The one aspect of the Social Security system I wanna see changed is the use of the same string for both username and password. So much of the threat of identity theft is because SSNs are so powerful. If the identifying number and associated secret were separate bits of information, 98.43% of the entities that have had breaches of this nature would not have had the passphrase in the first place, only the unique identifier.
Why does it seem that I'm the only one who finds this to be utterly ridiculous? First and last name (even with middle name or initial) is simply not sufficient to separate one Frank Jacobs from another. A unique identifier is needed. Yet when I ask students for their SSN, as is *required* in my industry, many of them get all pissy about it, as they've had it drilled into their heads all their lives that anybody asking for your SSN is a devil worshiping credit card thief, and probably a yankee to boot. (It especially amuses me when I've got their credit card info on screen in front of me, yet they're getting all sketchy about giving out their SSN.)
And now, feel free to do what so many people do in person or over the phone every day, and explain to me how it's illegal for me to be asking for that information, blah, blah, blah. We always get a kick out of that one.
By that logic, if they are developing (innovating, if you will) at a similar pace, yet releasing half as often, those less frequent releases should be twice as, well, innovative, for lack of a better word.
Fear not, I'm no Linux zealot, I'm an elitist asshole. The best way to tell us apart is that we have funny looking computers and a sex life.
I think maybe you read too much into my post, though. I was talking about rescuing people's stuff after Windows has screwed them. When that happens and you keep on using Windows, yes, that's foolish. There is, however, a difference between taking note of foolish behavior and calling someone a fool.
I usually take every opportunity I can to get a +1, Funny based on my (poorly chosen) username if the story warrants it, but in this case I didn't even think about it till after I made that comment.
Knoppix has helped me a few times to rescue systems for my friends foolish enough to keep using Windows. Since I've received great benefit at no cost, I keep a torrent of it perpetually running (almost 98GB to date). Even if you can't contribute code directly, you can use the bandwidth that you already pay for to benefit others and, indirectly, the Knoppix developers.
I walk in the door and within thirty seconds of hanging up my keys I've logged back into the main machine and flipped open the lid on the iBook, even if I'm only coming home to change clothes and head back out the door in five minutes. If I'm at home or at work, it's exceedingly rare that I go more than an hour without hitting news.google.com, topix.net and slashdot.org. Of course, I generally know what's going on in the world in a pretty timely manner, even if I don't have (or take) the time to learn anything other than headlines and article summaries.
I definitely see the web as a detriment to workplace productivity, but there's no simple solution for those of us who make productive use of the web in our jobs. Of course, by and large slashdot doesn't help in my job (although friends here have pointed me to some valuable technical solutions and resources), and it's the vast majority of the non-essential browsing I do at work. Of course, when I'm truly busy my bullshit web use drops sharply, so I guess that means it's not too strong a compulsion.
Okay, time to stop typing in a browser window and go do some useful stuff on such a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
*wanders off to check the news sites while another cup of coffee brews*
Always do it for me. The Vonage ones are the best, especially when you end up with like three of them on a page. Sometimes I swear they can even spike the cpu load of other machines in the same room.
Actually, my rather snarky 'comrade' remark was intended to evoke Stalinism, not classical Marxism as is ostensibly practiced in Red China. It was meant to point out how authoritarian his post sounded.
Often whenever I'm heading out on a road trip I'll burn a CD or three for the drive. I'll put a hundred or so songs on each disc, only to find out that the songs I bothered to legitimately purchase are missing. To me, that's rather ironic.
And that's a large part of the reason that I no longer use the iTMS. I scrounge my boss's Diet Pepsi bottle caps, but that's it.
No, there is not, that I'm aware, a simple codec to do what you suggest. Wouldn't that be the 'breaking of the DRM' to which you refer, which I am calling 'using as I see fit?'
Is this a parody? Seriously, you understand that stealing is a crime and protecting your property is not. Or were you thinking we were in another country?
Is this a parody? Seriously, you understand that stripping DRM from a file to play it in my car MP3 deck should not be a crime and that violating terms of service is not any sort of theft. Or were you thinking we were in another country, comrade?
for maximum "efficiency", time would change by a minute or two a day, to keep pace with sunrise; but that would be a nightmare to implement
I've always thought that would be ideal, at least from the point of view of human nature. Adjust things so that noon is always at the midpoint between sunrise and sunset. What a concept, huh? Since on most parts of the planet the length of the day varies throughout the year, but our clock system ignores that, those of us who get up at the same time every day actually spend half the year getting up later and later, and the other half of the year getting up earlier and earlier. Not exactly the environment we evolved to live in harmony with.
