Re: I love IP Tables....
by David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud)
On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 13:36 -0400, William Case wrote:
> > shouldn't a computer be a device that helps people with a reduced
> > metal capacity overcome the trials and frustrations of life not
> > increase those difficulties.
>
See "No Silver Bullet - Essence and Accident in Software Engineering" by Fred Brooks in the 20th anniversary edition of "The Mythical Man-Month". Computers can only remove that which is accidental to a problem. People still have to solve the essence of the problem on their own.
Cheers,
Dave
P.S. I used to work with a Bill Case when I was at TRW in the mid-1980s. Like me, you are cursed with a common name but I try to re-connect when I see a name I recognize even if the odds are astronomically against me.
-
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce
16 years, 10 months
Interface model
by Howard Howell
Hi Les, Tim and Ric;
You have hit on a topic that has long been near and dear to my heart.
On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 10:37 -0400, Ric Moore wrote:
> On Thu, 2007-05-31 at 16:13 +0930, Tim wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-05-30 at 11:18 -0700, Les wrote:
>
> > Hmmm, I'm not surprised. Even when computers are in a good state,
you
> > can spend far too much time setting up to do what you want, compared
to
> > actually doing it. Then there's the usual sorry state of PCs in
schools
> > with staff that are technically illiterate.
> >
> > I've spent many years working in school, and to be honest, I think
we're
> > much better off with less computers, not more. People skills are
more
> > important, and they're shocking, these days.
>
That's one of the main functions of school. I have always opposed
special education for the gifted on that basis. The most important
lesson that gifted children need is not just the development of special
skills but how to live in a world of ordinary people. I have seen too
many people who were prodigies of some kind or another in their youth
who have never developed, or bypassed, everyday living skills.
> I wuz trying to teach my 75 year old Uncle how EASY it was to just
> intuit stuff as you go. Showing him firefox and how to google, I
wanted
> him to enter the google search box and click to focus. OK, move up the
> page with the pointer... he lifts the mouse straight up off of the
mouse
> pad. <sigh>
>
I have tried to teach several people to use a computer from square one.
Your anecdote is not uncommon. I have long believed that Linux has the
opportunity to start over in desktop design in a way M$ never could,
even if they wanted to.
I would like to see really well thought out and genuinely intuitively
designed front ends for Linux that demonstrate the ingenuity and
intelligence that has gone into the backend. 5/6 of the world does not
yet use or have access to computers -- but they will. I will bet that
95% of those do not want or need to know how a computer works for
computers to be useful in their lives.
Linux and Linux developers have the opportunity to meet that need.
> Some fail to teach correctly, Some never get it. I tend to take the
> blame on this one, but I didn't anticipate THAT move!! <cackles> Ric
>
Dismissing a failure to 'get it', avoids the failure to anticipate
needs. And condemning users of stupidity -- I am not accusing you of
that, but I see it all the time on Linux lists -- moves the blame onto
the victim. I don't believe that most of those who have basic
difficulties are stupid, but even if they were, shouldn't a computer be
a device that helps people with a reduced metal capacity overcome the
trials and frustrations of life not increase those difficulties. If an
Operating System and/or an application can't do that, in the universal
sense, what use is it?
====================================================================
I have moved this to a new thread. I think this is a good topic. How
can we make the systems better at helping us.
Look at the DARPA Grand Challenge. Look up the robotics challenges done
at high schools. Check out VEX that Radio Shack supports.
Then take a look at RoboSapiens. I had built a small robot, driven by a
pair of model tank motors, using a BASIC stamp with wire sensor whiskers
and erector set pieces to put it all together, and showed it to my
grandkids. One was thrilled, but the older one said "That's not a
robot. RoboSapiens is a Robot". And as much as it wounded my pride, he
was right. RoboSapiens hit his expectation much closer than my little 3
wheeled wonder. Moreover, we need a robotics platform that costs less
than $100, gives functionality like RoboSapiens, can be torn down and
rebuilt, has extra parts and includes sensors, camera, wireless
interface to a PC, has its own internal processor. If done right, it
can actually help disabled people. Maybe like a guide dog for the
blind, or a hearing animal for the deaf, or assist with fetching for the
severely disabled. Why can't we do this today. The hardware certainly
exists. The software is mostly known, the power supplies using Lithium
Phosphate would be safe, have long life and great capabilities with no
fire hazard. Motors are more capable than ever. Servo's are certainly
powerful enough today. If we can build a power screwdriver, why can't
we build a mechanical man with that amount of power in his appendages,
with navigational capability, grasping ability and even speech
interface?
