Thought crime
If you can't be shot while committing it, it shouldn't be a felony.
Infinite monkeys
In 2003, scientists at Paignton Zoo and the University of Plymouth, in Devon in England reported that they had left a computer keyboard in the enclosure of six Sulawesi Crested Macaques for a month; not only did the monkeys produce nothing but five pages consisting largely of the letter S, they started by attacking the keyboard with a stone, and continued by urinating and defecating on it.
Software is a miracle commodity:
- It's copyrightable like a book.
- It's patentable like a mouse trap.
- It can hold trade secrets, like a glass of Coca Cola.
- The consumer has to "sign" a contract to use it, like a cellphone account.
- Advertising pitches can be included for a captive audience, just like a movie theater.
- It's artificially expensive, like a diamond.
- It's a recurring source of support revenue, like a lawn service.
- It's creator can disavow all liability for anything that may go wrong, and get away with it, like... I can't think of anything else like that!
Gun's aren't the problem, people are the problem.
So by eliminating people, guns are actually helping SOLVE the problem then!
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
- Edward Tufte
Just remember when asking WWJD that the answer is sometimes "Flip out and knock over tables."
"RIAA/MPAA...... The festering boil on the buttocks of America."
I had a friend who while serving as a Grand Jury foreman actually said "no" to a District Attorney. He told me the amount and intensity of intimidation and outright threats ("hope your wife doesn't have any traffic stops for the next 10 years") that rained down on him as a result was astonishing. If he hadn't been an extraordinarily stubborn person he would have given in, regardless of what he and the rest of the Jury thought was "right" as citizens.
That matches up with just about everything I have heard about the "protections" offered by the Grand Jury system.
Spammers
Now, just give me a shotgun, a case of ammo, and a list of related addresses. It's about time we sent unsolicited E-Mailers some unsolicited lead pellets.
Internet relay chat
The problem that the corporate world has with IRC is that it's a network of humans, exchanging ideas and conversing freely. And, to make matters worse, they aren't paying a monthly/weekly/hourly fee to do so.
I've read a lot of these "watch out for these free social based things on the internet, the only way to keep your kids safe is to stay on amazon.com with your credit card in hand" articles.
Safety?
"I'm not anti-war because I think it will make me safer, I'm anti-war because I think it will make the people in the area safer."Food groups
"A balanced meal needs to contain both major food groups - cheese and non-cheese"
Can't find Bin-Laden
To be fair, they were looking for him in the region of Afghanistan known as Iraq.
The draft
Congresspeople also have learned something from the Vietnam war. If a war is so unpopular that we are out of "weekend warrior" reserves and we can't convince people to join on their own, as a politician you should be voting to force a withdrawl rather allow the war to continue. To be depleted to the point that a draft is needed in modern times is a sign that we've already lost and just can't admit it.
Robotic policemen in Hong Kong
Robotcop III can walk, dance, move in any direction...
Wow... thats 2 more things than regular cops can do!
On the waning popularity of encyclopaedias
The Encylopedia Industry just needs a lobby. How about EIAA? Sue and whine when your business model fails to make money. It's the American Way.
There is no 'try'
Attempted murder! Now what is that, really! Do they give a Nobel prize for attempted chemistry?
Joking aside
Just because I tell jokes, shouldn't mean you have political opinions
William Hague, to Ian Hislop
Guide for Sysadmins:
Upon learning that your systems have been penetrated, proper incident response is as follows:
- Scream. Hold head between hands and moan.
- Check passport, one-way tickets to South American country of choice. Express relief that the emergency escape kit is still operational.
- Remember advising boss to recind deparmental policy of secure sticky-note-on-the-monitor storage for passwords. Recall boss' gales of laughter in response. Take hefty swig of Jack Daniel's.
- Remember advising boss to please not open random e-mail attachments. Recall boss' blank stare in response. Suck on barrel of .357 revolver for 5 minutes or until sufficiently calmed down.
