Say it's also a good thing water isn't flammable, otherwise fire trucks would show up to fires and only make the situation worse, right? But they do!
(reference 'Fahrenheit 451')
Since the advertising reaches us all the way here, the marketing boosts the filesharing! Most DVD players in.eu are region-free now (I 'hacked' mine), otherwise we can't watch the movies we legally order over the internet! There's no way you can be 100% legal! DVD players are cheap. Simply buy one from each reagon you need. If you can't get one, use a PC. Most DVD drives permit a limited number of region changes. Simply set one to US, one to Europe and you are set. One player from each region? Why would anyone want to dispose of that much extra cash for additions to their 'idiot box'? Besides only a real over the top geek type wouldn't see having a stack of DVD players as being real lame.
Now for a couple suggestion to make your wallet happy and to solve the region problem. Get an Oppo OPDV981H player and go into setup and press 9210. You can then set it to region 0 and you are good to go. It is cheap and is the highest ranked player on HomeTheaterHiFi.com! Its upconversion to 1080p or 1080i is great! (Link: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.cg i?function=search&articles=all
Another option is the NeuNeo Helios H4000. It is nowhere near as polished as the Oppo but it is region free out of the box and will let you fast forward and skip anything on a disk. Its "Smart Play" feature analyzes a disk and just starts playing what it thinks is the movie, completely skipping the menu and any FBI warnings! The fast forward and reverse aren't real smooth and sometimes it takes 10+ seconds to eject a disk but it is a cheap answer to the flexibility problem.
Both of these players will operate on US or Euro electricity and will also play either NTSC or PAL movies completely freely on either NTSC or PAL TVs. Finally I can waych those european ralley DVDs that I really like.
The piracy as theft argument doesn't fly in this situation. To steal something there has to be a loss in revenue. This is as much a case of piracy as aliens descrambling HBO and watching it on Alpha Centari. The media companies have decided to thumb their noses at these potential consumers. Apparently they aren't worthy of their notice.
There obviously was market for the shows in Australia and even though they had been servicing them (in a rather lame fashion) they are no longer allowing them to be customers. If they aren't going to sell them the shows then they apparently have deemed that the shows have no value in Australia. No value = no theft.
I am all for paying for media products. I have a huge collection of store bought movies. I have all of the equipment needed to do anything to a movie including ripping, copying, and editing. I don't download. I am also very much against the media companies being given any concessions of any kind. All of their actions stink of personal greed with no regard for the customer and they are successfully lobbying for more power to spoon feed their pap to us in a fashion that can only be looked at as monopolistic behavior. Until they cleanup their act and put the paying customer first they shouldn't get a single bit of government support.
Selling me a movie that forces me to watch ads before I can get to the main menu? Forcing unwanted, unreasonable, and unnecessary restrictions on the technology that I can purchase? The free market abhors these abominations so they pay lobbyists to get OUR government to ram it down our throats. Abusing the civil court system to wage a war of what amounts to a general campaign of government sanctioned derailing of due process against our citizens is the last straw.
Welcome to the future where "technology will make your life better". Yeah, everything is better and faster isn't it. Except I used to be able to startup the old VCR and start watching a movie in seconds. Now I can much more efficiently waste 5 minutes wading through previews that can't be skipped before getting to a menu so I can then start to watch the movie. Thanks, the check is in the mail... Even the packaging says to hell with the consumer. Does anyone really believe that so many DVDs and CDs are shoplifted that it requires so much packaging that they now sell special openers for them. The cost of the security devices is obviously more then the cost of the DVDs. (No! One stolen DVD isn't a $20 loss because they wouldn't have purchased it if the couldn't have stolen it. It is a 20 loss!!!)
I really want to see a MPAA executive left to suffocate under a layer of stickers that proclaims "Security Device Enclosed". I really feel that it would help secure my rights as a consumer that supports their insane idea of how a free market works.
Any conceptual framework that it relies on the user knowing enough about computers to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames. Any road network that relies on the users knowing enough about the system to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
Any car that relies on the users knowing enough about the vehicle to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
Any power tool that relies on the users knowing enough about the tool to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
The computer is a device. You wouldn't expect to try plumbing without knowing a bit about how pipes actually work, so why should you expect to be able to administer a computer without knowing a bit about what those options mean?
. .. So the idea here is that you shouldn't be able to flush a toilet or brush your teeth unless you have the knowledge of a plumber?
This is the exact attitude that I was pointing out. Sure, if the flushee doesn't have the range of knowledge of a plumber then from time to time you will have to call out the plumber when they try to flush the whole Encyclopedia Britannia down the john. But remember that if everyone that uses plumbing had the knowledge of a plumber then most plumbers would be working at McDonalds.
Your car DEFINITELY doesn't require a knowledge of how it works to be operated in a "normal" fashion. (Notice that I didn't say "safe".) The basic level of knowledge that an experienced adult driver has about how a car works isn't much past: Mash right pedal for GO; Mash left pedal for STOP; Turn the round thing in front of you back and forth for TURN; Knobs and buttons in the center are for music and heat!
