Linux-Advocacy Digest #741, Volume #32 Sat, 10 Mar 01 12:13:04 EST
Contents:
Re: What does IQ measure? (Brock Hannibal)
Re: Windows API (Was Re: Mircosoft Tax) (Salvador Peralta)
Re: Mircosoft Tax (Salvador Peralta)
Re: Macintosh as an alternative to Windows?? (.)
Re: NT vs *nix performance (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Windows API (Was Re: Mircosoft Tax) ("Ayende Rahien")
Re: Time for a Windows reinstall! (The Ghost In The Machine)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 08:00:39 -0800
From: Brock Hannibal <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,soc.singles
Subject: Re: What does IQ measure?
Steve Mading wrote:
>
> In comp.os.linux.advocacy Aaron Kulkis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> : Steve Mading wrote:
> :>
>
> :> score better than someone with the same intelligence who just hasn't
> :> read as much. The degenerate example of this would be some isolated
> :> kid who's parents never put him in school and never taught him how
> :> to read. He might be highly intelligent but still lacking the chance
> :> to pick up language skills.
>
> : This is similar to arguing that one's genetic potential for
> : musculature doesn't exist, because you can always find some
> : child of well-muscled parents who is weak and scrawny after
> : years of being malnurished while locked in a closet without
> : exercise.
>
> The difference is that you recognize that genetics does not
> *guarantee* musculature, yet you pretend IQ tests are a
> guaranteed measure of intelligence. There is a high corellation,
> but to assume that everyone who scores low on IQ is not intelligent
> is incorrect.
That's true, there are no doubt a few special cases. That does not
negate the overwhelmingly large bulk of the cases where a low IQ
score reflects accurately the low mental abilities of the subject.
> : Exceptions do not make the rule, and in most cases, the reasons
> : that the exceptions *are* exceptions are readily apparent to
> : even the most casual of observers.
> Will you admit that exceptions exist and therefore the IQ tests
> are NOT a good measure of inteligence?
The fact that exceptions exist in no way makes your conclusion
accurate. IQ tests are a pretty good measure of the lumped cognitive
functions psychologists call intelligence. You can twist and turn
and redefine intelligence as something other than what the
scientists call intelligence, that's fine, then of course IQ tests
don't measure YOUR redefined thing you call intelligence. That would
sort of be like saying F=ma is not true because you've redefined a
to be something other than acceleration.
> Do that and I stop
> arguing about this.
You'd be well served to stop making wild claims based on a few
exceptions.
> You can argue correlations all you want.
> Showing correlations is insufficient to prove your point.
It makes a pretty good case though. When you want to know whether X
and Y are related, a high correlation is good evidence.
--
Brock
"Put a $20 gold piece on my watch chain so the boys'll know I died
standin' pat"
------------------------------
From: Salvador Peralta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Windows API (Was Re: Mircosoft Tax)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 08:07:18 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bob Hauck quoth:
>> You really need that widget set. From here springs the great
>> weakness
>> of X as a user interface. We have GTK+ and Qt, and they don't look
>> the same and they don't interoperate seamlessly.
> Oh, it is much, much, worse than that. There is also athena,
> athena-3d, motif (v1 and v2), openlook, tk, and probably more that
> I've forgot. How will we ever manage?
Ummm... As an end user, pick applications built with the best widget
sets? As an application developer, pick the widget sets that
contribute to the best end user experience and the ones that are
easiest to develop with?
I hate the fact that I cannot cut and paste or do dnd between all
applications built with different widget sets, but I have resolved this
by sticking as much as possible to qt now that kde is robust enough to
stand on its own as a desktop environment.
Personally, I *love* x windows. Among it's best features is that you
can upgrade your entire desktop without needing to reboot as I did a
few days ago moving from kde 2.0 to 2.1 ( 2.1 is a significant
improvement, Roy, if you haven't already switched over ).
