We've seen the incoming and the outgoing[0], but have they followed on with more? The M$ letter sounded quite sure and serious, but that's of course just legalese for "We really mean it!". But I wonder whether they actually thought they did have a leg to stand on, and intended to try and do that.
Stefan. [0] Letters, not missiles. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
*sigh* Thank you for pointing out the obvious, I should have thought of it even if I had been thoroughly asleep. Just goes to show, when you're sure you're never making some kind of mistake, you'll make it, you just won't notice yourself making it. I mean, it is not as if the indentation is not a big, bright, flashing neon sign saying: "Hello, sunshine, we maybe missing an ending here!" Ah well, just have to hope extreme genious still borders on extreme stupidity.;-)
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
All these things come at a price, for sure, but for as long ass the sun will shine upon us, bosses will shell out money for neing able to pass the buck whenever something goes wrong in their lot. No matter what proof you give to clarify, that using Open Source solution would save money, works better and more reliable, than the product of vendor X, many managers will use the flaky product of vendor X over the better thing, simply because when it fails they can take them to court and thereby pass guilt and, hopefully, losses. Sun is such a company, and one of the best in providing added flavour, in my experience. Reliability, browsable help, and service, if you pay for the service contract. Expensive as hell, but, after all, if you don't make your customers pay for that, you've got no bussiness sense anyway, and will be bankrupt before long.
Stefan. How come that last paragraph is indented, and how do I correct that?
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
According to a Salon article Drug Cookies the gubynmynt did not viloate federal law, since COPA only applies to businesses.
But that's not the point of the letter, is it? The point is, that Doubleclick is doing the violations, using Federal computers. And the US government surely can't condone that.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
This is an important step: such a journal is essential to spreading insights on the nature of the internet and its denizens to lawyers of all levels, and so promoting the underlying views we so vehemently try to save from the crushing power off crass commercialism. Without knowledge, there can be no understanding, and without understanding, there may be no future.
I sincerely hope this journal will help resolve legal issues as yet untouched, rather than having to fight each little bit in courts, like we're focred to do now. All in all, a hopegiving new effort.
Stefan. It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
there are better alternatives. Requiring the head to remain relatively fixed will not do, if there are alternatives that don't, and there are alternatives that don't: at my workplace, we have a so called CAVE, a room with three display-walls, on which alternatively projections are made for left and right eye, with polarized glasses closing the "wrong" eye in synch, which gives an extremely realistic 3D view without requiring the head to remain still. A simpler setup is the Immersadesk, a large display with similar features: wearing the glasses you get the 3D effect from a flat screen, making a racing game just that much more realistic.
At the moment such setups are too expensive for the casual user, but if the technology would be scaled down to a similar setup like DTI's, it could well become affordable. It'd need such glasses, a head tracking system for optimal representation, and special software, just like with the DTI system. Call me optimistic, but it could be done quite soon for no more than $500 total, in the near future, if I go by prices for other goodies coming onto the market. But so long as that doen't happen, there may be a place for the DTI stuff.
Stefan. I should get a colleague from the VR group to comment here, but I don't think they read Slashdot yet.
the ultimate test for an arificial nose would be to test perfumes for acceptibility
And I think that is one thing, such a nose will almost certainly never be able to do, as smell is a very subjective thing. Remember, must perfumes are made of ingredients, which by themselves fall in the "Not nice" category. But who knows, maybe with a self-learning AI and the multitude of examples it could be given...
Stefan, not smelling like roses, since I just got up.;-)
And I'm not joking: I think it would be great to have some sort of butler looking robot with e nose, that'll take some people aside as they come within larger groups of people, and explain them the reason and use of bath or shower and deodorants; in my former job I had a colleague who'd have been much more pleasant to work with, had the knowledge ever penetrated through to him, but as it was, everyone was too embarrassed to tell him, or else he ignored their advice. And I'm not talking about a light hint of perspiration, no, I'm talking about all-out chemical warfare of a sweat buildup, only achieved through careful avoidance of soap and water.
