Back in 2004 Intego's big complaint about the Mac was that because it's based on UNIX, if you could get it to execute a shell script you could do anything on the computer, and that Applescript wasn't sandboxed. They never noticed that the same was true of CMD.EXE and VBscript on Windows, DCL on VMS, and every other native scripting environment on every OS, ever, anywhere.
Since I always want to download, and never want to open a PDF in the browser, it was always more convenient and more secure to remove the damn plugin. And these days I use Preview.app to read PDFs.
Hal Clement thought too small. Mesklin may be too low pressure for complex life.
One of the reasons earth is so amenable to life is that ice floats, so the oceans remain deep and liquid. The hydrocarbon oceans of Mesklin would be shallow and cold, a thin layer of liquid ammonia or methane over ices and clathrates. Thus they wouldn't serve as a moderator of temperature and reservoir of life the way Earths oceans have.
But if life based on crystalline carbon at millions of atmospheres is possible at all, it's all the more possible if the carbon-cycle resembles the water cycle on Earth.
You don't need to run *privileged* code to exploit a vulnerability in an application. A normal user or even a browser running in a chrooted jail can still be used to launch attacks on other computers, take part in a botnet, and so on. Not to mentioon that if your browser's compromised it's sitting there waiting to steal your passwords and attack your bank accounts.
And "let me do something stupid" dialogs are little protection, because if they're used often enough to be effective they just train people to let the computer do something stupid.
I used to have to go through and find that damn plugin and actually remove the plugin dll every time I installed acrobat, because there was NO WAY to tell Adobe "no, thanks, I do NOT want to hang my computer for five minutes while your plugin munches on a huge PDF every time I forget to alt-click on a pdf link".
It seems there's a number of people who are unconvinced Hawking radiation is real. It does make me wonder what happened to all the black holes created by cosmic radiation, though.
You didn't bother to read the summary or the Original Article.
At least, I don't agree with it. Since movies are made by movie producers, all they can be expected to do is to encourage people to read SF written by people who at least care about reality.
OK, fair enough, but they're just glimpses... and were they really any worse than Bryce 3d? I don't recall, it's been too long since I saw it and my google-fu has failed me.
What I'm getting at is that, even as much as the Matrix sucked in so many ways, they were surprisingly immune to the "viewer friendly user interface" problem.
You're saying abnoxious advertising is a web usability problem?
Yes, actually. Though that's by no means all of it. I mostly use Flashblock because nothing says "screw you" like a background window suddenly using 100% of my CPU.
sites that use Flash for UI almost never provide a no-flash backup.
That's why Flashblock shines. Instead of having 20 little applets busywaiting in the background, I get 20 little (>) icons that I can selectively enable, and leave the 3d flash navigation menu that's tracking my mouse pointer with a clippy-quality avatar blocked until such time as I need it.
And, yes, even with the extra clicks, this gives me a far better user experience than without it.
The Matrix outside view wasn't Viewer Friendly, it was supposed to be the 24th century equivalent of a command line. The only guy who could really understand it was the geek.
The Viewer Friendly Interface trope was (surprisingly) largely averted in the Matrix where only a little Hollywood was wrapped around an almost unmodified nmap and sshnuke.
The problem is that the information I take down is only for my convenience and it is infinitely easier to glance over to a notepad or sticky note on my desk as I'm typing or on the phone than it is to spend the half-minute it'll take to pull the correct note up on my phone.
Sounds like the iPhone isn't as user-friendly as it's made out to be.
The most recent note on my Clie comes up in seconds when I push the "note" button. And my "scratchpad" note is always that one or the one under it.
Slashdot Mirror
Back in 2004 Intego's big complaint about the Mac was that because it's based on UNIX, if you could get it to execute a shell script you could do anything on the computer, and that Applescript wasn't sandboxed. They never noticed that the same was true of CMD.EXE and VBscript on Windows, DCL on VMS, and every other native scripting environment on every OS, ever, anywhere.
Intego's business model appears to be FUD.
Since I always want to download, and never want to open a PDF in the browser, it was always more convenient and more secure to remove the damn plugin. And these days I use Preview.app to read PDFs.
Hal Clement thought too small. Mesklin may be too low pressure for complex life.
