No, no, no. Read the article, mr. Idiot. If it was about blind execution by app, Microsoft wouldn't be to blame.
The problem is blind execution by messaging system, without apps having a say on that. Send one of useful message to app's message queue, and see it executing useful code you provide.
As another poster said, administrator level programs that interact
directly with the desktop of a non-privledged user are a big no-no.
Maybe so, but there's more Windows messaging system does (by allowing nifty shortcuts) than what typical suid app would. Read the article for god's sake.
Basically, it has similarities with Outlooks "execute anything on sight when user does something". Messaging system allows code to be executed without app having any way to intercept those calls. And those calls come from lower privileged level.
In this particular case it seems perfectly reasonable for the privileged app to expect that GUI components in question just do their UI stuff, instead of providing an instant code execution path. It is once again that Windows really makes thing easier... similar vulnerabilities potentially affect all/most message based GUIs / OSes, but not as easily as with Windows.
And what does that have to do with free games? Very few of now free games ever came from a company, and of those that did many were made free after being commercial for as long as that made sense.
Most free games were, are and will be written by invididuals or groups of individuals.
No. Despotism, not socialism. Mugabe is an ex guerilla leader who won just one election somewhat cleanly when Zimbabve (ex-Rhodesia) got rid of its white minority government. Since then he's been one of more infamous african tyrants.
nothing beats an XP box with Visual Studio 7, Intel C/C++ 6 and Rational PurifyPlus.
Valgrind, alas, does nothing much to help.
Um, Valgrind apparently can more or less replace PurifyPlus, which is not available on Linux. PP was one of 3 dev components you mentioned. Thus, one third of the problem solved (or alleviated).
So how is not doing much to help?!?! You think it's ok to have have 3 (somewhat) separate tools on Windows, but in Linux one tool needs to do it all? What am I missing herE?
5. Install Web-tracking software on their PCs and/or the firewall. They are
obviously losing the time somewhere, and it's probably due to web
browsing.
I agree with some of your points, but I completely disagree with this one. From my POV, people have to be motivated somehow. Usually (or at least usually for me) it's because people have professional pride, somehow they feel what they do is important and/or interesting. Hopefully both.
If they go to Slashdot instead of getting something done, it's not because they can go to Slashdot (or if that really is the problem, they are weak spineless losers who should be fired right away). It's because they prefer that over working. Preventing them access there won't boost motivation or morale. You'll just be plucking small holes in the dam, to no end.
On the other hand, if they do deliver and then browse weird web sites, who cares?
Programmers are not factory workers. They don't avoid doing job they like. But if they don't like their job (whatever the reason is -- from jerk boss to boring assignments to incompetent coworkers), they may well do something else. But this something else is usually "anything else", not just specific things you need to block.
In short, motivation is the key. Motivation, skills and experience -- threats can only gain minor temporary motivation ("I can't afford to lose this shitty job"), and never improve their skills (nor constitute useful experience).
I agree. Many of my co-workers who do claim they know Javascript say they never create new Javascript code, just cut'n paste. What is weird is that it would be fairly easy to actually learn the basics, and that usually programmers are not all that proud about "not knowing how to do XXX but being able to copy stuff others have done". At least not the more ambitious ones. I actully spent just one week reading a JS book and trying out things. Since then I have written couple of tree components (for browsing files on server) and a simple spreadsheet-like web app, mostly for fun. Neither is rocket science once you know the basics.
Plus, knowing basics it's also much easier to write JS code that is portable and doesn't really on features (or defects) of any single browser.
Also, most people don't seem to realize that question between server/client side validation (or functionality) is not all-or-nothing. They are pretty much complementary. Client-side is really good at making web apps much more responsive and interactive. Server-side is a must for secure stuff; anything on client-side can be manipulated at will.
For example, I do think that it's much better do (parts of) simple syntax / completeness validation on client-side. Instead of having to wait for server to output "You didn't fill 'foo'" page, you could get an alert dialog telling you the same, and:
Server-side load would be reduced, not so much because of having to do check but only because of the need to output complete replica of original page with filled-in values. For individual user load is not huge, but for big sites this does add up.
Response time would be decimated (ie. validation is immediate, no round-trip to potentially congested server)
More complicated checks should be done on server-side (not all data may even be available at client), but for (pre-)validation JS makes things much easier.
I agree that popups are really irritating, but as usual I think it's "tools are not bad, users are" thing ("Napster is not bad, pirates are" etc).
