Well, she says (taken directly from the OP) she includes herself among 'those of us who favor some form of pornography and hate speech regulation,' (emphasis added.)
Now, hating speech regulation is fairly clear, who doesn't hate speech regulation? I'm more curious about what form of pornography she favours, as i think this will give insight to what her opinions may be.
Danmit. Quit being rational and making sense. it's ruining your image.
Please repost with something we can ridicule. Your post has no material for that.
So now they've moved on to breeding Mac fans.
Can anyone say "Master Race"?
Perhaps in another 10 or 20 years or so, Apple will develop a new device that allows you to tweak your zygote's DNA for particular charastics.
It will come with "Mac Zealot" by default, but if you want to tweak less important things like hair/eye colour, etc, well, there'll be an App for that.
I think it'll be interesting if it ends up possible to play vs. online cross-platform.
I suspect the PC players will have the best control by far, and dominate, but if XBox and PS3 can compete against each other control accuracy/latency will become a hot topic.
I can only assume that the reason they are requiring macs is because they have software that runs on OSX that they want every student to have access to during the schoolday. Be it software for Textbooks, Backup, Moinitoring, or whatever.
That is the only reason to require macs.
Even if they were requiring PCs for this purpose, and PCs being the dominant in the market, so a reasonable choice for this, I'd still have to disagree
If they are going to require computers, for any purpost, then they must make it platform non-sepcific. It needs to be software (or cloud-based browser run apps) that run on all systems with a reasonable market share.
This includes, at the very least, Mac, PC and *nix.
Both backup and problems are easily controllable in a platform-agnostic fashion.:
Full HD backup (which can be done automated, and really is not that much more expensive storage-wise than any other backup version) and full HD restore. If a student screws up their system, then you restore it from last backup, or do a clean drive imaging of the basic setup.
Regardless, kids should be directed to back up their work files independantly, USB storage is cheap as dirt and ideal for this purpose.
And finally, to be fiscally responsible, they should really purchase (out of their own pockets) a netbook per child. Running *nix. Any special school software (assuming it is platform agnostic as previously specified) would run fine, the systems would be cheap.
They can allow the students to puy/lease the systems off the school should they want to take them home, but the lease a student would require would be a flash drive to save their files to.
They can copy their saved files at the end of class/end of the day, and take them home to work on their own systems with. Or just keep them safe so they can reuse them the next day at school.
Any system gets any sort of security issues, the system gets restored.
It's clean, simple, cheap, responsible, and will still prepare students for the real world, where (even if many employess ignore the rule), most companies disallow modification of their work computers. (And yeah, we at/. don't get this restriction in our usual lines of IT-based work as much as the rest of the world does)
In any event, I am baffled as to why any school would either a) require students to purchase a laptop (assuming they didn't already have one), b) Require any student to buy a specific platform (regardless of if they already have one), or c) pick Mac as that platform.
I think, more to the point, get todays kids to do the equavilent grade exams from 10-20 years ago, and they'd fail. Don't need to make them handwrite or use no calculators. Let them go in with their laptops (but no internet to search the answers for 10-20 year old exams) and they'd still fail. In fact, they'd probably do even worse due to 'This is boring, I'll play minesweeper to take a break' and running out of time:)
Of course, one could argue that that is because those tests were for topics that arent needed to be learned these days, and there may be a little truth to that, but we need experts to advance, and to be an expert you need to be thoroughly familiar with the fundamentals.
I have no problems with allowing calculators and laptops, and other tools, however I believe that:
a) All tests should require a fundamental component (ie. all done by hand) even if it's only 1 question of a topic out of 100, and
b) Extra tools should not be required to do the work, only to speed up the work.
Note: This is only for highschool. Once you hit continued specialised education things can change.
Sure, it may have been a little childish to release the information.
His stated reason of 'forcing microsoft to fix it' as they would 'otherwise ignore it' is hard for me to disagree with, however, it's nice to see MS get served. Perhaps if this happened often enough they'd start releasing better software, although Win & so far seems to be showing they are moving in that direction.
