It never ceases to amaze me how perfectly reasonable you can make censorship sound if you really try. What I mean is, the way the censorship board's decision is worded on the surface sounds completely reasonable, well thought-out and actually in the best interest of the Egyptian public.
Then you think for half a second longer and of course realize that censorship in any form is one of the horrible things people can do to other people.
But, when you see a statement done this well, you can see why people allow their freedoms to be taken away little by little for the greater good and then wake up one day and wonder why they can't even drive to the next town over without going through two weeks of paperwork, or read a book without being condemned as a Satan-worshipper and burned at the stake.
As is the case with everyone else, I can only go by what I read in the article. From what I read, I really do feel that he caved and didn't stand up at all. Just getting the concession to be able to say he did nothing wrong isn't much in my mind.
It's interesting that you characterize what he could have potentially done as martyrdom though. Martyrdom generally is taken to be a situation where you know your going to die for a cause you believe strongly in (slight understatement there!). Obviously we're not talking about a life-or-death situation here, but I think what you meant in this context is facing a situation where you know you can't win.
That to me says you probably read into all this what I do, which is that this kid really was doing something more than we've heard. If that wasn't the case, why would he feel he couldn't win? On the basis of what we've all read I think most of us would say that he had a shot to win, to what degree is questionable (I happen to think he had an excellent chance to win, but that's debatable to be sure).
I would agree with the point of view that knowing you can't win changes matters considerably. I agree with your point that choosing martyrdom, i.e., fighting the unwinnable fight, is absolutely a personal choice, and I would change what I said slightly in light of that to the extent that if he really knew he couldn't win then yes, I can't really fault him (aside from faulting him for what he actually did do and for lying about it, which would be the case in that circumstance).
But if as he says he really believes he did nothing wrong, than I do think it's fair to criticize him for giving up so easily (relatively speaking of course). Just because it's not me doesn't completely invalidate the opinion I think. I mean, we do have good samaritan laws (Seinfeld parodies notwithstanding) and so as a society we do in fact make judgements about when someone should have fought the good fight, so to speak. That being the case, I think I'm right to do it here as well.
(1) Come on people, don't you know there must be more here than meets the eye? Do you really believe it was a simple as an app to search a network? I mean, if that's all it truly was, than Microsoft should be next on the RIAA's hit list since they've included a search feature in Windows since what, 98? And it can work over network shares same as local drives.
(2) I have a wife, two kids and a house, so I likely would have settled faster than this kid did. I have far too much to lose in my estimation, and this overrides my principals quite frankly, because the principal of being there for my family is more important to me than fighting a battle like this. However, if I was in *HIS* shoes, I would have fought this to the bitter end (assuming things really were as this article makes them appear). He had comparatively far less to lose, and I would have gambled it in his place. Forget lawyer costs. I want my day in court, and if that means I have to defend myself, so be it. I am 100% sure I could get a ton of publicity if nothing else, which the RIAA would hate I can assure them, and I'm close to 100% sure I could have gotten some lawyer to take the case for nothing anyway. There's always some lawyer out there willing to try just to make a name for himself. I'm guessing even the worst lawyer would be better than me! But in the end, getting in court, getting everything in the public record and having my say would be worth the risk to me. I mean, in the end if they get a $100,000 settlment against me, they're either going to toss me in jail or take the $50 a week I'm going to be able to afford. I'd risk it. This all assumes I really did nothing wrong, but again, I don't think that's the case.
I mean, let's face it... the RIAA are a bunch of Nazi-like terrorists, to put it bluntly. They need to be stopped, and stopped soon.
But I don't think they are stupid enough to outright harass someone that really has done nothing wrong. There is TONS of precedence for an application like this, and while I suppose it's possible they found the weakest target they could to, what, get rid of all search engines?, and went after him to start down that path, I really don't think so.
What I firmly believe is there is more here than we know, the kid was doing something else that wasn't as innocuous as searching a network for files.
And if that really *IS* all he did, then he's an asshole for caving in so easily, plain and simple. I realize there would have been tremendous risk for him, and I also realize it's easy to say when your not in that position, but at some point you have to have the strength of your convictions above all else and fight for them when you really have to. He didn't do that, and his father is patting him on the back for it too. At least I can see where he gets it from.
Me and my boys are gonna go take a ride over to the W3C's turf and, uhh, make them some offers they can't refuse.
And if they don't like our answers, well, they'll be writing specs from underneath Jets stadium with their newest member, Jimmy Hoffa on board!
(For all you federal governemnt spy-types out there, this post does NOT constitute a threat to anyone or anything, it is mearly a rather sad attempt at humor. Please, don't go busting the door down in my house to get me, my kids are trying to sleep).
