C library from the FSF.
Not true. The TLD's follow the ISO Standard for 2-letter country abbreviations.
The process was, I believe, that someone purporting to me the responsible party would ask for a country delegation, then, if they met the criteria of RFC 1591 (http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1591.txt), the domain was delegated.
The.com,.edu,.org,.net, etc. domains were already managed by IANA/NSI when most of the country codes were delegated.
Published March 1996. I seem to recall some discussopn of both the GET and POST methods in this book. Perhaps this should have been cited in the patent application.
Goods and Services: (ABANDONED) IC 009. US 038. G & S: computer software and instruction manuals, sold as a unit, for use in authenticating participants in computer networks. FIRST USE: 19860306. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19900614
Mark Drawing Code: (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number: 74251246
Filing Date: March 2, 1992
Published for Opposition: February 2, 1993
Owner: (APPLICANT) Massachusetts Institute of Technology CORPORATION MASSACHUSETTS 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MASSACHUSETTS 021421324
Type of Mark: TRADEMARK
Register: PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator: DEAD
Abandonment Date: July 11, 1994
Those entrpeneurial might want to get it and use it as a stick against M$ (or against SAMBA if you're evil).
Even if "Apache" is bug free, how can you tell that the disk you got passed by your third cousin who got it from his ex-boss who got it from "some guy" is?
Welcome to the world of PGP/GPG/etc signatures for packages. It is entirely possible to get a verified version of whatever package you would like-- just go to the "official" FTP site or mirror, and download the source AND signature, and verify it. The official version usually has all the latest secuity patches integrated (maintainers know that these are critical fixes, and integrate them tout suite) and will typically be signed by some manner of digital signature.
Of course, this does open up the problem that you allude to that anyone can sign a package (provided they have a key pair), but the maintainers of any package that you need to use will likely be involved in the web of trust brought about through the key signing process. For more info, see the PGP FAQ's and look for information about key signing.
It would seem far more useful to me if source was "open" in the sense that you could get a copy of the code on production of a reasonable description of what you planned to do with it, what improvement you wanted to make, plus at least two references from people who were prepared to establish your bona fides. Kind of like the criteria for getting a reader's ticket to a law library.
The release version of any package is going to be pretty well checked over by the maintainer, and from a trusted source. The resisitance to the type of bureaucracy that you recommend is one of the best things about the OpenSource community.
This is dead on, but even more so for me. Although one can get a lot of work done due to the lack of distractions, and god knows it's easier to schedule errands during the day (and stick the "missed" work on the end or beginning of the day). However, think about all of the support that is gained from being able to bounce ideas off of others, especially if your job focuses more on creative problem solving. Having that extra brain nearby can make a world of difference.
Also, if you're inclined to "move up" at all, you'd best program in some regular face time. Familiarity may breed content, but it also breeds promotions.
Offering to sell a domain to a company with a trademark similar to the domain is seen as prima facie evidence of "cybersquatting." Any offer of mayment must be made by the trademark-holding party first
Offering to sell will strip you of all rights-- don't do it!
Well, now you've come to the fundamental problem with the intersection of trademark law and comain policy. In traditional trademark law, there would not necessarily be a conflict-- however, given a flat namespace that does not differentiate (very well) based on geography or purpose, the conflict occurs. ICANN'sUniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) governs the conflicting claims and is pretty clearly on the side of the trademark holder. Since a trademark exists for "Coke", the Coca-Cola company seems to have a pretty strong case.
Slashdot Mirror
The issue with macro automation is a little overblown in my opion. Yes, there is a lot of power in the VBA approach, but M$ themselves tend to break these from version to version. I was part of a team looking at this issue for a fair sized company and we concluded that the risk of change in the VBA language was too high to use it for much beyond "toy" automation.
YMMV, of course. And I'd like to see better from OO, but it takes a while to catch up to features that have been aded over years in M$ Office.
