Posts by Greg Nelson

Brit troops release badger plague on Basra

Badgers Are Bad Asses

Badgers are members of the weasel family and are natural born killers with a bad attitude. In Canada, on the prairie, badgers dig out ground squirrels and leave large excavations that are used as dens by many species. Their hide is infamously tough. The weasel is a voracious killer that can decimate a chicken coop in short order. Another no count family member, the wolverine, is legendary as a ferocious killer. My experience with badgers and weasels suggests they shy from human contact. These animals tend to be nose driven and if they're showing up in settled areas where there's recently been fire fights then it's not unlikely that the smells are attracting them. Maybe there was some collateral hits on live stock that weren't quickly cleaned up.

Microsoft vows to bark like a dog for you in 2008

Feeding Frenzy

To be innovative the feeding frenzy should take place in R&D; not in your customer base (not that a feeding frenzy in your customer base is a bad thing). The disadvantage Microsoft and, likely Google and Apple, face when going up against OS it that OS is a viable ecosystem where good stuff can be found and exploited by endless numbers of people.

A case in point is Firefox which is the point of penetration for OS software in the general marketplace. Using Firefox, almost exclusive of other browsers, I can say it has flaws that doesn't make it a flat out better browser than IE but the extensibility of Firefox is enviably rich. I don't see how a heavily structure, hierarchical, profit driven and constrained, company can ever compete with the innovation stemming from OS. A basic browser or any other standard, user app can be marketed but OS has a deep, active ecosystem that invites innovation by congregation and turns out a serviceable product.

I've used MS products from the Dos 3.3 platform up to XP. I liked NT stuff and I've heard well informed people say that Win2k remains a sweet spot in OS implementation. Overall I've no complaints, (excluding DRM) but MS failed to oust Unix from the academic world and Linux and the FOSS movement came from the Universities. Linux now has a sound foothold and the myriad, fluid pools of talent floating Linux will continue to improve base products while providing ancillary innovation at a pace and flexibility that MS, Google and Apple can't match.

Microsoft boots Savvis from data centers

Spin as you like

...

Microsoft

Speaking of which

Please dis, cuss.

Loopy quantums reveal successive universes

Science Makes Big Bang

Theoretical science is brought into line with the empirical universe by way of reproducible experiments. From this it seems to follow that science is likely responsible for bringing new universes into being. Physics testing theories on the origin of the universe must necessarily reproduce conditions existing when the universe came into being. A successful experiment should bring a new universe into being.

Science over the long run is very likely a speciation event. Once scientists evolve into a new species it's likely we'll be much closer to reproducing a Big Bang. It's likely universes that don't permit the evolution of the science species die off. Mature sentient, reproducing universes may well communicate with one another. Of course the idea of sexually reproducing universes is just nonsense.

i'm just say'n is all

'Unusually frisky' deer blow lid on marijuana plantation

Folk Lore

Folk lore seems to suggest pot smokers are a lethargic bunch given to hiding out in fetid, basement rooms but the Italian, frisky fawns seem to tell a tale closer to the mark. Most pot smokers I know go so far as to complain that smoking pot makes them too active. In Vancouver beach volleyball, mountain biking and Ultimate head the long list of activities enjoyed in a haze of pot smoke. Pot is known as a pain killer and it's pain killing properties possibly further frisky behaviour on the part of pot smokers. I've seen house cats as crazy happy with a bud of pot to play with as they would have been with fresh cuttings of cat nip. OTOH a small group of us once came across a few cows grazing in a field that was dense with magic mushrooms. One cow was frozen, it's head inches from the ground, not even it's tail twitched. I would have given a lot to have glimpsed what was going on in it's head. Coffee came to us care of a frisky goat, it's a shame we miss Bambi's obvious message.

A glitch in the Matrix, or a hungry exploit?

For What It's Worth

I make a considerable effort to stay current with security issues but haven't the time to do much more than play defense. ActiveX has a bad reputation and has been a thorn in the side of security for a long time. IIRC initially MS pimped ActiveX as if it was as sexy as a Paris Hilton clone. Now, on the rare occasions I fire up IE, there's generally a warning inviting me to allow AcitveX stuff at my own peril. If ActiveX is to blame and enough people get burnt then maybe it'll turn another big batch of people to Firefox. There's something happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a GNU over there telling me I've got to beware. :)

Ghostly plastic bathtoy flotilla nears Cornish coast

Shoe Tree Vancouver Island B.C.

About the same time as the duck episode a container of nike running shoes washed into the Pacific off the coast of Vancouver Island. Islanders being the frugal folk they are began to collect the sneakers as they washed ashore. Initially trades were made ad hoc to match up shoe sizes but the process was awkward. Off to the side of a dirt road on the way to isolated logging and fishing villages near to where the most part of the lost shipment washed up a few islanders began to leave odd shoes at the base of an ancient cedar tree. The idea caught on and the tree became a repository for the sneakers. After all possible matchings had taken place the left over shoes were nailed to the tree trunk. The sneakers cover the tree trunk the full circumference to the tree to a height of about 10 feet. It's the Shoe Tree to natives. To uninformed tourists it's an enigma wrapped in a mystery.

GPLv3 set for formal launch

Above and Beyond

I try to avoid hackneyed phrases such as "I really can't thank you enough", but I really can't thank those behind the GPL enough. The FSF and Richard Stallman have managed the astounding feat of giving the world lessons in morals, ethics, activism, computer programming, business management and so much more under the guise of giving the world free software by which the underprivileged have access to robust tools of learning equal to those afforded only the most privileged. History has been made and writ large all from the want of a printer driver.