I instruct high performance driving and car control. The concepts are alien to 95% of the people who sign up for the classes. They are not inexperienced drivers. I have NEVER seen a student who had any grasp of what the technical attributes of their car are who hasn't been actively studying it for years. (Start with Carroll Smith's excellent series of books.) Jackie Stewart's knowledge of suspension design was woefully inadequate. It didn't stop him from being an excellent driver. (By "technical attributes" I am referring to suspension attributes. Do you know where the roll center and roll axis of your car is? Do you know how much bump steer your car has? How about the scrub radius and camber curves? And that is only scratching the surface...)
I will repeat myself. A user shouldn't have to know anything about a computer to operate it. (They may have to know about specific tools such as Word, Excel, or Quicken) Any requirement or expectation that assumes that the operator needs to understand more then the basic controls ignores the reality of the world and is doomed to failure.
People running as admins isn't even close to the real problem with UAC. (User Aggravation Control) The real problem is their whole concept of security is flawed. Any conceptual framework that it relies on the user knowing enough about computers to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
Here is a little tidbit to shock you...
The vast majority of users that use a computer don't really know anything about computers and they shouldn't have to!!! If a computer is operating correctly they shouldn't even have to think about their computer. They should be thinking about their task at hand. They shouldn't even want to "know about computers" because if they did they would have different jobs. (A lot of "computer people" can't get it through their heads that the users shouldn't have to know much about computers and if they all did the "computer people" would be mostly out of jobs.)
The very first example of MS's real conceptual problem with computer security is showcased by the first thing you see when you start up the computer. Let me ask you: What do you need to know to get into a computer? A username and a password. So MS's idea of increased security is to hand you a list of all the usernames on a platter so you can skip past the "find a valid username" step and go straight to the "lets find the user with a weak password" step. I haven't even been able find a way to force a 'classic' text login. We are 'clicking' our way into the pits of hell.
Right after XP came out Mr. Bill public stated that "the next version of Windows will not be an Operating System. It will be a Digital Rights Management Platform." He said it in public and everyone seems to have forgotten it. Why would anyone PAY for a system that's only reason for existence is to inhibit the user's actions? Bill is a master at knowing which way people will jump. (That is the only thing he is really brilliant at.) He knows that people won't rush out and buy a DRM/Platform so he has to sell it as something different. It is pretty easy to do too. People (are Raccoons. Give them something shiney and their eyes glaze over and they will clutch it with both hands and won't let go. Vista has every bright and shiny go-ga that MS could throw in. Will Vista be a "success"? Of course! The Raccoons will demand their bright/shiny (pointless) 'upgrades' because how can we live without a computer that will use video as a desktop image. (I think that running the movie Idiocracy as a desktop would be perfect!)
BTW - Has anyone figured out a hack to force an old style text login? I might even mod your posts up if you find a solution and share it!;-)
[sarcasm] . .. [/sarcasm]
Leave the snowflakes alone, try to research if we can get something to fuel our cars after a decade or two or try to find the cure for utter stupidity. Hearing something useful coming out from science is rather rare these days, probably because really interesting stuff is not published or wouldn't interest the business giants like oil producers.
. .. This is the same attitude that generates the idea that the manned space program of the 60s was a waste of money.
Believe it or not the largest payout from research is generally not directly the target of the research. We call this serendipity.
Off the top of my head the study of this subject would require the researcher to apply his efforts (described here as apparently useless) on the details of crystal formation, manipulating factors of said formation, crystalline structure, and the statistical analysis of crystal formation, besides who knows how many other details that we will never know because we weren't involved.
Let me see if I can come up with some "useless" applications for knowledge in this research track. How about crystalline formation in metals? I bet the aerospace industry has no need for this type of knowledge as they try to come up with ways to grow single crystal blocks of titanium to form turbine blades or anything else that requires insanely high strength. As an example (from memory): the tensile strength of cast iron is a little more then 10,000 psi. The tensile strength of iron formed as a single crystal is somewhere around 100,000 psi! If I remember correctly, the single crystal tensile strength of carbon is 500,000 psi. The reason for these amazing numbers is that the primary weakness is always the crystalline boundaries. (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_crystal)
Another "useless" application of this type of research is crystalline formation as it relates to pharmaceutical research. Did you know that the (apparently unimportant and profitless) pharmaceutical companies actually sent an experiment up into orbit just so they could see how crystals grow in zero G? That sounds like it must be an incredibly lavish waste of their shareholder's money (by one of the greediest industries in the world (personal opinion)).
Fun facts:
- When you analyze a crystal you can tell the strength of the gravity field it was formed under.
- Crystalline formation is a state change and controlling this can allow you to do all sorts of interesting things from scalding the hell out of yourself heating water in a microwave, to creating so called meta materials.(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_materials)
- And finally: Utter stupidity is often caused by not looking any deeper then the surface of a subject. (reference: http://www.suck.com/daily/97/11/12/1.html)
More importantly, what would happen if this system fired 'accidentally' on another passenger jet? Something I would certainly be thinking about before installing them on *any* planes... This is probably the most important consideration. For example more people have been killed by accidental activation of ejection seats then have ever been saved by them.
There are, but they don't look much different from the men, if you know what i mean.
First Post confirms that a big part of the problem is that women are judged by their appearance rather than engineering skills.
Why is it so intrinsically difficult for people to recognize that even being human that we are still animals with animal drives? In order of strength the drives work out to: #1 Drive to eat (or survive); #2 Drive to mate
As a species we don't tend to get all secretive and weird about the eating thing. (excluding rarities such as anorexia, bolimia,...) When we get to drive #2 we go all weird probably because the competition for that rather limited defining resource (the opposite sex) is infused with all of the complexity that the human intellect can create and success or failure is literally a matter of life and death. In other words we end up defining our lives and ourselves by our results in fulfilling drive #2 because it is the one that isn't a slam-dunk for us. (I'm assuming that if you have a computer to read this then you have a good supply of food...)