I've read through most of the posts up here, and while most or either (a) jokes about the Matrix or (b) actually somewhat reasonable in their tone, a percentage, as always are (c) attempts to justify or moralize piracy. This always bugs me to no end, and now I believe I finally have a real logical argument to make against piracy without resorting to the simplistic "it's just wrong" argument...
What you are stealing from a movie company, record label or software developer is a SERVICE that you otherwise would have paid for, not a tangible product, not intellectual property, not potential income, but simply a service.
By way of example, let's say you get a copy of Photoshop. Sure, it's $699 or whatever it goes for today and you wouldn't have bought it anyway. Fine, no argument about lost income then, Adobe can't claim a loss on something they wouldn't have gotten in the first place.
However, you now have the service of that program with no compensation to the author. It's not so much the copy of the program being a problem, but the fact that you aren't paying for the service it provides.
As an admittedly contrived analogy, let's say you grab a guy off the street and make him mow your lawn at gunpoint. You are benefiting from his service without conpensating him. Had you not held the gun to your head, you would have had to compensate him for providing the service. While I admit there is nothing analogous to a gun when copying software or a movie, the argument still holds.
What service does a movie provide? Well, assuming it's not an utter piece of crap, entertainment is of course the answer. Therefore, to get a copy of the Matrix and watch it and enjoy it is deriving benefit of the service that movie provides without compensating those that should be compensated for creating it.
THIS is why piracy is wrong. No analogies to stealing a car, no arguments about lost potential profits, nothing like that. Simply put, a service is being stolen, and that is wrong.
Since this is Slashdot, and everything has to have a Microsoft spin one way or another, let me point out that this is the reason that Microsoft is pushing for a service-based model of the world. If you use Word for an hour, you are making use of the services the program provides for that timeframe. Hence, you are in essence renting it. In fact, to force people to purchase the software as we do today is actually worse for us as consumers in many ways. If you rent a car for a week but only drive it for two hours on Monday, your still paying for that entire week whether you used the car or not. This happens with software too. Microsoft has come up with some essnetially arbitrary value and assigned it to their software. You pay that amount and use it as much as you want. You might think you make out good because you use the software so much that the price seems good, but you also might use it so little that when calculated your paying on the order of $50 an hour or something (I'm pulling numbers out of my ass to illustrate the point, they may or may not be remotely accurate).
Microsoft however recognizes the essential fact that what they are selling is not a tangible product, but the service of a piece of software. This is also why you license software rather than purchase it outright incidentally. By offering software as a service, as the marketing monkeys have told us they want to do, they are in essence charging us for the real thing we are purchasing from them, the service, rather than a convenient representation of that (the software itself in purchaseable form). We will pay for the exact amount of that product we use, not some arbitrary amount. Note that I'm not saying I'm for this, mearly that it is a more accurate way of charging people and in effect is charging for what is actually being purchased, which is not really the case today.
Stop the anti-MS BS all the damned time
on
Hijacking .NET
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· Score: 4, Informative
This is NOT a security issue... A number of other languages allow this, most notably Java.
Making a member private is NOT a security mechanism. It is a DESIGN mechanism. The point is to enforce a public interface to a class, not absolutely securing internal data or functions from external callers. Yes, they are similar and in some cases pretty damn close to synonymous, but they are still different goals.
This isn't a flaw in.NET, unless MS says that in fact they want to doubly use the private mechanism as a security measure. No other language that I'm aware of does this, you could even argue that it would be a plus in.NET's favor.
If you want to say this design pattern is stupid, by all means do so. I would tend to agree. But if you want to use this as an opportunity to simply bash MS and.NET, your simply ignorant or just want to toss mud.
I agree with you 100%, but still recognize the problem with our point of view...
In most professional programming environments, you do not have the option of choosing a language. Most businesses these days (were most programming occurs in fact), will standardize on one language or another and nothing else will be allowed. Hell, even those businesses choosing to go with.Net are picking one language or another, be it VB or C#. Very few shops will allow variations in languages.
My shop has choosen Java. I personally find this very annoying and frustrating, not because they choose Java, but because they choose ANY one language. However, it's next to impossible to argue with the logic behind such a move... If everything everyone builds is Java, they will be able to share talents, code and the like much better than if one team uses C++, another Java and yet another VB. They will also be able to fill positions easier, assuming the choice was a reasonable one, and training will be easier too.
It's a terrible thing for us creative thinkers and those of us that want to keep our hands in as many cookie jars as possible, but from a business perspective we are almost the enemy. Creative thought is frowned upon more and more these days in the business IT world, and it's a real shame (at the least, it's harder and harder to find a position you can enjoy).
