I'm sure someone will attempt to enlighten me now, though.:) That's my:Cue...
Early barcodes were viewed with great suspicion. People did not understand that they were just printing in computer-only font. Add the "mysteries of lasers" to people whose only experiences with computers to date had been a punch-card phone bill that they heard charged their neighbor $9999.99 for long distance, and movies such as Colossus or James Bond where lasers were used only to cut good guys in half and yeah, people were paranoid.
And somehow, we'd like to think more of ourselves at this point, that we're more technologically enlightened.
Truth is, more of us are more enlightened. We have seen large databases, and we have seen them misused. We have seen technology used to provide us with new and better advertising (via browser cookies, credit card purchases, etc.); terrorist tracking in airports where the wrong bits in a database cause a code at the bottom of your ticket to mean "body cavity search"; streetlight mounted cameras issuing red-light tickets; U.S. Government announcements regarding systems such as TIA, etc, etc, etc. We have all seen the abuses, and have no reason to think the situation will get better instead of worse.
The reason RFID is viewed differently from barcodes is twofold.
RFID is permanent, and
RFID can be read without your permission.
Barcodes are typically printed on tags ripped off at the point of sale, or printed on the packaging that is thrown away when the consumer gets home. A barcode in your pocket means nothing. It stays your business because nobody and nothing can see it unless you choose to show it to them. But current RFID proposals use durable tags manufactured into the goods and meant to stay permanently in the merchandise. And they can be read from eight feet away via a hidden antenna in the ceiling (or in the ubiquitous security antennas flanking every nearly every store entrance these days.)
So, got RFID in your jacket, your jeans, your wallet, your credit cards? Let's just have a look as you pass through our fancy store entrance. "$400 shoes, $59.99 khaki Dockers, $89.99 shirt, $19.99 naughty underwear; and three Gold and two Platinum cards with a total current open credit line of $69,252. Send two scantily-clad female salespeople immediately, and change the video posters to 'Dominatrix Theme #3'." [All you geeks wish, anyway.]
Contrast that image with "Mismatched tennis shoes, $7.99 Wal*Mart jeans that we tracked through a Goodwill store last December, and an army surplus greatcoat. No credit cards and one Illinois food stamp card detected. Food stamp card cross referenced to CrimNet: holder Joe Smith is African-American, has two counts of drunken brawls in taverns, and marijuana charges dropped since successful completion of rehab. Lives in Cabrini Green. Change the video posters to flashing red 'Security Alert Theme #1', start the tracking cameras following this guy immediately, and send two burly security officers to encourage him to complete his shopping experience at Wal*Mart."
Now, take the same guy and dress him up in nice clothes, but leave the food stamp card in his wallet. Same guy, different look. He's still going to get escorted out of the store for the dual crimes of being poor and shopping while black. And now that process can be automated.
Has the second guy committed a crime? Some people might say, "not yet, but he sure fits the profile." Others would say that he won't because with a tracking system like this, he would never get the chance to steal. But the honest answer is still, "no, he has done nothing wrong." And now does he get the same opportunity as Mr. Khakis above? Not any more.
If you have a local Boy Scout troop or perhaps a veterans association such as an American Legion or VFW nearby, they would probably accept the flag for a proper disposal. My son's troop gets a couple of flags from local businesses every year, including a local Perkins' restaurant (yes those 40' flags wear out.) They cut them up, keeping the blue canton whole, and pass out pieces around a campfire and silently drop them in it. The scoutmaster reads a paragraph about the history of the flag, asks us to remember the people who have died defending it, then places the canton on top of the flames. (The huge canton from the Perkins' flag almost extinguished the fire one year.)
It's a dignified end. The boys all take it very seriously. If you want to dispose of it yourself, a campfire works well. Respect is the key.
A Molotov cocktail on national TV is not considered an appropriate end; many otherwise rational people will react most unfavorably towards you if you try. Personally I consider it free speech to burn a flag in protest; but I also am free to consider that sort of speech to be hateful and I will hold someone who does it in contempt.
Yeah, I was narrowly focusing on the anti-spam aspects of challenge/response. Specifically, scripts signing up for Hotmail and Yahoo!Mail accounts used to cause huge spam problems, and challenge/response was successfully used to limit it.
Perhaps challenge/response is approaching the problem the wrong way: maybe site owners should be detecting scripts after the fact via volume/address checking, or some other statistical analysis. Personally, I doubt it matters much to anyone if it's a human or a script signing up on a web site. I do think it matters greatly when the same script signs up the same IP address 10, 100, or 1000 times in a row, or if a script signs up and immediately floods a message board with advertising, trolls, etc. It's the problem behavior that needs to be recognized and addressed rather than the usage of a script or robot.
Statistical analysis would require that new signups be placed on some sort of probation or restricted or limited usage until enough time had passed so that the analysis would have time to detect the difference between use and abuse. Humans (and a well-behaved subset of robots) would continue to enjoy the site, but the automated troublemakers would be limited as to the amount of damage they could cause. A lot of sites used to do this, and I think many still do.
Good point. Many sites could not afford a telephone confirmation system. However, the bulk of the problem this is meant to cure is automated email signups by spammers, which is a very limited subset of web sites. Most sites offering free email accounts are large enough to also afford a telephone based human-confirmation system. This could even potentially create a niche market for someone wanting to offer a human-confirmation business service to smaller web providers.
I personally would rather see spam eliminated via other means. For example, many people have offered more spam-proof SMTP-type solutions that would solve the specific problem of spam, regardless of its point of origin. That type of solution would be preferrable to hardening all possible email entry points everywhere on the web.
But I think there are other script-based problems (not necessarily SPAM) that will continue to require human detectors for the forseeable future. Recently security researchers published the idea of Googling for meatspace mail-request forms, and using the postal services to innundate victims via physical mail with thousands of unwanted catalogs, brochures, etc. These companies might also benefit from human detectors in cost avoidance, especially if such attacks become more popular.
Anyway, please offer your own alternatives, if you have any. It's a field filled with potential, and every idea deserves at least a moment of thought, if nothing else.
One of Slashdot's own trolls posted a script-fu for the GIMP to scrub Slashdot's humanconf images (used in their new account signup process) into images ready to feed into GOCR. He even says he has wrapped it up in a perl script to automate the process.
And if an ordinary troll can do it for the simple thrill of trolling, imagine what a dedicated spammer whose income depends on stuff like this would do. I think it's a real issue.
My solution to the Yahoos and Hotmails and whoever else is using a CAPTCHA would be to use an automated voice response telephone system instead. Systems like that can easily issue the codes required to continue with the signup process, but have the spam deterrent of identification via ANI built in. (Automatic Number Identification is somewhat similar to Caller ID but is used for billing purposes.) Granted, I am assuming that most people who have Internet access also have telephone access of some sort. But if you were a spammer, you probably wouldn't be willing to give up your phone number for more than a handful of signups, therefore making a system like this not worth scripting.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
The parent poster was not just saying "I write DSP or graphics drivers." He was complaining along the lines of "programmers these days don't know squat; back in my day we coded with hand punched holes on tape, and that these fancy hand-holding one-mouse-button-GUI-development-environments keep people from being Real Programmers."