Men and Women aren't the same. (relax, I am speaking in accurate generalities here) Woman tend to be predisposed to spending a large quantity of time trying to improve their appearance at least partly because as animals they want or expect to be judged on their appearance. Lipstick, make up and other 'primping' details ARE NOT DONE 'FOR' THE WOMAN WHO IS DOING IT. She doesn't spend the day with a mirror in front of her living out a narcissisticly thrilling life. It is done for those who are looking. (She doesn't want to fail at mating either! Plus it improves all of her dealings with other people...)
Women don't think the same. Why in gods name would you expect them to be interested in the same things? (a generality!!!) The logic that creates an engineer doesn't directly create happiness or success. (even success in #2!) The tendency of women to have a greater ability to deal with social situations and to create harmony does more to create this happiness/success. The tendency to build consensus is an incredible talent and would be very valuable in business if it was tied to the testosterone laden drive to control. (but I suspect the drive to control would kill a gift for consensus...)
Why doesn't anyone bemoan the disparity in the number of men who enjoy shopping for clothing, want make up, or spend hours 'gossiping'? How come no one is trying to artificially guide men to these pursuits? It is because there isn't income to be had from these things.
As a toddler my parents couldn't stop me from taking my toys apart and putting them back together again. I came from the factory with these tendencies that are 'male'. No woman should be stopped from exploring a choices in life and career because of her gender. But expecting women to be churned out with 3d spacial awareness and an interest in engineering at the same rate as men is insane.
Let woman make their choices without restriction including the artificial idea that their choices should be similar to men's choices and don't bemoan those choices when they tend to be different from men's. The differences create a world that we would want to live in. (and a world where we have a chance of satisfying #2)
Microsoft add new features too. The security centre & windows firewall for one example. Both of which are fixes for "existing, yet broken functionality
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
The problem with almost all laws that are designed to impose 'morality' on large hierarchies such as corporations, is that corporations are not people so by definition they have no more morality then a toaster. Corporations are structures or more simply, things.
"Things" can be used by people for moral or immoral purpose but god knows that a 'white collar' law such as Sarbanes-Oxley won't make that happen because the SEC has made the number one overriding goal of all public companies to be the 'enhancement of shareholder value'. (even if it is to the detriment of the shareholder!)
It does seem odd (and paranoid) that Apple picked this point to stick on with regard to Sarbanes-Oxley but their point is valid. The real interesting point here is that any truly complicated and important system invariably works out to be a paradox. It usually ends up with the opposite results from the obvious conclusion. I think this is because when the surrounding conditions adjust to the change in 'rules' it causes a contradictory 'adjusting' reaction.
"Wouldn't it be nice to be a company so large and dominant in it's industry yet so inept in delivering a code-complete product it gets help (I'm assuming for free) from government agencies to try and get it right? So, my tax dollars at work for Microsoft... (the article does mention Microsoft gets this help for free, I can only assume then "we" foot the bill)."
The NSA has many reasons to help MS. From the article it is obvious that they recognize that MS has a pervasive monopoly in desktop OSes and is expected to continue to. (Anyone hear the DOJ going EEK here?) If they secure this OS they make their lives easier and safer for the foreseeable future. Besides, they can get in on the development of the code and make sure that they will have the "behind the scenes" access that they want. (for your personal protection of course!)
"I'm not saying Microsoft shouldn't collaborate with external organizations, but why am I paying for it? Even more reason to be upset about their usurious rates for their new OS. Consider that the drive I bought at Costco 10 years ago (500MB) costs on the order of 500 to 1000 times more (that's almost two magnitudes) than storage today, and that Microsoft continues to charge at the same rate -- they even seem to adjust for inflation."
"Why is Microsoft allowed to "embed" an id string like the WGA identifiers that allow them to identify and traceback any individual who does an update of LEGALLY LICENSED SOFTWARE?!?!?"
That isn't close to the real privacy concern in Windows. Internet Explorer's default is to run a search from the address bar. If you type in ANYTHING that isn't a fully qualified web address that includes the "http" at the front it will do a search. For example if you type "www.google.com it does a search on it instead of just trying to parse it as a web address.
Who does the 'search'?
Microsoft.
They have the largest source of information on where you go on the internet and no one is talking about it and questioning it.
The line I liked best was the last line of the second paragraph, "I emphasize that we have no evidence that personal information has been misused.
The line doesn't add anything except the realization that they are trying to cover their ass. Of course they don't have any evidence of what the intruder did with the data.
They do have proof of misuse though... Unauthorized access is misuse!
Gee, "Microsoft Recommends" is the part of this story that is skewed in a deceptive manner.
The story above lists the exact quote, "not open or save Word files" as part of the sentence, "Microsoft suggests that users 'not open or save Word files,' even from trusted sources."
The actual quote from Microsoft's site is, "Do not open or save Word files that you receive from un-trusted sources or that you receive unexpectedly from trusted sources.", which can be checked at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory /929433.mspx under the heading of "Workarounds for Microsoft Word Remote Code Vulnerability:" Suddenly it means something completely different. It actually describes they way you should ALWAYS treat any attachment.
