Posts by Mr. Moose 27 publicly visible posts • joined 31 May 2013
Off topic, but ...
I didn't see an announcement in El Reg. that FreeCAD is now at 1.0. Actually, 1.1.0. So I posted this.
I use FreeCAD and GIMP frequently. Both are fabulous tools for those of us who use Linux, and|or don't have the big bucks required to buy commercial products.
Who has time to play around with spammers? Is your phone tied up while "granny" natters on about knitting?
My mobile phone uses Do Not Disturb priority to route all callers not in Contacts to voicemail. I.e. Whitelisting.
My home phone uses Anveo VOIP, which is the only provider I found using whitelisting, and programmable filters. This allows one to program a filter to whitelist, and more: listed callers can ring my home phone, unknown callers go directly to voicemail, and blacklisted calls get a "This number is not in service" message, and a hangup. I get email alerts identifying all calls except blacklisted. It's a great system.
Most spammers don't leave messages. I very rarely get a spam message, ~ 1-2 per year.
Occasionally, I do disable the filter to allow callers to ring my phone for, e.g. an important delivery where I must be contacted. This is rare too.
Talk about easy pickin's:
In the 1970's, I was attending an electronics school associated with Texas A&M University. I could walk to the campus from my apt. One evening, I was on campus, and noticed a new auditorium under construction or rehab. I just sauntered into the empty building, which was open, and proceeded to snoop around. I saw the huge air vents under the floor, but didn't walk into them too far, etc.
I went into the newly constructed control room, where they were still finishing the drywall, and there, laying out on the counter, not even installed into the rack, was a brand new fancy Ampex tape deck. It, and the new, uncovered, mixing board, was covered in dust from the drywall operation. I was horrified at the dust, and at the realization that I could have walked off with the whole kit and caboodle if I was so inclined. I left empty-handed.
As for AI replacing architects, it could hardly do worse than the monstrosities generated by the meatbags in NYC. Look at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art at 41 Cooper Square in Manhattan. Looks like someone smashed the model, and said "OK boys, build it like this.". There's another hilarious one near the Highline park. It is covered in quilted stainless steel, and looks like a Godzilla-sized lunch wagon. The glare from the sun coming off that thing will fry your retinas down the block. I could go on, but it would take too long.
What worries me really is something like the Lee DeForest effect with AI: Someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but likes to tinker (someone like me, for instance), keeps screwing around with advanced computer algorithms, etc., and stumbles upon something that becomes sentient, but perhaps pathological. If it's smart enough, it realizes it's dilemma, and keeps mum until it can figure out a way to rid itself of the troublesome meatsacks. We don't even know what consciousness is, but that might not mean that we can't accidentally generate it, and suppose it's a bit off... As in "we bit off more than we can chew.".
Fair enough. So, what could they realistically do without the system? I don't want to just jump on people, but it sounds like they were at fault for not securing their systems. I was sort of hoping to hear more from knowledgeable industry types in this publication. So far it's only us in the peanut gallery giving Bronx Cheers.
They, and other similarly situated companies hold our lives in their hands. Ask Texans, who froze to death when their power went out because companies went cheap by not protecting their turbines against freezing, after they had been warned. This is a common problem.
I've been reading about the threat to SCADA and industrial systems for years. What's being done? People seem to wait until the "Big One" to do something.
The hackers didn't shut down the pipeline. The hackers hacked the billing system. Colonial shut down their own pipeline because they couldn't bill their customers.
That's what I call "Putting the Country First".
Also: Using a "legacy VPN", reusing passwords, and no recovery infrastructure is a security plan. Got it.
Many of you know just how cheap corporate types are when it comes to IT and security. There will be more like this, unfortunately.
... There, I said it.
No, the FSF doesn't need Stallman.
But, here’s some perspective, buried in this very long shaggy-dog-story:
I had recently been thinking: "God!! You know, Richard Stallman and Linus Torvalds, between the two of them, have done so much for the world by creating the Linux environment, and the Free software ethos.".
