You can secure something in two ways - by actually securing it (building barriers, posting guards, improving designs, educating users etc.) or by severely punishing anyone who breaks in, so severely that no others would dare to try.
Of course, the best course of action is to do both. If you want something to be really, really secure that is.
I looked at Greasemonkey a few days ago, but after considering its capabilities I found out that it's not for me - or I miss something. What I need is to create a script or something that would remove certain (not all, not many, just two defined ones) cookies from my Firefox either at a touch of a button (easy version) or every two (or defined) times I visit a defined web page.
Is it possible? And what's the best way to do this?
I write websites so I can present ideas to people. I don't want them to see my site the way they want to see it. I want them to see it the way it was meant to be seen. That way I can provide content based on expectations of standards compliance.
Yep! Now, hire a lawyer, prepare cease & desist letters and mail them to all the users you identify as using this underground, criminal extensions that allows them to circumvent your clever designs.
Why should they want to? You assume that they need Excel because it's your point of reference and de-facto standard in the US. But this cheap device is aimed at people who don't have a computer now, clearly even a slow comp is way better than none. Consequently, any spreadsheet is better than counting on a sheet of paper and that's the alternative for the target users of these devices.
What is scary here is not the fact that someone tries to sneak something through Congress by attaching it to other legislation, because that was done many times before. And it's not that they want a National ID Card - every policeman in the world loves all ideas that make his job easier (whether it is hunting down robbers or suppressing opposition to the government).
What is scary is that if I haven't read/. but relied on mainstream media I wouldn't even know about it! What happened to journalism??
The GRB signals the birth of a black hole resulting from a merger between two neutron stars.
Is that the current scientific consensus? Because I've just yesterday read about a whole different theory behind GRBs, namely that they signal a collapse of a super-massive star inside star nurseries at the edges of the observable Universe.
Yeah, yeah, I was there but it doesn't work for me. I get an error message from a proxy. I suspect it is set up so that it serves only certain IPs, possibly only their internal LANs.
the burden of proof is on the Examiner to prove why an application shouldn't be a patent
From the website: Primary Examiner: Meky; Moustafa M.
Pity we don't have e-mail to Mr. Moustafa M. Meky. But maybe this is a way of thwarting a bit this true flood of stupid patents - make negative celebrities of Examiners who approved the stupidest patents, so that others would be more careful?
In fact, there is a bar located right in the flight path of the runway. I just met a guy who came back from there, and said it's quite interesting to have planes landing so close to you.
Amazing. Turning a nuisance into a selling point. And people buy it.
50 year old technology is proven technology. If you are going to risk a multi-billion dollar satelitte- something that has had thousands of launches under its belt sounds good to me.
Yeah, sure. I'm sure they used a horse-drawn cart to get it to the launch site. After all, if you are going to risk a multi-billion dollar satellite something that has thousands of years of proven use is much better than a car (a mere century).
Yet another example why we need not one, not two, not a dozen but literarily swarms of cheap robots if we are to get much research fast.
If that would be one of, say, 50 little rovers sniffing around Mars plains this wouldn't even be news.
And it's another argument in favor of manned mission. Why? Because people on site can do something creative in difficult situations while an automatic rover clearly can't.
So either massive robotic exploration or manned missions. Of course both would be best. But neither is just crawling, not research and not expansion.
You can't identify good coders by the laundry list of frameworks and tools they claim to have used. Stupid coding tests aren't much better. Good coders are problem solvers, so give them a problem and see if they solve it.
Most of the best coders I've known don't have degrees in "CS or related field". Some of them majored in basket weaving and others never got past high school. A lot of the "CS or related" folks are real tools who wouldn't know good code from a digital photo of their own ass.
The problems you mention are a direct result of what I call "database hiring". Database of candidates can't measure their personality, intelligence, dedication to work or honesty. But it can contain a list of fields about various software packages/environments/tools they know, it can have a list of diplomas, certificates and training attended, it can have neat "experience" fields measured in years.
Now, a typical HR would start the process by click-building a query through his "talents database" clicking what the employer wants. You don't have it, you are not selected (literarily, as in SQL "SELECT").
