Pong wasn't software... it was implemented in hardware.
The Pong machine had no CPU.
In all seriousness though, the idea "flawless software" only has meaning when we are talking about non-trivial software. Pong, or Tic-tac-toe, or Nim, etc are trivial.
Of course, in Microsoft's case, calling memcpy( ) must count as non-trivial software since they seem to screw it up so much.
Ultimately you are just adding another layer that must be circumvented.
If your computer only runs trusted code, you need to figure out how to fake trust.
It will get harder, but unless the computer becomes an appliance that can only run what's built in at the factory can virus prevention even be possible. And then that assumes the software still can't be exploited. And when has Microsoft (or anyone else) ever written flawless software.
Moving protection into hardware will made it harder, sure, but just like DRM, you can never eliminate the problem 100%.
we'd be forced to watch the repeats over and over a la Bill Murray in Groundhog Day
Worse, because we can't change what's going on and we won't end up with Andie McDowell.
As usual, the losers in the end will be legitimate customers who _don't_ want to break the law (even when the law conflicts with things like Fair Use).
The alternatives become: Let the media companies screw you, or become an outlaw.
I saw Victor Wooten play and have heard some of his recordings... he's impressive.
To this list I would add some of my favorites, off the top of my head:
Frank Gambale - As excellent jazz guitar player who crosses over to rock styles sometimes... as much as I like his electric work, his acoustic stuff is even better. He oftens works with Stu Hamm (see below) and Steve Smith (who used to drum for Journey and is an accomplished jazz drummer).
Stu Hamm is my favorite jazz bassist. He's probably best known as Joe Satriani's bass player, but has put out numerous albums on his own and with Frank Gambale and others. Stu also crosses genres frequently and well.
Duke Robillard - Although really he fits more into the "blues" category, he's done a couple of excellent swing albums and always includes lots of good jazz on his other recordings. You might know of Duke from the Fabulous Thunderbirds or the premeire album from Roomful of Blues.
Michael Manring - Sadly, this inhumanly talented bass-player's best album "Thonk" is out of print, but he has other excellent recordings. Some of the Windham Hill releases are kind of bland (which is true for most Windham Hill music since the late 80's), but "Book of Flame" smokes. I would also recommend Attention Deficit, where he plays with drummer Tim Alexander and guitar player Alex Skolnick, but this veers more into the progressive/metal/jazz fusion kind of sound (and if you're into _that_, try anything by Derek Sherinian and you won't be disappointed).
Yeah, well, I have SF and I never watch it. Mostly low-budget horror films there. Their original stuff is mostly abysmal, although Dune was an obvious exception.
As a friend of mine said, they didn't even show Space:1999 on May 13, 1999. What an obvious chance to do something cool.
Oh, yeah, and I'll never forgive them for cancelling MST3K.
If (and I say IF) the FAA were interested in doing good, rather than, as is often the case with government, merely appearing to be doing something good, they might do well to consider the technology being developed by this company.
From their Webpage:
Language Analysis Systems is the world's recognized leader in providing multi-cultural name recognition software solutions for mission critical applications. We have worked with U.S. Intelligence and Border Protection agencies for nearly two decades, developing a revolutionary and patent-pending approach to name matching and searching, going far beyond simplistic Soundex and key-based approaches. We offer a variety of proven commercial products to government, law enforcement, and commercial organizations that solve a multitude of name related problems.
I applied to this company recently for a software developer position, but I never heard back from them. I'm surprised soundex, which has been around for what, 40 years?, is actually used anymore.
It's been said before... it's all lip service. How many times is Microsoft going to promise to get its act together before the whole world realizes they're just blowing smoke.
That VP said it right, security is an afterthought at MS. A company that can't even go a week without discovering a security hole "that allows attackers to completely take over a machine" has no business doing anything but apologizing profusely.
After all, most of these bugs seem to be from buffer overruns... which is Computer 101 stuff. When you can't get stuff right that they were doing in the 1950's how can we expect software for the 2000's?
I'm happy to blow a couple karma points to get this off my chest.
Ah yes, Real software... the stuff that you can get in a state where it crashes when you run, it won't install until you uninstall and crashes when you uninstall.
Then there's the time I actually tried to play some Real media since my new laptop had the Real player preinstalled. The player said I needed the new version, so I installed the new version, which then proceeded to insist I needed to install the new version.
Real sucks. They are incompetant at writing software and downright vile with their privacy-invading tactics, and any one who chooses them for content should fail.
