The Salem, New Hampshire police evidently aren't just stupid--they're incompetent, too. Think about it: it took them a month to figure out that the guy had parodied their site. An entire month of investigation. Kinda makes you think these bozos might just deserve some parody, wouldn't you think?
Icompetent? Maybe. Or maybe they just knew that this kid will never be convicted of any crime, so they decided to push him around for a month.
It just seems impossible for people to be that stupid. On the other hand, I've learned long ago not to underestimate human stupidity.
Revealing IT - Report from 2002
on
What is 'IT'?
·
· Score: 1
... It was a large, white box, with no lights or switches or ports that I could recognize.
"Ah, so it's totally wireless", I said, but that only widened his already freakishly big smile. "Just open it", he said.
Easier said than done. He managed to shut the box so tight that at some point I seriously considered hacking the damn thing with an ax. And just as I turned my head to ask him if I could go and take my trusty axe from the trunk of my car (don't ask), the box, as if hearing my thoughts, opened.
From it rolled (or should I say, bounced), black, rubber balls, about the size of tennis balls, but apparently heavier. The box didn't seem to contain anything else. "I still don't understand what it does", I said, "Well, if you want, you can cut one of the balls open" he replied, and handed me a small knife.
I cut the ball in two, and it seemed to be made of solid rubber. I cut each of the pieces into smaller pieces, but they still looked as homogenious as the halves themselves. I cut them into smaller and smaller pieces, but they still looked like rubber. "Is it nano-tech or something?" I asked with dispair. "Alright, I should probably tell you, since you don't seem to figure it out yourself" he said in a somewhat annoyed tone - "It's rubber".
"What?! Rubber?! Is this the invention that's supposed to be bigger than the PC? A box filled with rubber balls? What the hell are people supposed to do with this thing?"
"Nothing."
"So it was a scam! I knew it! But why? Is it the money? Or is it simply for the pleasure of fooling the whole world?"
"Well, you see, I've invented so many things in my life -- useful things, important things, things that've changed people's lives. And yet, did I have a couple of billions of dollars to spare? Did anyone even know who Dean Kamen is?
And then I noticed those computer and Internet companies. They rarely invented anything important. Not only their inventions didn't save people's lives -- sometimes they didn't even make money. So what was their secret? Why so many people were excited about them?
Hype. They made so much hype and yet delivered so little -- it was really amazing.
And then it hit me: inventing is hard. Thinking of an idea that'll change mankind forever and then developing that idea into something useful takes a lot of time and effort, and even if you invent something that changes the world, you'll be most likely to be forgotten. Hype, on the other hand, is easy to make, especially if I could convince some well known figures from the computer industry such as Jobs or Bezos that they could get publicity and even money from that kind of stunt.
So I made the box you see before you, and filled it with rubber balls, so it will be heavy enough. I called it 'IT' after 'Information Technology' - one of the many buzzwords that were invented at that time."
"So it was fame, then?"
"No. Not only that, anyway.
It made me angry that these companies will be remembered as the agents of innovation and progress, while in reality, the main thing they did is to generate hype and do stupid publicity stunts. I hope that this will help people realize how silly and unproductive this whole thing is."
(whoa, i hope i didn't make too much of a fool of myself with this comment)
Do you mean that the graphical loading screen is unnessesary "bells and whistles", made to "attract the best partners"? If so - huh?!
I mean, what's more impressive, masses of cryptic messages or a cute animation of a penguin? The answer is simple - cryptic messages make you look, no, feel more computer-educated, it shows that you're a True Linux Guru and not just a pathetic "user", and in one word -- l33t.
Don't believe any of those people who say that they hate the graphical loading screens because they take memory/boot speed or that they hide important messages (ever heard of mesg?). It's purely psychological. It's related only to these people's feeling of self-esteem.
Of course, that might be exactly what you meant, and if so - I am truly sorry.
But, even if that's what you meant, the last sentence is still very, uhm, immature, not to say pathetic. "Are these people the kind of people we want to attract"?!. I'm sorry, we want to attract just certain types of people now? And what quality do those "people" lack that we should shun them so? Intellect? Cool-ness?
Yeah, thanks God Linux isn't like Windows - filled with all those stupid users who can't even tell a pointer from an unsigned char.