Which brings me to the other side of the aroma balance: one of my former friends did use aftershave and stuff, only he had a severe problem with getting the dosage right; having a robot tell him "Sir, your aftershave is so strong, my nose went offline: I suggest in the future you apply a little less, so the people eating next to you can actually smell their food instead of you." would be much called for. 'They'd like you better if you didn't smell like an accident in the perfume factory." Luckily he has a girlfriend, who must have told him something along those lines, because in time it became much better. But yes, a non-human to draw the extremes of the aroma scale of their nasal effrontery would be ever so nice. Because when a fellow human tells them, they often take offence.
Also very handy for when your own nose, due to a cold or something, doesn't work properly: "How do I smell, James?" 'Nothing a shower can't take care of, sir.' "Right, I feared as much. Hand me that towel, please."
Stefan, whose nose still functions quite well even if he smokes.
For one worrying moment I thought you suggested going to the lowest common denominator, which clearly shows I wasn't really thinking. But your suggestion looks sound. And if they'd only make the standard the all-comprising superset of the existing standards, named in the article, I think we'd be cruising to Z'ha'dum and back in a jiffy, without even a scratch or a fall.:-) Lets call it OpenTV, shall we? IETF, are you listening? Let's RFC!
Well, talk about taking pot-shots at a mosquito with an elephantgun and still missing. Surely you don't believe your systems are secure purely through obscurity? Because if you do, why do you bother with a root password at all? How come you so sure, that noone will ever choose your system to be a target for a port sniffer? And do you really want to rely on scenario's like this:
"Oh, we've found this huge gaping hole in the system, any scriptkiddie will immediately find it, once word gets round." 'Well, lets pretend it isn't there and try to find a fix before shit happens.' "Uhm, well, we really found out about it this morning, when the mail server was discovered to be hacked and truly messed around with." 'Well, let's just hope the little shit tells noone. So, not a word to anyone, right?' "You're the boss."
And if you think "Obscurity is one of the prime security features provided by firewalls" you've got some mightily funny firewalls where you live. Over here, their main function is to deny access, selectively, to some services and/or some machines. Or rather, to selectively allow access, because the remainder is denied.
You're right in that obscurity provides some level of security, but 1. you can't rely on it and 2. it only stops the really moronic/incompetent. So yes, I keep maintaining: "Security through obscurity never works". It can only lull you into a false sense of security.
What's the proverb? "NO SECURITY WITHOUT OBSCURITY!". I thought that was what the "Open Source Security Model" was all about?
As a matter of fact, you got that precisely backwards: the Open Source Movement (or I should rather say: the thinking internet community) maintains: Security through obscurity never works. Why is this, do you ask? Because security bugs, like all others, will be found, and what you do not want to happen is, that all the nasty crackers and script kiddies know about the bugs and you don't.
True, this also means, that all the crackers and script kiddies will now know about this bug, but there is a fix. And if you don't want to have to spend time to fix it, fine, suit yourself, just don't come crying to daddy if someone hacks your machine to bits, because you were informed beforehand.
Security through abscurity has never worked, see M$'s Windoze for case in point.
Stefan. `I was all fired up to write a big rant, but instead found apathy to be a more worthwhile solution.' --- Ashley Penney
I've nothing to add, just wanted to draw your attention to the Preview button, right beside the Submit button. It helps you focus on the doodah's before stepping into them.
Stefan. "...Microsoft follows standards. In much the same manner that fish follow migrating caribou." "Now I have this image in my mind of a fish embracing and extending a caribou." -- Paul Tomblin and Christian Bauernfeind in the SDM
I'm glad he got this case, because I remember he (Whyte) showed remarkable insight in the facts of computer and internet technology in the cases the Cult of $catology against former members, who told their experiences with the cult and even put up some of the materials used by the cult. I'm not saying this will go "our" way, but I'm more confident, that the outcome will be true and just.
What bugs me most about this is, that the only reason not to proceed as planned is fear of unauthorized access over the 'net.