My point to the parent poster was that not everyone bearing the title of "programmer" needs to do those tasks any more. He was taking a very divisive stance, saying "Real Programmers must meet my definition (which is the ability to hand-optimize code) and the rest of them are all pansies and pretenders." I was trying to point out that this artificial division is really limiting his vision of what can be accomplished by the people without those skills.
Sure, we used to have to write our own vector libraries to perform 3d graphics on line printers. But today only the video card device driver distributors need to write those libraries. I can simply buy them, and build graphical systems on top of them. The parent poster implies that the people who can't write this code, those who merely use these libraries to build real working systems aren't worth spit. I think that sum of all of the systems at every level, be they application, services, drivers, whatever, are more valuable than the components, and that all the people who produce them are valuable, not just the elite few who are capable of writing the graphics driver code in assembler. For example, his paycheck was probably printed by some COBOL program, probably written by someone who couldn't write an efficient graphics driver to save their life. Does that make the paycheck more or less valuable? Let's see if he rejects it unless it was generated by a program written by a Real Programmer.
If each of us still had to write our own graphics libraries, our own printer drivers, our own multithreading schemes, our own OS loaders, our own disk controller access routines, our own serial port drivers, our own keyboard drivers, our own assemblers and high level languages, we'd each be looking at a box with fewer capabilities than the original IBM PC. And none of them would talk to each other. No software would interoperate, because everyone rolled their own. There would be no Quake, no video games at all, no word processors, no Slashdot, no CNN.com. But, boy, would we High Priests of Programming be important. "Bow before our elite skills, unwashed masses. We are Real Programmers, and you are not." What is the point of that? Where is the value in drawing that line?
Good point. But when you say "precious little", isn't that enough for us as a country? We don't need to send invading armies to Mars, or to colonize the moons of Jupiter yet. Since we all walked on the moon vicariously through Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, et al, doesn't that show that sending just a few people here and there will suffice?
I'm not trying to say that NASA shouldn't be the only game in town, but I am saying that if we're going to be compelled to pay to send explorers in our stead then we shouldn't just send up everyone with a space-itch. A few is all I'm personally willing to fund.
So commercial enterprises take over spaceflight? Then here's what I see: Dozens of Titans lifting satellites into orbit.
That's it.
Manned space flight isn't going anywhere commercially, and probably won't in my lifetime. Demand is too low, costs are too high. A small handful of tourists will bring a few dollars in, but I doubt the providers will get enough to pay the bills. And so they'll fold.
Hell, Russia's already selling tickets for $20 million a pop, but I don't think the takers have exactly beaten a path to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Like it or not, I think we need NASA for the same reason we need to send humans into space: the desire for exploration. NASA allows all Americans to feel like they're participating in the dream by footing the bill. We can look at the shuttle, or Mars lander, or footage of Neil Armstrong and say "Hey, I helped put them there!"
But when the Taco Bell/PepsiCo/Wal*mart shuttle (officially sponsored by Kodak) heads up there to have two lucky sweepstakes winners drop a million coupons for free medium soft drinks out the porthole, I'm not going to take pride in the accomplishment even if I was buying my Pepsi at Taco Bell. It doesn't seem the same.
My employer not only deletes EXE, DLL, OCX, BAT, VBS, PIF, etc., but also deletes them from within any ZIP attachments.
While it sounds draconian, it's not even much of a problem. If someone needs to send executables, we already know in advance, and so we rename the ZIP to a ZAP or somesuch and it goes through just fine. For the bigger stuff, we just dump it on an FTP server somewhere and exchange it that way (bigger than a few hundred K doesn't belong in email anyway.)
When I first heard about it I thought it would be much more of a problem. It wasn't. It's actually quite nice, because I don't even see most of the crap worms, etc. I just wish they'd block more of the stuff from within DOC files, such as blocking any Office documents that have scripts or macros in them. (I've ony had one resume show up that had a macro virus, but it was old and my antivirus software patched it.)
I run Spybot S & D, from http://security.kolla.de. It does a pretty good job of cleaning up these infections. It got rid of Xupiter, which was my first personal infection by spyware (or any virus for that matter.) I then asked my kid to stop running Morpheus and switch to Gnucleus. (I've since asked him not to participate in any file sharing at all because of all the legal crap flying about.)
Of the bad ones, Lop (which you have) is far and away the most difficult to get rid of. It has many separate components, a Browser Helper Object, an executable launched at startup via an entry that's in your registry's HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run key, (and possibly in RunOnce and/or RunServices, plus in the same path under each user as well), and others. I think it may even replace your WSOCK32.DLL but I don't remember if Lop is that one. If it is, it certainly would explain why your DNS went haywire. The deal with Lop is that all these components watch over each other. If you delete or disable one component, the others silently patch the hole next chance they get.
To answer your question, I've never heard of it affecting a firewall/router. (I kind of assume you're running a Linksys, but regardless of the make & model make sure you don't still have the default password on it.) If Lop patched your winsock layer, the Windows box would be completely unable to tell you the truth about DHCP or DNS.
It's not quite as bad as kudzu, but it's definitely not something you want.
Anyway, I've found Spybot S&D to be a most excellent tool with frequent and current updates. It's the first thing I run every time I visit friends or family and they want me to look at their computers. It's also free, (but donations are welcome.) I switched from the paid version of AdAware+ after they failed to release V 6.0 on time. I do wish that the anti-virus vendors would block some of this crap.
Other things I run to defend my Microsoft equipment from this stuff?
I run BHOCop occasionally, which lets me manage "Browser Helper Objects". The only BHO I allow is Acrobat.
I use StartupMonitor which watches all the startup registry keys, the "Startup" folders, the system services, and the Autoexec and Config files for changes and it pops up a confirmation message box before allowing any changes that would allow a new program to run on startup. If something wants to run at startup, I think I should know about it. It used to be freeware, but I think the magazine that sponsored it now wants $20.00 for it. I suppose I'll just have to get off my butt and write one (it's about a dozen Win32 API calls.) And while I'm at it, I think I'll have it watching for BHOs at the same time, and try to kill two birds with one stone. I don't like how it doesn't play nice with multiple users under XP anyway.
I run Mozilla as my primary browser. None of the spyware fiends seem to have targetted it. And it doesn't run stupid objects. But, I still have IE as the default browser because on Windows, there are some things that just have to have IE.
I run the Proxomitron as an ad-filtering proxy, so I added certain anti-spyware checks into it.
My son likes running Zone Alarm to keep an eye on what's leaving his box, but I found it kind of annoying so I removed it from mine. It doesn't really prevent much, per se, but it does let you know you're infected.
I tried creating directories for the default paths of Xupiter, Kontiki and others, and used CACLS to have NTFS remove all access. That was kind of a mistake, because even I couldn't get rid of them after that.
