Left with default settings, they're both highly vulnerable to anyone who already has access to the machine and is determined to find a hole. (Whether it be a buffer overflow in a priviledged service, or a soft link that gave elevated permissions.)
It is important that the casual reader understand that the parent post is poorly worded and is misleading. First of all, the article is about OS X Desktop, not OS X Server. OS X Server is not generally going to be used or administered by the general public. Secondly, OS X Desktop is not as highly vulnerable as Windows Desktop in its default state. OS X Desktop is highly secure from the outside in its default state and has a very effective firewall built-in as well. The point for the casual reader to understand is that the parent post says "to anyone who already has access to the machine", which is not how OS X Desktop is set up in its default state. You specifically have to enable services in OS X Desktop after installation in order to open an real security concerns. Hence, the post is misleading. Any operating system, without proper precautions, that allows external users local access to the machine can be at risk for a security vulnerability.
"Someone should write a book on how Sun blew it with client-side Java. They gave the product away and spent tens of millions marketing it. In a marketing sense, they succeeded; everybody has a Java interpreter on their desktop. Yet almost nobody uses them any more. Why?"
What rock have you been living under? A large majority of new features in the upcoming Java 1.6 are solely desktop related:
The %100 pure Java RFID solution our enterprise uses is www.tagsware.com . We have begun moving all of our manufacturing and client processes to Java and we have never been happier. Fast, efficient, and powerful as well as allowing us the freedom to remove ourselves from hardware limitations by allowing us to run all of our applications on both modern and legacy x86 machines, PPC machines, and other custom hardware with %100 Java custom hardware code.
"It is easy to take cheap shots at a technology by on recycling common myths based on the way things were 4 or 5 years ago. However, to post facts it is a good idea to actually try the technology as it is now. Swing on Java 1.5 is neither memory hungry or slow."
Excellent. Our entire enterprise RFID manufacturing system runs %100 J2EE and J2SE transparently and efficiently on multiple different architectural platforms. Today's Java technologies are absolutely incredible and light years ahead of the old, ignorant, and misinformed myths of the past.
Client-side Java is taking over our company as well, because it is becoming easier and easier to simply serve applications remotely over the intranet than to install them on each individual computer. Plus, the Java application server is exceptional.
With Java 1.6 and beyond (especially with Matisse) I expect Client-side Java to really take off. From a personal perspective, I am looking forward to writing in %100 pure Java %100 of the time in the future.
I wish all of the people who ignorantly complain about Java would stop comparing poorly written Java applets or poorly written opensource programs to true professional commercial server and client side Java applications. And I also wish all C/VB programmers would simply stop what they are doing and learn proper OOP.
Yes, Flash is an excellent technology that has not yet been fully realized by software developers. Flash and Java are not just for 'eye candy' like so many ignorant Slashdot users like to blab on about (and unforunately advertisers push down people's throats as well). Slashdotters have to stop repeating the same stupid crap all of the time, especially in relation to Java, Flash, etc.
What Flash is excellent for, and should be used exclusively for, is consistent user interface/website designs. Take a look at Laszlo/OpenLaszlo for example. Why should I spend 10x the amount of work on a website trying to make it look and function exactly the same on 5+ different browers and platforms? I have wasted too much time myself with web design doing exactly that. If every website was built using a system like Laslzo, there would only need to be one design and it would work perfectly everywhere Flash exists.
Also, just as important, is all of the possibilities and advantages that coding in Java gives you over coding thousands of pages of PHP code when building a large interactive website. For example, until the advent of technologies like AJAX, PHP/HTML had no ability to be time sensitive, interactive, or persistent whatsoever. If you want amazing website design, check out Laszlo Mail for example. If all of the internet was that exceptionally well designed and interactive, the internet would be a much better place.
And on top of that with the new Flash streaming media technologies, I don't even have to worry about video codec/platform/media player or any of that other shit. Simply compress the video using Flash and put it up on the website. Every person on every platform sees the video exactly the same, no extra downloading of media players/codecs/etc. required.