- Remember pleading with boss to allow filtering executable attachments. Recall boss' response. Almost pull trigger.
- Resist urge to yank server out of rack and dump out nineth-story window.
- Advise boss of break-in. This starts the long chain of blame-passing that ends when the CEO sacks 5 random people in middle management and below.
- Sit back and watch the spin machine start the vital post-incident response protocol of figuring out who might know what happened and silencing them.
RFID tagging
"The possibilities are endless. I'm wondering when the terrorists will catch up and build booby traps that only explodes when the RFID scanner attached to the booby trap detects an e.g. US-american citizen nearby (which wouldn't be too difficult to build, since the passports will have RFID tags, too)"
On coffee drinking
Balzac was probably the champion coffee addict of all time, reaching a point of drinking over two hundred cups of coffee a day until he finally gave up and resorted to eating coffee beans directly. He did die of heart failure, but at a reasonable age for his day, and according to his physician from a congential condition.
Environmentalist Wackos
On Monday, an earthquake shook the foundations of Diablo Canyon nuclear power station in California. This plant, if it had been built as originally planned, would likely have failed on Monday, likely contaminating hundreds of miles of pacific coastline with deadly radiation.
Thank God the environmentallist wackos were there, in the 1970's, to halt construction on this plant, and force PG&E to redesign the plant so that it could withstand a 7.0 direct on it's location.
Space exploration
Soon we'll be able to use amazingly powerful telescopes to stare out across the light years and see some one on Vegas planets staring back.
Then the arms race starts.
Life of dogs
- When loved ones come home, always run to greet them.
- Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joyride.
- Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
- When it's in your best interest, practice obedience.
- Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
- Take naps.
- Stretch before rising.
- Run, romp, and play daily.
- Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
- Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
- On warm days, stop to lie on your back on the grass.
- On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
- When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
- No matter how often you're scolded, don't buy into the guilt
- thing and pout...run right back and make friends.
- Delight in the simple joy of a long walk.
- Eat with gusto and enthusiasm & stop when you have had enough.
- Be Loyal.
- Never pretend to be something you're not.
- If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
- When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
The MP3s4Free.net case
Criminal 1: What are you in jail for?
Criminal 2: Murder. You?
Criminal 1: I worked for guy who ran an ISP who had a customer who set up a site that had some links to another web site that stored some files that may or may not have infringed copyright law.
Criminal 2: You BASTARD!
Accuracy
"The U.S. picked the highly accurate cruise missile for the strikes against the Afghan camp," reported CNN's military correspondent Jamie McIntrye, "because of their ability to fly with pinpoint accuracy."
One of the missiles was so accurate it hit the wrong country, Pakistan, several hundred miles off-course.
Englishness
When John Cleese was asked by an American interviewer what the differences between the Americans and the British were he said:
- We [the British] speak English.
- When we hold a World championship we invite other countries to take part.
- [Referring to Clinton/Lewinski] When you meet our head of state it's customary to go down on only one knee.
Updating the computer
I have to reboot my laptop after installing the new update. Gotta go!
computer: "Would you like to reboot?"
me: Of course I like to reboot all the time. Otherwise I would be running Linux.
Presidential
Reagan's memory loss occured long before he suffered from Alzheimers. I suggest you read his testimony to the Iran-Contra affair, in which he (somewhat conveniently) "failed to recall" how much he knew about the deal. He also "forgot" many other facets of it, such as his requirement to inform Congress...
Using the law
The Law, in general, is a tool to create justice. Use it as such, to do otherwise is injust. Do not use the law to create wealth. Do not use the law to create righteousness. Neither should the law be used to allow lawlessness or injustice. The law doesn't define what is right it is a tool to set the wrongs right.
The problem with our society is that we think that the law defines the boundries of right and wrong behaviour. It isn't. And it never will.