Finally, I had entries in my hosts file for the sites of the known worst offenders (lop, xupiter, bonzi buddy, gator, kontiki) so that even if something slipped thru, I wouldn't be accidentally talking to them. But I ended up with over 1600 lines in my hosts file, though, and name resolution started taking way too
Here's the paragraph you quote (which is why we're having this discussion): "The USB 2.0 specification requires hubs to support high-speed mode. USB 2.0 devices are not required to support high-speed mode. A high-speed capable upstream facing transceiver must not support low-speed signaling mode. A USB 2.0 downstream facing transceiver must support high-speed, full-speed, and low-speed
modes." [emphasis mine.]
So. Hubs must support high-speed, and downstream-facing transceivers (which I understand to mean "host" interfaces) must support high-, full-, and low-speeds, and yet USB 2.0 devices (not hubs and not hosts) do not have to support high-speed. But I'm certainly not sure what differentiates a USB 2.0 full-speed device from a USB 1.1 full-speed device. If a device is claimed to be USB 2.0 full-speed, what precisely would make it different from a USB 1.1 full-speed device?
I still find it most interesting that this is in direct contradiction with their earlier documentation. This whitepaper on their site consistently refers to USB 2.0 devices (functions, not just hubs and hosts) as high speed.
That promise went everywhere. The understanding was universal. The USB-IF themselves told us that forthcoming USB 2.0 == high speed. But that one line in the spec breaks the promise. It's not consistent.
I understand backward compatibility. And I think your argument is that they are trying to keep only one spec current, USB 2.0, and that by permitting low- and full- speed devices to be made under that same spec they're allowing legacy equipment to continue to be made and sold. But to allow full-speed equipment to be marketed under the "USB 2.0" spec when that industry told us long ago that "USB 2.0 means 480 Mb/s" is deceptive. That's the problem.
As a matter of fact, I have read the specs. I'm rereading the specs right now, to make sure I'm not the one uttering falsehoods. I've also gone over the USB site. I understand backward compatibility. USB 2.0 is backward compatbile with USB 1.1. USB 1.1 is not USB 2.0 compliant, but USB 2.0 is USB 1.1 compatible. Two different words, compliant and compatible. They have two different meanings. Only one of them applies here, and it's not "compliant".
If you had bothered to read the specs yourself before posting, you would have seen this line in section 3.1, "Goals for the Universal Serial Bus": Full backward compatibility of USB 2.0 for devices built to previous versions of the specification. You might also have noticed that nowhere in the specs do they say that USB 1.1 is USB 2.0 compliant.
Think of it this way: future USB 3.0 specs could claim that all USB 3.0 devices must also support RS-232. But would that make RS-232 USB 3.0 compliant? No. It would simply mean that USB 3.0 is RS-232 compatible.
Please add intelligence to the discussion. Don't just spew ignorance and insults and expect it to be accepted as fact.
Are you sure you were connecting the Hi-Speed USB disk via a Hi-Speed USB 2.0 hub? If you were using an old USB 1.1 hub, your data transfer rates would have been automagically slowed down to work with the older equipment.
Also, if you are running Windows XP, you need Service Pack 1 or you're only running Full-Speed USB regardless of what hardware you own. USB 2.0 is not supported in the out-of-the-box XP installation.
The article may be lame, misleading, yellow and even libellious but your statements are not factually correct, either. In case you missed what one of your other working groups was up to, the USB-IF is indeed responsible for preparing the logos and marketing statements for use on the manufacturers' packaging and advertising. And with those statements and phrases, the USB-IF itself is fostering and encouraging misleading and confusing terminology, marketing, and package labelling.
But first, to address your comments, any device that is only 1.1 compliant is most certainly not 2.0 compliant. Just because the 1.1 spec is incorporated into the 2.0 spec does not mean it meets 2.0 specifications. You're confusing the subset with the superset. The best you can hope to say is that 2.0 devices are "downward compatible" with 1.1 devices. Nothing more. 1.1 devices remain 1.1 only, regardless of who bends over backwards to play with them.
But that's not really the issue, either. The issue is that some of the USB-IF's own documents claim that USB 2.0 means a 480 Mb/s transfer rate, while other USB-IF documents claim that people are confused by the mistaken impression that USB 2.0 means a 480 Mb/s transfer rate, and that they should use "Hi-Speed" instead. Their own documents are inconsistent. The confusion is certainly real, though, and its origins lie solely within the USB-IF.
Finally, the specific wording suggested to print on packages to market low- and full-speed devices mentions speed exactly one time: in the phrase "Works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables." Neither low- nor full-speed is ever mentioned for inclusion on the packaging. The USB-IF even specifically discourages manufacturers from labelling their full speed devices as "Full Speed USB". This leaves 'misleading' behind and heads straight for 'deception.'
Don't get me wrong -- I love USB. I think it's the coolest thing since RS-232. And I feel no need to tithe for Firewire chips. But the USB-IF's recommended marketing practices are shady at best, their own recommendations seem specifically designed to cause confusion amongst consumers, (and even among their own members, it seems,) and it would not surprise me to see the USB-IF targeted by the FTC over this matter. What I'm saying is don't get too attached to that spiffy two-tone Hi-Speed USB logo, because it'll probably be changing Real Soon Now.
You'd have been much better off with an unambiguous technical definition of the speed in the naming, such as USB-1.5, USB-12 and USB-480. At least then consumers could make a purchasing decision without having to read both the USB 1.1 and the USB 2.0 specs in detail.
To your point, "I really don't see what the big deal is if people realize that USB 2.0 != high speed (480 MBit/sec)," it's the entire point of the argument. People DON'T realize that because it's simply not true. The phrase USB 2.0 has already come to mean high speed through usage; usage both defined and fostered by the very same usb.org. Doubt me? Here's what the usb.org has on the first page of "A Technical Introduction to USB 2.0" describing USB 2.0 [formatting from the original, emphasis mine ]:
"USB 2.0 Executive Summary
A core team from Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and
Philips is leading the development of the USB Specification, version 2.0, that will
increase data throughput by a factor of 40. This backwards-compatible
extension of the USB 1.1 specification uses the same cables, connectors and
software interfaces so the user will see no change in the usage model. They will,
however, benefit from an additional range of higher performance peripherals,
such as video-conferencing cameras, next-generation scanners and printers, and
fast storage devices, with the same ease-of-use features as todayâ(TM)s USB
peripherals.
Impact to User
From a userâ(TM)s perspective, USB 2.0 is just like USB, but with much higher
bandwidth. It will look the same and behave the same, but with a larger choice of
more interesting, higher performance devices available. Also, all of the USB
peripherals the user has already purchased will work in a USB 2.0-capable
system."
"Inconsistent use of terminology in combination with the existing general misconception that USB 2.0 is synonymous with Hi-Speed USB... creates confusion in the marketplace."
