Clutter their designs with backward compatibility hacks? Ugh. That is the single greatest "design" mistake that Microsoft has ever made. Every backward compatibility hack seems to introduce more exploits for the people who enjoy that kind of stuff.
Well - they may have my IP address from the logs - but neither the prosecution nor the defense wants to drag me into court. The sumbitch sitting behind the bench may very well find me "in contempt" - but I will have my say if dragged in to court.
Before the American Revolution, did England make it illegal to discuss politics? Can't help wondering about that . . .
How do they "enforce" it? My ISP only sees one device connected to their modem. Unless they're doing packet inspection, all they can see is my router. But, I have zero respect for any EULAS or TOS. The stuff I buy is mine, and everyone from Bill Gates on down can kiss my rear. I just don't care what they think is "fair" or "reasonable".
Actually, yes you can. The man took a high office in a nation of laws. It is his responsibility, as an office holder, to understand the laws. Sure, there are cases where the law gets a bit blurry - but creating a new classification of people to sidestep laws is most assuredly wrong.
You might look to the Nuremburg trials for more info.
Sorry, but Arron Barr is a fraud and a con man. Sure, he and his buddies knew a lot of Windows exploits - but that doesn't change the fact that he was a fraud and a con man. All con men have SOMETHING shiny to show the victims, to get the victim's interest piqued. Barr and associates had a few Windows exploits, and a huge bag of empty promises.
Oh wait. You seem to be confusing "hacker" with "crusader" or something. Where is the book that defines "hacker" as "good", "honest", "upright", or whatever adjective you care to insert? Why would hackers necessarily target "evildoers"?
In reality, there are white hat, black hat, and grey hat hackers. Anonymous generally seems to wear a very dark grey hat. They fall short of being evil, in my view, but they are most CERTAINLY not white hats.
Thus, it is perfectly alright for Anonymous to go after an evil organization, or a good organization, or anything in between. But, they aren't obligated to go after anyone or anything that sits anywhere on the scale. How about some kind of a dungeons and dragons analogy? Unlawful chaotic? Why would you expect an unlawful chaotic to go after an evildoer?
You may, or may not, be joking about calling tech support to plug the computer in.
I work maintenance. About three years ago, I got a callout on the weekend. I got to work, to find a minor flood in a rear area of the plant. I looked around, fearing that I might have some real work ahead of me. About ten seconds into my looking around, I spotted an extension cord laying in the water. That extension cord powers a sump pump, which is supposed to keep the area dry. I wrote in the maintenance log, "Call out to plug in an extension cord." Somehow, that log book found it's way to the front office, where the big bosses discussed the call out.
To make a long story short, I've never been called out again for something quite so frivolous or stupid. The techs tend to look for simple solutions now, before calling a maintenance man out on the weekend.
People go shopping for cars all the time. They switch from a Ford to a Hyundai, to a Chrysler, to a Honda to yet something else again. And, every time they switch, they have to relearn where all the important stuff is. The accelerator and the steering wheel are always in the same place, but almost nothing else.
If people can switch between cars, they can switch between applications, and 'gasp' even operating systems.
A lot of this resistance to switching is the result of FUD, put out by microsoft, and microsoft fanboys. "Elmer, I'm telling you, if you switch from MS Office, it's going to cost you! It may take Ellie Mae a month or more to figure out how to open a document - and there's no telling how much business you might lose in the meantime!"
Pure bullshit.
That was exactly my thought. The poor boobs never learned any computer science, and they know nothing about the Windows (or any other) operating system. But, they DID sit through endless classes in high school, learning how to use MS Word, and MS Office. So, anytime they need to do ANYTHING, they sift through the dusty attics of their minds, trying to remember how the teacher said it should be done.
Personally, I don't open attachments. Oh, it's probably safe for me to do so - nothing autoruns on my system, and I don't even run Windows, so I could open.doc or any other files sent to me. But, I don't. I won't. I've never seen anything in an attachment that I really wanted to see, so I stopped opening them. If that means I miss out on the contract of my life, so be it. I'm just not going to open an attachment.
