The trouble is it is very hard to: "grant patents only where an invention has social value, where the patent would not stifle innovation, and where the absence of a patent would damage cost-effectiveness."
How can some average patent examiner do that consistently and reliably enough? The temptation after a while would be to just rubberstamp everything.
To me what they should do is to award Prizes for Innovation, much like Nobel Prizes. Most people's hindsight is better than their foresight.
To qualify for the prize, inventors have to register their inventions and pay a registration fee that goes to the prize pool.
You could have one category of prize being awarded by "Experts in the Field", and another category awarded by members of the public (somewhat similar to the Hugo and Nebula prizes, except maybe we could allow a wider participation for members of the public?). Multiple prizes per category would be awarded. Prizes could be awarded every year.
Inventors could win a prize for something they did years or even decades ago.
So even if you are 30 years ahead of everyone and/or your stuff only gets declassified decades later, you can still win a prize.
In contrast patents don't reward the inventors who are really far ahead of their time. They instead reward people who somehow manage to sneak "Method of making omelettes by using contents of eggs while excluding shells and detritus" past overworked patent examiners deluged by similar garbage.
Also, punitive actions could be taken against people who falsely claim they were the first to invent something - at least based on the patent registration database.
What the "Patent Office people" would then do is: try to reduce dupes (you can't prevent dupes 100% but at least reduce them), organize and manage the data so that it is not too hard for people to find candidates for nomination - for instance you don't want to have people keep nominating an invention that has already won! That said an invention that has already won, could qualify for a "top winners amongst winners category".
The patent office workers could also help authoritatively link registered inventions with actual products out in the market.
Thing is as long as the human body is not optional, the extra stuff has to be very much better.
So an exoskeleton or vehicle has a higher bar for acceptance.
For instance, even if the human body is more inefficient you're still going to have to supply food for for it.
The other thing is the human body also self repairs given decent food and rest, and so if you factor in the logistics and supplies required to maintain vehicles in the field, the human body isn't that bad:).
BTW just the other day I was looking at the various types of military rations over the years, and I guess they still have a long way to go. Can't have it all - nutritious, tasty, cheap, light, compact, easy to use, long shelf life, doesn't make too much noise when you carry it, etc.
They're not using exoskeletons to replace vehicles. They want them for scenarios where you need foot soldiers, and there are many such scenarios.
Right tool for the job and all that. Good luck going 80mph through a forest/jungle or even a dense concrete jungle.
If I were a soldier, I'd rather be in places where the aircraft and tanks can't easily blow me away. And in those places it's typically hard to travel at 80mph.
What would be useful is some sort of augmentation that would allow soldiers to operate in "sprint mode" for extended periods of time without permanent or significant damage or severe discomfort, and without too much excess bulk.
If the cooling glove (and other technologies) mentioned in the following article really work then there might be potential for significant augmentation:
It's not a time based solution at all (or at least strictly).
In fact if you bothered to read the post before clicking "submit" it was stating that it was NOT a timed based solution.
I was using the time based solution as an _analogy_ sort of solution, to the "halting problem" - which is "will this program halt or not". It is an ANALOGY. The real solution is sandbox templates.
I brought up the halting problem, because I assumed that this was Slashdot and people like your missus wouldn't be replying to my post.
They already have animals controlling robot arms with their thoughts.
When you think of say a "pink fried tapir" it will produce a distinct thought pattern.
1) Get a "super PDA" sort of stuff hooked up to look for your thought patterns. 2) Think up a really unique thought pattern to get the computer to "start listening" 3) Think up a really unique thought pattern to get the computer to "stop listening" 4) Think up various distinct thought patterns and link them with various PDA actions, alphabets, numerals or even whole common words (a whole word is a different pattern from its constituent letters).
Of course it takes a bit of practice to make sure you "turn it on/off" when you should.
But after that, you can do stuff via the computer - like send messages to people, remotely control devices, all just by thinking about it.
You can also get the computer to take/receive a picture/video/audioclip/file, and then associate that object with a thought pattern, so that the next time you think:
Well I suspect the NSA buys lots of Google Ads or something;).
In theory Google could also do quite well in the financial markets using their info, since lots of people actually use Google to look up financial info.
My suggestion requires Microsoft to solve complex problems. Microsoft's UAC requires users to regularly solve impossible problems (or just guess the answer and hope for the best).