--
Salvador Peralta -o)
Programmer/Analyst, Webmaster / \
[EMAIL PROTECTED] _\_v
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
------------------------------
From: Salvador Peralta <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Mircosoft Tax
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 08:09:04 -0800
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
T. Max Devlin quoth:
>>If you're familiar with any Web browser development process (which,
>>thanks to KDE and Mozilla, you may well be), you would be aware that
>>quite a lot of "substance" needs to go into development of a web
>>browser. Developing the kinds of APIs you need to make a web browser
>>is a lot of work, and if you can do it in such a way that a lot of
>>your code is reusable, you also add value to your platform by
>>providing good APIs to other developers (who then provide better
>>applications to the users)
...
> And you wonder why people accuse you of being a Microsoft hack with
> barely a pretense of sheepskin to hide your trolling. Here's why....
>> One might dismiss work on GUI components, APIs and applications as
>> "fluff",but it's fluff that the average end user appreciates, and
>> it's fluff that takes a lot of time and hard work to develop.
I don't see the jump here, Max. How does Don saying that API's take up
space on installation media or that building an API is a lot of work
and that providing good API's to other developers adds value to both
the developer and the end user, classify him as a shill for microsoft?
For one thing, he's right -- at least about the benefits of building a
good API. I don't think that it accounts for all of the bloat in
windows, but I don't think that's what he's saying anyway.
I don't agree with some of the ( rather dated ) opinions that Don has
regarding Linux versus microsoft. Windows is not easier to install,
and I find their documentation to be an embarassment. But I'd say that
he tries to be more objective than anything else. If I could only get
him to see the benefits of weak typing in 99% of the cases as it
relates to perl, we'd get along famously. :)
--
Salvador Peralta -o)
Programmer/Analyst, Webmaster / \
[EMAIL PROTECTED] _\_v
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (.)
Subject: Re: Macintosh as an alternative to Windows??
Date: 10 Mar 2001 16:17:34 GMT
Erik Funkenbusch <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Don't you think 2001 and is a little late to finally be coming out with
> Pre-emptive multitasking, Memory protection, and full virtual memory?
In a world where cold fusion is capable of absolutely bringing a W2K box to
its knees, I think the above would be a welcome departure.
=====.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To:
alt.destroy.microsoft,comp.os.ms-windows.advocacy,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: NT vs *nix performance
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 16:24:41 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, T. Max Devlin
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on Sat, 10 Mar 2001 00:44:01 GMT
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>Said The Ghost In The Machine in alt.destroy.microsoft on Tue, 06 Mar
>2001 20:44:31 GMT;
>>In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chad Myers
>><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> wrote
>>on Tue, 06 Mar 2001 04:03:29 GMT
>><lkZo6.24005$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>>
>>>"The Ghost In The Machine" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote
>>>in message news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>>> In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Chad Myers
>>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>>>> wrote
>>>> on Sun, 04 Mar 2001 23:57:26 GMT
>>>> <GDAo6.15430$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>>>> >
>>>> >"Alan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
>>>> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
>>>> >> On Sun, 04 Mar 2001 16:02:08 GMT, "Chad Myers"
>>>> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>> >>
>>>> >> >Nowhere in the cites you provided does it say that one can distribute
>>>> >> >the copies one has made of the media.
>>>> >> >
>>>> >> ** NOTICE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
>>>> >> material is distributed, without profit, for research and educational
>>>> >> purposes only. ***
>>>> >
>>>> >Ok, for research and educational purposes, but not recreational
>>>> >or entertainment purposes.
>>>> >
>>>> >Like I said, you still can't burn a copy of a CD for a friend legally.
>>>> >The police aren't going to bust your door down, but technically
>>>> >it's still illegal.
>>>>
>>>> Technically, nothing; it's illegal, period. It's clear that what
>>>> Napster users are doing is NOT for research and educational purposes
>>>> (except for news reporters checking on the service, perhaps, as they're
>>>> presumably researching a story; as of 3/5, Napster is still breaking
>>>> the law).
>>>>
>>>> Whether one gets caught, of course, is an issue. The same issue
>>>> exists for Windows products duplicated in the USA (those duplicated
>>>> overseas may have their own issues; China in particular is a problem
>>>> as they don't really have copyright law AFAIK).
>>>
>>>I agree. I'm sorry if I gave you a different impression.
