A lot of companies avoid this because machines are first used in a test lab, or set up by an installation company and then finally configured/stocked by the bank. This leads to incidents where the bank is calling and wants to know the password, but it has been changed from the default. So companies leave a default in, but tell customers to change it. It saves them some support costs with incompetent customers.
Still, it would be a simple matter for the manufacturer to put in an on-screen warning when the password matches the default. Something like, "WARNING! This ATM has been improperly configured by your bank! Do you really want to trust your money to people who can't be bothered to change the password?" After something like this shows up once or twice on live ATMs, I imagine the new technicians would be pretty good about changing the password.
Or maybe, "WARNING! The default password has not yet been changed. It must be assumed that anyone using this machine is an authorized technician. For convenient reference the password is '12345', and you can dispense all the cash by pressing '1' on the main menu."
Or, better yet, given the cost of these things there's no reason why the manufacturer can't put a test switch behind a locked panel at the rear of the machine. Preferably a momentary (not toggle) switch which must be pressed immediately before entering the front-panel password.
It remains the only effective means of convincing some developers that they are *NOT* designers in the first place.
There have been many a time when I've wanted to bludgeon the designer with that same bat. Like, would it kill them to use a consistent naming convention? Or keep an indexed table in the same order from version to version? Or, the most difficult concept I've ever had to get across -- "I don't care if those two curves look coincident on your monitor. They're on different layers [in Illustrator] and they're slightly different. The gap between them will be visible in the product!"
I won't call the designers lazy or stupid. They're not. But they do have a tendency to be overly creative in areas where discipline is called for. (Just like developers have a tendency to be unimaginative in the realm of graphic design.)
Yup. Process Explorer, Filemon, and Regmon should be in everyone's toolboxes. And it might not be a bad idea to download everything from SysInternals as it was recently acquired by Microsoft and may not exist much longer. From the announcement on their blog:
As for Sysinternals, the site will remain for the time being while Microsoft determines the best way to integrate it into its own community efforts, and the tools will continue to be free to download.
I don't think it's because the barrier to entry is too high, rather the barrier to do something cool is in the stratosphere. Think about it - back in the 80's when you first started playing around with code creating your own version of pong was pretty dam cool. Actually even getting the machine to draw a few boxes on the screen in different colours was cool. True there was a learning curve and it was quite steep if you'd never coded before, but it wasn't that far from bottom to top.
The same is true of electronics. In my college days (mid-80s) it was cool to wire up a circuit to make and LED blink, or a flash bulb fire. If you were really into it you could scrounge a HeNe laser tube and build yourself something really cool. These days, all that stuff is available for cheap. Blinking LEDs are literally given away free with breakfast cereal. Laser pointers are less than $10 and come with a variety of lenses to make images on the wall. The cool stuff is no longer easy, and the easy stuff is no longer cool.
I think it's just a sign of the technology maturing. The technology for its own sake is no longer interesting. Both programming and electronics are just means to an end. Now the cool stuff is making that technology do something. Yeah, there's a higher barrier to entry, but it's not insurmountable. Back then you had to program a game from scratch; now you can take an existing game and mod it. Back then getting a motor to turn was neat; now, you can build robots without worrying about the piddly stuff. I think there's still plenty of room for exploration and creativity, but it won't be the same as when my generation were kids. My kids' generation will take the basics that we laid down and build upon them, making whole new cool things. No, it's not the same as it was. It's better.
When I've been in this situation, everyone got invited to a meeting. But there were two meetings. People invited to one got to stay, people invited to the other got laid off. There were, of course, managers at each door to ensure that everyone was in the right meeting. It was actually a decent way to handle a bad situation.
Could be worse. One place I got laid off the HR person came in and asked to "see you for a few minutes"... By the time you got the bad news and went to clean out your desk IT had cut your accounts and deactivated your entry badge. That's not so bad, but... In one case, IT threw the switch before HR talked to the guy. "Why won't the doors open? Why can't I log in?" IT had to tap-dance around his calls for an hour or two before HR caught up.
Here's a new version of the summary which I think is easier to read...
Who created the Warforged?
