Linux-Advocacy Digest #73, Volume #26 Tue, 11 Apr 00 01:13:08 EDT
Contents:
Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse (The Ghost In The Machine)
Re: Microsoft Uses NDAs To Cripple Competitors (was: Guilty, 'til proven guilty
(Roger)
Re: Microsoft Uses NDAs To Cripple Competitors (was: Guilty, 'til proven guilty
(Roger)
Re: For the WinTrolls - incredible (JEDIDIAH)
Re: You anti-Microsoft types just don't get it, do you? (Bloody Viking)
Re: The Failure of Microsoft Propaganda -was- So where are the MS supporters. (Roger)
Re: You anti-Microsoft types just don't get it, do you? (Bloody Viking)
Re: RH linux stable?? (JEDIDIAH)
Re: You anti-Microsoft types just don't get it, do you? (Bloody Viking)
Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine! (Bloody Viking)
Re: Bill Gates on T.V. (Matt Gaia)
Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine! (Bloody Viking)
Re: benchmark for speed in linux / windows (Leslie Mikesell)
Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine! (Bloody Viking)
Open Source Will Live Forever (was: GPL WILL die...Just a matter of time.......
(Mark S. Bilk)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (Christopher Browne)
Re: Why Linux on the desktop? (Christopher Browne)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (The Ghost In The Machine)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy
Subject: Re: Windows 2000: nothing worse
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 02:59:18 GMT
In comp.os.linux.advocacy, Bill Godfrey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote on 10 Apr 2000 22:32:18 +0100
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>"Chad Myers" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>> > > What happens if you lose the root password?
>> > Boot up with a floppy, change the password.
>> Wow, that is secure.
>
>To do that, you need to be physically present at the hardware. In which
>case you may as well just open up the case, remove the hard disk and
>take it home.
I've actually done that, on a friend's hard drive (with his
permission, of course -- I've forgotten precisely why, now, although
we were trying to get a working Linux system crammed in there with
Xenix). The drive was a bootable SCO Xenix unit -- all I had to do
was modify the root password entry (made the password blank and
added some extra chars in the GECOS field, immediately following),
and presto, instant Xenix with blank password. (Finding it wasn't
too hard, either; scan every block for a string with 'root:' in it,
and then look for the one that's obviously a password file :-). )
Note that this assumes that the unit being hacked is a secondary
drive installed in a working system.
One could in principle do this on any Unix-like OS. :-) (I don't
know the details on how it might be done for Windows NT.) It's
a little tricker with shadow passwords, though -- no friendly
GECOS field following to absorb the length change. But that
isn't impossible, either -- although one might have to play
"modify the inode's size field".
But it does require a screwdriver, a bit of knowledge of Perl
(in this particular case), a working OS, and a few hour's time.
>
>If your adversary has physical access to hardware, your only hope for
>security is encryption.
Indeed. Although I do wonder how a Linux system can boot with an
encrypted filesystem -- presumably, it can be done, though; the
kernel would have to ask for a pass-phrase at some point.
Anyone know? :-)
>
>However, if the server is locked away in a guarded room, then an attacker
>could not get to the server to boot from floppy.
>
>Tha above applies to all operating systems. No OS can protect from a
>screwdriver. (Cryptography notwithstanding.)
One could in theory put a microswitch such that the OS self-destructs
when the case is opened if not shut down properly beforehand.
I'm not sure whether that's overly paranoid or not. :-)
>
>Bill, responding to month old messages.
--
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- "Don't open that case! You'll blow up the lab!" :-)
------------------------------
From: Roger <roger@.>
Crossposted-To:
uk.comp.os.linux,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Microsoft Uses NDAs To Cripple Competitors (was: Guilty, 'til proven
guilty
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:25:11 GMT
On 4 Apr 2000 11:09:58 GMT, someone claiming to be Mark S. Bilk wrote:
>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>Tim Haynes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>[EMAIL PROTECTED] (phil hunt) writes:
>Rex Ballard has described how Microsoft uses non-disclosure
>agreements to prevent competitors like Linux from obtaining
>the details of various essential hardware and software
>interfaces. MS should be required to stop this practice,
>and the current NDAs should be rescinded.
