I just buy a new PC. No proprietary software at all, I had to build the thing but is a really easy thing to do, I'll worry when I can no longer do that.
You can start worrying already:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/12/12/28/163211/ask-slashdot-linux-friendly-motherboard-manufacturers
How is this bug fixed? From the initial bug report, reproduction instructions:
Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.
2. Attempt to buy a machine without any proprietary software.
What happens:
Almost always, a majority of PCs for sale have Microsoft Windows pre-installed. In the rare cases that they come with a GNU/Linux operating system or no operating system at all, the drivers and BIOS may be proprietary.
What should happen:
A majority of the PCs for sale should include only free software.
I can still reproduce the bug in its entirety. Nothing has changed since 2004.
"Remember kids: If you find a bug in Paypal's system, you'll get paid more for selling it to the black hats."
Back that up. Where are these supposed blackhats? If I have discovered a security flaw in a common product (Adobe, Canonical, Microsoft) where might I sell? If this becomes better known, then Paypal will have competition (i.e. compete on the free market) to pay for the bug reports.
The impression I got from the nissan.com story was that he tried to make a quick buck (when asked for a price, he said "I don't know, $15 million?") and when he realized that made him look bad he turned it around into a victim story.
Don't get me wrong, that doesn't excuse Nissan Motors' behavior. I was considering buying a Nissan Murano in 2005, and chose another brand specifically because of the nissan.com debacle. My wife emailed a copy of the vehicle we purchased instead to their customer service department with an explanation.
Thank you for the perspective. I hate cybersquatters, but assuming that Uzi was not cybersquatting and legitimately using the name, why wouldn't he ask for a few mil? I don't know if that is what he did ask for, but I sure would do the same if some multinational corporation suddenly wanted dotancohen.com from me. Note that I am not cybersquatting dotancohen.com but rather using it for the purpose for which domain names were intended, as was Uzi doing with nissan.com.
Thanks. I did not know that.
Thank you, that is an interesting bit to know.
You needed 3 minutes to write that code?
Obviously he wrote it in Emacs. In VIM it would have been four keypresses and a macro, 5.2 seconds from the bash prompt to a.out.
And as of C99 no return is necessary.
Not necessary does not mean that it _should_ be eliminated. I personally find it bad form, because it makes the intent of the code less clear. Even in PHP, the intent of the code becomes much clearer when return is specified. It is a code smell, and it only gets smellier as the application gets larger.
For the trivial program above, I wouldn't have even mentioned anything, though.
Go ask any of the McDonalds, whose great-great-great-grandpa 200 years ago proudly called himself "Mr. McDonald", how he or she feels about the mcdonalds.com domain
Go ask Uzi Nissan what Nissan Motor Corporation did (is doing) to him over the name that he registered circa 1996. Uzi Nissan, having a computer shop, bought the domain name of his last name. Never mind that he _also_ had a car dealership called Nissan Motors in the 1970s, when Nissan Motor Corporation was still called Datsun.
Or just have an undo button...
That is exactly what he said in the following paragraph:
it is better to make it easy for users to recover from those mistakes, and for others to recover easily from any side effects of those mistakes
Say what? Is this guy the real deal?
Welcome to
Maybe in 6 more months when we reach Firefox 50 I'll give it a try, but until then. Firefox 8 all the way!
Actually, in 6 more months Firefox 24 is expected to be released, which will be an ESR version and thus enjoy longer support.
You're saying that you care about the impact the planet has on you, not vice versa. It's time to recognise that 'harm to the Earth' isn't abstract and you (and your grandchildren) are co-dependant upon the Earth for your survival.
No, the GP is saying that humans evolved on the Earth, and changing the Earth on short timescales will affect his offspring who cannot evolve quickly enough. I personally feel the same way.
I really do not care what particular composition of gasses surround whatever rock that my offspring live on, nor the temperature of those gasses. I'm just concerned that the composition of gasses and their temperature are suitable for my offspring to live and grow food in.
Do you think science be put through a political lens before it's published or talked about?
Quite the opposite, but I wish (ha, and a pony) that those with a political agenda would not misrepresent science as being in anyone's 'interest' or misquoting scientific papers to show one thing when the full results show something completely different.
From that PDF:
This study showed that only about one percent of net primary productivity and 16 percent of eroded carbon contribute to carbon sequestration in eroding watersheds. Combining these results with global estimates from previous studies, the erosion-induced terrestrial carbon sink can potentially offset as much as 10 percent of the global fossil-fuel emissions of carbon dioxide in 2005.
So that PDF which tries to convince us that releasing carbon is a non-issue due to soil erosion cannot account for the other 90% of the carbon in the atmosphere? And it does not even mention the other ill aspects of soil erosion.
No, soil erosion can only 'correct' 10% of the 2005 level of the problem. Hint: world carbon emissions have _increased_ since 2005, and then there is the other 90% of the problem to deal with.
Just because you see a shared memory segment used by apache doesn't mean that you're infected. Apache sometimes legitimately uses shared memory segments. See, for example: http://blog.nominet.org.uk/tech/2008/03/26/apache-shared-memory/
Thank you. That is an interesting use case, one that I had never encountered. Obviously, if Apache has been configured to share memory across processes then seeing it do so is not clear sign of infection. However, if Apache has not been explicitly configured to do so, then seeing Apache sharing memory with another process is a real red flag.
Your linked blog is great, there are quite a few gems in there. Thanks!
Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky
