| Wednesday,
March 14, 2007
Subject: powershell & security
In mail457, Paul Dove writes
> So as well as being a powerful tool for
administrators it's also one for virus writers.
PowerShell looks to be a lot better for the good guys
than any comparable system I'm familiar with. It has an "execution policy"
that controls which scripts, if any, can be run, and the policy defaults to
"restricted." That is, no scripts run at all. You have to explicitly choose
a more lenient policy to run scripts, but even the "Unrestricted" policy is
supposed to prompt before running scripts from within Outlook, OE, and
Messenger. If you set the policy to RemoteSigned, you can run unsigned
scripts that you've stored to disk, but you presumably won't be doing that
with ones you've downloaded without looking at them first, right?
I am an old Unix bigot who moved to Windows
development a couple of years back. Somewhat reluctantly, but that's where
the money is. My first impression of PowerShell is that somebody at MS got
permission to do some damned fine work: I may finally be able to get away
from retrofitting cygwin + bash (and cursing the resulting seams) while
still freeing myself from a lot of tedious pointing and clicking.
A lot of though obviously went into this product, and
the result seems to be very clean and consistent. It's secure out of the
box, and currently is on so few computers that it doesn't present much of a
target for attackers. When it becomes more common, the content-filtering and
a/v guys will start handling it by default.
Wade
=========
Dear Mr. Pournelle,
I too heard Dr. Williams on Rush’s show today. I have
often thought that Dr. Williams is one of the weaker replacement hosts for
Rush.
Generally, I am a proponent of free trade, but I find
your idea of a flat 10% tariff to have merit and I would have no problem if
that tariff were implemented.. The only problem I can see with that is the
temptation that would come to congress critters to raise the tariff to
protect ‘vital’ industries.
The fear I heard expressed in some callers,
inarticulately, was that manufacturing was going to eventually disappear. In
my opinion, Dr. Williams did a horrible job addressing this fear. I wonder
how long it has been since he taught an undergraduate class?
I heard somewhere, that although manufacturing jobs
are decreasing, the value of US exports is increasing. We still make
‘stuff’. Other countries have an advantage making cheap ‘stuff’. We have an
advantage making the more valuable, hard to make ‘stuff’.
I did some digging on the internet and found this
document from the census bureau that supports what I heard.
http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/statistics/historical/goods.pdf
Since 1960, the value of US exports has gone up almost
every year. We sell more and more valuable ‘stuff’.
I don’t claim to have all the answers. I merely
minored in Economics at a state university. I don’t have a PhD. Trade
deficits and what the lower 50% of the bell curve will do for a career in
another generation are subjects we should be concerned about, but we still
have strong manufacturing sectors.
Kurt Isley
===========
Subject: Seitz Letter From A Noble Lord
The president of the Royal Society , Lord Rees , has
responded to Russell Seitz's Op-ed taking the RS to task for trying to
impose funding constraints on climate debate--
http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/03/letter_from_a_n.html
<http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2007/03/letter_from_a_n.html>
Russell
========
Subject: these meteorologists soon to be out of work
Jerry,
These Cleveland weather folks are probably gonna be
excommunicated by the climatology high priests:
http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?
/base/news/1171620847309210.xml&coll=2&thispage=1
Cleveland's weather wizards downplay global
warming
Friday, February 16, 2007 Plain Dealer
Columnist Michael Scott
Sure, a panel of 2,500 scientists this
month declared that it is "unequivocal" that global warming is occurring
and at least 90 percent certain that humans are responsible.
And, yes, the international report
predicted that world temperatures will rise from 3.2 to 7.8 degrees
Fahrenheit by 2100 and that sea levels could rise from 7 to 23 inches,
leading to worldwide catastrophe.
OK, fine -- but don't get too worked up
over it.
That was the consensus among five Northeast
Ohio meteorologists at a panel discussion Tuesday at Landerhaven in
Mayfield Heights.
It's not that Mark Johnson, Dick Goddard,
Mark Nolan, Jon Laufman or former Cleveland weatherman Don Webster
disbelieve the data entirely.
But they're skeptical, and they don't
believe that it's necessarily our fault or that we should panic over it.
"We have maybe 100 years of data on a rock
that's 6 billion years old," said Johnson, a WEWS Channel 5 weatherman.
"Mother Nature tends to even herself out, and the fact is, the Earth is
cyclical."
Goddard, WJW Channel 8 meteorologist, said
scientists have flip-flopped on the matter: "I have a file an inch thick
from 30 years ago that says the planet was cooling," he told the crowd
of several hundred.
They cautioned listeners not to put too
much stock in what they said was an insufficient history of warming.
"The term global warming' strikes fear in
the heart of people every time you say it, but it's simply a rise in
temperature over time, and it's happened before," said Nolan,
meteorologist at WKYC Channel 3. "I'm not sure which is more arrogant
for humans: to say we caused it or to say we're going to fix it."
Enjoy!! Jim Laheta
Maybe there will be dairy farms in
Greenland...
========
Subject: Re: Al Gore & renewable energy credits
Sir,
One of your letters states...
