Still, I'm never one to embarrass myself without an encore. So to dig myself in deeper, I'd have to argue that linguistic grammar rules are *all* essentially absurd, particularly when looked at individually. The splitting of infinitives is, or has been, frowned upon because of the structure of Latin. The reference you provide gives a similar reason for the tradition of avoiding prepositions at the end of a clause. There are many other examples of grammatical rules that are based upon other languages.
But fundamentally, language is a set of conventions. This set changes over time. Some are part of the language because they clarify the meaning -- dangling participles lead to ambiguity, for example. Others are just arbitrary rules, based upon convention, history, or accident. Look at English spelling and pronunciation, for example.
I suppose I should get to some point around now, but I think I'll just quit here.
OK, but think about it from the perspective of the layman. Much of that time and learning goes into understanding the applications themselves.
As an example... How long does it take to become proficient in Word? We joke about creeping feature-itis, but programs like Word have an overwhelming number of options, especially for someone who just uses it for putting out newsletters or memos or something. They don't wnat to learn all the features. They just want to do their jobs. Over time, they gain knowledge of using Word. They *do* learn some of the tweaks and quirks and features.
It comes down to the original problem -- there's a hell of a lot to know, and most people just aren't interested.
I think one of the problems is that, to have a secure machine, there's a hell of a lot to know.
I've been using Unix or one flavor or another for maybe twenty years. I've been doing administration on servers for maybe ten. I know something about Unix, although I wouldn't call myself an expert. My focus is on programming rather than admin (although to be a good programmer you need to know a lot about admin, and vice versa).
The fact is, even with a lot of experience, there is an enormous amount to know if you want to keep a machine secure. And while most of it is pretty straightforward, some of it is really complicated stuff.
Couple that with the differences between flavors or even Linux distros. While the basic concepts tend to be the same, the methodology is different (for example, compare removing specific network services on Debian, RedHat, OS X, and Solaris). Security is a full-time job.
Technical people often make the analogy that the level of technical computer understanding most people want to maintain is like their house or car or office. Bar the windows, lock the doors, set the alarm. Set up the cameras if you're paranoid, and monitor them. While the top-level concepts are the same for operating systems, the kinds of attacks are different. There are only so many ways to get in through a window -- but how many programs turn up exploitable? Once you secure your windows, you know the threat level (rocks, pry bars, glass cutters, etc). With software, you may have a general idea (buffer overflows, privilege escalation, out-of-band data, unexpected input, etc), but it's continuously evolving. In both cases, vigilance is critical. In both cases, if you're security-minded you can be more or less secure, even in a hostile environment.
The problem is, this model is wrong for most people. They want to interact with their computers like they do their DVD-players or TVs. They want to use them as simple, versatile tools: think swiss-army stereo system. They don't want to have to think about security. They don't want to know that there's an/etc directory with configuration files in it. They don't want to run Windows Update every time they turn on their computer.
That's where the problem lies; people who are concerned about security will be secure whether they run Windows, Linux, or whatever. The people who just want a device that can play music, edit spreadsheets, write documents, send and receive email, and surf the web will likely be insecure no matter what OS they run. How many times have you had people volunteer passwords, watched the guy pound out the alarm code "1234", or had a user tell you their password was their cat's name?
Sure, some systems make it easier to be secure than others. But security is more an attitude than a system.
(This leaves out the whole issue of the heterogeneity of the Windows world, the desire on the part of worm writers to hit the largest "audience," and the anti-M$ attitude among 'leet hackers.)
Now what would lead you to think that's going to happen?
It wouldn't be our current gubernatorial circus, would it?
It certainly couldn't be our collection of fine thrust, subduction, and displacement faults throughout the state.
It couldn't be the current national Administration's "fuck 'em, they didn't vote for me, so let 'em use candles!" energy policy.
It wouldn't have anything to do with corrupt local politicians in every major city, would it?
It doesn't have anything to do with chronic overdevelopment? Pollution? Overpopulation? Gutting of the educational system? Overwhelming domination of franchises? Precipitous decline of the middle class? Bursting of the dot-com, aerospace, and biotech bubbles? Exorbitant housing prices?
Hm? What? What would lead you to think there's implosion danger here?
Sorry. I guess I'm illiterate. I didn't catch the "inbound" part of that.
In my mind, I was visualizing a hundred people sitting at sweatshop desks just pounding out email all day, doing nothing else: DEAR SIR, I (THE SON OF MOBUTU SESE-SEKO) HOPE THIS UNEXPECTED COMMUNICATION IS NOT EMBARRASSING, I RECEIVED YOUR NAME FROM MANY BUSINESS LEADERS...