Why not pay the company's owners some dividends? This looks likely if they are sitting on that much cash. Also, having $3B in cash and market cap of $8.5B makes you a pretty prime takeover target. After all, you can do a leveraged buy out and cover the first $3B in leverage with the cash you acquire. If Apple has moved into the mature cash producer stage, it needs to start paying out dividends. Even Microsoft had to start paying dividends eventually
The Baby Bells do control the Internet in the US-- or at least access to the Internet (which is, basically control-- if I have to use something to get to something I want, the owner of the thing I must use has a control point). There are few consumers/businesses that do not have to use ILEC-owned access lines to get to the Internet backbone providers. The exceptions seem to be copanies housing servers in large, backbone-player owned colos/carrier hotels.
And, this control point ownership guarantees huge cash flow, cash flow that is protected by the industry's regulatory structure. In a perfectly virtuous circle, a small amount of that cash can be used to bribe^H^H^H^H^H gain access to elected representatives (such as Billy Tauzin and John McCain) to explain the ILEC "perspective" on all these confusing technical issues and help, in the US, the elected representative(s) make the "right" decision.
Mindspring and Earthlink merged last year into one conpany, Earthlink. Sprint is a part owner of Earthlink, and has a contractual option (which it is not required to exercise) to purchase the remaining portion of Earthlink.
The Sprint option was a reason why Sprint was an attractive acquisition target for WCom last year.
Sprint also does own some local assets (just not very many, somehthing like a total of 1MM lines).
99.9999% uptime is 2.6 seconds in a 30 day month and up to 2.7 seconds in a 31 day month. For 99.999% uptime, you can be down as much as 25.9 seconds.
So, if you even reboot a router, you're probably out of the running for either level. Any external factor kills youre chances of reaching either level by the time you dial the phone to report the problem.
I don't think marketroids even think about this when they say crap like "five nines!" though.
I think you're confused. What Crispin is writing about is a new security _module_ that allows loadable _modules_ to do more and "better" things with regard to security. This is a good thing, as it will allow for a better "pluggable" security architecture while keeping kernel bloat down.
See module/model. They're different. I don't think that there is any sort of unified "security module" for Linux, as you seem to suggest. Are you referring to something I don't know about?
By the way, I don't believe that you are saying that closed source is a way to enhance security. While open source allows security flaws to be diiscovered, that is the point-- that discovered security flaws in open sourde programs are quickly fixable and easier to find than say, closed source binary-only products.
Dude, read the bio.
I was very impressed that Aleph One made the list, and darn glad of it. It is amazing how much time he has devoted to running BugTraq and some of the other Security Focus mailing lists. Even better, he hasn't becoem a self-aggrandizing vendor mouthpiece like Russ Cooper (of NTBugTraq-- a very lame "full disclosure" mailing list).
Aleph One definitely has a place in the moderators hall of fame.
There was a big story in the NY Times recently about the re-emerging drug culture. basincally, just like in the early 80's, a bunch of people have a lot of money and can't figure out what to do with it to make their lives better, so drugs becomes the thing.
That's why I was surprised to see that he was involved in trying to "ban" FTP and Telnet. However, the blub is misleading. SG was saying that there are inadequate protections for student privacy within the University context. I've got to agree. The number of University machines that get cracked (either due to negligence, laziness, or ignorance) is astounding. Then, start shooting unencrypted traffic around, and the cracker has every username/password pair thay might want.
The problem is just what SG says-- there ARE ways to encrypt traffic and make personal data more secure, but there is no infrastructure (in terms of human support and resources for teaching the end-user about these things).
Bzzt! Wrong, scientists are part of the cult of atheism which has attempted to have decent Christian teachings banned in our schools to be replaced with their cold mechanistic view of a "clockwork universe" in which the love of God has no place. Ultimately their aim is to have us all in our place, our lives ordered by the "scientific" elite according to their deterministic principles.
Um, since you live in the UK I can't say for sure about this, but it seems that I recall a bunch of Christians trying to push their specific flaovor of Christian agenda in the schools all over the US. I also don't really grasp the point about scientists trying to control us all (cue the spooky organ music). I have a pretty good grasp of history, and I recall that one of the primary uses of organized Christianity has been to have [everyone] all in [their] place, lives ordered by the [religious hierarchy] according to their [religious?] principles. Or maybe I missed how these incidents were just funny wrappers for the love of God?