Microsoft may suck for many of the same reasons, but at least their stuff works most of the time. Quicktime works too if you don't mind all the weird GUI bugs it has (everytime I use it all the Windows in my system continuously repaint themselves over and over... and this is multiple systems with multiple versions of QT.
Oh, yeah and as far as Liquid Audio goes, when Yes released their album around '99 or so you could download a track beforehand, but the track was in Liquid Audio format, and all I oculd get out of the stupid thing was static.
I know Windows development can be trying, but thr WinAmp folks seem to be the only people who can make a lightweight player that actually works (unless you count version 3, which rivals Visual Studio in complexity and which crashed for me the very first time I tried the gold release).
I recently purchased a PocketPC and I find it greatly refreshing to see software that is simple to install (often on EXE almost always 1MB in size). I think the worst thing that ever happened to software is the incredible advances in hardware. Processor speed might be following Moore's law and memory capacity something similar, but software seems to increase in power by about a factor of 1.1 for every 18 months, it gets bigger, slower, stupider-looking, but not more powerful and definitely not easier to use.
I'd be loath to try Real's service if it were free.
Meanwhile, Microsoft will come out with some draconian DRM-laden monstronsity, but will probably beat Apple's iTunes by virtue of having a starting market 20 times the size. I hope iTunes survives long enough to get a Windows version, it seems like a great product... too good to be true in fact.
In practice, "data" == "sheep", but technically the word is plural, so "data" == "mice". Yeah, it sounds funny, but so did using "fewer" instead of "less" to me when I realized I was doing it wrong.
e.g., "10 Items or Fewer"
Around me wafted the concerti from a million oxen, seraphim and octopi, as I engraved a single graffito on the wall, "The media are wrong."
That's OK. I almost gagged when I read this clause:
it shouldn't matter what price they sell on the tickets at for we poor folk?
It's not a Slashdot thing. My wife gets really ticked off at me for pointing out grammatical errors on TV. It's bad enough on commercials and news, but when even Data uses bad grammar you know that there's a crisis.
This morning I just got an error message from Windows stating "The data has not been saved."
If you look at the periodic table, the answer is obviously the next smaller element, lead, which is what most of the heavier elements eventually decay to.
...because we aren't willing to wait for, or pay for, software that has been adequately tested to any reasonable level of reliability.
With something like Windows XP, no amount of testing could eliminate every conceivable bug, but there is no doubt in my mind that Microsoft, along with almost every other software company in the world, rushes poorly designed, inadequately tested products to market to meet customer demand.
Remember, a product's success is due largely to a check list of features created by the marketing people. A product with 90% reliability and 100 features will sell better than a product with 98% reliability and 10 features. Otherwise, how can you explain the success of Microsoft Office? OK, bad example, MS Office is successful because it's been bundled with so much hardware, but you see my point.
The bottom line is computers are now a commodity. They have become so ubiquitous and cheap that I can go down to the Salvation Army and purchase what would have been considered a supercomputer 10 years ago, for $50. Software is quikly reaching the same state. How much software can you buy for $10 or less? A lot. And not all of it is bad, though most is. On the other hand, you can drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on software that is just as quirky, hard to use and even just as buggy.
Here's the thing that always interested me. Why don't console games crash? I'm sure they do sometimes, but I've got a Dreamcast and about 50 games. I've seen a small bug here and there, but I've never seen the machine blue-screen or whatever DC's do when the OS lunches itself. I realize that the standardized hardware platform has a lot to do with it, but games are every bit as complex as other software, perhaps more so. So why don't these games crash? Well, if they did, they would never sell. I'm sure there would be/. articles and Ars Technica articles for weeks if a console game came out that crashed, but when PC games are released that have those kinds of problems, it's hardly news.
Keep your filthy hands off my genus, you damn dirty chimps.
I'm sure the creationists will pitch a fit if chimps are reclassified. I wonder if there would be any legal ramifications regarding the rights of chimps compared to other animals.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget:
LaraCraft - Twice the fun, twice the action, twice the legal troubles.
The massive settlement for CD price fixing among the big recording companies?
I figure the recprd companies owe me about $4000. Of course, now that that's all said and done nothing's actually changed. CDs cost as much as ever.
Rick
Pong wasn't software... it was implemented in hardware.
The Pong machine had no CPU.
In all seriousness though, the idea "flawless software" only has meaning when we are talking about non-trivial software. Pong, or Tic-tac-toe, or Nim, etc are trivial.
Of course, in Microsoft's case, calling memcpy( ) must count as non-trivial software since they seem to screw it up so much.