IS there no will? maybe someone just doesn't have the right
combination of talents, or maybe the right hardware design, or just a
lack of "flash insight" to the right combination. Where is the
mechanical "Johnny Appleseed" that will power us into the next
generation of industrial and consumer science? I know it is out there.
I can see the hints all around, from the "EyeRobot" to the Ipod, to
RoboSapiens. It is just not quite reached critical mass. And the
mental lever? the AI system that will present us with ever newer
viewpoints to solve problems? I think that is a few more years out, but
coming.
Lets not do it for war, not for anything other than we can. And it
is needed. And a bit of profit wouldn't be bad either.
And forget global warming, just build a better man.
Who would do it?
For power, look at www.valence.com Their lithium phosphate batteries
have long life and don't even short out when shot through, nor do they
"flame on" (c) Marvel., as implemented by other batteries.
Check out www.hobbypeople.com for some of their giant servo's. Look
at some of the battery power tools to see how much torque can be
generated today. 640x480 cameras are available on keychains. A
wireless connection is about $30, and can probably be done cheaper than
that if one works hard at it. Walking robotics are now more efficient.
Check out MIT and Florida state for their latest work.
And as to the generation of AI, well, MIT has come quite close, and
we know that the various military research institutes has some really
smart people doing wonderful (or not so wonderful depending on your veiw
point) things.
Why can't Dragon systems software be combined with all this stuff to
give us a new platform, one that is quite different in interactivity. I
bet if you could make it look like some movie star, you could sell a
million of them (or more).
Regards,
Les H
16 years, 10 months
Fedora Core 6 HUGE problem
by V＠ly
hello! i've one day of my life downloading your FC6 DVD image. i've burnt it
and checked it for errors. it was ok so i "started" setup. you might wonder
why the "" around started... well the graphical setup just wouldn't start.
after the blue setup screen, at the part where it says "running
anaconda....." when it tries to detect my video card it only detects the
manufacturer which is nVidia but not the actual card which is a GeForce 6200
A-LE. the screen goes black and nothing happens. please include the
appropriate drivers for my video card in fedora 7. i really need a good
opensource release because i don't have the money to buy a MS OS.
i hope you'll fix this problem.
--
>>> V@ly <<<
16 years, 10 months
FC6 and F7rc2 poweroff problem on server HP ML110
by Dario Lesca
Hi, On a HP ML 110 with this component:
> [root@ca1 ~]# lspci
> 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation E7230/3000/3010 Memory Controller Hub (rev c0)
> 00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
> 00:1c.4 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 5 (rev 01)
> 00:1c.5 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GR/GH/GHM (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 6 (rev 01)
> 00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
> 00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
> 00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
> 00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
> 00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
> 00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
> 00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
> 00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
> 00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR/GH (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 01)
> 03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Matrox Graphics, Inc. MGA G200e [Pilot] ServerEngines (SEP1) (rev 02)
> 04:00.0 Ethernet controller: Broadcom Corporation NetXtreme BCM5721 Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express (rev 21)
when I push the poweroff button or I run poweroff, the system start the
shutdown procedure, but when the system is Off, after 2 or 3 seconds it
restart! .. and when it is active, some USB device not work property.
Then in order for poweroff machine and do work USB device, i must
remove the power cable when the system is shutdown!!....
If I install on this server FC5 all work great.
There is a solution to this problem of FC6?
I have also install on this HP system F7rc2: with this version of Fedora
all work fine, but the poweroff via Button Press not work, I have see
witch acpid is not installed by default and there is run a new (for me)
process called
"hald-addon-acpi: listening on acpi kernel interface /proc/acpi/event"
Is this process that it would have to be taken care to poweroff the
system? why do not do it?