I remember it very clearly... It was 10th grade biology. My teacher mentioned the experiment and I remember very vividly that I was so taken aback by what he was saying. It seemed so immensely important and profound, and yet no one else in the class seemed terribly interested. I was simultaneously excited and sadened.
Excited because I'd learned of something so seemingly important, and sadened because no one else seemed to see the importance of it.
That was also the year I saw the first images of atoms, that one where they had written the letters IBM with Xenon atoms. That was another tremendously shocking experience.
Is it just me or does the vast majority of the general population no longer see the importance of pure science? Are we so accustomed to amazing developments and incredible pieces of technology surrounding us all the time that things like these just don't impress us any more?
Seeing atoms SHOULD amazes us. Learning of the building blocks of life being created from scratch in a jar SHOULD boggle our minds. Yet so many people shrug things like this off and don't see the fundamental nature of them.
I remember a philosophy class I took my first year of college... The final exam was the professor putting a chair in the middle of the room and then telling us "write in no less than 1,500 words why the chair exists".
Well, I sat there for about an hour not being able to come up with anything reasonable to put down. So, finally I gave up...
I wrote on the paper: "What chair?!?" and handed that in.
Hey, I just had a look at the code for the latest build of Longhorne (don't ask how!) and I found the following code that is 100% MINE:
for (int i = 0; i 20; i++) {... some code they put in to make it look like it wasn't mine... }
And the Linux community is just as bad! I found the following code in the latest kernel, and I KNOW they got this from me:
switch (a) { case 0:... another attempt at obfuscation... break; case 1:... they're still trying to fool me!... break; default:... argh, so frustrating... }
And you know what? IBM's just as bad! Here's some code straight out of WebSphere they STOLE FROM ME:
try {... a bunch of attempts at trickery... } catch (Exception e) {... they're at it again!... }
That's it, I'm getting a lawyer and getting my piece of the pie! You thieving rats better stay away from my code or I'm going to own you!
Ah, what the hell, everyone's gotta give their answers, right?!?
(1) How to move Mt. Fuji... I would ask the interviewer if it had to be intact after the move... If not, nuclear weapons should do the job nicely, but you'd have a pile of rubble at the new location... If it had to be intact, I'd say simply re-drawing every map in the world would be the most viable solution. If they didn't like that answer, I'd tell them I'd be more concerned with them moving Mt. Reiner some time this century before worrying about moving Mt. Fuji.
(2) How many gas stations in the United States... I'd say I don't know, but if they're willing to commission me for a $250,000 research project, plus give me a car and of course per diem expenses, I'd get right on it.
(3) How to design a remote control for venetian blinds... The same way I'd design a remote control for any other kind of blind... It would have a voice synthesis chip for audio feedback and it would yell everything really, really loudly.
(4) Why are manhole covers round... I'd say because the rectum of gay men's rectums aren't square. (Come on, MANHOLE COVERS... think about it!)
(5) How much does the ice in a hockey rink weigh?... This is how I'd solve it... cirsumscribe a parallellagram around the oval shape of the rink to determine a square footage... now take the connical sections forming the four corners of the unfulfilled parallellagram and determine their total area... now determine the depth of the ice (we'll idealize it and say it's a constant depth)... now add up the area of the leftover sections and the ice and use that in conjunction with the depth to determine the total volume of ice... now make an ice cube and weigh it... determine the volume of ice in the ice cube and, assuming you're using hte same units to measure the cube as the volume of ice in the rink, divide the latter by the former and there's your answer, but I'll save you the time because the answer is I FUCKING HATE HOCKEY, WHY DO I CARE?!? (and yes, what I said is just a bunch of bullshit, I don't know what half of the things I named even are!)
By the way, if they were to ask what are my three greatest weaknesses, I'd say that I'm indecisive and then stop talking.
That's it. Do I get the job at MS?
Open-source goofs at it again..
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Duke3d in Linux
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· Score: 1
So much for the much-vaunted speed and efficiency of the open-source model.
Four days?!? What the hell took so damned long?!?
Just tell me this... how many different, completely incompatoble codebase forks now exist? Damn SourceForge! Damn it to hell!
(Need I tell anyone this is sarcasm at it's worst?!? Ok, yes I do... THIS IS SARCASM!)
What I don't get is how everyone thought I was being serious and modded me up as interesting! Maybe funny, but interesting?!? That implies you think I was being serious!
Guys, do I really have to tell you I was being sarcastic?!?
Here goes my karma down the drain, but you guys really do need to get out and interact with people every now and again. JOKES like this will become more apparent.