(Sorry for the double post...)
Pong wasn't software... it was implemented in hardware.
The Pong machine had no CPU.
Believe it or not, there are actually parts of the Constitution _other_ than the First Amendment.
Besides, the Constitution doesn't establish rights, it _recognizes_ God-given rights and prohibits Congress from interfering with them.
Ultimately you are just adding another layer that must be circumvented.
If your computer only runs trusted code, you need to figure out how to fake trust.
It will get harder, but unless the computer becomes an appliance that can only run what's built in at the factory can virus prevention even be possible. And then that assumes the software still can't be exploited. And when has Microsoft (or anyone else) ever written flawless software.
Moving protection into hardware will made it harder, sure, but just like DRM, you can never eliminate the problem 100%.
we'd be forced to watch the repeats over and over a la Bill Murray in Groundhog Day
Worse, because we can't change what's going on and we won't end up with Andie McDowell.
As usual, the losers in the end will be legitimate customers who _don't_ want to break the law (even when the law conflicts with things like Fair Use).
The alternatives become: Let the media companies screw you, or become an outlaw.
I saw Victor Wooten play and have heard some of his recordings... he's impressive.
To this list I would add some of my favorites, off the top of my head:
Frank Gambale - As excellent jazz guitar player who crosses over to rock styles sometimes... as much as I like his electric work, his acoustic stuff is even better. He oftens works with Stu Hamm (see below) and Steve Smith (who used to drum for Journey and is an accomplished jazz drummer).
Stu Hamm is my favorite jazz bassist. He's probably best known as Joe Satriani's bass player, but has put out numerous albums on his own and with Frank Gambale and others. Stu also crosses genres frequently and well.
Duke Robillard - Although really he fits more into the "blues" category, he's done a couple of excellent swing albums and always includes lots of good jazz on his other recordings. You might know of Duke from the Fabulous Thunderbirds or the premeire album from Roomful of Blues.
Michael Manring - Sadly, this inhumanly talented bass-player's best album "Thonk" is out of print, but he has other excellent recordings. Some of the Windham Hill releases are kind of bland (which is true for most Windham Hill music since the late 80's), but "Book of Flame" smokes. I would also recommend Attention Deficit, where he plays with drummer Tim Alexander and guitar player Alex Skolnick, but this veers more into the progressive/metal/jazz fusion kind of sound (and if you're into _that_, try anything by Derek Sherinian and you won't be disappointed).
...make sure RAV can't detect Outlook viruses?
Oh, wait, you mean Microsoft _didn't_ mean for Office to be the Microsoft Virus Developers Kit?
My bad.
There I go again confusing results with intentions.
... and now this. Just one more reason to go with RAR.
Besides, who needs file compatibility when, for about 10-20k you can make the archive self-extracting.
Yeah, well, I have SF and I never watch it. Mostly low-budget horror films there. Their original stuff is mostly abysmal, although Dune was an obvious exception.
As a friend of mine said, they didn't even show Space:1999 on May 13, 1999. What an obvious chance to do something cool.
Oh, yeah, and I'll never forgive them for cancelling MST3K.
Yeah, I knew it was something like that. You know, Sonny Bono was a lousy singer too.
From their Webpage:
I applied to this company recently for a software developer position, but I never heard back from them. I'm surprised soundex, which has been around for what, 40 years?, is actually used anymore.
Well, it's a good excuse to use those SI prefixes beyond femto.
...since copyright extends to 95 years after the death of the author, are you predicting you will die next year? ;-)
Word needs skins.
It's been said before... it's all lip service. How many times is Microsoft going to promise to get its act together before the whole world realizes they're just blowing smoke.
That VP said it right, security is an afterthought at MS. A company that can't even go a week without discovering a security hole "that allows attackers to completely take over a machine" has no business doing anything but apologizing profusely.
After all, most of these bugs seem to be from buffer overruns... which is Computer 101 stuff. When you can't get stuff right that they were doing in the 1950's how can we expect software for the 2000's?
I'm happy to blow a couple karma points to get this off my chest.
Ah yes, Real software... the stuff that you can get in a state where it crashes when you run, it won't install until you uninstall and crashes when you uninstall.
Then there's the time I actually tried to play some Real media since my new laptop had the Real player preinstalled. The player said I needed the new version, so I installed the new version, which then proceeded to insist I needed to install the new version.
Real sucks. They are incompetant at writing software and downright vile with their privacy-invading tactics, and any one who chooses them for content should fail.