This morning my attention was captured by this article on MMORPG. In particular by the fact Turbine said they "built" Eberron and was told that it was recommended by Wizards of the game world, and were included in the MMO was even considered; they've always been part of the clear connections TO the existing world, not as something new. Xen'drik has always INTENTIONALLY been left undeveloped, so each DM can put what he wants there. So that part is correct. The reason the MMO was even considered; they've always been part of the setting. Poor choice of words? Maybe.
Oh good, I'm not the only one who has trouble with this summary. Really, about all I can make out is that someone is PO'd about someone else stealing some other person's idea, and that it all relates to D&D. Next you'll be trying to tell me that Gary Gygax didn't invent the hobbits^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhalflings or something.
The problem with WOW is simple - Blizzard listened to their fanbase. Too much. Casual players don't spend hours a day complaining on the forums. Many hardcore players do. Thus, any feedback that Blizzard recieves is invariably from the hardcore players.
It's not just WoW. Blizzard has had the problem of going after the hardcore gamers at the expense of the casual players since at least StarCraft. WarCraft II had a decent skirmish mode. So did StarCraft. Then, with the Brood War expansion, suddenly the skirmish AI got hugely over-powered. WarCraft III had exactly the same problem. So, while the hardcore gamers may be satisfied, the rest of us have just gotten tired of the computer handing us our asses on a regular basis.
'A month before delivery, you don't have SPRs,' Azmi said. 'You're making things pretty. . . . You're changing colors.'
Wow... I have never, ever seen a software product that wasn't working on QA bug reports right up to the minute the gold disc is burned. And afterwards, of course, working on all the pre-release bugs that had been classified as 'known issues'.
3D is also good for engineering, especially mechanical engineering. In my experience, the MEs usually have the hottest machines in the department. (And the least idea of how to use them, outside of AutoCAD.)
Old Dilbert gag:
"The finance department has analyzed your computing needs and decided to give you a 286 PC. That should be sufficient for the 3D-rendering you need to do. Besides, how many times are you going to do 3D-rendering in your carrer?"
My mom really loved Ladybug on my ColecoVision. She could easily whup me at it. Of course, she had all day to practice while I had this thing called 'school'...
Zackly. My first thought on this was, hm: 410/425 = roughly 96.5% of the representatives voting have no clue how absurd and ill-defined their intention is, or just flat-out don't care that it's not even practically enforceable.
Ding! You hit it on the head. The appearance of doing something is more important than actually doing it.
The big problem is that Congress has only one tool to work with: they can create new legislation. And they have to appear to be doing something about any given problem, so they do the only thing they can, regardless of whether a legislative solution is appropriate.
"Congressman, why did you vote against this bill that protects the children?" It's as loaded a question as, "Have you stopped beating your wife?", and can't be answered in a 10-second sound bite.
Yeah, I liked that too. "[...] the open source OS isn't necessarily a better platform for important applications [...]" Implying, of course, that applications on Linux are necessarily unimportant. Now, if they'd phrased it "some important applications" I could agree with it. Then we'd just be down to quibbling about what applications are important to whom.
Desktop office apps? Windows. Games? Windows. Back-end server apps? Linux, or some other *nix variant. All IMHO, of course.
I think I must be the only person left on this planet who thinks that BSG is massively overrated.
You're not. I agree that it's a good show, certainly one of the best sci-fi offerings of recent years, but I don't buy all the "whole new level" stuff.
And I can't even agree that it's a good show. I've only seen the pilot and one or two episodes since, but I'm hugely turned off by the Cylons-disguised-as-humans thing. I'm just not buyin' it. Maybe there's some deep underlying reason for this that would cause it to suddenly make sense, but I can't think what that would be.
That and the space scenes are filmed in Shakey-Cam(tm). I hate shakey-cam. No, artificial camera-wobble as if filmed with a hand-held camcorder does not make the scene look more realistic. Especially since everything is all just CGI, anyway.
That said, I hated the B5 pilot, too, but turned out to love the series. Go figure.
I don't generally buy board games, but Settlers has sucked a fairly substantial amount of money out of my pocket in the last 9 months.