Intel releases Core 2 chip Bios fix

Other Concerns

From an OpenBSD mailing list:

From View message header detail Theo de Raadt

Sent Wednesday, June 27, 2007 10:08 am

To [e-mail]

Cc

Bcc

Subject Intel Core 2

Various developers are busy implimenting workarounds for serious bugs

in Intel's Core 2 cpu.

These processors are buggy as hell, and some of these bugs don't just

cause development/debugging problems, but will *ASSUREDLY* be

exploitable from userland code.

As is typical, BIOS vendors will be very late providing workarounds /

fixes for these processors bugs. Some bugs are unfixable and cannot

be worked around. Intel only provides detailed fixes to BIOS vendors

and large operating system groups. Open Source operating systems are

largely left in the cold.

Full (current) errata from Intel:

http://download.intel.com/design/processor/specupdt/31327914.pdf

- We bet there are many more errata not yet announced -- every month

this file gets larger.

- Intel understates the impact of these erraata very significantly.

Almost all operating systems will run into these bugs.

- Basically the MMU simply does not operate as specified/implimented

in previous generations of x86 hardware. It is not just buggy, but

Intel has gone further and defined "new ways to handle page tables"

(see page 58).

- Some of these bugs are along the lines of "buffer overflow"; where

a write-protect or non-execute bit for a page table entry is ignored.

Others are floating point instruction non-coherencies, or memory

corruptions -- outside of the range of permitted writing for the

process -- running common instruction sequences.

- All of this is just unbelievable to many of us.

An easier summary document for some people to read:

http://www.geek.com/images/geeknews/2006Jan/core_duo_errata__2006_01_21__full.gif

Note that some errata like AI65, AI79, AI43, AI39, AI90, AI99 scare

the hell out of us. Some of these are things that cannot be fixed in

running code, and some are things that every operating system will do

until about mid-2008, because that is how the MMU has always been

managed on all generations of Intel/AMD/whoeverelse hardware. Now

Intel is telling people to manage the MMU's TLB flushes in a new and

different way. Yet even if we do so, some of the errata listed are

unaffected by doing so.

As I said before, hiding in this list are 20-30 bugs that cannot be

worked around by operating systems, and will be potentially

exploitable. I would bet a lot of money that at least 2-3 of them

are.

For instance, AI90 is exploitable on some operating systems (but not

OpenBSD running default binaries).

At this time, I cannot recommend purchase of any machines based on the

Intel Core 2 until these issues are dealt with (which I suspect will

take more than a year). Intel must be come more transparent.

(While here, I would like to say that AMD is becoming less helpful day

by day towards open source operating systems too, perhaps because

their serious errata lists are growing rapidly too).

Two year old's IQ on a par with Hawking

Once More Into The Breach

A high IQ alone won't carry anyone very far in life. If a child of mine scored high in an IQ test I'd make every effort to see that any attendant attention had the smallest possible impact on their development. Overall I'm of the opinion a high IQ is a developmental liability and needs to be countered with a solid, broad, healthy social life and, a lot of clean your room, do the dishes and take out the garbage.

About 4 years ago some of the usual suspects asked me to do some tests. I wrote a standard IQ test in the early afternoon when well rested. I decided to try my best. I wrote at 161. In grade school the first time I was tested I wrote at 110. I hated grade school and shrugged off tests. After leaving high school I tried a test on my own and wrote at 138. I've very little respect for IQ tests.

Imagination and the ability to persevere are qualities far more desirable than a high IQ. In terms of manipulating data I've found a remarkable difference kicks in with people who write around 180 plus while anything below that just means you can pretty much tackle any discipline you care to. The indelible mark left from my IQ and an above average memory is a profound sense of ignorance.

A true child genius would take one look at the psychologists and educators drooling over him/her and botch every test on the way to a satisfying, anachronistic career as a mechanical watch maker.

just my loose change

Yahoo!'s pink liberation army a threat to America's youth

Your Slip Is Showing

In the past I've read Mr. Stern as a Hunter S. Thompson knockoff, a practitioner of gonzo journalism. The idea behind gonzo journalism is to mix fact and drug induced diatribe into something akin to redeemable social commentary. Maybe Mr. Stern tackled a subject that got a little too deep inside him and he dropped the ball. I once responded to a query from my ex wife by saying: "Hey, sometimes I'm so subtle not even I know what I'm doing".

The nature of our kind and the resulting social conventions that imbue our culture has made more of sex than is necessary or healthy. I worked as a bouncer in a night club that had 'made' guys in the upstairs bar and members of streets gangs in the basement pub. The upstairs bar was modeled on a Vegas lounge. Hookers and pimps worked out of the tables near the main doors. Two sisters were pimped by the older sister's husband. They had more money than they could of ever hoped for and were happy people. The sisters often came in laughing and stopped off to tell me how truly comical some of their johns were. They had no drug addiction, no outward awkwardness, and, in our insular night world were happy and successful. Somehow we have to shed our Victorian views of sex while protecting the innocent. Excluding sexual predators no one needs the extra baggage of being burdened by being branded sexually deviant. It's just sex.

Sentient world: war games on the grandest scale

Fascinating Captain

The greatest threat such people pose comes from their desperate need to peer deeply into their scrying device and see what the future holds. When the real world doesn't match their prediction and nothing more can be done to tweak their magic box they then turn to tweaking the freedoms of those they are trying to model. Surely if their all seeing eye can't see all that is and will be then the fault must lie with those of us they are modeling. If the military and those charged with protecting us can't accurately model our behaviour in order to protect us then the answer must be in laws that channel our behaviour in ways that make us predictable and therefore the more amenable to protection. This stuff, the people who sell it and the people who buy it, buy into Platonic worlds including the best of all worlds Plato brought forth in the Republic wherein the Guardians ruled. Hopefully the pretty lights and all that is shiny will keep them miles off course from achieving any real sense of how social things work.