Oh, I can relate to you. When I took the plunge into the Linux world, a little more than a year ago, I was in that exact position. All of the current sites for newbies are usually written by people who are definitely not newbies themselves, and doubtfully even remember when they were.
Another thing I've noticed, is the approach of some advanced Linux users towards people who don't know and don't want to know so much about their computers. Unlike the arrogant and condesending attitude they had towards newbie geeks (like me or you), their approach towards these people was quite agressive: they were "idiots", they were the "lamers" (I know it's more from the l33t culture, but it's really the same -- and it's as childish), they were the anti-geeks.
Their advice to these people was usually "if you don't want to learn all of this about your computer/os/whatever then you don't deserve to use it, so you better go back to your shitty micro$oft winblows -- you deserve what you get". Which is, as I can guess, exactly what they did, thus depriving the Linux user base of another (though, in these people's eyes, needless) user.
Well, I won't go into why this approach is harmful and fundementally wrong - many other people did it already (just read the other comments on this post). Then why did I mention it at all? Well, it's because you mentioned some of these sites being oriented towards "idiots", and that reminded me of that elitistic approach. Well, some of these tutorials are written for people who are less familiar with computers/linux/whatever (so i like that expression. sue me.), but "idiots"?
Unless, of course, you meant that the tutorials were written with a very condescending tone ("...this thing is called a command line, it's called that way because you type commands into it and they are written in a line. to type commands you press the keyboard buttons. each keyboard button is labeled with the letter that pressing it produces...." ok, that's a little too much, but you catch my drift), that made you feel that the authors actually felt that whoever will read it is an idiot, and, in that case, I'm sorry.
That is - how did the Columbine affect you, personally? Did you feel a more hostile attitude towards you from the school authorities/classmates/other since that incident?
I know, I know, this question must've been asked already, but then again, it didn't get a 3+ rating (at least as much as I saw). And I guess it's for a good reason, too, but I just feel I had to ask, since though I am not an American, I am a highschool student, and this is a matter that's close to my heart.
People don't realize that Mozilla is built for the future. In a year or so, the 'bloat' won't be an issue anymore because more people will have better hardware.
I've heard that one before. Just like every time a new Microsoft product comes out, with no apparent changes and twice as big (and slow) - "it doesn't matter now - computers have bigger hard drives and faster processors that they had the time our last version came out, so it's just natural" grrr.
And, of course, there was Java. Sun claimed that though it is interpreted code, the speed doesn't really matter these days (well, back when it first came out), since the computers are faster and the speed difference between Java applications and natively-compiled applications won't be that noticable. And we all know how unnoticable that speed difference was, right?
Grr.
But I guess bloat is a fair price to pay for l33t XML-oriented interface, huh. (grr again).
I totally agree about that, but my point was that whoever wrote the first comment, probably simply meant that in reality, to make a system secure you also have to make it less usable (since programs, though could be perfectly secure, are not, etc. etc.). I just don't really think that [s]he meant that it is theoretically impossible, just practically.
Actually, the word "usable" starts bugging me(might be the late hour - it's 3:02am over here), I mean, usable for what? Or, to be more precise - for what kind of user? What does it mean when a system is not usable? Doesn't a computer with only a web server (and the most basic components of an OS) do what it's supposed to be doing? Some computers are meant for IRC and games and for running weird beta programs, and some are not.
Although the article was clearly talking about the latter (at least, that's the impression I got - you know, NSA and all), the poster of that original comment I keep coming back to was talking about the first.
Uhm. The first time I tried to program on Linux (in C++, though, I must admit) I was very annoyed by the lack of IDEs the Windows/DOS world had for years. Apparently, the Linux hackers don't really like IDEs. Or, to be exact, they don't really understand the need for them. They (we?) do understand the need for versatile text editors, at least I guess so, because there is something like 10^56 different "programmer's text editors" for Linux. But the editor is but a small part of the IDE.
The point of an IDE is to bring the holy trinity of programming - coding, compiling and debugging (actually, in my opinion, keyword-sensitive API documentation is also a big part of this, but "trinity" just sounds good) together in one, cohesive tool. That saves lots of time (at least for me and all the people I know). I mean, I don't mind running gcc at a separate window, but a separate debugger? This is incredibly uncomfortable. And there are some other perks, such as easy makefile/project management etc. etc. etc.