This completely ignores unauthorized access physically perpetrated (resentful bureaucrats abusing their access to harass cheating SO or pesky neighbour, cleaner script kiddie at the terminals) or the stretching of the confines of legal uses of the information. At the start it will be only used for tracking abuses of ssubsidies and tax evasion, but if you believe that's where it stays, I have this bridge I've been planning to sell.
Stefan. If you don't know: SO="significant other".
Or at least, I did. Now I'm no Linus Thorvalds or Alan Cox, but I can program. And I like programming. Pity my work doesn't need it more than it does. As it went for me it was first: my dads HP-25, then, my own HP-67, then Sinclair Spetrum basic, an interpreter, which is very useful in telling you made a mistake right after you made it, and then, machine code (spectrum), which taught me to think about what I was working with, and what it could do.
If I had kids, I'd first show them a basic interpreter, which gets some basics of programming done, and then, if they kept being eager, either machine code or assembly, so they would learn about the machine. The next step would be a higher language, if they'd still be interested. It's like: you can't run, if you never learned to walk. And, though I most certainly have forgotten everything I ever learned about hardware in my youth, I'm sure it must still have an influence on my terse, commented and (usually) almost faultless coding.
But in the end, if they truly want, all paths lead to Rome.
Stefan. My higher level programming capability was triggered by half a year of lectures on Algol68, a much missed language.
The point is, that it's a robot taking over in an area, where human expertise was thought to be prevalent. For years I've been having dinner in a diner, where I could order "Just make something tasty." if I didn't have a preference that day, and the cook would happily experiment and look for my comments. Or I could order specific things not on the menu, if I wanted. I doubt a robot-cook could be as versatile.
But I see what a robot like this could do in a burger-restaurant: uninspired "off the rack" recipe's for hamburgers and fries, and such stuff. Just press your wishes on a computerized menu embedded in the table and five minutes later the trolley comes by, delivering your meal after you'd paid it. Not my cup-of-tea, I like the human interaction.
Stefan. "One large fries." "Would you like fries with that, Ma'm?"
One of the biggest safeguards of Unix so far is: the sheer lack of uniformity. Another is (was?) it's relatively small install base. About the first point: write a linux executable, and even it you convince enough people to run it, it will fail because there is no single level of Unix installed everywhere. Some kernels will barf on it, others will refuse to execute it. And it won't work on Slowaris, SunOS, HP-(Y)UX, *AIX*, Digital Unix. So a shell script version might work (even then, program features change, as well), but that has the drawback of being readable and thereby easily recognized for what is is.
The second point, the install base, removes one of the major incentives of the perpetraitors: notoriety. Lack of familiarity might also play a part.
THe third (and maybe biggest?) factor is: Unix users are generally much more educated in computer use, and knowledgeable about it. And with all the M$ targeted viruses about, they will know not to run random binaries from unknown sources. So again, a succesrate limiter, reducing the chance of notoriety.
That are in my estimate the main reasons we haven't seen much abuse in the @Unix so far. The only notorious exception being Morris, who wormed himself rather more succesfully than intended through sendmail holes.
Anyone out there get the "I Kinda Like you" virus for *nix? It's on the honor system: rm a few files your not using and forward to your friends.
Don't spread it around! Now I have to delete some more files and forward this to all my friends and nodding acquintances again! You're giving me a bad name, you. I shall have to install a filter to make sure I never see you again. I'm quite honourable, I'll have you know. Only a handshake is needed to clinch a deal, and I won't back out of it. Invoking it to your benefit or my detriment is evil.
Stefan. "If someone has no honour, how can you trust him?" "Grab him by the wallet?" "Good point."