The reason I say this is not just general philosophic argument, but the fact that when creating actual web apps (and I don't mean hype-oriented buzzword meaning but 'real' applications done using thin client, ie browser)
ability to open a new small window is really really necessary and useful. These are useful
for displaying on-line help, opening up save/load
windows (custom ones that will allow user to save
data from main form window to/from a file in server side, but first browsing using GUI on popup window), opening up a config window etc. If you can't see the point, try to think if traditional apps were not allowed to open new windows (or tabs for Mozilla; different implementation, same idea).
It should be possible to have features in browser to conditionally enable/disable popup ability on case-by-case basis... but no one wants to be ok'ing "Is it ok to open popup" dialogs.:-) One feature that seems pretty useful is to just disable javascript's ability to open a popup from 'onUnload' event, ie. pages can not bombard you with popups when you leave them.
The problem is for the HB1 workers... it's practically indentured servitude.
Well, when times were better it was only illusion. You could (and many did) _easily_ find a new job, and get your H1B transferred. Many H1B people just didn't know that, and companies certainly were happy to keep it that way.
It's still easy to transfer H1B, but it's very difficult to find the new job... And yes, I actually do know what I'm talking about.
I hate to do "me too" post, but this is amongst best comments so far in this thread. It's smart policy, too. Best programmers (managers, testers, etc) are what has made US software (and most other high tech) companies number one in the world. Not under-paid "good enough" workers. Not "patriotic american" workers. Just _good_ workers.
And yes, there are still unfortunately a few incompetent clowns being employed, even though there are good skilled people unemployed.
But how about the obvious question: "What if it's NOT really them or us"? Everyone's just assuming there are enough skilled experienced citizens to fill in positions H1B workers have. And that those H1B who truly are skilled (and I'd guess most are; stereotypical image of indian slave coders is as accurate as "14 year old geek linux kernel developer") do not actually create new jobs (esp. once they are naturalized, ie. become permanent residents and eventually citizens).
I hate the fact that economic downturn really brings out the worst human emotions, including xenophobia. "They are stealing our jobs" is way too easy a slogan to market. It's been popular in Europe, I'd hate to see that becoming popular in USA.
5 years ago or so? IBM and Sun are arch-enemies; HP is usually considered just as "that printer company", not as worthwhile an opponen (at least if you believe McNealy).
Plus the names awful, DjVu (deja vu) is almost as awkward as Ogg Vorbis. Why must so many open source alternatives have awful names?
And what exactly is cool about acronyms like gif, jpeg or mp3? Nothing except that many people recognize them. They are not popular because of their name, they are popular since they are popular.
And to become popular, they needed to become ubiquitous standards.
I didn't say democracy was needed, I said government was. Capitalism requires
laws and enforcement to protect property and contract and to punish fraud, any
despot would do fine for this.
Well... I'm not convinced it is an absolute requirement, actually. But it doesn't matter, in a way, as in that case government (king, tyrant) would just be a puppet of capital, without much "real" power. Bit like when Soviet Union did have 'elected' leading group even during Stalin's regime, even though real executive and law-making power was used by Uncle Joe; only rubber-stamped by other officials.
I agree in that some entity is needed to enforce the rules set by entities with money, but I don't think a sovereign government (leader) is needed. Perhaps just a large police force or army.
And once again, having one prevents capitalist rule (or at least severely dilutes it). So I guess it just means we disagree in what constitutes a government, not about whether capitalism is a political system or not.
here's a lot more intrinsic value in my writings, and itmeans a lot
more to me emotionally, whereas software is purely intellectual nad hard work.
Oh man, you have apparently never been exposed to big-egoed programmers that think every single line of code they have written is pure gold, product of blood, sweat and tears, coming straight from their heart.:-)
I think that you are slightly mistaken in assuming programmers don't feel attached to what they have created. However, I think your main point is valid (if I understood you correctly),that even though you wouldn't mind free copying, you'd prefer it to be verbatim, unchanged. So that it would still be YOUR piece of art, instead of someone else's derivative work. This can be done with software (via licensing); some people love the idea of derivative work, some not. Many would prefer having a chance to choose who can do what.
Note however that this is not how things work
with (music, literature) copyrights. Anyone can actually freely create their own versions of your writings (songs, paintings); AS LONG AS THEY DO MODIFY IT or pay royalties. Creating parodies is fair use, and doing cover songs is common in music industry (not so with books etc). I would bet that many (music) artists would do pretty much anything to prevent parodies and sometimes bad cover versions... even sacrificing copyright income. But that can not be done.
