I don't know about you, but most users running that on their desktops would be rather upset if they leave that script running long enough to wipe much of their home directory (backup backup backup:) ). On Linux desktops, most files owned by root are usually from the distro and can be reinstalled.
A similar script could have backgrounded and not shown any errors or warnings. In fact a deviously written perl script could do so many things it's not funny (and would work fine on modern Macs and Linux).
I use both Linux (suse,ubuntu) and Windows (XP,2K). And there really isn't that much difference in security technically[1].
Both Linux and Windows have privileges and ACLs etc. Suse/ubuntu Linux have apparmor, Windows XP has that firewall thingy.
In fact a Linux desktop by default runs stuff with the full privileges of the user[2]. Windows XP's firewall stuff somewhat allows you to reduce privileges, but it's not good enough for most users to use correctly.
It is silly that a browser running a malicious script/program would be able to listen in on your microphone by default or read/write your email/documents.
[1] In practice things are different. Malware people target windows because it's more common. I've said before that Mac users were like people living in a house in a small village that's nice and safe. Whereas Windows users are like people living in a ghetto apartment with boarded up windows, steel grilles and padlocks - then they voluntarily let strangers in regularly and get robbed of everything;).
I guess the Mac village is still relatively safe, but if the market share keeps increasing it's not going to be such a safe small village anymore.
[2] On my linux system I run firefox under a different account because I don't trust the quality of firefox. Similarly I run windows in a virtual machine to browse sites that I believe aren't as secure or require javascript and other crap - while virtual machines can be broken out of, I'm not rich enough to buy another computer just to watch youtube.
As long as you are the only one who can make the stuff and enough people want it, there'll be a way for you to get rewarded for it. You have a monopoly on the creation of new works that are yours. You just don't have a monopoly over copies.
There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, just because most people are too stupid to figure it out doesn't mean that nobody will figure it out.
For instance there could be a online service/feature where people could "brag about"/display how much they support XYZ on one of those Friendster/Facebook sort of sites.
I bet there will be a fair number of "peacocks" willing to show their "fitness" to the "peahens" by investing spare resources in their "plumage";).
"OMG u r a $$$ Patron of my fav game producer!";).
Go ahead copy that idea if you want. I have plenty more. Think it's a stupid idea? Fine with me too.
If people really like your stuff maybe they could give you enough money so you can continue producing new work?
Of course if they decide that your old stuff is still better than your new stuff, you might find that you are competing against yourself.
Is that a good or bad thing? Bad for you I guess (and bad for people who create stuff that doesn't need to be updated).
Would be bad for Microsoft - Vista would be dead for instance;).
I currently write software for a living, and I'm fine if people copy and redistribute my work (as long as they don't _LIE_ and claim it's all theirs if it isn't). I'm far from the best, but looking at the really crap code out there, I think I would still be able to get work:).
If your body rejects it stop forcing yourself to eat it. Unless you really really like it (before the "violently ill" stuff), in which case I still recommend you only do it once in a while (to let your body recover).
I find certain dairy products (certain cheeses - not all) give me zits, I think tempeh (which is made of soy) does the same to me too.
While I do like some cheeses and tempeh, there's plenty of other stuff that I like to eat too:).
The Bank is the victim? Maybe so, but it partly the bank's fault for making fraudulent transfers so easy.
The account holder is definitely a victim, since money was taken out from the account when it shouldn't have been. Even if it's temporary, one might have been relying on the money being there for other stuff.
How do you manage a single makefile for a project that has a fair number of people doing their own different modules (doing their own submodules etc)?
Some of the modules don't need makefiles either.
Those modules are to be packaged in their own separate packages (RPM or whatever).
In the end it just seemed easier to let people handle their own makefiles (with certain limits) for their stuff, assuming of course if makefiles are necessary.
The last I checked FreeBSD used to use some perl scripts to help build its stuff.
Is it really that negligible when there's a storm or wind?
I'm thinking 10krpm or 15krpm drives might not like it so much.
Laptop drives appear to be a bit tougher than that (seeing how people seem to keep tilting their laptops about) but they usually spin at lower RPMs and are smaller and I believe made of different material.
1) Personally I think Google's finance team could easily make pots of money in investments and commodities trading given the info in Google's computers, and the resources they have.