There are many other reasons as well. And many more great Flash based work on the internet that makes using websites faster, easier, useful, and for more intuitive than simple ugly text based webpages.
I.e. An idea does not have to have a physical form or product in order to be considered the property of or belong to an owner or group of owners, have merit, or have value.
"Anyway, how do you "take" an idea? Ideas aren't property."
What in the hell planet are you from? Intellectual Property, Patents, Copyrights, etc. are all ideas, with a few of those ideas manifesting themselves into physical form or product.
Don't listen to anyone who says you do not need an IDE for software development or only when working with others. Phrases such as "bells and whistles" are for those who do not code seriously or professionally. Unless you are only interested in writing HelloWorld programs or equivalently simple procedural language programs, an IDE is mandatory. And all OO languages requires an IDE for serious software development.
Your best method to learn the language is to find a good book on the language and an IDE you are comfortable using and then starting learning and coding.
"However, that comparison doesn't always hold true when you compare rational athiests versus rational believers. There is room to believe in the existence of a God without falling into the trap of believing in superstitions and mysticism."
Actually, since I looked up the definition of a Rational Atheist, I appear to be ~%99 the definition of one. With one huge exception...God(s), Goddess(es), etc. were %100 completely invented in the imagination (and scientific ignorance) of mankind. That is a fact. And that is ALL religions. You cannot argue or believe that religion is real on any grounds, since it is fantasy to begin with. Hence, a false argument cannot be used as a basis for other arguments. Even without empirical evidence to support religion or a supreme being or beings, the entire idea is completely illogical.
Which brings me to some other points. How can there logically be any being, suspending the fact that there has never been empirical evidence to support such a being, that is beyond physical law? This is logically false, and can be falsified on so many different levels, one point of which you briefly mentioned. The second would be 'who created the creator'? An infinite loop of creators? Logically false. A third would be a 'creator that existed spontaneously or has existed forever'? Logically false. In that case, the universe itself could have spontaneously existed or existed forever on its own as well, without a creator. And on and on. The problem is that religion is human invented fantasy and the logical fallacies of religion cannot be overcome.
Otherwise, you wrote an excellent and insightful post.
To answer your question "I have begun to wonder if we haven't taken Occam's Razor to the extreme and come up with the "easier" solutions instead of the right solutions"...No.
Your questions rings of popular junk science and junk philosophy. The scientific method finds the correct answer, not the simplest, because it is easily shown that the simplest explanation is not always the correct explanation. But, if the correct explanation is also simple (or used in place of the completely correct complex model for the sake of simplicity of explanation if no more accuracy is needed) then that is perfectly fine. Although, unfortunately, in most cases people's understanding of a subject ends with the simplified explanation.
If you did not take Calculus based Physics or Astro Physics courses in college, then NASA has some pretty good 'dumbed down' explanations about everything you are questioning. The 'dumbing down' also leads to the problem of people misunderstanding that there are better and sometimes complete understandings and explanations of problems. If you are able to understand the actual Physics and Mathematics involved, then there are plenty of resources available at your local university to help you out.
In another post, I mentioned the following information:
"Occam/Ockham's Razor only applies to equal explanations. It does not apply to two completely different explanations, even if one of them happens to be simpler. Occam/Ockham's Razor also does not prove that the simpler explanation is always the better explanation, it has been proven in many cases to be the opposite, and it does not differentiate between two equally good explanations. For example, using Newtonian Physics instead of Einsteinian Physics to explain simple physical motion is an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor (Einsteinian Physics is an extension of Newtonian Physics), but it does not apply to Evolution versus Intelligent Design. Evolution versus Intelligent Design is not an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor."