Vista already breaks lots of applications/backward compatibility, and for what _benefit_ to the users?
Sandboxing doesn't have to be done the way Microsoft is doing it now. If a user tries to drag an object from one sandboxed app to another sandboxed app, you could treat it as the "user actor app" taking the object from the sandboxed app, then putting it into another sandboxed app, instead of one sandboxed app trying to write the object to another sandboxed app directly.
Sure it requires a lot of thinking and work.
But to get Vista after 6 billion dollars and how many years...
If one example proves your argument to be ridiculous, your argument remains ridiculous even if other examples won't prove it.
You even implicitly conceded my point by saying that if I had chosen any other body function it wouldn't have supported my arguments.
Thus it did support my argument. So guess why I chose it? D'oh. What do you want me to do? Pick something that doesn't work?
Most movies are about 2-3 hours. You could fill that 2-3 hours with 100% sex scenes or eating scenes or car chases or whatever (my subpoint was: "does it add to the movie?" ).
The OP was saying that the sex scene should be cut down - he didn't even say not show it, and you scolded him.
And why? You have provided no good reason so far.
A better response would be to ask him to explain why it should be cut down.
Alternatively you could prove how keeping that sex scene intact is important to the movie as a whole.
Anyway, maybe he should have waited for the DVD, then he could cut the sex scene for himself.
If movie makers keep putting scenes that don't add to the movies they shouldn't be surprised if people start waiting for the DVD (or torrent).
IIRC, someone I know complained that the last Lord of the Rings movie had way too many ending scenes. But closure is good, so lots of closure is "gooder" eh?;)
p.s. Not all sex is nasty or dirty (but I'm sure some have managed one or both and maybe even enjoyed it). I think some people have said to the effect that "If you don't think sex can be dirty, you haven't had enough sex". Of course I'm a typical slashdotter, so what would I know about sex...
Yes the halting problem is unsolvable in the general case.
But you can figure out whether some programs will halt or not.
Similarly you can figure out whether some programs will screw up your computer or not.
The difference in the latter case is typically you don't have the actual source code and knowledge of all the inputs. Thus users are being asked to solve a harder problem than the halting problem.
Despite that, so many people keep saying the "lusers" are the problem because they can't solve it. Isn't that rather mean and unfair?
Just because experts can solve _some_ specific cases, doesn't mean the nonexperts are at fault for not being able to do the same. It is hard. Even experts in most cases are NOT sure - they are just making statistically likely guesses (downloading something from sourceforge and running "make install" is unlikely to set up a user cron job or background task that causes your machine to spew spam and/or fetch more "instructions").
Thus my suggestion - create a system which does not require people to solve "halting problems".
Summary: UAC is like getting users to solve the "halting problem", e.g. figure out whether the program will halt or not (aka screw up your PC or not) without having the program's source code, or knowing all the inputs. Google the "halting problem" to see how hard it is.
My suggestion is analogous to:
Program: "Hi, I'm a flash demo, I want 30 seconds of real time" User: "Sounds reasonable. OK",
The O/S then runs the program, and if the program is still running 30 seconds later, the O/S kills it. So no need to figure out whether it will halt or not. The program will halt - the O/S ensures it.
If the program says "Hi, I'm a flash demo, I want infinite time", it should be far easier to train the user to go: "No" or "Too bad, you only get two minutes to do your stuff, that's all I'm willing to give you".
AFAIK, Microsoft has lots of very very smart people working for them. I'm sure they have already figured out something far better than my idea, after spending 6 billion dollars and thousands of man-years on Vista.
So UAC is either institution incompetence, or malice (they just want to shift blame to the users, or they don't actually want increased security).
UAC is not the only way, nor is it the correct way.
After all, what good is user confirmation in that case?
How does the user know what the code is REALLY going to do after it gets admin privileges?
Figuring it out is worse than trying to solve the "halting problem".
Unlike the Halting Problem, the users don't even get a true description of the program ( unless you count having access to the binary object code), nor do they know what all the inputs are going to be.
Their options are: a) Make a guess, hopefully a correct guess (education helps, but even the educated can only solve specific halting problems). b) not run any new/nonbundled programs c) only getting code from a "trusted repository" ala Debian/etc. Forgive me if I consider that dismal. Also, if Microsoft did that people would cry "Monopoly!".
After so many decades, we're stuck with these crappy options because of crappy primitive operating systems.