Isn't it weird that current copyright laws, then, enforce the exact opposite of your (and many others artits') ideals?
An economy without government cannot be Capitalist.
Au contraire. It's difficult to have "pure" capitalist system with a (strong) government. That's why no pure capitalistic socities exists in the world today -- USA has a market economy that's not really even close to one. It is often mistakenly called capitalistic, sure, but it isn't capitalistic in the sense word was coined (by Marx?).
In capitalism, entities with capital (money) have the power. Although corporations (and sometimes rich individuals) do have disproportionally big influence in USA, they do not really have direct political power. Thus, working democracy is pretty much an enemy of (pure) capitalism.
So... capitalism is certainly a political system; the term is related to others like "nepotism" and "corporatism" (leaders choose their relatives to wield power, corporations have the power, respectively). Communism... well, communism is also a political system, whereas socialism need not be (communism being system where communes, aka Sovites had the political power). Soviet union flavour of communism explained "communism" as being an application of socialism.
Short answer is that Level 3 is actually pretty damn solvent, as telcos go,
certainly better off than anyone
Perhaps better than most of its peers (of which many/most are bankrupt...), but hardly anything spectacular compared to companies in other sectors. Have a look at its
financials and see how well it's doing.
Basically they are still bleeding badly; net income from continuing operations is still negative, debt load is high (6 billions), they do have some cash (about 1 billion) but with negative cash flow of almost 200 millions per quarter it's only bit over 1 year they can survive without boost in earnings. They are doing better, and perhaps they can turn the ship in time... hard to say, my crystal ball won't show the answer.
And companies with negative total stockholder equity (like Level 3) are scary, no matter what.
I lean to the republican side on many issues, but for others I am a bit of a black
sheep. What I and many republican's detest is programs
that favor one group over another. Hate crimes laws are one example.
Interestingly, I could say I more often agree with democrats, but that I too dislike
hate crime laws (plus the whole "political correctness" movement... but I don't want to spend too much time ranting about that one), and mostly exactly for
the reasons you point out. "Law is blind" is actually meant to be a good thing (meaning law is impartial, unbiased, objective).
"Thought police" can't even reliably determine motives, and
if it could, I don't think ideological killing can reliably and justifiably be punished on moral grounds.
Besides, in case of hate crimes, it should be fairly easy to prove pre-meditated intention to murder, if the fear is that cold-blooded killers are more likely to commit such crimes (I don't know if that's true... but that's the stereotypic image of a racist hate-killer?)
As to political party lines, I guess part of them is a "necesary evil" (not nearly all). To reach necessary consensus on a single issue (and to guarantee it's voted upon too), it's sometimes necessary to "trade votes".:-/ That's bad, but the alternative sometimes would be that nothing could be decided on, or at least no consistent sets of laws could be enacted. Especially with things like tax laws, bigger "packages" of laws have to pass, and negotiating those with hundreds of politicians (instead of having hierarchic system, where leaders of parties usually negotiate after meeting with party members) would be impractical.
I don't think anyone likes the fact that's how things go... but sometimes it may be lesser of evils?
Small but significant minority that would purchase tons of domain names of
major corporations, betting that...
The rules put into effect against cybersquatting were necessary to save the web
from anarchy and plutocracy
[continuing story, alternative ending] But that was then, few years ago. Since then the idea of profitable cyber-squatting has been proven to be Urban Legend (see earlier Slashdot story about people not renewing squatted dns domains), and the famous Search engine has pretty much proven to nay-sayers that the idea of using DNS-domains for blind searches is not a nature of law. [that is, although your first guess, "www.company.com" may succeed, if not, use Google and you'll find the company]. Plus the idea that fools just flock to "www.american.com", making that domain name valuable is incredibly naive. Ever heard of portals? (which, themselves, are not all that valuable either, but I digress)
Btw, I don't think I'm the only one who's curious if it would be all that bad if we found ourselves back in the web of 1996?
Fair enough. Although I somewhat disagree with some points, the point I was mostly trying to make was that the term "liberal" is unfortunately being used to label certain mix of political views, that is not close to the original meaning of liberal.
I think the simplest explanation is to say that US republicans are liberals in economic issues (plus things like firearms rights), but not in social issues (ie. they tend to support measures for limiting many of rights of expression, censoring porn, preventing equal rights for gays etc. etc.). Democrats on the other hand are more liberal in social issues (with the weird exception of Political Correctness, which is very non-liberal thing), but favour more society control in economic issues.
