And even if they do... SO WHAT -- gee your data is encrypted for the 100ms it travels between your PC and the web server.
That 100ms is long enough for a packet sniffer to grab your credit card number. But that's not why they're playing up that lock icon. They're trying to give people a simple way to distinguish legitimate sites from phishing sites. Not a very good way, of course, but I'm not sure I know a better one.
My opening line was a rhetorical gimick. I understood what he was saying, but I wanted to point out the confusing way he was saying it. His confusion -- between intelligence and knowledge -- is precisely what I wanted to comment on.
I'm constantly told that I have an extremely high intelligence. I always feel like I should know so much more, though. Do you, the Slashdot readers, know of any ways to improve ones brain power?
I don't follow. Do feel stupid or ignorant? These are two different things. I guess, like most people, you confuse intelligence with rote knowledge of facts.
I'm going to assume you're not stupid. Probably a safe assumption, since you're obviously smart enough to see that you don't know as much as you should. So that leaves ignorant. So why are you ignorant.
Steve Allen tells this story about a young, smart assistant he had who was dismally ignorant. He had to explain to her that her boyfriend was not a kind of Protestant (the guy was a Catholic!) and that the U.N. wasn't in Los Angeles (small schedule issue!). He blamed her ignorance on a sloppy education. But I have to ask, How do you grow up without learning where the U.N. HQ is? Answer, lack of curiousity.
There's more to knowing stuff than memorizing lots of facts. It's an active thing. You read lots of books, journals, and newspapers. And you think about what you've read. Which means talking about it with others, writing about it, finding a place for it in your mental landscape.
So, short answer to your question: there's no one book that will make you more knowledgable. What you should do is go to a library or a bookstore. Avoid the aisles with the recreational reading you normally go for. Than browse around until you find a book that looks interesting. Try to get into it. If you can't, put it back on the shelf and look for another book. If you can, read it, think about it, discuss it with other people who've read it.
Repeat until you feel sufficiently smart. Which, if you're really smart is never.
Yet one is a multimillionaire radio host, while the other is President of the United States, both signs of having convinced millions of the soundness of their thinking.
It's called "charisma" and "good marketing". And in the case of President Dubya, "being well connected". None of these wrong in themselves, but none of them evidence of intelligence.
So while the Hare is out partying, the tortoise is approaching the finish line. Then this truck comes along, and the tortoise is too slow to get out of the way. SPLAT! The hare sends word, "I don't see why I should be made to finish the race, since the tortoise obviously can't win. Please send the prize money."
Well yeah, the web democratizes distribution. But is distribution the problem with textbooks? If the Internet disappeared tomorrow, you could still distribute these Postscript textbooks via CD.
For that matter, you don't even need computers to have OS textbooks. Fifty years ago, somebody could have said, "Calculus texts cost too much. I'll get together with some buddies, and we'll write a good one, maybe borrow some public domain material. Then we'll sell it at cost to whoever wants it. Won't be free, but it'll save students a lot of money."
Put it another way: the BIOS provides a lot of services that used to be considered part of the OS. On the other hand, having I/O services in ROM is really just a hangover from when PCs didn't have hard disks.
Bottom line: "BIOS" is just a name. It used to stand for "Basic I/O Services", but now it means "whatever's convenient to have in onboard ROM so you don't have to read it off a disk." Words change.
Hmm, I thought it was about, "Tim, we blew our damned budget on that NextStep cube, let's see you write some damned software for it!"
Seriously, Ben's pronouncements about "what the web is basically about" are both subjective and irrelevent. Whatever the early Web was about, it certainly wasn't distributing math texts. Which is why not a single one of the texts he reviews actually uses Web technology, except as way of copying a PDF or Postscript file from one computer to another. This is something you could certainly do without a Web, or even without an Internet.
The idea of "open source" textbooks strikes me as a pretty good one. But if you want to get the idea accepted, you should avoid both the simplistic pronouncements and the self-righteous finger pointing. I, for one, am deeply offended at implication that there's something wrong with using the web to buy and sell things. And if you want instructors to change the texts they require, you're not going to get their cooperation by accusing them of gouging their students, either through ignorance or greed.
I always wondered how weird it was for Oracle to be involved in that at first.
