It was circular, in a sense. Look at the following:
[T]his easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web.
The claim in bold is only a true claim if you already wanted the UI of your system to look like Windows 7, but it is given as a justification of the implication (made by the non-bolded statement) that you’d want your Ubuntu desktop to look like Windows 7.
Maybe the circular reasoning would be clearer if it was written like this:
This easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. Now – “Why would anyone want to make a Ubuntu desktop look like Windows 7?”, you might ask. Well, Ubuntu is particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web, and if you did decide to install Ubuntu you’d obviously want it to look like Windows 7.
Usually they’ll not raise the question; it’ll raise itself on its own because their assumed answer is so obviously wrong. Hence, begging the question.
Look at TFA again:
Although it won’t help Linux run Windows-specific software applications, this easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7.
It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web.
The first part raises the question (implicitly) of “why?” and the second part pretends to answer that question but in fact it really just tries to get me to assume the answer that the author already wanted (that I do want to make it look like Windows 7).
The only case that the second part really makes is that installing Ubuntu on older equipment could be a good way to revitalize it. That making it look like Windows 7 is a good thing is once again assumed, and once again I’m left wondering: Why?
You've got to admit, it's pretty frustrating when there are two meanings for a phrase and the meanings are contradictory.
They’re not contradictory. It is possible to simultaneously raise an obvious question and assume an answer that doesn’t follow from your facts. Rare, perhaps, but possible. TFA actually managed it pretty well.
One of my pet peeves is the number of people who appear to believe that “ ‘begs the question’ is always incorrect” and “everything not proven is hereby false because of Occam’s razor”.
Actually, Wikipedia gave an example of improper use of begging the question:
More recently, “to beg the question” has been used by some to mean the same as “to raise the question”: for example, “This year’s budget deficit is half a trillion dollars. This begs the question- how are we ever going to balance the budget?” Using the term in this way has been deemed to be incorrect by usage commentators.
Proper use of begging the question:
Begging or assuming the point at issue consists (to take the expression in its widest sense) [of] failing to demonstrate the required proposition.
The article appears to be written from the assumption that I want to make Ubuntu look like Windows 7.
Now, the obvious question is, why would I want to do that? TFA tries to answer that: I would want to, because, (according to TFA)
It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from from the web.
That doesn’t explain why I’d want it to look like Windows 7, though – it explains why I would want to use Ubuntu, and (once again) assumes that I want it to look like Windows 7.
Thus, it begs the question: Even supposing I wanted to use Ubuntu, why would I want it to look like Windows 7?
One of our projects was to write a program that completely erased all of the memory locations on the machine, including the ones that contained the program.
It was a trick question – the correct answer would have been a program that somehow turned the machine off. Perhaps connecting a relay and opening it... alternately, short out the power and blow a fuse somewhere...;)
Although, I find that often people use the Location bar and Search bar as if they were interchangeable (typically only ever using one of them).
Most typical would probably be:
a) Using the Location bar as if it were the Location / Search bar. b) Using the Search bar as if it were the Location / Search bar. c) Using the search field in the actual Google webpage (typically their Home page) instead of the Location / Search bar.
I think the closest people come these days to actually using a CLI is typing in something on the Windows "Run" dialog.
Most people don’t even use that. When the Run dialog opens, it contains the last thing that was executed from it, and on a non-technical user’s computer this always seems to be the last thing I executed from it however long ago it was that I used their computer last.
If you ask me, the closest thing people come these days to a CLI is the Location bar in Internet Explorer... maybe even the search bar in Google.
But how do you write mozfoo.dll to their disk? And if you could, why didn't you just overwrite the original DLL?
You don’t. You give them access to a network folder or removable device that contains a file they want (the bait) and the evil mozfoo.dll (hidden/system if you wish to prevent its casual discovery) that will get executed if they try to open the bait file.
* Of course, <iframe src="file://maliciousSmbServer/share/bad.pdf"></iframe> very well might... but the browser shouldn’t let it do that. (Just tested in Firefox. Security error.)
In other words, they want programmers to use LoadLibrary("C:\program Files\my software\somedll.dll") instead of LoadLibrary("somedll.dll"). This is very counter-intuitive, as if you were app developer, you would want all of your DLLs be distributed with binary, and reside in same directory. Take a look in your program files directory, and almost every app does it that way...
Um, that’s why they have the %programfiles% environment variable, and it’s why you install applications there, and it’s why the current directory when you launch a file (%userprofile%\Default\Documents\) should never be where you’re getting executable content (such as a.dll file).
When you launch a file via its shell extension, the “current” directory and the directory where the executable is located which opens that file type are not the same... and you shouldn’t be looking in the current directory for your.dll files. Period.
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Those are fine answers, but TFA overlooked the question and didn’t give any of them.
Basically, yes. “Begging” means “avoiding”. The question is usually obvious enough that you should have raised it, but didn’t.
It was circular, in a sense. Look at the following:
[T]his easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web.
The claim in bold is only a true claim if you already wanted the UI of your system to look like Windows 7, but it is given as a justification of the implication (made by the non-bolded statement) that you’d want your Ubuntu desktop to look like Windows 7.
Maybe the circular reasoning would be clearer if it was written like this:
This easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7. Now – “Why would anyone want to make a Ubuntu desktop look like Windows 7?”, you might ask. Well, Ubuntu is particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web, and if you did decide to install Ubuntu you’d obviously want it to look like Windows 7.
it is not proven that potential users of Ubuntu ever want for a UI that looks like Windows 7
That was exactly what my question asked. If I was a potential user of Ubuntu, why would I ever want it to look like Windows 7?
