Linux-Advocacy Digest #245, Volume #29 Thu, 21 Sep 00 07:13:03 EDT
Contents:
Re: Never tell me again that Windows is easy to install!!! It's a lie! ("Stuart
Fox")
Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively (Jeremy Harbinson)
Re: filename extensions are NOT a kludge (FM)
Re: angry programmers (FM)
Re: filename extensions are NOT a kludge ("Aaron R. Kulkis")
Re: Unix more secure, huh? ("Otto")
Re: "Overclocking" Is A Bad Idea (Donal K. Fellows)
Re: Linux to reach NT 3.51 proportions in next 2 years ("Chris Sherlock")
Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively
(=?iso-8859-1?Q?Paul_'Z'_Ewande=A9?=)
Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively (Jack Troughton)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Stuart Fox" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Never tell me again that Windows is easy to install!!! It's a lie!
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 09:10:40 +0100
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:8qbaf9$enp$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>
> Stuart Fox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> news:8q9qmk$1cb$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >
> > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> > news:8q87pb$chg$[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> > >
> > > It just does it. Unlike the old NT 4 setup which did a slow format to
> > > FAT,
> > > > then ran convert on the next boot, it just does a quick NTFS format.
> On
> > > all
> > > > the machines I've done so far it doesn't grind away like NT 4 used
to
> > > doing
> > > > a slow FAT format, it takes about 20 seconds to do the NTFS format.
> > >
> > > You are not really talking about formatting the disk are you, you are
> just
> > > talking about installing the file system on an already formatted disk.
> > > Correct?
> >
> > Incorrect. On a blank hard disk with no partitions. Partitioning the
> drive
> > and formatting. Windows 2000 setup (for me at least) has done a very
> quick
> > format
>
> That is what I thought. You are mistaken in your terminology. In order
to
> partition a harddrive it has to be formatted first. After it is
partitioned
> that partitions need to have the filesystem made, which is what you are
> doing when you call it formatting.
You not telling me anything I don't know.
>
> When you format a floppy the format command both formats and makes the
file
> system on the floppy which is two in fact two processes handled by one
> program in the Dos and Windows environment. What you would call low level
> formatting of the harddrive is the real formatting process, the the MS
> format commands do not do for harddrives.
However, the format that is performed during Windows NT/95/9x setup is
traditionally (very) slow, which is remedied (IME) in Windows 2000. Setup
now performs a quick format as NTFS, which it didn't do before. Regardless
of my incorrect terminology, I suspect I am still comparing apples with
apples, as I doubt IL is doing a low level format of the drive either.
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:55:57 +0200
From: Jeremy Harbinson <"Jeremy Harbinson"@users.tbpt.wau.nl>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively
Sometimes my irony is lost on people............
all the best,
Jeremy
Timberwoof wrote:
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Jeremy Harbinson
> <"Jeremy Harbinson"@users.tbpt.wau.nl> wrote:
>
> > If I remember correctly, the Shuttle uses three computers for
> > certain operations and then, democratically I suppose you could say,
> > implements the majority decision. If they are using an MS OS that
> > would indeed appear to be a wise strategy.
>
> Those three computers were designed and programmed in the late '70s.
> They do not use an MS OS, for they do not use Intel chips. No matter
> what OS you're using, for this application, that's a wise strategy.
>
> >Also, I remember a
> > Hewlett-Packard advertisement claiming that the Shuttle Captain had
> > an HP programmable calculator mounted on the leg of his/her
> > flight-suit which he or she depended upon for some critical
> > calculations (during re-entry I think). I always wondered why they
> > just didn't use their computers for this, but now that calculator
> > makes a lot of sense
>
> The calculator is the backup in case all three computer failed. (And
> this is no ordinary fourbanger. It's an HP-41CV, a pretty hefty piece of
> work. When I was in college, we all dreamed of owning one of those.)
>
> >all the best, Jeremy Harbinson
>
> --
> Timberwoof <timberwoof at infernosoft dot com> Chief Perpetrator
> Infernosoft: Putting the No in Innovation. http://www.infernosoft.com
> "The opposite of hardware is not easyware."