(Note that I'm not claiming it was actually FUNNY, just that it was a joke
I forget where I heard it, but someone once pointed out that if your going to go to Spain to participate in the running of the bulls, you don't really want to talk with the people that managed to survive it... you want to talk to the guy that got his ass gored off because he can tell you exactly what to avoid doing!
Same thing here! Who better to tell us what security bugs to avoid than Microsoft.
"Today in Iraq, 6 coalition soldiers were killed by dumb fuc... no, accident... no, friendly fire."
"The vegetab... no, the goob... no, the president of the U.S. stated..."
"Evidence suggests that Saddam Hussein in dea... no, mortally wound... no, slightly injur... no, again delcaring that God will destroy the infidels and assure Iraq of victory!"
We jump to the year 2258, 10 years after the Earth-Klingon war. Earth is enjoying a period of peace, albeit a fragile one.
A coalition of governments, led by the humans, have constructed a space station, let's call it Beladon 6. It is located in nuetral territory orbiting a planet called Eksilop 2.
The purpose of this station is to provide a place for humans and aliens to work out their differences in peace. It's a home away from home for diplomats, officers, wanderers, business people and others.
Jonathan Archer is put in charge of the station, at the request of the Klingons, which is kinda strange.
By the end of 2258, nothing is the same any more. The Klingon ambassador names Volann, has put herself into some sort of cacoon, and a mysterious alien presence has made an appearance. These aliens appear to be immensely more powerful than any other race around.
We then jump ahead to 2259, where captain Archer has, mercifully, been reassigned to duty on the Klingon homeworld. Strangely, the series seems to improve considerably after that. To replace him is captain Sherinnian, a war hero of the Earth-Klingon war.
About this time, Volann comes out of her cocoon and is a human-Klingon hybrid named Torres (no relation). We also meet a species called the Suliban who use technological means to simulate the effects of magic. We learn in a spin-off series of books that they were created by the mystery race to be weapons.
Sherinnian and Volann fall in love, get married and have a child, but who really cares about that crap anyway.
The mysterious alien race send an agent to speak to all the ambassadors on the station. Along with him are invisible members of the alien race, who we later find out has a name so long we could never pronounce it, so we just call them species 8472 (again, no relation).
Aaaanyway...
Sherinnian leads a coalition of the will... no, an army of light... no, a FEDERATION!, in a war against species 8472. We finally beat them by not fighting at all (don't ask), but we later find out that they had dark allies serving them that are just as dangerous, called the Borg. We'll be dealing with them for a LONG time.
There's also some crap a few seasons down the road about people with telepathic abilities, and Berman and Braga expertly set up a war between them and mundanes for the NEXT Star Trek series, which should start some time around Enterprise' fifth season.
Hmmmm... this all sounds kinda familiar actually...
Don't worry... at the end, Q shows up, resets the timeline and Enterprise goes back to sucking hairy moose cock again.
All I keep watching for is the slim hope that one of Hoshi's tits will pop out during a gel scene and the editors and censors will miss it.
Interesting question... I have never and would never build a back-door into anything I code, unless it was approved and well-documented (some clients might want it).
But, on the other hand, I have build Easter Eggs into systems I've written. One system that is used by thousands of users at my current employer has a silly little Snake game in DHTML if you find it, another high-volume system has Blackjack built-in.
Neither has ever been found, but I have told a number of people, including the managers that sponsored the projects, about them (after the systems were deployed). They didn't seem to mind too much (looked at me kind of funny, but didn't really bitch).
The question... is THAT ok? I know probably most big-time sofware has eggs, but as a matter of course, should it be acceptable, or is it generally unacceptable like back doors seem to be, judging by the general tone of the responses here?
Many of the same arguments apply, such as extra code that could break and put blame on you... They might even be exploitable as security risks if really pooly written... And of course, it most probably was NOT in the client's requirements, so should you do it, even if your intention is not nefarious (mine certainly weren't).
I don't know, I'm kind of torn now that I think about it. I've done it before and didn't think twice, not so sure I would in the future though. Thoughts?
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, what a great example of the vaunted Linux community.
Yeah, replies like that make me as a corporate purchaser want to rush out and put Linux on all my desktops.
Of course, since it now has drop-shadows, there's a real value to doing so, isn't there?
Linux desktops now have DROP SHADOWS!!
Wow, isn't the advance of technology just grand?
Geez, how long before Microsoft "borrows" this idea I wonder?
Huh? Wait... ummm... Damn, Redmond's theft army is FASY!!
It never ceases to amaze me how perfectly reasonable you can make censorship sound if you really try. What I mean is, the way the censorship board's decision is worded on the surface sounds completely reasonable, well thought-out and actually in the best interest of the Egyptian public.