Actually, it was a sort of logical progression of something they did earlier. That's when Larry was pushing the "Network Computer", that diskless workstation that was supposed to replace the PC. They created a new subsidiary for this business, called NC. Meanwhile Netscape started a company called Navio, in partnership with (among others) Nintendo, which was supposed to sell web browsing using consumer devices. Navio and NC then merged, and voila, game consoles in Emerald City.
But now you're talking about people who've built up their reputation for years, and worked darned hard doing it. They're artists, not a walking brand icon. Anybody who feels slighted by their fame has their head up their ass.
The "feel", as you call it, comes from the publisher persuading Tokien to make The Hobbit a children's story. I'm not that knowledgable about his live and works, but it's always seemed to me that Tolkien was never comfortable with that approach. His books were motivated by his career as a philologist and folklorist, not out of any love for "fairy tales". Indeed, he never read that stuff himself -- he much preferred Science Fiction!
Imagine how The Hobbit would have been written if Tolkien had not pretended he wasn't writing for grownups. I think you'd find it's a lot more like an epic. I mean jeez, a guy is persuaded to leave a comfortable life for a long, dangerous journey in which he defeats multiple foes throught stealth, wit, magic, luck, and plain old-fashioned swordplay. Sounds pretty epical to me!
Indeed. When I first started looking for recipes on the web, I'd bookmark every interesting recipe site I ran across. But now I find it easier just to Googleforwhatever I want to make. Especially handy if you have dietary restrictions (I'm severely lactose-intolerant) and need to find the appropriate variation.
The best way to use Google is to explore. Try stuff! Like if you're reading a recipe for gumbo, and it calls for File (accented E, Rob!), don't bother people with lame questions like, "What's File?". Google for it! You'll be amazed at what you find.
Tara Reid is just the Pretty Face du jour. She's the one Hollywood is hyping today. Tomorrow it will be somebody else.
The way Hollywood treats the talent sucks. But's that's as true for Tara Reid as for Jason Rubin. As Ms. Reid will find out the very moment people get bored with her.
So Jason, if you want to be treated like a real human being, switch to an industry that grasps the concept.
I love to read the horror stories in Computerworld's Shark Tank column. My favorite story is about the boss who heard the saying, "a computer is secure only as long as there's no network connection". And he took it literally. Which wouldn't have been so bad, except he was in charge of a data center...
But there's a difference between healthy venting and obsessive, pointless bitching. Not sure which kind this site represents.
Well, if spyware ever gets any good at hiding, your joke will be for real -- and we'd all be in big trouble. Truth is, spyware is never all that sophisticated. That's half the problem: if spyware did what it was supposed to and just spied on you without drawing attention to itself, people wouldn't be so nearly pissed off. Yeah, they'd hate losing their privacy, but not half as badly as they hate having their computers crash.
When they say "defective", they mean that the spyware is crap programming. Which is hardly suprising. People who distributespyware are the same kind of idiots who are responsible for most spam. It's a kind of spam, really, since it's a way of indiscriminately spreading information. The information itself, whether it's a blurb for some penis enlargment nostrum or a piece of buggy code that generates useless statistics about what sites you visit, is basically useless. How do make money distributing something that's useless? You distribute a lot!
Consider what most lawyers do for a living: they write stuff. Opinions, arguments, briefs, motions, demand letters. So of course they were practically the first profession to throw out their typewriters and start using word processors.
When that happened, about 20 years ago, WordPerfect was the most sophisticated word processing system that would run on widely-available hardware. So lots of lawyers bought it, and created tons of templates in WP format. Plus, creaters of legal software (content mangement mostly) tended to provide WordPerfect plugins.
Add to this the fact that WordPerfect has an extremely idiosyncratic user interface, and you have a well-established user base with every incentive to stick with the product they know.
Slashdot Mirror
My opening line was a rhetorical gimick. I understood what he was saying, but I wanted to point out the confusing way he was saying it. His confusion -- between intelligence and knowledge -- is precisely what I wanted to comment on.
He didn't use the word "ignorant", but he did say it. Go back and read it. you stupid git.
What people expect is to get the service they signed up for.
I'm going to assume you're not stupid. Probably a safe assumption, since you're obviously smart enough to see that you don't know as much as you should. So that leaves ignorant. So why are you ignorant.
Steve Allen tells this story about a young, smart assistant he had who was dismally ignorant. He had to explain to her that her boyfriend was not a kind of Protestant (the guy was a Catholic!) and that the U.N. wasn't in Los Angeles (small schedule issue!). He blamed her ignorance on a sloppy education. But I have to ask, How do you grow up without learning where the U.N. HQ is? Answer, lack of curiousity.