Crappy Unix style security (omnipotent root vs "everyone else"), or the usually impractical SELinux (who really thinks that's Desktop ready?), or Vista UAC. There's a glimmer of hope with AppArmor but it's still far from "Desktop Ready".
If people think that's as good as it can get, I say they're not thinking or trying hard enough.
For example here's what I came up with just a bit of thinking:
An analogy: With the Halting Problem, the user has to figure out whether the program will halt or not.
With my approach, the program says "I want at most 30 seconds of CPU time", the user says "sounds reasonable. So, OK", the O/S then runs the program, and if the program is still running 30 seconds of CPU later, the O/S kills it. So no need to figure out whether it will halt or not. It will halt - the O/S ensures it.
Whereas if the program says "I want infinite CPU time", it should be easier to train the user to click "No" or click "Too bad, you only get 30 seconds (you don't get to turn my machine into a zombie)".
Detail: the program says which privilege template it wants, and if it matches the user's expectations, the user says "OK" (and possibly checks the "remember this decision for this program"), then the O/S _enforces_ the privileges - so the program only gets what it asked for.
For example, if a program claims to be a "guest flash/shockwave applet", it is unlikely to need access to your microphone or your personal Documents and email. All it needs is the ability to draw graphics, get keyboard and mouse input when in foreground, play sounds, write and read from its temporary scratchpad directory. If it wants network access it better ask for "guest flash/shockwave applet (with network access)", otherwise the O/S should not allow it network access.
Whereas if a program that initially claimed it was a "flash game", but when the user attempts to launch it, the O/S says it is asking for "Full System Privileges" (with all the scary red warnings), I think it's a lot easier to train users not to click "OK" (or at least call for help when they see "red").
Yes, UAC is better than nothing and the sandboxing in Vista is better than what you get in XP and default Ubuntu, but I thought Microsoft hired all those super smart people who can pass all those fancy interviews.
Maybe they did think of something better, but UAC is just Microsoft's way of shifting the blame to the users "aha - you disabled UAC, so it's YOUR FAULT, not Microsoft's". Cheaper and simpler to do that? But they still said it took them 6 billion dollars and many years to develop it!
Maybe a lot of it went into DRM and getting it to kinda work...
My suggestion isn't fantastic, but it's definitely better than UAC.
I'm just showing how things can be better. I'll be happy if people come up with something far better than my suggestion.
p.s. if anyone says it doesn't work just because I left out all the pages of details that
Yes sex is important to the human race, but so is shitting and peeing (if not more so[1] ).
I don't really need to see lots of toilet scenes in a movie.
I know sex is different from peeing/shitting, but just because something is important to the survival of the human race, doesn't mean that it is just as important to show in a movie.
You need a better reason than that. How about "it makes for a better story"? That's what some people watch movies for apparently.
It is true that sex scenes do play an important role in some movies (even the nonporn ones;) ). But apparently many movie makers nowadays throw in sex scenes just to get a "serious movie" a "nonkiddie" rating. Nothing to do with telling a better story.
Lastly, there are actually some people who like watching movies with lots of peeing. So, are the people who want their movies to have lots of sex scenes really that different? You want porn, there's already plenty of porn available on the Internet.
[1] Try going without peeing for a day or two, then tell me which is more important.
Sure there are small differences, and that's the problem, often those small differences aren't good enough for the "1.5 seconds scans".
I wouldn't be able to tell which twin was which if one just ran past me.
If the system is that sensitive to small differences in the face, then it is more likely to get confused with normal facial changes. Many girls/women do actually look different over the course of their "monthly cycle"[1].
Also, what happens if the twin with the fatter face slims down a bit or the other twin puts on a bit more weight in a different part?
How can they pass someone who runs a red light, or backs over a mailbox?
That's dangerous stuff. OK backing over a mailbox isn't usually that dangerous in itself, but it indicates a poor (and I say insufficient) level of vehicle control.
I'm already thinking that a driving test should fail people who can't safely merge into busy highways (consistently).
Even the normal human eye is only high res at a very small spot.
We move that small spot to paint a larger high res picture which we cache in our head (similar to taking multiple camera shots to create a big panorama).
As long as the 4x4 sensor has a low enough latency, refreshes really fast and is able to be moved consistently to the place where the brain expects it, the brain can probably adapt and use it to create a higher res image.