Then you think for half a second longer and of course realize that censorship in any form is one of the horrible things people can do to other people.
But, when you see a statement done this well, you can see why people allow their freedoms to be taken away little by little for the greater good and then wake up one day and wonder why they can't even drive to the next town over without going through two weeks of paperwork, or read a book without being condemned as a Satan-worshipper and burned at the stake.
That's a fair point, to an extent.
As is the case with everyone else, I can only go by what I read in the article. From what I read, I really do feel that he caved and didn't stand up at all. Just getting the concession to be able to say he did nothing wrong isn't much in my mind.
It's interesting that you characterize what he could have potentially done as martyrdom though. Martyrdom generally is taken to be a situation where you know your going to die for a cause you believe strongly in (slight understatement there!). Obviously we're not talking about a life-or-death situation here, but I think what you meant in this context is facing a situation where you know you can't win.
That to me says you probably read into all this what I do, which is that this kid really was doing something more than we've heard. If that wasn't the case, why would he feel he couldn't win? On the basis of what we've all read I think most of us would say that he had a shot to win, to what degree is questionable (I happen to think he had an excellent chance to win, but that's debatable to be sure).
I would agree with the point of view that knowing you can't win changes matters considerably. I agree with your point that choosing martyrdom, i.e., fighting the unwinnable fight, is absolutely a personal choice, and I would change what I said slightly in light of that to the extent that if he really knew he couldn't win then yes, I can't really fault him (aside from faulting him for what he actually did do and for lying about it, which would be the case in that circumstance).
But if as he says he really believes he did nothing wrong, than I do think it's fair to criticize him for giving up so easily (relatively speaking of course). Just because it's not me doesn't completely invalidate the opinion I think. I mean, we do have good samaritan laws (Seinfeld parodies notwithstanding) and so as a society we do in fact make judgements about when someone should have fought the good fight, so to speak. That being the case, I think I'm right to do it here as well.
(1) Come on people, don't you know there must be more here than meets the eye? Do you really believe it was a simple as an app to search a network? I mean, if that's all it truly was, than Microsoft should be next on the RIAA's hit list since they've included a search feature in Windows since what, 98? And it can work over network shares same as local drives.
(2) I have a wife, two kids and a house, so I likely would have settled faster than this kid did. I have far too much to lose in my estimation, and this overrides my principals quite frankly, because the principal of being there for my family is more important to me than fighting a battle like this. However, if I was in *HIS* shoes, I would have fought this to the bitter end (assuming things really were as this article makes them appear). He had comparatively far less to lose, and I would have gambled it in his place. Forget lawyer costs. I want my day in court, and if that means I have to defend myself, so be it. I am 100% sure I could get a ton of publicity if nothing else, which the RIAA would hate I can assure them, and I'm close to 100% sure I could have gotten some lawyer to take the case for nothing anyway. There's always some lawyer out there willing to try just to make a name for himself. I'm guessing even the worst lawyer would be better than me! But in the end, getting in court, getting everything in the public record and having my say would be worth the risk to me. I mean, in the end if they get a $100,000 settlment against me, they're either going to toss me in jail or take the $50 a week I'm going to be able to afford. I'd risk it. This all assumes I really did nothing wrong, but again, I don't think that's the case.
I mean, let's face it... the RIAA are a bunch of Nazi-like terrorists, to put it bluntly. They need to be stopped, and stopped soon.
But I don't think they are stupid enough to outright harass someone that really has done nothing wrong. There is TONS of precedence for an application like this, and while I suppose it's possible they found the weakest target they could to, what, get rid of all search engines?, and went after him to start down that path, I really don't think so.
What I firmly believe is there is more here than we know, the kid was doing something else that wasn't as innocuous as searching a network for files.
And if that really *IS* all he did, then he's an asshole for caving in so easily, plain and simple. I realize there would have been tremendous risk for him, and I also realize it's easy to say when your not in that position, but at some point you have to have the strength of your convictions above all else and fight for them when you really have to. He didn't do that, and his father is patting him on the back for it too. At least I can see where he gets it from.
Why would a video clip be in executable form in the first place?
Right here, bitch!
Me and my boys are gonna go take a ride over to the W3C's turf and, uhh, make them some offers they can't refuse.
And if they don't like our answers, well, they'll be writing specs from underneath Jets stadium with their newest member, Jimmy Hoffa on board!
(For all you federal governemnt spy-types out there, this post does NOT constitute a threat to anyone or anything, it is mearly a rather sad attempt at humor. Please, don't go busting the door down in my house to get me, my kids are trying to sleep).