MOST CERTAINLY NOT.
I am unaware of any rival startup that has been squashed, bullied, or suffered a hostile takeover by Google. Nor am I aware of any that have been taken to court over frivolous charges, with little other purpose than to bleed them of money.
You may or may not paint Google as evil. I'm not believing it, but I'll listen. But, when you compare them to Microsoft, you've lost your case, and your audience.
BTW - you may or may not have noticed, but Microsoft's most innovative stuff has always been acquired in one manner or another. Google, on the other hand, innovates day in, and day out. Not only do they innovate, they host sites where innovative people can get together and create yet more innovative stuff.
Compare that to "embrace, extend, extinguish".
Forgive me, but I thought SCO was frivolous long before 2004. Ohhhhh - maybe about 1994?
If I'm going to be halfway serious, I'll have to admit that I didn't even know who or what SCO was until around 2000. Maybe 1998, certainly no earlier. But, with each and every new headline, I just got more and more puzzled about the whole mess. I mean - time and time again, over the years, someone points to some snippet of code in Linux, and hollers "AHH-HA!" And, Torvalds and company look at the snippet, and tell the world, "Oh, we didn't need that anyway, we'll take it out, just to make everyone happy, even though it doesn't really resemble Unix at all."
The whole thing has been a freaking soap opera, in which nothing ever happens, but the same actors get up on stage day after day after day after day, making motions as if they think they matter to someone.
SCO - the soap opera that should have been canceled before it premiered. Days of Our Lives had more action - and you could stop watching it for five years, and pick it right up again!
You spelled Sonny Boner's name wrong. Even as a little kid, I thought he looked like a dickhead. (Well, maybe not real little - I guess he and Cher were active during my late elementary years, and Junior High School.) Sonny Boner, the giant dickhead.
You have a point, albeit, a very small point. *nix boxes were pretty secure on x86, while Windows x86 was insecure. Today, *nix is more secure on AMD64, and Windows is more secure on AMD64 - but still, *nix is far more secure than Windows. As has been mentioned already, it's an attitude. Linux users tend to think of security, while Windows users tend to think in terms of convenience.
Maybe we should take a poll, and find out how many *nix users enable auto logon, and how many Windows users enable it. Auto logon means that if your house is burglarized, and the burglar even thinks to look at your computer, he can ALSO wipe out your online banking. Wipe it out in seconds, without having the vaguest clue about how to break into a computer, or an account. How many ways can we spell braindead?
Wait - not even a browser hijack? Firefox was hijacked to one of those online virus scan sites, the scan ran, found dozens of infections on my C: drive, and prevented me from closing the window, or leaving that page. I couldn't even close Firefox - had to kill process on Firefox to get out of that mess. That was when I decided to install the add-on, noscript. Completely disabling javascript and plugins isn't really an option these days - but you CAN selectively permit sites!
Other than that incident - my history is much like your own. No virus, no trojan, and no antivirus running in the background, stealing half of my CPU power!
Not cynical at all, buddy. If you'll go back, and read the chronology - HBGary Federal was going to be shut down anyway, because they weren't making money or meeting expectations of the parent company. HBG Federal's days were numbered BEFORE this great fiasco. Anonymous may or may not have driven the final nail in the coffin of HBG Federal - but how does that matter? Dead is dead, no matter how many nails are driven into the coffin.
And, it all comes back to one thing, really. Barr was trying to sell something that almost no one needed or wanted. Barr is a con man, with nothing of value to sell.
Wait - who "went after" who, first? Didn't Barr start this whole thing? Or, am I just getting senile, and imagining stuff? As I recall, Barr was intent on exposing some of Anonymous' top people - and Anonymous responded by destroying Barr's shoddy-assed network. Punished? No, Barr hasn't even been punished, merely exposed for the fraud that he is. As a Navy man, I would say that Anonymous has Damage Control down pat.
Oh - the self appointed vigilante - that might be Barr. After all, he's the guy who was perfectly happy to bend, fold, and mutilate the law in order to go after Julian Assange, and any other high profile targets that might have helped inflate Barr's ego.