Also, he did release a patch with it, and the real question to me is if he knew his patch was flawed or not. As a software developer, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
I like the idea of using zero-days to put developers under the gun for their mistakes.
Zero-Day in the way it was used is referring to an exploitable bug in software that is unknown to others. If a hacker discovers a flaw that is unknown, they have found a zero-day. They can then write an exploit for it and use that exploit, or they can simply note it. Hackers mayl trade or sell zero-days (well, the knowledge of them, the flaw obviously exists regardless of their knowledge of it, but it is their knowledge of it that makes it a zero-day)
If someone else discovers it, say a security consultant, etc, and alerts the software developer, it is no longer a zero-day.
The use of the term in the article was to illustrate that it was an hitherto unknown flaw, which means that no patch is available for it, which means that it can be used, and there is nothing to stop it.
Most other flaws are known, patches exist (even if not everyone has patched with them) and as such are a lot less valuable to the malicious of the hacker community. It is reasonable to call this a zero-day flaw as his provided patch does not work, and hackers are aware of the exploit.
However, as the developer also is aware of it, it won't be valuable for long.
So, to get this straight (There's been a lot of sidetracking and a metric ton of squabbling so far, so trying to distill this)
The demos aren't actually 'HTML5 strict' as is implied, as they use -webkit experimental directives.
Which means that in order to view them, Safari on OSx snow leapord is required.
Which means that Apple is making false claims in an effort to get people to use it's hardware and software.
The one step easy solution to any of this "user backlash" is to make any new features "opt in" not "opt out".
The only reason to do it as they are (opt out) is to make data accessable that users don't want to keep private.
I haven't logged into my yahoo account in months, due to having forgotten my password. This means that when this change comes around, information will be made available about me that I cannot prevent and that, when I signed up, was assured would be kept private.
And, should you spend a week without caffeine, you could get back into that ritual without changing it (asside for no caffeine). Thats what the research was about. You are at your baseline, and it requires caffeine to maintain it. Remove the addiction to caffeine, and your baseline will return, but without requiring caffeine to maintain it.
That aside, it does sound to me like you should be looking at shortening your hours, especially if you're looking at having a child.
I suspect, however, that the child is your wife's idea, so she can have someone to connect with, as you are so busy.
All in all it is your choice, however, so if you're happy with your life, don't change a thing.
BTW. I am also an American worker in the IT industry. I work a 40 hour week, and have more free time than I know what to do with. Then again, I have no family here, and few friends, which makes a big difference.
I'm from Australia, and worked in IT there also. Ideally I'll get back there, as I got the same pay for the same hours, living in a equavilent economic society. The differences are only that I got more holidays, and free healthcare, and that I prefer Sydney to Dallas (for so many other reasons I won't go into).
I have also lived in Finland under a similar situation, and would also much prefer it to Dallas, but not quite as much as Sydney. (Very close to Sydney, though)
I wonder what would happen if hackers started targetting
Ppakastani websites - the biggest/most official ones, and put images of the prophet mohammed on them. I think that'd make for a nice protest of the actions towards this Facebook fan page, and a much more interesting article:)
Or perhaps if the hacking lasted long enough (perhaps over a few years) there would be desensitization to this issue, resulting in an overall moderation of the extremist attitudes of some people?
Nah, I doubt that. Heads would roll.
For bonus points, the images (carictures only here please) would be of him on his wedding night.
Don't install it by default.
Allow it under the condition there is a disclaimer (short and basic english) stating "Flash may crash this device and/or become a battery hog. Install at your own risk".
Problem solved.
If flash is worth having, it will prevail.
If not, then noone will install it and it will disappear.
Assuming that flash becomes available for iPad.
Assuming that the application has a security hole (or more)
It's still up to the user to install/enable it (or should be).
I think that negates security (and crashing) issues on it's own.
Why can't Apple allow flash on the iPad, and simply disclaim it:
"Apple doesn't have the time or resources or interest to debug/quality test this software. We leave that to Adobe. Install at your own risk"
I've seen plenty of similar disclaimers on plenty of other products.
If Apple did this, then those who agree with Apples current stance can simply not have flash.