Oh yes, that's a tremendous retort. I feel so foolish now.
If I need to think through my analogies, you need to hire a think tank firm to compose your responses.
I've read through most of the posts up here, and while most or either (a) jokes about the Matrix or (b) actually somewhat reasonable in their tone, a percentage, as always are (c) attempts to justify or moralize piracy. This always bugs me to no end, and now I believe I finally have a real logical argument to make against piracy without resorting to the simplistic "it's just wrong" argument...
What you are stealing from a movie company, record label or software developer is a SERVICE that you otherwise would have paid for, not a tangible product, not intellectual property, not potential income, but simply a service.
By way of example, let's say you get a copy of Photoshop. Sure, it's $699 or whatever it goes for today and you wouldn't have bought it anyway. Fine, no argument about lost income then, Adobe can't claim a loss on something they wouldn't have gotten in the first place.
However, you now have the service of that program with no compensation to the author. It's not so much the copy of the program being a problem, but the fact that you aren't paying for the service it provides.
As an admittedly contrived analogy, let's say you grab a guy off the street and make him mow your lawn at gunpoint. You are benefiting from his service without conpensating him. Had you not held the gun to your head, you would have had to compensate him for providing the service. While I admit there is nothing analogous to a gun when copying software or a movie, the argument still holds.
What service does a movie provide? Well, assuming it's not an utter piece of crap, entertainment is of course the answer. Therefore, to get a copy of the Matrix and watch it and enjoy it is deriving benefit of the service that movie provides without compensating those that should be compensated for creating it.
THIS is why piracy is wrong. No analogies to stealing a car, no arguments about lost potential profits, nothing like that. Simply put, a service is being stolen, and that is wrong.
Since this is Slashdot, and everything has to have a Microsoft spin one way or another, let me point out that this is the reason that Microsoft is pushing for a service-based model of the world. If you use Word for an hour, you are making use of the services the program provides for that timeframe. Hence, you are in essence renting it. In fact, to force people to purchase the software as we do today is actually worse for us as consumers in many ways. If you rent a car for a week but only drive it for two hours on Monday, your still paying for that entire week whether you used the car or not. This happens with software too. Microsoft has come up with some essnetially arbitrary value and assigned it to their software. You pay that amount and use it as much as you want. You might think you make out good because you use the software so much that the price seems good, but you also might use it so little that when calculated your paying on the order of $50 an hour or something (I'm pulling numbers out of my ass to illustrate the point, they may or may not be remotely accurate).
Microsoft however recognizes the essential fact that what they are selling is not a tangible product, but the service of a piece of software. This is also why you license software rather than purchase it outright incidentally. By offering software as a service, as the marketing monkeys have told us they want to do, they are in essence charging us for the real thing we are purchasing from them, the service, rather than a convenient representation of that (the software itself in purchaseable form). We will pay for the exact amount of that product we use, not some arbitrary amount. Note that I'm not saying I'm for this, mearly that it is a more accurate way of charging people and in effect is charging for what is actually being purchased, which is not really the case today.
This is NOT a security issue... A number of other languages allow this, most notably Java.
.NET, unless MS says that in fact they want to doubly use the private mechanism as a security measure. No other language that I'm aware of does this, you could even argue that it would be a plus in .NET's favor.
.NET, your simply ignorant or just want to toss mud.
Making a member private is NOT a security mechanism. It is a DESIGN mechanism. The point is to enforce a public interface to a class, not absolutely securing internal data or functions from external callers. Yes, they are similar and in some cases pretty damn close to synonymous, but they are still different goals.
This isn't a flaw in
If you want to say this design pattern is stupid, by all means do so. I would tend to agree. But if you want to use this as an opportunity to simply bash MS and
I agree with you 100%, but still recognize the problem with our point of view...
.Net are picking one language or another, be it VB or C#. Very few shops will allow variations in languages.
In most professional programming environments, you do not have the option of choosing a language. Most businesses these days (were most programming occurs in fact), will standardize on one language or another and nothing else will be allowed. Hell, even those businesses choosing to go with
My shop has choosen Java. I personally find this very annoying and frustrating, not because they choose Java, but because they choose ANY one language. However, it's next to impossible to argue with the logic behind such a move... If everything everyone builds is Java, they will be able to share talents, code and the like much better than if one team uses C++, another Java and yet another VB. They will also be able to fill positions easier, assuming the choice was a reasonable one, and training will be easier too.
It's a terrible thing for us creative thinkers and those of us that want to keep our hands in as many cookie jars as possible, but from a business perspective we are almost the enemy. Creative thought is frowned upon more and more these days in the business IT world, and it's a real shame (at the least, it's harder and harder to find a position you can enjoy).