Of course if they did that sort of thing openly people might stop using them for search, email, etc.
2) If I were the NSA I would prefer to have something like Google around just so that it's easier to keep an eye on stuff.
The rest of the smart people can spend their whole day getting free massages and food it doesn't really matter, if they actually come up with something great that's icing on the cake:).
"Prediction markets reflect information that is known; they are not perfect crystal balls. They also fall victim to groupthink"
Figure out who really are the smart ones in the group for various questions and then weight accordingly. Add a bit of recursion/meta and voila;).
BTW I heard that at least one person in the world has a neuron specializing in Halle Berry.
Maybe consciousness is what happens when your "simulation" extremely recursively tries to predict itself.
Predicting external objects and creatures was definitely advantageous, so when those other creatures start predicting you and vice versa, creatures start having to predict themselves:).
If quantum computers can actually run very very many simulations at once (in superpositions) then they would make the "what would I like to do next" thing easier.
They are great - really hard, top thermal conductivity, good electrical insulator, fair amount of other interesting characteristics (esp for the semiconductor and optoelectronics industry). I also believe the coefficient of friction of diamond is very low in some scenarios.
So the problem is they are still expensive and hard to make in huge sizes.
In the old days aluminium was very expensive (even more than gold), now they're used for cheap cutlery.
I hope something like that will happen to diamond soon. Then we can use it for stuff like heatsinks (diamond has one of the best the thermal conductivity of all substances) and other stuff which diamond would be great for if not for the cost.
Naturally companies like Apollo Diamond will want to milk things while they can.
I hope some companies in China will start making cheaper and bigger versions, if nobody else does.
Ah yes, but by spending lot of resources on something like an expensive dinner or vacation together (instead of just giving expensive gifts) the male:
i) Can more easily determine whether the woman is a parasite or not[1]. ii) Still demonstrate to the female the previously mentioned 1 and 2.
In fact it is harder for the male to see competing females during a quality time vacation together without the female detecting it, whereas just giving her an expensive ring doesn't mean you won't be banging a "competing female" 15 minutes later. I believe a fair number of guys do the "give expensive trinket" thing to mistresses/concubines/wives.
If she's still not convinced of your suitability after a few rounds of your "displaying", go figure.
[1] Of course if you're only interested in spreading your genetic material around, you don't care if she's just after your money/gifts.
Yeah just like those silly surveys where they ask men and women whether they cheated on their partners, and then somehow conclude that X% of men cheat and Y% of women cheat, and other ridiculous stuff (people in country A are more faithful than B etc).
How truthful or accurate do you think people are when it comes to questions like that? All you can conclude is X% of men are willing to say they cheat on their partners and so on.
Most people can't even give decent answers to questions like "what's wrong?" -> Nothing! or "had a good day at work?" -> grunt, "where'd you like go for dinner?" -> "Anywhere!" (uh huh, except zillions of places).
As for looks. Yes I would be willing to write off a woman as marriage material just on looks.
Looks matter to me. She definitely doesn't have to be spectacular, but there's a lower bound (I'm not sure where exactly it is - probably depends on how many beers, but even so it most certainly is above tubgirl lookalikes;) ).
If most women don't like being given ugly plastic/fake flowers (which last longer than roses), I think it's fine for me to care about looks. FWIW I don't even mind women with fake/plastic eyelashes etc (if they do a good job of "self modding" at least it shows they have taste;) ).
Of course looks aren't the only criteria. And yes I know looks fade, but so do roses and intellect or whatever else people like to champion[1]. Some of us are willing to cherish roses even if they are old and shrivelled and no longer smell so nice... If you pick roses that aren't too thorny they're easier to hold;)
Needless to say I don't have a girlfriend...:p.
[1] Some people's personalities also get worse as they get older.
Here's anecdotal evidence - Uncle Ben dies and stays dead for most universes (in comic books there's always going to be one universe where a major character doesn't die or die permanently).
If you really want to do a proper study you'll have to do stuff like take a decent sized random sample of comic books, then list down the characters, how many issues they appeared in, whether they were male or female (or both or one then the other etc:) ). Then you list down how many times they died, were resurrected, were not actually dead, were alive in some other universe, didn't die etc.
If it bothers you all so much, maybe you should go do it to back up your claim.
Personally I couldn't be bothered - most US style comic books don't seem particularly anti-female, given the target audience appear to be mainly young males.