Sure, we all know that MS makes stuff with lots of holes in it (like most everyone else) but that is no excuse for flagrantly deceptive reporting. I get enough of that on TV every night...
The difference is the DCMA basically tries to specify that anything that that can be used to subvert copyright protection is illegal. Remember the bit where the copy protection on certain CDs could be circumvented by using a magic marker to blank it out? It was pointed out that the verbiage of the DCMA would then make magic markers illegal.
This is all about law. It isn't supposed to make sense and it rarely relates to the real world.
If you click on "About" at the top of the page it clearly states that BBSpot is a nerd humor site. Here is an excerpt:
"Called "the world's greatest tech humour site" by The Register, BBspot creates entertainment for the geekier side of the world. BBspot produces a variety of features like fake news stories satirizing the tech and political worlds, the BBspot Mailbag which pokes fun at the Believers (people who believe our fake news) and much more. BBspot was started by Brian Briggs in April of 2000 as a hobby to bring some fun to the web, but grew to the point where Brian "quit his day job" and made the site his full-time occupation in January of 2003."
I think the accuracy of this story should be checked. On the same page as the posted link is a link to "Related News". The first story listed is: MPAA to Thwart Pirates by Making All Movies Suck
(http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/03/mpaa_piracy.ht ml)
This "related" story is an obvious farce. Someone needs to check this out so we aren't playing/. urban legend.
The only military research that I know of that is similar to this is the work on supersonic torpedoes. The basic idea as I understand it is that the shockwave from the small tip creates a cavitation bubble that the rest of the torpedo rides inside.
Don't think we could get a supertanker up to supersonic speeds though...
- Because if you are reading a document of any real size you can read much faster from paper then you can from a computer screen. Do a speed reading test on a computer and then from printed text. Your speed when reading from paper will win.
- Because you can skim a 50 page report with real speed only if you have it on good old fashioned paper. Find a 50 page PDF file with a passage that you need and see how many minutes it takes to find it. Then print it out and flip through the pages and see how many seconds it takes.
Your brain and eyes are made to operate in a 3D world with real 3D objects. A piece or stack of paper is a real 3D object. The speed that your brain can do an amazingly high resolution search with the eyes is astounding.
Or you could use a 1024x768 display that flips through one static image at a time. Why is there even a question about this?
Uh, gee, could we make sure we have it right first? This isn't a light switch that they are flipping here. We are trudging about in areas that we don't understand yet. They are still making guesses about the mechanism by which it works!
In 2001 one researcher managed to come up with a repair in mice and published. Then other scientists couldn't repeat the findings. Now a few years later we have scientists who can repeat the findings. Sounds like it is progressing very well and at a pace that you would expect it to progress at.
Master - Grasshopper, you must learn patience...
student - Yeah,yeah,yeah... How long does that take?
One of the major reasons that "average foreigners" have a better knowledge of the inner workings of our country is that almost all other countries have many neighboring that have differences that effect their daily lives. We only have Canada and Mexico. We ignore Mexico and Canada is pretty much looked as a quietly laid-back brother country (with a clearer conscience then we have).
The curriculum standards of US high schools as compared to other industrialized countries are ridiculous. In the US students basically get to touch on every detail of every subject every year. In foreign high schools they drastically reduce the number of subjects so that they can immerse themselves in them and really get a good grounding in the subject. Our 'butterfly' approach of flitting from subject to subject and letting the curriculum be designed by political initiative instead of clear, conservative and educated experience is insane. This has created a curriculum where each new initiative is tacked onto the existing curriculum which further reduces immersion time.
The management and funding of our schools is crazy too. It is political and a game of dollars and power. To look at a relatively simple, effective way to reform our school system search on the internet for Edmonton's education reform. It is a model of how to improve all aspects of education while reducing the costs dramatically. With this reduced cost comes an increase in $$s that actually go to into the classroom!
In a nutshell what they did is mostly abolish the administration portion of the school district. Then they basically just give the money to the schools so they can take care of their real needs. This even helps get rid of the "curriculum reform of the week" syndrome. Actually implementing this is very difficult because it requires a group of administrators (and/or school board politicians) to work together to make themselves obsolete.
The largest percentage of people who browse the internet use Internet Explorer. Every time you type in a URL but don't type in "http:// in front of the address, you are doing a search. It will take you right to the website but you have also told MS where you are browsing.
The default setting for IE is to search from the Address Bar. You have to manually change it to "Do not search...". What generic user is going to do that? The default search is microsoft.com and about the only reason that it would be changed is if the computer is all spywared up.
Even if you do trust Microsoft to "do the right thing"... Do you trust ANY large corporation to gather this type of information and not use it for their benefit. (and not yours)
At least the U.N. would try to keep things fair for everyone.
Using the UN as any sort of model for fairness has got to be a joke. Having this as the first sentence of your statement removes any possibility that anyone will listen to your second sentence. (The 2nd sentence is the one that actually makes sense!)
I see that the US government is completely incapable of managing technical legislation and regulation. ("The internet is a bunch of tubes...") Corporate lobby money is in the process of gutting the RFC and protocol based underpinnings to turn it into a platform for an additional revenue stream. It won't cost them for any new infrastructure. They only have to pay the lobbying money for this change to take place.
