| Tuesday,
June 29, 2004 w
Re: Ashkenazi Intelligence
I don't know enough about genetics to form an opinion
on Mr Cochran's
thesis, but I would like to make a point in favour of the "cultural"
explanation.
Until fairly recently, religion has been a dominant
force in the intellectual life of Europeans. Christianity emphasizes
"faith", which, in practice, means believing what you are taught to believe,
with sanctions for asking too many, or the wrong type of questions. Jewish
tradition, by contrast, encourages "study" of the scriptures, and the
favoured method of study involves students in pairs, vigorously debating the
precise meaning of each passage of scripture and the learned commentaries.
In simple terms, all Jews were traditionally taught to think, while most
Christians were being taught to believe & obey. Until modern times, most of
Christian Europe was illiterate, while Jewish children (especially boys)
were taught to read at an early age, so they could begin a life of religious
study. The love of learning is a key element of Jewish culture. Although
religious in origin, with the greater freedom of modern times, the love of
learning has developed into the "my son, the Doctor" syndrome. Pushy parents
are still the norm for a Jewish child! Perhaps "intelligence" is what you
need to survive an upbringing by pushy parents?
-- Philip Danton
f
On
that Chinese ideogram: We
have a number of letters. Thanks to all of you who answered. I'll post a
few; there seems to be general agreement on what it meant.
Hi Dr. Pournelle:
I work with Dr Yueming Wu, who I asked to translate
the rock carving, and he says:
J. R. Hodel Information Systems Manager II Information
Technology Office WV Department of Environmental Protection 304 759-0519
>>> YUEMING WU 06/29/2004 11:53:41 AM >>> Nothing
offensive!
The 1st character (on the left) is pronounced as Jiao,
meaning teaching; and the second one pronounced as Zhong, meaning loyalty.
--Yueming
=====
Jerry,
I am learning a little Mandarin in my travels to the east.
I have found this page to be most helpful for these sorts of questions:
http://zhongwen.com/
If you plod trough it you will find that the rock on the right is composed
of Zhong (center/middle) and xin (heart). You could read it as center-heart.
Together they translate to "center."
I will leave the rock on the left for the orignal poster.
Mark Browne
=That seems a bit outside the
concensus. Or is it? Loyalty and center-heart are certainly related...
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
The ideograph at left means education, teaching,
training.
The ideograph at right means loyalty, faithfulness.
Sincerely yours,
David Bernat
dbernat@gol.com
===
Subject: Ideograph
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
The ideograph for "loyalty" may be broken down into
two constituent ideographs with the meanings of "center" and "heart".
Mr. Browne has broken down the ideograph, which is
what leads him to depart from the consensus.
Sincerely yours,
David Bernat dbernat@gol.com
==================================
And we have
Subject: Another critical IE exploit
The SANS Internet Storm Center has announced yet
another critical exploit against Internet Explorer, this one related to the
Browser Helper Objects (BHO) commonly used by banks to extend the
functionality of IE. This exploit subverts SSL and HTTPS security to give
the malefactor access to passwords and other account information. For
details, see:
<
http://isc.incidents.org/diary.php?date=2004-06-29&isc=9d5f3a3c121bed12c941b05a5ec9a628 >
This exploit is still more confirmation that the focus
of these attacks has changed. Until recently, most viruses/worms/Trojans
were mere vandalism perpetrated largely by teenage script kiddies looking
for a cheap thrill. Most malware/spyware was, if sometimes skating gray
areas of the law, at least intended for semi-legitimate purposes.
That has changed and is continuing to change. Several
recent exploits have apparently originated with organized crime and the
Russian Mafia. These folks are not playing games. Their intentions are
clear. They want access to critical data such as username/password
combinations that they can exploit to drain people's bank accounts and that
will provide the raw material for identity theft. These folks are out to
pillage your identity and your bank accounts, pure and simple.
The common thread through all of this is Outlook,
Windows, and Internet Explorer (OWIE). If you continue to use these
products, particularly IE, for personal work, you are risking having your
bank accounts compromised and your identity stolen. As anyone who has been
the victim of identity theft will tell you, recovering is a long, expensive
process.
The risk is even worse in corporate environments.
Imagine the result if a bank, law firm, or other business allows
client/customer information to be compromised as a result of continuing to
use software products with known severe security flaws. I expect the first
law suit based on such a claim to occur in the near future, and I would
expect it to be difficult to defend when competing software products without
significant security flaws are so readily available. Even the Department of
Homeland Security has suggested abandoning IE and using another browser.
At any rate, Internet Explorer, Outlook, and, to a
lesser extent, Windows itself are security disasters just waiting to happen.
I strongly encourage everyone to cease using IE as their default browser and
replace it with an alternative. My own preference is Mozilla 1.7 <http://www.mozilla.org/products/mozilla1.x>,
but Mozilla Firefox <http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox> or Opera
<http://www.opera.com> is also an excellent choice. As to a mail client, I
think Mozilla Mail 1.7 (included with the browser) is the best client
available, much superior to Outlook. If you prefer a lighter-weight mail
client, look at Mozilla Thunderbird <http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/>.