While I didn't single out mathemeticians as "producers" above - I did give them at least a passing nod. Perhaps you missed the line about designers and engineers? People who do things with abstract ideas, enabling other people to do more concrete things in the physical world. It's a pretty sure thing (although not a certainty) that anyone with an advanced degree is probably not a do-nothing consumer. The world needs thinkers, just as badly as it needs people like myself. What we could do with a lot less, are those people who have never contributed anything to society.
This is one of the reasons I tend toward libertarian thinking. I don't believe that society at large "owes" a living to people who don't contribute. Of course, we've gone pretty far astray from the original statements about consumerism.
I would argue that open or closed source does matter. But, I agree that the interoperability is more important than being open or closed source. Personally, all other things being equal, I'l always opt for open source. In fact, I might sacrifice some feature or other attraction to get the open sourced product. But, I won't sacrifice that all-important interoperability!
I beg to differ with you. There are literally millions of people in this nation who have never produced a thing in their lives. Never mind the predators and parasites, many of whom you will find in prisons. There are literally millions of OTHER people in this nation who have never produced anything, mostly living in our inner city ghettos. Comparatively fewer are scattered around the nation in smaller towns and cities. There are millions who have never raised a blister, or sweated, or even strained their tiny little brains to help create something. Parasites, similar to those parasites found in prison, but less malignant. All they do is consume resources, while wandering aimlessly through life. In general, they don't really victimize other people - but they certainly don't help anyone in any way.
Specialization is fine with me. There are plenty of things that I'm unable to do for myself - like, removing my own tonsils, or appendix, or the cysts I had in my arm a couple decades ago. There are a lot of other jobs that I can do, but can't find the time to do for myself, like cooking, so I use the service industries to feed myself quite often. Yet other jobs, like designing and engineering my electronic devices, I MIGHT be able to do, IF I had the training and the time - but alas, I chose to pursue other careers. So, I purchase those products from other PRODUCERS. Often times, they are the very same people who purchased MY products.
But, consumers? Nope. I have almost zero respect for people who go through life, only consuming resources. And, I have never accepted that label from Corporate America. If they want consumers, they can go look in the cheap government housing found around this nation.
The term "produce" does not mean "technically innovative", or whatever you seem to have concluded. I have produced much in my lifetime, from homes, to prison cells, to sawmills, to warehouses, to hospitals, and more. I've produced smaller things as well - chain saw parts, automotive parts, toy parts, in a factory. I've produced some Eagle boy scouts, a soldier, and a new generation of taxpayers. I've contributed and helped to produce our national security, with 8 years of service in the military. I've assisted in the production of almost everything from picnic supplies to pharmaceuticals, to weapons, to wine and beer, while I drove truck.
No, I'm not a software developer, nor am I a researcher, or even a computer hardware manufacturer. The most that I've ever contributed to the computer sciences, is to beta test software, and provide feedback. But, I am, and always have been, a PRODUCER of one thing or another.
Again, I state that consumption is a disease. And, people who are happy to be described as "consumers" have that disease.
I have produced much, much, MUCH more in my life, than I could possibly "consume" in the rest of my lifetime.
Well, it's about time. That whole "consumer" thing is just so much sick shit. I happen to be a citizen, a taxpayer, a voter, and a PRODUCER. Consumption is a goddamned DISEASE! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis
All those technical terms are confusing to slashdotters./end sarcasm But, seriously - let's just reduce all of that to two words: online gaming. I'm most certanly not a serious gamer - and the wife even less so. But, we both complain about LAG!! I seriously doubt that our ISP uses any form of optimization for VOIP or anything else. Whatever their QoS, it's probably the most basic and most outdated jury rigged trash in use at the time the servers were manufactured, and still running at default settings. All of which discourages me from experimenting with this stuff. I mean - big deal if I optimize MY stuff - I still have to rely on the ISP's ancient junk.
Slashdot Mirror
Clutter their designs with backward compatibility hacks? Ugh. That is the single greatest "design" mistake that Microsoft has ever made. Every backward compatibility hack seems to introduce more exploits for the people who enjoy that kind of stuff.