When I first got a job as a systems programmer, it was 1987, and I was a conscientious objector to military service. I wanted the required job replacing the military service to be something I wouldn't loathe after a week. And I regretted not having chosen informatics as my second study, instead of the very wrong (for me) psychology I did. So when I learned of a University computer centre in my town having hired conscientious objectors before, I wrote them an open solicitation (is that the right word in English?). I'd only done half a year informatics as a secondary course (learning to program in Algol '68... The memories... But that's another story.) and I had knowledge from the ZX Spectrum, and much to my surprise, I was interviewed within a week and hired within two. At that time my goal was to learn as much as I could, to, as it were, take everything apart to see how it worked. And to write some marvellous programs. The drear of everyday work soon took away the sharpest edge of those dreams, until in I think 1989 a Convex minisuper (C120, for those in the know) entered our life, with Convex Unix for the OS. Working with that Unix system rekindled all my previous passions, the ones IBM's MVS seemingly had so thoroughly thrashed.
But after time, the fires dwindled down again, as I had neither the time nor energy to fullfill them. Since then, I've almost exclusively worked in Unix, writing tiny programs in shell, C, and later perl. The ambitious programming dream is still there, to write the ultimate, self-learning chess program, and a self-learning AI with audiovisual (and perhaps automotive) peripherals, HAL 9000 (or less), if you like. My main goals are now to keep the customers and, thereby, my bosses pleased, and since I changed jobs in 1997, with a five month hiatus, my fire has returned for about a year, after which the stress of too much work for too few people doused the spirit once more. Still, recently I heard, my name is sung with high praise with at least our biggest customer, so in that year I did some things regarded as quite amazingly spiffy.;-) From some little programs I wrote in my spare time I have also learned, that I don't have the attention span and stamina to write the really big programs, like the ones I dream of. I wrote a score keeping aid for watching snooker, since I hated it not knowing when one or the other started needing snookers, and the commentators weren't all that helpful all of the time, and I play snooker myself seldom enough not to have the program in my head. Anyone wants to look at it, mail me. It works, but it could use some refinement, some added checks to prevent mistakes (or "cheating").
So, after 13 years, since I'm now in a bit of a dip (again),
my main goals are:
Getting up in the morning, on time.
Trying to keep computers, customers and bosses as happy as an be.
Trying to do as much work, whithout getting a feeling of being overburdened.
Relaxing as much as possible in the evening.
Trying to find as much fun during all the bove.
Read up on/. to keep up to date (this used to be the function of Usenet.)
Oh well, 'nuff said.
Stefan. Usenet used to be a treasurebox of information, until the masses were let loose on it and drowned the useful content with cries of "It doesn't work! Help me! Now!!!" and "You suck. <RANT MODE=agressive; SPELLING=uneducated>
I doubt it. VMS is simpler all the way around, there is less to break, kernel wise.
I'm sorry, but I don't see what in my contribution you mean to doubt. I grant you, that for a well trained system adminisratir VMS will be easier, because there is more control, and it's more luser-proof. What I did not convey was, that my small experience as a user with VMS did nothing to revisit it, except when demanded hy higher authorities, whereas my meeting with Unix (ConvexOS) amounted to love at first sight. A big difference may have been, that I had the root password of that box right from the start, but I still think, that on the VMS machine I wouldn't have had the same rapport, given I had quite some powers on a MVS machine at the time (and I'm still trying to forget).
Granted, it's not clever, it's just how it came out. But it would be easier, more gratifying, if you will, to grant your request had it not been made from an infinite number of monkeys, typing away at various unattented terminals as Anonymous Cowards. So I cannot promise anything. Except, that I will probably post again on/. (which is also not clever, just easy), hopefully not to your annoyance.
Stefan. "Boxen" is the Dutch word for the English verb "to box".
I like to think you could get Unix/Linux boxen that sturdy, but the fact is, that VMS boxes are it already. It's been around, has grown hair on its chest, even tough it's a bitch in ease of use for the unitiated. And that's a vi addict speaking.
But to digress to a similar story: One time, in my former job, we had a few seconds of power failure in our building, and I, in a corridor at the time, heard cries of woe everywhere from colleagues, whose windows thingies had failed them. Smiling, for I _am_ a BOFH, I returned to my identical hardware, mightily surprised to see my Linux box still in the very same shape I left it in. Much gloating ensued, I can tell you. And I started reading the next Usenet article. My guess is a capacitator for just such power failures wasn't big enough for Windoze (3.1 at the time, I think), idle or not, but enough for an idle Linux box.