So you can now see why we've our little tempest in the proverbial teapot. Even the USB organization themselves used the specific words "USB 2.0" to precisely mean the exact same thing they now call "Hi-Speed USB" -- 480MB/s USB. And then they tell us that we, the marketplace, suffer confusion from a misconception. If they aren't fostering that confusion, who else is?
My biggest complaint is that their packaging page permits manufacturers to label their "Low-Speed USB" or "Full-Speed USB" products with these statements:
1. Compatible with the USB 2.0 Specification
2. Works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables.
The emphasis is mine, just to point out that they used the word "compatible" and not "compliant". A subtle distinction probably lost on the average buyer, since we're quibbling about it here on/. Also note that the only speed mentioned in these statements is "Hi-Speed". This is the marketing they encourage vendors to put on their "Low-" and "Full-" speed USB devices, but nowhere on the package is it required to state "Low-Speed" or "Full-Speed".
This is the stuff of "truth in advertising" lawsuits. IANAL, because if I were I wouldn't be ranting on/., I'd be cranking up a lawsuit.
And just to keep going, if your other statement were true, "A USB 1.1 compliant device can meet the specification even if it only supports low speed operation (1.5 MBit/sec)," then I should be able to claim my 300 baud acoustically-coupled modem made in 1978 is "V_fast" compliant just because the V_fast spec says a V_fast modem must accept connections from 300 baud modems. Receiving an honorable mention in the spec does not mean it meets the spec.
Their claim is that USB 2.0 is a spec that supports three speeds. "Hi-Speed" is just one of the three that goes at 480 MB. Any USB 2.0 device will play on a USB 1.1 or USB 1.0 wire, but only at the slower supported speeds.
However, a full-speed (not hi-speed) device shouldn't be allowed to be labeled "USB 2.0 compliant" since it cannot use the whole USB 2.0 spec. That claim would be equivalent to saying a 300 baud modem is V_fast compliant just because a V_fast modem has to be able to slow down to talk to it.
Because of the inability of marketroids to be able to grasp these facts, USB is trying to get away from the 2.0 vs 1.1 naming game altogether. Packaging is supposed to say only "USB" or "Hi-Speed USB", and not label it with a version number.
Of course, then I find this crap on the USB packaging page referring to "Low or Full-speed Product Packaging Recommendations:"
Avoid using terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0 which can be confusing for consumers whose expectation is that a USB 2.0 product is by definition high-speed.
Side or Back of Packaging Key Messages (Detailed Information)
1. Compatible with the USB 2.0 Specification
2. Works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables.
So manufacturers can claim a full-speed device is USB 2.0 "compatible." That's really, really shady. The correct answer is that USB 2.0 devices can claim compatibility with USB 1.1, not the other way around.
Yep, that's pretty dishonest labeling. And from a computer industry group! I'm amazed!
And this is even better: follow the link to the Hi-Speed FAQ where they answer questions like this:
1: What maximum speed was finally chosen for the USB 2.0 spec?
A: The USB 2.0 specification has a design data rate of 480 mega bits per second.
Of course, if if this gives you a general misconception, you should head to the USB packaging page where you will be enlightened by this paragraph:
Inconsistent use of terminology in combination with the existing general misconception that USB 2.0 is synonymous with Hi-Speed USB and/or failure to display the Certified USB logo on qualified products creates confusion in the marketplace. The correct nomenclature for high-speed USB products is "Hi-Speed USB." The correct nomenclature for low or full-speed USB products is simply "USB." This should be taken into consideration for product naming.
So, now they are saying we have a misconception that USB 2.0 is Hi-Speed. But it's our misconception, not theirs.
Of course, Gareth Powell, the original author of the story, might have gotten his facts wrong or confused, and has simply started a flamefest with ignorance. USB 2.0 is merely a specification that encompasses ALL THREE SPEEDS. However, if a device is USB 2.0 compliant, it, too, had better support ALL THREE SPEEDS (and not just by dumbing down to the lowest speed supported.) But nowhere in his article does he say that a full-speed only connection is now being referred to as USB 2.0. He just says Toshiba is selling USB 1.1 laptops as USB 2.0 laptops, but does not say if they do or do not support Hi-Speed USB.
Umm... this isn't an exclusively Asian problem. It's a whole who's who of the computer industry. Just because the majority of factories are located in Asia does not mean that the driving forces aren't sitting in Redmond, WA, or Santa Clara, CA.
I also don't think that all these industries actually send reps to every single meeting. Would you cast a vote for committing fraud in the name of your company?
Head to USB.org and you'll find the memebers listed in a drop-down box. I can't post it here because the lameness filter is, well, lame.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
Getting completely off topic here, but I'd like to mention that your knowledge of Active Directory will be useless sooner than you think. Microsoft's business plan is to change technology out from underneath the industry every few years. It keeps them selling software (if they didn't put out new stuff, people would stop sending them money.)
So Active Directory will continue to be important for a few more years until they come out with a new variant.
Personally, one of the things I'm doing is fighting with the problems resulting from having Active Directory. Have you seen what goes on over the network? My God, it's like having a cage full of monkeys flinging poop at each other! It's just a bunch of pointless "are you still there" kind of crap, to the tune of almost overloading two T1 channels back to our central site when something goes wrong. My problem is people are blaming my app for being unresponsive, but the problem is really the network flood. Microsoft's great answer: you shouldn't have structured the network the way we told you the first time around. Either that or buy more bandwidth.
So I hope Active Directory sees a quick and painful death, but I doubt it will.
Re: avoiding Ifs with state machines
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 1
Thank you for the elegant explanation.
I should have weakend my original comment to more accurately reflect the instructor's statement that if statements "may" indicate design weakness, and that you should examine each one to make sure it's appropriate.
So far, my provider, ATT Wireless, has been the ONLY source of SMS spam. The worst part was that I called immediately after the first one and demanded they NEVER send me any again. A month later, I was startled high up on a ladder (my SMS ring was quite piercing) which really got my goat. I called and yelled at the customer service drone. I haven't gotten any since, but I have a nagging feeling that they might send another.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Actually, ask a CS graduate to write you a vector addition in assembler and optimise it by hand to intersperse register ops and memory accesses so that the prefetch is always full (something absolutely normal once upon a time in the graphics programming for 2,3,4x86). Watch the show. Repeat until it is no longer funny.+
Yes, yes, I can see you're very experienced in pushing bits through hardware. Fine. But can you sit down in a room with a bunch of whining user representatives with conflicting and incomplete requirements, a project sponsor with a too-tiny budget, a director who doesn't know the meaning of the word "no", a legacy code base written in the 1980s but bought three years ago because of the glossy brochure, while forty thousand client machines are grinding to a halt because some fool messed with the permissions setting on a database? All this and you want me to stop and babysit an entry-level CS grad while he HAND OPTIMIZES a graphics pipeline because our C++ compiler isn't generating good enough code for me?
Why? For God's sake, man, what makes you think I have the time or inclination to shave 20 cycles out of my already mostly idle processor? Why would I take a perfectly good programmer and have him sweat away a weeks' worth of work for something nobody in my industry even knows how to measure?