There's more to knowing stuff than memorizing lots of facts. It's an active thing. You read lots of books, journals, and newspapers. And you think about what you've read. Which means talking about it with others, writing about it, finding a place for it in your mental landscape.
So, short answer to your question: there's no one book that will make you more knowledgable. What you should do is go to a library or a bookstore. Avoid the aisles with the recreational reading you normally go for. Than browse around until you find a book that looks interesting. Try to get into it. If you can't, put it back on the shelf and look for another book. If you can, read it, think about it, discuss it with other people who've read it.
Repeat until you feel sufficiently smart. Which, if you're really smart is never.
No, I can't say it.
...do those stupid NASA contractors continue to use English units? Inquiring minds want to know!
So while the Hare is out partying, the tortoise is approaching the finish line. Then this truck comes along, and the tortoise is too slow to get out of the way. SPLAT! The hare sends word, "I don't see why I should be made to finish the race, since the tortoise obviously can't win. Please send the prize money."
For that matter, you don't even need computers to have OS textbooks. Fifty years ago, somebody could have said, "Calculus texts cost too much. I'll get together with some buddies, and we'll write a good one, maybe borrow some public domain material. Then we'll sell it at cost to whoever wants it. Won't be free, but it'll save students a lot of money."
So why didn't anybody ever do that?
Bottom line: "BIOS" is just a name. It used to stand for "Basic I/O Services", but now it means "whatever's convenient to have in onboard ROM so you don't have to read it off a disk." Words change.
Seriously, Ben's pronouncements about "what the web is basically about" are both subjective and irrelevent. Whatever the early Web was about, it certainly wasn't distributing math texts. Which is why not a single one of the texts he reviews actually uses Web technology, except as way of copying a PDF or Postscript file from one computer to another. This is something you could certainly do without a Web, or even without an Internet.
The idea of "open source" textbooks strikes me as a pretty good one. But if you want to get the idea accepted, you should avoid both the simplistic pronouncements and the self-righteous finger pointing. I, for one, am deeply offended at implication that there's something wrong with using the web to buy and sell things. And if you want instructors to change the texts they require, you're not going to get their cooperation by accusing them of gouging their students, either through ignorance or greed.
His son was in the RAF while still a child?
But now you're talking about people who've built up their reputation for years, and worked darned hard doing it. They're artists, not a walking brand icon. Anybody who feels slighted by their fame has their head up their ass.
Imagine how The Hobbit would have been written if Tolkien had not pretended he wasn't writing for grownups. I think you'd find it's a lot more like an epic. I mean jeez, a guy is persuaded to leave a comfortable life for a long, dangerous journey in which he defeats multiple foes throught stealth, wit, magic, luck, and plain old-fashioned swordplay. Sounds pretty epical to me!
The best way to use Google is to explore. Try stuff! Like if you're reading a recipe for gumbo, and it calls for File (accented E, Rob!), don't bother people with lame questions like, "What's File?". Google for it! You'll be amazed at what you find.
The way Hollywood treats the talent sucks. But's that's as true for Tara Reid as for Jason Rubin. As Ms. Reid will find out the very moment people get bored with her.
So Jason, if you want to be treated like a real human being, switch to an industry that grasps the concept.
I think "eat your bike" means that the chemicals are pretty corrosive.
But there's a difference between healthy venting and obsessive, pointless bitching. Not sure which kind this site represents.
Repeating mantras like "no cookies! no cookies!" may make you feel more private. But it actually has no known effect.
When they say "defective", they mean that the spyware is crap programming. Which is hardly suprising. People who distributespyware are the same kind of idiots who are responsible for most spam. It's a kind of spam, really, since it's a way of indiscriminately spreading information. The information itself, whether it's a blurb for some penis enlargment nostrum or a piece of buggy code that generates useless statistics about what sites you visit, is basically useless. How do make money distributing something that's useless? You distribute a lot!
For future reference: never discuss the hiring process outside your company!
When that happened, about 20 years ago, WordPerfect was the most sophisticated word processing system that would run on widely-available hardware. So lots of lawyers bought it, and created tons of templates in WP format. Plus, creaters of legal software (content mangement mostly) tended to provide WordPerfect plugins.
Add to this the fact that WordPerfect has an extremely idiosyncratic user interface, and you have a well-established user base with every incentive to stick with the product they know.