Uhhh, dude. This is Facebook. Shouldn't it be, "And get off my WALL!!!" (I'm not sorry, I coulda resisted, but I didn't.)
Cool. Second router connected to the first. I might have thought of that, but it certainly didn't cross my mind immediately. Way to go, man!
Well - they may have my IP address from the logs - but neither the prosecution nor the defense wants to drag me into court. The sumbitch sitting behind the bench may very well find me "in contempt" - but I will have my say if dragged in to court. Before the American Revolution, did England make it illegal to discuss politics? Can't help wondering about that . . .
How do they "enforce" it? My ISP only sees one device connected to their modem. Unless they're doing packet inspection, all they can see is my router. But, I have zero respect for any EULAS or TOS. The stuff I buy is mine, and everyone from Bill Gates on down can kiss my rear. I just don't care what they think is "fair" or "reasonable".
Actually, yes you can. The man took a high office in a nation of laws. It is his responsibility, as an office holder, to understand the laws. Sure, there are cases where the law gets a bit blurry - but creating a new classification of people to sidestep laws is most assuredly wrong. You might look to the Nuremburg trials for more info.
Sorry, but Arron Barr is a fraud and a con man. Sure, he and his buddies knew a lot of Windows exploits - but that doesn't change the fact that he was a fraud and a con man. All con men have SOMETHING shiny to show the victims, to get the victim's interest piqued. Barr and associates had a few Windows exploits, and a huge bag of empty promises.
Oh wait. You seem to be confusing "hacker" with "crusader" or something. Where is the book that defines "hacker" as "good", "honest", "upright", or whatever adjective you care to insert? Why would hackers necessarily target "evildoers"? In reality, there are white hat, black hat, and grey hat hackers. Anonymous generally seems to wear a very dark grey hat. They fall short of being evil, in my view, but they are most CERTAINLY not white hats. Thus, it is perfectly alright for Anonymous to go after an evil organization, or a good organization, or anything in between. But, they aren't obligated to go after anyone or anything that sits anywhere on the scale. How about some kind of a dungeons and dragons analogy? Unlawful chaotic? Why would you expect an unlawful chaotic to go after an evildoer?
You may, or may not, be joking about calling tech support to plug the computer in. I work maintenance. About three years ago, I got a callout on the weekend. I got to work, to find a minor flood in a rear area of the plant. I looked around, fearing that I might have some real work ahead of me. About ten seconds into my looking around, I spotted an extension cord laying in the water. That extension cord powers a sump pump, which is supposed to keep the area dry. I wrote in the maintenance log, "Call out to plug in an extension cord." Somehow, that log book found it's way to the front office, where the big bosses discussed the call out. To make a long story short, I've never been called out again for something quite so frivolous or stupid. The techs tend to look for simple solutions now, before calling a maintenance man out on the weekend.
People go shopping for cars all the time. They switch from a Ford to a Hyundai, to a Chrysler, to a Honda to yet something else again. And, every time they switch, they have to relearn where all the important stuff is. The accelerator and the steering wheel are always in the same place, but almost nothing else. If people can switch between cars, they can switch between applications, and 'gasp' even operating systems. A lot of this resistance to switching is the result of FUD, put out by microsoft, and microsoft fanboys. "Elmer, I'm telling you, if you switch from MS Office, it's going to cost you! It may take Ellie Mae a month or more to figure out how to open a document - and there's no telling how much business you might lose in the meantime!" Pure bullshit.
That was exactly my thought. The poor boobs never learned any computer science, and they know nothing about the Windows (or any other) operating system. But, they DID sit through endless classes in high school, learning how to use MS Word, and MS Office. So, anytime they need to do ANYTHING, they sift through the dusty attics of their minds, trying to remember how the teacher said it should be done. Personally, I don't open attachments. Oh, it's probably safe for me to do so - nothing autoruns on my system, and I don't even run Windows, so I could open .doc or any other files sent to me. But, I don't. I won't. I've never seen anything in an attachment that I really wanted to see, so I stopped opening them. If that means I miss out on the contract of my life, so be it. I'm just not going to open an attachment.