>>>
>>>I was merely being semantical.
>>>
>>>If I burned you a copy of a music CD, in the grand scheme of the
>>>cosmos, it wouldn't be a big deal.
>>
>>One would be liable for the cost of the license, enforcement costs,
>>and punitive costs, depending on various factors (after all,
>>the trial judge and/or jury don't have to convict if the evidence
>>is not "beyond a reasonable doubt", for example).
>
>Nice scare tactics.
Agreed, that's all it is.
>
>>>If I set up a major web site or internet application to allow you
>>>and 4 million other friends of mine to download that CD, THAT
>>>would be a problem. =)
>>
>>And if one set up a major web site that served as a broker between
>>the MP3 provider (the one who ripped the CD into an MP3)
>>and the downloader, that's a real problem -- being more or less solved,
>>or at least fought in court, even as we speak.
>
>Continuing to insist the problem is being solved because your finger is
>still in the dike, regardless of how much water you're standing in,
>doesn't seem very clear-sighted.
I'm not even sure there's a *dike* at this point; the cat's out of the
bag!
It's almost trivial to rip a track into an MP3; the main problem is
getting the track. There are already substitutes for Napster (GNUtella
comes to mind, for example).
>
>>Since I haven't used Napster, I'm not 100% sure, but my understanding
>>is that one logs into Napster and starts uploading ripped [*] file
>>titles, adding them to Napster's database; the client also allows one
>>to search for various files, which represent songs or tracks.
>>If a match is found, and the provider's computer is online, Napster
>>somehow acts as a data proxy between the user requesting, and the user
>>supplying. This means that all three are breaking copyright in some
>>fashion, with Napster squarely in the middle being "enabling technology".
>
>The person ripping the CD is within his rights doing so, and makes no
>copies himself. The site also makes no copies. And the owner of the
>"copying equipment", their PC with Internet access, is within his rights
>to use that equipment to make copies of [audio] data for their own
>private use. So far, none of the three are breaking copyright law, in
>any fashion, legally.
>
>Yet it seems obvious there is something incompatible between copyright
>and the Internet. I haven't actually found one, yet, but it does seem
>like there must be something. I mean, the *entirety* of copyright can't
>simply be a mechanism for maintaining the price of intellectual property
>above competitive levels.
There is. The Internet is the essence of copying -- data, pictures,
etc. Not in an illegal fashion, mind you -- but digital data and software
are infinitely duplicable, with no loss of quality (I'm not even sure how
one would require that a software development engineer for a MP3 player
put in code to limit the number of plays). The problem is that copyright
law was written before costs dropped to near zero (the only thing paid for
is the size of the datapipe). It definitely needs rework; however, the laws
must be enforced as currently written prior to that rework. (Good luck
on that, admittedly.)
It might need a *lot* of rework.
>
>>I can't say I know the legal details -- it's not fair use, but beyond that,
>>I'm not sure -- but I'm also not sure how it can be stopped short of
>>shutting down Napster or having the RIAA or the recording artist signing
>>each and every MP3 file ever produced (and burned onto an audio CD) and
>>then rooting out bootleg copies (go to concert with digital tape recorder,
>>tape, copy data to MP3 on computer, make it available) somehow.
>>Good luck on that!
>
>Wouldn't work to begin with.
Agreed, definitely would not work.
>And as far as the "legal details" are
>concerned, I've given up on pretending that lawyers understand
>abstractions. The natural state of intellectual works are "fair use";
>anything not explicitly made illegal is legal. And the only thing that
>is made illegal is depriving the author of profit (commercial copying);
>personal copying doesn't do that. And even the
>one-to-one-million-due-to-the-wonders-of-the-Internet doesn't mean you
>get to suddenly change the rules.
I'm not quite sure how one "deprives an author of profit" anyway.
Of course, I'm not quite sure why one should encourage rampant theft
of a work, either -- assuming the concept even makes sense in an
infinitely duplicable digital medium.
>
>>Of course, one can play all sorts of games with the song titles.