Sure, but after a while when you are going production you might find you need: 1) Better error handling and checking. (yes you can check for exit codes with bash, but some stuff doesn't give useful exit codes for enough scenarios, so you have to do more tests to figure out what really has happened and what stage did stuff get to). 2) Logging and auditing[1] 3) More complicated job flows and handling, and process control.
[1] Yes on some distros you can do some stuff with logger (you do have to figure out whether it's in/bin/logger or/usr/bin/logger;) ).
It still isn't that easy to do a lot of this stuff with perl, so suggestions are welcome. I hear the IBM mainframe stuff has better job control, but I don't have experience with mainframes.
But be good and don't write malware. The antivirus people might give up trying to detect perl malware (think about it - polymorphic TMTDOWTDI perl malware...), they might just flag/blacklist perl itself:).
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it is more dependent on how many years away the researchers expect to retire, than the technology ;).
Sometimes I think they might as well send some funding into that "cold fusion" thing.
Why? Even if it's not fusion, it might be a useful battery in some cases. And it's probably an interesting phenomenon worth exploring.
> "what should and should not be patentable"
The trouble is it is very hard to: "grant patents only where an invention has social value, where the patent would not stifle innovation, and where the absence of a patent would damage cost-effectiveness."
How can some average patent examiner do that consistently and reliably enough? The temptation after a while would be to just rubberstamp everything.
To me what they should do is to award Prizes for Innovation, much like Nobel Prizes. Most people's hindsight is better than their foresight.
To qualify for the prize, inventors have to register their inventions and pay a registration fee that goes to the prize pool.
You could have one category of prize being awarded by "Experts in the Field", and another category awarded by members of the public (somewhat similar to the Hugo and Nebula prizes, except maybe we could allow a wider participation for members of the public?). Multiple prizes per category would be awarded. Prizes could be awarded every year.
Inventors could win a prize for something they did years or even decades ago.
So even if you are 30 years ahead of everyone and/or your stuff only gets declassified decades later, you can still win a prize.
In contrast patents don't reward the inventors who are really far ahead of their time. They instead reward people who somehow manage to sneak "Method of making omelettes by using contents of eggs while excluding shells and detritus" past overworked patent examiners deluged by similar garbage.
Also, punitive actions could be taken against people who falsely claim they were the first to invent something - at least based on the patent registration database.
What the "Patent Office people" would then do is: try to reduce dupes (you can't prevent dupes 100% but at least reduce them), organize and manage the data so that it is not too hard for people to find candidates for nomination - for instance you don't want to have people keep nominating an invention that has already won! That said an invention that has already won, could qualify for a "top winners amongst winners category".
The patent office workers could also help authoritatively link registered inventions with actual products out in the market.
Because most people can't count higher than 3?
;).
Heck, many sound guys seldom count higher than 2
If Microsoft did that (package management system for "certified" 3rd party software), there'll be lots of people screaming "monopoly".
It's one of the ways they could reduce the number of users downloading and installing malware.
It's not like they can't do it technically - they do something like this for Windows Update already.
Thing is as long as the human body is not optional, the extra stuff has to be very much better.
:).
So an exoskeleton or vehicle has a higher bar for acceptance.
For instance, even if the human body is more inefficient you're still going to have to supply food for for it.
The other thing is the human body also self repairs given decent food and rest, and so if you factor in the logistics and supplies required to maintain vehicles in the field, the human body isn't that bad
BTW just the other day I was looking at the various types of military rations over the years, and I guess they still have a long way to go. Can't have it all - nutritious, tasty, cheap, light, compact, easy to use, long shelf life, doesn't make too much noise when you carry it, etc.
"Use iptables to redirect port 80 to 8080 "
That's only if your O/S requires root privileges to bind to 80.
I think that's stupid.
Sure some people think "that's a great way to stop some naughty user process from binding to 80".
But your proposed solution of redirecting 80 to 8080, you end up with the same problem back again - some naughty user process could bind to 8080.
So no difference in the end. Might as well skip the added complexity and bullshit.
Actually the current big difference is, you're going to have the body there anyway, whether you like it or not.
So batteries, ammo, body armor etc are "extra options" which the body may or may not grumble about.
They're not using exoskeletons to replace vehicles. They want them for scenarios where you need foot soldiers, and there are many such scenarios.
Right tool for the job and all that. Good luck going 80mph through a forest/jungle or even a dense concrete jungle.