Ted Tschopp
Programming languages
C++ is to C as Lung Cancer is to Lung
Peer-to-peer wishlist
To be P2P's Ultimate Killer App(tm), a network/client must have ALL the following properties:
- Cannot be shut down, even in the presence of multimillion-dollar organisations and even governments actively trying to do so.
- 100% distributed to avoid all single points of failure (see 1)
- Really, really, really fast.
- Must scale - i.e., still be at least just as good, preferably better when it has 50 million nodes rather than 50, and not merely survive but flourish under a slashdotting.
- Cannot, or will not, be easily targeted for blocking or ratelimiting by any ISP.
- Must be leech-proof, yet not screw over those with restricted uploads or bad connections too badly.
- Must be resistant to all forms of attack (see 1), even in the presence of a considerable number of malicious nodes attempting to disrupt the network by, for example, releasing fake files, flooding or spamming the network, or actual compromise by worms, viruses, script kiddies or professionally contracted full-time teams of crackers.
- All parties must be strongly anonymous or psuedonymous.
- All private communications must be end-to-end encrypted.
- All connections must either be link encrypted, or actively not require encryption (but remember 5).
- Must be resistant to traffic analysis.
- Must be light on the protocol bandwidth and support very good, reasonable, rate limiting/traffic shaping internally (but still leech-proof).
- Must be completely functional even behind highly restrictive firewalls - ideally, even behind HTTP-only proxy situations.
- Should support some form of long-term intentional digitally-signed nym-based release-oriented file archive which is highly suitable for slashdotting. Digitally signed comments on releases/files from nyms allow for dedicated nyms to review or virus check releases.
- May also support passive filesharing.
- Should securely (nym-based) integrate everything we've seen from IM - presence, profiles, private communication (peer-to-peer and group-oriented), public communication (both moderated and unmoderated). Online (irc-style) and offline (email-style and usenet-style) ideally, at least in text, and also in voice and/or video if you're feeling really saucy, peer-to-peer file transfer also a cool idea if integrated intelligently.
- Should support realtime previewing of media files even over slow links (hard, but sometimes possible - peeling, anyone?).
- Should support realtime internet pirate radio/TV broadcast.
- Should work very nicely with good media players and good CD/DVD ripping utilities, along with best-of-breed and cool audio and video codecs.
- Must get on with personal firewall (yes, including XP integrated firewall) and antivirus software, even if said software is a bitch to get on with (hello Norton, Zonealarm).
- Must not contain spyware, ad banners or anything of the sort.
- Must be available for and get along with, at minimum, Windows (95 through XP/2K3 and beyond), Linux (all distributions, even weird ones) and Mac (OS X Jaguar, earlier versions optional).
- Should be open-source, preferably free software. Security must not rely on obscurity, as attackers may be determined.
- Source should be clean, easy to work with, easy to build, easy to audit.
- Must be very stable and unobtrusive, have a great interface that's very easy to use and exactly as simple as it needs to be, for all its users, and an install that's so simple both a child of 5 and a grandpa of 90 could do it (oh, and a working uninstall).
Election manoevering
The candidate that raised the 'character' issue in the last campaign was the recovering alcoholic with an undeclared criminal conviction for DUI, who had been a director of a company with Enron style accounting, had sold shares and illegally failed to report the sales to the SEC - twice, who had dodged the draft by getting his father to pull strings to parachute him into a draft-safe spot in the Texas national guard and then went AWOL for over a year.
Abbreviated
I hope that someone realizes that using "www" with 9 syllables is a silly way to abbreviate "world wide web" with 3.
Space, the chinese frontier
One day the history books will read:
While the conquest of space began with the colonization of the Moon by the joint Eurasian Space Agency, a little known fact is that the United States of America actually was the first government to land a man on the Moon in the latter part of the 20th century. Although the USA was first to visit the Moon, it did not have the resources or the vision to stay and make a enduring presence there (Moon jeeps notwithstanding).
This is basically what the history books say about the Vikings and North America--technically first, but who cares.