If the people flogging this stuff were to register for wedding gifts they would ask for one each of each Platonic ideal laid up in heaven.

Iraq collapse may pose new WMD threat, say UN monitors

So Technically...

... would a fart be classified as a biological weapon?

US car thieves floored by manual gearbox

In The Frozen North

I wasn't allowed to drive an automatic until I had learned how to drive a manual. Learning to drive a stick was a double edged sword as you could cut kids who were learning to drive automatics but had to suffer the embarrassments of messing up learning a manual. I'm with those who would go with an automatic for a heavy, gridlocked daily commute. OTOH living in Canada driving in heavy snow is much easier in a manual. You can do so much more with a manual or at least it seems that way to me. Achieving near mastery driving a stick is a rite of passage.

American gamble or bluff: WTO members bet on Antigua

Bully And Carry A Big Stick

As a Canadian I followed the Canada/US trade dispute on softwood lumber. The methods of the US dispute on softwood lumber are very much like the article describes US methods in the gambling dispute. If the international bodies overseeing trade agreements find against the US the U.S. just refuses to comply. It recalls the attitude of the U.S. President who, when the U.S. Supreme Court found against him and his administration, said something to the effect of ... they've made their ruling now let's seem them enforce it. Teddy Roosevelt suggested a foreign policy centered around the idea of walking softly and carrying a big stick. Apparently the walk soft part has been put aside. As an outsider often these affairs are seen to be deeply impacted by the current Administration in Washington. President Bush is pretty much a lame duck President so maybe the various litigants will put things off until a new boss moves into the White House.

Business getting clever about IP?

curiouser and curiouser

My immediate concern would be a possible over valuation of IP worth leading to an accelerated IT bubble. For better or for worse our markets are open, aggressively, adversarial places wherein everything is monetized. The process will no doubt accelerate as management types stake out their fiefdoms and fight for funding.

Red hair bullying cases could end up in court

And What About Compliments?

It's easy enough for those of you who suffer under one, even two, social pox but what about those of use who must soldier on under a unstopping barrage of compliments? Being born extravagantly good looking with a physical prowess that readily invites favourable comparisons to professional athletes, the IQ of an Einstein and the spirit of Prometheus unbound is no easy measure to live with. The principles that invest political correctness have to be equally brought to bear on the civic inequalities that befall the richly endowed. What is a compliment if not prejudice? A compliment as surely sets expectations those bearing the brunt of the compliment shouldn't be expected to live under. It's got to stop. I'm just not sure I can take much more.

Kilted Debian lovers to overrun Edinburgh

One Two Punch

I've been playing with different distros on two amd64 boxes for more than a year. With the recent release of Ubuntu 7.04 and Debian 4.0 there's a lot to be said for pairing the two distros up with Ubuntu on the desktop. Ubuntu is Debian based and Debian has a big advantage in being perhaps the best documented Linux release. Plus having had Bruce Perens on the team and benefiting from his Open Source Series Debian may be the most accessible Linux distro. Prior to release 4.0 Debian offered no official support for the amd64 platform. Both distros have been very solid as I tinker away at comparisons.

Five things Sony needs to do save the PS3

"That Guy"

Being one of the guys is a good thing. It implies membership. Sony was one of the guys on the field. Since the rootkit fiasco Sony has suffered cross contamination among it's various divisions and become "that guy". Sony played dirty. Sony cries foul on DRM violations and demands restitution if not punitive measures. It's one thing for a clean player to cry foul but when a dirty player cries foul it just compounds an already negative image. Factor in Sony's unwarranted arrogance and you get bad BO. Sony stinks. Instead of coming clean it just keeps slapping on the deodorant, and, everybody knows, deodorant added to BO just makes things worse. Sony needs to come clean and then bring in the spin doctors.

NASA chief regrets having unpopular opinion

You Can't Get There From Here

What has Global Warming to do with science, and what has Michael Griffin to do with NASA?

"NASA administrator Michael Griffin has apologized to agency scientists and engineers for expressing an unpopular personal opinion regarding global warming during a recent radio interview."

Science, working with 'long chains of close reasoning' speaks to the how of things. Politics, excluding tyrants, kings and the President, is action by consensus. Political debate often speaks to the why of things. Once a scientific debate enters the political arena it serves little purpose to cry foul about the loss of elegance, rigour and robustness. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said recently (from memory), 'the debate on climate change is over'. He followed that statement up with, 'Science leads policy follows.' His pronouncements can be seen to kick off the political debate on Climate Change Policy. Using quasi science one could say the debate has passed from the analytical left side of the brain to the more political right side of the brain. As Mr. Griffin pointed out Climate Change has become politically charged and scientists should ask themselves what science has to do with Climate Change in a political forum. The obvious answer is to heavily qualify any response in terms of the hat one is wearing in posing an answer. Was he speaking as a scientist, as an expert, as the head of NASA, as a private citizen? Not qualifying an answer where there is any ambiguity as to the hat one is wearing at the time is a rookie mistake.

US appeals court smacks down FCC obscenity rule

A Glimpse Of Stocking

Tracing the history of manners is a funny joke. Perhaps the best guide is 'The Civilizing Process' by Norbert Elias. In Canada the two volume work addressed the history of manners and power and civility. Manners are a convention. They amount to a handshake.