If I were a soldier, I'd rather be in places where the aircraft and tanks can't easily blow me away. And in those places it's typically hard to travel at 80mph.
What would be useful is some sort of augmentation that would allow soldiers to operate in "sprint mode" for extended periods of time without permanent or significant damage or severe discomfort, and without too much excess bulk.
If the cooling glove (and other technologies) mentioned in the following article really work then there might be potential for significant augmentation:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore_pr.html
Of course a cooling glove can get in the way, so perhaps they can figure out some other alternatives.
Imagine if your soldiers could become the equivalent of top human athletes AND sustain that performance for 30-90 minutes.
Even better if the system can be powered by something edible (cooking oil?).
Not misleading to me.
Nobody in their right mind expects MS to port DX10 to Linux+Mac.
So the title means:
a) Somebody else is doing it (most likely)
b) It's a trap! What's the catch?
c) Microsoft has gone insane.
It's not a time based solution at all (or at least strictly).
In fact if you bothered to read the post before clicking "submit" it was stating that it was NOT a timed based solution.
I was using the time based solution as an _analogy_ sort of solution, to the "halting problem" - which is "will this program halt or not". It is an ANALOGY. The real solution is sandbox templates.
I brought up the halting problem, because I assumed that this was Slashdot and people like your missus wouldn't be replying to my post.
Seems I was wrong.
Control via thought patterns.
They already have animals controlling robot arms with their thoughts.
When you think of say a "pink fried tapir" it will produce a distinct thought pattern.
1) Get a "super PDA" sort of stuff hooked up to look for your thought patterns.
2) Think up a really unique thought pattern to get the computer to "start listening"
3) Think up a really unique thought pattern to get the computer to "stop listening"
4) Think up various distinct thought patterns and link them with various PDA actions, alphabets, numerals or even whole common words (a whole word is a different pattern from its constituent letters).
Of course it takes a bit of practice to make sure you "turn it on/off" when you should.
But after that, you can do stuff via the computer - like send messages to people, remotely control devices, all just by thinking about it.
You can also get the computer to take/receive a picture/video/audioclip/file, and then associate that object with a thought pattern, so that the next time you think:
<PatternToTriggerRecallProcess>,<PatternAssociatedWithObject>
The PDA then retrieves that object for you.
Well I suspect the NSA buys lots of Google Ads or something ;).
In theory Google could also do quite well in the financial markets using their info, since lots of people actually use Google to look up financial info.
"it takes years of work, research, etc."
And we still got UAC after all of that? Sad.
My timed based "solution" is not a solution as you seem to think, it is an analogy from the POV of the "halting problem".
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem (since nobody seems able to use google)
My suggestion requires Microsoft to solve complex problems.
Microsoft's UAC requires users to regularly solve impossible problems (or just guess the answer and hope for the best).
Vista already breaks lots of applications/backward compatibility, and for what _benefit_ to the users?
Sandboxing doesn't have to be done the way Microsoft is doing it now. If a user tries to drag an object from one sandboxed app to another sandboxed app, you could treat it as the "user actor app" taking the object from the sandboxed app, then putting it into another sandboxed app, instead of one sandboxed app trying to write the object to another sandboxed app directly.
Sure it requires a lot of thinking and work.
But to get Vista after 6 billion dollars and how many years...
If one example proves your argument to be ridiculous, your argument remains ridiculous even if other examples won't prove it.
;)
You even implicitly conceded my point by saying that if I had chosen any other body function it wouldn't have supported my arguments.
Thus it did support my argument. So guess why I chose it? D'oh. What do you want me to do? Pick something that doesn't work?
Most movies are about 2-3 hours. You could fill that 2-3 hours with 100% sex scenes or eating scenes or car chases or whatever (my subpoint was: "does it add to the movie?" ).
The OP was saying that the sex scene should be cut down - he didn't even say not show it, and you scolded him.
And why? You have provided no good reason so far.
A better response would be to ask him to explain why it should be cut down.
Alternatively you could prove how keeping that sex scene intact is important to the movie as a whole.
Anyway, maybe he should have waited for the DVD, then he could cut the sex scene for himself.
If movie makers keep putting scenes that don't add to the movies they shouldn't be surprised if people start waiting for the DVD (or torrent).