The US has shown an abysmal track record of protecting "We the People" against "We the Corporations" in the last 20 years. The only real protections that we have against huge companies has seemed to come from the EU slapping multinationals hard enough that we see the benefits of the protection here in the US. (Look at the track record of the DOJ in cooling Microsoft's heels compared to the real enforcement of the EU.)
If the US could show that they want to control it correctly for every person (instead of every company) I would be adamant that we should retain control. As it stands I would like to see a balanced responsible agency other then the US take control.
Slashdot Mirror
Say it's also a good thing water isn't flammable, otherwise fire trucks would show up to fires and only make the situation worse, right? But they do!
(reference 'Fahrenheit 451')
DVD players are cheap. Simply buy one from each reagon you need. If you can't get one, use a PC. Most DVD drives permit a limited number of region changes. Simply set one to US, one to Europe and you are set.
One player from each region? Why would anyone want to dispose of that much extra cash for additions to their 'idiot box'? Besides only a real over the top geek type wouldn't see having a stack of DVD players as being real lame.
Now for a couple suggestion to make your wallet happy and to solve the region problem. Get an Oppo OPDV981H player and go into setup and press 9210. You can then set it to region 0 and you are good to go. It is cheap and is the highest ranked player on HomeTheaterHiFi.com! Its upconversion to 1080p or 1080i is great! (Link: http://www.hometheaterhifi.com/cgi-bin/shootout.c
Another option is the NeuNeo Helios H4000. It is nowhere near as polished as the Oppo but it is region free out of the box and will let you fast forward and skip anything on a disk. Its "Smart Play" feature analyzes a disk and just starts playing what it thinks is the movie, completely skipping the menu and any FBI warnings! The fast forward and reverse aren't real smooth and sometimes it takes 10+ seconds to eject a disk but it is a cheap answer to the flexibility problem.
Both of these players will operate on US or Euro electricity and will also play either NTSC or PAL movies completely freely on either NTSC or PAL TVs. Finally I can waych those european ralley DVDs that I really like.
The piracy as theft argument doesn't fly in this situation. To steal something there has to be a loss in revenue. This is as much a case of piracy as aliens descrambling HBO and watching it on Alpha Centari. The media companies have decided to thumb their noses at these potential consumers. Apparently they aren't worthy of their notice.
There obviously was market for the shows in Australia and even though they had been servicing them (in a rather lame fashion) they are no longer allowing them to be customers. If they aren't going to sell them the shows then they apparently have deemed that the shows have no value in Australia. No value = no theft.
I am all for paying for media products. I have a huge collection of store bought movies. I have all of the equipment needed to do anything to a movie including ripping, copying, and editing. I don't download. I am also very much against the media companies being given any concessions of any kind. All of their actions stink of personal greed with no regard for the customer and they are successfully lobbying for more power to spoon feed their pap to us in a fashion that can only be looked at as monopolistic behavior. Until they cleanup their act and put the paying customer first they shouldn't get a single bit of government support.
Selling me a movie that forces me to watch ads before I can get to the main menu? Forcing unwanted, unreasonable, and unnecessary restrictions on the technology that I can purchase? The free market abhors these abominations so they pay lobbyists to get OUR government to ram it down our throats. Abusing the civil court system to wage a war of what amounts to a general campaign of government sanctioned derailing of due process against our citizens is the last straw.
Welcome to the future where "technology will make your life better". Yeah, everything is better and faster isn't it. Except I used to be able to startup the old VCR and start watching a movie in seconds. Now I can much more efficiently waste 5 minutes wading through previews that can't be skipped before getting to a menu so I can then start to watch the movie. Thanks, the check is in the mail... Even the packaging says to hell with the consumer. Does anyone really believe that so many DVDs and CDs are shoplifted that it requires so much packaging that they now sell special openers for them. The cost of the security devices is obviously more then the cost of the DVDs. (No! One stolen DVD isn't a $20 loss because they wouldn't have purchased it if the couldn't have stolen it. It is a 20 loss!!!)
I really want to see a MPAA executive left to suffocate under a layer of stickers that proclaims "Security Device Enclosed". I really feel that it would help secure my rights as a consumer that supports their insane idea of how a free market works.
Any car that relies on the users knowing enough about the vehicle to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
Any power tool that relies on the users knowing enough about the tool to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
The computer is a device. You wouldn't expect to try plumbing without knowing a bit about how pipes actually work, so why should you expect to be able to administer a computer without knowing a bit about what those options mean?
. .
This is the exact attitude that I was pointing out. Sure, if the flushee doesn't have the range of knowledge of a plumber then from time to time you will have to call out the plumber when they try to flush the whole Encyclopedia Britannia down the john. But remember that if everyone that uses plumbing had the knowledge of a plumber then most plumbers would be working at McDonalds.
Your car DEFINITELY doesn't require a knowledge of how it works to be operated in a "normal" fashion. (Notice that I didn't say "safe".) The basic level of knowledge that an experienced adult driver has about how a car works isn't much past: Mash right pedal for GO; Mash left pedal for STOP; Turn the round thing in front of you back and forth for TURN; Knobs and buttons in the center are for music and heat!