You misspelled "Rex Ballard has posted unsupportable fantasies about
how Microsoft uses non-disclosure agreements to prevent competitors
like Linux from obtaining the details of various essential hardware
and software interfaces."
Or did you happen to miss my posting of the USB under Linux website?
>Search DejaNews ("power search") with:
>
>author = ballard
>
>keyword = microsoft & (non-disclosure | nda*)
And be sure to read the entire thread...
------------------------------
From: Roger <roger@.>
Crossposted-To:
uk.comp.os.linux,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: Microsoft Uses NDAs To Cripple Competitors (was: Guilty, 'til proven
guilty
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:27:42 GMT
On 10 Apr 2000 13:15:36 GMT, someone claiming to be [EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Mark S. Bilk) wrote:
>As to Ballard's reliability, every time I've seen his asser-
>tions questioned, he has successfully defended them by posting
>lots of supportive evidence.
Except his latest fantasy about MS preventing Linux implementation of
USB, of course. And the one before that, about how * every last one *
of his posts about MS dirty tricks ending up in a DOJ filing within a
few days. And the one before that...
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: For the WinTrolls - incredible
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:23:44 GMT
On 10 Apr 2000 21:57:25 -0400, Donovan Rebbechi <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>On 11 Apr 2000 09:45:28 +0800, Terry Porter wrote:
>>On Mon, 10 Apr 2000 20:48:17 GMT,
>
>>But I've never used it, the Qt lib fiasco put me off, for one, and its too big
>>and bloated for another.
>
>What "Qt lib fiasco" ? Are you referring to the controversial
>"is-it-really-free" thing ? Even RMS says it's free now.
>KDE "big and bloated" ? Well it certainly isn't monolithic.
>It comes with a ton of APIs and all of them take some space.
>
>IMO, the main reason why "bloat" turns out to be a problem
>on Linux is that you have 101 different shared libraries.
Actually, if you aren't loading all 101 of them, 'bloat' of
that nature should never be a problem. That's rather the
point of having 101 shared libraries rather than 1 or 2.
[deletia]
--
It is not the advocates of free love and software
that are the communists here , but rather those that |||
advocate or perpetuate the necessity of only using / | \
one option among many, like in some regime where
product choice is a thing only seen in museums.
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: You anti-Microsoft types just don't get it, do you?
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:34:06 GMT
In alt.destroy.microsoft Leonard F. Agius <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: John Q. Public, the non-technogeek who can't even program his own VCR, has got a
: taste of what you can do with a PC, got learning the Windows OS, and going to Best
: Buy or CompUSA to buy his additional toys, be they software or hardware.
: Especially now, with USB and Win98, adding some new hardware, like an external CD
: burner, is, for these people, a no brainer. Programs like GoBack are taking some
: of the stress (real or merely percieved) out of installing new software.
And John Q Public can't figure out why something stops working when you
add yet another app and a .DLL is overwritten. Two thing ultimately drove
this Joe Average to be Linux-only. They are the .DLL calls and the file
formats. I simply got sick of overwritten .DLLs fucking up software. Or
how about trying to burn a CD and it crashes halfway in the burn. And
don't get me started on the fucked up file formats.
Why the fuck do we need .PDF anyways? What's wrong with Postscript? Or how
about MIME file attachments when uuencode is perfectly good? Yeah, and
don't forget a MIME attachment of a Word Whatever-is-the-latest file.
Remember that Office 97 Trojan, err... I mean Demo? And then Marc
Andressen tried to pull off a Microsoft with the .HTML extensions. It's an
irony that he used the same techniques that Microsoft uses, and Microsoft
product-dumped in retaliation.
Easy enough for the Joe 6-Pack? Shit, I think Linux would be easier than
this hodge-podge of file formats and the overwritten .DLLs. About the only
use I have for Windows is to view .pic files I download. I know it can be
done with X, except for, of course, more fucked up file formats. Apart
from viewing an occasional .pic file, I gave up on Windows.
Commercial software is sleazy. And as far as apps and Linux, especially
without X, sure I can't use the apps for Windows. But with Windows as
unstable as it is, it's a moot point. Windows is junk. And you don't have
to be a techie to know it. Even the janitor knows Windows is junk.
Windows is to computer professionals what junk mail is to postal workers.
It's job security. Just like how guns are job security for paramedics and
cigarettes are job security for cancer clinics. And don't forget how fatty
foods are job security for cardiologists.