IIRC, someone I know complained that the last Lord of the Rings movie had way too many ending scenes. But closure is good, so lots of closure is "gooder" eh?
p.s. Not all sex is nasty or dirty (but I'm sure some have managed one or both and maybe even enjoyed it). I think some people have said to the effect that "If you don't think sex can be dirty, you haven't had enough sex". Of course I'm a typical slashdotter, so what would I know about sex...
Yes the halting problem is unsolvable in the general case.
But you can figure out whether some programs will halt or not.
Similarly you can figure out whether some programs will screw up your computer or not.
The difference in the latter case is typically you don't have the actual source code and knowledge of all the inputs. Thus users are being asked to solve a harder problem than the halting problem.
Despite that, so many people keep saying the "lusers" are the problem because they can't solve it. Isn't that rather mean and unfair?
Just because experts can solve _some_ specific cases, doesn't mean the nonexperts are at fault for not being able to do the same. It is hard. Even experts in most cases are NOT sure - they are just making statistically likely guesses (downloading something from sourceforge and running "make install" is unlikely to set up a user cron job or background task that causes your machine to spew spam and/or fetch more "instructions").
Thus my suggestion - create a system which does not require people to solve "halting problems".
They should be doing this:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156693
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1152645&cid=27105713
Summary:
UAC is like getting users to solve the "halting problem", e.g. figure out whether the program will halt or not (aka screw up your PC or not) without having the program's source code, or knowing all the inputs. Google the "halting problem" to see how hard it is.
My suggestion is analogous to:
Program: "Hi, I'm a flash demo, I want 30 seconds of real time"
User: "Sounds reasonable. OK",
The O/S then runs the program, and if the program is still running 30 seconds later, the O/S kills it.
So no need to figure out whether it will halt or not. The program will halt - the O/S ensures it.
If the program says "Hi, I'm a flash demo, I want infinite time", it should be far easier to train the user to go: "No" or "Too bad, you only get two minutes to do your stuff, that's all I'm willing to give you".
AFAIK, Microsoft has lots of very very smart people working for them. I'm sure they have already figured out something far better than my idea, after spending 6 billion dollars and thousands of man-years on Vista.
So UAC is either institution incompetence, or malice (they just want to shift blame to the users, or they don't actually want increased security).
"You're missing the forest for the trees"
;)
People who keep missing the forest, should get plank in face.
That wood help. Wouldn't it?
p.s. If there's central locking, just lock your car doors with your car key. Harder to lock your keys in the car then.
And that's why UAC is crap like that "lifting handle method". There are actually better ways.
UAC is not the only way, nor is it the correct way.
After all, what good is user confirmation in that case?
How does the user know what the code is REALLY going to do after it gets admin privileges?
Figuring it out is worse than trying to solve the "halting problem".
Unlike the Halting Problem, the users don't even get a true description of the program ( unless you count having access to the binary object code), nor do they know what all the inputs are going to be.
Their options are:
a) Make a guess, hopefully a correct guess (education helps, but even the educated can only solve specific halting problems).
b) not run any new/nonbundled programs
c) only getting code from a "trusted repository" ala Debian/etc. Forgive me if I consider that dismal. Also, if Microsoft did that people would cry "Monopoly!".
After so many decades, we're stuck with these crappy options because of crappy primitive operating systems.
Crappy Unix style security (omnipotent root vs "everyone else"), or the usually impractical SELinux (who really thinks that's Desktop ready?), or Vista UAC. There's a glimmer of hope with AppArmor but it's still far from "Desktop Ready".
If people think that's as good as it can get, I say they're not thinking or trying hard enough.
For example here's what I came up with just a bit of thinking:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/156693
An analogy:
With the Halting Problem, the user has to figure out whether the program will halt or not.
With my approach, the program says "I want at most 30 seconds of CPU time", the user says "sounds reasonable. So, OK", the O/S then runs the program, and if the program is still running 30 seconds of CPU later, the O/S kills it. So no need to figure out whether it will halt or not. It will halt - the O/S ensures it.
Whereas if the program says "I want infinite CPU time", it should be easier to train the user to click "No" or click "Too bad, you only get 30 seconds (you don't get to turn my machine into a zombie)".
Detail: the program says which privilege template it wants, and if it matches the user's expectations, the user says "OK" (and possibly checks the "remember this decision for this program"), then the O/S _enforces_ the privileges - so the program only gets what it asked for.