The US comics industry appear to prefer to invest in a few characters and reuse those characters for many decades. As such it does limit you in which characters you can kill off and keep dead.
Heck if you had a main female character that was targeted at young males, the usual whingers would claim it was misogynistic because she'd likely often be scantily clad:).
Not agreeing or disagreeing with you. It's just lots of people here appear to be regularly quoting Mythbusters as a scientific authority, when I doubt they are.
Mythbusters is a TV show for entertainment. You often can't present a sufficiently rigorous experiment in the time you are given for that slot, especially in an entertaining way.
It's hard to make it entertaining if you have to do the experiment in the say 16 different possible major combinations/scenarios, and also had to present it in 10 minutes or so in a way where your TV series will get another season (or even won't get cancelled midway;) ).
Some of their myth busts are fairly conclusive, but other ones are a bit dubious - doesn't look like they tested enough cases, or explored certain things enough.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know about you, but most users running that on their desktops would be rather upset if they leave that script running long enough to wipe much of their home directory (backup backup backup :) ). On Linux desktops, most files owned by root are usually from the distro and can be reinstalled.
;).
A similar script could have backgrounded and not shown any errors or warnings. In fact a deviously written perl script could do so many things it's not funny (and would work fine on modern Macs and Linux).
I use both Linux (suse,ubuntu) and Windows (XP,2K). And there really isn't that much difference in security technically[1].
Both Linux and Windows have privileges and ACLs etc. Suse/ubuntu Linux have apparmor, Windows XP has that firewall thingy.
In fact a Linux desktop by default runs stuff with the full privileges of the user[2]. Windows XP's firewall stuff somewhat allows you to reduce privileges, but it's not good enough for most users to use correctly.
It is silly that a browser running a malicious script/program would be able to listen in on your microphone by default or read/write your email/documents.
[1] In practice things are different. Malware people target windows because it's more common. I've said before that Mac users were like people living in a house in a small village that's nice and safe. Whereas Windows users are like people living in a ghetto apartment with boarded up windows, steel grilles and padlocks - then they voluntarily let strangers in regularly and get robbed of everything
I guess the Mac village is still relatively safe, but if the market share keeps increasing it's not going to be such a safe small village anymore.
[2] On my linux system I run firefox under a different account because I don't trust the quality of firefox. Similarly I run windows in a virtual machine to browse sites that I believe aren't as secure or require javascript and other crap - while virtual machines can be broken out of, I'm not rich enough to buy another computer just to watch youtube.
Then it does seem a waste to use it on those toy balloons as it's almost a sure thing the helium will be "lost".
:).
Well as it gets scarce the prices will go up. Maybe some people should start hoarding now
As long as you are the only one who can make the stuff and enough people want it, there'll be a way for you to get rewarded for it. You have a monopoly on the creation of new works that are yours. You just don't have a monopoly over copies.
;).
;).
There are plenty of ways to skin a cat, just because most people are too stupid to figure it out doesn't mean that nobody will figure it out.
For instance there could be a online service/feature where people could "brag about"/display how much they support XYZ on one of those Friendster/Facebook sort of sites.
I bet there will be a fair number of "peacocks" willing to show their "fitness" to the "peahens" by investing spare resources in their "plumage"
"OMG u r a $$$ Patron of my fav game producer!"
Go ahead copy that idea if you want. I have plenty more. Think it's a stupid idea? Fine with me too.
Sure.
;).
:).
If people really like your stuff maybe they could give you enough money so you can continue producing new work?
Of course if they decide that your old stuff is still better than your new stuff, you might find that you are competing against yourself.
Is that a good or bad thing? Bad for you I guess (and bad for people who create stuff that doesn't need to be updated).
Would be bad for Microsoft - Vista would be dead for instance
I currently write software for a living, and I'm fine if people copy and redistribute my work (as long as they don't _LIE_ and claim it's all theirs if it isn't). I'm far from the best, but looking at the really crap code out there, I think I would still be able to get work
Yeah China looks at Australia and go Mine, Mine, Mine, all Mine! :).
The US "fair/free trade" bullshit is bullshit anyway, so I guess it's better for Australia.
Don't think it's such a good idea to try to be the US's southernmost "insular area" with no voting rights.