"Gore, by the way, offsets his fossil-fuel use by
paying extra for renewable energy credits."
Not exactly.
http://www.donaldsensing.com/index.php/2007/03/03/
never-thought-id-see-the-day/#comment-102569
In a nutshell, it appears that Gore sells himself his
carbon offsets. Somewhat like the Social Security trust fund.
Mark
========
Subject: More on "ordnung"
Given Gene Horr's argument, shouldn't people who drive
all-electric cars pay fuel tax on the electricity? Hybrids don't count,
since all the electricity comes from gasoline/diesel in the first place,
except for the one's that have modified to run on outlet power. A more
rational system would be to pay a road use fee when you renew your vehicle
registration based on vehicle type and mileage, but I don't see that
happening.
Of course, all of this is a rounding error compared to
people who don't pay sales tax on internet purchases. What I think is they
should change the law to say that an online transaction takes place in the
seller's state. That makes it easy for the seller to pay the taxes and the
buyers don't have to go through a lot of hassle to be honest. Of course, all
the big online stores would move to New Hampshire and Delaware.
Joel Upchurch
=========
All,
> There is no middle ground in the economy.
Either you work killer hours for huge paychecks or you have a lousy
part-time job without health care.
As an academic who deals in "bullshit" rather than
"reality", Ms. Hirshman has no cross-section to how impossibly complex and
demanding the world economy has gotten. Back in 1979, as far as I am aware,
I knew more about the innards of IBM's flagship mainframe operating system
(then called "MVS") than any three other people. However, I by no means knew
enough about every section to do a workmanlike job of a project in all of
the 13 or so (back then) separate enterprise systems management disciplines.
To be this knowledgeable, I had to have 1500+ SAT points and be totally
workaholic (nights and weekends) and no family commitments.
Since then the overall complexity of the computer
field has gone up at least 2 orders of magnitude. It's not just that we have
added the UNIX, Windows, Java, LAMP, etc. etc. computing ecosystems. It's
also that we have never gotten *rid* of any computing ecosystems--about 70%
of large-enterprise "run-the-business" information is said to be still on
IBM mainframes (now called zOS). The complexity is combinatorial. Every
year, to even know what is going on around one, one must be smarter and work
harder. I have no idea how anyone could enter the field of enterprise
computing today and ever catch up to the field.
And it's not just technology anymore. To understand
what one's company must accomplish with "data-at-rest" encryption, one must
understand the view not just from the CIO's office, but from Capitol Hill.
Enterprise systems management projects are now more often driven by the
requirements of regulators and their political masters than by internal "ROI"
issues. I am in the process of trying to educate one of my portfolio
company's Silicon Valley outside PR firm on the need to not just follow the
editorial calendars of publications like COMPUTERWORLD, but also the RFCs
coming out of bodies such as the Department of the Treasury's Critical
Infrastructure Protection group.
So yes, sorry, Ms. Hirshman. The high-paying jobs in
today's knowledge economy require, to be effective at all, the kind of
all-out effort that can only be put in by singles who are workaholic
celibate orphans, or (close to the same thing) unhappily-married men who
dread going home. (My thanks to Peter Schaeffer for this latter insight.) No
public policy-style reforms can change this reality because it is rooted in
the nature of knowledge-work today.
Jim
The only difference between 1977 and 2007 is that back
then I could keep up without being celibate. Now, I doubt even the
29-year-old version of me could. There is just too much to know.
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w070312&s=hirshman031407
THE NEW REPUBLIC
CAN MARXISM EXPLAIN STAY-AT-HOME MOMS?
Red Baby-Diaperers
by Linda Hirshman
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 03.14.07
Sometime this spring, the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS) is going to issue a report showing that the trend of
married mothers leaving the workforce was both longer and broader than
previously thought. Although the report has been much delayed, I have
talked to the author and gotten a look at the underlying data.
Even in this supposed economic recovery,
the BLS reports, married moms of all classes are refusing to work at
anything like the rates they worked in the late 1990s. The
best-educated, richest mothers still have the highest opt-out rate, but
they are not alone. Guess opting out is not a myth [http://www.cepr.net/publications/opt_out_2005_11.pdf]
after all. Most of the coverage treats this story as a girly thing,
letting female writers cover and argue about it in the "Lifestyle" pages
[http://lifestyle.msn.com/mindbodyandsoul/womenintheworld/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3840787]
. They fall in love with their babies, they hope to return to work. Who
cares what women choose to do?
I do, and I have written[http://www.powells.com/partner/24626/biblio/0670038121]
that women who quit are making a mistake. But, no matter what you think
of moms who opt out, their decisions speak volumes about the workplaces
they flee. In interviews and on their mommyblogs, the women able to opt
out tell a tale about the twenty-first century workplace that is
uncannily reminiscent of the most radical Marxist theory. Maybe we put
Marx into the dustbin too fast.
Marxist theory tells us that studies like
the one from the BLS matter in part because the women are marginal, so
they see more clearly. Although their marital status and class
(remember: the opt-outs are disproportionately wealthy and
well-educated) give them access to money and privilege[http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2006/05/28/full_house/?page=4]
, they are still often treated as upstarts and interlopers at work.