That's how laundry lists you complain about get created. Result? Numerous examples of guys who have great CVs, with tons of diplomas and certificates who are just too dumb to really perform in the real world.
At the same time one of the best programmers I know never even went to college. Guess how far his CV is going to get through "database hiring" machine. Luckily for him those who worked with him know how good he is so he is not unemployed.
Dehumanizing the hiring process through "database hiring" produces dehumanized, McEmployees rightly called "human resources" (not persons). It's great for an assembly line, it's bad for anything requiring even a tad of creativity or above average intelligence.
They no longer count as unemployed programmers but as employed retail store clerks. I know dozens of ex-coworkers who've lost jobs in their 40s and 50s.
Sorry to say that, but being a programmer is in a way similar to being a (professional) sportsman. Your career lasts a definite, short lifespan and then you have to find yourself another job.
Good programmers are young programmers because coding takes enormous concentration, quick thinking and ability + desire to work long hours with little or no rest. You can do that before thirty, but hardly after forty. And in this field experience is also shortlived. Who cares if you had experience coding in late '70-ies, since almost everything changed since then?
Same, BTW, is true of sysadms and most techies. There are some exceptions, of course, but these are guys who have a very rare talents and/or personality.
So, sorry folks, but if you want to be a pure techie your whole life you either have to be a top-notch one or you are going down the slope. At some point you have to branch into fields like project management where experience really counts, age is an advantage not a problem and your technological insights are a cutting edge you have over "pure management".
...before it was just a bunch of pathetic screens of what looked like skinned XP, no earthshaking technology, no innovation, nothing. Now, it's a prized intellectual property. Oh, come on...
Interesting, BTW, how all those car magazines get away with pictures of pre-production prototytpes snapped during their road-tests. Somehow, car manufacturers don't see a problem there.
Having said that, if he agreed not to do it he shouldn't. Period.
Bankruptcy won't be here for a while yet, but market irrelevance is coming up fast...I'm predicting that by 2012 at the latest, Windows' market share will have almost completely evaporated.
Did you notice how market share for MS-DOS has evaporated yet Microsoft is far from being bankrupt? If someone bought some MS shares in the MS-DOS era would they loose much by selling them now?
Human-user interface design. That was Apple in 1985.
First, credit where it is due. That was Xerox in the 70ties, it's just that Xerox executives were not bright enough to use their own innovation and basically threw it away. Luckily, Jobs happened to be lurking in their backyard.
And even Xerox PARC's work was based on research done on universities in late 60ties, early 70ties.
Second, your description of how Apple scrapped a bunch of Unix daemons replacing them all with one, neat, XML configurable launchd.
That's great. It's probably the way it should be. And that surely is innovation. But it is a very miniscule one. It's merely an improvement, not something really new.
What Apple basically did was getting a 20-year old idea (Unix operating system), improving it some (like this launchd) and then adding a cute, well, thoughtfully designed GUI on top of it. Best of both worlds, it's stable, secure (thanks to Unix base) and it's easy to use and pleasant to look at (thanks to Apple's GUI design).
So, sorry to say that, but it is a 20th century concept. None of what is in OS X is a fundamentally new idea or technology unknown by the late 90ties. Apple is innovative in the market sense, but not so much in technology. Nothing wrong with that, their stuff is great and I love it (saving for a PB). But let's not buy into this marketing hype about "great innovations".
REMEMBER WHEN IBM RULED THE WORLD BEFORE THE PC. IBM does not even make a PC anymore. IBM had 400,00 employees and had to lay off 200,000 of them and a lot of them did not really do anything and had trouble getting another job. IBM is a shadow of its former self. They are just a consulting company.
Blah, blah, blah... another stupid rant...
When will you, dear Anonymous Cowards, learn something from the history you claim is so educating.
Last time I checked IBM was far from being bankrupt, they were doing quite fine actually. And being a consulting company is a higher level of abstraction, you sell pure knowledge, no need to keep any bricks & mortar. That's great news for IBM shareholders.
While that might seem a good thing, remember that the commoditization of the PC industry essentially sucked the innovation from it. PCs have gotten faster, but for the most part, there hasn't been a surprise, a new way of doing things, in PCs and in personal computing, since the early nineties.