For example, if a program claims to be a "guest flash/shockwave applet", it is unlikely to need access to your microphone or your personal Documents and email. All it needs is the ability to draw graphics, get keyboard and mouse input when in foreground, play sounds, write and read from its temporary scratchpad directory. If it wants network access it better ask for "guest flash/shockwave applet (with network access)", otherwise the O/S should not allow it network access.
Whereas if a program that initially claimed it was a "flash game", but when the user attempts to launch it, the O/S says it is asking for "Full System Privileges" (with all the scary red warnings), I think it's a lot easier to train users not to click "OK" (or at least call for help when they see "red").
Yes, UAC is better than nothing and the sandboxing in Vista is better than what you get in XP and default Ubuntu, but I thought Microsoft hired all those super smart people who can pass all those fancy interviews.
Maybe they did think of something better, but UAC is just Microsoft's way of shifting the blame to the users "aha - you disabled UAC, so it's YOUR FAULT, not Microsoft's". Cheaper and simpler to do that? But they still said it took them 6 billion dollars and many years to develop it!
Maybe a lot of it went into DRM and getting it to kinda work...
My suggestion isn't fantastic, but it's definitely better than UAC.
I'm just showing how things can be better. I'll be happy if people come up with something far better than my suggestion.
p.s. if anyone says it doesn't work just because I left out all the pages of details that
"humanity only exists because of ..."
;) ). But apparently many movie makers nowadays throw in sex scenes just to get a "serious movie" a "nonkiddie" rating. Nothing to do with telling a better story.
Yes sex is important to the human race, but so is shitting and peeing (if not more so[1] ).
I don't really need to see lots of toilet scenes in a movie.
I know sex is different from peeing/shitting, but just because something is important to the survival of the human race, doesn't mean that it is just as important to show in a movie.
You need a better reason than that. How about "it makes for a better story"? That's what some people watch movies for apparently.
It is true that sex scenes do play an important role in some movies (even the nonporn ones
Lastly, there are actually some people who like watching movies with lots of peeing. So, are the people who want their movies to have lots of sex scenes really that different? You want porn, there's already plenty of porn available on the Internet.
[1] Try going without peeing for a day or two, then tell me which is more important.
Sure there are small differences, and that's the problem, often those small differences aren't good enough for the "1.5 seconds scans".
I wouldn't be able to tell which twin was which if one just ran past me.
If the system is that sensitive to small differences in the face, then it is more likely to get confused with normal facial changes. Many girls/women do actually look different over the course of their "monthly cycle"[1].
Also, what happens if the twin with the fatter face slims down a bit or the other twin puts on a bit more weight in a different part?
[1] http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1560017
Whoa.
How can they pass someone who runs a red light, or backs over a mailbox?
That's dangerous stuff. OK backing over a mailbox isn't usually that dangerous in itself, but it indicates a poor (and I say insufficient) level of vehicle control.
I'm already thinking that a driving test should fail people who can't safely merge into busy highways (consistently).
Even the normal human eye is only high res at a very small spot.
We move that small spot to paint a larger high res picture which we cache in our head (similar to taking multiple camera shots to create a big panorama).
As long as the 4x4 sensor has a low enough latency, refreshes really fast and is able to be moved consistently to the place where the brain expects it, the brain can probably adapt and use it to create a higher res image.
Sure, but after a while when you are going production you might find you need:
/bin/logger or /usr/bin/logger ;) ).
1) Better error handling and checking. (yes you can check for exit codes with bash, but some stuff doesn't give useful exit codes for enough scenarios, so you have to do more tests to figure out what really has happened and what stage did stuff get to).
2) Logging and auditing[1]
3) More complicated job flows and handling, and process control.
[1] Yes on some distros you can do some stuff with logger (you do have to figure out whether it's in
It still isn't that easy to do a lot of this stuff with perl, so suggestions are welcome. I hear the IBM mainframe stuff has better job control, but I don't have experience with mainframes.
You can use perl and python for windows.
For example, for perl there's Bundle::Win32
http://search.cpan.org/~jdb/Bundle-libwin32-0.30/libwin32.pm
Useful stuff like: Win32::TieRegistry , Win32::ChangeNotify
But be good and don't write malware. The antivirus people might give up trying to detect perl malware (think about it - polymorphic TMTDOWTDI perl malware...), they might just flag/blacklist perl itself :).
Wow, but wouldn't that make it harder for humans to evolve to be more intelligent/observant/drownproof? ;)