Those who want flash and are willing to deal with the possible issues (assuming any exist which, lets face it, is likely) can take their own risks.
It's about having the option, not about fabricated nanny-like handholding behavour of Apple that most think (and may very well be) a mask for more selfish, antitrust inducing motivations.
Asking your developers is good, but not definitive. You may end up with different developers at some point in the future (people retiring, new hires, etc.) so asking here is a great place.
I work with 3 other developers. I love the silence, one loves his music, one works offsite (from another state) etc. I think you'd be best to give each developer their own space (office) so that they can personalise it to how they best work without bothering any other developer.
For interaction, face to face is rarely necessary, and should it be, I'm sure one dev can walk to another's office, or similar. For collaboration, I'm pretty sure you'll a) have a phone system that has speakerphone (or skype, or whatever) for voice, and then you just need one of the many software solutions for screen sharing. Then both devs can talk, and see/control the same 'screen', all without having to give up their personal space/environment (or be bothered by that dev who farts all day long, or checks out your arse, or whatever else annoys you). Email/instant messenger w/logging is fantastic for keeping a communication log so you can check back over previous items, etc, and should be used whenever possible, but I agree that that is not always ideal.
Plants are good - they improve the wellbeing of people, and make the office less oppressive.
With all that said, having regular breaks - ideally 4 15 minute breaks during the day, where the devs can take a smoke break/eat something/whatever, but get some face-to-face should they desire it, and perhaps talk work, perhaps not, will keep the team connected and productive.
You mean you sent your full CC number out to the internet on an unsecure connection (google.com is not https,) to a service that makes search terms used viewable (well, not sure how they'd manage to pick your search term out, but it's probably possible)
Same as linkworth.com - They are set up by default to have all ads approved both by their own team and by whoever is selling the advertising space on their site(s). They also have account managers that do this on a site by site basis. It's easy to get advertising revenue that is vetted, should you chose to. (They also allow you to set your own pricing)
Slashdot Mirror
Well, she says (taken directly from the OP) she includes herself among 'those of us who favor some form of pornography and hate speech regulation,' (emphasis added.)
Now, hating speech regulation is fairly clear, who doesn't hate speech regulation? I'm more curious about what form of pornography she favours, as i think this will give insight to what her opinions may be.
Danmit. Quit being rational and making sense. it's ruining your image.
Please repost with something we can ridicule. Your post has no material for that.
So now they've moved on to breeding Mac fans. Can anyone say "Master Race"? Perhaps in another 10 or 20 years or so, Apple will develop a new device that allows you to tweak your zygote's DNA for particular charastics. It will come with "Mac Zealot" by default, but if you want to tweak less important things like hair/eye colour, etc, well, there'll be an App for that.
I think it'll be interesting if it ends up possible to play vs. online cross-platform. I suspect the PC players will have the best control by far, and dominate, but if XBox and PS3 can compete against each other control accuracy/latency will become a hot topic.
I can only assume that the reason they are requiring macs is because they have software that runs on OSX that they want every student to have access to during the schoolday. Be it software for Textbooks, Backup, Moinitoring, or whatever.
/. don't get this restriction in our usual lines of IT-based work as much as the rest of the world does)
That is the only reason to require macs.
Even if they were requiring PCs for this purpose, and PCs being the dominant in the market, so a reasonable choice for this, I'd still have to disagree
If they are going to require computers, for any purpost, then they must make it platform non-sepcific. It needs to be software (or cloud-based browser run apps) that run on all systems with a reasonable market share.
This includes, at the very least, Mac, PC and *nix.
Both backup and problems are easily controllable in a platform-agnostic fashion.:
Full HD backup (which can be done automated, and really is not that much more expensive storage-wise than any other backup version) and full HD restore. If a student screws up their system, then you restore it from last backup, or do a clean drive imaging of the basic setup.
Regardless, kids should be directed to back up their work files independantly, USB storage is cheap as dirt and ideal for this purpose.
And finally, to be fiscally responsible, they should really purchase (out of their own pockets) a netbook per child. Running *nix. Any special school software (assuming it is platform agnostic as previously specified) would run fine, the systems would be cheap.