(From one mommyblog: "The company I work for is touted as being an
example for hiring women in management positions however the top echelon
is still a 'mens club.'") Since the system does not treat them
perfectly, they are somewhat less inclined to think that the existing
social system[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1893/letters/93_07_14.htm]
is the natural order of being designed by a benign deity or by Darwin
especially for their personal satisfaction. And they are not so
desperate for money that they fall into the trap of thinking[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lukacs/works/history/lukacs3.htm]
they like their work just because they need their work (Marx called this
the "false consciousness"). Not only do they see more clearly, but they
are further liberated, because they have a socially permissible option
to retire to a sphere that is less nakedly exploitative than the
workplace. When these women speak, it pays to listen. They are like the
canaries in the coal mine. If they tumble from the workplace, you can
bet there's something toxic in the air.<snip>
=========
Hello,
March 14 is International Pi and Pythagoras Day
Celebrate on 3-14 or be Square! Celebrate 3, 4, 5 with a Flair!
On Pi Day, March 14 or 3-14. It is all around
the best day of the year so celebrate around the clock.
HAPPY PI DAY!
March 14 is Pythagoras Day 3.1415 Wow! 3-4-5 is
the Pythagorean Triplet
HAPPY PYTHAGORAS DAY
Pi (π) is a Greek letter phonetically
equivalent to the English "p". Pi is also the geometric symbol used to
designate the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. Oddly
pi contains the Pythagorean triplet, 3-4-5 right at the very start of this
most important and popular constant.
Pi = 3.14159... Pi starts with 3_4_5 which is
the Pythagorean Triplet, the smallest possible triplet that represents the
Pythagorean triangle. Recall from high school the Pythagorean Theorem, if
two sides of a right triangle are 3 and 4 respectfully then the hypotenuse
will be 5. Though the 3-4-5 triplet at the very start of pi is very
significant the addition of other "oddities" as shown on Document A
conclusively demonstrates intelligent manipulation of this geometric
constant.
God, the Master Mathematician enumerated pi so
that the Pythagorean triplet will be noticed. Since God intentionally put
the Pythagorean triplet right at the start of pi, lets us also acknowledge
Pythagoras with a day of celebration. Pythagoras made many experimental and
theoretical scientific contributions that made our modern world possible so
this is an additional reason to honor this extraordinary man! Due to the
Pythagorean triplet starting in pi I believe it is appropriate for
Pythagoras Day and Pi Day to be celebrated on the same day, on March
fourteen.
I wish you a very happy 3-14 day. At exactly
3:45 take a spin and make the sign of the 3-4-5 triangle and you will be
initiated into the mysteries. This off course initiates you only as a step
“314” neophyte. Hey! You can’t expect anything more than that with such a
simple ritual!
Vas Gardiakos If you like art, music and
science visit my website: www.ArtMusicDance.com <http://www.artmusicdance.com/>
More Pi Day info: http://www.artmusicdance.com/vaspi/pi-day.htm
Spread the message. Tell your friends!
=========
Subj: Be More Than You Can Be: inside the Pentagon's
human enhancement project
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
=========
Subject: Lunar Transit from STEREO,
Jerry
Take a few seconds and check this out:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap070303.html
It's the moon transiting the sun, as seen by the
STEREO spacecraft. You get to seen the sun rotating. It's very neat.
Ed
=========
Feeling Safer Already
Subject: The Road to the Horizon: The Day I Got
Deported From the US
Jerry,
More evidence of the insanity of the TSA/DHS:
http://theroadtothehorizon.blogspot.com/
2007/02/day-i-got-exiled-from-us.html
Best regards,
Alun
==
Dr Alun J. Carr School of Electrical, Electronic, and
Mechanical Engineering University College Dublin Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
And now the Democrats want to let these
amiable incompetents unionize. There is no end to this madness. There needs
to be some alternative to these political parties. And a mass firing of
people who understand thoroughly that what they are doing makes no sense,
but RULES are RULES. Ordnung!
=========
Subject: Marxism and stay-at-home moms
Dr. Pournelle,
Could it be that a large number of women are naturally
predisposed to prefer domestic life raising children to office work? Ms.
Hirshman says that "women who quit are making a mistake". If the right to
self-determination is at the root of feminism, how can Hirshman be qualified
to make a fundamental choice about how another woman lives her life?
Hirshman never seems to consider that traditional notions about family and
child-rearing could be asserting themselves naturally.
Steve Chu
You clearly do not understand Enlightenment.
The Enlightened have the right, nay, the duty, to instruct the Benighted.
==========
Subject: Global Warming and YouTube.
Just a small correction about the
Global Warming TV program now
apparently on YouTube. It is NOT a BBC program; it was made for Channel
4 which is a commercial network. The BBC is unfortunately, far too
politically correct to show something like this. And it is very well worth
watching, since it blows a fairly substantial hole in all the arguments of
the global warming doom-mongers.
A.C.E
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW Wednesday
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