The nobility in ignorance tied opulence to grace and the servant and working classes practised monkey see, monkey do. Grace stemmed from the gods in the form of power and wealth. 'Dieu et mon Droit' set the standards of the day and in an way still do today. The waltz was once a counter culture dance to be seen only in out of the way, unlit places, now is the signature form of politesse. Lords and Ladies were house broken and stopped taking a dump on the living room carpet, and, instead, politely squatted deep over the cold ashes of the hearth. Power brokers have used social convention in the form of civility as a means to shame the uninitiated. The gig is up. It's time to stop those who don't get the joke that they'll never dance la minuet in the hall of the Sun King. At Waterloo Napoleon (perhaps apocryphal) said of his opposition, "they have finally stopped dancing la mineut", by which he meant the opposing forces no longer marched obligingly forward in lock step to be slaughtered by his grape shot. Civility in society serves as well in today's world as would the polite rules of engagement from a post renaissance field of battle in Iraq. (Oddly this has some truth to it as we fight terrorists as if they were signatories to the Hague Conventions, we engage the enemy but wage war as if with ourselves).

Society, such as it is, sets standards, but such standards, barring hate crimes, needn't be set by fiat. The various social tribes can set and enforce their own standards and do. A warning in the preamble of a public broadcast is enough. Major streets in most, if not all, western cities have stores selling sex toys and pornography. Children pass such stores every day, but don't gawk because it's all but meaningless to them. Puberty hits and they seek such places out.

UK gov skills shortage jeopardising IT projects

Re: ...bears shown to use woods as a toilet and Pope suspected of Catholic tendencies...

This begs the questions ( well, it does in my mind at it's least) : Does a bear Pope in the woods and does the Pope bare in the woods?

Israel deploys robo-snipers on Gaza border

Reinventing British Rule

"Nobody has any business approaching our border fence," an unnamed Israeli official told Opall-Rome. "It's well-understood that this area is off-limits..."

"All in all, the Israeli gun-bot..." Gun-bot diplomacy reinventing British Gun Boat diplomacy. Progress marches on.

TV ads too loud, industry watchdog says

BBC In Canada Rocks Everything

I agree the noise level of commercials is disruptive but, for me, in Vancouver, Canada on Shaw cable the biggest culprit is the BBC.

I try to scan CBC, BBC and CNN news programs at least once a day. The BBC has a deep, booming bottom that has brought quires from my upstairs neighbour. I can easily cope with the commercials but by the time I've washed out the bottom end on the BBC I've lost some of the dialogue. It's all the more annoying because to effectively solve the problem I have to physically manipulate the volume on the bass speaker.

Dutch boffins tout green petri-dish synthetic meat

Lazy Man's Sandwich

"The Dutch pig-culture pioneers can currently produce only thin layers of meat. Such meat-sheets may need to be laminated..."

I'll take hot mustard and mayo between my layers

Zero-day sales not 'fair' - to researchers

Markets and Makers

The players mentioned seem not to distinguish between an efficient and an inefficient market.

My principle courses on asset evaluation mentioned Aristotle as authoring the first case analysis of value. There have been many attempts to define value but the schoolboy stuff generally suggest value is derived from timely information in an open market. An open market is one without barriers to trade where knowledgeable sellers and buyers act without duress. The culmination of such theories is to be found in the seminal and venerable 'Security Analysis' by Benjamin Graham and David Dodd. 'Security Analysis' is perhaps more widely known because Warren Buffet of the Berkshire Hathaway Fund touted it. The underlying philosophy was one of rolling up your sleeves and digging deep into the affairs of a company to find value. As of the 70's the authors of 'Security Analysis' suggested their methods were antiquated in the face of the theory of the Efficient Market Hypothesis which holds that markets are information efficient.

Generally neither the ideas behind 'Security Analysis' or the Efficient Market Hypothesis hold for selling one off security flaws. All bets are off when trying to determine value where there are barriers to trade and information. Reputation and who you know become crucial. Working in such a market and wishing it like to one more efficient is whimsical.

Russia: our space atom rockets are bigger, nyah nyah

World Domination

"Colonel-General Viktor Yesin also said on Russian television: "It can overcome any potential entire missile defence systems.""

Just saying so doesn't make it so. During Congressional debates about the costs of developing stealth bombers a U.S. congressman suggested that if the bombers were invisible why not just say the U.S. built them and put the money to better use.

"Whatever Putin's angry about, it isn't the US missile shield."

I couldn't say what Putin's angry about but I think the west has failed big time in moving to bring Russia into the fold. I've tried to brush up on my Russian history and current affairs because I see a stable, law abiding Russia as key, perhaps the key, to World stability and solving the problems of the west. Russia's gotten a raw deal. Granted I've talked with professionals and business people who have strongly underscored that Russia today is a lawless state but closer ties to the rest of the west could make Russia no more lawless than we are. Maybe if the U.S. and Britain stopped putting up road blocks to Russian integration with the rest of the west Putin wouldn't be so angry. With the opening of the Artic Canada has a big role to play in 'naturalizing' Russia, double plus good if Russia with it's resources and Canada with it's resources form a multifaceted cartel. We could rule the world!!! Brahaaaaaaaaaaa.