It's pretty funny when a Dogbery upgrades and corrupts the files and the
IT people are perplexed. And the janitor tells them to check if someone
upgraded.
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------------------------------
From: Roger <roger@.>
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Re: The Failure of Microsoft Propaganda -was- So where are the MS supporters.
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:38:27 GMT
On Tue, 04 Apr 2000 18:45:37 GMT, someone claiming to be George
Marengo wrote:
>They did. As an example, do a search of Stac Electronics and Microsoft
And make sure you don't forget the part about MS having bought the
tech in question from Vertisoft, in a good faith belief that it was
Vertisoft's to sell...
>>Linux buries itself on it's own accord. It doesn't need any help.
>If it doesn't need any help, then surely you have an explanation for
>the Microsoft "Halloween" document, right?
A single letter penned by someone in no position to make company
policy. Next?
------------------------------
From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: You anti-Microsoft types just don't get it, do you?
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:38:43 GMT
In alt.destroy.microsoft [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: And at the current state of hardware and software the chances are good
: he doesn't even have to look at the box because they will be
: supported, especially under Win98 and less so for NT and 2k.
: Speaking of the box, when Mr. Public opens up his hardware, he will be
: greeted with all kinds of nice software to help extend the function of
: his hardware (scanners, printers, audio cards, mice, camera's etc) all
: of which is lost when running Linux.
On the upside, half that software that comes with the device don't work
anyways and/or overwrites a .DLL file somewhere. Or gives you a BSoD or
simply locks up the system.
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (JEDIDIAH)
Subject: Re: RH linux stable??
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:32:06 GMT
On Mon, 10 Apr 2000 21:57:19 -0500, Bill Polhemus <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>The results I've experienced on Windows, as a user of some
>seven years, are frustration and aggravation.
>
>I use Windows 98 on two machines at home; Windows NT 4.0 at
>work.
>
>Since November, when I received the machine I currently run
>at work, I've had the BSOD on Win NT 4.0 five times. Twice,
>the crash was serious enough that we had reformat and
>reinstall. Yes, I lost data, despite backups. Aggravating.
>Not to mention email being down for a whole day each time.
>Hard to get work done in a wired world, eh?
>
>I have played with Linux here at home, am setting up a
>webserver. Just puttering, a hobby really. But I'm amazed
>how rock-solid the OS is. I don't enjoy the GUI much, but I
>have an old 486 with ISA bus, and a 1MB video card doesn't
>give you much joy.
>
>But the GUI is usable.
>
>I've noticed some applications, such as Gno-RPM, that
>regularly crash. So I guess they're buggy. Don't know if
Then use something else. You're not restricted to the particular
packager that comes with GNOME. You should be able to use the one
from KDE that is likely sitting on your Linux partition. Or, you
could just use bare rpm. You could also look for another gtk/gnome
based packager and use any of the available options without disturbing
your desktop config.
You just have to be willing to look around, try new things, or be
flexible with your approach. I've never used the default desktop
config of Bughat since adopting it ~ kernel version 2.0.0.
>that's any more Linux's fault than the proprietary
>engineering application that I installed that HOSED, I
>repeat HOSED, the WinNT system at work.
>
>As for Windows 98 SE, well, as long as you reboot at least
>twice a day it works okay.
>
>Good for games, if that's what you want.
>
>In short, your hyperbolic statements are no more credible
>than those of the Linux geeks. MS has had years to get it
>right, and they have failed to do so time after time. But
>their marketing is beyond compare. That's why people use it.
>
>FWIW, I miss OS/2, very much.
>
>[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>
>> THe end user has no desire to "explore" (your words) at all. They want
>> results. Windows gives them that result. Linux does not...Point
>> closed.
--
It is not the advocates of free love and software
that are the communists here , but rather those that |||
advocate or perpetuate the necessity of only using / | \
one option among many, like in some regime where
product choice is a thing only seen in museums.
Need sane PPP docs? Try penguin.lvcm.com.
------------------------------
From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: You anti-Microsoft types just don't get it, do you?
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:50:06 GMT
In alt.destroy.microsoft [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
: Every computer with Linux pre-loaded should come with one. A competant
: Sysadmin that is......
: But, fear not, there aren;t that many Linux pre-loads going out.