Lottery
Lottery english - noun def 1. A tax on people who suck at math.
On obscure linux commands
How do you "chmod" only files and not directories, recursively?
<#######> i usually wiggle my tail and beg... sometimes that works
Heaven and hell
"In heaven, the Italians do the cooking, the Swiss do the accounting, the Germans fix the cars, the French are the lovers, and the British are the police.
In hell, the English do the cooking, the Italians do the accounting, the French fix the cars, the Swiss are the are the lovers, and the Germans are the police."
Programming languages
Favorite programming language? It is like asking you to pick your favorite painful dental procedure. The answer should be the one that will do what is needed with the best cost and least pain.
Open-source weakness
Considering that Linux is open source, and thus, hackers can actually look at the code for the OS, it is AMAZING that it is more secure than Windows!
Can you imagine how many exploits there would be for Windows if a good hacker could see the source code for it?
Infinite?
Never underestimate an infinite number of lawyers on an infinite number of typewriters submitting claims to the US Patent Office.
Secure bridges?
The DRMP system is based on the premise that unlicensed use of software or data should make computers stop working. You could also argue that bridges should be designed to fall down if someone is detected crossing without paying the toll.
Corporate power
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln, 1864
The digital answering machine
Machine: You had 3 messages. 1 Message deleted automatically since it has copyrighted material.
User: Oh no, Grandma again left a message with her radio on in the background.
A brief history of foreign policy
Let's see if we can reconstruct the chain of events, shall we? The US uses the CIA to overthrow the lawful government of Iran, and installs the Shah. Years later, the Shah is ousted in a coup d'etat and replaced with a regime unfriendly to the US (surprise).
The US then uses the CIA to overthrow the lawful government of Iraq and installs the butcher Saddam Hussein. This was done to counter the influence of Iran (that fell because of interventionist policy).
Next, the US uses the CIA to train Osama bin Laden and his ilk to fight the commies in Afghanistan. Then Bill Clinton bombs him to avert attention from a certain stained blue dress.
The solar system
"It has been said that our Solar System really consists of only three things: the Sun, Jupiter, and assorted rubble
Traffic control?
Building more roads to combat traffic congestion is like buying a bigger belt to combat obesity.
"This system is 100% secure"
In the real world there is no point in placing all of one's locks on the front door, only to leave the back door swinging in its hinges
(on the claim by lying e-tailers worldwide that their SSL systems are secure)
FARC?
It's real easy to tell that the FARC is a terrorist group. The US doesn't like them, thus they are a terrorist group. This seems to be about the only qualification to get labeled a terrorist by this government.
Genuinely I think you can say that the FARC is a terrorist organization because they have been responsible for military attacks on civilian targets. Having said that though, so's the columbian government and the militia groups that said government backs. And you might even imply, by extension, that the US government is a terrorist organization since they back the columbian government. But now I'm splitting hairs.
It all boils down to the fact that "terrorist" is the new version of "communist" which was itself a newer version of the term "witch". You apply it to anybody who interferes with the way you want the world to run and see how long you can get away with it.
How many were killed?
If you are still shaken by the horrifying scenes ofSeptember 11, please observe 2 minutes of silence
for the 5,000 civilian lives lost in the New York,
Washington DC and Pennsylvania attacks.
While we're at it, let's have 52 minutes of silence
for the 130,000 Iraqi civilians killed in 1991 by
order of President Bush Sr. Take another moment to
remember how Americans celebrated and cheered in the
streets.
Three Rippers for the Java-kings compiling on-the-fly
Three Rippers for the Java-kings compiling on-the-fly,Seven for the Mac-lords in their cases of gemstone,
Nine for Mortal Windows doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
In the Land of POSIX where the Programmers lie.
One Ripper to rule them all, One Ripper to cut them,
One Ripper to encode them all and in the darkness tag them
In the Land of POSIX where the Programmers lie.