One assumes an engineer came up with this when faced with the problem about how to provide enough power for arbitrary configurations without wasting fuel generating power that doesn't get used.
One assumes an engineer came up with this when faced with the legal department's insistence on having SOME patent application submitted before production development takes place.
It's completely retarded to put an individual fuel cell in every accessory. Following that logic, every semi-trailer on the highway would have its own internal combustion engine and drive train with a unique 'patent applied for' common fuel deliver 'bus'.
The reason why there's no prior art on this (hopefully) is because it's stupid.
I totally agree. I HATE that some fool with a concept can make the front page. I drew a picture of a car with square wheels and 25 machine guns sticking out of it when I was in 3rd grade. I didn't win any green awards for that. Luckily, it was the 70s and I didn't get thrown in juvy for it either...
Better yet, why can't a phishing site just do a man in the middle and forward user input to the real BofA server and come back with the image BofA returns??
Finally a really REALLY good reason to get off my ass and switch to Linux
Re:Concerns regarding AJAX
on
Ajax in Action
·
· Score: 0
There are already quite a few sources of information on degrading an Ajax application gracefully for weird browsers. There's no reason those techniques can't be used to give an ajax application the same accessibility as a 'normal' site, but it would have to be written for it. Here's a link to a good article on the subject:
I block every kind of advertising there is except billboards and I can't WAIT for augmented reality so I can block those annoying eyesores TOO.
I block internet ads (and any other image that's irrelevant and a waste of screen real estate) with Adblock and in a few extreme cases, Greasemonkey.
I don't listen to the radio. Period. That's why god made MP3s.
I use my TV mainly for movies and when I watch tv shows, I watch from a DVR specifically so I can fast-forward the commercials. If a show I want to watch is not pre-recorded, I let it run 15 minutes while I go do something else and then come back, rewind it to the beginning, and start catching up.
I actually like the ads that are in most of the magazines I read. The one exception is Wired (I already know what kinds of booze I like). The only way to read wired is to tear out all the ads that come before the table of contents. The table of contents lets me avoid most of the rest.
On a final note, I DO wish someone would invent a way to block the superbowl from getting in the way of all the ads:o)
I bought the exact same DVD player with a different front face from Go Video (the D2730 Networked DVD Player) - it uses the same server software and the firmware is upgradeable. I needed to upgrade mine to support dixv/xvid, etc.
The only difference I see is that I only paid $130 for mine. (It has since fallen to $107 on at least one popular discount web site!) This is also the same unit as another networked DVD player that slashdot featured either early in the year or last year, who's name escapes me.
I already have a full-blown home theater PC hooked to my 65" wide screen tv in the livingroom - I bought this DVD player to watch pr0n and recordings of The Sopranos in bed with the old lady.
It was so cheap I'm considering getting another one just for MP3s out by the pool.
Your column was linked to on www.slashdot.org. I read it with great interest, as I am an IT professional.
While I sympathize with you and 'end users' everywhere, I have to say that it would do the average computer user a great deal of good to walk a mile in the shoes of IT.
As a responsible programmer, I'm all too painfully aware of the bevy of outright HORRIBLE applications out there. In fact, my primary job is enhancing just such an application by creating software tools that allow my co-workers to AVOID using the really bad parts of it.
The real problem, however, lies in that the only reason we have it in the first place is the decision to purchase it for the princely sum of $300,000 was made by the CEO, CFO, upper management, and our former CIO. The reason he's our former CIO is that he's an incompetent buffoon and the rest of management, who hired him, are not qualified to hire IT personnel, just as they are not qualified to work in IT. Should the IT staff be required to interview their own potential boss??
These horrific applications would never be allowed to exist if natural selection were given a chance to take its course. Unfortunately, in the business world, IT purchasing and hiring decisions are often made by purchasing and human resources, not IT.
As for our perceived arrogance, you would not believe the things we hear on a daily basis. To say we are jaded would be a gross understatement. Users report errors without bothering to remember or write down the actual message. They tell us in great and comically incorrect detail what to do for them instead of simply describing their needs and allowing us to understand what they really want to accomplish. They say things like 'I bought this. Can you install it for me?' instead of 'I need a scanner.' and then wonder why it won't do what they wanted it to. They install every insidious cutesy internet spyware screensaver application they can get their grubby mitts on against every guideline we give them and then come whining to us about the 'sudden increase in spam'.
I could go on for pages with examples, but you have a new system to learn;o)
Allow me to close with these thoughts. Something about a computer seems, in the eyes of IT, to make grown educated adults unable to reason or even READ PLAIN ENGLISH. Those same people, when given a tool that is there to make them more able to do their jobs efficiently, will not be bothered to attempt to understand it beyond the barest functional necessity.