I remember it very clearly... It was 10th grade biology. My teacher mentioned the experiment and I remember very vividly that I was so taken aback by what he was saying. It seemed so immensely important and profound, and yet no one else in the class seemed terribly interested. I was simultaneously excited and sadened.
Excited because I'd learned of something so seemingly important, and sadened because no one else seemed to see the importance of it.
That was also the year I saw the first images of atoms, that one where they had written the letters IBM with Xenon atoms. That was another tremendously shocking experience.
Is it just me or does the vast majority of the general population no longer see the importance of pure science? Are we so accustomed to amazing developments and incredible pieces of technology surrounding us all the time that things like these just don't impress us any more?
Seeing atoms SHOULD amazes us. Learning of the building blocks of life being created from scratch in a jar SHOULD boggle our minds. Yet so many people shrug things like this off and don't see the fundamental nature of them.
Ok, now I'm just sadened!
Sort of off-topic, but then again, sort of on...
I remember a philosophy class I took my first year of college... The final exam was the professor putting a chair in the middle of the room and then telling us "write in no less than 1,500 words why the chair exists".
Well, I sat there for about an hour not being able to come up with anything reasonable to put down. So, finally I gave up...
I wrote on the paper: "What chair?!?" and handed that in.
I got an A+.
Hey, I just had a look at the code for the latest build of Longhorne (don't ask how!) and I found the following code that is 100% MINE:
... some code they put in to make it look like it wasn't mine ...
... another attempt at obfuscation ... ... they're still trying to fool me! ... ... argh, so frustrating ...
... a bunch of attempts at trickery ... ... they're at it again! ...
for (int i = 0; i 20; i++) {
}
And the Linux community is just as bad! I found the following code in the latest kernel, and I KNOW they got this from me:
switch (a) {
case 0:
break;
case 1:
break;
default:
}
And you know what? IBM's just as bad! Here's some code straight out of WebSphere they STOLE FROM ME:
try {
} catch (Exception e) {
}
That's it, I'm getting a lawyer and getting my piece of the pie! You thieving rats better stay away from my code or I'm going to own you!
Ah, what the hell, everyone's gotta give their answers, right?!?
(1) How to move Mt. Fuji... I would ask the interviewer if it had to be intact after the move... If not, nuclear weapons should do the job nicely, but you'd have a pile of rubble at the new location... If it had to be intact, I'd say simply re-drawing every map in the world would be the most viable solution. If they didn't like that answer, I'd tell them I'd be more concerned with them moving Mt. Reiner some time this century before worrying about moving Mt. Fuji.
(2) How many gas stations in the United States... I'd say I don't know, but if they're willing to commission me for a $250,000 research project, plus give me a car and of course per diem expenses, I'd get right on it.
(3) How to design a remote control for venetian blinds... The same way I'd design a remote control for any other kind of blind... It would have a voice synthesis chip for audio feedback and it would yell everything really, really loudly.
(4) Why are manhole covers round... I'd say because the rectum of gay men's rectums aren't square. (Come on, MANHOLE COVERS... think about it!)
(5) How much does the ice in a hockey rink weigh?... This is how I'd solve it... cirsumscribe a parallellagram around the oval shape of the rink to determine a square footage... now take the connical sections forming the four corners of the unfulfilled parallellagram and determine their total area... now determine the depth of the ice (we'll idealize it and say it's a constant depth)... now add up the area of the leftover sections and the ice and use that in conjunction with the depth to determine the total volume of ice... now make an ice cube and weigh it... determine the volume of ice in the ice cube and, assuming you're using hte same units to measure the cube as the volume of ice in the rink, divide the latter by the former and there's your answer, but I'll save you the time because the answer is I FUCKING HATE HOCKEY, WHY DO I CARE?!? (and yes, what I said is just a bunch of bullshit, I don't know what half of the things I named even are!)
By the way, if they were to ask what are my three greatest weaknesses, I'd say that I'm indecisive and then stop talking.
That's it. Do I get the job at MS?
So much for the much-vaunted speed and efficiency of the open-source model.
Four days?!? What the hell took so damned long?!?
Just tell me this... how many different, completely incompatoble codebase forks now exist? Damn SourceForge! Damn it to hell!
(Need I tell anyone this is sarcasm at it's worst?!? Ok, yes I do... THIS IS SARCASM!)
What I don't get is how everyone thought I was being serious and modded me up as interesting! Maybe funny, but interesting?!? That implies you think I was being serious!
Guys, do I really have to tell you I was being sarcastic?!?
Here goes my karma down the drain, but you guys really do need to get out and interact with people every now and again. JOKES like this will become more apparent.