They can allow the students to puy/lease the systems off the school should they want to take them home, but the lease a student would require would be a flash drive to save their files to.
They can copy their saved files at the end of class/end of the day, and take them home to work on their own systems with. Or just keep them safe so they can reuse them the next day at school.
Any system gets any sort of security issues, the system gets restored.
It's clean, simple, cheap, responsible, and will still prepare students for the real world, where (even if many employess ignore the rule), most companies disallow modification of their work computers. (And yeah, we at
In any event, I am baffled as to why any school would either a) require students to purchase a laptop (assuming they didn't already have one), b) Require any student to buy a specific platform (regardless of if they already have one), or c) pick Mac as that platform.
I think, more to the point, get todays kids to do the equavilent grade exams from 10-20 years ago, and they'd fail. Don't need to make them handwrite or use no calculators. Let them go in with their laptops (but no internet to search the answers for 10-20 year old exams) and they'd still fail. In fact, they'd probably do even worse due to 'This is boring, I'll play minesweeper to take a break' and running out of time :)
Of course, one could argue that that is because those tests were for topics that arent needed to be learned these days, and there may be a little truth to that, but we need experts to advance, and to be an expert you need to be thoroughly familiar with the fundamentals.
I have no problems with allowing calculators and laptops, and other tools, however I believe that:
a) All tests should require a fundamental component (ie. all done by hand) even if it's only 1 question of a topic out of 100, and
b) Extra tools should not be required to do the work, only to speed up the work.
Note: This is only for highschool. Once you hit continued specialised education things can change.
Sure, it may have been a little childish to release the information.
His stated reason of 'forcing microsoft to fix it' as they would 'otherwise ignore it' is hard for me to disagree with, however, it's nice to see MS get served. Perhaps if this happened often enough they'd start releasing better software, although Win & so far seems to be showing they are moving in that direction.
Also, he did release a patch with it, and the real question to me is if he knew his patch was flawed or not. As a software developer, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one.
I like the idea of using zero-days to put developers under the gun for their mistakes.
Zero-Day in the way it was used is referring to an exploitable bug in software that is unknown to others. If a hacker discovers a flaw that is unknown, they have found a zero-day. They can then write an exploit for it and use that exploit, or they can simply note it. Hackers mayl trade or sell zero-days (well, the knowledge of them, the flaw obviously exists regardless of their knowledge of it, but it is their knowledge of it that makes it a zero-day) If someone else discovers it, say a security consultant, etc, and alerts the software developer, it is no longer a zero-day.
The use of the term in the article was to illustrate that it was an hitherto unknown flaw, which means that no patch is available for it, which means that it can be used, and there is nothing to stop it.
Most other flaws are known, patches exist (even if not everyone has patched with them) and as such are a lot less valuable to the malicious of the hacker community. It is reasonable to call this a zero-day flaw as his provided patch does not work, and hackers are aware of the exploit. However, as the developer also is aware of it, it won't be valuable for long.
So, to get this straight (There's been a lot of sidetracking and a metric ton of squabbling so far, so trying to distill this)
The demos aren't actually 'HTML5 strict' as is implied, as they use -webkit experimental directives.
Which means that in order to view them, Safari on OSx snow leapord is required.
Which means that Apple is making false claims in an effort to get people to use it's hardware and software.
Which really isn't very cool.
Did I get it right, in summary?
The one step easy solution to any of this "user backlash" is to make any new features "opt in" not "opt out".
The only reason to do it as they are (opt out) is to make data accessable that users don't want to keep private. I haven't logged into my yahoo account in months, due to having forgotten my password. This means that when this change comes around, information will be made available about me that I cannot prevent and that, when I signed up, was assured would be kept private.
And, should you spend a week without caffeine, you could get back into that ritual without changing it (asside for no caffeine). Thats what the research was about. You are at your baseline, and it requires caffeine to maintain it. Remove the addiction to caffeine, and your baseline will return, but without requiring caffeine to maintain it.
That aside, it does sound to me like you should be looking at shortening your hours, especially if you're looking at having a child.