In a way, libertarians are "most liberal" of them all, yet they are often view as right-wing people. I guess in many ways they are both too liberal and too idealistic for my taste. Weird.
Note though that while this may be the case in US, it's not in Europe. And the reason I think this is relevant is that it just shows that if there was enough consumer pressure, this could/should change in US too.
... don't use vitamin suppliments.
Two studies just
came out that said vitamin E (and, to a lesser extent, vitamin C) reduce the
chances of getting Alzheimers; lesions relating to free radicals are found on
most Alzheimer patients, and thus anti-oxidants are being viewed as a potential
salvation. But only if you get it from natural sources. Pills had no effect.
Although there are differences in chemical compositions of some of the vitamins (between "natural" ones and ones industrially created), and there
are certain optimal conditions under which
minerals/vitamins can be absorbed by ingestion (ie. iron is absorbed much better if there's vitamin C to catalyse the reaction), I think the blanket statement here is utter and complete rubbish. Sorry. I've seen too many comments along the lines of "yeah, but THIS vitamin in this fruit is NATURAL, not one of those fake CHEMICAL imitations", that are only based on superstitious fears, not scientific facts.
If and when studies explain why the differences might occur, they should also be able to help in correct use of "industrial" vitamin supplements.
That is not to say that I think people should prefer pills. I agree in that it makes most sense to try to get enough vitamins and minerals from your normal diet. But there's no need to avoid supplements if/when they are necessary, or to assume "natural" variants are always superior. After all, cloning existing chemical substances should be easier than coming up with new ones?
Slashdot Mirror
The problem is blind execution by messaging system, without apps having a say on that. Send one of useful message to app's message queue, and see it executing useful code you provide.
Maybe so, but there's more Windows messaging system does (by allowing nifty shortcuts) than what typical suid app would. Read the article for god's sake.
Basically, it has similarities with Outlooks "execute anything on sight when user does something". Messaging system allows code to be executed without app having any way to intercept those calls. And those calls come from lower privileged level.
In this particular case it seems perfectly reasonable for the privileged app to expect that GUI components in question just do their UI stuff, instead of providing an instant code execution path. It is once again that Windows really makes thing easier... similar vulnerabilities potentially affect all/most message based GUIs / OSes, but not as easily as with Windows.
Most free games were, are and will be written by invididuals or groups of individuals.
No. Despotism, not socialism. Mugabe is an ex guerilla leader who won just one election somewhat cleanly when Zimbabve (ex-Rhodesia) got rid of its white minority government. Since then he's been one of more infamous african tyrants.
Valgrind, alas, does nothing much to help.
Um, Valgrind apparently can more or less replace PurifyPlus, which is not available on Linux. PP was one of 3 dev components you mentioned. Thus, one third of the problem solved (or alleviated).
So how is not doing much to help?!?! You think it's ok to have have 3 (somewhat) separate tools on Windows, but in Linux one tool needs to do it all? What am I missing herE?
I agree with some of your points, but I completely disagree with this one. From my POV, people have to be motivated somehow. Usually (or at least usually for me) it's because people have professional pride, somehow they feel what they do is important and/or interesting. Hopefully both.
If they go to Slashdot instead of getting something done, it's not because they can go to Slashdot (or if that really is the problem, they are weak spineless losers who should be fired right away). It's because they prefer that over working. Preventing them access there won't boost motivation or morale. You'll just be plucking small holes in the dam, to no end. On the other hand, if they do deliver and then browse weird web sites, who cares?
Programmers are not factory workers. They don't avoid doing job they like. But if they don't like their job (whatever the reason is -- from jerk boss to boring assignments to incompetent coworkers), they may well do something else. But this something else is usually "anything else", not just specific things you need to block.
In short, motivation is the key. Motivation, skills and experience -- threats can only gain minor temporary motivation ("I can't afford to lose this shitty job"), and never improve their skills (nor constitute useful experience).
Also, most people don't seem to realize that question between server/client side validation (or functionality) is not all-or-nothing. They are pretty much complementary. Client-side is really good at making web apps much more responsive and interactive. Server-side is a must for secure stuff; anything on client-side can be manipulated at will.
For example, I do think that it's much better do (parts of) simple syntax / completeness validation on client-side. Instead of having to wait for server to output "You didn't fill 'foo'" page, you could get an alert dialog telling you the same, and:
More complicated checks should be done on server-side (not all data may even be available at client), but for (pre-)validation JS makes things much easier.