Speaking of editors and IDEs, I guess emacs could be also called an IDE since (at least I guess) it has most or even all these features, but so what? Doesn't it come an all-lisp version of Q3A (I will not be surprised if it does, by the way)? And anyway, any dedicated IDE with a dedicated IDE's interface (Microsoft's old PWB doesn't count) is at least easier to use than anything I've seen on emacs yet (though it could change... have I mentioned Q3A?), but anyway, I digress
"Perl really doesn't NEED a IDE" - why? I mean, what makes Perl so special? I know it's interpreted, but does it mean it doesn't need debugging? And if it does, wouldn't an instant, in-place debugger be much more comfortable? What feature does it (and C++, for example, doesn't) that makes IDEs totally unnecessary? I really don't know, since I really don't know Perl, but that looks a little odd to me.
Of course it is possible to have a completely secure and completely usable multi-user system. Where did you get the idea that a secure system is less usable than an unsecure one?
And about the topic of IRC not really working on a secure system you say that...
This is a moot point. IRC is not something you would be running on a mission-critical must-be-secure box. You must also understand that just because a box has no ports open doesn't mean it's secure.
Interesting. I believe that what the author of the original comment meant was just that: when you can't run stuff like IRC (which is, by the way, one of the most important, or at least popular, uses of the Internet), then your system is less usable - plain and simple.
Basically, by that statement, you are supporting the statement of the original comment (if anything, you should've written something like "it's only because IRC is buggy blah blah blah if it would've been implemented right it could've been secure enough etc. etc. etc." - that was your point, no?),
To be honest, the whole comment (except the Slackware part, which I don't really know about) did nothing to prove that the original comment was wrong - so what if insecurity comes from buggy code? It's rather obvious. But the point is as the amount of programs (==code) used grows, so does the probabilty for a bug to surface. That's why people who secure a system usually run the absolute minimum number of programs - and you know that, otherwise you wouldn't have written the stuff about IRC not being something to run on a mission critical secure box. The reason for that is rather obvious as well - it's easier just not to run certain programs (or even whole classes of programs) than to make sure the code is 100% secure, and, in my opinion, making sure all programs are 100-percent-bullet-proof secure is a really waste of time. Not all boxes should be so secure. I don't expect my house to be as secure as an average bank vault, but I do expect it to be much more comfortable. So, secure systems would probably always be less usable (in the way I think the author of the original comment thought about)
But the original comment, though not wrong, was rather offtopic. So what if a secure computer becomes less usable? Wasn't the post about NSA computers? If it was about security of home systems, then maybe it would've been somewhat on-topic (though not very interesting - the whole thing is rather obvious), but as I've already said, it's not. Does the NSA really need stuff like IRC, or almost anything else, if we're on that topic?
Comparing the command line to speech/human language is very unaccurate.
No, the command line could be best described as a mathematical expression. People tend to not notice it mostly because they are distracted by the command line's use of text instead of strange symbols (that mathematical expressions tend to employ), and that text remotely resembles English or other human languages. Remotely, but enough for people to think that this is just another language, just like English, French or Chinese.
In your example, you are communicating with your friends. The computer is not your friend. Your friends are (I hope) intelligent creatures that actual do most of the job in the conversation. Understanding human speech is a natural and very complex human ability, that, so far, hasn't been matched by computers.
Not for the lack of trying, of course. You remember the Office Assistant and how useful it was, right? OK, I admit the Microsoft Office Assistant is not the best example of Natural Language Recognition around, but still, we still haven't reached the phase where we can calmly type, say, "free me some disk space", and expect the computer to do it, and to be honest, I don't want us to have this kind of interface.
Why? Because then we are not really doing something, we are telling the computer to do this. Do you trust your computer to know better? I know I don't.
Of course, all of this is theoretical stuff, since, as I've mentioned, the relation between the command line and Natural Language Recognition is a very superficial one.
Wasn't the printed version of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar - Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary"?
So who is the Accidental Revolutionary? ESR or Linus? Or maybe it's all the people who are celebrities in the world of Open Source (so I guess RMS is an Accidental Revolutionary as well).
Am I the only one who thinks that the amount of media attention to these barely-working programs is a little suspicious?
"Are you really going to write an article about another porn-filter?"
"What?! Don't you care about our children?!"
"Ah, yes.. But do these things ever work?"