Inbound, it's easy to believe. I receive on the order of 10-15/hr on an average, 24 hours a day. Mailing lists, spam, work email, and then actual personal messages.
An ex-girlfriend of mine reused a "disposable" 35mm film camera for about a year. The lens was surprisingly good for mass-manufactured plastic. Basically, her technique involved opening the cardboard box, gently prying back the snappers on the plastic, and reloading standard 35mm film rolls.
She spent maybe $10 on her camera, and she laughed at my >$1k Nikon rig. And frankly, for quick candid shots, she did better, because it was smaller and faster to deploy. Image quality was "good enough."
We were traveling, and I thought I was going to be selling my work, so I was shooting with pretty good glass. In the end, the deal didn't work out, so she had the best of it.
Now, for digital reusables, they probably are counting on some special cable or protocol that will deter the masses, but not the Slashdot crowd.
Yeah, I know that the raws are going to be better than jpeg.
I haven't used the Nikon Dx series, but I did work on a big gnarly prototype studio setup that shot uncompressed (it didn't even wrap it in TIF, it just spat out files with a 2k x 2k array of 64-bit words. There was only twelve actual bits/channel/pixel, though) and it simultaneously created jpeg previews (also 2k x 2k pixels, but a much, much smaller file size). This system was too unwieldy for shooting people, but then, this was nearly eight years ago.
I kind of figured that the preview file option was SOP in industrial digital cameras. Maybe we should suggest it to Nikon.
It seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point on this one.
I think it's less targeted at "immediately beaming your pictures from the field" than it is targeted at studio photography.
The high-end Nikon digitals may be good enough for journalism, but most of the people I know who use them are doing studio work, like product shots, fashion, etc.
If this is well designed, it could improve the pipeline speed of a product shoot, as it's often different people doing the different processes: shooting, color correction, comping. layout, etc. Now, the initial stage of this process can be made (closer to) parallel.
It certainly is not a revolutionary change (like the introduction of digital photography was), but it could represent an evolutionary change, where the photographer doesn't have to interrupt work to carry the microdrive over to the server for image uploading.
Now, some people will say "but many pros already have their cameras hooked up full-time via firewire, so this won't change the process at all!" I almost agree -- this removes the annoying tether, so you can move the camera around without cable snarl.
Then, with Sony and others set to WiFi enable the entire known universe, maybe this *will* eventually be a take anywhere, shoot, and upload kind of thing.
Yeah, but IP address is a really lousy identifier. There are a lot of people behind NAT routers and IP-masking firewalls, not to mention the legions of people who get their access via a system that uses DHCP.
The only "sure fire" way to get a good ID is to use authentication. Sure, it can be spoofed, since basic authentication is essentially sent in clear text. But it's more reliable than cookies, which can be deleted or modified. And if you need real certainty, use authentication with SSL. That should be pretty good.
Shortly after building the Robotic Utopia, we'll run out of oil.
Current "modern agribusiness" farming techniques convert something like 7 calories of oil into 1 calorie of food (adjusted for the different scales that people use for food calories -- a "food calorie" is actually 4.1868 kJ, i.e., 1 kcal).
So will all these robots happily hum along while humanity starves? Or will we cut off the juice when we need the energy for food production? Well, it's an interesting problem. Obviously, we can use the robots for food production by harnessing other forms of energy (nuclear, coal, solar, bio). Nuclear and coal will provide the power. They have some serious drawbacks, though. Solar, while good for some purposes, won't fulfil our Magical Robotic Utopia's energy requirements.
Bio. Now there's an interesting one. An Ox eats bio waste (grass clippings), and can drag a plow or walk on a heavily geared turnstile combine. Their waste is great fertilizer. And they're too stupid to rise up and form SkyNet and make *us* the slaves. No-one ever had to escape from the Matrix run by Oxen, I can tell you that right now.
So that's my prediction. Robotic Utopia will usher in the era of the Great Ruminant Renaissance. Heavy horses, Oxen, and occasional very large aquatic mammals are the wave of the future. You heard it here first, folks!
Hey, Mount Wilson (above Pasadena, California) is no slouch either.
You can see where Michaelson did the experiment to measure the speed of light in the 20s. There's a couple of solar observatories. And you can bathe in the TV and Radio signals for all of LA County up close.
The San Gabriel Mountains have a lot of other interesting historical stuff. Even "geek" stuff, like the old Nike missile emplacements. And some fine hiking, to boot!
I'm familiar with the problem. And I wish I had a good answer, but I'm afraid I don't.