Well then use 100% natural _WHOLE_ snow fleas for extra bite and crunchiness ;).
Yum, more protein goodness...
If your body rejects it stop forcing yourself to eat it. Unless you really really like it (before the "violently ill" stuff), in which case I still recommend you only do it once in a while (to let your body recover).
:).
I find certain dairy products (certain cheeses - not all) give me zits, I think tempeh (which is made of soy) does the same to me too.
While I do like some cheeses and tempeh, there's plenty of other stuff that I like to eat too
If I were her I might try to collect some spare change ;).
That said it might be illegal, considered theft or something.
Oh well...
Uh I'm sure he does know what they are for. He's trolling you all, like Dvorak trolls Mac users etc.
:).
But Clarkson is a lot more entertaining so I don't mind
The Bank is the victim? Maybe so, but it partly the bank's fault for making fraudulent transfers so easy.
The account holder is definitely a victim, since money was taken out from the account when it shouldn't have been. Even if it's temporary, one might have been relying on the money being there for other stuff.
I believe in the USA, UPS picks routes which reduce left hand turns.
Delivery people would rather have the fastest time rather than the shortest distance.
Or at least one that makes them more money in the long run (which is slightly different from "saves them more money" ).
How do you manage a single makefile for a project that has a fair number of people doing their own different modules (doing their own submodules etc)?
Some of the modules don't need makefiles either.
Those modules are to be packaged in their own separate packages (RPM or whatever).
In the end it just seemed easier to let people handle their own makefiles (with certain limits) for their stuff, assuming of course if makefiles are necessary.
The last I checked FreeBSD used to use some perl scripts to help build its stuff.
Actually if the wine guys did release a decent DX10 for WinXP, it would make the other stuff easier for them.
:).
Because it means more people would stick to XP and thus the "goal posts" won't move as often or as much.
If things go that way Microsoft might end up like a BIOS vendor
Is it really that negligible when there's a storm or wind?
I'm thinking 10krpm or 15krpm drives might not like it so much.
Laptop drives appear to be a bit tougher than that (seeing how people seem to keep tilting their laptops about) but they usually spin at lower RPMs and are smaller and I believe made of different material.
Method:
:).
query for somedomainX.com to get NSI to "taste" it.
Then over the next few days attempt to fetch pages for www.somedomainx.com (which I gather will hit NSI's servers - e.g. 205.178.189.133 ).
Do make sure those requests have Host: www.somedomainx.com in their headers.
Try to scatter the requests over various proxies or different source IPs.
Some evil hacker could actually use a botnet to do all that
It _is_ bullshit.
Anyone else can buy the domain name you looked up during those days. They just have to use NSI.
I believe lots of companies get to use an older version instead of Vista even though they have a Vista license.
Microsoft gets to count it as a Vista sale (and brag), and Big Corp gets to use Win2K/XP.
Same goes for MS Office 2007.
1) Personally I think Google's finance team could easily make pots of money in investments and commodities trading given the info in Google's computers, and the resources they have.
:).
Of course if they did that sort of thing openly people might stop using them for search, email, etc.
2) If I were the NSA I would prefer to have something like Google around just so that it's easier to keep an eye on stuff.
The rest of the smart people can spend their whole day getting free massages and food it doesn't really matter, if they actually come up with something great that's icing on the cake
"Prediction markets reflect information that is known; they are not perfect crystal balls. They also fall victim to groupthink"
;).
:).
Figure out who really are the smart ones in the group for various questions and then weight accordingly. Add a bit of recursion/meta and voila
BTW I heard that at least one person in the world has a neuron specializing in Halle Berry.
Maybe consciousness is what happens when your "simulation" extremely recursively tries to predict itself.
Predicting external objects and creatures was definitely advantageous, so when those other creatures start predicting you and vice versa, creatures start having to predict themselves
If quantum computers can actually run very very many simulations at once (in superpositions) then they would make the "what would I like to do next" thing easier.
They are great - really hard, top thermal conductivity, good electrical insulator, fair amount of other interesting characteristics (esp for the semiconductor and optoelectronics industry). I also believe the coefficient of friction of diamond is very low in some scenarios.
So the problem is they are still expensive and hard to make in huge sizes.
In the old days aluminium was very expensive (even more than gold), now they're used for cheap cutlery.