"Only one way to find out!" (locks himself in his office for the rest of the day)
If the USA was anything like 90% of the rest of the world, the country would be in flames from the rioting, looting, civil unrest, and outright rebellion that would have inevitably followed an election this close.
Aren't we stretching it a bit?
I mean, the USA is relatively politically stable, but your view of the rest of the world (oh, sorry, just 90% of the rest of the world) is totally distorted.
I mean, where I live, in Israel (which is not, you must agree, the most peaceful and stable country around), the elections are almost always this close, and yet, I don't recall any rioting and looting on this issue (though for other reasons... but that's another matter), so what "90% of the rest of the world" are you talking about, exactly? Sweden, maybe?
Of course, I cannot really blame you for this superficial view of the "rest of the world" - you probably see reports on TV about such things as the latest Yugoslavian elections and the chaos that followed. You don't a lot about the latest elections in Sweden, for example, because a news report about how "the elections went peacefully, nothing interesting happened, new prime-minister was elected" are not very interesting news indeed. Thus, you deduce that the events that followed the Yugoslavian elections are the norm in the rest of the (non-American) world.
I'm sorry, but despite what you are implying, the "rest of the world" is not populated by mindless barbarians.
A few years back, one would vote only for a party (for the Knesset) and if the two large parties would get very close results then something roughly translated as a "unity goverment" (there might be a term for that in English, but I haven't heard of one).
Now, I'm not sure whether this is true for the new election system (where you vote directly both for the prime-minister and for the party), though in the previous elections (which were very very close, though it's not that unique here), there were talks (on TV, anyhow) about having to form one.
The last time such a goverment was formed, each candidate was supposed to serve for 2 years as a prime-minister, but that somehow didn't work (hell, I don't remember when was the last time our goverment actually completed a full 4-year term). Of course, I don't really know what "responsibilities" the other candidate had, so I guess they didn't exactly "share responsibilites, discuss issues and help each other out", but... close enough (hey what do you want, it was moderated 4:Funny).
Slashdot Mirror
You are scaring me, people.
Anyone who pronounces GNU like NU doesn't deserve to use GNUPedia!
The Salem, New Hampshire police evidently aren't just stupid--they're incompetent, too.
Think about it: it took them a month to figure out that the guy had parodied their site. An entire month of investigation. Kinda makes you think these bozos might just deserve some parody, wouldn't you think?
Icompetent? Maybe. Or maybe they just knew that this kid will never be convicted of any crime, so they decided to push him around for a month.
It just seems impossible for people to be that stupid. On the other hand, I've learned long ago not to underestimate human stupidity.
... It was a large, white box, with no lights or switches or ports that I could recognize.
"Ah, so it's totally wireless", I said, but that only widened his already freakishly big smile. "Just open it", he said.
Easier said than done. He managed to shut the box so tight that at some point I seriously considered hacking the damn thing with an ax. And just as I turned my head to ask him if I could go and take my trusty axe from the trunk of my car (don't ask), the box, as if hearing my thoughts, opened.
From it rolled (or should I say, bounced), black, rubber balls, about the size of tennis balls, but apparently heavier. The box didn't seem to contain anything else. "I still don't understand what it does", I said, "Well, if you want, you can cut one of the balls open" he replied, and handed me a small knife.
I cut the ball in two, and it seemed to be made of solid rubber. I cut each of the pieces into smaller pieces, but they still looked as homogenious as the halves themselves. I cut them into smaller and smaller pieces, but they still looked like rubber. "Is it nano-tech or something?" I asked with dispair. "Alright, I should probably tell you, since you don't seem to figure it out yourself" he said in a somewhat annoyed tone - "It's rubber".
"What?! Rubber?! Is this the invention that's supposed to be bigger than the PC? A box filled with rubber balls? What the hell are people supposed to do with this thing?"
"Nothing."
"So it was a scam! I knew it! But why? Is it the money? Or is it simply for the pleasure of fooling the whole world?"
"Well, you see, I've invented so many things in my life -- useful things, important things, things that've changed people's lives. And yet, did I have a couple of billions of dollars to spare? Did anyone even know who Dean Kamen is?
And then I noticed those computer and Internet companies. They rarely invented anything important. Not only their inventions didn't save people's lives -- sometimes they didn't even make money. So what was their secret? Why so many people were excited about them?
Hype. They made so much hype and yet delivered so little -- it was really amazing.