I don't want my CS-graduate developers hand optimizing anything. We're in business doing other bean-counting things. Saving 20 cycles is pretty irrelevant to our clients; especially when they have 266 million of them available every second. I know it's damn relevant to many groups including game developers, but for what I work on we are much better off saving billions of cycles by optimizing our flow to reduce time spent waiting for slow, stupid users.
High level languages, and analysis and development processes exist for a reason: less experienced developers get more and better work done. Don't get me completely wrong: I grew up learning both assemblers and HLLs on some pretty obscure CDC and UNIVAC mainframes in the 1970s. I've gone the hand optimizing route. I've gone the hand developing route. I've even still got a roll of red wire-wrap wire in my desk somewhere. I appreciate knowing what I know, and deep inside I agree with you in looking down on those who don't know yet, and probably never will. I still have to go to those CS grad's desks and show them what goes on in the code their compilers emit.
But I've also learned to leave turning code into useful instructions to the compiler vendor. That's their job. My job is to turn our users' activities into useful data. Count the beans, don't drop them. So I don't need the guy who knows all the grungy details of the inner workings of the CPU and compiler. As a matter of fact he'd be damned bored in our shop. I really need him someplace more useful, like working for the compiler vendor. What I need are people who can meet with the users and the analysts and still get code out that serves our business well. If a one-effing-mouse-button development environment makes that happen faster, I only see good come from it.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
According to Jochen Krebs, the instructor at the OOAD class I just attended, by using the state pattern you should be able to completely avoid both if() and select() statements.
He claims that a coworker has implemented an entire real-world system for a client that actually had zero if() statements in the code. He did say that the guy had to put in some small extra effort in a few spots to get rid of some if()s, but overall polymorphism has replaced decision making in their code.
It was the first class I've taken from Valtech. I found it to be very useful. Our instructor certainly knew his stuff.
Re:Do younger minds absorb quicker?
on
Ageism in IT?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Do you remember the ancient debate of "structured programming" vs. "procedural programming?" Consider that today we're using UML to express OO designs. I was just in a class last week where not only are GOTOs considered harmful, but IF statements are now a sign of weak design! These represent fundamental shifts from what I knew then to what I know now.
I'm not saying we don't employ an army of COBOL programmers to maintain our old stuff. We do, and many people still have those jobs. But COBOL programs themselves are being phased out as new technologies move in, and many of those COBOL programmers are now learning Java so they can maintain employment. The army is shrinking. I think COBOL programmers are now little more than niche programmers.
As a matter of fact a buddy I had lunch with today (a COBOL programmer turned Websphere developer) was complaining that he was one of only about five people in the company who still knew CLIST (a scripting language for TSO that was popular in the 80's.) I'll tell you right now that skill has no value: if no one was left to fix that CLIST, we'd just be writing a modern replacement. It's not worth learning or porting. Old software will die, and I think that as replacements become easier to develop the end will hasten accordingly.
So, we can sit here and complain that "kids these days don't even have to know hex in order to program," or we can recognize that the world is changing and keep up. I'm worth having around today because I've kept up, not because I've spent 30 years sharpening my mad assembler skillz. You can argue that underneath it all it's still just ones and zeros, but as an industry we've moved way past that.
Slashdot Mirror
Early barcodes were viewed with great suspicion. People did not understand that they were just printing in computer-only font. Add the "mysteries of lasers" to people whose only experiences with computers to date had been a punch-card phone bill that they heard charged their neighbor $9999.99 for long distance, and movies such as Colossus or James Bond where lasers were used only to cut good guys in half and yeah, people were paranoid.
And somehow, we'd like to think more of ourselves at this point, that we're more technologically enlightened.
Truth is, more of us are more enlightened. We have seen large databases, and we have seen them misused. We have seen technology used to provide us with new and better advertising (via browser cookies, credit card purchases, etc.); terrorist tracking in airports where the wrong bits in a database cause a code at the bottom of your ticket to mean "body cavity search"; streetlight mounted cameras issuing red-light tickets; U.S. Government announcements regarding systems such as TIA, etc, etc, etc. We have all seen the abuses, and have no reason to think the situation will get better instead of worse.
The reason RFID is viewed differently from barcodes is twofold.
- RFID is permanent, and
- RFID can be read without your permission.
Barcodes are typically printed on tags ripped off at the point of sale, or printed on the packaging that is thrown away when the consumer gets home. A barcode in your pocket means nothing. It stays your business because nobody and nothing can see it unless you choose to show it to them. But current RFID proposals use durable tags manufactured into the goods and meant to stay permanently in the merchandise. And they can be read from eight feet away via a hidden antenna in the ceiling (or in the ubiquitous security antennas flanking every nearly every store entrance these days.)So, got RFID in your jacket, your jeans, your wallet, your credit cards? Let's just have a look as you pass through our fancy store entrance. "$400 shoes, $59.99 khaki Dockers, $89.99 shirt, $19.99 naughty underwear; and three Gold and two Platinum cards with a total current open credit line of $69,252. Send two scantily-clad female salespeople immediately, and change the video posters to 'Dominatrix Theme #3'." [All you geeks wish, anyway.]
Contrast that image with "Mismatched tennis shoes, $7.99 Wal*Mart jeans that we tracked through a Goodwill store last December, and an army surplus greatcoat. No credit cards and one Illinois food stamp card detected. Food stamp card cross referenced to CrimNet: holder Joe Smith is African-American, has two counts of drunken brawls in taverns, and marijuana charges dropped since successful completion of rehab. Lives in Cabrini Green. Change the video posters to flashing red 'Security Alert Theme #1', start the tracking cameras following this guy immediately, and send two burly security officers to encourage him to complete his shopping experience at Wal*Mart."
Now, take the same guy and dress him up in nice clothes, but leave the food stamp card in his wallet. Same guy, different look. He's still going to get escorted out of the store for the dual crimes of being poor and shopping while black. And now that process can be automated.
Has the second guy committed a crime? Some people might say, "not yet, but he sure fits the profile." Others would say that he won't because with a tracking system like this, he would never get the chance to steal. But the honest answer is still, "no, he has done nothing wrong." And now does he get the same opportunity as Mr. Khakis above? Not any more.
It's a dignified end. The boys all take it very seriously. If you want to dispose of it yourself, a campfire works well. Respect is the key.
A Molotov cocktail on national TV is not considered an appropriate end; many otherwise rational people will react most unfavorably towards you if you try. Personally I consider it free speech to burn a flag in protest; but I also am free to consider that sort of speech to be hateful and I will hold someone who does it in contempt.
Perhaps challenge/response is approaching the problem the wrong way: maybe site owners should be detecting scripts after the fact via volume/address checking, or some other statistical analysis. Personally, I doubt it matters much to anyone if it's a human or a script signing up on a web site. I do think it matters greatly when the same script signs up the same IP address 10, 100, or 1000 times in a row, or if a script signs up and immediately floods a message board with advertising, trolls, etc. It's the problem behavior that needs to be recognized and addressed rather than the usage of a script or robot.