We are IT. That's how we see it from over here in our shoes.
As an IT person, I make a point of knowing as much as I possibly can about the tools I use in doing my job. WHY AREN'T THE OTHER PROFESSIONS EXPECTED TO DO THE SAME? If you are given a computer to do your job, there is a reason. PART of your job should then be to UNDERSTAND the tools you use, not just to know barely enough to get by. Non-technical people are intellectually LAZY. Why does it not occur to them to simply find the button that has the same picture on it as the other button they used to use, and then REMEMBER where it is NOW?
Raster seems like kind of a priss to me... I mean, if you are taking a paycheck from someone, you should do what they want you to do. What I'm saying here is based on what I've read in other articles about Raster. I've kind of formed an opinion about him in the past, and this is about what I expected to happen with him. If he wants to sit around and do things all day that he likes and that the people who are paying him don't necessarily want him to be doing, there is going to be friction. No surprise in this latest bit of news.
I haven't been a customer of a bank in several years because of this sort of thing and because of their selectively enforced "policies". Walk into the branch your paycheck is drawn on and try to cash it wearing nice clothes and it's "yes sir, would you like an envelope". Walk into the same bank 2 weeks later wearing jeans and a tee-shirt and it's "I'm sorry sir, our policy prohibits cashing a check that large without an account. Please wait over there while we pull the signature card." I spend a lot on money orders and I'll probably never own a brand new car or a house, but if you ask me, that's a small price to pay to for my privacy and peice of mind. I have a friend who recently accidentally bounced a check. His bank froze his account for 3 days AFTER he had deposited enough money to cover the check. As he is one of these 'modern' types that has no cash but uses a debit card for everything, he was penniless the whole time he was trying to straighten out the error. He has a considerable savings account too. Banks are evil. Period.
Slashdot Mirror
Wow slashdot, you finally got this story onto the front page and only 3 days after reddit.
One assumes an engineer came up with this when faced with the problem about how to provide enough power for arbitrary configurations without wasting fuel generating power that doesn't get used.
One assumes an engineer came up with this when faced with the legal department's insistence on having SOME patent application submitted before production development takes place.
It's completely retarded to put an individual fuel cell in every accessory. Following that logic, every semi-trailer on the highway would have its own internal combustion engine and drive train with a unique 'patent applied for' common fuel deliver 'bus'.
The reason why there's no prior art on this (hopefully) is because it's stupid.
Why would I be sad about having such a kickass user name to go with my super low user id?
Oh - and lowest user Id.
I would. MythTv skips my ads for me with near-zero intervention, just like adblock. Once in a while it misses one and I have to manually skip.
I totally agree. I HATE that some fool with a concept can make the front page. I drew a picture of a car with square wheels and 25 machine guns sticking out of it when I was in 3rd grade. I didn't win any green awards for that. Luckily, it was the 70s and I didn't get thrown in juvy for it either...
Seems to me the phishing site could also use a string of random proxies as well as ask the user their pet's name...
Better yet, why can't a phishing site just do a man in the middle and forward user input to the real BofA server and come back with the image BofA returns??
It's been run THREE times on Slashdot now since January 7th that I could find in a quick search.
You'd think that a story like this would stick in the memories of the dorks running this site...
Finally a really REALLY good reason to get off my ass and switch to Linux
There are already quite a few sources of information on degrading an Ajax application gracefully for weird browsers. There's no reason those techniques can't be used to give an ajax application the same accessibility as a 'normal' site, but it would have to be written for it. Here's a link to a good article on the subject:
s -of-degradable-ajax/
http://particletree.com/features/the-hows-and-why
No kidding... Anyone remember that little indie game company call id software that used to sell using the shareware model??
I block every kind of advertising there is except billboards and I can't WAIT for augmented reality so I can block those annoying eyesores TOO.
:o)
I block internet ads (and any other image that's irrelevant and a waste of screen real estate) with Adblock and in a few extreme cases, Greasemonkey.
I don't listen to the radio. Period. That's why god made MP3s.
I use my TV mainly for movies and when I watch tv shows, I watch from a DVR specifically so I can fast-forward the commercials. If a show I want to watch is not pre-recorded, I let it run 15 minutes while I go do something else and then come back, rewind it to the beginning, and start catching up.
I actually like the ads that are in most of the magazines I read. The one exception is Wired (I already know what kinds of booze I like). The only way to read wired is to tear out all the ads that come before the table of contents. The table of contents lets me avoid most of the rest.
On a final note, I DO wish someone would invent a way to block the superbowl from getting in the way of all the ads
Why would they allow their competition to launch on their networks?