I instruct high performance driving and car control. The concepts are alien to 95% of the people who sign up for the classes. They are not inexperienced drivers. I have NEVER seen a student who had any grasp of what the technical attributes of their car are who hasn't been actively studying it for years. (Start with Carroll Smith's excellent series of books.) Jackie Stewart's knowledge of suspension design was woefully inadequate. It didn't stop him from being an excellent driver. (By "technical attributes" I am referring to suspension attributes. Do you know where the roll center and roll axis of your car is? Do you know how much bump steer your car has? How about the scrub radius and camber curves? And that is only scratching the surface...)
I will repeat myself. A user shouldn't have to know anything about a computer to operate it. (They may have to know about specific tools such as Word, Excel, or Quicken) Any requirement or expectation that assumes that the operator needs to understand more then the basic controls ignores the reality of the world and is doomed to failure.
(The hint was where I followed it with the "
People running as admins isn't even close to the real problem with UAC. (User Aggravation Control) The real problem is their whole concept of security is flawed. Any conceptual framework that it relies on the user knowing enough about computers to make a decision about what you should and shouldn't do is going down in flames.
;-)
Here is a little tidbit to shock you...
The vast majority of users that use a computer don't really know anything about computers and they shouldn't have to!!! If a computer is operating correctly they shouldn't even have to think about their computer. They should be thinking about their task at hand. They shouldn't even want to "know about computers" because if they did they would have different jobs. (A lot of "computer people" can't get it through their heads that the users shouldn't have to know much about computers and if they all did the "computer people" would be mostly out of jobs.)
The very first example of MS's real conceptual problem with computer security is showcased by the first thing you see when you start up the computer. Let me ask you: What do you need to know to get into a computer? A username and a password. So MS's idea of increased security is to hand you a list of all the usernames on a platter so you can skip past the "find a valid username" step and go straight to the "lets find the user with a weak password" step. I haven't even been able find a way to force a 'classic' text login. We are 'clicking' our way into the pits of hell.
Right after XP came out Mr. Bill public stated that "the next version of Windows will not be an Operating System. It will be a Digital Rights Management Platform." He said it in public and everyone seems to have forgotten it. Why would anyone PAY for a system that's only reason for existence is to inhibit the user's actions? Bill is a master at knowing which way people will jump. (That is the only thing he is really brilliant at.) He knows that people won't rush out and buy a DRM/Platform so he has to sell it as something different. It is pretty easy to do too. People (are Raccoons. Give them something shiney and their eyes glaze over and they will clutch it with both hands and won't let go. Vista has every bright and shiny go-ga that MS could throw in. Will Vista be a "success"? Of course! The Raccoons will demand their bright/shiny (pointless) 'upgrades' because how can we live without a computer that will use video as a desktop image. (I think that running the movie Idiocracy as a desktop would be perfect!)
BTW - Has anyone figured out a hack to force an old style text login? I might even mod your posts up if you find a solution and share it!
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Leave the snowflakes alone, try to research if we can get something to fuel our cars after a decade or two or try to find the cure for utter stupidity. Hearing something useful coming out from science is rather rare these days, probably because really interesting stuff is not published or wouldn't interest the business giants like oil producers.
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Believe it or not the largest payout from research is generally not directly the target of the research. We call this serendipity
Off the top of my head the study of this subject would require the researcher to apply his efforts (described here as apparently useless) on the details of crystal formation, manipulating factors of said formation, crystalline structure, and the statistical analysis of crystal formation, besides who knows how many other details that we will never know because we weren't involved.
Let me see if I can come up with some "useless" applications for knowledge in this research track. How about crystalline formation in metals? I bet the aerospace industry has no need for this type of knowledge as they try to come up with ways to grow single crystal blocks of titanium to form turbine blades or anything else that requires insanely high strength. As an example (from memory): the tensile strength of cast iron is a little more then 10,000 psi. The tensile strength of iron formed as a single crystal is somewhere around 100,000 psi! If I remember correctly, the single crystal tensile strength of carbon is 500,000 psi. The reason for these amazing numbers is that the primary weakness is always the crystalline boundaries. (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_crystal )
Another "useless" application of this type of research is crystalline formation as it relates to pharmaceutical research. Did you know that the (apparently unimportant and profitless) pharmaceutical companies actually sent an experiment up into orbit just so they could see how crystals grow in zero G? That sounds like it must be an incredibly lavish waste of their shareholder's money (by one of the greediest industries in the world (personal opinion)).
Fun facts:
- When you analyze a crystal you can tell the strength of the gravity field it was formed under.
- Crystalline formation is a state change and controlling this can allow you to do all sorts of interesting things from scalding the hell out of yourself heating water in a microwave, to creating so called meta materials.(reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta_materials )
- And finally: Utter stupidity is often caused by not looking any deeper then the surface of a subject. (reference: http://www.suck.com/daily/97/11/12/1.html )
He also mentioned that it makes a mess on the roof of the hanger when a tech is working on a plane and the ejection seat goes off...
First Post confirms that a big part of the problem is that women are judged by their appearance rather than engineering skills.
Why is it so intrinsically difficult for people to recognize that even being human that we are still animals with animal drives? In order of strength the drives work out to: #1 Drive to eat (or survive); #2 Drive to mate
As a species we don't tend to get all secretive and weird about the eating thing. (excluding rarities such as anorexia, bolimia,
Men and Women aren't the same. (relax, I am speaking in accurate generalities here) Woman tend to be predisposed to spending a large quantity of time trying to improve their appearance at least partly because as animals they want or expect to be judged on their appearance. Lipstick, make up and other 'primping' details ARE NOT DONE 'FOR' THE WOMAN WHO IS DOING IT. She doesn't spend the day with a mirror in front of her living out a narcissisticly thrilling life. It is done for those who are looking. (She doesn't want to fail at mating either! Plus it improves all of her dealings with other people...)
