That's a little harder (although obviously still doable) with native code than with an interpreted language. That was what was great about Java - the VM had total control over what the language could and couldn't do, and so was (in theory) exploit-proof. ActiveX controls are native code and so can do nasty things with interrupts and direct memory writes and soforth, which these days can be circumvented but back when it was released, could not.
Instead of going 'apt-get install genericname' and hoping they have a metapackage that installs the latest version, you should use 'apt-cache search genericname', find the package with the version name you want, and apt-get install that. If you can't find the right package version with apt-cache search then try using google.;)
Five years ago, I did, and that's why I stuck with Windows XP. These days, not so much - I haven't had a single problem installing any app I wanted on my new XUbuntu box. The most frustrating things about my current distro are (1) that Xfce doesn't have Samba integration, which makes it a bit less friendly browsing network shares, and (2) the default audio settings are retarded (my motherboard has digital + analogue sound capture devices, the analogue mic input was muted by default and the volume controls for digital were displayed by default, I *still* don't know how to get to the correct audio control panel without going into the Sound Recorder app and then opening Sound Preferences or somesuch).
You're saying that if you have a day to cut down a tree, you'd spend the first 7 hours sharpening your axe.
An executive, a lawyer, or other high-powered business type would find it more expedient to simply tell his secretary to hire a guy with a chainsaw who'll have the job done in half an hour.
They need an answer and if there were a single "clueless" -google like- site that they could just click or search then this would probably be enough.
Personally, I find the solution to 99% of my linux problems on the Ubuntu forums. Partly that's because I've run Ubuntu at home for the past year and a half, but the same ratio applies to my Eee 900 running Xandros, because so many "ubuntu problems" are actually generic Linux config problems.
The problem with Linux's usability is that there are far fewer 'experts' around that your average user can turn to.
Linux troubleshooting checklist:
1) Search for your problem in vague terms on Google
2) Try to figure out exactly what's actually going wrong
3) Search again with more specific terms
4) Read 2-3 different forum threads describing similar problems, hoping that one had a solution that applies to you
5) Try that solution (this usually fixes it for me)
6) If you still have the problem go back to 4, after several loops go back to 2.
Compare this with Windows:
1) Try to fix the problem yourself, probably breaking it further in the process
2) Ask your friend/relative/neighbour who
works in computing, who can fix it.
Linux *is* harder (ie. requires more esoteric knowledge) to configure than Windows, but the gap isn't that huge. Windows, however, has the advantage of HUGELY much more familiarity among the great unwashed.
Just restore from backup... you DID make backups, RIGHT?
As GP's point - a motorbike has 5 controls (8 counting indicators, lights and keys). Even a very minimal program usually has 10-20. Then again generally we can't do "rm -rf ~/left_foot/" and actually have the machine blow our leg off... whereas "I'm doing 120km/h, I'm going to pull really hard on this lever in front of my right hand" tends to result in epic faceplant.
Ironically (and I'm by no means bragging here, I'd be the last person I'd call good at Linux), apt-cache/apt-get were about the first commands I ever used on Linux, not counting "yes" and "write" and combinations of the two...;)
I always wondered where the 'pirate' connection with copyright infringement came from. The image of a bunch of geeks with eye patches and cutlasses sailing up and down English coast shouting YARRRR and broadcasting popular music pleases me inordinately.
Excellent post. It's more than a little scary to think about how much the Internet has improved humanitarian matters through exposing abuses. It shrinks the globe far more than the airlines did - Iraq is generally way, way outside Joe Citizen's monkeysphere, but that guy in his WoW raid is definitely inside it, and when that guy says "sorry, I have to go, someone's bombing my block"... that has an impact.
Government propaganda likewise, I'm increasingly disgusted by the pile of steaming ad hominem and blatant misrepresentation in politics these days. I'm also disgusted by the fact that most of the populus just gulp it down through their TV straw and don't even check to see how it tastes, but that's another story...
That said, I don't think the 'net as a whole is under any long-term threat, simply because due to scalability requirements it will eventually turn into a wireless mesh system. As networks grow very large, they _must_ become increasingly decentralized and therefore increasingly resilient to attacks of the kind that net neutrality seeks to prevent.
This is true - the only problem with this viewpoint (which is one that you DO get into while working with robots, IAAR (or was at one point) too) is that it scales too well. One of our human foibles is that of regarding meat machines (or at least ones that are sufficiently similar to ourselves) as being special in some way. Whether they are or not is, of course, a philosophical question. Nevertheless...