The Google Ad stuff has worked out for some people. Affiliate programs have worked out for some people. But for a site that's really more content-focused than product-related, this is cold comfort.
When you figure it out, be sure to post the answer here;) I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be interested!
I would think that sites that are successful in selling you things -- like Amazon -- wouldn't charge you to enter, so that may even cut down on the number of sites you have to pay for each month.
Aye, therein lies the rub. Once they discover that people are willing to pay micropayments for access, even the commercial players like Amazon won't be able to resist.
Soon, Amazon would be free for people who have purchased $n worth of stuff, and a micropayment for people just browsing. After all, if you're merely using the site as a reference, you should be happy to pay. Oh, and why should they foot the bill for you to comparison shop? Etc.
And prehaps it's redundant to state this, but the size of a micropayment is proportional to the number of sites requiring them. When every site costs $0.01 / visit, soon "premium" sites will cost $0.015, and so on. Eventually, we get the magazine situation you describe; the mechanism may be different, but the net result is the same.
While I think a watch is one of the ideal places to keep a data device - since you always have it with you (the other being a keychain)...
Actually, for most of us infra-dig urban hipsters, a phone is the best place for a data storage.
I happen to be partial to the Kyocera Smartphones, but there are other good Palm OS models by Samsung, Handspring, and even Palm.
If you're willing to support The Beast, there are a whole bunch of WinCE/Pocket PC phones, too, although they're uglier than the Fossil watch. Then there are the Symbian and Blackberry platforms with bunches of phone devices. And then there's even the Java-based systems. So there's a lot of choice out there.
Slashdot Mirror
I used to work in the Aerospace industry.
Some of the guys down at the Cape used to say things like "You'd never get me to sit up top a rocket built by the lowest bidder!"
Their astronaut buddies would just laugh at them. "You clearly don't have any idea," they'd say.
I think I'd fall in the first camp, but there will always be people who fall in the latter camp.
Well, I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek.
Still, I'm never one to embarrass myself without an encore. So to dig myself in deeper, I'd have to argue that linguistic grammar rules are *all* essentially absurd, particularly when looked at individually. The splitting of infinitives is, or has been, frowned upon because of the structure of Latin. The reference you provide gives a similar reason for the tradition of avoiding prepositions at the end of a clause. There are many other examples of grammatical rules that are based upon other languages.
But fundamentally, language is a set of conventions. This set changes over time. Some are part of the language because they clarify the meaning -- dangling participles lead to ambiguity, for example. Others are just arbitrary rules, based upon convention, history, or accident. Look at English spelling and pronunciation, for example.
I suppose I should get to some point around now, but I think I'll just quit here.
As a Californian, I take exception to that statement.
And as a pedantic ass, I state that "any sentence challenging English usage or pronunciation that ends in a preposition needs revisiting."
And as a victim of Murphy, I don't doubt that someone will find grammatical errors in this posting.
OK, but think about it from the perspective of the layman. Much of that time and learning goes into understanding the applications themselves.
As an example... How long does it take to become proficient in Word? We joke about creeping feature-itis, but programs like Word have an overwhelming number of options, especially for someone who just uses it for putting out newsletters or memos or something. They don't wnat to learn all the features. They just want to do their jobs. Over time, they gain knowledge of using Word. They *do* learn some of the tweaks and quirks and features.
It comes down to the original problem -- there's a hell of a lot to know, and most people just aren't interested.
I think one of the problems is that, to have a secure machine, there's a hell of a lot to know.
/etc directory with configuration files in it. They don't want to run Windows Update every time they turn on their computer.
I've been using Unix or one flavor or another for maybe twenty years. I've been doing administration on servers for maybe ten. I know something about Unix, although I wouldn't call myself an expert. My focus is on programming rather than admin (although to be a good programmer you need to know a lot about admin, and vice versa).
The fact is, even with a lot of experience, there is an enormous amount to know if you want to keep a machine secure. And while most of it is pretty straightforward, some of it is really complicated stuff.
Couple that with the differences between flavors or even Linux distros. While the basic concepts tend to be the same, the methodology is different (for example, compare removing specific network services on Debian, RedHat, OS X, and Solaris). Security is a full-time job.
Technical people often make the analogy that the level of technical computer understanding most people want to maintain is like their house or car or office. Bar the windows, lock the doors, set the alarm. Set up the cameras if you're paranoid, and monitor them. While the top-level concepts are the same for operating systems, the kinds of attacks are different. There are only so many ways to get in through a window -- but how many programs turn up exploitable? Once you secure your windows, you know the threat level (rocks, pry bars, glass cutters, etc). With software, you may have a general idea (buffer overflows, privilege escalation, out-of-band data, unexpected input, etc), but it's continuously evolving. In both cases, vigilance is critical. In both cases, if you're security-minded you can be more or less secure, even in a hostile environment.