Women don't think the same. Why in gods name would you expect them to be interested in the same things? (a generality!!!) The logic that creates an engineer doesn't directly create happiness or success. (even success in #2!) The tendency of women to have a greater ability to deal with social situations and to create harmony does more to create this happiness/success. The tendency to build consensus is an incredible talent and would be very valuable in business if it was tied to the testosterone laden drive to control. (but I suspect the drive to control would kill a gift for consensus...)
Why doesn't anyone bemoan the disparity in the number of men who enjoy shopping for clothing, want make up, or spend hours 'gossiping'? How come no one is trying to artificially guide men to these pursuits? It is because there isn't income to be had from these things.
As a toddler my parents couldn't stop me from taking my toys apart and putting them back together again. I came from the factory with these tendencies that are 'male'. No woman should be stopped from exploring a choices in life and career because of her gender. But expecting women to be churned out with 3d spacial awareness and an interest in engineering at the same rate as men is insane.
Let woman make their choices without restriction including the artificial idea that their choices should be similar to men's choices and don't bemoan those choices when they tend to be different from men's. The differences create a world that we would want to live in. (and a world where we have a chance of satisfying #2)
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The problem with almost all laws that are designed to impose 'morality' on large hierarchies such as corporations, is that corporations are not people so by definition they have no more morality then a toaster. Corporations are structures or more simply, things
"Things" can be used by people for moral or immoral purpose but god knows that a 'white collar' law such as Sarbanes-Oxley won't make that happen because the SEC has made the number one overriding goal of all public companies to be the 'enhancement of shareholder value'. (even if it is to the detriment of the shareholder!)
It does seem odd (and paranoid) that Apple picked this point to stick on with regard to Sarbanes-Oxley but their point is valid. The real interesting point here is that any truly complicated and important system invariably works out to be a paradox. It usually ends up with the opposite results from the obvious conclusion. I think this is because when the surrounding conditions adjust to the change in 'rules' it causes a contradictory 'adjusting' reaction.
"Wouldn't it be nice to be a company so large and dominant in it's industry yet so inept in delivering a code-complete product it gets help (I'm assuming for free) from government agencies to try and get it right? So, my tax dollars at work for Microsoft... (the article does mention Microsoft gets this help for free, I can only assume then "we" foot the bill)."
The NSA has many reasons to help MS. From the article it is obvious that they recognize that MS has a pervasive monopoly in desktop OSes and is expected to continue to. (Anyone hear the DOJ going EEK here?) If they secure this OS they make their lives easier and safer for the foreseeable future. Besides, they can get in on the development of the code and make sure that they will have the "behind the scenes" access that they want. (for your personal protection of course!)
"I'm not saying Microsoft shouldn't collaborate with external organizations, but why am I paying for it? Even more reason to be upset about their usurious rates for their new OS. Consider that the drive I bought at Costco 10 years ago (500MB) costs on the order of 500 to 1000 times more (that's almost two magnitudes) than storage today, and that Microsoft continues to charge at the same rate -- they even seem to adjust for inflation."
Huh?
"Why is Microsoft allowed to "embed" an id string like the WGA identifiers that allow them to identify and traceback any individual who does an update of LEGALLY LICENSED SOFTWARE?!?!?"
That isn't close to the real privacy concern in Windows. Internet Explorer's default is to run a search from the address bar. If you type in ANYTHING that isn't a fully qualified web address that includes the "http" at the front it will do a search. For example if you type "www.google.com it does a search on it instead of just trying to parse it as a web address.
Who does the 'search'?
Microsoft.
They have the largest source of information on where you go on the internet and no one is talking about it and questioning it.
The line I liked best was the last line of the second paragraph, "I emphasize that we have no evidence that personal information has been misused.
The line doesn't add anything except the realization that they are trying to cover their ass. Of course they don't have any evidence of what the intruder did with the data.
They do have proof of misuse though... Unauthorized access is misuse!
Gee, "Microsoft Recommends" is the part of this story that is skewed in a deceptive manner.
y /929433.mspx under the heading of "Workarounds for Microsoft Word Remote Code Vulnerability:" Suddenly it means something completely different. It actually describes they way you should ALWAYS treat any attachment.
The story above lists the exact quote, "not open or save Word files" as part of the sentence, "Microsoft suggests that users 'not open or save Word files,' even from trusted sources."
The actual quote from Microsoft's site is, "Do not open or save Word files that you receive from un-trusted sources or that you receive unexpectedly from trusted sources.", which can be checked at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisor
Sure, we all know that MS makes stuff with lots of holes in it (like most everyone else) but that is no excuse for flagrantly deceptive reporting. I get enough of that on TV every night...
The difference is the DCMA basically tries to specify that anything that that can be used to subvert copyright protection is illegal. Remember the bit where the copy protection on certain CDs could be circumvented by using a magic marker to blank it out? It was pointed out that the verbiage of the DCMA would then make magic markers illegal.
This is all about law. It isn't supposed to make sense and it rarely relates to the real world.
