Incident in Bart, PA

I am sure alot of people including myself have heard about the tragedy that happened a few days ago in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Some people are calling for stricter gun laws. I think stricter gun laws will do one and only one thing, have it so that the vast majority of the guns owned by citizens in the US be owned by criminals. The ones who want to hurt us in the first place. Also, it will not stop acts like this. It just means that they will use other means. Whether it is other weapons like knives, swords, axes, chainsaws, nail guns, etc or by using bombs, running people over with cars, etc. The real problem as a person who was part of "The Bretheren" said is the violent nature of the TV, games and literature that has been running rampant in our society. Kids grow up watching TV shows where people are stabbed, shot and hit. And then parent's go out and buy them games that are full of the kill...kill...kill mentality. First person kill everything in your path games. Mindless games where you try to killing everything in sight. The more you kill the higher your score. There is only two places that these kind of kids belong, armed forces (killing the enemy) or in jail where killing sometimes is required just to survive.
I could blame the goverment and want them to step in and fix it. But the government can only do so much. And in the end it is the parent's responsibilty. But it is obvious that some parents are either too busy with their own lives or don't want to be parents just their kids' friends. Some of the problem with parent being too busy is caused by the parent's just trrying to scrape the money together to keep their heads above water. When this happens the government should step in and help. Because there is only two ways for them to go. One is that they give up and go onto the welfare roles and sponge off the governemt just to get buy, costing more than otherwise would need to be spent. Or the parents finally get their heads above water enough to breath and be able to spend enough time with their kids.
Now there are the parents that don't need the money and just need to step back and see what the cost of their "gotta have it" attitude is having or the "I am doing this so that you have more". What is truly more important to your kids? Is it time with you or time with their toys that are cold heartless and only care about having enough battreies to run. Can toys give kids hugs or tell them that they love them? Can toys pick them up and tell them that they will be ok when they scrape their knee? It is time to put down the stack of papers that needs to get down, put away the computer, turn off the cell phone and spend a little more time with your kids before it is too late. Play a board game, toss a ball back and forth, go out to a movie and then talk about your favorite parts. Love on them so that they know that you care more about them than getting that extra dollar in your bank account.

ZFS and Leopard

I am sure you have read the rumors at ZFS and Apple's latest OS Leopard. Well, as being an outsider I can only guess and speculate if it is true. But to me it make sense. The "Time Machine" feature would be trivial to implement if they are using ZFS and snapshots. As it is Leopard is a going to have Sun's DTrace. Now, I know that DTrace was already open sourced and ported to FreeBSD. And it looks like ZFS is now ported to FreeBSD which took 10 days of work. Which tells me due to the Mac OS X being a derivative of BSD means that it shouldn't have take Apple more than 1 month to do the same. So is it likely that Apple Leopard is using ZFS for it Time Machine feature. Yes.

If I had a copy of Apple Leopard (and I don't) all you need to do to see if it is there is bring up the "Terminal" application and type one of the ZFS commands. Like,

zspool list

As it is I can't wait for Leopard to be released. I am enjoying my MacBook Pro right now and the Time Machine feature will probably save my bacon. Like the "System Restore" feature on my wife's old computer running Windows ME. Thank you Microsoft for that feature.

Malware, Viruses and the Future

You know I was just reading about a researcher that examined how a certain piece malware attacked. (URL: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2004893,00.asp?kc=EWNAVEMNL081806EOAD ) This got me to thinking about what the next generation of operation systems and computer will be like. What I think people are to do is start being more security aware. And to enable this simple tnings like requiring authentication to install things is going to be the standard. But more than that people are going to start using Virtual Machines on their personal desktops. Why, you may ask. It is simple, it is the only way to be truly protected in an insecure world. Ok so somebody some how gets past your virus protection because of a whole in the operating your a running. Fine. Wipe the VM and re-create a new in 15 seconds. Nice and clean. It has all of the applications that you need run.

What is all the fuss about?

I just read an article that some groups are up in arms about AOL's move to offer "guaranteed delivery for E-mails". The funny thing is I had the same idea about this a year or two ago. I figured the only way to truly have a Spam free Email or at least to have a "trusted" Email system. A place where you know who you are talking to. Does this give up your "freedom to be anonymous"? Yes. But it is optional. It is not like all other Emails will be blocked. As it is this is an option to people now using contact lists and enabling "Only accept Email from people in my Contact List" features.
As it is (in the U.S.A. at least) we have the freedom to speak freely. But we do not have the "right" to be anonymous. So people get overself and deal.