You need to be extremely careful in your writing, especially when it comes to a few mistakes I see, and your apparent like to almost literally copy Wikipedia information (although some of the information on Wikipedia is incorrect, the correct information needs to be understood before being used in any context). I'm only going to point out a few for illustration:
1) Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle only applies to subatomic matter. It does not apply to macroscopic systems. To use Heisenberg's principle to make grand sweeping statements about the Universe or Physics understanding of the Universe as a whole is incorrect. This is a very common mistake made by non-Physicists.
2) Occam/Ockham's Razor only applies to equal explanations. It does not apply to two completely different explanations, even if one of them happens to be simpler. Occam/Ockham's Razor also does not prove that the simpler explanation is always the better explanation, it has been proven in many cases to be the opposite, and it does not differentiate between two equally good explanations. For example, using Newtonian Physics instead of Einsteinian Physics to explain simple physical motion is an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor (Einsteinian Physics is an extension of Newtonian Physics), but it does not apply to Evolution versus Intelligent Design. Evolution versus Intelligent Design is not an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor.
3) A mathematically and physically correct Heliocentric model cannot be transformed into a mathematically and physically correct Geocentric model (e.g. the Earth is not motionless). Newton's Laws and later Relativity easily disprove Geocentric models. This was first shown by Aristarchus in 250BCE and later mathematically and empirically verified by such people as Copernicus and Galileo. This is a basic excercise for 5th to 8th grade students and should have been taught in its entirety during a 1st or 2nd semester college Physics course.
4) The main problems with Intelligent Design is that it is %100 religious in origin and that those who try to use Intelligent Design without religion fail because they have a non-scientific fictional fabrication, the least of which is non-disprovability, non-repeatability, and non-predictability. Not to mention logically false (i.e. The universe is too complex for me to understand, so it must have had a creator). My favorite question to Intelligent Design people is if the universe is so complex it needed to have been created, then who created the creator? If the creator simply existed without cause, then logically the universe could have existed without cause as well, without any need for a creator. And therein lies one logical fallacy of Intelligent Design, amongst its other problems. Simply put, Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, but a wild ass fictional fabrication invented by those who are unable or unwilling to accept and understand reality.
You should send a detailed write-up to your bank explaining how you got Safari to work with their banking system. I could simply be that the website designed have no idea what they are doing and are not supporting Safari for no good reason. Good job.
Your post topic of peer review working is correct, except beginning at the point when you say that %100 accuracy is never completely possible. It is simply an illogical statement to say that %100 accuracy can never be achieved, because you are infering that you are making a %100 accurate statement, which would then render your argument false. You can bring up Godel and Heisenburg and others, but they are always taken incorrectly and out of context. All systems can be described %100 on a macroscopic level. And Mathematics is always true, it is the systems using Mathematics which can be false. And your statement of "with our feeble intellect and reasoning powers" has no basis whatsoever. Human beings are at the threshold of intellectual ability, in just the last 100 years the human race as a whole has advanced farther intellectually and scientifically than all of previous human history. And there is no proof that advancement will not continue on indefinitely.
You, as a web designer, are not supposed to have complete control over presentation. Trying to force the issue only causes grief.
WTF are you talking about? You, obviously, have no clue what you are talking about.
As a web designer, you need to have complete control over the presentation. A client does not hire you to make a website which does function -and- look exactly how they want it to. Which is why so many websites are moving to Flash and other technologies and simply bypassing the fucking bullshit browser compatibility wars altogether.
Re:why did they choose windows first, instead...
on
Google Earth Beta for Mac
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
You are a fucking moron.
Google purchased the then Windows-only software from another company.
Slashdot Mirror
Left with default settings, they're both highly vulnerable to anyone who already has access to the machine and is determined to find a hole. (Whether it be a buffer overflow in a priviledged service, or a soft link that gave elevated permissions.)