Disclaimer: I like to refer to manuals, too, especially ones with good indicies.
Some software, however, you know that you don't need a manual for, and I think it would be nice (if perhaps a hassle to the companies) to offer me the chance to buy software in the following forms:
Max docs- everything, including technical references, electronic searchable database, subscription to updated docs online
Base docs- a single user manual
Electronic docs- pretty obvious
No docs
It would be nice if I could get a rebate or discount if I wanted a lower-docs version, too, but I'd likely pay the same and just feel better about not throwing a lot of paper away or having it clutter up my office or house.
Better yet, for most of the software that I use, I'd like to just get a discount coupon for the relevant O'Reilly book.
For games that you don't know well (I mean, c'mon, you didn't need the Doom II manual) I think that the manual is necessary. But, too often, it's overkill.
No way. The Ewok song/dance was awful, but limited (even if I was rooting for the stormtroopers to kill more) to the end of the movie. Jar Jar was an everpresent annoyance throughout the entire Episode I.
I don't think that it will be possible to delete Jar Jar from the Episode I Special Edition.
I'd take two Ewok song and dance numbers over another movie featuring Jar Jar any day.
Agreed. The VC industry has really changed over the last 10 years. Why?
1. More people becoming VCs. I mean, it's not as if every VC firm was a Draper Jurvetson or Battery Ventures before-- now, if more people are bent on becoming VCs, you can bet that one outcome is bad VCs
2. VCs have more money than ever before under management. Peolpe don't give VCs money in order to draw interest-- they want VCs to DO SOMETHING. This means that the pressure is on to invest, even if the ideas or opportunity aren't that great.
3. Many VCs (although not all) don't have the appropriate experience to validate technical claims. This is fine, they can hire people to do it. However, this fact, combined with #1 and #2 means that there is a rush to invest that may lead to investment in bogus technology.
Just in a hurry and browsing at 2+ due to slow connection. Moderators must not have thought too much of either of our posts. If they had, I would have seen yours and not posted.
I post in plain text, thus no active links. Your link to the text was more correct, however, when pressed for time I think that the information that I gave would have gotten them to the same place that you pointed them.
Oh, and I am not a fucking idiot, but thanks for asking.
This already exists in
Open Sources
Voices from the Open Source Revolution
Edited by Chris DiBona, Sam Ockman & Mark Stone
1st Edition January 1999
1-56592-582-3, Order Number: 5823
280 pages, $24.95
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/
In either the chapter
The Open Source Definition
Bruce Perens
or in
Freeing the Source: The Story of Mozilla
Jim Hamerly and Tom Paquin with Susan Walton
You'd think they'd check the licences before they decided to include the code...
/. topic of the day).
I've seen this phrase before, methinks, as "You'd think they'd check all the return codes from system calls-- don't they even think about security?" This ignores the basic fact tham many people who are coding don't care (about security, licensing, or other
I guess the solution would be some high-profile enforcement of these licensing terms-- however, many open source or free software projects (pick your term based on current politics), although they care deeply about the license used, don't have the time/inclination/budget/resources to have a follow-on licensing enforcement group.
This is correct, and it is because the GPL is, by design, meant to be viral. Stallman wanted the GPL to be this way. That is why the LGPL was created-- so that there is a choice of non-viral license for entities that wanted to make a non-GPL'd product that lionks to the open source C library from the FSF.
Thus, the blood group analogy is well-taken.
Not true. The TLD's follow the ISO Standard for 2-letter country abbreviations.
.com, .edu, .org, .net, etc. domains were already managed by IANA/NSI when most of the country codes were delegated.
The process was, I believe, that someone purporting to me the responsible party would ask for a country delegation, then, if they met the criteria of RFC 1591 (http://www.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1591.txt), the domain was delegated.