The reason I say this is not just general philosophic argument, but the fact that when creating actual web apps (and I don't mean hype-oriented buzzword meaning but 'real' applications done using thin client, ie browser) ability to open a new small window is really really necessary and useful. These are useful for displaying on-line help, opening up save/load windows (custom ones that will allow user to save data from main form window to/from a file in server side, but first browsing using GUI on popup window), opening up a config window etc. If you can't see the point, try to think if traditional apps were not allowed to open new windows (or tabs for Mozilla; different implementation, same idea).
It should be possible to have features in browser to conditionally enable/disable popup ability on case-by-case basis... but no one wants to be ok'ing "Is it ok to open popup" dialogs. :-)
One feature that seems pretty useful is to just disable javascript's ability to open a popup from 'onUnload' event, ie. pages can not bombard you with popups when you leave them.
Well, when times were better it was only illusion. You could (and many did) _easily_ find a new job, and get your H1B transferred. Many H1B people just didn't know that, and companies certainly were happy to keep it that way.
It's still easy to transfer H1B, but it's very difficult to find the new job... And yes, I actually do know what I'm talking about.
And yes, there are still unfortunately a few incompetent clowns being employed, even though there are good skilled people unemployed.
I hate the fact that economic downturn really brings out the worst human emotions, including xenophobia. "They are stealing our jobs" is way too easy a slogan to market. It's been popular in Europe, I'd hate to see that becoming popular in USA.
I must admit that suffixes like "gif" and "zip" are easier than, say, mpeg or jpeg or mp3, being mono-syllablic. In that way "ogg" is not too bad.
Uh, where have you been? There are plenty of stories about that company isn't there?
How about Yahoo ? They are using Edgar online that the other poster mentioned.
5 years ago or so? IBM and Sun are arch-enemies; HP is usually considered just as "that printer company", not as worthwhile an opponen (at least if you believe McNealy).
And what exactly is cool about acronyms like gif, jpeg or mp3? Nothing except that many people recognize them. They are not popular because of their name, they are popular since they are popular. And to become popular, they needed to become ubiquitous standards.
Well... I'm not convinced it is an absolute requirement, actually. But it doesn't matter, in a way, as in that case government (king, tyrant) would just be a puppet of capital, without much "real" power. Bit like when Soviet Union did have 'elected' leading group even during Stalin's regime, even though real executive and law-making power was used by Uncle Joe; only rubber-stamped by other officials.
I agree in that some entity is needed to enforce the rules set by entities with money, but I don't think a sovereign government (leader) is needed. Perhaps just a large police force or army. And once again, having one prevents capitalist rule (or at least severely dilutes it). So I guess it just means we disagree in what constitutes a government, not about whether capitalism is a political system or not.
Oh man, you have apparently never been exposed to big-egoed programmers that think every single line of code they have written is pure gold, product of blood, sweat and tears, coming straight from their heart. :-)
I think that you are slightly mistaken in assuming programmers don't feel attached to what they have created. However, I think your main point is valid (if I understood you correctly),that even though you wouldn't mind free copying, you'd prefer it to be verbatim, unchanged. So that it would still be YOUR piece of art, instead of someone else's derivative work. This can be done with software (via licensing); some people love the idea of derivative work, some not. Many would prefer having a chance to choose who can do what.
Note however that this is not how things work with (music, literature) copyrights. Anyone can actually freely create their own versions of your writings (songs, paintings); AS LONG AS THEY DO MODIFY IT or pay royalties. Creating parodies is fair use, and doing cover songs is common in music industry (not so with books etc). I would bet that many (music) artists would do pretty much anything to prevent parodies and sometimes bad cover versions... even sacrificing copyright income. But that can not be done.
Isn't it weird that current copyright laws, then, enforce the exact opposite of your (and many others artits') ideals?
Au contraire. It's difficult to have "pure" capitalist system with a (strong) government. That's why no pure capitalistic socities exists in the world today -- USA has a market economy that's not really even close to one. It is often mistakenly called capitalistic, sure, but it isn't capitalistic in the sense word was coined (by Marx?).
In capitalism, entities with capital (money) have the power. Although corporations (and sometimes rich individuals) do have disproportionally big influence in USA, they do not really have direct political power. Thus, working democracy is pretty much an enemy of (pure) capitalism.
So... capitalism is certainly a political system; the term is related to others like "nepotism" and "corporatism" (leaders choose their relatives to wield power, corporations have the power, respectively). Communism... well, communism is also a political system, whereas socialism need not be (communism being system where communes, aka Sovites had the political power). Soviet union flavour of communism explained "communism" as being an application of socialism.