It is important that the casual reader understand that the parent post is poorly worded and is misleading. First of all, the article is about OS X Desktop, not OS X Server. OS X Server is not generally going to be used or administered by the general public. Secondly, OS X Desktop is not as highly vulnerable as Windows Desktop in its default state. OS X Desktop is highly secure from the outside in its default state and has a very effective firewall built-in as well. The point for the casual reader to understand is that the parent post says "to anyone who already has access to the machine", which is not how OS X Desktop is set up in its default state. You specifically have to enable services in OS X Desktop after installation in order to open an real security concerns. Hence, the post is misleading. Any operating system, without proper precautions, that allows external users local access to the machine can be at risk for a security vulnerability.
"Someone should write a book on how Sun blew it with client-side Java. They gave the product away and spent tens of millions marketing it. In a marketing sense, they succeeded; everybody has a Java interpreter on their desktop. Yet almost nobody uses them any more. Why?"
2 SE/Desktop/mustang/index.html
What rock have you been living under? A large majority of new features in the upcoming Java 1.6 are solely desktop related:
http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J
On a side note, OpenGL -and- DirectX planned in the future. Hello Java gaming!!!
Again, another excellent post.
Your entire post is completely ignorance in action. None of what you say about Java is true whatsoever.
The %100 pure Java RFID solution our enterprise uses is www.tagsware.com . We have begun moving all of our manufacturing and client processes to Java and we have never been happier. Fast, efficient, and powerful as well as allowing us the freedom to remove ourselves from hardware limitations by allowing us to run all of our applications on both modern and legacy x86 machines, PPC machines, and other custom hardware with %100 Java custom hardware code.
Again, another excellent comment.
"It is easy to take cheap shots at a technology by on recycling common myths based on the way things were 4 or 5 years ago. However, to post facts it is a good idea to actually try the technology as it is now. Swing on Java 1.5 is neither memory hungry or slow."
Excellent. Our entire enterprise RFID manufacturing system runs %100 J2EE and J2SE transparently and efficiently on multiple different architectural platforms. Today's Java technologies are absolutely incredible and light years ahead of the old, ignorant, and misinformed myths of the past.
Client-side Java is taking over our company as well, because it is becoming easier and easier to simply serve applications remotely over the intranet than to install them on each individual computer. Plus, the Java application server is exceptional.
With Java 1.6 and beyond (especially with Matisse) I expect Client-side Java to really take off. From a personal perspective, I am looking forward to writing in %100 pure Java %100 of the time in the future.
I wish all of the people who ignorantly complain about Java would stop comparing poorly written Java applets or poorly written opensource programs to true professional commercial server and client side Java applications. And I also wish all C/VB programmers would simply stop what they are doing and learn proper OOP.
The download is free. So, download Solaris 10 and try it yourself.
Yes, Flash is an excellent technology that has not yet been fully realized by software developers. Flash and Java are not just for 'eye candy' like so many ignorant Slashdot users like to blab on about (and unforunately advertisers push down people's throats as well). Slashdotters have to stop repeating the same stupid crap all of the time, especially in relation to Java, Flash, etc.
What Flash is excellent for, and should be used exclusively for, is consistent user interface/website designs. Take a look at Laszlo/OpenLaszlo for example. Why should I spend 10x the amount of work on a website trying to make it look and function exactly the same on 5+ different browers and platforms? I have wasted too much time myself with web design doing exactly that. If every website was built using a system like Laslzo, there would only need to be one design and it would work perfectly everywhere Flash exists.
Also, just as important, is all of the possibilities and advantages that coding in Java gives you over coding thousands of pages of PHP code when building a large interactive website. For example, until the advent of technologies like AJAX, PHP/HTML had no ability to be time sensitive, interactive, or persistent whatsoever. If you want amazing website design, check out Laszlo Mail for example. If all of the internet was that exceptionally well designed and interactive, the internet would be a much better place.
And on top of that with the new Flash streaming media technologies, I don't even have to worry about video codec/platform/media player or any of that other shit. Simply compress the video using Flash and put it up on the website. Every person on every platform sees the video exactly the same, no extra downloading of media players/codecs/etc. required.