World fails to implode during Gates-Jobs gagfest

@ By David Crowson

My results differ from yours. Using quotes brings a reply of no matches found and a suggestion to remove the quotes. Yahoo! shows the same results. I tried to track down the quote because I'm fairly certain I'm not accurately quoting Bruce. To the best of my knowledge Bruce release two LPs, one a double. I owned both but they've gone the way of all things. I don't recall the quote being from his live standup work. I'm fairly certain the quote I sought can be found in his book 'How to Talk Dirty and Influence People'. Just as an aside the book is worth the read if only for the part where an old lady storms from her house brandishing an elephant gun at police officers who are attempting to arrest Bruce for impersonating a man of the cloth.

Apologies for the spelling and grammar errors rife in my posts. I work for 45 mins to an hour or so then shoot through various sites, sometimes carelessly firing off posts as a form of relief.

I'll clean my goggles, but, be forewarned, I'm given to seeing things through a glass darkly.

User Friendly Fire

Back in the day Apple users touted a user friendly interface. Artsy types dressed in black waxed creative on their Apple computers while early wintel computer users saw Apple's user friendly, touchy feely, love fest as a cover for locked down boxes that couldn't be hacked. We viewed Apple people as weak prey. Well not really prey. We couldn't actually kill and eat them. We knew cannibalism was wrong. 'Lord of the Flies' was required reading and we knew what would happen if we actually killed and ate Apple users. "Damned fruits!"

Gates is a geek. Jobs is cool. I'm pretty sure he'd tell you he is if you asked him. Just as Apple stuff is cool and the people who use it are cool. Someone mentioned Apple used a photo of a young Miles Davis in one of their ad campaigns. Miles heralded 'The Birth of Cool' but he knew cool was an accolade not a claim, and, if you called it or yourself cool then it just wasn't cool. Somewhere in the back of Job's mind must be the shadow of another American who was around when cool was birthed. Lenny Bruce said, "there's nothing more pathetic than an old hipster." Interestingly when I goggled the quote I never found Lenny as the source. Apparently Dr. Evil of Goldmember fame is now owner of Lenny's quip. That ain't cool.

Security analogies: the key to educating laymen

Required Reading

Re: Jorge Luis Borges' short story "Funes the Memorious", check out, 'The Mind of a Mnemonist: A Little Book about a Vast Memory' by AR Luria. btw Borges' work "...is like a box of chocolates." :)

Germany declares hacking tools 'verboten'

Now We're Talking Suasage

These are the sorts of laws that are enacted by the common person for the common person. These legislators can be looked to for relief from the numerous dread viruses that can kill cell phone users.

The important thing now is to give up. Apparently if you can think for yourself and are willing to attack problems you are part of the problem and criminal. If everyone is accounted for and everyone is a criminal than everyone is governable. It's as old and darkly comical as one damn thing after another and being damned if you do and damned if you don't. While I don't pretend to the knowledge of a computer security professional I've spent many years learning to use an array of software in an attempt to make my windows machines safe from being suborned by a bot net. Perhaps my reward will be jail time. When everyone is a criminal than jail is a badge of honour and being a criminal is the only social door open to freedom. I wonder if these assholes have a clue as to what their fashioning.

Firms urged to tighten up access policies

Pandemic

Late last year I opened a Canadian discount brokerage account. The rep typed in his 6 digit code while I watched. I commented that passwords should be at least 8 digits long. I thought he'd take the hint that I'd watched him type in his password. He replied 6 digits was the minimum allowable and he had to change it every three months so it was a bit of a chore to use more than 6 digits. Tellers at a credit union I use routinely type in their passwords open to my view. I guess it's a good thing the majority of Canadians earn a decent living and aren't tech savy.

IBM's AIX 6 drops 'L,' adds 'S'

NT precedent?

Didn't NT debut at 3.1? My 1994 Developer Network disc set is 3.1. The '95 Resource Kit disk is 3.51. Although there may have been a reason other than marketing for releasing NT as 3.1, but, then again, it's MS.

Apple moans over sex toy ad

Jobs & Stallman?

I'm not sure I understand. What is Apple doing with GNU asm and who're Ann Summers and Jacqueline Gold? Although it's good to see women getting involved in IT, especially assembly code, bitch'n. I tried to learn to code asm mainly to play 'games' with softice under win98. Often it brought a smile to my face.

Gambling and prediction markets gamble on growth

Voo Do You Think Your Are?

The more arcane the maths the less like the underlying theory is robust. I had to take a fair helping of stats courses and apply the knowledge in the real world. The money I managed wasn't big by world standards but it was enough to make me sweat on occasion and carry errors & omissions insurance.

In the 90's I read a lot of the stuff coming out of the study of Complexity. The Santa Fe Institute was the center for the founders of Complexity. The economist Brian Arthur mingled with Stuart Kauffman, M. Gell-Mann, John Holland, Per Bak and others. IIRC Mr. Arthur was doing work in an area loosely defined as non-equilibrium economics. Open, non-equilibrium systems figured large in the readings I managed. Early on a meeting took place which featured many of the players with, the late Danish physicist, Per Bak taking center stage with his Sand Pile model of self-organized criticality. Economists present brought up some ideas Per Bak recognized as derived from Spin Glass theory. The economists showed the maths backing up their ideas and Per Bak was floored by the elegance and correctness of the maths. Per Bak said (loosely recalled) that physicists use every dirty math trick imaginable and never approached the elegance and rigor demonstrated by the economists. The point I'm after is that recondite maths backing arcane theories should set off alarms.

The Canadian born 60's king of Economics, J.K. Galbraith said, "People should listen to me because I'm taller." When it comes to economic predictions maybe he had it right.