And then it hit me: inventing is hard. Thinking of an idea that'll change mankind forever and then developing that idea into something useful takes a lot of time and effort, and even if you invent something that changes the world, you'll be most likely to be forgotten. Hype, on the other hand, is easy to make, especially if I could convince some well known figures from the computer industry such as Jobs or Bezos that they could get publicity and even money from that kind of stunt.
So I made the box you see before you, and filled it with rubber balls, so it will be heavy enough. I called it 'IT' after 'Information Technology' - one of the many buzzwords that were invented at that time."
"So it was fame, then?"
"No. Not only that, anyway.
It made me angry that these companies will be remembered as the agents of innovation and progress, while in reality, the main thing they did is to generate hype and do stupid publicity stunts. I hope that this will help people realize how silly and unproductive this whole thing is."
(whoa, i hope i didn't make too much of a fool of myself with this comment)
Do you mean that the graphical loading screen is unnessesary "bells and whistles", made to "attract the best partners"? If so - huh?!
I mean, what's more impressive, masses of cryptic messages or a cute animation of a penguin? The answer is simple - cryptic messages make you look, no, feel more computer-educated, it shows that you're a True Linux Guru and not just a pathetic "user", and in one word -- l33t.
Don't believe any of those people who say that they hate the graphical loading screens because they take memory/boot speed or that they hide important messages (ever heard of mesg?). It's purely psychological. It's related only to these people's feeling of self-esteem.
Of course, that might be exactly what you meant, and if so - I am truly sorry.
But, even if that's what you meant, the last sentence is still very, uhm, immature, not to say pathetic. "Are these people the kind of people we want to attract"?!. I'm sorry, we want to attract just certain types of people now? And what quality do those "people" lack that we should shun them so? Intellect? Cool-ness?
Yeah, thanks God Linux isn't like Windows - filled with all those stupid users who can't even tell a pointer from an unsigned char.
Oh, I can relate to you. When I took the plunge into the Linux world, a little more than a year ago, I was in that exact position. All of the current sites for newbies are usually written by people who are definitely not newbies themselves, and doubtfully even remember when they were.
Another thing I've noticed, is the approach of some advanced Linux users towards people who don't know and don't want to know so much about their computers. Unlike the arrogant and condesending attitude they had towards newbie geeks (like me or you), their approach towards these people was quite agressive: they were "idiots", they were the "lamers" (I know it's more from the l33t culture, but it's really the same -- and it's as childish), they were the anti-geeks.
Their advice to these people was usually "if you don't want to learn all of this about your computer/os/whatever then you don't deserve to use it, so you better go back to your shitty micro$oft winblows -- you deserve what you get". Which is, as I can guess, exactly what they did, thus depriving the Linux user base of another (though, in these people's eyes, needless) user.
Well, I won't go into why this approach is harmful and fundementally wrong - many other people did it already (just read the other comments on this post). Then why did I mention it at all? Well, it's because you mentioned some of these sites being oriented towards "idiots", and that reminded me of that elitistic approach. Well, some of these tutorials are written for people who are less familiar with computers/linux/whatever (so i like that expression. sue me.), but "idiots"?
Unless, of course, you meant that the tutorials were written with a very condescending tone ("...this thing is called a command line, it's called that way because you type commands into it and they are written in a line. to type commands you press the keyboard buttons. each keyboard button is labeled with the letter that pressing it produces...." ok, that's a little too much, but you catch my drift), that made you feel that the authors actually felt that whoever will read it is an idiot, and, in that case, I'm sorry.
That is - how did the Columbine affect you, personally? Did you feel a more hostile attitude towards you from the school authorities/classmates/other since that incident?
I know, I know, this question must've been asked already, but then again, it didn't get a 3+ rating (at least as much as I saw). And I guess it's for a good reason, too, but I just feel I had to ask, since though I am not an American, I am a highschool student, and this is a matter that's close to my heart.
People don't realize that Mozilla is built for the future. In a year or so, the 'bloat' won't be an issue anymore because more people will have better hardware.
I've heard that one before. Just like every time a new Microsoft product comes out, with no apparent changes and twice as big (and slow) - "it doesn't matter now - computers have bigger hard drives and faster processors that they had the time our last version came out, so it's just natural" grrr.