: Try calling Dell and asking for one....After the silence at the end of
: the phone, ask for a supervisor.
And now Windows will have to come bundled with an Antitrust Lawyer! Of
course, it also will have MS-Antitrust_Manager(tm) bundled with the
lawyer.
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------------------------------
From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine!
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 03:57:25 GMT
In alt.destroy.microsoft Keith T. Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Post Script is a (device-independent(?)) printer language, how the hell
: would that help, might as well use PCL, because we'd then all be paying
: royalties to Adobe. In fact we'd be better off because PCL is a lot less
: verbose, but it's owned by HP.
I mentioned Postcript as an example. Now, you point out it's a printer
language. But a word processor has to format for a printer anyways. Did
Adobe really buy Poscript?
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------------------------------
From: Matt Gaia <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Bill Gates on T.V.
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 00:12:34 -0400
> Either he's a warez d00d, or his university has a site license. I know mine
> does (blechh.)
It sounds like it is a site license. My college is doing it too, so I
give my college as little credit as possible. :)
--
Please do your part to help control the pet population.
Have your troll spayed or neutered.
------------------------------
From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine!
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:17:23 GMT
In alt.destroy.microsoft Damien <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: An admin can let you mount a CD or floppy disk without being root. I
: personally would recommend that. You wouldn't be able to upgrade the
: software because you don't have permission, but you might be able to
: install it in your home directory. And of course saving from
: Solitaire use can be spent on XBill, unless the admin made sure that
: wasn't installed.
You would disable the games. As far as mounting CDs, you could slow them
down by making sure that the /home.* are not in the executable path. Or,
you could have a locked up server with the multi-CD CD drives with the CDs
that the company already uses. By disallowing mounting, you avoid a lot of
problems. There would be little need to take a file home, thanks of course
to the file formats.
: This is very true, but I would recommend XML, it's more extensible.
: (I could be wrong, I don't know much about postscript.)
The extensions to formats is part of the maddening pronblem. Open but
extensible formats will cause an upgrade-go-round problem. If they remain
open, all the word processors will have to use the new standard. However,
extending formats is likely unavoidable.
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Leslie Mikesell)
Subject: Re: benchmark for speed in linux / windows
Date: 10 Apr 2000 23:14:22 -0500
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Drestin Black <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>> cd /
>> find * | cat >> biglist
>> alias locate=grepinbig
>>
>> (grepinbig)
>> grep -i $input /biglist | less
>>
>
>I'm sorry but I look at all that crap you just wrote and think - someone
>actually thinks that's easy? That someone would actually WANT to type all
>that crap in? That someone would wanna do that when they could just click in
>a little search box and hit "search" and get the results instantly. And be
>able to see them all on the screen at once and actually be able to do things
>with the result set on the screen... that's easy? better?
>
>No, sorry... no way.
When I get a large list of matching files from find, I usually
want to do something with them automatically. This is easy
with find and pipes or file redirection. How do you do
anything with the windows list but click them one at at time?
Les Mikesell
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
------------------------------
From: Bloody Viking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: 2000: Hammer blows to the Micro$oft machine!
Crossposted-To: alt.destroy.microsoft
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:21:37 GMT
In alt.destroy.microsoft Rolf Rander Naess <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
: Well, since you ask: lack of hypertext capabilities and problems with
: searching are two things which are wrong with Postscript.
.HTML is for hypertext. We are talking about office word processors. And
you're right that grep is no good for Postscript.
: Whats wrong with PDF?
AARRGGHH!! Another closed format!
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------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk)
Crossposted-To: comp.os.ms-windows.nt.advocacy,alt.destroy.microsoft
Subject: Open Source Will Live Forever (was: GPL WILL die...Just a matter of
time.......
Date: 11 Apr 2000 04:26:05 GMT
In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>It's all about money and free need not apply..
>
>As soon as commercial software good enough to challenge Windows
>software reached the market, GPL will be a wet dream....
>
>Steve
Greedy people have always been able to take GPL'ed source
code and secretly incorporate it into closed commercial soft-
ware; there's no way to guard against that.
But it doesn't matter -- that source code is still available
for honest people to use according to the GPL, creating an
ever-increasing and ever-improving body of free software for
all people to use. Even if Microsoft bribed enough politic-
ians that the government passed a law against using the GPL,
honest programmers would still distribute their code freely.