I hope you are not loading them into a 5000 pound bloated monster that's death trap for the other families who are driving the same road, instead?
Perhaps better than most of its peers (of which many/most are bankrupt...), but hardly anything spectacular compared to companies in other sectors. Have a look at its financials and see how well it's doing.
Basically they are still bleeding badly; net income from continuing operations is still negative, debt load is high (6 billions), they do have some cash (about 1 billion) but with negative cash flow of almost 200 millions per quarter it's only bit over 1 year they can survive without boost in earnings. They are doing better, and perhaps they can turn the ship in time... hard to say, my crystal ball won't show the answer.
And companies with negative total stockholder equity (like Level 3) are scary, no matter what.
What I and many republican's detest is programs that favor one group over another. Hate crimes laws are one example.
Interestingly, I could say I more often agree with democrats, but that I too dislike hate crime laws (plus the whole "political correctness" movement... but I don't want to spend too much time ranting about that one), and mostly exactly for the reasons you point out. "Law is blind" is actually meant to be a good thing (meaning law is impartial, unbiased, objective). "Thought police" can't even reliably determine motives, and if it could, I don't think ideological killing can reliably and justifiably be punished on moral grounds. Besides, in case of hate crimes, it should be fairly easy to prove pre-meditated intention to murder, if the fear is that cold-blooded killers are more likely to commit such crimes (I don't know if that's true... but that's the stereotypic image of a racist hate-killer?)
As to political party lines, I guess part of them is a "necesary evil" (not nearly all). To reach necessary consensus on a single issue (and to guarantee it's voted upon too), it's sometimes necessary to "trade votes". :-/
That's bad, but the alternative sometimes would be that nothing could be decided on, or at least no consistent sets of laws could be enacted. Especially with things like tax laws, bigger "packages" of laws have to pass, and negotiating those with hundreds of politicians (instead of having hierarchic system, where leaders of parties usually negotiate after meeting with party members) would be impractical.
I don't think anyone likes the fact that's how things go... but sometimes it may be lesser of evils?
The rules put into effect against cybersquatting were necessary to save the web from anarchy and plutocracy
[continuing story, alternative ending]
But that was then, few years ago. Since then the idea of profitable cyber-squatting has been proven to be Urban Legend (see earlier Slashdot story about people not renewing squatted dns domains), and the famous Search engine has pretty much proven to nay-sayers that the idea of using DNS-domains for blind searches is not a nature of law. [that is, although your first guess, "www.company.com" may succeed, if not, use Google and you'll find the company]. Plus the idea that fools just flock to "www.american.com", making that domain name valuable is incredibly naive. Ever heard of portals? (which, themselves, are not all that valuable either, but I digress)
Btw, I don't think I'm the only one who's curious if it would be all that bad if we found ourselves back in the web of 1996?
I think the simplest explanation is to say that US republicans are liberals in economic issues (plus things like firearms rights), but not in social issues (ie. they tend to support measures for limiting many of rights of expression, censoring porn, preventing equal rights for gays etc. etc.). Democrats on the other hand are more liberal in social issues (with the weird exception of Political Correctness, which is very non-liberal thing), but favour more society control in economic issues.
In a way, libertarians are "most liberal" of them all, yet they are often view as right-wing people. I guess in many ways they are both too liberal and too idealistic for my taste. Weird.
Note though that while this may be the case in US, it's not in Europe. And the reason I think this is relevant is that it just shows that if there was enough consumer pressure, this could/should change in US too.
Although there are differences in chemical compositions of some of the vitamins (between "natural" ones and ones industrially created), and there are certain optimal conditions under which minerals/vitamins can be absorbed by ingestion (ie. iron is absorbed much better if there's vitamin C to catalyse the reaction), I think the blanket statement here is utter and complete rubbish. Sorry. I've seen too many comments along the lines of "yeah, but THIS vitamin in this fruit is NATURAL, not one of those fake CHEMICAL imitations", that are only based on superstitious fears, not scientific facts.
If and when studies explain why the differences might occur, they should also be able to help in correct use of "industrial" vitamin supplements.
That is not to say that I think people should prefer pills. I agree in that it makes most sense to try to get enough vitamins and minerals from your normal diet. But there's no need to avoid supplements if/when they are necessary, or to assume "natural" variants are always superior. After all, cloning existing chemical substances should be easier than coming up with new ones?