There are plenty of decent answers to the question, but TFA didn’t give any. It just assumed that I would.
Usually they’ll not raise the question; it’ll raise itself on its own because their assumed answer is so obviously wrong. Hence, begging the question.
Look at TFA again:
Although it won’t help Linux run Windows-specific software applications, this easy hack produces an Ubuntu desktop that looks and feels a lot like Windows 7.
It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from Pandora, YouTube, and elsewhere on the web.
The first part raises the question (implicitly) of “why?” and the second part pretends to answer that question but in fact it really just tries to get me to assume the answer that the author already wanted (that I do want to make it look like Windows 7).
The only case that the second part really makes is that installing Ubuntu on older equipment could be a good way to revitalize it. That making it look like Windows 7 is a good thing is once again assumed, and once again I’m left wondering: Why?
It sounds simply moronic to use "I could care less" at the times that people do
You don’t say!
You've got to admit, it's pretty frustrating when there are two meanings for a phrase and the meanings are contradictory.
They’re not contradictory. It is possible to simultaneously raise an obvious question and assume an answer that doesn’t follow from your facts. Rare, perhaps, but possible. TFA actually managed it pretty well.
One of my pet peeves is the number of people who appear to believe that “ ‘begs the question’ is always incorrect” and “everything not proven is hereby false because of Occam’s razor”.
Actually, Wikipedia gave an example of improper use of begging the question:
Proper use of begging the question:
The article appears to be written from the assumption that I want to make Ubuntu look like Windows 7.
Now, the obvious question is, why would I want to do that? TFA tries to answer that: I would want to, because, (according to TFA)
It’s particularly suitable for reviving older PCs or laptops on which the main activities will be web-browsing, email, document writing, and streaming music and videos from from the web.
That doesn’t explain why I’d want it to look like Windows 7, though – it explains why I would want to use Ubuntu, and (once again) assumes that I want it to look like Windows 7.
Thus, it begs the question: Even supposing I wanted to use Ubuntu, why would I want it to look like Windows 7?
How do you do a rotate (instead of a shift) in C, especially standard C?
How do you know for sure that you're toggling the most significant non-sign bit of a signed integer?
If you know the size of the data element, it’s trivial, and if you don’t know the size of the data element why would you even be doing that?
But where are the hookers and blackjack?
One of our projects was to write a program that completely erased all of the memory locations on the machine, including the ones that contained the program.
It was a trick question – the correct answer would have been a program that somehow turned the machine off. Perhaps connecting a relay and opening it... alternately, short out the power and blow a fuse somewhere... ;)
Not the Search bar... the Location bar.
Although, I find that often people use the Location bar and Search bar as if they were interchangeable (typically only ever using one of them).
Most typical would probably be:
a) Using the Location bar as if it were the Location / Search bar.
b) Using the Search bar as if it were the Location / Search bar.
c) Using the search field in the actual Google webpage (typically their Home page) instead of the Location / Search bar.
I think the closest people come these days to actually using a CLI is typing in something on the Windows "Run" dialog.
Most people don’t even use that. When the Run dialog opens, it contains the last thing that was executed from it, and on a non-technical user’s computer this always seems to be the last thing I executed from it however long ago it was that I used their computer last.
If you ask me, the closest thing people come these days to a CLI is the Location bar in Internet Explorer... maybe even the search bar in Google.
Which, of course, is bullshit.
Not all ideas can be expressed in words, anyway. Music is a language to itself.
The expression of an idea is just an idea expressed. An expression is worthless if it contains no ideas.
They’re both ideas. They’re just protected differently. Because they had different lobbyists.
And that patent law and copyright law are very, very different beasts for just this reason, right?
Patent law and copyright law are very, very different because artists and inventors had different lobbyists.
But how do you write mozfoo.dll to their disk? And if you could, why didn't you just overwrite the original DLL?
You don’t. You give them access to a network folder or removable device that contains a file they want (the bait) and the evil mozfoo.dll (hidden/system if you wish to prevent its casual discovery) that will get executed if they try to open the bait file.
* Of course, <iframe src="file://maliciousSmbServer/share/bad.pdf"></iframe> very well might... but the browser shouldn’t let it do that. (Just tested in Firefox. Security error.)
That doesn’t use the OS shell extension handler.
Microsoft is said to be "aggressively pursuing" whoever grabbed the files without their permission.
Yes, that does them a lot of good...
In other words, they want programmers to use LoadLibrary("C:\program Files\my software\somedll.dll") instead of LoadLibrary("somedll.dll"). This is very counter-intuitive, as if you were app developer, you would want all of your DLLs be distributed with binary, and reside in same directory. Take a look in your program files directory, and almost every app does it that way...
Um, that’s why they have the %programfiles% environment variable, and it’s why you install applications there, and it’s why the current directory when you launch a file (%userprofile%\Default\Documents\) should never be where you’re getting executable content (such as a .dll file).
When you launch a file via its shell extension, the “current” directory and the directory where the executable is located which opens that file type are not the same... and you shouldn’t be looking in the current directory for your .dll files. Period.
Actually, they can – they just can’t tell anyone about it.
A simple fix would be for a programmer to keep data separate from executable code.
FTFY.