Please take this seriously. Ignoring this problem
won't make it go away. Download Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and start using it
as your default browser. It's human nature to hate new things, but I promise
you that if you use any of these browsers for a week, you'll come to prefer
it to IE. Not only is IE riddled with unfixed and unfixable security holes,
it hasn't been updated signficantly for years. Any of these modern
alternatives provides functions like tabbed browsing that you'll soon find
yourself unable to do without. And you'll be a lot safer.
Best regards.
Bob
-- Robert Bruce Thompson thompson@ttgnet.com http://www.ttgnet.com/thisweek.html
=Probably good advice. This is Chaos Manor
and we continue to do things so you don't have to. I still use Internet
Explorer, although I admit I am becoming concerned; we will see how long it
takes Microsoft to get past this one.
IIS V5.0 Compromise
Jerry
This is a little more serious than the comments on
your website seem to indicate for several reasons.
1) Due to the number of remotely hosted web sites on
shared servers it is not always easy for the site owner to check exactly
what people are realy getting from the server across the web. The malicious
code is appended to every page delivered by that server it does not appear
in any of the files uploaded by the site maintainer. This means that the
problem can only be fixed by the server administrator, in fact I am pretty
sure that in the case of multi site servers the relevant file will not be
visible to site maintainers but only to the server administrators.
2) The compromise uses javascript to deliver the
payload. Turning off javascript is the best protection until the version of
IE is fixed, the problem with this is that it will break a lot of other
sites (nowadays almost any site with buttons and forms will use javascript).
This means people will need to turn it back on to access features on most
sites if the site they are acessing is infected... Bingo down comes the
compromise as it is attached to the bottom of every page.
3) Firewalls and NAT are not going to stop this
because it all happens over http: . The javascript in the page footer gets
the other code from elsewhere by making a perfectly legitimate http request
for it which the firewall and NAT happily permit (after all the are set up
to allow outgoing http requests and their replies). Information is then sent
out over smtp which again is probably allowed out (after all people want
mail to work).
The good news is there are fixes, the quickest one is
to change web browser to one without this javascript vulnerability e.g.
Firebird, Opera etc. then the javascript will happily load and die silently.
Secondly programmes like Adaware should pick up the key monitor. Thirdly if
you are running a small network run your own mail server and point all your
mail clients at it. Then at the firewall block all outgoing smpt traffic
from all machines except the one running the local mailserver. That way ET
can't phone home. Finally make sure all the updates for IE are installed on
all machines.
All the best
Ian Crowe
===
Subject: A Web of Spies
Jerry,
Your current Byte (
www.byte.com ) column has captured the anxiety that web access now
entails. The attacks are coming so fast and furious that I cringe when I
turn my machine on in the morning. I used to run SETI@Home, and leave my
machine on 24/7, but that now seems too risky. These vandals have to be
stopped. I'll be happy to help gather firewood.
Bill
Clearly we are coming upon critical
times...
And see below
====================
Subject: S. 2541 prizes too little | Low calorie food
problems
Re: the SEC. 318 prizes in S. 2541:
Pikers. Too little reward. Maximum of 25
megabucks/year for four years into the fund? Not enough, especially given
what this would do for the national economy.
-- 73s and best regards John Bartley, K7AAY, tel.
admin, USBC/DO, PDX, views mine. http://celdata.cjb.net Handheld Cellular
Data FAQ rm -rf /bin/laden && newfs -m 99 /dev/iraq
Yes, but it's a start. A lot better than
what we have now.
Subject: Comments on Prize language
Dr. Pournelle,
I'm not an expert on this, but I review things fairly
often. You may already know this stuff, of course. The best comments are the
ones at the bottom, in the section "WHAT IS MISSING". The key is: who sets
the prize goals and rewards, and how do we keep them interesting and
productive? It's not addressed in the language; more detail below.
"(d) BUDGETING AND AWARDING OF FUNDS- `(1)
AVAILABILITY OF FUNDS- Any funds appropriated to carry out this section
shall remain available until expended, but for not more than 4 fiscal
years." ******COMMENT on (d)(1): 4 years is a reasonable amount of time for
X project sort of prizes, not so good for big prizes.
"`(2) DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL OF FUNDS- When a prize is
offered, the total amount of funding made available for that prize shall be
deposited in the Centennial Challenge Trust Fund. If funding expires before
a prize is awarded, the Administrator shall deposit additional funds in the
account to ensure the availability of funding for all prizes. If a prize
competition expires before its goals are met, the Administrator may
redesignate those funds for a new challenge, but any redesignated funds will
be considered as newly deposited for the purposes of paragraph (3). All cash
awards made under this section shall be paid from that account. "
******COMMENT on (d)(2): I think this means that they
have to at least scrounge up enough 'one year money' to cover the entire
prize upfront and put it in the fund. In later years, they can exchange this
year's 'one year money' for next year's 'one year money' or even 'no year
money' (what fiscal year the money is attached to is determined by the
congressional language, of course).