Stefan. I'd hate VMS dying, for it did some wonderful things with hardware in my time.
"IBM wants its customers to deploy ebusiness technology applications concurrently with existing OS/2 applications until platform neutrality has been achieved, and then change the operating system,"
What in Linux heaven or M$ hell do they mean? That they can ftp all customer stuff to the other platform, where it can be used? And that from a company, that used M$ tactics since before Bill Gates was born, only not that succesfully... And whom are they going to be friends with? Us, or them? The article leaves much to be enquired.
Stefan. IBM invented noninteroperability as a marketing strategy long before Microsoft, but failed because Amdahl left them, knew reverse engineering and how the IBM machines were designed.
Slashdot Mirror
Stefan.
[0] Letters, not missiles.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
*sigh* Thank you for pointing out the obvious, I should have thought of it even if I had been thoroughly asleep. Just goes to show, when you're sure you're never making some kind of mistake, you'll make it, you just won't notice yourself making it. I mean, it is not as if the indentation is not a big, bright, flashing neon sign saying: "Hello, sunshine, we maybe missing an ending here!" Ah well, just have to hope extreme genious still borders on extreme stupidity. ;-)
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
All these things come at a price, for sure, but for as long ass the sun will shine upon us, bosses will shell out money for neing able to pass the buck whenever something goes wrong in their lot. No matter what proof you give to clarify, that using Open Source solution would save money, works better and more reliable, than the product of vendor X, many managers will use the flaky product of vendor X over the better thing, simply because when it fails they can take them to court and thereby pass guilt and, hopefully, losses. Sun is such a company, and one of the best in providing added flavour, in my experience. Reliability, browsable help, and service, if you pay for the service contract. Expensive as hell, but, after all, if you don't make your customers pay for that, you've got no bussiness sense anyway, and will be bankrupt before long.
Stefan.
How come that last paragraph is indented, and how do I correct that?
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
But that's not the point of the letter, is it? The point is, that Doubleclick is doing the violations, using Federal computers. And the US government surely can't condone that.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
I sincerely hope this journal will help resolve legal issues as yet untouched, rather than having to fight each little bit in courts, like we're focred to do now. All in all, a hopegiving new effort.
Stefan.
It takes a lot of brains to enjoy satire, humor and wit-
At the moment such setups are too expensive for the casual user, but if the technology would be scaled down to a similar setup like DTI's, it could well become affordable. It'd need such glasses, a head tracking system for optimal representation, and special software, just like with the DTI system. Call me optimistic, but it could be done quite soon for no more than $500 total, in the near future, if I go by prices for other goodies coming onto the market. But so long as that doen't happen, there may be a place for the DTI stuff.
Stefan.
I should get a colleague from the VR group to comment here, but I don't think they read Slashdot yet.
And I think that is one thing, such a nose will almost certainly never be able to do, as smell is a very subjective thing. Remember, must perfumes are made of ingredients, which by themselves fall in the "Not nice" category. But who knows, maybe with a self-learning AI and the multitude of examples it could be given...
Stefan, not smelling like roses, since I just got up. ;-)
Which brings me to the other side of the aroma balance: one of my former friends did use aftershave and stuff, only he had a severe problem with getting the dosage right; having a robot tell him "Sir, your aftershave is so strong, my nose went offline: I suggest in the future you apply a little less, so the people eating next to you can actually smell their food instead of you." would be much called for. 'They'd like you better if you didn't smell like an accident in the perfume factory." Luckily he has a girlfriend, who must have told him something along those lines, because in time it became much better. But yes, a non-human to draw the extremes of the aroma scale of their nasal effrontery would be ever so nice. Because when a fellow human tells them, they often take offence.
Also very handy for when your own nose, due to a cold or something, doesn't work properly: "How do I smell, James?" 'Nothing a shower can't take care of, sir.' "Right, I feared as much. Hand me that towel, please."
Stefan, whose nose still functions quite well even if he smokes.
Stefan.