Statistical analysis would require that new signups be placed on some sort of probation or restricted or limited usage until enough time had passed so that the analysis would have time to detect the difference between use and abuse. Humans (and a well-behaved subset of robots) would continue to enjoy the site, but the automated troublemakers would be limited as to the amount of damage they could cause. A lot of sites used to do this, and I think many still do.
I personally would rather see spam eliminated via other means. For example, many people have offered more spam-proof SMTP-type solutions that would solve the specific problem of spam, regardless of its point of origin. That type of solution would be preferrable to hardening all possible email entry points everywhere on the web.
But I think there are other script-based problems (not necessarily SPAM) that will continue to require human detectors for the forseeable future. Recently security researchers published the idea of Googling for meatspace mail-request forms, and using the postal services to innundate victims via physical mail with thousands of unwanted catalogs, brochures, etc. These companies might also benefit from human detectors in cost avoidance, especially if such attacks become more popular.
Anyway, please offer your own alternatives, if you have any. It's a field filled with potential, and every idea deserves at least a moment of thought, if nothing else.
One of Slashdot's own trolls posted a script-fu for the GIMP to scrub Slashdot's humanconf images (used in their new account signup process) into images ready to feed into GOCR. He even says he has wrapped it up in a perl script to automate the process.
For the curious, you can google for his GIMP script but I'm not going to post a direct link.
And if an ordinary troll can do it for the simple thrill of trolling, imagine what a dedicated spammer whose income depends on stuff like this would do. I think it's a real issue.
My solution to the Yahoos and Hotmails and whoever else is using a CAPTCHA would be to use an automated voice response telephone system instead. Systems like that can easily issue the codes required to continue with the signup process, but have the spam deterrent of identification via ANI built in. (Automatic Number Identification is somewhat similar to Caller ID but is used for billing purposes.) Granted, I am assuming that most people who have Internet access also have telephone access of some sort. But if you were a spammer, you probably wouldn't be willing to give up your phone number for more than a handful of signups, therefore making a system like this not worth scripting.
My point to the parent poster was that not everyone bearing the title of "programmer" needs to do those tasks any more. He was taking a very divisive stance, saying "Real Programmers must meet my definition (which is the ability to hand-optimize code) and the rest of them are all pansies and pretenders." I was trying to point out that this artificial division is really limiting his vision of what can be accomplished by the people without those skills.
Sure, we used to have to write our own vector libraries to perform 3d graphics on line printers. But today only the video card device driver distributors need to write those libraries. I can simply buy them, and build graphical systems on top of them. The parent poster implies that the people who can't write this code, those who merely use these libraries to build real working systems aren't worth spit. I think that sum of all of the systems at every level, be they application, services, drivers, whatever, are more valuable than the components, and that all the people who produce them are valuable, not just the elite few who are capable of writing the graphics driver code in assembler. For example, his paycheck was probably printed by some COBOL program, probably written by someone who couldn't write an efficient graphics driver to save their life. Does that make the paycheck more or less valuable? Let's see if he rejects it unless it was generated by a program written by a Real Programmer.
If each of us still had to write our own graphics libraries, our own printer drivers, our own multithreading schemes, our own OS loaders, our own disk controller access routines, our own serial port drivers, our own keyboard drivers, our own assemblers and high level languages, we'd each be looking at a box with fewer capabilities than the original IBM PC. And none of them would talk to each other. No software would interoperate, because everyone rolled their own. There would be no Quake, no video games at all, no word processors, no Slashdot, no CNN.com. But, boy, would we High Priests of Programming be important. "Bow before our elite skills, unwashed masses. We are Real Programmers, and you are not." What is the point of that? Where is the value in drawing that line?
I'm not trying to say that NASA shouldn't be the only game in town, but I am saying that if we're going to be compelled to pay to send explorers in our stead then we shouldn't just send up everyone with a space-itch. A few is all I'm personally willing to fund.
That's it.
Manned space flight isn't going anywhere commercially, and probably won't in my lifetime. Demand is too low, costs are too high. A small handful of tourists will bring a few dollars in, but I doubt the providers will get enough to pay the bills. And so they'll fold.
Hell, Russia's already selling tickets for $20 million a pop, but I don't think the takers have exactly beaten a path to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
Like it or not, I think we need NASA for the same reason we need to send humans into space: the desire for exploration. NASA allows all Americans to feel like they're participating in the dream by footing the bill. We can look at the shuttle, or Mars lander, or footage of Neil Armstrong and say "Hey, I helped put them there!"
But when the Taco Bell/PepsiCo/Wal*mart shuttle (officially sponsored by Kodak) heads up there to have two lucky sweepstakes winners drop a million coupons for free medium soft drinks out the porthole, I'm not going to take pride in the accomplishment even if I was buying my Pepsi at Taco Bell. It doesn't seem the same.
While it sounds draconian, it's not even much of a problem. If someone needs to send executables, we already know in advance, and so we rename the ZIP to a ZAP or somesuch and it goes through just fine. For the bigger stuff, we just dump it on an FTP server somewhere and exchange it that way (bigger than a few hundred K doesn't belong in email anyway.)
When I first heard about it I thought it would be much more of a problem. It wasn't. It's actually quite nice, because I don't even see most of the crap worms, etc. I just wish they'd block more of the stuff from within DOC files, such as blocking any Office documents that have scripts or macros in them. (I've ony had one resume show up that had a macro virus, but it was old and my antivirus software patched it.)
Of the bad ones, Lop (which you have) is far and away the most difficult to get rid of. It has many separate components, a Browser Helper Object, an executable launched at startup via an entry that's in your registry's HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run key, (and possibly in RunOnce and/or RunServices, plus in the same path under each user as well), and others. I think it may even replace your WSOCK32.DLL but I don't remember if Lop is that one. If it is, it certainly would explain why your DNS went haywire. The deal with Lop is that all these components watch over each other. If you delete or disable one component, the others silently patch the hole next chance they get.
To answer your question, I've never heard of it affecting a firewall/router. (I kind of assume you're running a Linksys, but regardless of the make & model make sure you don't still have the default password on it.) If Lop patched your winsock layer, the Windows box would be completely unable to tell you the truth about DHCP or DNS.
It's not quite as bad as kudzu, but it's definitely not something you want.
Anyway, I've found Spybot S&D to be a most excellent tool with frequent and current updates. It's the first thing I run every time I visit friends or family and they want me to look at their computers. It's also free, (but donations are welcome.) I switched from the paid version of AdAware+ after they failed to release V 6.0 on time. I do wish that the anti-virus vendors would block some of this crap.
Other things I run to defend my Microsoft equipment from this stuff?
So. Hubs must support high-speed, and downstream-facing transceivers (which I understand to mean "host" interfaces) must support high-, full-, and low-speeds, and yet USB 2.0 devices (not hubs and not hosts) do not have to support high-speed. But I'm certainly not sure what differentiates a USB 2.0 full-speed device from a USB 1.1 full-speed device. If a device is claimed to be USB 2.0 full-speed, what precisely would make it different from a USB 1.1 full-speed device?