Citadel, FirePay asset seizures pay out for the DOJ

Golden Rain

When will the rest of the world get tired of being soaked in elephant piss? Britain seems intent on being America's bum boy and the rest of Europe seems acts like WWII just ended and the Marshall Plan bailiff is at the door demanding payment. In Canada we're painfully aware of the true intent of, IIRC, J.P. Morgan's statement, "Canada is a very nice country and we intend to see that it stays that way."

Jumping from gambling legislation to world politics and governance may seem a bit of a rant, but, as a Canadian, living under the huge legs of a colossal elephant and being incessantly pissed on is growing old. Historically the people who ran America weren't nice guys. 'The business of America is business' pretty much sums it up. America, as a nation, raped half a continent, then pimped it to turn a buck. When the whore began to grow old they turned to the protection racket and built up a military industrial complex that we're told is there to keep 'us' safe from the 'evil' axis of the day. I'm sure when Arthur Miller penned 'Death of a Salesman', even he, was unaware he had created in Willy Lomax the quintessential American President.

The American, oligopolistic, capitalist system is decidedly adversarial. May the best man win is fine and well on a refereed, level playing field but in the real world the adversarial system is prejudiced in favour of those who can afford the most resources. Politically the situation translates into a dynamic wherein the politically elected strive to win the popular vote to effect the wishes of Corporate Lobbyists while the judiciary struggle to do some stuff I don't get that's intended to uphold the law, protect the constitution but not actually write legislation while maybe guiding it. Overall it seems to beg Churchill's adage that Democracy is the absolute worst form of government except for all the others.

America's winner take all with god on their side manipulation of internal and international law is dangerously juvenile. Living a piss soaked existence under the elephant's huge legs while peeping about to find ourselves dishonourable graves in ground unconsecrated by evangelical America is a disservice to world governance. The thing about being a pygmy trying to bring down an elephant is that you've got to dart in and out making every small cut count. That is the more so true in areas like gambling where the American Right grabs for the cash with one hand while disavowing the evils of gambling with the other.

OTOH apparently I've too time on mine.

Mobile blocking helicopter to trail Bush in Sydney

I'm Not Sure I Understand

There seems to be some suggestion President Bush's life might be at risk from a violent attack. Shurley no enemy of America would harm Mr. Bush? Terrorists and anti-Americans the world over must hold President Bush, V.P. Cheney and A.G. Gonzales in the highest possible regard. Over his cataclysmc tenure The President's policies make 9/11 look like a 2 yr. old's owiee.

Does he have unpaid gambling debts? Something to do with a Firefly Girl in a closet at the White House?

US seeks to criminalize 'attempted' piracy

Dieu et mon DRM

The divine right of the neocons has become embedded in the instigation of Information Feudalism and Digital Rights Management. The endgame makes everyone a criminal just as everyone is a sinner. First it's necessary to broaden the net to capture everyone as a potential terrorist/criminal. Intellectual Property makes the most propitious branding iron. Intellectual Property crimes are just a nudge and a wink away from thought crimes. Anyone, read everyone, caught in the terrorist/criminal net becomes subject to a plethora of meta biometric records and the profiling becomes inescapable. One record might be expunged but there'll remain a net of ancillary records.

Surveillance state can't monitor itself, says US

Neo Crypto Nazi Neo Cons

There was, and perhaps still is, a running joke in some Internet forums that invoking Nazism in a argument automatically vitiates the comment. Sadly this is no longer true.

<soapbox>

The neocons in America, Britain, Canada and elsewhere are pushing for an Information Feudalism wherein the citizenry will be Information Serfs. Feudalism as a loose term can describe a system of Lords (Big Government & Big Corporations), Vassals (Lobbyists, Police Forces (military and civilian), and apologists), and Fiefs (e.g. Dept. of Homeland Security, Corporations with Govt grants, contracts). Serfs, a Russian term, refers to persons who are tied to the a Fief. Information Technology is being used to create an Information Feudalism suppressing Information Serfs. Information Serfs will be tied to their db profile as inescapably as Russian Serfs were tied to the land.

The "war on terror" isn't the raison d'etre for the neo-crypto-nazi push by neocons. The collapse of the Soviet Union initiated a push to put neocon 'democracy' in every home in every nation. 9/11 and the "war on terror" are just dressing to make the main course more palatable.

In a quote I can't source I once read Hitler said of Nazi Germany that it was easy to govern a country where everyone was a criminal. To the neocons and the evangelical, religious Right everyone is a sinner. The neocons, the political Right, are in bed with the evangelical religious Right. Constitutionally such people are patriarchal and righteous. Their moral rectitude is like a shared virus that infects anyone foolish enough to crawl into their communal bed. Their sins are many but always forgiven in the name of the father who is power. For such people the procurement of power is confirmation of their right to wield power. They embody, philosophically and biochemically, the adage that power corrupts and, absolute power, corrupts absolutely.

In Canada the neocons have a power base in Alberta and a federal leader in our present, minority Government Prime Minister. In America there's a widely based saying describing the three boxes on which democracy stands, the soapbox, the ballot box and the ammo box. Edmund Burke wrote, "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." To say nothing in the face of the workings of the neo crypto nazi neocons is wrong, but not to vote in the face of this threat is to capitulate and leave future generations truly enslaved or with no recourse but the ammo box. Vote, your life depends on it. </soapbox>

On Microsoft's feeble Fortune-based nastygram to Red Hat

Apologies to Flanders and Swann

FUD, FUD, vainglorious FUD

Nothing quite like it for roiling the blood

So follow me down, down to the hollow

And there let me wallow in vainglorious FUD

Scientology tries to discredit BBC documentary

It's Dragons, Dragons All The Way Down

Earth is a dragon's egg. The proof is in plate tectonics and global warming. As the dragon embryo develops the once stable surface of the planet is being driven apart in preparation for the newborn dragon bursting forth. Global warming is just a sign of the dragon embryo maturing.