I bought the exact same DVD player with a different front face from Go Video (the D2730 Networked DVD Player) - it uses the same server software and the firmware is upgradeable. I needed to upgrade mine to support dixv/xvid, etc.
The only difference I see is that I only paid $130 for mine. (It has since fallen to $107 on at least one popular discount web site!) This is also the same unit as another networked DVD player that slashdot featured either early in the year or last year, who's name escapes me.
I already have a full-blown home theater PC hooked to my 65" wide screen tv in the livingroom - I bought this DVD player to watch pr0n and recordings of The Sopranos in bed with the old lady.
It was so cheap I'm considering getting another one just for MP3s out by the pool.
Yeah it looks like "my first computer by PlaySkool". are they having an internal contest to see who can fit the least data on one huge tft monitor?
this was news in NINETEEN EIGHTY FOUR when it was first released...
Mr. Fisher,
;o)
Your column was linked to on www.slashdot.org. I read it with great interest, as I am an IT professional.
While I sympathize with you and 'end users' everywhere, I have to say that it would do the average computer user a great deal of good to walk a mile in the shoes of IT.
As a responsible programmer, I'm all too painfully aware of the bevy of outright HORRIBLE applications out there. In fact, my primary job is enhancing just such an application by creating software tools that allow my co-workers to AVOID using the really bad parts of it.
The real problem, however, lies in that the only reason we have it in the first place is the decision to purchase it for the princely sum of $300,000 was made by the CEO, CFO, upper management, and our former CIO. The reason he's our former CIO is that he's an incompetent buffoon and the rest of management, who hired him, are not qualified to hire IT personnel, just as they are not qualified to work in IT. Should the IT staff be required to interview their own potential boss??
These horrific applications would never be allowed to exist if natural selection were given a chance to take its course. Unfortunately, in the business world, IT purchasing and hiring decisions are often made by purchasing and human resources, not IT.
As for our perceived arrogance, you would not believe the things we hear on a daily basis. To say we are jaded would be a gross understatement. Users report errors without bothering to remember or write down the actual message. They tell us in great and comically incorrect detail what to do for them instead of simply describing their needs and allowing us to understand what they really want to accomplish. They say things like 'I bought this. Can you install it for me?' instead of 'I need a scanner.' and then wonder why it won't do what they wanted it to. They install every insidious cutesy internet spyware screensaver application they can get their grubby mitts on against every guideline we give them and then come whining to us about the 'sudden increase in spam'.
I could go on for pages with examples, but you have a new system to learn
Allow me to close with these thoughts. Something about a computer seems, in the eyes of IT, to make grown educated adults unable to reason or even READ PLAIN ENGLISH. Those same people, when given a tool that is there to make them more able to do their jobs efficiently, will not be bothered to attempt to understand it beyond the barest functional necessity.
We are IT. That's how we see it from over here in our shoes.
As an IT person, I make a point of knowing as much as I possibly can about the tools I use in doing my job. WHY AREN'T THE OTHER PROFESSIONS EXPECTED TO DO THE SAME? If you are given a computer to do your job, there is a reason. PART of your job should then be to UNDERSTAND the tools you use, not just to know barely enough to get by. Non-technical people are intellectually LAZY. Why does it not occur to them to simply find the button that has the same picture on it as the other button they used to use, and then REMEMBER where it is NOW?
I wouldn't go anywhere near so far as to consider those dirty bastards in the whitehouse my "higher-ups"
Raster seems like kind of a priss to me... I mean, if you are taking a paycheck from someone, you should do what they want you to do. What I'm saying here is based on what I've read in other articles about Raster. I've kind of formed an opinion about him in the past, and this is about what I expected to happen with him. If he wants to sit around and do things all day that he likes and that the people who are paying him don't necessarily want him to be doing, there is going to be friction. No surprise in this latest bit of news.
*COUGH* Stupid gimmick! *COUGH*
French people piss me off....
Banks are bad, hmmmkay?
I haven't been a customer of a bank in several years because of this sort of thing and because of their selectively enforced "policies". Walk into the branch your paycheck is drawn on and try to cash it wearing nice clothes and it's "yes sir, would you like an envelope". Walk into the same bank 2 weeks later wearing jeans and a tee-shirt and it's "I'm sorry sir, our policy prohibits cashing a check that large without an account. Please wait over there while we pull the signature card." I spend a lot on money orders and I'll probably never own a brand new car or a house, but if you ask me, that's a small price to pay to for my privacy and peice of mind. I have a friend who recently accidentally bounced a check. His bank froze his account for 3 days AFTER he had deposited enough money to cover the check. As he is one of these 'modern' types that has no cash but uses a debit card for everything, he was penniless the whole time he was trying to straighten out the error. He has a considerable savings account too. Banks are evil. Period.