Microsoft may suck for many of the same reasons, but at least their stuff works most of the time. Quicktime works too if you don't mind all the weird GUI bugs it has (everytime I use it all the Windows in my system continuously repaint themselves over and over... and this is multiple systems with multiple versions of QT.
Oh, yeah and as far as Liquid Audio goes, when Yes released their album around '99 or so you could download a track beforehand, but the track was in Liquid Audio format, and all I oculd get out of the stupid thing was static.
I know Windows development can be trying, but thr WinAmp folks seem to be the only people who can make a lightweight player that actually works (unless you count version 3, which rivals Visual Studio in complexity and which crashed for me the very first time I tried the gold release).
I recently purchased a PocketPC and I find it greatly refreshing to see software that is simple to install (often on EXE almost always 1MB in size). I think the worst thing that ever happened to software is the incredible advances in hardware. Processor speed might be following Moore's law and memory capacity something similar, but software seems to increase in power by about a factor of 1.1 for every 18 months, it gets bigger, slower, stupider-looking, but not more powerful and definitely not easier to use.
I'd be loath to try Real's service if it were free.
Meanwhile, Microsoft will come out with some draconian DRM-laden monstronsity, but will probably beat Apple's iTunes by virtue of having a starting market 20 times the size. I hope iTunes survives long enough to get a Windows version, it seems like a great product... too good to be true in fact.
In practice, "data" == "sheep", but technically the word is plural, so "data" == "mice". Yeah, it sounds funny, but so did using "fewer" instead of "less" to me when I realized I was doing it wrong.
e.g., "10 Items or Fewer"
Around me wafted the concerti from a million oxen, seraphim and octopi, as I engraved a single graffito on the wall, "The media are wrong."
Or something.
Rick
The singular is "datum".
People have the same problem with "media".
The media are largely ignorant of the proper use of the word "media".
That's OK. I almost gagged when I read this clause:
it shouldn't matter what price they sell on the tickets at for we poor folk?
It's not a Slashdot thing. My wife gets really ticked off at me for pointing out grammatical errors on TV. It's bad enough on commercials and news, but when even Data uses bad grammar you know that there's a crisis.
This morning I just got an error message from Windows stating "The data has not been saved."
Grammar is a lost art.
If you look at the periodic table, the answer is obviously the next smaller element, lead, which is what most of the heavier elements eventually decay to.
...because we aren't willing to wait for, or pay for, software that has been adequately tested to any reasonable level of reliability.
/. articles and Ars Technica articles for weeks if a console game came out that crashed, but when PC games are released that have those kinds of problems, it's hardly news.
With something like Windows XP, no amount of testing could eliminate every conceivable bug, but there is no doubt in my mind that Microsoft, along with almost every other software company in the world, rushes poorly designed, inadequately tested products to market to meet customer demand.
Remember, a product's success is due largely to a check list of features created by the marketing people. A product with 90% reliability and 100 features will sell better than a product with 98% reliability and 10 features. Otherwise, how can you explain the success of Microsoft Office? OK, bad example, MS Office is successful because it's been bundled with so much hardware, but you see my point.
The bottom line is computers are now a commodity. They have become so ubiquitous and cheap that I can go down to the Salvation Army and purchase what would have been considered a supercomputer 10 years ago, for $50. Software is quikly reaching the same state. How much software can you buy for $10 or less? A lot. And not all of it is bad, though most is. On the other hand, you can drop hundreds or thousands of dollars on software that is just as quirky, hard to use and even just as buggy.
Here's the thing that always interested me. Why don't console games crash? I'm sure they do sometimes, but I've got a Dreamcast and about 50 games. I've seen a small bug here and there, but I've never seen the machine blue-screen or whatever DC's do when the OS lunches itself. I realize that the standardized hardware platform has a lot to do with it, but games are every bit as complex as other software, perhaps more so. So why don't these games crash? Well, if they did, they would never sell. I'm sure there would be
Kinda makes me wonder...
That's not entirely true. You can't go to the Try-n-Save and buy a bottle of cat poison.
However, I tend to agree with you. I'm not crazy about the idea of testing with animals, but I am crazy about the idea of saving human lives.
Keep your filthy hands off my genus, you damn dirty chimps.
I'm sure the creationists will pitch a fit if chimps are reclassified. I wonder if there would be any legal ramifications regarding the rights of chimps compared to other animals.
But wolves and dogs both belong to the genus canis, so no change needs to be made.
Sounds pretty analogous to me.