I still find it most interesting that this is in direct contradiction with their earlier documentation. This whitepaper on their site consistently refers to USB 2.0 devices (functions, not just hubs and hosts) as high speed.
That promise went everywhere. The understanding was universal. The USB-IF themselves told us that forthcoming USB 2.0 == high speed. But that one line in the spec breaks the promise. It's not consistent.
I understand backward compatibility. And I think your argument is that they are trying to keep only one spec current, USB 2.0, and that by permitting low- and full- speed devices to be made under that same spec they're allowing legacy equipment to continue to be made and sold. But to allow full-speed equipment to be marketed under the "USB 2.0" spec when that industry told us long ago that "USB 2.0 means 480 Mb/s" is deceptive. That's the problem.
If you had bothered to read the specs yourself before posting, you would have seen this line in section 3.1, "Goals for the Universal Serial Bus": Full backward compatibility of USB 2.0 for devices built to previous versions of the specification. You might also have noticed that nowhere in the specs do they say that USB 1.1 is USB 2.0 compliant.
Think of it this way: future USB 3.0 specs could claim that all USB 3.0 devices must also support RS-232. But would that make RS-232 USB 3.0 compliant? No. It would simply mean that USB 3.0 is RS-232 compatible.
Please add intelligence to the discussion. Don't just spew ignorance and insults and expect it to be accepted as fact.
Also, if you are running Windows XP, you need Service Pack 1 or you're only running Full-Speed USB regardless of what hardware you own. USB 2.0 is not supported in the out-of-the-box XP installation.
But first, to address your comments, any device that is only 1.1 compliant is most certainly not 2.0 compliant. Just because the 1.1 spec is incorporated into the 2.0 spec does not mean it meets 2.0 specifications. You're confusing the subset with the superset. The best you can hope to say is that 2.0 devices are "downward compatible" with 1.1 devices. Nothing more. 1.1 devices remain 1.1 only, regardless of who bends over backwards to play with them.
But that's not really the issue, either. The issue is that some of the USB-IF's own documents claim that USB 2.0 means a 480 Mb/s transfer rate, while other USB-IF documents claim that people are confused by the mistaken impression that USB 2.0 means a 480 Mb/s transfer rate, and that they should use "Hi-Speed" instead. Their own documents are inconsistent. The confusion is certainly real, though, and its origins lie solely within the USB-IF.
Finally, the specific wording suggested to print on packages to market low- and full-speed devices mentions speed exactly one time: in the phrase "Works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables." Neither low- nor full-speed is ever mentioned for inclusion on the packaging. The USB-IF even specifically discourages manufacturers from labelling their full speed devices as "Full Speed USB". This leaves 'misleading' behind and heads straight for 'deception.'
Don't get me wrong -- I love USB. I think it's the coolest thing since RS-232. And I feel no need to tithe for Firewire chips. But the USB-IF's recommended marketing practices are shady at best, their own recommendations seem specifically designed to cause confusion amongst consumers, (and even among their own members, it seems,) and it would not surprise me to see the USB-IF targeted by the FTC over this matter. What I'm saying is don't get too attached to that spiffy two-tone Hi-Speed USB logo, because it'll probably be changing Real Soon Now.
You'd have been much better off with an unambiguous technical definition of the speed in the naming, such as USB-1.5, USB-12 and USB-480. At least then consumers could make a purchasing decision without having to read both the USB 1.1 and the USB 2.0 specs in detail.
To your point, "I really don't see what the big deal is if people realize that USB 2.0 != high speed (480 MBit/sec)," it's the entire point of the argument. People DON'T realize that because it's simply not true. The phrase USB 2.0 has already come to mean high speed through usage; usage both defined and fostered by the very same usb.org. Doubt me? Here's what the usb.org has on the first page of "A Technical Introduction to USB 2.0" describing USB 2.0 [formatting from the original, emphasis mine ]:
"USB 2.0 Executive Summary
A core team from Compaq, Hewlett Packard, Intel, Lucent, Microsoft, NEC and Philips is leading the development of the USB Specification, version 2.0, that will increase data throughput by a factor of 40. This backwards-compatible extension of the USB 1.1 specification uses the same cables, connectors and software interfaces so the user will see no change in the usage model. They will, however, benefit from an additional range of higher performance peripherals, such as video-conferencing cameras, next-generation scanners and printers, and fast storage devices, with the same ease-of-use features as todayâ(TM)s USB peripherals.
Impact to User
From a userâ(TM)s perspective, USB 2.0 is just like USB, but with much higher bandwidth. It will look the same and behave the same, but with a larger choice of more interesting, higher performance devices available. Also, all of the USB peripherals the user has already purchased will work in a USB 2.0-capable system."
Contrast that statement with this quote from the USB Naming and Packaging page:
"Inconsistent use of terminology in combination with the existing general misconception that USB 2.0 is synonymous with Hi-Speed USB ... creates confusion in the marketplace."
So you can now see why we've our little tempest in the proverbial teapot. Even the USB organization themselves used the specific words "USB 2.0" to precisely mean the exact same thing they now call "Hi-Speed USB" -- 480MB/s USB. And then they tell us that we, the marketplace, suffer confusion from a misconception. If they aren't fostering that confusion, who else is?
My biggest complaint is that their packaging page permits manufacturers to label their "Low-Speed USB" or "Full-Speed USB" products with these statements:
- 1. Compatible with the USB 2.0 Specification
- 2. Works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables.
The emphasis is mine, just to point out that they used the word "compatible" and not "compliant". A subtle distinction probably lost on the average buyer, since we're quibbling about it here onThis is the stuff of "truth in advertising" lawsuits. IANAL, because if I were I wouldn't be ranting on /., I'd be cranking up a lawsuit.
And just to keep going, if your other statement were true, "A USB 1.1 compliant device can meet the specification even if it only supports low speed operation (1.5 MBit/sec)," then I should be able to claim my 300 baud acoustically-coupled modem made in 1978 is "V_fast" compliant just because the V_fast spec says a V_fast modem must accept connections from 300 baud modems. Receiving an honorable mention in the spec does not mean it meets the spec.
Their claim is that USB 2.0 is a spec that supports three speeds. "Hi-Speed" is just one of the three that goes at 480 MB. Any USB 2.0 device will play on a USB 1.1 or USB 1.0 wire, but only at the slower supported speeds.
However, a full-speed (not hi-speed) device shouldn't be allowed to be labeled "USB 2.0 compliant" since it cannot use the whole USB 2.0 spec. That claim would be equivalent to saying a 300 baud modem is V_fast compliant just because a V_fast modem has to be able to slow down to talk to it.
Because of the inability of marketroids to be able to grasp these facts, USB is trying to get away from the 2.0 vs 1.1 naming game altogether. Packaging is supposed to say only "USB" or "Hi-Speed USB", and not label it with a version number.