There are many other reasons as well. And many more great Flash based work on the internet that makes using websites faster, easier, useful, and for more intuitive than simple ugly text based webpages.
Without Java support, for example, it will be impossible to use our Java commercial and enterprise applications with the Mac.
Great examples of that are Mathematics and Physics.
I.e. An idea does not have to have a physical form or product in order to be considered the property of or belong to an owner or group of owners, have merit, or have value.
"Anyway, how do you "take" an idea? Ideas aren't property."
What in the hell planet are you from? Intellectual Property, Patents, Copyrights, etc. are all ideas, with a few of those ideas manifesting themselves into physical form or product.
Frankly, you are wrong, and constructor naming in Java is not brain-dead. Your ranting post is what is brain-dead.
Don't listen to anyone who says you do not need an IDE for software development or only when working with others. Phrases such as "bells and whistles" are for those who do not code seriously or professionally. Unless you are only interested in writing HelloWorld programs or equivalently simple procedural language programs, an IDE is mandatory. And all OO languages requires an IDE for serious software development.
Your best method to learn the language is to find a good book on the language and an IDE you are comfortable using and then starting learning and coding.
tbannist,
Another excellent post.
"However, that comparison doesn't always hold true when you compare rational athiests versus rational believers. There is room to believe in the existence of a God without falling into the trap of believing in superstitions and mysticism."
Actually, since I looked up the definition of a Rational Atheist, I appear to be ~%99 the definition of one. With one huge exception...God(s), Goddess(es), etc. were %100 completely invented in the imagination (and scientific ignorance) of mankind. That is a fact. And that is ALL religions. You cannot argue or believe that religion is real on any grounds, since it is fantasy to begin with. Hence, a false argument cannot be used as a basis for other arguments. Even without empirical evidence to support religion or a supreme being or beings, the entire idea is completely illogical.
Which brings me to some other points. How can there logically be any being, suspending the fact that there has never been empirical evidence to support such a being, that is beyond physical law? This is logically false, and can be falsified on so many different levels, one point of which you briefly mentioned. The second would be 'who created the creator'? An infinite loop of creators? Logically false. A third would be a 'creator that existed spontaneously or has existed forever'? Logically false. In that case, the universe itself could have spontaneously existed or existed forever on its own as well, without a creator. And on and on. The problem is that religion is human invented fantasy and the logical fallacies of religion cannot be overcome.
Otherwise, you wrote an excellent and insightful post.
To answer your question "I have begun to wonder if we haven't taken Occam's Razor to the extreme and come up with the "easier" solutions instead of the right solutions"...No.
Your questions rings of popular junk science and junk philosophy. The scientific method finds the correct answer, not the simplest, because it is easily shown that the simplest explanation is not always the correct explanation. But, if the correct explanation is also simple (or used in place of the completely correct complex model for the sake of simplicity of explanation if no more accuracy is needed) then that is perfectly fine. Although, unfortunately, in most cases people's understanding of a subject ends with the simplified explanation.
If you did not take Calculus based Physics or Astro Physics courses in college, then NASA has some pretty good 'dumbed down' explanations about everything you are questioning. The 'dumbing down' also leads to the problem of people misunderstanding that there are better and sometimes complete understandings and explanations of problems. If you are able to understand the actual Physics and Mathematics involved, then there are plenty of resources available at your local university to help you out.
In another post, I mentioned the following information:
"Occam/Ockham's Razor only applies to equal explanations. It does not apply to two completely different explanations, even if one of them happens to be simpler. Occam/Ockham's Razor also does not prove that the simpler explanation is always the better explanation, it has been proven in many cases to be the opposite, and it does not differentiate between two equally good explanations. For example, using Newtonian Physics instead of Einsteinian Physics to explain simple physical motion is an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor (Einsteinian Physics is an extension of Newtonian Physics), but it does not apply to Evolution versus Intelligent Design. Evolution versus Intelligent Design is not an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor."