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (FM)
Subject: Re: filename extensions are NOT a kludge
Date: 21 Sep 2000 08:19:34 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>majority of cases (but it requires serious design work). And
>in the case of filename extensions, the AI example shows
>that extensions belong as part of the name and it's only the
>state of the technology that forces us to use extensions. The
>first part of the name is the semantic content of the object
>and the second part of the name is the syntax of that object,
>both specified by the user.
Hah, and they are arbitrary rules that are forced upon
the user. How elegant!
>Elegance, simplicity and beauty are universal concepts. There
>are objective principles that dictate whether something is
>elegant and beautiful or ugly. Christopher Alexander (the
>man who came up with Design Patterns) wrote about these
>principles in his On The Nature of Order.
Ridiculous. Even if they could be defined objectively, it
is fairly clear that *you* have no idea how.
Dan.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (FM)
Subject: Re: angry programmers
Date: 21 Sep 2000 08:12:53 GMT
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Richard <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Do you see it as bashing? I don't. Oh, sure, I could've said
>"programmers are projective and lacking in empathy towards
>users" which would've been more accurate but few people
>would have understood. People understand "programmers
>hate users" just fine, and it's close enough.
Even your mild description is no more accurate than say,
teachers have no empathy for students. It's also nowhere
near close to what you've been claiming. Hate denotes a
rather strong emotion.
> 5) the proper relationship between a programmer
> and user is the same (modulo scope) as between
> a parent and child, or teacher and student
No it isn't. A child doesn't choose a parent. A student
often doesn't get to choose his/her teacher and often has
no way of avoiding them. A user does not have to use any
software if he/she so desires. It's more like a business-
customer relationship.
>and thus,
> 6) that what programmers engage in cannot be
> cosidered to be anything but abuse
Obvious nonsense. The users CHOOSE to use softwares.
Either they are all masochistic or you're full of shit.
I have much more confidence in the latter explanation,
however.
>are all technical and objective facts. That you happen to
>find yourself in the class under attack (and I grant that
>you are vastly more sympathetic and helpful towards users
>than the norm) does not make this a personal attack, even
>if you perceived it as such.
It's of course not a "personal" attack. It's more like
the definition of bigotry. You're hating a group based on
your unsubstantiated opinion of them that no one else seems
to share and has no basis on reality.
>This is no more personal than hating bigots or psychopaths;
>I hate all antisocial people lacking in empathy. To put this
>into perspective, you are the exceptional person in redneck
>country confronted with someone "bashing" rednecks.
>Intolerance of intolerance does not make one a bigot.
Bashing "rednecks" in general is also considered bigotry.
>If you want to learn what Linux is actually about, instead
>of being suckered in by the laughable propaganda, you might
>want to read Nikolai Bezkourov's paper "A Second Look
>at the Cathedral and the Bazaar" at
>http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_12/bezroukov/index.html
>It should disillusion you about the hacker mythos quite nicely.
Whatever nonsense you'd like to propagate. At least in my
case, I don't really care for Linux or unix at all. I just
felt compelled answer bold stupidity of yours that some
others here didn't seem to address.
>You should note further that if I am correct about my
>allegations then it is *very much* a personal matter for
>me, and *legitimately* so.
Well first, you are NOT correct about your allegation,
ans second, even if it were so, you would be an idiot
to take it *personally*. In other words, if you take it
personally that programmers hate users in general, then
why shouldn't programmers take it personally, when you
bash them in general?
>If programmers abuse users
>and I am a user then I have a right to be pissed off and
>return the hatred in kind. Now, if you want to legitimize
>FM's attacks on me then go right ahead;
That's funny. I don't really think I attacked you
personally without regard to your stupidity, ignorance
and unwarranted boldness. All these are charatcteristics
of your posts that are attributable to you directly.
>just make sure
>you share what you learn about his motivations and
>psychology (ie, his delicate emotional balance) with
>the rest of us.
That's funny. You need chill out and have a beer or
something.
>And even if everything I accuse programmers of is bunk,
>considering the fact that Unix will endure for good or
>ill (it already has, Bezkourov's paper only goes on to
>explain why this will also be so for Linux) and that FM
>feels threatened by *me*, you can't possibly claim that
>he is operating from any rational reasons. (Think a bit
>about just what kind of "provocation" I've given him.)
Whatever. I don't feel threatened by stupidity. I merely
get offended when stupidity is combined with boldness
and pretense.
>I have legitimate reasons to feel threatened, resentful
>and angry. He does not. The situation was *never*
>symmetric.