******COMMENT on (d)(2): This also keeps NASA from
playing games with the money in the fund (i.e. laundering the prize money by
setting impossible goals, and then when no one wins the prize, transferring
the dollars out to other NASA programs, like Shuttle).
`(3) OVERALL LIMIT- The Administrator may not deposit
more than $25,000,000 annually in the Centennial Challenge Trust Fund."
******COMMENT on (3): Limits NASA. Notice if they put
in $25M to start, and set impossible goals, they can keep this money
recycling forever and never award anything while meeting their obligation.
******COMMENT on (3): Does not set a minimum. With
O'Keefe you might be safe, but the way NASA blew off Congress in Assured
Access to Station, they might refuse to fund the Prizes, too. See "what is
missing" below.
" `(4) MAXIMUM PRIZE- No competition under the program
may result in the award of more than $1,000,000 in cash prizes without the
approval of the Administrator. "
******COMMENT on (4): This language seems complex and
should be clearer. Like: "No prize may be set or awarded at more than $1M
without...". With the proposed language, a $5M prize could be offered
('trust us we'll get the language changed'), but not awarded. It would be
best to get it clear at the start. It is good that the Administrator is not
bound by the $1M limit.
`(e) RELATIONSHIP TO OTHER AUTHORITY- The
Administrator may exercise the authority in this section in conjunction with
or in addition to any other authority of the Administrator to acquire,
support, or stimulate basic and applied research, technology development, or
prototype demonstration projects.'.
******COMMENT on (4)(e): A very good clause, but it
should mention operations and be open ended. Something like "...any other
authority of the Administer, including but not limited to the authority to
acquire, support, or stimulate basic and applied research, technology
development, operations concept development, operations support, or
prototype demonstration projects".
******COMMENT on (4)(e): On the other hand, after
thinking about WHAT IS MISSING 2B, below, it might be a good idea to limit
this to "prototype and/or operations demonstrations" only. That would really
force NASA to think outside of the box, and make for much more popular
prizes.
******COMMENT: WHAT IS MISSING:
1. A minimum should be set, probably on how little can
be in the Fund. This has no minimum amount to be set aside for prizes. NASA
could choose $0.00.
2. There is no external entity providing oversight
over the prizes, in two respects:
2A. Prize amount. Who sets and reviews the prize
amounts? Should there be someone? The prizes are supposed to be cheap, but
how cheap is too cheap? Who do potential contestants go to to complain? The
NASA Advisory Committee?
2B. Prize objectives. Who sets and reviews the prize
objectives? I think this is necessary, and probably should be reviewed by
the NASA Advisory Committee or some similar body. What happens if NASA sets
the prizes for some exceedingly dull and/or inconsequential objectives? They
do a lot of work like that themselves, remember. We might think NASA is
going to give prizes for neat RLV, Mars greenhouse, station docking, or
mini-Sea Dragon types of projects, but they might set the prizes for the
best type of turbopump impeller blade, data mining technology, or something
stunningly boring like that. Don't expect them to think outside of the box.
Hope this helps.
Tom
=More comments below
================
======================
And now that Iraq is sovereign:
Subject: No One Asked Us
I think you will find this an interesting article. D
Coleman
http://www.strategypage.com/respect/articles/military_2004628.asp
No One Asked Us
by Stan Coerr
George Bush coalesced American support behind invading
Iraq, I am told, using two arguments: Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
and the capability to deliver them, and Iraq was a supporter of Al-Qaeda
terrorism, and may have been involved in the attacks of 9/11. Vicious words
and gratuitous finger-pointing keep falling back on these points, as people
insist that "we" were misled into what started as a dynamic liberation and
has become a bloody counterinsurgency. Watching politicians declaim and
hearing television experts expound on why we went to war and on their
opinions of those running the White House and Defense Department, I have one
question. When is someone going to ask the guys who were there?...
=====
On the other hand
Subject: We need to look out for the Iranians
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3844441.stm
T
No comment. None. Zero.
From: Jimwoosley
Subject: Iraqi WMD
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39182
Saddam's WMDs are in Syria Posted: June 29, 2004 1:00
a.m. Eastern
By Michael D. Evans © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
There is mounting evidence that at least some of
Saddam Hussein's missing weapons of mass destruction are in Syria, smuggled
there by the Iraqi dictator for safekeeping before the beginning of the war.
Part of the stockpile the coalition forces have so far failed to find in
Iraq was probably destroyed; part is likely still hidden. But a massively
lethal amount of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is stored alongside
Syria's own stockpiles of WMDs.
Perhaps more worrisome, there are indications these
weapons are not under the control of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Rather,
in a potentially catastrophic palace intrigue, his sister, Bushra, and her
husband, Gen. Assaf Shawkat, the No. 2 in Syria's military intelligence
organization, the Mukhabarat, are said to have made the storage arrangements
with Saddam as part of a bid for power.
<snip>
See link for full article.
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