And, of course, there was Java. Sun claimed that though it is interpreted code, the speed doesn't really matter these days (well, back when it first came out), since the computers are faster and the speed difference between Java applications and natively-compiled applications won't be that noticable. And we all know how unnoticable that speed difference was, right?
Grr.
But I guess bloat is a fair price to pay for l33t XML-oriented interface, huh. (grr again).
(uhm, yeah... that's my first sig ever...)
I totally agree about that, but my point was that whoever wrote the first comment, probably simply meant that in reality, to make a system secure you also have to make it less usable (since programs, though could be perfectly secure, are not, etc. etc.). I just don't really think that [s]he meant that it is theoretically impossible, just practically.
Actually, the word "usable" starts bugging me(might be the late hour - it's 3:02am over here), I mean, usable for what? Or, to be more precise - for what kind of user? What does it mean when a system is not usable? Doesn't a computer with only a web server (and the most basic components of an OS) do what it's supposed to be doing? Some computers are meant for IRC and games and for running weird beta programs, and some are not.
Although the article was clearly talking about the latter (at least, that's the impression I got - you know, NSA and all), the poster of that original comment I keep coming back to was talking about the first.
Maybe call it "Linux leads MS in *" - it could have a picture of a penguin suggestively standing behind a bent-over Bill Gates, or something...
Or maybe not...
Uhm. The first time I tried to program on Linux (in C++, though, I must admit) I was very annoyed by the lack of IDEs the Windows/DOS world had for years. Apparently, the Linux hackers don't really like IDEs. Or, to be exact, they don't really understand the need for them. They (we?) do understand the need for versatile text editors, at least I guess so, because there is something like 10^56 different "programmer's text editors" for Linux. But the editor is but a small part of the IDE.
The point of an IDE is to bring the holy trinity of programming - coding, compiling and debugging (actually, in my opinion, keyword-sensitive API documentation is also a big part of this, but "trinity" just sounds good) together in one, cohesive tool. That saves lots of time (at least for me and all the people I know). I mean, I don't mind running gcc at a separate window, but a separate debugger? This is incredibly uncomfortable. And there are some other perks, such as easy makefile/project management etc. etc. etc.
Speaking of editors and IDEs, I guess emacs could be also called an IDE since (at least I guess) it has most or even all these features, but so what? Doesn't it come an all-lisp version of Q3A (I will not be surprised if it does, by the way)? And anyway, any dedicated IDE with a dedicated IDE's interface (Microsoft's old PWB doesn't count) is at least easier to use than anything I've seen on emacs yet (though it could change... have I mentioned Q3A?), but anyway, I digress
"Perl really doesn't NEED a IDE" - why? I mean, what makes Perl so special? I know it's interpreted, but does it mean it doesn't need debugging? And if it does, wouldn't an instant, in-place debugger be much more comfortable? What feature does it (and C++, for example, doesn't) that makes IDEs totally unnecessary? I really don't know, since I really don't know Perl, but that looks a little odd to me.
Hmm, first you say:
,
Of course it is possible to have a completely secure and completely usable multi-user system. Where did you get the idea that a secure system is less usable than an unsecure one?
And about the topic of IRC not really working on a secure system you say that...
This is a moot point. IRC is not something you would be running on a mission-critical must-be-secure box. You must also understand that just because a box has no ports open doesn't mean it's secure.
Interesting. I believe that what the author of the original comment meant was just that: when you can't run stuff like IRC (which is, by the way, one of the most important, or at least popular, uses of the Internet), then your system is less usable - plain and simple.
Basically, by that statement, you are supporting the statement of the original comment (if anything, you should've written something like "it's only because IRC is buggy blah blah blah if it would've been implemented right it could've been secure enough etc. etc. etc." - that was your point, no?)
To be honest, the whole comment (except the Slackware part, which I don't really know about) did nothing to prove that the original comment was wrong - so what if insecurity comes from buggy code? It's rather obvious. But the point is as the amount of programs (==code) used grows, so does the probabilty for a bug to surface. That's why people who secure a system usually run the absolute minimum number of programs - and you know that, otherwise you wouldn't have written the stuff about IRC not being something to run on a mission critical secure box. The reason for that is rather obvious as well - it's easier just not to run certain programs (or even whole classes of programs) than to make sure the code is 100% secure, and, in my opinion, making sure all programs are 100-percent-bullet-proof secure is a really waste of time. Not all boxes should be so secure. I don't expect my house to be as secure as an average bank vault, but I do expect it to be much more comfortable. So, secure systems would probably always be less usable (in the way I think the author of the original comment thought about)
But the original comment, though not wrong, was rather offtopic. So what if a secure computer becomes less usable? Wasn't the post about NSA computers? If it was about security of home systems, then maybe it would've been somewhat on-topic (though not very interesting - the whole thing is rather obvious), but as I've already said, it's not. Does the NSA really need stuff like IRC, or almost anything else, if we're on that topic?