I hope something like that will happen to diamond soon. Then we can use it for stuff like heatsinks (diamond has one of the best the thermal conductivity of all substances) and other stuff which diamond would be great for if not for the cost.
Naturally companies like Apollo Diamond will want to milk things while they can.
I hope some companies in China will start making cheaper and bigger versions, if nobody else does.
As jewellery I think diamond is not that great.
Ah yes, but by spending lot of resources on something like an expensive dinner or vacation together (instead of just giving expensive gifts) the male:
i) Can more easily determine whether the woman is a parasite or not[1].
ii) Still demonstrate to the female the previously mentioned 1 and 2.
In fact it is harder for the male to see competing females during a quality time vacation together without the female detecting it, whereas just giving her an expensive ring doesn't mean you won't be banging a "competing female" 15 minutes later. I believe a fair number of guys do the "give expensive trinket" thing to mistresses/concubines/wives.
If she's still not convinced of your suitability after a few rounds of your "displaying", go figure.
[1] Of course if you're only interested in spreading your genetic material around, you don't care if she's just after your money/gifts.
Yeah just like those silly surveys where they ask men and women whether they cheated on their partners, and then somehow conclude that X% of men cheat and Y% of women cheat, and other ridiculous stuff (people in country A are more faithful than B etc).
;) ).
;) ).
;)
:p.
How truthful or accurate do you think people are when it comes to questions like that? All you can conclude is X% of men are willing to say they cheat on their partners and so on.
Most people can't even give decent answers to questions like "what's wrong?" -> Nothing! or "had a good day at work?" -> grunt, "where'd you like go for dinner?" -> "Anywhere!" (uh huh, except zillions of places).
As for looks. Yes I would be willing to write off a woman as marriage material just on looks.
Looks matter to me. She definitely doesn't have to be spectacular, but there's a lower bound (I'm not sure where exactly it is - probably depends on how many beers, but even so it most certainly is above tubgirl lookalikes
If most women don't like being given ugly plastic/fake flowers (which last longer than roses), I think it's fine for me to care about looks. FWIW I don't even mind women with fake/plastic eyelashes etc (if they do a good job of "self modding" at least it shows they have taste
Of course looks aren't the only criteria. And yes I know looks fade, but so do roses and intellect or whatever else people like to champion[1]. Some of us are willing to cherish roses even if they are old and shrivelled and no longer smell so nice... If you pick roses that aren't too thorny they're easier to hold
Needless to say I don't have a girlfriend...
[1] Some people's personalities also get worse as they get older.
1) The original claim was "female characters tend to be the most convenient targets."
Planesdragon asked for examples to presumably back that claim.
Your reply did not back that claim. There are so many female and male characters after all.
2) If I somehow "busted your balls" with my reply, I apologize.
You like to prove bias using anecdotal evidence?
:) ). Then you list down how many times they died, were resurrected, were not actually dead, were alive in some other universe, didn't die etc.
:).
Here's anecdotal evidence - Uncle Ben dies and stays dead for most universes (in comic books there's always going to be one universe where a major character doesn't die or die permanently).
If you really want to do a proper study you'll have to do stuff like take a decent sized random sample of comic books, then list down the characters, how many issues they appeared in, whether they were male or female (or both or one then the other etc
If it bothers you all so much, maybe you should go do it to back up your claim.
Personally I couldn't be bothered - most US style comic books don't seem particularly anti-female, given the target audience appear to be mainly young males.
The US comics industry appear to prefer to invest in a few characters and reuse those characters for many decades. As such it does limit you in which characters you can kill off and keep dead.
Heck if you had a main female character that was targeted at young males, the usual whingers would claim it was misogynistic because she'd likely often be scantily clad
Not agreeing or disagreeing with you. It's just lots of people here appear to be regularly quoting Mythbusters as a scientific authority, when I doubt they are.
;) ).
Mythbusters is a TV show for entertainment. You often can't present a sufficiently rigorous experiment in the time you are given for that slot, especially in an entertaining way.
It's hard to make it entertaining if you have to do the experiment in the say 16 different possible major combinations/scenarios, and also had to present it in 10 minutes or so in a way where your TV series will get another season (or even won't get cancelled midway
Some of their myth busts are fairly conclusive, but other ones are a bit dubious - doesn't look like they tested enough cases, or explored certain things enough.