At least that's *my* excuse for being such a bastard in the morning.
Which lies about recycling? If I didn't know better, I'd say you're implying that it makes more sense to bury expensively produced materials in landfills than to reuse them. But that can't be right, can it?
With a Dremel and a decent soldering iron, all your geeky dreams can come true. (well, okay, not that one with the blonde and the midgets and the mayonaise, but all the *other* geeky dreams)
It's been all I could do not to snag a copy from the warez scene. It's been even worse than trying not to sneak a peak at the presents before christmas morning. I'm very proud of myself for having resisted the temptation. Now SHIP THE FUCKING THING ALREADY!
Re:What's wrong with finder?
on
Hacking Mac OS X
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm sure a thousand people can (and will) list a hundred complaints each, but I'll give you just one, albeit one that would be *very* easy for them to fix: why the fuck can't I sort by name|date|size|type|label|whatever in column view?
I would separate out require and benefit. Just about everything benefits, but most things don't require. I'm generally a feature junkie, but I recently got a used iBook. Since I didn't immediately get around to putting my usual apps on it, I've gotten used to Safari instead of Firefox, iChat instead of Fire, etc. It's turned out that the limited feature sets of those apps don't feel nearly as limited as I expected them to once I started using them on a daily basis. I also considered the one button trackpad to be a serious liability until I actually started using one. On the Mac you use control-click to get a contextual menu if you don't have a right clicker. It'd be interesting to have something count control-clicks on this machine; it turns out I don't use it *nearly* as often as I anticipated.
I used to disagree pretty strongly with people who said that requiring lots of contextual menu usage was merely a symptom of poor interface design, but I suppose I've come around to their point of view, at least to some degree.
Slashdot Mirror
Industrial safety training. OSHA type stuff, although we're a non-profit with no connection to OSHA or any other agency.
The one aspect of the Social Security system I wanna see changed is the use of the same string for both username and password. So much of the threat of identity theft is because SSNs are so powerful. If the identifying number and associated secret were separate bits of information, 98.43% of the entities that have had breaches of this nature would not have had the passphrase in the first place, only the unique identifier.
Why does it seem that I'm the only one who finds this to be utterly ridiculous? First and last name (even with middle name or initial) is simply not sufficient to separate one Frank Jacobs from another. A unique identifier is needed. Yet when I ask students for their SSN, as is *required* in my industry, many of them get all pissy about it, as they've had it drilled into their heads all their lives that anybody asking for your SSN is a devil worshiping credit card thief, and probably a yankee to boot. (It especially amuses me when I've got their credit card info on screen in front of me, yet they're getting all sketchy about giving out their SSN.)
And now, feel free to do what so many people do in person or over the phone every day, and explain to me how it's illegal for me to be asking for that information, blah, blah, blah. We always get a kick out of that one.
By that logic, if they are developing (innovating, if you will) at a similar pace, yet releasing half as often, those less frequent releases should be twice as, well, innovative, for lack of a better word.
Have you found that to be the case?
Fear not, I'm no Linux zealot, I'm an elitist asshole. The best way to tell us apart is that we have funny looking computers and a sex life.
I think maybe you read too much into my post, though. I was talking about rescuing people's stuff after Windows has screwed them. When that happens and you keep on using Windows, yes, that's foolish. There is, however, a difference between taking note of foolish behavior and calling someone a fool.
I usually take every opportunity I can to get a +1, Funny based on my (poorly chosen) username if the story warrants it, but in this case I didn't even think about it till after I made that comment.
Knoppix has helped me a few times to rescue systems for my friends foolish enough to keep using Windows. Since I've received great benefit at no cost, I keep a torrent of it perpetually running (almost 98GB to date). Even if you can't contribute code directly, you can use the bandwidth that you already pay for to benefit others and, indirectly, the Knoppix developers.
Karma... it's not just for slashdot any more.
I walk in the door and within thirty seconds of hanging up my keys I've logged back into the main machine and flipped open the lid on the iBook, even if I'm only coming home to change clothes and head back out the door in five minutes. If I'm at home or at work, it's exceedingly rare that I go more than an hour without hitting news.google.com, topix.net and slashdot.org. Of course, I generally know what's going on in the world in a pretty timely manner, even if I don't have (or take) the time to learn anything other than headlines and article summaries.