The problem is, this model is wrong for most people. They want to interact with their computers like they do their DVD-players or TVs. They want to use them as simple, versatile tools: think swiss-army stereo system. They don't want to have to think about security. They don't want to know that there's an
That's where the problem lies; people who are concerned about security will be secure whether they run Windows, Linux, or whatever. The people who just want a device that can play music, edit spreadsheets, write documents, send and receive email, and surf the web will likely be insecure no matter what OS they run. How many times have you had people volunteer passwords, watched the guy pound out the alarm code "1234", or had a user tell you their password was their cat's name?
Sure, some systems make it easier to be secure than others. But security is more an attitude than a system.
(This leaves out the whole issue of the heterogeneity of the Windows world, the desire on the part of worm writers to hit the largest "audience," and the anti-M$ attitude among 'leet hackers.)
California implode?
Now what would lead you to think that's going to happen?
It wouldn't be our current gubernatorial circus, would it?
It certainly couldn't be our collection of fine thrust, subduction, and displacement faults throughout the state.
It couldn't be the current national Administration's "fuck 'em, they didn't vote for me, so let 'em use candles!" energy policy.
It wouldn't have anything to do with corrupt local politicians in every major city, would it?
It doesn't have anything to do with chronic overdevelopment? Pollution? Overpopulation? Gutting of the educational system? Overwhelming domination of franchises? Precipitous decline of the middle class? Bursting of the dot-com, aerospace, and biotech bubbles? Exorbitant housing prices?
Hm? What? What would lead you to think there's implosion danger here?
Sorry. I guess I'm illiterate. I didn't catch the "inbound" part of that.
In my mind, I was visualizing a hundred people sitting at sweatshop desks just pounding out email all day, doing nothing else: DEAR SIR, I (THE SON OF MOBUTU SESE-SEKO) HOPE THIS UNEXPECTED COMMUNICATION IS NOT EMBARRASSING, I RECEIVED YOUR NAME FROM MANY BUSINESS LEADERS...
Inbound, it's easy to believe. I receive on the order of 10-15/hr on an average, 24 hours a day. Mailing lists, spam, work email, and then actual personal messages.
Assuming y'all work 8 hour days, that's approximately one email every three minutes (per person).
Damn! What the kind of business is this, anyway?
Huh?
There's sshd, what else do you need?
An ex-girlfriend of mine reused a "disposable" 35mm film camera for about a year. The lens was surprisingly good for mass-manufactured plastic. Basically, her technique involved opening the cardboard box, gently prying back the snappers on the plastic, and reloading standard 35mm film rolls.
She spent maybe $10 on her camera, and she laughed at my >$1k Nikon rig. And frankly, for quick candid shots, she did better, because it was smaller and faster to deploy. Image quality was "good enough."
We were traveling, and I thought I was going to be selling my work, so I was shooting with pretty good glass. In the end, the deal didn't work out, so she had the best of it.
Now, for digital reusables, they probably are counting on some special cable or protocol that will deter the masses, but not the Slashdot crowd.
You can do autofill with Mozilla under Linux, Windows, or even MacOS.
The only thing that the Mozilla Googlebar clone doesn't do (as far as I know) is show PageRank[tm].
Yup. Works well for me too!
Still, I'm lusting for the 7135...
Yeah, and I defy you to scan loopback.
Ain't that a waste? But hey, IPv4 was never intended to scale beyond a few universities and FFRDCs.
Yeah, I know that the raws are going to be better than jpeg.
I haven't used the Nikon Dx series, but I did work on a big gnarly prototype studio setup that shot uncompressed (it didn't even wrap it in TIF, it just spat out files with a 2k x 2k array of 64-bit words. There was only twelve actual bits/channel/pixel, though) and it simultaneously created jpeg previews (also 2k x 2k pixels, but a much, much smaller file size). This system was too unwieldy for shooting people, but then, this was nearly eight years ago.
I kind of figured that the preview file option was SOP in industrial digital cameras. Maybe we should suggest it to Nikon.
Really? You do client review comps using raw files?
I've seen a number of studios who move jpeg comps back and forth in realtime for client viewing, via firewire then standard (cabled) ethernet.
But I didn't think about anyone wanting to shuffle around big sets of 100MB images like that...
It seems to me that a lot of people are missing the point on this one.
I think it's less targeted at "immediately beaming your pictures from the field" than it is targeted at studio photography.