MOST CERTAINLY NOT. I am unaware of any rival startup that has been squashed, bullied, or suffered a hostile takeover by Google. Nor am I aware of any that have been taken to court over frivolous charges, with little other purpose than to bleed them of money. You may or may not paint Google as evil. I'm not believing it, but I'll listen. But, when you compare them to Microsoft, you've lost your case, and your audience. BTW - you may or may not have noticed, but Microsoft's most innovative stuff has always been acquired in one manner or another. Google, on the other hand, innovates day in, and day out. Not only do they innovate, they host sites where innovative people can get together and create yet more innovative stuff. Compare that to "embrace, extend, extinguish".
Forgive me, but I thought SCO was frivolous long before 2004. Ohhhhh - maybe about 1994? If I'm going to be halfway serious, I'll have to admit that I didn't even know who or what SCO was until around 2000. Maybe 1998, certainly no earlier. But, with each and every new headline, I just got more and more puzzled about the whole mess. I mean - time and time again, over the years, someone points to some snippet of code in Linux, and hollers "AHH-HA!" And, Torvalds and company look at the snippet, and tell the world, "Oh, we didn't need that anyway, we'll take it out, just to make everyone happy, even though it doesn't really resemble Unix at all." The whole thing has been a freaking soap opera, in which nothing ever happens, but the same actors get up on stage day after day after day after day, making motions as if they think they matter to someone. SCO - the soap opera that should have been canceled before it premiered. Days of Our Lives had more action - and you could stop watching it for five years, and pick it right up again!
You spelled Sonny Boner's name wrong. Even as a little kid, I thought he looked like a dickhead. (Well, maybe not real little - I guess he and Cher were active during my late elementary years, and Junior High School.) Sonny Boner, the giant dickhead.
Funny stuff - and about as accurate as any other account I've read!
You have a point, albeit, a very small point. *nix boxes were pretty secure on x86, while Windows x86 was insecure. Today, *nix is more secure on AMD64, and Windows is more secure on AMD64 - but still, *nix is far more secure than Windows. As has been mentioned already, it's an attitude. Linux users tend to think of security, while Windows users tend to think in terms of convenience. Maybe we should take a poll, and find out how many *nix users enable auto logon, and how many Windows users enable it. Auto logon means that if your house is burglarized, and the burglar even thinks to look at your computer, he can ALSO wipe out your online banking. Wipe it out in seconds, without having the vaguest clue about how to break into a computer, or an account. How many ways can we spell braindead?
Wait - not even a browser hijack? Firefox was hijacked to one of those online virus scan sites, the scan ran, found dozens of infections on my C: drive, and prevented me from closing the window, or leaving that page. I couldn't even close Firefox - had to kill process on Firefox to get out of that mess. That was when I decided to install the add-on, noscript. Completely disabling javascript and plugins isn't really an option these days - but you CAN selectively permit sites! Other than that incident - my history is much like your own. No virus, no trojan, and no antivirus running in the background, stealing half of my CPU power!
Not cynical at all, buddy. If you'll go back, and read the chronology - HBGary Federal was going to be shut down anyway, because they weren't making money or meeting expectations of the parent company. HBG Federal's days were numbered BEFORE this great fiasco. Anonymous may or may not have driven the final nail in the coffin of HBG Federal - but how does that matter? Dead is dead, no matter how many nails are driven into the coffin. And, it all comes back to one thing, really. Barr was trying to sell something that almost no one needed or wanted. Barr is a con man, with nothing of value to sell.
Wait - who "went after" who, first? Didn't Barr start this whole thing? Or, am I just getting senile, and imagining stuff? As I recall, Barr was intent on exposing some of Anonymous' top people - and Anonymous responded by destroying Barr's shoddy-assed network. Punished? No, Barr hasn't even been punished, merely exposed for the fraud that he is. As a Navy man, I would say that Anonymous has Damage Control down pat. Oh - the self appointed vigilante - that might be Barr. After all, he's the guy who was perfectly happy to bend, fold, and mutilate the law in order to go after Julian Assange, and any other high profile targets that might have helped inflate Barr's ego.