Usually life doesn't form on dragon eggs but earth's location in the solar system and the moon has allowed life to form on the planet feeding off the magicallictically developing dragon life. Only once in a galaxy far far away did a dragon embryo die on a planet like yours supporting intelligent life. It was a two headed dragon. We now travel the universe seeking out life on dragon eggs and attempt to kill the dragon embryo before it hatches and destroys the planet.

Unfortunately we need more money to further our efforts. If you want to survive sending us money is your only hope. For Gold Card Dragon Killers we offer a ride off the planet should our efforts fail. Send us all your money! Don't let this offer pass you and your love ones by. btw early subscribers get a two headed dragon crest and a nifty sword (offer invalid where swords are prohibited)

America is under siege. Do we blame IBM or Cringely?

Shelly's Algorithm For Success

I'd raise my fist in the air and wave it in solidarity with Cringely while letting you know 'lo the many years I've been reading his stuff but I tend to lose my balance when I let go of my walker.

"What we have here is failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week..." The following quote from 'Cool Hand Luke' speaks to a trend in management that I encountered in uni as Operations Research. My readings suggested Operations Research took on a mantle of its own in the 60s. The application of scientific methods and, especially, algorithms to problems in organizations provides a methodology subject to quantifiable checks and has the added benefit of suggesting the methodology is without bias and free of people problems like nepotsim and prejudice against rebels without a cause like Cool Hand Luke. Like any other tool/artifact variations on Operations Research are open to abuse, creative use and mundane implementations. Implementation of OR raises very interesting moral and ethical questions. The success Big Blue realizes will just be one more step along the road to AI exhibited, not by machines, but by their makers.

Without turning overly garrulous it's interesting to see in the contingency that's history the rise of democracy from the interplay of the ancient exchange attempting to equate the duty of the individual to society and the right of the individual to individual freedom. In terms of this argument, in the west, we default to the contest in ancient Greece between Athens and Sparta. Creativity is tied to individual freedom. The freedom preached in nominal western democracies is crucial to the creativity driving the innovation behind successful OR management algorithms demanding the surrender of personal freedoms to the greater interest of the corporation. The awkward recursion between individual freedom, creativity and lean, algorithmic profit making invites visions of the Rise of the Machines directed by Corporate overlords having attained all the rights and privileges of citizenry.

Imagine, if you will... a Big Blue Borg Collective

George Lucas bitch slaps Spider-Man 3

I Think I Got It

"Before then we'll have the fourth Indiana Jones film, whose plot Lucas and co-creator have managed to keep under wraps."

CAST:

GOOD GUY: (smiles a lot, tells jokes, likes kids and dogs, demonstrates rebel, antihero streak by not shaving regularly and refusing to wear a brilliant white hat)

LOVE INTEREST: (hot chick, young enough to be GOOD GUYS granddaughter, invariably put at imminent risk by VILLAIN (see below), surrenders her life as a chattel to GOOD GUY)

VILLAIN: (seers a lot, attempts to smile end in seer, hates kids and dogs, flaunts wealth and power, risks much to defile LOVE INTEREST, wears black hat and likes it)

POWER THINGY: (world ending thingy)

TIME: (always running out and putting world, GOOD GUY and LOVE INTEREST at risk)

PLOT:

World ending POWER THINGY discovered [FX] (subplot, if in hands of VILLAIN then GOOD GUY assaults VILLAIN's stronhold [FX]; if not in hands of VILLAIN then RACE between GOOD GUY and VILLAIN [FX]). LOVE INTEREST holds knowledge (key) [FX] to POWER THINGY; if LOVE INTEREST employed/ensnared by VILLAIN [FX] then GOOD GUY must "woo" her; if LOVE INTEREST not employed/ensnared by VILLAIN then LOVE INTEREST [FX,FX] captured by VILLAIN (much evil laughing and threats of defilement). TIME running out. GOOD GUY must not only capture [FX, FX] POWER THINGY but save LOVE INTEREST; TIME must conflict GOOD GUY leaving him to choose between saving world or LOVE INTEREST. GOOD GUY exhibits superpowers [FX, FX, FX...(see budget limitations) to save world and LOVE INTEREST. VILLAIN dies. The End.

UN waffles furiously on biofuels

Bitch's Bitches

The Red Queen, Mother of All Bitches, said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

In the simple terms I understand the situation, the biosphere holds the overall biomass and a given biomass exists in co-evolutionary ecological niches. A species evolves to maintain itself while deforming it's ecological landscape and, in turn, being deformed by it. A dominant species will deform the landscape to a degree that the landscape can no longer support larger numbers of the species and the species will plateau or die off in large numbers.

Then along came the outlaw ape, a generalize omnivore with an over large prefrontal cortex and the quirky ability to manipulate it's environment symbolically. The outlaw ape lives outside the laws of nature. When it deforms it's ecology to a degree that it threatens sustainability the outlaw ape deforms the deformation. The biosphere becomes the domain of the Red Queen and everything must run faster in evolutionary terms in an attempt to stay in the same place. Only, ridiculously, the same place can't ever be the same place.

In this foot race, in last place, are the world's poor who are left with primitive coping strategies like over breeding, in the middle are the masses who want their entitlement to live like kings, and, out front, are the super rich who live like kings. Perhaps our species should have as it's coat of arms an outlaw ape rampant over a world despoiled.