Yikes! That's another OS I'm never going to touch or even come near.
Stefan.
"Oh, we've found this huge gaping hole in the system, any scriptkiddie will immediately find it, once word gets round." 'Well, lets pretend it isn't there and try to find a fix before shit happens.' "Uhm, well, we really found out about it this morning, when the mail server was discovered to be hacked and truly messed around with." 'Well, let's just hope the little shit tells noone. So, not a word to anyone, right?' "You're the boss."
And if you think "Obscurity is one of the prime security features provided by firewalls" you've got some mightily funny firewalls where you live. Over here, their main function is to deny access, selectively, to some services and/or some machines. Or rather, to selectively allow access, because the remainder is denied.
You're right in that obscurity provides some level of security, but 1. you can't rely on it and 2. it only stops the really moronic/incompetent. So yes, I keep maintaining: "Security through obscurity never works". It can only lull you into a false sense of security.
Stefan.
Did I claim to be original with that? Of course, I could have written Mickey$choft Winddoos, but I rather doubt you speak Dutch.
Stefan.
As a matter of fact, you got that precisely backwards: the Open Source Movement (or I should rather say: the thinking internet community) maintains: Security through obscurity never works. Why is this, do you ask? Because security bugs, like all others, will be found, and what you do not want to happen is, that all the nasty crackers and script kiddies know about the bugs and you don't.
True, this also means, that all the crackers and script kiddies will now know about this bug, but there is a fix. And if you don't want to have to spend time to fix it, fine, suit yourself, just don't come crying to daddy if someone hacks your machine to bits, because you were informed beforehand.
Security through abscurity has never worked, see M$'s Windoze for case in point.
Stefan.
`I was all fired up to write a big rant, but instead found apathy to be a more worthwhile solution.' --- Ashley Penney
I've nothing to add, just wanted to draw your attention to the Preview button, right beside the Submit button. It helps you focus on the doodah's before stepping into them.
Stefan.
"...Microsoft follows standards. In much the same manner that fish follow migrating caribou." "Now I have this image in my mind of a fish embracing and extending a caribou." -- Paul Tomblin and Christian Bauernfeind in the SDM
Stefan.
This completely ignores unauthorized access physically perpetrated (resentful bureaucrats abusing their access to harass cheating SO or pesky neighbour, cleaner script kiddie at the terminals) or the stretching of the confines of legal uses of the information. At the start it will be only used for tracking abuses of ssubsidies and tax evasion, but if you believe that's where it stays, I have this bridge I've been planning to sell.
Stefan.
If you don't know: SO="significant other".
If I had kids, I'd first show them a basic interpreter, which gets some basics of programming done, and then, if they kept being eager, either machine code or assembly, so they would learn about the machine. The next step would be a higher language, if they'd still be interested. It's like: you can't run, if you never learned to walk. And, though I most certainly have forgotten everything I ever learned about hardware in my youth, I'm sure it must still have an influence on my terse, commented and (usually) almost faultless coding.
But in the end, if they truly want, all paths lead to Rome.
Stefan.
My higher level programming capability was triggered by half a year of lectures on Algol68, a much missed language.
But I see what a robot like this could do in a burger-restaurant: uninspired "off the rack" recipe's for hamburgers and fries, and such stuff. Just press your wishes on a computerized menu embedded in the table and five minutes later the trolley comes by, delivering your meal after you'd paid it. Not my cup-of-tea, I like the human interaction.
Stefan.
"One large fries." "Would you like fries with that, Ma'm?"
The second point, the install base, removes one of the major incentives of the perpetraitors: notoriety. Lack of familiarity might also play a part.
THe third (and maybe biggest?) factor is: Unix users are generally much more educated in computer use, and knowledgeable about it. And with all the M$ targeted viruses about, they will know not to run random binaries from unknown sources. So again, a succesrate limiter, reducing the chance of notoriety.
That are in my estimate the main reasons we haven't seen much abuse in the @Unix so far. The only notorious exception being Morris, who wormed himself rather more succesfully than intended through sendmail holes.