While I didn't single out mathemeticians as "producers" above - I did give them at least a passing nod. Perhaps you missed the line about designers and engineers? People who do things with abstract ideas, enabling other people to do more concrete things in the physical world. It's a pretty sure thing (although not a certainty) that anyone with an advanced degree is probably not a do-nothing consumer. The world needs thinkers, just as badly as it needs people like myself. What we could do with a lot less, are those people who have never contributed anything to society. This is one of the reasons I tend toward libertarian thinking. I don't believe that society at large "owes" a living to people who don't contribute. Of course, we've gone pretty far astray from the original statements about consumerism.
I would argue that open or closed source does matter. But, I agree that the interoperability is more important than being open or closed source. Personally, all other things being equal, I'l always opt for open source. In fact, I might sacrifice some feature or other attraction to get the open sourced product. But, I won't sacrifice that all-important interoperability!
I beg to differ with you. There are literally millions of people in this nation who have never produced a thing in their lives. Never mind the predators and parasites, many of whom you will find in prisons. There are literally millions of OTHER people in this nation who have never produced anything, mostly living in our inner city ghettos. Comparatively fewer are scattered around the nation in smaller towns and cities. There are millions who have never raised a blister, or sweated, or even strained their tiny little brains to help create something. Parasites, similar to those parasites found in prison, but less malignant. All they do is consume resources, while wandering aimlessly through life. In general, they don't really victimize other people - but they certainly don't help anyone in any way. Specialization is fine with me. There are plenty of things that I'm unable to do for myself - like, removing my own tonsils, or appendix, or the cysts I had in my arm a couple decades ago. There are a lot of other jobs that I can do, but can't find the time to do for myself, like cooking, so I use the service industries to feed myself quite often. Yet other jobs, like designing and engineering my electronic devices, I MIGHT be able to do, IF I had the training and the time - but alas, I chose to pursue other careers. So, I purchase those products from other PRODUCERS. Often times, they are the very same people who purchased MY products. But, consumers? Nope. I have almost zero respect for people who go through life, only consuming resources. And, I have never accepted that label from Corporate America. If they want consumers, they can go look in the cheap government housing found around this nation.
The term "produce" does not mean "technically innovative", or whatever you seem to have concluded. I have produced much in my lifetime, from homes, to prison cells, to sawmills, to warehouses, to hospitals, and more. I've produced smaller things as well - chain saw parts, automotive parts, toy parts, in a factory. I've produced some Eagle boy scouts, a soldier, and a new generation of taxpayers. I've contributed and helped to produce our national security, with 8 years of service in the military. I've assisted in the production of almost everything from picnic supplies to pharmaceuticals, to weapons, to wine and beer, while I drove truck. No, I'm not a software developer, nor am I a researcher, or even a computer hardware manufacturer. The most that I've ever contributed to the computer sciences, is to beta test software, and provide feedback. But, I am, and always have been, a PRODUCER of one thing or another. Again, I state that consumption is a disease. And, people who are happy to be described as "consumers" have that disease. I have produced much, much, MUCH more in my life, than I could possibly "consume" in the rest of my lifetime.
Well, it's about time. That whole "consumer" thing is just so much sick shit. I happen to be a citizen, a taxpayer, a voter, and a PRODUCER. Consumption is a goddamned DISEASE! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuberculosis
All those technical terms are confusing to slashdotters. /end sarcasm But, seriously - let's just reduce all of that to two words: online gaming. I'm most certanly not a serious gamer - and the wife even less so. But, we both complain about LAG!! I seriously doubt that our ISP uses any form of optimization for VOIP or anything else. Whatever their QoS, it's probably the most basic and most outdated jury rigged trash in use at the time the servers were manufactured, and still running at default settings. All of which discourages me from experimenting with this stuff. I mean - big deal if I optimize MY stuff - I still have to rely on the ISP's ancient junk.