Nothing strange in that. Commoditization is normal in anything that ceases to be high tech, bleeding edge. IT & computers aren't bleeding edge anymore. Period.
And this is not totally bad and doesn't mean there is no innovation. Let's take cars as a very good example of the same trends. Yes, cars ceased to be innovative some 80 years ago - every major component of a car was invented before the II World War begun including automatic transmissions and car radios. But no one could argue that there is no improvement between a car of today and car from late thirties, even despite the fact that basically well... they do the same thing. And probably someone from the period could easily adapt to driving the modern version (as controls for example didn't change at all).
The plus side to this is that, environmental concerns aside, everyone now can have a car and all the freedom of movement and ease of moving stuff it gives.
Same with computers. Yes, all PCs do more or less the same thing. Yes, they are ugly, run Windows but are cheap. But everyone can afford them. It's great!
And if you demand something different and on a higher level there is still Porsche and Apple.
A nice, Star Wars themed funeral, possibly attended by thousands of fans dressed up as Darth Vaders, Obi Wan Kenobis and the like. Afterwards, a Star Wars themed grave or mausoleum to which aforementioned fans would organize pilgrimages.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the best course of action is to do both. If you want something to be really, really secure that is.
Is it possible? And what's the best way to do this?
Yep! Now, hire a lawyer, prepare cease & desist letters and mail them to all the users you identify as using this underground, criminal extensions that allows them to circumvent your clever designs.
:)
I understand, conversely, that you are against India becoming like the US?
Why should they want to? You assume that they need Excel because it's your point of reference and de-facto standard in the US. But this cheap device is aimed at people who don't have a computer now, clearly even a slow comp is way better than none. Consequently, any spreadsheet is better than counting on a sheet of paper and that's the alternative for the target users of these devices.
How about this: Democracy is 90 sheep and 10 wolves voting which sheep wolves would have for dinner tonight.
What is scary is that if I haven't read /. but relied on mainstream media I wouldn't even know about it! What happened to journalism??
Is that the current scientific consensus? Because I've just yesterday read about a whole different theory behind GRBs, namely that they signal a collapse of a super-massive star inside star nurseries at the edges of the observable Universe.
Never Underestimate the Power of Stupid People in Large Groups..
Yeah, yeah, I was there but it doesn't work for me. I get an error message from a proxy. I suspect it is set up so that it serves only certain IPs, possibly only their internal LANs.
From the website:
Primary Examiner: Meky; Moustafa M.
Pity we don't have e-mail to Mr. Moustafa M. Meky. But maybe this is a way of thwarting a bit this true flood of stupid patents - make negative celebrities of Examiners who approved the stupidest patents, so that others would be more careful?
Amazing. Turning a nuisance into a selling point. And people buy it.
Nope. For one simple yet profound reason. You can't become Chinese. I can't become Chinese. But there are Americans who were born in China.
Got it?
Nothing happened, it functions perfectly. Just look around.
Yeah, sure. I'm sure they used a horse-drawn cart to get it to the launch site. After all, if you are going to risk a multi-billion dollar satellite something that has thousands of years of proven use is much better than a car (a mere century).
If that would be one of, say, 50 little rovers sniffing around Mars plains this wouldn't even be news.
And it's another argument in favor of manned mission. Why? Because people on site can do something creative in difficult situations while an automatic rover clearly can't.
So either massive robotic exploration or manned missions. Of course both would be best. But neither is just crawling, not research and not expansion.
The problems you mention are a direct result of what I call "database hiring". Database of candidates can't measure their personality, intelligence, dedication to work or honesty. But it can contain a list of fields about various software packages/environments/tools they know, it can have a list of diplomas, certificates and training attended, it can have neat "experience" fields measured in years.
Now, a typical HR would start the process by click-building a query through his "talents database" clicking what the employer wants. You don't have it, you are not selected (literarily, as in SQL "SELECT").
That's how laundry lists you complain about get created. Result? Numerous examples of guys who have great CVs, with tons of diplomas and certificates who are just too dumb to really perform in the real world.
At the same time one of the best programmers I know never even went to college. Guess how far his CV is going to get through "database hiring" machine. Luckily for him those who worked with him know how good he is so he is not unemployed.