One of the reasons earth is so amenable to life is that ice floats, so the oceans remain deep and liquid. The hydrocarbon oceans of Mesklin would be shallow and cold, a thin layer of liquid ammonia or methane over ices and clathrates. Thus they wouldn't serve as a moderator of temperature and reservoir of life the way Earths oceans have.
But if life based on crystalline carbon at millions of atmospheres is possible at all, it's all the more possible if the carbon-cycle resembles the water cycle on Earth.
You don't need to run *privileged* code to exploit a vulnerability in an application. A normal user or even a browser running in a chrooted jail can still be used to launch attacks on other computers, take part in a botnet, and so on. Not to mentioon that if your browser's compromised it's sitting there waiting to steal your passwords and attack your bank accounts.
And "let me do something stupid" dialogs are little protection, because if they're used often enough to be effective they just train people to let the computer do something stupid.
No, once you're penetrated, you're ****ed.
I used to have to go through and find that damn plugin and actually remove the plugin dll every time I installed acrobat, because there was NO WAY to tell Adobe "no, thanks, I do NOT want to hang my computer for five minutes while your plugin munches on a huge PDF every time I forget to alt-click on a pdf link".
Obviously my sense of humor is imaginary.
It seems there's a number of people who are unconvinced Hawking radiation is real. It does make me wonder what happened to all the black holes created by cosmic radiation, though.
It's not a correction, it's an objection.
It's not incorrect, it's offensive.
How about the Class E (reserved for future use) range? That's another 15 "Class A" blocks excluding RFC0919.
How many people use anything but 224/8 for Multicast applications? IANA seems to have most of that space reserved or experimental.
Bah, if they'd shown something REALLY oldschool like mailx or rn... :)
(allegedly, Barry Schein started reading Usenet because he made a typo when he was trying to delete a file one day...)
YHBT, HAND. :)
I don't know what Varian uses, but the Therac incident involved an embedded PDP-11, probably running RT-11 or RSX-11.
Purely for trivia fans: RSX-11 was Dave Cutler's first OS, followed by VMS and NT.
You didn't bother to read the summary or the Original Article.
At least, I don't agree with it. Since movies are made by movie producers, all they can be expected to do is to encourage people to read SF written by people who at least care about reality.
OK, fair enough, but they're just glimpses... and were they really any worse than Bryce 3d? I don't recall, it's been too long since I saw it and my google-fu has failed me.
What I'm getting at is that, even as much as the Matrix sucked in so many ways, they were surprisingly immune to the "viewer friendly user interface" problem.
You're saying abnoxious advertising is a web usability problem?
Yes, actually. Though that's by no means all of it. I mostly use Flashblock because nothing says "screw you" like a background window suddenly using 100% of my CPU.
sites that use Flash for UI almost never provide a no-flash backup.
That's why Flashblock shines. Instead of having 20 little applets busywaiting in the background, I get 20 little (>) icons that I can selectively enable, and leave the 3d flash navigation menu that's tracking my mouse pointer with a clippy-quality avatar blocked until such time as I need it.
And, yes, even with the extra clicks, this gives me a far better user experience than without it.
God is transcendental. The real number line can not contain Him.
"So what" is dismissive, no matter the context. If you don't mean to be perceived as dismissing a problem, don't use dismissive language.
The Matrix outside view wasn't Viewer Friendly, it was supposed to be the 24th century equivalent of a command line. The only guy who could really understand it was the geek.
The problem is that scientists in just about every movie and television show are seen as evil.
I think I see your problem.
The Viewer Friendly Interface trope was (surprisingly) largely averted in the Matrix where only a little Hollywood was wrapped around an almost unmodified nmap and sshnuke.
The problem is that the information I take down is only for my convenience and it is infinitely easier to glance over to a notepad or sticky note on my desk as I'm typing or on the phone than it is to spend the half-minute it'll take to pull the correct note up on my phone.
Sounds like the iPhone isn't as user-friendly as it's made out to be.
The most recent note on my Clie comes up in seconds when I push the "note" button. And my "scratchpad" note is always that one or the one under it.
OK, let me try emphasizing a different word in that sentence: "You mostly get that from people who don't read enough SF".
Unless it's a Klein Bottle.
You mostly get that from people who don't read enough SF.
I think Disaster Area was more into thermonuclear electric guitars.