If you click on "About" at the top of the page it clearly states that BBSpot is a nerd humor site. Here is an excerpt:
"Called "the world's greatest tech humour site" by The Register, BBspot creates entertainment for the geekier side of the world. BBspot produces a variety of features like fake news stories satirizing the tech and political worlds, the BBspot Mailbag which pokes fun at the Believers (people who believe our fake news) and much more. BBspot was started by Brian Briggs in April of 2000 as a hobby to bring some fun to the web, but grew to the point where Brian "quit his day job" and made the site his full-time occupation in January of 2003."
I think the accuracy of this story should be checked. On the same page as the posted link is a link to "Related News". The first story listed is: MPAA to Thwart Pirates by Making All Movies Suckt ml)
/. urban legend.
(http://www.bbspot.com/News/2005/03/mpaa_piracy.h
This "related" story is an obvious farce. Someone needs to check this out so we aren't playing
The only military research that I know of that is similar to this is the work on supersonic torpedoes. The basic idea as I understand it is that the shockwave from the small tip creates a cavitation bubble that the rest of the torpedo rides inside.
Don't think we could get a supertanker up to supersonic speeds though...
Why?
- Because if you are reading a document of any real size you can read much faster from paper then you can from a computer screen. Do a speed reading test on a computer and then from printed text. Your speed when reading from paper will win.
- Because you can skim a 50 page report with real speed only if you have it on good old fashioned paper. Find a 50 page PDF file with a passage that you need and see how many minutes it takes to find it. Then print it out and flip through the pages and see how many seconds it takes.
Your brain and eyes are made to operate in a 3D world with real 3D objects. A piece or stack of paper is a real 3D object. The speed that your brain can do an amazingly high resolution search with the eyes is astounding.
Or you could use a 1024x768 display that flips through one static image at a time. Why is there even a question about this?
I suspect it was really pulled because they couldn't get Lisa Simpson for the movie. (and they were smart enough to not even try for Paris Hilton...)
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see> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/22/13382
Uh, gee, could we make sure we have it right first? This isn't a light switch that they are flipping here. We are trudging about in areas that we don't understand yet. They are still making guesses about the mechanism by which it works!
In 2001 one researcher managed to come up with a repair in mice and published. Then other scientists couldn't repeat the findings. Now a few years later we have scientists who can repeat the findings. Sounds like it is progressing very well and at a pace that you would expect it to progress at.
Master - Grasshopper, you must learn patience...
student - Yeah,yeah,yeah... How long does that take?
One of the major reasons that "average foreigners" have a better knowledge of the inner workings of our country is that almost all other countries have many neighboring that have differences that effect their daily lives. We only have Canada and Mexico. We ignore Mexico and Canada is pretty much looked as a quietly laid-back brother country (with a clearer conscience then we have).
The curriculum standards of US high schools as compared to other industrialized countries are ridiculous. In the US students basically get to touch on every detail of every subject every year. In foreign high schools they drastically reduce the number of subjects so that they can immerse themselves in them and really get a good grounding in the subject. Our 'butterfly' approach of flitting from subject to subject and letting the curriculum be designed by political initiative instead of clear, conservative and educated experience is insane. This has created a curriculum where each new initiative is tacked onto the existing curriculum which further reduces immersion time.
The management and funding of our schools is crazy too. It is political and a game of dollars and power. To look at a relatively simple, effective way to reform our school system search on the internet for Edmonton's education reform. It is a model of how to improve all aspects of education while reducing the costs dramatically. With this reduced cost comes an increase in $$s that actually go to into the classroom!
In a nutshell what they did is mostly abolish the administration portion of the school district. Then they basically just give the money to the schools so they can take care of their real needs. This even helps get rid of the "curriculum reform of the week" syndrome. Actually implementing this is very difficult because it requires a group of administrators (and/or school board politicians) to work together to make themselves obsolete.
The largest percentage of people who browse the internet use Internet Explorer. Every time you type in a URL but don't type in "http:// in front of the address, you are doing a search. It will take you right to the website but you have also told MS where you are browsing.
The default setting for IE is to search from the Address Bar. You have to manually change it to "Do not search...". What generic user is going to do that? The default search is microsoft.com and about the only reason that it would be changed is if the computer is all spywared up.
Even if you do trust Microsoft to "do the right thing"... Do you trust ANY large corporation to gather this type of information and not use it for their benefit. (and not yours)
At least the U.N. would try to keep things fair for everyone.
Using the UN as any sort of model for fairness has got to be a joke. Having this as the first sentence of your statement removes any possibility that anyone will listen to your second sentence. (The 2nd sentence is the one that actually makes sense!)
I see that the US government is completely incapable of managing technical legislation and regulation. ("The internet is a bunch of tubes...") Corporate lobby money is in the process of gutting the RFC and protocol based underpinnings to turn it into a platform for an additional revenue stream. It won't cost them for any new infrastructure. They only have to pay the lobbying money for this change to take place.
The US has shown an abysmal track record of protecting "We the People" against "We the Corporations" in the last 20 years. The only real protections that we have against huge companies has seemed to come from the EU slapping multinationals hard enough that we see the benefits of the protection here in the US. (Look at the track record of the DOJ in cooling Microsoft's heels compared to the real enforcement of the EU.)
If the US could show that they want to control it correctly for every person (instead of every company) I would be adamant that we should retain control. As it stands I would like to see a balanced responsible agency other then the US take control.