Once you start viewing the world around you in terms of sensors, triggers, and stored procedures with a dash of mapping, searching, and a spot of pattern recognition, you start realising that everything (your pet cat, that guy at the lunch bar, your wife, yourself) are just larger collections of the same. And that can get pretty depressing.:/ Not to mention that the logical behavior given that you no longer hold anything particularly special is that of a complete sociopath.
That aside, Daniel Dennet (the philosopher) would agree with you that all apparently intelligent / conscious behavior is basically a big box of tricks that, together, create the illusion of a single, concious being. Sorta like Minsky's society of mind, except the members of the society are mouse traps, spinning tops, and rubber bands.
In fact, weren't a lot of the stories about the ways that the older, less nuanced Three Laws failed to be useful as robots became more advanced? Eventually the more advanced robots derived the 'zeroth law', which was essentially that humans were better off without quasi-omnipotent mechanical godlings as servants.
Ah, you must have a non-suck bank. Every bank I've used or heard about takes any form of withdrawal out of your account immediately, but makes you wait up to 24 hours before they grudgingly allow you to see deposits. This gives them a huge slush fund to invest, allowing them to make even more money that by rights belongs to their customers.
I've had exactly this situation occur. $500 in the account. Withdraw $300. Deposit $200. Withdraw $300. Get hit the next day by a $30 overdraw fee even though my account should never have gone below $100.
@ BlueNote - I'm not aware of any (Australian) banks that aren't evil scum-suckers. Care to recommend one?
When my wallet contains only cash, all I can spend if I loose my wallet is the cash in it. If I have a card in it and there's an ATM nearby I can unleash up to my daily withdrawal limit, which is a lot worse the next day when I look at my bank account...
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That's a little harder (although obviously still doable) with native code than with an interpreted language. That was what was great about Java - the VM had total control over what the language could and couldn't do, and so was (in theory) exploit-proof. ActiveX controls are native code and so can do nasty things with interrupts and direct memory writes and soforth, which these days can be circumvented but back when it was released, could not.
Instead of going 'apt-get install genericname' and hoping they have a metapackage that installs the latest version, you should use 'apt-cache search genericname', find the package with the version name you want, and apt-get install that. If you can't find the right package version with apt-cache search then try using google. ;)
1. find the software you want to install
2. Download it from the internet
3. Get infected with spyware.
Spoken like someone who has used Windows for 5 years or more.
Oops I think I'm doin it wrong.
Now do you see why this is a REAL problem ?
Five years ago, I did, and that's why I stuck with Windows XP. These days, not so much - I haven't had a single problem installing any app I wanted on my new XUbuntu box. The most frustrating things about my current distro are (1) that Xfce doesn't have Samba integration, which makes it a bit less friendly browsing network shares, and (2) the default audio settings are retarded (my motherboard has digital + analogue sound capture devices, the analogue mic input was muted by default and the volume controls for digital were displayed by default, I *still* don't know how to get to the correct audio control panel without going into the Sound Recorder app and then opening Sound Preferences or somesuch).
You're saying that if you have a day to cut down a tree, you'd spend the first 7 hours sharpening your axe.
An executive, a lawyer, or other high-powered business type would find it more expedient to simply tell his secretary to hire a guy with a chainsaw who'll have the job done in half an hour.
Also remember that professionals generally rely on specialised, often custom developed software. Most of this is Windows-based.
They need an answer and if there were a single "clueless" -google like- site that they could just click or search then this would probably be enough.
Personally, I find the solution to 99% of my linux problems on the Ubuntu forums. Partly that's because I've run Ubuntu at home for the past year and a half, but the same ratio applies to my Eee 900 running Xandros, because so many "ubuntu problems" are actually generic Linux config problems.
The problem with Linux's usability is that there are far fewer 'experts' around that your average user can turn to.
Linux troubleshooting checklist:
1) Search for your problem in vague terms on Google
2) Try to figure out exactly what's actually going wrong
3) Search again with more specific terms
4) Read 2-3 different forum threads describing similar problems, hoping that one had a solution that applies to you
5) Try that solution (this usually fixes it for me)
6) If you still have the problem go back to 4, after several loops go back to 2.
Compare this with Windows:
1) Try to fix the problem yourself, probably breaking it further in the process
2) Ask your friend/relative/neighbour who works in computing, who can fix it.
Linux *is* harder (ie. requires more esoteric knowledge) to configure than Windows, but the gap isn't that huge. Windows, however, has the advantage of HUGELY much more familiarity among the great unwashed.
Just restore from backup... you DID make backups, RIGHT?