In that I generally provided rational reasons why you
were full of shit and am far more knowledgeable than
you are, whereas your entire reasoning has been that I
don't know you, but you somehow know me enough to judge
my mental state. That was pretty hilarious too, if you
take a moment to think about it.
>At worst, beating up the morally bankrupt is futile and
>childish. It's never actually /wrong/ to beat a neo-nazi
>skinhead to a bloody pulp (a friend of mine misspent his
>youth) or to bash hackers. It *is* wrong if the positions
>are reversed.
Damn, you should try to be a comedian. You're a master
of unintended irony and self-ridicule.
>And this doesn't even get into the difference between
>attacking the people who form the dominant faction
>of a group and attacking /all/ the people in that group.
>In particular, you do *not* belong to the dominant
>faction of the Linux or Open Source groups of pro-
>grammers. You may, for some misguided reason feel
>loyalty to that faction, but let's just say that I have the
>urge to say "Come over to the Light side of the Force"
>when I talk to you. Of course, that might condemn
>you to death by association on the NG. :-)
That's also quite idiotic. The number of people who are
involved in Linux are quite few. You didn't direct your
insults to them alone, but to all programmers in general.
Of course, since they didn't make sense anyways, no one
else could've figured out what you had in mind, as
opposed to what you mistakenly said. The latter is what
you get judged by, however.
Dan.
------------------------------
From: "Aaron R. Kulkis" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: filename extensions are NOT a kludge
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 05:41:02 -0400
Richard wrote:
>
>
> The
> first part of the name is the semantic content of the object
> and the second part of the name is the syntax of that object,
> both specified by the user.
This is nothing but self-serving sophistry.
--
Aaron R. Kulkis
Unix Systems Engineer
ICQ # 3056642
H: "Having found not one single carbon monoxide leak on the entire
premises, it is my belief, and Willard concurs, that the reason
you folks feel listless and disoriented is simply because
you are lazy, stupid people"
I: Loren Petrich's 2-week stubborn refusal to respond to the
challenge to describe even one philosophical difference
between himself and the communists demonstrates that, in fact,
Loren Petrich is a COMMUNIST ***hole
A: The wise man is mocked by fools.
B: Jet Silverman plays the fool and spews out nonsense as a
method of sidetracking discussions which are headed in a
direction that she doesn't like.
C: Jet Silverman claims to have killfiled me.
D: Jet Silverman now follows me from newgroup to newsgroup
...despite (D) above.
E: Jet is not worthy of the time to compose a response until
their behavior improves.
F: Unit_4's "Kook hunt" reminds me of "Jimmy Baker's" harangues against
adultery while concurrently committing adultery with Tammy Hahn.
G: Knackos...you're a retard.
------------------------------
From: "Otto" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Unix more secure, huh?
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:09:19 GMT
"A transfinite number of monkeys" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
: Reference please? In order to perform a remote exploit that involves a
: buffer overflow, you MUST have a *connection* to the victim machine. In
: the case of a SYN flood, you *never* have a completed connection. Only
: one-third of the TCP connection handshake is sucessfully completed in a
: SYN flood.
Correct, syn flood is used to cause the buffer overflow. A second pc, with
connection to the victim machine, is used to actually insert the malicious
code.
: I do have a very high opinion of using network IDS. If you're permitting
: any kind of traffic through your firewall, you need to still check up on
: what's going on there. Go ahead and pick up a pair of Nokia IP650s, set
: up big-bad VRRP hot-standby failover, with FW-1 to guard your web server.
: It won't help if there's an HTTP based exploit. That's where NIDS and
: Host based IDS comes into play.
True, but the "legitimate" traffic can still exploit the web servers, as you
said, despite all of the IDSs and firewalls. It isn't the known exploits
what causing the vulnerability, that should not happen if the admin does
his/her job as they should. It's the exploits which becomes known tomorrow
that will compromise the system. Not to mention all of the exploits what
could exist within the actual web application. You could have the most
secure network infrastructure in place, but it's almost worthless if the
developer's code is full of exploits. Using Tripwire on the publicly
accessible servers, including on the Check Point FW-1, will definetly
confirm the break-in. However, that might be too late if there is sensitive
data on the system, which is the case for many web sites. Not all of the web
sites are manned 24/7, which slows the reaction to the break-in. That
provides enough time for a hacker to compromise the data.