Thank for your reply.
--
Dario Lesca <d.lesca(a)solinos.it>
16 years, 10 months
Re: I love IP Tables....
by David G. Miller (aka DaveAtFraud)
Les <hlhowell(a)pacbell.net> wrote:
> One thing missing in this discussion is the scale of costs. No
> individual, outside of maybe Bill Gates could begin to repay for the
> damage caused by a rogue computer spreading a virus. Nor can one
> individual be even considered of being capable of patching a flaw in a
> piece of readily available software of proprietary nature (remember that
> "reverse engineering" is banned by most user license agreements.) So
> lets say you get a law passed that puts the onus on an individual. You
> get hacked, and the hacker uses a bit of code inside your system to
> "spiff up" his latest virus/worm program. Your name is in the code
> (courtesy of the memory map when your bit was built). Now that code
> breaks out and infects 200,000 systems, bringing them to their knees.
> You had all the good AV stuff installed, the system had a firewall, but
> this particular hacker managed to slip by
As I have mentioned several times in my postings on this subject, the
law usually considers whether you have taken "reasonable and customary"
measures to protect against such things. Especially, see my previous
posting regarding a joyrider stealing a car.
Self-propagating viruses act a lot like the real thing. It doesn't take
a 100 percent inoculation rate to stop a real virus from spreading; only
getting enough of the population protected that the probability that the
infection can spread is low. One of the problems is that way too many
computer users don't understand their vulnerability and how harmful
having a vulnerable system is. This is what needs to change.
We've already seen a number of attack vectors go out of favor as a
certain large software vendor has patched the security holes in it's
operating system and other products. If a significantly larger
percentage of users were to install effective AV software, the problem
would drop significantly. I'm not saying it would go away but we would
probably see the people who write such software look to other
approaches. Some of these might initially be successful but having a
larger percentage of systems running effective AV software would mean
that such problems would rapidly be contained.
It would be nice if that same software vendor were to tighten up their
product rather than rely on after the fact patches like AV software.
Being as how their behavior has barely changed in over 25 years, I'm not
holding my breath.
Cheers,
Dave
--
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.
-- Ambrose Bierce
16 years, 10 months
Fedora 6.93 to Fedora 7 update
by Langdon Stevenson
I have a Fedora 7 test 4 system that has just decided that it wants to
download 124 updates. Am I right to assume that this update represents
the final release of Fedora 7 and that I won't need to do anything else
to it?
Regards,
Langdon
16 years, 10 months
Improving the Internet (X - Re: I love IP Tables....)
by Michael Klinosky
Tim
> If .com was *only* ever used for
> commerical use, and using .com was enforced for commercial use, and we
> had something else for personal use, we could blanket delete all .com
> originating mail, and still receive all our non .com mail from our
> personal friends. ;-)
Several years ago, I concocted the notion of '.per' addresses (for
'person'). I searched for someone to tell, but didn't know enough then
to know where to look.
I figured that we needed something for personal domains (e.g. websites,
where a person buys a name).
16 years, 10 months
help with ram question
by Paula J. Lindsay
Hi,
I've just installed a fc5 machine. He needs this rev because it is
compatible with his bruker software.
Anyway, he already had 1 gig of memory in the machine, but when we put
another bank of memory (1 gig)
we could not boot up. We did a switch and they (both 1 gig dimms) and
they both work apart, but not
together. Has anyone ran into this problem? I guess I could look on
fedoraproject.org to see if fc5
supports 2 gigs of ram. Anyway, any suggestions/advice/opinions are
appreciated. Thank you in advance.
Paula
--
--*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*
o The Paula J. Lindsay, IT Analyst III
/ Research Computing, TPC21
o Scripps phone: 858.784.9378
\ fax: 858.784.9301
o Research email: paula(a)scripps.edu
/
o Institute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
16 years, 10 months
Can I install Fedora 7 from live CD?
by frank wang
Hi,
I have burned a live CD and play around it. I wonder whether I can
install Fedora 7 from the live CD or I have to burn another DVD? If I
can, are there any difference between the DVD and live CD
installation?
Thanks
Frank
16 years, 10 months