And therein lies the problem. Settlers lists for $38, and it's hard to find much of a discount off that price. Monopoly lists for $21, but is commonly available for half that. (And even more commonly available for free, 'cause you still have it from when you were a kid.) Settlers is 3-4 players. You need to shell out another $20 for the 5-6 player expansion. Monopoly is good for 2-8 players out of the box.
Don't get me wrong, I love Settlers. I highly recommend it, and think it's well worth the price. But the cost of entry is much higher than most of the games you'll find at your local Wal-Mart equivalent. That scares a lot of casual players away.
Re:Oh, I thought it was a mouse that moved itself
on
Output Mouse
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· Score: 1
I keep trying to write to/dev/mouse, but the damned thing just sits there!
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, we tried that seven years ago, and ended up blowing the moon clear out of its orbit. Now you want the same for Mars?
Still, it would be a simple matter for the manufacturer to put in an on-screen warning when the password matches the default. Something like, "WARNING! This ATM has been improperly configured by your bank! Do you really want to trust your money to people who can't be bothered to change the password?" After something like this shows up once or twice on live ATMs, I imagine the new technicians would be pretty good about changing the password.
Or maybe, "WARNING! The default password has not yet been changed. It must be assumed that anyone using this machine is an authorized technician. For convenient reference the password is '12345', and you can dispense all the cash by pressing '1' on the main menu."
Or, better yet, given the cost of these things there's no reason why the manufacturer can't put a test switch behind a locked panel at the rear of the machine. Preferably a momentary (not toggle) switch which must be pressed immediately before entering the front-panel password.
"Help! I've fallen, and I can't get up!"
Seriously. It may be marketed to the senior citizen set, but this or a similar service is exactly what you're asking for.
There have been many a time when I've wanted to bludgeon the designer with that same bat. Like, would it kill them to use a consistent naming convention? Or keep an indexed table in the same order from version to version? Or, the most difficult concept I've ever had to get across -- "I don't care if those two curves look coincident on your monitor. They're on different layers [in Illustrator] and they're slightly different. The gap between them will be visible in the product!"
I won't call the designers lazy or stupid. They're not. But they do have a tendency to be overly creative in areas where discipline is called for. (Just like developers have a tendency to be unimaginative in the realm of graphic design.)
Yup. Process Explorer, Filemon, and Regmon should be in everyone's toolboxes. And it might not be a bad idea to download everything from SysInternals as it was recently acquired by Microsoft and may not exist much longer. From the announcement on their blog:
The same is true of electronics. In my college days (mid-80s) it was cool to wire up a circuit to make and LED blink, or a flash bulb fire. If you were really into it you could scrounge a HeNe laser tube and build yourself something really cool. These days, all that stuff is available for cheap. Blinking LEDs are literally given away free with breakfast cereal. Laser pointers are less than $10 and come with a variety of lenses to make images on the wall. The cool stuff is no longer easy, and the easy stuff is no longer cool.
I think it's just a sign of the technology maturing. The technology for its own sake is no longer interesting. Both programming and electronics are just means to an end. Now the cool stuff is making that technology do something. Yeah, there's a higher barrier to entry, but it's not insurmountable. Back then you had to program a game from scratch; now you can take an existing game and mod it. Back then getting a motor to turn was neat; now, you can build robots without worrying about the piddly stuff. I think there's still plenty of room for exploration and creativity, but it won't be the same as when my generation were kids. My kids' generation will take the basics that we laid down and build upon them, making whole new cool things. No, it's not the same as it was. It's better.
But will it have that wonderful mimeograph smell?
When I've been in this situation, everyone got invited to a meeting. But there were two meetings. People invited to one got to stay, people invited to the other got laid off. There were, of course, managers at each door to ensure that everyone was in the right meeting. It was actually a decent way to handle a bad situation.
Could be worse. One place I got laid off the HR person came in and asked to "see you for a few minutes"... By the time you got the bad news and went to clean out your desk IT had cut your accounts and deactivated your entry badge. That's not so bad, but... In one case, IT threw the switch before HR talked to the guy. "Why won't the doors open? Why can't I log in?" IT had to tap-dance around his calls for an hour or two before HR caught up.