You need to be extremely careful in your writing, especially when it comes to a few mistakes I see, and your apparent like to almost literally copy Wikipedia information (although some of the information on Wikipedia is incorrect, the correct information needs to be understood before being used in any context). I'm only going to point out a few for illustration:
1) Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle only applies to subatomic matter. It does not apply to macroscopic systems. To use Heisenberg's principle to make grand sweeping statements about the Universe or Physics understanding of the Universe as a whole is incorrect. This is a very common mistake made by non-Physicists.
2) Occam/Ockham's Razor only applies to equal explanations. It does not apply to two completely different explanations, even if one of them happens to be simpler. Occam/Ockham's Razor also does not prove that the simpler explanation is always the better explanation, it has been proven in many cases to be the opposite, and it does not differentiate between two equally good explanations. For example, using Newtonian Physics instead of Einsteinian Physics to explain simple physical motion is an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor (Einsteinian Physics is an extension of Newtonian Physics), but it does not apply to Evolution versus Intelligent Design. Evolution versus Intelligent Design is not an example of Occam/Ockham's Razor.
3) A mathematically and physically correct Heliocentric model cannot be transformed into a mathematically and physically correct Geocentric model (e.g. the Earth is not motionless). Newton's Laws and later Relativity easily disprove Geocentric models. This was first shown by Aristarchus in 250BCE and later mathematically and empirically verified by such people as Copernicus and Galileo. This is a basic excercise for 5th to 8th grade students and should have been taught in its entirety during a 1st or 2nd semester college Physics course.
4) The main problems with Intelligent Design is that it is %100 religious in origin and that those who try to use Intelligent Design without religion fail because they have a non-scientific fictional fabrication, the least of which is non-disprovability, non-repeatability, and non-predictability. Not to mention logically false (i.e. The universe is too complex for me to understand, so it must have had a creator). My favorite question to Intelligent Design people is if the universe is so complex it needed to have been created, then who created the creator? If the creator simply existed without cause, then logically the universe could have existed without cause as well, without any need for a creator. And therein lies one logical fallacy of Intelligent Design, amongst its other problems. Simply put, Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory, but a wild ass fictional fabrication invented by those who are unable or unwilling to accept and understand reality.
You and I agree %100.
You should send a detailed write-up to your bank explaining how you got Safari to work with their banking system. I could simply be that the website designed have no idea what they are doing and are not supporting Safari for no good reason. Good job.
Your post topic of peer review working is correct, except beginning at the point when you say that %100 accuracy is never completely possible. It is simply an illogical statement to say that %100 accuracy can never be achieved, because you are infering that you are making a %100 accurate statement, which would then render your argument false. You can bring up Godel and Heisenburg and others, but they are always taken incorrectly and out of context. All systems can be described %100 on a macroscopic level. And Mathematics is always true, it is the systems using Mathematics which can be false. And your statement of "with our feeble intellect and reasoning powers" has no basis whatsoever. Human beings are at the threshold of intellectual ability, in just the last 100 years the human race as a whole has advanced farther intellectually and scientifically than all of previous human history. And there is no proof that advancement will not continue on indefinitely.
A client does not hire you to make a website which does function -and- look exactly how they want it to.
I meant to type "A client hires you to make a website which functions -and- looks exactly how they want it to."
You, as a web designer, are not supposed to have complete control over presentation. Trying to force the issue only causes grief.
WTF are you talking about? You, obviously, have no clue what you are talking about.
As a web designer, you need to have complete control over the presentation. A client does not hire you to make a website which does function -and- look exactly how they want it to. Which is why so many websites are moving to Flash and other technologies and simply bypassing the fucking bullshit browser compatibility wars altogether.
You are a fucking moron.
Google purchased the then Windows-only software from another company.