Otto
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Donal K. Fellows)
Subject: Re: "Overclocking" Is A Bad Idea
Date: 21 Sep 2000 10:06:38 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Jim Broughton <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What can be more arithmetic than calculations involved in ploting
> and then rendering a full motion scene in todays fast paced 3d FPS
> games.
Scientific simulation. Those guys use whopper supercomputers for a
good reason, and those computers don't use Intel CPUs for a good
reason too, namely floating-point performance. By way of some
illustration, I was in a discussion on another group on the fastest
way to shuffle (IOW randomly permute) a list, and there were several
algorithms proposed. However, it turned out that while recent Intels
were fastest when an algorithm was written using mainly integer math,
an UltraSparc with a nominally lower clock speed would kick the pants
off that Intel chip if the algorithm used floating point comparisons
instead of integer ones.
Intel FP is not as bad as it used to be, but it is still nothing to
write home about. That gamers haven't figured this out doesn't
surprise me; they tend not to be anything nearly so hot-shot technical
people as they like to believe themselves to be...
Is that an insult to those people? Yes. Is it true? You betcha! :^)
Donal.
--
Donal K. Fellows http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~fellowsd/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-- Actually, come to think of it, I don't think your opponent, your audience,
or the metropolitan Tokyo area would be in much better shape.
-- Jeff Huo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
------------------------------
From: "Chris Sherlock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Linux to reach NT 3.51 proportions in next 2 years
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 21:48:31 +1000
True. I used vim to edit html files. I like the way it does macros :)
Chris
Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Wed, 13 Sep 2000 02:12:59 GMT, Otto wrote:
> >
> >"Chris Sherlock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:39bdf7e6$0$26514
>
> >Correction... Apple had "garbage can", which did look like a stinky old
> >garbage can.
>
> I think it's the "trash can".
>
> >Actually, maybe because I like the GUI of any OS, the Linuxconf is pretty
> >good. I only use vi when I must.
>
> IME unless the config file format is self-describing, I take the easy way
> out. In particular, I usually configure networking through these kinds of
> utilities.
>
> BTW, gvim is much nicer than traditional vi. Both are quite an overkill
> for someone who just uses them to edit config files. ( I use gvim for
> development )
>
> --
> Donovan
------------------------------
From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Paul_'Z'_Ewande=A9?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 13:00:02 +0200
"Peter Ammon" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> a �crit dans le message news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
<SNIP> Some stuff about product placement </SNIP>
> > Also the movies are a business not an Apple welfare office. Do you
> > realy think that if Compaq made a better offer they'd turn them down?
>
> Yes, frankly, I do.
Wow. :)
> -Peter
Paul 'Z' Ewande
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Jack Troughton)
Crossposted-To:
comp.sys.mac.advocacy,comp.os.os2.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Space Shuttle uses Windows software almost exclusively
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 11:00:02 GMT
On Thu, 21 Sep 2000 04:21:50, Timberwoof <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "samurai"
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> > But for the rest of us Mac people who aren't brainwashed, facts
>> > work. What's the big deal about Apple paying for product placement?
>> > You know, if Apple *didn't* do that, someone somewhere would be
>> > throwing a hissy fit that Apple isn't following up this most
>> > obvious marketing technique.
>> >
>>
>> I agree. It's just good marketing. I just wanted to point out the
>> reality of business to the more naive posters. I wouldn't be
>> surprised if MS really starts pumping dollars into a similar campaign
>> - if they aren't already.
>
>
>I can already hear the boos and cackles form the audience.
>
>When a Mac appears in a movie or TV show, people recognize it. (VIP,
>News Radio, that funny judge...) And it can do that just by being seen.
>But when an ordinary PC appears, it's just a PC. How could Micorsoft
>point out it's running Microsoft software without appearing amazingly
>heavyhanded?
You could do what they did with OS/2 in Goldeneye; it had prominently
displayed OS/2 desktops on the machines in that control centre they
had... the desktop is quite distinctive, and easy to recognize for
those that know what it looks like.
--
==========================================================
* Jack Troughton jake at jakesplace.dhs.org *
* http://jakesplace.dhs.org ftp://jakesplace.dhs.org *
* Montr�al PQ Canada news://jakesplace.dhs.org *
==========================================================
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