The high-end Nikon digitals may be good enough for journalism, but most of the people I know who use them are doing studio work, like product shots, fashion, etc.
If this is well designed, it could improve the pipeline speed of a product shoot, as it's often different people doing the different processes: shooting, color correction, comping. layout, etc. Now, the initial stage of this process can be made (closer to) parallel.
It certainly is not a revolutionary change (like the introduction of digital photography was), but it could represent an evolutionary change, where the photographer doesn't have to interrupt work to carry the microdrive over to the server for image uploading.
Now, some people will say "but many pros already have their cameras hooked up full-time via firewire, so this won't change the process at all!" I almost agree -- this removes the annoying tether, so you can move the camera around without cable snarl.
Then, with Sony and others set to WiFi enable the entire known universe, maybe this *will* eventually be a take anywhere, shoot, and upload kind of thing.
We shall see...
Yeah, but IP address is a really lousy identifier. There are a lot of people behind NAT routers and IP-masking firewalls, not to mention the legions of people who get their access via a system that uses DHCP.
The only "sure fire" way to get a good ID is to use authentication. Sure, it can be spoofed, since basic authentication is essentially sent in clear text. But it's more reliable than cookies, which can be deleted or modified. And if you need real certainty, use authentication with SSL. That should be pretty good.
For the masses of convertible instruments: Kruegerrands, diamonds, gold bars, etc.
You don't think they meant the hoi polloi, now, did you?
Shortly after building the Robotic Utopia, we'll run out of oil.
Current "modern agribusiness" farming techniques convert something like 7 calories of oil into 1 calorie of food (adjusted for the different scales that people use for food calories -- a "food calorie" is actually 4.1868 kJ, i.e., 1 kcal).
So will all these robots happily hum along while humanity starves? Or will we cut off the juice when we need the energy for food production? Well, it's an interesting problem. Obviously, we can use the robots for food production by harnessing other forms of energy (nuclear, coal, solar, bio). Nuclear and coal will provide the power. They have some serious drawbacks, though. Solar, while good for some purposes, won't fulfil our Magical Robotic Utopia's energy requirements.
Bio. Now there's an interesting one. An Ox eats bio waste (grass clippings), and can drag a plow or walk on a heavily geared turnstile combine. Their waste is great fertilizer. And they're too stupid to rise up and form SkyNet and make *us* the slaves. No-one ever had to escape from the Matrix run by Oxen, I can tell you that right now.
So that's my prediction. Robotic Utopia will usher in the era of the Great Ruminant Renaissance. Heavy horses, Oxen, and occasional very large aquatic mammals are the wave of the future. You heard it here first, folks!
Hey, Mount Wilson (above Pasadena, California) is no slouch either.
You can see where Michaelson did the experiment to measure the speed of light in the 20s. There's a couple of solar observatories. And you can bathe in the TV and Radio signals for all of LA County up close.
The San Gabriel Mountains have a lot of other interesting historical stuff. Even "geek" stuff, like the old Nike missile emplacements. And some fine hiking, to boot!
Brin only says that because he has less power than he'd like.
I'm familiar with the problem. And I wish I had a good answer, but I'm afraid I don't.
;) I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd be interested!
The Google Ad stuff has worked out for some people. Affiliate programs have worked out for some people. But for a site that's really more content-focused than product-related, this is cold comfort.
When you figure it out, be sure to post the answer here
Aye, therein lies the rub. Once they discover that people are willing to pay micropayments for access, even the commercial players like Amazon won't be able to resist.
Soon, Amazon would be free for people who have purchased $n worth of stuff, and a micropayment for people just browsing. After all, if you're merely using the site as a reference, you should be happy to pay. Oh, and why should they foot the bill for you to comparison shop? Etc.
And prehaps it's redundant to state this, but the size of a micropayment is proportional to the number of sites requiring them. When every site costs $0.01 / visit, soon "premium" sites will cost $0.015, and so on. Eventually, we get the magazine situation you describe; the mechanism may be different, but the net result is the same.
You can pick up a used Vaio or other small notebook for cheap.
You'll have to upgrade the hard drive to get the specs you want, but otherwise, take a look around. They're out there in great profusion.
Actually, for most of us infra-dig urban hipsters, a phone is the best place for a data storage.
I happen to be partial to the Kyocera Smartphones, but there are other good Palm OS models by Samsung, Handspring, and even Palm.
If you're willing to support The Beast, there are a whole bunch of WinCE/Pocket PC phones, too, although they're uglier than the Fossil watch. Then there are the Symbian and Blackberry platforms with bunches of phone devices. And then there's even the Java-based systems. So there's a lot of choice out there.