I definitely see the web as a detriment to workplace productivity, but there's no simple solution for those of us who make productive use of the web in our jobs. Of course, by and large slashdot doesn't help in my job (although friends here have pointed me to some valuable technical solutions and resources), and it's the vast majority of the non-essential browsing I do at work. Of course, when I'm truly busy my bullshit web use drops sharply, so I guess that means it's not too strong a compulsion.
Okay, time to stop typing in a browser window and go do some useful stuff on such a beautiful Saturday afternoon.
*wanders off to check the news sites while another cup of coffee brews*
Cute sig, but you've got it all wrong:
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
disco = I learn
thé que = standing in line
I can only hope that their aim is true.
Always do it for me. The Vonage ones are the best, especially when you end up with like three of them on a page. Sometimes I swear they can even spike the cpu load of other machines in the same room.
Actually, my rather snarky 'comrade' remark was intended to evoke Stalinism, not classical Marxism as is ostensibly practiced in Red China. It was meant to point out how authoritarian his post sounded.
Often whenever I'm heading out on a road trip I'll burn a CD or three for the drive. I'll put a hundred or so songs on each disc, only to find out that the songs I bothered to legitimately purchase are missing. To me, that's rather ironic.
And that's a large part of the reason that I no longer use the iTMS. I scrounge my boss's Diet Pepsi bottle caps, but that's it.
No, there is not, that I'm aware, a simple codec to do what you suggest. Wouldn't that be the 'breaking of the DRM' to which you refer, which I am calling 'using as I see fit?'
Is this a parody? Seriously, you understand that stealing is a crime and protecting your property is not. Or were you thinking we were in another country?
Is this a parody? Seriously, you understand that stripping DRM from a file to play it in my car MP3 deck should not be a crime and that violating terms of service is not any sort of theft. Or were you thinking we were in another country, comrade?
Don't they have, like, a War on Terror to support or something?
Does Napster's palpable fear count?
for maximum "efficiency", time would change by a minute or two a day, to keep pace with sunrise; but that would be a nightmare to implement
I've always thought that would be ideal, at least from the point of view of human nature. Adjust things so that noon is always at the midpoint between sunrise and sunset. What a concept, huh? Since on most parts of the planet the length of the day varies throughout the year, but our clock system ignores that, those of us who get up at the same time every day actually spend half the year getting up later and later, and the other half of the year getting up earlier and earlier. Not exactly the environment we evolved to live in harmony with.
At least that's *my* excuse for being such a bastard in the morning.
Which lies about recycling? If I didn't know better, I'd say you're implying that it makes more sense to bury expensively produced materials in landfills than to reuse them. But that can't be right, can it?
Why have midgets?
Because the blonde's too tall to ride a llama through the bathroom door.
Duh!
With a Dremel and a decent soldering iron, all your geeky dreams can come true. (well, okay, not that one with the blonde and the midgets and the mayonaise, but all the *other* geeky dreams)
Wow - I didn't realise that the Apple fanboys had elected a spokesperson :-)
We have, but it's this guy, not Garcia.
I'd settle for knowing why I can't click the "1 reply beneath your current threshold" links all of the sudden. Very odd.
It's been all I could do not to snag a copy from the warez scene. It's been even worse than trying not to sneak a peak at the presents before christmas morning. I'm very proud of myself for having resisted the temptation. Now SHIP THE FUCKING THING ALREADY!
-1, Wrong.
I'm sure a thousand people can (and will) list a hundred complaints each, but I'll give you just one, albeit one that would be *very* easy for them to fix: why the fuck can't I sort by name|date|size|type|label|whatever in column view?
About four sigs ago I was using:
Backronyms Are Strenghtening Tyrants And Reducing Domestic Security
Feel free to spread it around, with or without attribution.
I would separate out require and benefit. Just about everything benefits, but most things don't require. I'm generally a feature junkie, but I recently got a used iBook. Since I didn't immediately get around to putting my usual apps on it, I've gotten used to Safari instead of Firefox, iChat instead of Fire, etc. It's turned out that the limited feature sets of those apps don't feel nearly as limited as I expected them to once I started using them on a daily basis. I also considered the one button trackpad to be a serious liability until I actually started using one. On the Mac you use control-click to get a contextual menu if you don't have a right clicker. It'd be interesting to have something count control-clicks on this machine; it turns out I don't use it *nearly* as often as I anticipated.
I used to disagree pretty strongly with people who said that requiring lots of contextual menu usage was merely a symptom of poor interface design, but I suppose I've come around to their point of view, at least to some degree.