Here's a new version of the summary which I think is easier to read...
Thank you, Markov.Oh good, I'm not the only one who has trouble with this summary. Really, about all I can make out is that someone is PO'd about someone else stealing some other person's idea, and that it all relates to D&D. Next you'll be trying to tell me that Gary Gygax didn't invent the hobbits^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hhalflings or something.
It's not just WoW. Blizzard has had the problem of going after the hardcore gamers at the expense of the casual players since at least StarCraft. WarCraft II had a decent skirmish mode. So did StarCraft. Then, with the Brood War expansion, suddenly the skirmish AI got hugely over-powered. WarCraft III had exactly the same problem. So, while the hardcore gamers may be satisfied, the rest of us have just gotten tired of the computer handing us our asses on a regular basis.
I like the thought of compressing sheep into bricks, myself.
And I, for one, and getting pretty darned sick and tired of living within line-of-sight to a huge, improperly shielded nuclear reactor!
Wow... I have never, ever seen a software product that wasn't working on QA bug reports right up to the minute the gold disc is burned. And afterwards, of course, working on all the pre-release bugs that had been classified as 'known issues'.
Now that's an understatement! I've seen clearer photos of Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.
3D is also good for engineering, especially mechanical engineering. In my experience, the MEs usually have the hottest machines in the department. (And the least idea of how to use them, outside of AutoCAD.)
Old Dilbert gag:
My mom really loved Ladybug on my ColecoVision. She could easily whup me at it. Of course, she had all day to practice while I had this thing called 'school'...
Ding! You hit it on the head. The appearance of doing something is more important than actually doing it.
The big problem is that Congress has only one tool to work with: they can create new legislation. And they have to appear to be doing something about any given problem, so they do the only thing they can, regardless of whether a legislative solution is appropriate.
"Congressman, why did you vote against this bill that protects the children?" It's as loaded a question as, "Have you stopped beating your wife?", and can't be answered in a 10-second sound bite.
That's why we also have the word "figuratively", which is what the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania really meant.
Oh well, I could care less.
(And yes, I mean that literally, just as I wrote it.)
Yeah, I liked that too. "[...] the open source OS isn't necessarily a better platform for important applications [...]" Implying, of course, that applications on Linux are necessarily unimportant. Now, if they'd phrased it "some important applications" I could agree with it. Then we'd just be down to quibbling about what applications are important to whom.
Desktop office apps? Windows. Games? Windows. Back-end server apps? Linux, or some other *nix variant. All IMHO, of course.
Hey, if music files feel sticky, what about the pr0n files?
"Gaah! What is this thing? It's all sticky and heavy as hell!" "Oh, that's just Roseanne Arnold in a thong singing the Star Spangled Banner..."
And I can't even agree that it's a good show. I've only seen the pilot and one or two episodes since, but I'm hugely turned off by the Cylons-disguised-as-humans thing. I'm just not buyin' it. Maybe there's some deep underlying reason for this that would cause it to suddenly make sense, but I can't think what that would be.
That and the space scenes are filmed in Shakey-Cam(tm). I hate shakey-cam. No, artificial camera-wobble as if filmed with a hand-held camcorder does not make the scene look more realistic. Especially since everything is all just CGI, anyway.
That said, I hated the B5 pilot, too, but turned out to love the series. Go figure.
And therein lies the problem. Settlers lists for $38, and it's hard to find much of a discount off that price. Monopoly lists for $21, but is commonly available for half that. (And even more commonly available for free, 'cause you still have it from when you were a kid.) Settlers is 3-4 players. You need to shell out another $20 for the 5-6 player expansion. Monopoly is good for 2-8 players out of the box.
Don't get me wrong, I love Settlers. I highly recommend it, and think it's well worth the price. But the cost of entry is much higher than most of the games you'll find at your local Wal-Mart equivalent. That scares a lot of casual players away.
I keep trying to write to /dev/mouse, but the damned thing just sits there!
This calls for empirical methods! Fire up the cyclotron, it's time we started smashing black holes into each other!