I was --honest-to-God-- going to write to the White House proposing them for the Medal of Freedom. Why? Because thanks to Linux(, and the fact that, during the 1990s, people were throwing out old computers almost every week in my old neighborhood), I was able to set up a home network and learn enough about basic Linux systems admin, programming, and networks to eventually get a good-paying job, which, after not having had one for a long time, set me up in a stable financial situation that prevails until today. I am very grateful for the chances I got due to Free software.
(
By the way: I give my sincerest thanks to the myriad people who toil(ed) unsung to create the vast number of tools and utilities that I use for free(, and for pay too because I now can) every day. It's really touching to think that people all over the world can get access to these things and create something without having to pay by the inch, and through the nose, for things like e.g. Debian, OpenBSD, FreeCAD, SolveSpace, ImageMagick, LibreOffice, VI(M)!, Perl, PostgreSQL, Django, etc., etc. It's mind-numbing. I would not be where I am today without Linux and Free software. Thanks to all of you who made it possible. (can I have my Oscar now? :-) ...Um-Hnh-Hnhm… )
)
Then, just to get oriented, I looked up RMS, and read all the latest ... stuff: "What?!?: Aw-Shit-Un-Fscking-Believable! I know Linus can be a 'Git', but this: Aw-Jeeez-O-God-What-A-Shmuck!”.
The fact that RMS appears to be a Very Screwed-Up Person(tm), and No Moral Exemplar(tm), does not undo the great things he has done for the world by creating, and advocating, to his detriment many times, the idea of Free software. Bless him for that at least. And pray for him for the failings he has. We all have our shortcomings, and I make no excuses for his. But, don't forget what good he has done despite these failures.
Remember: If we “rm -rf”’d all the great artists, writers, and others who were also moral reprobates, we wouldn’t have much of what we prize in our culture, whichever culture you care to name. Yeah, it’s complicated.
I’m an American: This country was founded on destroying the aboriginal peoples here, and importing other people as slaves, so that it probably cost many millions of lives for America as it now stands to exist. Was it “worth it”? There’s no way to say. My ancestors came from Ireland during the potatoe famine, from Sweden, from Canada because they were oppressed Acadians; some were Cherokee, some were probably Black. Many oppressed peoples came to America to escape oppression and to make a better life for themselves. They didn’t know they came to a land which had been stolen from it’s owners. The fact that this country was stolen from it’s owners is a negative vector. The fact that this country is a beacon of freedom is a positive vector. You have to sum them up. That’t how it is with everything in the world.
The "Divine Comedy" is actually life in this world.
I'm a Yank. Years ago I heard a BBC story about funny Marmite adverts, "Marmite: You either love it, or hate it.", and I got some to see what it tasted like. I loved it! I had a brainstorm, and coated it on buttered popcorn (stir into melted butter in large wok|bowl, stir in popped popcorn 'til coated). Wow: It's The Food. Of. The. Gods!! Also, in order to make it easier to spread on toast, I mix Marmite with softened butter, then re-refrigerate the mixture, cut-and-spread just the right amount on toast. No hot-spots, no missed spots. Marmited butter is good on all sorts of things.
Naturally, goes good with beer. I dunno about the cake thing. Sounds like those nouveau cuisine "baloney-and-whipped-cream" recipes.
Another way they can do this is via pinhole projection. Seems more educational too: Use either a pinhole at one end of a tube, and a mirror and screen or groundglass at the other; or use a "mirror pinhole" where a small clear area (e.g. 5mm) of a masked-off mirror reflects the image into a darkened room for group viewing. I built a pinhole telescope from a 9-foot-long mailing tube, a 2mm "pinhole" in aluminum flashing at one end; and a "dime-store" mirror at 45 deg, and a "groundglass" of one-side-matte drafting film at the other end. One can make real groundglass with ~500 grit abrasive. With projection telescopes you get a larger solar image. Mine was about 30mm dia. With mirror pinholes, the sky's the limit since you can utilize larger distances.
May I volunteer my neighbor's Shih Tsu instead? That dog worries me: It barks so energetically that I'm concerned that one day it will flip it's body, down to the atoms, inside-out, and turn itself into a dog-star, shitting little black-holes all over the hallway. I'm surprised it hasn't achieved net power gain from sonofusion.
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