Dehumanizing the hiring process through "database hiring" produces dehumanized, McEmployees rightly called "human resources" (not persons). It's great for an assembly line, it's bad for anything requiring even a tad of creativity or above average intelligence.
Sorry to say that, but being a programmer is in a way similar to being a (professional) sportsman. Your career lasts a definite, short lifespan and then you have to find yourself another job.
Good programmers are young programmers because coding takes enormous concentration, quick thinking and ability + desire to work long hours with little or no rest. You can do that before thirty, but hardly after forty. And in this field experience is also shortlived. Who cares if you had experience coding in late '70-ies, since almost everything changed since then?
Same, BTW, is true of sysadms and most techies. There are some exceptions, of course, but these are guys who have a very rare talents and/or personality.
So, sorry folks, but if you want to be a pure techie your whole life you either have to be a top-notch one or you are going down the slope. At some point you have to branch into fields like project management where experience really counts, age is an advantage not a problem and your technological insights are a cutting edge you have over "pure management".
I went that way and I never looked back.
Interesting, BTW, how all those car magazines get away with pictures of pre-production prototytpes snapped during their road-tests. Somehow, car manufacturers don't see a problem there.
Having said that, if he agreed not to do it he shouldn't. Period.
Did you notice how market share for MS-DOS has evaporated yet Microsoft is far from being bankrupt? If someone bought some MS shares in the MS-DOS era would they loose much by selling them now?
First, credit where it is due. That was Xerox in the 70ties, it's just that Xerox executives were not bright enough to use their own innovation and basically threw it away. Luckily, Jobs happened to be lurking in their backyard.
And even Xerox PARC's work was based on research done on universities in late 60ties, early 70ties.
Second, your description of how Apple scrapped a bunch of Unix daemons replacing them all with one, neat, XML configurable launchd.
That's great. It's probably the way it should be. And that surely is innovation. But it is a very miniscule one. It's merely an improvement, not something really new.
What Apple basically did was getting a 20-year old idea (Unix operating system), improving it some (like this launchd) and then adding a cute, well, thoughtfully designed GUI on top of it. Best of both worlds, it's stable, secure (thanks to Unix base) and it's easy to use and pleasant to look at (thanks to Apple's GUI design).
So, sorry to say that, but it is a 20th century concept. None of what is in OS X is a fundamentally new idea or technology unknown by the late 90ties. Apple is innovative in the market sense, but not so much in technology. Nothing wrong with that, their stuff is great and I love it (saving for a PB). But let's not buy into this marketing hype about "great innovations".
What? It was supposed to be an operating system? Oh, come on...
Blah, blah, blah... another stupid rant...
When will you, dear Anonymous Cowards, learn something from the history you claim is so educating.
Last time I checked IBM was far from being bankrupt, they were doing quite fine actually. And being a consulting company is a higher level of abstraction, you sell pure knowledge, no need to keep any bricks & mortar. That's great news for IBM shareholders.
Nothing strange in that. Commoditization is normal in anything that ceases to be high tech, bleeding edge. IT & computers aren't bleeding edge anymore. Period.
And this is not totally bad and doesn't mean there is no innovation. Let's take cars as a very good example of the same trends. Yes, cars ceased to be innovative some 80 years ago - every major component of a car was invented before the II World War begun including automatic transmissions and car radios. But no one could argue that there is no improvement between a car of today and car from late thirties, even despite the fact that basically well... they do the same thing. And probably someone from the period could easily adapt to driving the modern version (as controls for example didn't change at all).
The plus side to this is that, environmental concerns aside, everyone now can have a car and all the freedom of movement and ease of moving stuff it gives.
Same with computers. Yes, all PCs do more or less the same thing. Yes, they are ugly, run Windows but are cheap. But everyone can afford them. It's great!
And if you demand something different and on a higher level there is still Porsche and Apple.
A nice, Star Wars themed funeral, possibly attended by thousands of fans dressed up as Darth Vaders, Obi Wan Kenobis and the like. Afterwards, a Star Wars themed grave or mausoleum to which aforementioned fans would organize pilgrimages.