(Note that I'm not claiming it was actually FUNNY, just that it was a joke
I forget where I heard it, but someone once pointed out that if your going to go to Spain to participate in the running of the bulls, you don't really want to talk with the people that managed to survive it... you want to talk to the guy that got his ass gored off because he can tell you exactly what to avoid doing!
Same thing here! Who better to tell us what security bugs to avoid than Microsoft.
No, but I should though, right?
"Today in Iraq, 6 coalition soldiers were killed by dumb fuc... no, accident... no, friendly fire."
"The vegetab... no, the goob... no, the president of the U.S. stated..."
"Evidence suggests that Saddam Hussein in dea... no, mortally wound... no, slightly injur... no, again delcaring that God will destroy the infidels and assure Iraq of victory!"
Sitting unusued in a docking craddle?
A PocketPC wouldn't crash either. Trying to take a pot sot without anything to back it up?
We jump to the year 2258, 10 years after the Earth-Klingon war. Earth is enjoying a period of peace, albeit a fragile one.
A coalition of governments, led by the humans, have constructed a space station, let's call it Beladon 6. It is located in nuetral territory orbiting a planet called Eksilop 2.
The purpose of this station is to provide a place for humans and aliens to work out their differences in peace. It's a home away from home for diplomats, officers, wanderers, business people and others.
Jonathan Archer is put in charge of the station, at the request of the Klingons, which is kinda strange.
By the end of 2258, nothing is the same any more. The Klingon ambassador names Volann, has put herself into some sort of cacoon, and a mysterious alien presence has made an appearance. These aliens appear to be immensely more powerful than any other race around.
We then jump ahead to 2259, where captain Archer has, mercifully, been reassigned to duty on the Klingon homeworld. Strangely, the series seems to improve considerably after that. To replace him is captain Sherinnian, a war hero of the Earth-Klingon war.
About this time, Volann comes out of her cocoon and is a human-Klingon hybrid named Torres (no relation). We also meet a species called the Suliban who use technological means to simulate the effects of magic. We learn in a spin-off series of books that they were created by the mystery race to be weapons.
Sherinnian and Volann fall in love, get married and have a child, but who really cares about that crap anyway.
The mysterious alien race send an agent to speak to all the ambassadors on the station. Along with him are invisible members of the alien race, who we later find out has a name so long we could never pronounce it, so we just call them species 8472 (again, no relation).
Aaaanyway...
Sherinnian leads a coalition of the will... no, an army of light... no, a FEDERATION!, in a war against species 8472. We finally beat them by not fighting at all (don't ask), but we later find out that they had dark allies serving them that are just as dangerous, called the Borg. We'll be dealing with them for a LONG time.
There's also some crap a few seasons down the road about people with telepathic abilities, and Berman and Braga expertly set up a war between them and mundanes for the NEXT Star Trek series, which should start some time around Enterprise' fifth season.
Hmmmm... this all sounds kinda familiar actually...
Don't worry... at the end, Q shows up, resets the timeline and Enterprise goes back to sucking hairy moose cock again.
All I keep watching for is the slim hope that one of Hoshi's tits will pop out during a gel scene and the editors and censors will miss it.
God this show sucks!
Wups, me mke a tyyping or spehling errur. Sorrey.
Why does Linus Torvalds feel the need to open his big, fat mouth any time there is something happening regarding Linux?
You'd think the guy INVENTED Linux or something like that. What a jerk!
(Yes, it's carcasm. Calm the f**k down!)
Interesting question... I have never and would never build a back-door into anything I code, unless it was approved and well-documented (some clients might want it).
But, on the other hand, I have build Easter Eggs into systems I've written. One system that is used by thousands of users at my current employer has a silly little Snake game in DHTML if you find it, another high-volume system has Blackjack built-in.
Neither has ever been found, but I have told a number of people, including the managers that sponsored the projects, about them (after the systems were deployed). They didn't seem to mind too much (looked at me kind of funny, but didn't really bitch).
The question... is THAT ok? I know probably most big-time sofware has eggs, but as a matter of course, should it be acceptable, or is it generally unacceptable like back doors seem to be, judging by the general tone of the responses here?
Many of the same arguments apply, such as extra code that could break and put blame on you... They might even be exploitable as security risks if really pooly written... And of course, it most probably was NOT in the client's requirements, so should you do it, even if your intention is not nefarious (mine certainly weren't).
I don't know, I'm kind of torn now that I think about it. I've done it before and didn't think twice, not so sure I would in the future though. Thoughts?
Should include the word ODD in that drop-down!
Ahem... as I get into my comic book man disguise...
Strangest... story... EVER!