Steve-Heather doesn't realize this because he's fundamentally
dishonest -- as pathological a liar as has ever appeared in
Usenet. He believes that most people are as willing to harm
others as he is, but he's quite wrong.
Probably there will always be some people who use Free soft-
ware and some who use FUD software. The Free programmers
will always be able to reverse-engineer the proprietary
formats used by the greedy FUD corporations like Microsoft
in their attempt to obstruct human communication. So the
Free users will be able to access mail, news, web pages,
etc., from the FUD users.
Many FUD users will switch to Free software to avoid being
gouged hundreds of dollars every year. The reason this is
only happening slowly so far is that most people haven't
even heard about Microsoft's tactics yet -- but they will.
Microsoft is like the tobacco companies or Scientology -- it
can only prey on people who are confused or poorly informed.
As the issues involved get more publicity in conventional
media, the number of victims that Microsoft can exploit will
diminish.
As long as enough Free people exist to make it worthwhile to
write Free software (which is any level above 1% or so), the
Open Source movement will thrive.
As long as people feel joy in creating something good, and
in sharing it with others, this work of love will continue.
>On 11 Apr 2000 01:30:15 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Mark S. Bilk) wrote:
>
>>In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>>>When the folks with all the money, because it really IS about money,
>>>start pulling the strings, GPL will go down the drain.
>>>
>>>Just a matter of time..
>>>
>>>And this is a GOOD thing because all of the half assed, half done
>>>programs that masquerade as Linux alternatives to Windows will die a
>>>quick and just death.
>>>
>>>Money rules the world and Linux will find out sooner or later.
>>>
>>>Steve
>>
>>The Microsoft Method -- lies, threats, and fear.
>>
>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:32:30 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Jim Richardson would say:
>On Wed, 05 Apr 2000 05:13:14 GMT,
> Christopher Browne, in the persona of <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
> brought forth the following words...:
>
>>Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Jim Richardson would say:
>>>
>>>Not to detract from the point re: programming
>>>But couldn't the <></> tag pairs be considered registers?
>>>Like
>>><b>Bold register active</b> bold register inactive
>>>
>>>(sorry if this fragment of html screws up your newsreader anyone. )
>>>
>>>Crude as heck, and still leaves the conditional branch unnaccounted for,
>>>but amusing none-the-less.
>>
>>Sure, so long as your HTML "program" has the ability to, via only
>>the tags available in either the HTML 3.2 or 4.0 DTDs, modify
>>the contents of those pairs.
>
>Oh, I am not claiming that HTML is a programming language, I just noticed
>that it has a way of storing state information. Not what I'd call
>useful (in a programming sense) but interesting none-the-less. Frankly,
>I am not well versed in html enough to go any deeper than this.
The thing is, this merely indicates that HTML can be used to encode
data that could be used somewhere else to do "conditional stuff."
It puts HTML a *tiny* bit nearer to "programming" than, say, PGP ASCII
armouring. But only a tiny bit.
--
Rules of the Evil Overlord #21. "I will design all doomsday machines
myself. If I must hire a mad scientist to assist me, I will make sure
that he is sufficiently twisted to never regret his evil ways and seek
to undo the damage he's caused."
<http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html>
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.ntlug.org/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Christopher Browne)
Subject: Re: Why Linux on the desktop?
Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Tue, 11 Apr 2000 04:32:36 GMT
Centuries ago, Nostradamus foresaw a time when Sascha Bohnenkamp would
say:
>> HTML isn't Turing complete.
>
>where is the definition that every programming-language has to
>be 'complete' ?
There isn't one.
"Turing Complete" isn't a good term to use.
The term for what is *intended* is "Turing Machine equivalent."
The question, for any given language, is whether or not it provides
enough expressiveness to be equivalent to a Turing Machine. If not,
then it is a weak language that is incapable of doing general sorts of
computations. If it *is* TM-equivalent, then it permits computing
anything that you can compute using a computer.
Possibly not efficiently; possibly not conveniently; possibly not in a
reasonable period of time... But it is reasonably powerful
nonetheless...
--
He who laughs last thinks slowest.
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <http://www.hex.net/~cbbrowne/lsf.html>
------------------------------
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