>>Without including some sort of encrypted data chunk which uniquely
>>identifies the song (and requiring the MP3 -- MP4? -- player to
>>check that chunk with the RIAA's or artist's public key), it's hard
>>to see how Napster, given only the file names and/or song titles,
>>can root out all copyrighted songs. Somebody out there will get clever;
>>one particularly idiotic workaround would be to generate a totally random
>>name for a file, then post a message to Usenet stating that such and
>>such a file is available with this random name, representing one
>>of Metallica's songs, for example. Or one could maintain a separate
>>webpage.
>
>A possible new replacement for Napster now encrypts the stuff, and
>decrypting it is not allowed according to the DMCA. ;-)
The entire issue of key management could be interesting. An idea:
one copies the encrypted work for free [*], but pays for the key (the key
in this case would be a "session key", unique to each legal download).
Once downloaded, the song would be freely playable for as long as the user
desired. However, if the user decides to do something interesting
(say, give away thousands of copies), the song is also digitally signed
by either the session key, the performer's certificate, or both.
If pirated songs show up, the techie types will know who to blame
and the lawyer types can take appropriate action, which would most
likely be a civil suit.
(This is far from a new idea, admittedly.)
One can also cross-check the signature of the song with the performer's
public key; if they don't match -- bootleg copy! However, this is up
to the individual user; if the user doesn't care that it's bootleg,
nothing much happens unless the check requires an upload of the song's
signature to the performer's website -- an action that would most likely
annoy a lot of people (myself included). Even downloading the public
key has some risk -- every GET from a website is logged with an IP
address and which page was downloaded.
One can also cross-check the signature with the downloader's public key
(one would have to, to find the individual(s) responsible; note that
the two need not be the same), together with some information maintained
somewhere such as the downloader's name, address, amount paid, etc.,
assuming the Website of the seller bothers to collect said information.
Mind you, this is a nation who writes PIN numbers on the backs of
debit cards. I'll leave the explanation as to why this is extremely
stupid to the interested researcher. :-) And people lose house keys
all the time.
Hmmm.....
>
>>It's also not clear why the player would want to play "check the chunk";
>>RIAA would have to root out unauthorized players which don't, too.
>>They might require the player log into RIAA and verify its certificate,
>>though (the player would be digitally signed by that certificate; it
>>would be impossible for a bootleg player to have access to that certificate).
>>But even that won't stop bootleggers; the playing of audio does not
>>intrinsically require a digital certificate. (I used to be able to
>>play a simple sine wave through /dev/dsp, for example. Or one can
>>simply do cat stupid > /dev/dsp -- although one might want to turn
>>down the volume first. :-) )
>
>Whether it is the law or the fact that its not cost-effective to bootleg
>commercial works is, in an odd sort of way, a chicken-and-egg conundrum,
>I think. You're right; there's no possible means of preventing modern
>technology from making a copy of anything. The only possible avenue for
>those who wish to commercially produce such works is to decrease their
>profits and their costs to a more effective and competitive level.
>Then, as always, people will happily pay a reasonable price for a
>personal copy of a popular work.
>
>It really all just comes down to a difference in opinion in what is
>"reasonable". And the overwhelming issue apparently facing society is
>how to deal with the fact that the consumer is always right, in such
>disputes.
>
>>So yes, it's illegal according to current copyright law. Is
>>it enforceable? Far from clear.
>
>A law which is not enforceable is not, itself, legal. Needing
>permission to exercise your rights is the same as not having rights.
I'll agree with that. The whole notion of "fair compensation" bothers
me anyway (who decides what's fair?). Same issue as your "reasonable"
comment(s), above.
[*] Bear in mind that "free" in this case does not refer to the
bandwidth costs, which are usually paid monthly.
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 33d:00h:31m actually running Linux.
Linux. The choice of a GNU generation.
------------------------------
From: "Ayende Rahien" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Crossposted-To: alt.linux.sux,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Windows API (Was Re: Mircosoft Tax)
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 18:27:54 +0200
"Bob Hauck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> On Sat, 10 Mar 2001 03:43:56 +0200, Ayende Rahien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> >"Bob Hauck" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
> >news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]...