Wasn't it the Greek Empire, which, in turn, ruled over Syria?
At least that what they've taught us every year in the (Israeli) school, so if I'm wrong - blame them.
Comparing the command line to speech/human language is very unaccurate.
No, the command line could be best described as a mathematical expression. People tend to not notice it mostly because they are distracted by the command line's use of text instead of strange symbols (that mathematical expressions tend to employ), and that text remotely resembles English or other human languages. Remotely, but enough for people to think that this is just another language, just like English, French or Chinese.
In your example, you are communicating with your friends. The computer is not your friend. Your friends are (I hope) intelligent creatures that actual do most of the job in the conversation. Understanding human speech is a natural and very complex human ability, that, so far, hasn't been matched by computers.
Not for the lack of trying, of course. You remember the Office Assistant and how useful it was, right? OK, I admit the Microsoft Office Assistant is not the best example of Natural Language Recognition around, but still, we still haven't reached the phase where we can calmly type, say, "free me some disk space", and expect the computer to do it, and to be honest, I don't want us to have this kind of interface.
Why? Because then we are not really doing something, we are telling the computer to do this. Do you trust your computer to know better? I know I don't.
Of course, all of this is theoretical stuff, since, as I've mentioned, the relation between the command line and Natural Language Recognition is a very superficial one.
Wasn't the printed version of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" called "The Cathedral and the Bazaar - Musings on Linux and Open Source by an Accidental Revolutionary"?
So who is the Accidental Revolutionary? ESR or Linus? Or maybe it's all the people who are celebrities in the world of Open Source (so I guess RMS is an Accidental Revolutionary as well).
Am I the only one who thinks that the amount of media attention to these barely-working programs is a little suspicious?
"Are you really going to write an article about another porn-filter?"
"What?! Don't you care about our children?!"
"Ah, yes.. But do these things ever work?"
"Only one way to find out!" (locks himself in his office for the rest of the day)
If the USA was anything like 90% of the rest of the world, the country would be in flames from the rioting, looting, civil unrest, and outright rebellion that would have inevitably followed an election this close.
Aren't we stretching it a bit?
I mean, the USA is relatively politically stable, but your view of the rest of the world (oh, sorry, just 90% of the rest of the world) is totally distorted.
I mean, where I live, in Israel (which is not, you must agree, the most peaceful and stable country around), the elections are almost always this close, and yet, I don't recall any rioting and looting on this issue (though for other reasons... but that's another matter), so what "90% of the rest of the world" are you talking about, exactly? Sweden, maybe?
Of course, I cannot really blame you for this superficial view of the "rest of the world" - you probably see reports on TV about such things as the latest Yugoslavian elections and the chaos that followed. You don't a lot about the latest elections in Sweden, for example, because a news report about how "the elections went peacefully, nothing interesting happened, new prime-minister was elected" are not very interesting news indeed. Thus, you deduce that the events that followed the Yugoslavian elections are the norm in the rest of the (non-American) world.
I'm sorry, but despite what you are implying, the "rest of the world" is not populated by mindless barbarians.
A few years back, one would vote only for a party (for the Knesset) and if the two large parties would get very close results then something roughly translated as a "unity goverment" (there might be a term for that in English, but I haven't heard of one).
Now, I'm not sure whether this is true for the new election system (where you vote directly both for the prime-minister and for the party), though in the previous elections (which were very very close, though it's not that unique here), there were talks (on TV, anyhow) about having to form one.
The last time such a goverment was formed, each candidate was supposed to serve for 2 years as a prime-minister, but that somehow didn't work (hell, I don't remember when was the last time our goverment actually completed a full 4-year term). Of course, I don't really know what "responsibilities" the other candidate had, so I guess they didn't exactly "share responsibilites, discuss issues and help each other out", but... close enough (hey what do you want, it was moderated 4:Funny).