Of course, then I find this crap on the USB packaging page referring to "Low or Full-speed Product Packaging Recommendations:"
Avoid using terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0 which can be confusing for consumers whose expectation is that a USB 2.0 product is by definition high-speed.
Side or Back of Packaging Key Messages (Detailed Information)
1. Compatible with the USB 2.0 Specification
2. Works with USB and Hi-Speed USB systems, peripherals and cables.
So manufacturers can claim a full-speed device is USB 2.0 "compatible." That's really, really shady. The correct answer is that USB 2.0 devices can claim compatibility with USB 1.1, not the other way around.
Yep, that's pretty dishonest labeling. And from a computer industry group! I'm amazed!
And this is even better: follow the link to the Hi-Speed FAQ where they answer questions like this:
1: What maximum speed was finally chosen for the USB 2.0 spec?
A: The USB 2.0 specification has a design data rate of 480 mega bits per second.
Of course, if if this gives you a general misconception, you should head to the USB packaging page where you will be enlightened by this paragraph:
Inconsistent use of terminology in combination with the existing general misconception that USB 2.0 is synonymous with Hi-Speed USB and/or failure to display the Certified USB logo on qualified products creates confusion in the marketplace. The correct nomenclature for high-speed USB products is "Hi-Speed USB." The correct nomenclature for low or full-speed USB products is simply "USB." This should be taken into consideration for product naming.
So, now they are saying we have a misconception that USB 2.0 is Hi-Speed. But it's our misconception, not theirs.
Of course, Gareth Powell, the original author of the story, might have gotten his facts wrong or confused, and has simply started a flamefest with ignorance. USB 2.0 is merely a specification that encompasses ALL THREE SPEEDS. However, if a device is USB 2.0 compliant, it, too, had better support ALL THREE SPEEDS (and not just by dumbing down to the lowest speed supported.) But nowhere in his article does he say that a full-speed only connection is now being referred to as USB 2.0. He just says Toshiba is selling USB 1.1 laptops as USB 2.0 laptops, but does not say if they do or do not support Hi-Speed USB.
I also don't think that all these industries actually send reps to every single meeting. Would you cast a vote for committing fraud in the name of your company?
Head to USB.org and you'll find the memebers listed in a drop-down box. I can't post it here because the lameness filter is, well, lame.
So Active Directory will continue to be important for a few more years until they come out with a new variant.
Personally, one of the things I'm doing is fighting with the problems resulting from having Active Directory. Have you seen what goes on over the network? My God, it's like having a cage full of monkeys flinging poop at each other! It's just a bunch of pointless "are you still there" kind of crap, to the tune of almost overloading two T1 channels back to our central site when something goes wrong. My problem is people are blaming my app for being unresponsive, but the problem is really the network flood. Microsoft's great answer: you shouldn't have structured the network the way we told you the first time around. Either that or buy more bandwidth.
So I hope Active Directory sees a quick and painful death, but I doubt it will.
I should have weakend my original comment to more accurately reflect the instructor's statement that if statements "may" indicate design weakness, and that you should examine each one to make sure it's appropriate.
So far, my provider, ATT Wireless, has been the ONLY source of SMS spam. The worst part was that I called immediately after the first one and demanded they NEVER send me any again. A month later, I was startled high up on a ladder (my SMS ring was quite piercing) which really got my goat. I called and yelled at the customer service drone. I haven't gotten any since, but I have a nagging feeling that they might send another.
Yes, yes, I can see you're very experienced in pushing bits through hardware. Fine. But can you sit down in a room with a bunch of whining user representatives with conflicting and incomplete requirements, a project sponsor with a too-tiny budget, a director who doesn't know the meaning of the word "no", a legacy code base written in the 1980s but bought three years ago because of the glossy brochure, while forty thousand client machines are grinding to a halt because some fool messed with the permissions setting on a database? All this and you want me to stop and babysit an entry-level CS grad while he HAND OPTIMIZES a graphics pipeline because our C++ compiler isn't generating good enough code for me?
Why? For God's sake, man, what makes you think I have the time or inclination to shave 20 cycles out of my already mostly idle processor? Why would I take a perfectly good programmer and have him sweat away a weeks' worth of work for something nobody in my industry even knows how to measure?
I don't want my CS-graduate developers hand optimizing anything. We're in business doing other bean-counting things. Saving 20 cycles is pretty irrelevant to our clients; especially when they have 266 million of them available every second. I know it's damn relevant to many groups including game developers, but for what I work on we are much better off saving billions of cycles by optimizing our flow to reduce time spent waiting for slow, stupid users.
High level languages, and analysis and development processes exist for a reason: less experienced developers get more and better work done. Don't get me completely wrong: I grew up learning both assemblers and HLLs on some pretty obscure CDC and UNIVAC mainframes in the 1970s. I've gone the hand optimizing route. I've gone the hand developing route. I've even still got a roll of red wire-wrap wire in my desk somewhere. I appreciate knowing what I know, and deep inside I agree with you in looking down on those who don't know yet, and probably never will. I still have to go to those CS grad's desks and show them what goes on in the code their compilers emit.
But I've also learned to leave turning code into useful instructions to the compiler vendor. That's their job. My job is to turn our users' activities into useful data. Count the beans, don't drop them. So I don't need the guy who knows all the grungy details of the inner workings of the CPU and compiler. As a matter of fact he'd be damned bored in our shop. I really need him someplace more useful, like working for the compiler vendor. What I need are people who can meet with the users and the analysts and still get code out that serves our business well. If a one-effing-mouse-button development environment makes that happen faster, I only see good come from it.
He claims that a coworker has implemented an entire real-world system for a client that actually had zero if() statements in the code. He did say that the guy had to put in some small extra effort in a few spots to get rid of some if()s, but overall polymorphism has replaced decision making in their code.
It was the first class I've taken from Valtech. I found it to be very useful. Our instructor certainly knew his stuff.
I'm not saying we don't employ an army of COBOL programmers to maintain our old stuff. We do, and many people still have those jobs. But COBOL programs themselves are being phased out as new technologies move in, and many of those COBOL programmers are now learning Java so they can maintain employment. The army is shrinking. I think COBOL programmers are now little more than niche programmers.
As a matter of fact a buddy I had lunch with today (a COBOL programmer turned Websphere developer) was complaining that he was one of only about five people in the company who still knew CLIST (a scripting language for TSO that was popular in the 80's.) I'll tell you right now that skill has no value: if no one was left to fix that CLIST, we'd just be writing a modern replacement. It's not worth learning or porting. Old software will die, and I think that as replacements become easier to develop the end will hasten accordingly.
So, we can sit here and complain that "kids these days don't even have to know hex in order to program," or we can recognize that the world is changing and keep up. I'm worth having around today because I've kept up, not because I've spent 30 years sharpening my mad assembler skillz. You can argue that underneath it all it's still just ones and zeros, but as an industry we've moved way past that.