Boffins to UK.gov: Don't muck around with science teaching

ain't never gonna happen

The complexity inherent in education effectively bars any line of attack meant to resolve problems perceived in teaching one or more subjects. Generally education is a winnowing process testing for failure. The requirements of science education are such that success requires, at minimum, native aptitude and an affinity for the subject matter. Any programme meant to overcome a lack of native ability or affinity for science will face the barriers put in place to protect perceived minorities from politically incorrect stigmatization.

Overcoming learning limitations requires that students be taught how to learn. Learning how to learn is an abstraction that requires on the part of the student motivation and the ability to 'get on top of the subject matter'. It may well be that the native ability required to master science or any other complex field requires the ability to self correct, to learn how to learn, and, as such, is closed to the majority of those who don't natively exhibit the ability.

Politicians wanting to keep their jobs aren't up to stating many students might be natively barred from learning science because the subject matter is out of reach. T.S. Eliot once said of poetry, "it's a mug's game". Most of what we do is a mug's game. The potential of computers and networking to hijack the existing education system and allow an average student to gain access to higher learning only happens when the student has the ability to plot h/is/er own course. The majority use technology for social interaction. It's a mug's game and, very likely, the majority of students who pass on science are smart enough to know their not going to make it, and, alternatively, go for social skills.

Changing teaching methods and/or changing curriculum will likely have little impact. If we utilize technology to micro manage the education of each student, identify learning disabilities, take corrective measures and teach students how to learn; then, we might get somewhere. That ain't never gonna happen.

just my loose change

Gravity, as Dr. Johnson pointed out, is no more than a peculiar carriage of the body to hide the defects of the mind.

Sudanese goat wife pops her hooves

I Suspect Foul Play

It seems obvious to me Mr Tombe wasn't about to pay support for a kid not his own. The situation was probably further aggravated by Rose Tombe's infidelity, but perhaps she mistook Mr. Tombe's offer to wear horns in the bedroom.

Sir Alan Sugar unveils East End supercomputer

All In The Name Of Porn

"...computing power that "is 10 billion times faster than the one we [Amstrad] made 23 years ago"."

So if we divide the Library of Congress by Station Wagons hurling down the highway filled with tape drives, factor in Moore's Law and, let's see, carry the one... that pretty much accounts for my porn collection...

Less flippantly recently El Reg ran an article wherein an American scientist/engineer spoke of how modeling had come to take a place in science equal to theory and method. The noted increase of 10 billion times in computing speed is mind boggling in terms of the likely speed at which science is advancing.

Electrode hats to exploit soldiers' subconscious powers

Just The Tip Of The Iceberg

I had a chance to try out a similar device. There were problems with noise and false positives. Wearing it around the house I got a lot of false positives after my mom had gone to bed and my dad got ready to call it a night. I seemed to get threat readings even from the near subliminal sounds he made. It was quite distracting. She's much too good for him. Also, outdoors, flamboyantly dressed men displaying dramatic body language seemed to push threat reaction into the red zone.

A schism erupted between specific threats and more general, almost, archetypal threats. Generally I found if I just forcefully asserted my will most of the threats seem to disappear.

Of course with the DARPA stuff there are protocol issues when the soldiers network and the stuff seems not to scale well.

Microsoft super sizes multi-threaded tripe

Unbelievable

Unbelievable you didn't mention the wine. Please tell me you were served a decent wine with what reads as a good meal. Not cola, tell me it wasn't some sugary energy drink?

Bill Gates said that ( by now ) hardware would be all but free and come 'bundled' with the software. He miss timed the Internet and had to play catchup. But, hey, Howard Hughes laughed off the jet engine... he didn't say, "It'll never fly" but he passed it by and had to play catchup later on.

Will the spaghetti monster code said to lay under the hood of Windows make the transition to multithreaded/multicore Nirvana an impossible path for even the most profound coder gurus to walk? Isn't Solaris a full length in front of the pack when it comes to multithreaded code running on multicores.

If Microsoft did indeed serve a fine wine with mentioned repast then I've no doubt they're in deep trouble and badly scared. Otherwise you'd of got bagels and so so coffee.

Lords investigate 'unconstitutional' surveillance society

A Tale of Two Cities

As a boy I read that Drake's Drum hangs from a wharf on the Thames. It was said if ever Britain faced invasion someone was to beat on the drum and the spirit of Drake would return to defend the Isle. The problem being faced is that the enemy could be anywhere and have any face. The times really call for the return of Dickens.

Technology promises us 'the best of times' but seems to be bringing with it 'the worst of times.' The freedoms won during the Age of Revolution are at risk because those freedoms are being swept aside on the pretext of protecting the people who are meant to enjoy the freedoms being lost. We're raised being told to be ready to die for freedom. Fighting for freedom in the past was for the most part a game of capture the flag. War was declared on a nation state, the state capital was captured, the flag was captured, the war was over. With the Blitz came an effort to break the will of a people with mass destruction. With radical Islam comes an insidious effort to break the will of a people with suicide bombings. Rereading 'GUERRILLA' by T.E. Lawrence I was caught by his mention that commanding Arab guerrilla fighters required much attention be paid to ensuring little or no loss of Arab life as any loss of Arab life would cause mass desertions. Something has radically changed. Now the enemy is within and, seemingly, constituents have made it clear to politicians that personal safety comes first. There's a quandary. Do we live with our rights and freedoms, prepared to die for our freedoms or do we forfeit our freedoms for the safety of a Nanny State? It's a quandary worthy of Dickens.