> >> On Thu, 08 Mar 2001 06:57:04 -0000, Ray Chason
> >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> >> > You really need that widget set. From here springs the great
weakness
> >> > of X as a user interface. We have GTK+ and Qt, and they don't look
> >> > the same and they don't interoperate seamlessly.
> >>
> >> Oh, it is much, much, worse than that. There is also athena,
athena-3d,
> >> motif (v1 and v2), openlook, tk, and probably more that I've forgot.
> >> How will we ever manage?
> >
> > How about standatising on something?
>
> That is happening, with KDE and Gnome being the ones that seem to be
> winning. OTOH, if a program was written with an older widget set it is
> unlikely that the maintainers will change it just for the sake of being
> "standard".
Now KDE & Gnome need to agree on some standard of common API so you can trun
Gnome application to KDE application with no probelms. Preferably according
to what is currently used on the user's desktop.
> I find it interesting that Windows is going the other way, becoming less
> standard by allowing users and developers to "skin" programs.
Actually, no.
Allowing developers to skin programs is not an option. You can't allow or
forbid them from it. If they want it, they would make it.
What XP does is to replace all the common controls of windows in skinnable
ones.
You can change the look of all the programs that use the common controls
(and most do).
The point is that the change is consistent.
If I like some skin, all the program on my computer will obey it.
On linux, if I choose KDE, and want to use a Gnome application, how will it
look?
Like a Gnome application, the last time I checked.
> >Seems to work pretty well on communication area.
>
> Phones used to all be black, now they aren't. Doesn't seem to have
> impaired functionality. All of the widget sets I mentioned talk to X,
> just as all phones connect to the phone network.
What about different ways to put the dials on the phone, how much trouble
would that make?
That is what I'm talking about.
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Subject: Re: Time for a Windows reinstall!
Date: Sat, 10 Mar 2001 16:42:17 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Bloody Viking
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote
on 7 Mar 2001 08:58:56 GMT
<984t8g$jqt$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>Paolo Ciambotti ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
>: Haha! That sounds _SO_ familiar. I have a 'cpio' archive of my Windoze
>: drive saved off under Linux. When MSFT takes a crap all over itself
>: (which is a regular occurrence), I just FDISK the damned thing and dump
>: the 'cpio' image back onto it. Never fails.
>
>: Linux: the ultimate Microshaft Windoze recovery tool.
>
>Another method is with a big hard drive, you save a rawcopy of the Windows
>partition, rawcopied onto a partition in a giant file. Sort of like:
>
>cp /dev/hda1 winblows.partition.
>
>To recover, merely:
>
>cp windows.partition /dev/hda1
>
>For best results, ensure you use a giant hard drive (a 40G will do) with a
>spare partition big enough to hole the file image.
I'd suggest compression to save space here:
dd if=/dev/hda1 bs=# count=# | gzip > winblows.partition.gz
gzip -d < winblows.partition.gz | dd of=/dev/hda1 bs=#
but that is a detail. (Or one can use bzip2.)
It would be nice if someone could write a program that zeroes out
the wasted space on free blocks, empty directory entries, the
rest of the allocated cluster on the end block of the FAT chain,
and possibly the unusable clusters at the end of the FAT. I forget
whether those are set to [F]FFF, or left as garbage; the file system
doesn't care if they're never allocated AFAIK.
(I would be curious as to whether someone has done so already;
however, there's the issue that certain programs may be using
the free area beyond EOF as a place to hide something such as
an authorization key. I know at least one program that used to use
control-Z to stop TYPE from typing out what was essentially a
binary file, but that's not the quite same as the "hard" EOF (the
number of bytes in the file).)
>
>Too bad there's no rawread to match rawrite for Windows users to save the C
>partition to a bigger one in a file to use a boot disk to recover with
>rawrite.
If one has an emergency reboot partition, one could probably cobble
something up, but it's not a standard tool AFAIK. Something along
the lines of "RAWRITE3.EXE", except that it can handle decompression,
partitions, and far larger data files.
[.sigsnip]
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- insert random misquote here
EAC code #191 33d:01h:05m actually running Linux.
>>> Make Signatures Fast! <<<
------------------------------
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