Stefan.
<B5>There is a hole in your mind.</B5>
Don't spread it around! Now I have to delete some more files and forward this to all my friends and nodding acquintances again! You're giving me a bad name, you. I shall have to install a filter to make sure I never see you again. I'm quite honourable, I'll have you know. Only a handshake is needed to clinch a deal, and I won't back out of it. Invoking it to your benefit or my detriment is evil.
Stefan.
"If someone has no honour, how can you trust him?" "Grab him by the wallet?" "Good point."
But after time, the fires dwindled down again, as I had neither the time nor energy to fullfill them. Since then, I've almost exclusively worked in Unix, writing tiny programs in shell, C, and later perl. The ambitious programming dream is still there, to write the ultimate, self-learning chess program, and a self-learning AI with audiovisual (and perhaps automotive) peripherals, HAL 9000 (or less), if you like. My main goals are now to keep the customers and, thereby, my bosses pleased, and since I changed jobs in 1997, with a five month hiatus, my fire has returned for about a year, after which the stress of too much work for too few people doused the spirit once more. Still, recently I heard, my name is sung with high praise with at least our biggest customer, so in that year I did some things regarded as quite amazingly spiffy. ;-) From some little programs I wrote in my spare time I have also learned, that I don't have the attention span and stamina to write the really big programs, like the ones I dream of. I wrote a score keeping aid for watching snooker, since I hated it not knowing when one or the other started needing snookers, and the commentators weren't all that helpful all of the time, and I play snooker myself seldom enough not to have the program in my head. Anyone wants to look at it, mail me. It works, but it could use some refinement, some added checks to prevent mistakes (or "cheating").
So, after 13 years, since I'm now in a bit of a dip (again),
- my main goals are:
- Getting up in the morning, on time.
- Trying to keep computers, customers and bosses as happy as an be.
- Trying to do as much work, whithout getting a feeling of being overburdened.
- Relaxing as much as possible in the evening.
- Trying to find as much fun during all the bove.
- Read up on
/. to keep up to date (this used to be the function of Usenet.)
Oh well, 'nuff said.Stefan.
Usenet used to be a treasurebox of information, until the masses were let loose on it and drowned the useful content with cries of "It doesn't work! Help me! Now!!!" and "You suck. <RANT MODE=agressive; SPELLING=uneducated>
I'm sorry, but I don't see what in my contribution you mean to doubt. I grant you, that for a well trained system adminisratir VMS will be easier, because there is more control, and it's more luser-proof. What I did not convey was, that my small experience as a user with VMS did nothing to revisit it, except when demanded hy higher authorities, whereas my meeting with Unix (ConvexOS) amounted to love at first sight. A big difference may have been, that I had the root password of that box right from the start, but I still think, that on the VMS machine I wouldn't have had the same rapport, given I had quite some powers on a MVS machine at the time (and I'm still trying to forget).
Stefan
Different strokes for different folks.
Stefan.
"Boxen" is the Dutch word for the English verb "to box".
But to digress to a similar story: One time, in my former job, we had a few seconds of power failure in our building, and I, in a corridor at the time, heard cries of woe everywhere from colleagues, whose windows thingies had failed them. Smiling, for I _am_ a BOFH, I returned to my identical hardware, mightily surprised to see my Linux box still in the very same shape I left it in. Much gloating ensued, I can tell you. And I started reading the next Usenet article. My guess is a capacitator for just such power failures wasn't big enough for Windoze (3.1 at the time, I think), idle or not, but enough for an idle Linux box.
Stefan.
I'd hate VMS dying, for it did some wonderful things with hardware in my time.
What in Linux heaven or M$ hell do they mean? That they can ftp all customer stuff to the other platform, where it can be used? And that from a company, that used M$ tactics since before Bill Gates was born, only not that succesfully... And whom are they going to be friends with? Us, or them? The article leaves much to be enquired.
Stefan.
IBM invented noninteroperability as a marketing strategy long before Microsoft, but failed because Amdahl left them, knew reverse engineering and how the IBM machines were designed.