The
Perhaps this might be prior art:
CGI Programing on the World Wide Web
Published March 1996. I seem to recall some discussopn of both the GET and POST methods in this book. Perhaps this should have been cited in the patent application.
It is a DEAD Trademark:
Typed Drawing
Word Mark: KERBEROS
Goods and Services: (ABANDONED) IC 009. US 038. G & S: computer software and instruction manuals, sold as a unit, for use in authenticating participants in computer networks. FIRST USE: 19860306. FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 19900614
Mark Drawing Code: (1) TYPED DRAWING
Serial Number: 74251246
Filing Date: March 2, 1992
Published for Opposition: February 2, 1993
Owner: (APPLICANT) Massachusetts Institute of Technology CORPORATION MASSACHUSETTS 77 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge MASSACHUSETTS 021421324
Type of Mark: TRADEMARK
Register: PRINCIPAL
Live/Dead Indicator: DEAD
Abandonment Date: July 11, 1994
Those entrpeneurial might want to get it and use it as a stick against M$ (or against SAMBA if you're evil).
Even if "Apache" is bug free, how can you tell that the disk you got passed by your third cousin who got it from his ex-boss who got it from "some guy" is?
Welcome to the world of PGP/GPG/etc signatures for packages. It is entirely possible to get a verified version of whatever package you would like-- just go to the "official" FTP site or mirror, and download the source AND signature, and verify it. The official version usually has all the latest secuity patches integrated (maintainers know that these are critical fixes, and integrate them tout suite) and will typically be signed by some manner of digital signature.
Of course, this does open up the problem that you allude to that anyone can sign a package (provided they have a key pair), but the maintainers of any package that you need to use will likely be involved in the web of trust brought about through the key signing process. For more info, see the PGP FAQ's and look for information about key signing.
It would seem far more useful to me if source was "open" in the sense that you could get a copy of the code on production of a reasonable description of what you planned to do with it, what improvement you wanted to make, plus at least two references from people who were prepared to establish your bona fides. Kind of like the criteria for getting a reader's ticket to a law library.
The release version of any package is going to be pretty well checked over by the maintainer, and from a trusted source. The resisitance to the type of bureaucracy that you recommend is one of the best things about the OpenSource community.
Anything Else Harmful to You or Your School".
This was definitely my favorite.
(Phone rings at WAVE headquarters)
Pinkerton: Hello, this is the WAVE line, what is the problem that you would like to report?
Student: Well, one kid in my class doesn't participate in the pep rallies at school-- do you think this could be the sign of danger?
P: Well, is it hurting the school?
S: Of course, I mean there's a big game against Central this Friday and the team needs everyone's support. I'll just die if we don't win...
P: We'll alert the authorities.
This is dead on, but even more so for me. Although one can get a lot of work done due to the lack of distractions, and god knows it's easier to schedule errands during the day (and stick the "missed" work on the end or beginning of the day). However, think about all of the support that is gained from being able to bounce ideas off of others, especially if your job focuses more on creative problem solving. Having that extra brain nearby can make a world of difference.
Also, if you're inclined to "move up" at all, you'd best program in some regular face time. Familiarity may breed content, but it also breeds promotions.
DO NOT DO THIS!!!!
Offering to sell a domain to a company with a trademark similar to the domain is seen as prima facie evidence of "cybersquatting." Any offer of mayment must be made by the trademark-holding party first
Offering to sell will strip you of all rights-- don't do it!
Well, now you've come to the fundamental problem with the intersection of trademark law and comain policy. In traditional trademark law, there would not necessarily be a conflict-- however, given a flat namespace that does not differentiate (very well) based on geography or purpose, the conflict occurs. ICANN's Uniform Domain-Name Dispute-Resolution Policy (UDRP) governs the conflicting claims and is pretty clearly on the side of the trademark holder. Since a trademark exists for "Coke", the Coca-Cola company seems to have a pretty strong case.
Someone asked if the term coke is a trademark in Switzerland. If you can read German, go to The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property and see if there is a searchable database.