As GP's point - a motorbike has 5 controls (8 counting indicators, lights and keys). Even a very minimal program usually has 10-20. Then again generally we can't do "rm -rf ~/left_foot/" and actually have the machine blow our leg off... whereas "I'm doing 120km/h, I'm going to pull really hard on this lever in front of my right hand" tends to result in epic faceplant.
I never install cygwin, it's too heavyweight for the little I need. Unxutils does me just fine.
Wait, that guy in that movie I had to watch for English class... he made beer?
Ironically (and I'm by no means bragging here, I'd be the last person I'd call good at Linux), apt-cache/apt-get were about the first commands I ever used on Linux, not counting "yes" and "write" and combinations of the two... ;)
Now, are you going to shove bread down my throat or just push me down stairs?
FTFGPP: It was the suit from Aliens, and other historical ones, that had a hidden power cord in the movie. At least, that's how I read it.
I always wondered where the 'pirate' connection with copyright infringement came from. The image of a bunch of geeks with eye patches and cutlasses sailing up and down English coast shouting YARRRR and broadcasting popular music pleases me inordinately.
Excellent post. It's more than a little scary to think about how much the Internet has improved humanitarian matters through exposing abuses. It shrinks the globe far more than the airlines did - Iraq is generally way, way outside Joe Citizen's monkeysphere, but that guy in his WoW raid is definitely inside it, and when that guy says "sorry, I have to go, someone's bombing my block"... that has an impact.
Government propaganda likewise, I'm increasingly disgusted by the pile of steaming ad hominem and blatant misrepresentation in politics these days. I'm also disgusted by the fact that most of the populus just gulp it down through their TV straw and don't even check to see how it tastes, but that's another story...
That said, I don't think the 'net as a whole is under any long-term threat, simply because due to scalability requirements it will eventually turn into a wireless mesh system. As networks grow very large, they _must_ become increasingly decentralized and therefore increasingly resilient to attacks of the kind that net neutrality seeks to prevent.
You could have been more succinct.
I thought WHOOOSH was the noise you heard when you put a Nokia in a microwave oven?
This is true - the only problem with this viewpoint (which is one that you DO get into while working with robots, IAAR (or was at one point) too) is that it scales too well. One of our human foibles is that of regarding meat machines (or at least ones that are sufficiently similar to ourselves) as being special in some way. Whether they are or not is, of course, a philosophical question. Nevertheless...
:/ Not to mention that the logical behavior given that you no longer hold anything particularly special is that of a complete sociopath.
Once you start viewing the world around you in terms of sensors, triggers, and stored procedures with a dash of mapping, searching, and a spot of pattern recognition, you start realising that everything (your pet cat, that guy at the lunch bar, your wife, yourself) are just larger collections of the same. And that can get pretty depressing.
That aside, Daniel Dennet (the philosopher) would agree with you that all apparently intelligent / conscious behavior is basically a big box of tricks that, together, create the illusion of a single, concious being. Sorta like Minsky's society of mind, except the members of the society are mouse traps, spinning tops, and rubber bands.
What are you talking about? It sent out literally MILLIONS of emails all saying "I LOVE YOU" and how many replies did it get? HUH?
In fact, weren't a lot of the stories about the ways that the older, less nuanced Three Laws failed to be useful as robots became more advanced? Eventually the more advanced robots derived the 'zeroth law', which was essentially that humans were better off without quasi-omnipotent mechanical godlings as servants.
Numbers (Ok she was just a fake AI, but kinda cute)
And here was I about to call you out on this one because 'Lije Bailey wasn't the robot, R. Daneel was. :P
It'd probably tell me "The only way to win is not to play" and then I'd be escorted away by a pair of giant security droids.
Damn, what kind of warped alternate future have you sucked me into? I blame that Connor guy for sending an odd number of Terminators back.
Ah, you must have a non-suck bank. Every bank I've used or heard about takes any form of withdrawal out of your account immediately, but makes you wait up to 24 hours before they grudgingly allow you to see deposits. This gives them a huge slush fund to invest, allowing them to make even more money that by rights belongs to their customers.
I've had exactly this situation occur. $500 in the account. Withdraw $300. Deposit $200. Withdraw $300. Get hit the next day by a $30 overdraw fee even though my account should never have gone below $100.
@ BlueNote - I'm not aware of any (Australian) banks that aren't evil scum-suckers. Care to recommend one?
When my wallet contains only cash, all I can spend if I loose my wallet is the cash in it. If I have a card in it and there's an ATM nearby I can unleash up to my daily withdrawal limit, which is a lot worse the next day when I look at my bank account...