I suspect, however, that the child is your wife's idea, so she can have someone to connect with, as you are so busy.
All in all it is your choice, however, so if you're happy with your life, don't change a thing.
BTW. I am also an American worker in the IT industry. I work a 40 hour week, and have more free time than I know what to do with. Then again, I have no family here, and few friends, which makes a big difference.
I'm from Australia, and worked in IT there also. Ideally I'll get back there, as I got the same pay for the same hours, living in a equavilent economic society. The differences are only that I got more holidays, and free healthcare, and that I prefer Sydney to Dallas (for so many other reasons I won't go into).
I have also lived in Finland under a similar situation, and would also much prefer it to Dallas, but not quite as much as Sydney. (Very close to Sydney, though)
I wonder what would happen if hackers started targetting Ppakastani websites - the biggest/most official ones, and put images of the prophet mohammed on them. I think that'd make for a nice protest of the actions towards this Facebook fan page, and a much more interesting article :)
Or perhaps if the hacking lasted long enough (perhaps over a few years) there would be desensitization to this issue, resulting in an overall moderation of the extremist attitudes of some people?
Nah, I doubt that. Heads would roll.
For bonus points, the images (carictures only here please) would be of him on his wedding night.
Don't install it by default.
Allow it under the condition there is a disclaimer (short and basic english) stating "Flash may crash this device and/or become a battery hog. Install at your own risk". Problem solved.
If flash is worth having, it will prevail.
If not, then noone will install it and it will disappear.
Assuming that flash becomes available for iPad. Assuming that the application has a security hole (or more)
It's still up to the user to install/enable it (or should be). I think that negates security (and crashing) issues on it's own. Why can't Apple allow flash on the iPad, and simply disclaim it:
"Apple doesn't have the time or resources or interest to debug/quality test this software. We leave that to Adobe. Install at your own risk"
I've seen plenty of similar disclaimers on plenty of other products.
If Apple did this, then those who agree with Apples current stance can simply not have flash. Those who want flash and are willing to deal with the possible issues (assuming any exist which, lets face it, is likely) can take their own risks.
It's about having the option, not about fabricated nanny-like handholding behavour of Apple that most think (and may very well be) a mask for more selfish, antitrust inducing motivations.
Asking your developers is good, but not definitive. You may end up with different developers at some point in the future (people retiring, new hires, etc.) so asking here is a great place. I work with 3 other developers. I love the silence, one loves his music, one works offsite (from another state) etc. I think you'd be best to give each developer their own space (office) so that they can personalise it to how they best work without bothering any other developer. For interaction, face to face is rarely necessary, and should it be, I'm sure one dev can walk to another's office, or similar. For collaboration, I'm pretty sure you'll a) have a phone system that has speakerphone (or skype, or whatever) for voice, and then you just need one of the many software solutions for screen sharing. Then both devs can talk, and see/control the same 'screen', all without having to give up their personal space/environment (or be bothered by that dev who farts all day long, or checks out your arse, or whatever else annoys you). Email/instant messenger w/logging is fantastic for keeping a communication log so you can check back over previous items, etc, and should be used whenever possible, but I agree that that is not always ideal. Plants are good - they improve the wellbeing of people, and make the office less oppressive. With all that said, having regular breaks - ideally 4 15 minute breaks during the day, where the devs can take a smoke break/eat something/whatever, but get some face-to-face should they desire it, and perhaps talk work, perhaps not, will keep the team connected and productive.
You mean you sent your full CC number out to the internet on an unsecure connection (google.com is not https,) to a service that makes search terms used viewable (well, not sure how they'd manage to pick your search term out, but it's probably possible)
Same as linkworth.com - They are set up by default to have all ads approved both by their own team and by whoever is selling the advertising space on their site(s). They also have account managers that do this on a site by site basis. It's easy to get advertising revenue that is vetted, should you chose to. (They also allow you to set your own pricing)
Pre-fetching (any fetching) doesn't run the javascript. That happens on page view.
I was also a fan of AC2. Sure it had a few flaws, but it is in my top 3 MMORPGs, along with Wow