I "inherited" a badly designed MySQL database that a couple of developers were shoveling data into with their nifty little apps. Empty dates were sometimes NULL and sometimes 0000-00-00 and sometimes something else.
I "inherited" a badly written C++ project where an integer was to be displayed as ASCII text, and the data structure was a character field, and not an integer. Oh, sometimes the number was stored as hex or base 10. Now, the cute part was that this excellent programmer converted the datatype to and from base 10 and hex, and his exhaustive testing apparently never went past 10.
Now, this code was copied and pasted about 3 or 4 times for different modules like admin or customer or something like that. And each one was subtly different.
My point is that the tool is not always the problem. Now if C++'s integer arithmetic had an issue, that is another story, but the programmer simply was not good.
Now, MySQL is not a very logical or robust DB at all times, but it is documented, and any competent programmer could have gotten around the 0000-00-00, NULL, and "something else" things.
I checked some of MySQL's date functions, and one of them does this:
That is weird. The curtime value in numeric context is only good for comparison to another valid curtime() whatever, but it can't be added or subtracted as an integer. Yes, MySQL _should_ make date fields something generic xor NULL, or a valid date, not Feb 31, 2000, but its something that needs to be done at the programming level. Personally, I always use UNIX timestamps (seconds since 1970). They can be directly added, sorted, and converted into any timezone, and its very portable. But thats just me. (Yes, UNIX timestamps do nothing before 1970, etc, etc).
WTF? I hope you don't get paid for your legal brainery. Same goes for the mods that gave you insightful.
Yeah. But the thing is this.
What law is there that the judge is going by here?
me: reads article real quick to see.
OK, exactly as I thought, there is none.
FTA:
"A civil subpoena by the government is not one of the methods that ECPA lists" as a permissible mechanism for obtaining search results, said Gidari, a partner in the Seattle office of the Perkins Coie law firm.
Deciding to grant part of the Justice Department's request--effectively splitting the difference--would permit Ware to avoid some of these thorny privacy concerns. It would also avoid the possibility of setting a precedent that could create new hurdles for prosecutors in future criminal investigations.
So, IANAL, but civil suits are not a matter of law per se. You are not "guilty" of anything, just liable or whatever jargon there is for it at most. Even if Google were a person, they could only fine them or whatever else illegal action against Google, but nothing really can come from it.
Google stick to your guns please, so I can keep mine in my holster.
Because we all know that if the government really wanted that information from Google, they'd have persued it via Patriot Act style secret warrants. Since I haven't heard about a bunch of Google employees going to jail, I assume they're following the law.
Clearly, you know nothing about the USA PATRIOT Act.
1) There are no warrants under it.
2) You do not hear of people going to jail. They are illegally seized and detained indefinitely without charge or warrant and without legal council.
It is subject to government scrutiny when you type something into Google.
scrutiny (skr?t'n-?) n., pl. -nies. 1 A close, careful examination or study. 2 Close observation; surveillance.
That too is illegal according to our constitution, without a warrant for a specific charge looking for specific information.
Iduno. I can't tell if I'm over thinking this or under thinking it.
I know if you live in the US, you should think more about this stuff.
Everyone always repeats it like the other person is going to back down, when in fact the person who Dirty Harry said this too went for his gun. Just hope that if you challenge someone with that Dirty Harry line the other person does indeed not feel lucky, otherwise you better hope it was 5 shots and not 6.
Well, Dirty Harry just got into a gunfight with the guy, and had no bullets left.
I guess a white flag and "I'm sorry, I'm out of bullets, lets get together for lunch and work this out next week" would have been the more memorable ending to the movie.
Bullying is a bigger problem than your simplistic solution of hitting back can solve.
But the parent came up with a _working_ solution to the "bigger problem".
What is yours?
Oh, and Reena Virk did not fight back, and died at the first onset of a gang beating that ended up with "Witnesses later testified that one of the accused bragged that she had one foot on Virk's head and smoked a cigarette as Virk lay in the water. "
That does not seem applicable here.
The "what if" thing is stupid. "What if a meteorite came down and smashed both your kid and the bully into a pile of debris?"
There is intuition to be played into these situations. It also takes confidence to do the standing up. You're not going to get very far by saying "Could you please stop bullying me around? I don't like it, and I just might hurt you if I can and you don't have a knife or your friends join in. In other words, please???"
Confrontation is required in animal to animal conflict. Every animal does it. Hell, even small kids first learn confrontation as a tool before most other words:
NO!
And we are talking about 2 year old kids that have _nothing_ to back it up with.
(Hint: do you trust your bank's authorization scheme on their website?...
Riddle me this. Could you create a page that looks just like this? http://www.wachovia.com/ that is a typosquatted site. Via my querty keyboard typo generator, here are some suggestions: wacgovia wavhovia wschovia wachpvia qachovia wachovis wachocia wachivia wachobia eachovia wachovoa wacjovia wachovua waxhovia Just go and register some of the good ones, and pay the $7.95 fee to your non-local sleezy registrar, and make every login merely redirect them to the login page at Wachovia, but feel free to collect the username/password.
Now, if I (or you, or someone you love) typed any of those combinations by accident, how do you trust a non SSL page to ever be your bank, and not a typosquatter, or someone that DNS poisoned, or whatever? Remember, SSL certs require the name of the server to match the cert, and they are able to be validated by the user. No, its not perfect, but a little better than a plaintext http login eh?
When I ssh to an unknown machine, it asks me, "Do you wanna talk to them? You have never talked to them before" And if the cert has changed on the machine, it asks me "DO YOU WANT TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE AT ALL???? SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG HERE!"
http/https does none of these things.
I can't wait until I can do brick and mortar banking with a username/password like the computer logins. I can't wait until I can purchase things without a credit card, but rather just give them a username/password. Its good enough right?
I find it just amazing the congress never even tried to hold the telecos to thier promises. I guess they had some pretty good lobbiests or congress just really is that inept (or both).
Well, the congress critters got paid, right? They don't get paid for holding promises (I can't believe I just wrote that!)
Anywhoo, can someone fill me in here?
Why does "streaming" suck?
By that I mean that I can get HDTV shows on my TV via cable that are 1080i (1920x1080) resolution with quality audio (don't know the details here), but I would be lucky to get a stream of 640x480 without dropped frames or whatever _over the same cable line_.
What is the difference?
To me, the whole "streaming" and IP thing sucks for media. Actually, DTV has some limitations over analog TV. Occasionally, DTV can have audio lags or dropouts and massive pixelization and other artifacts. My cable providers offerings for Comedy Central over "digital" cable sucks in quality compared to the analog version.
I do not know the underlying networking issues here at all, but I do know that streaming is completely inferior to what is available now, and it will probably always be inferior (hence the need for "next gen optical network".
I would love to know what the attraction for using IP or other networking options over whatever "broadcast" is. To me, I prefer the quality and reliability of the "old school" method.
I also directly informed the teachers about our plan (their one-word reaction: "good!").
Its refreshing to hear of male characteristics still being taught to males. I applaud what the parent has done for his kid and other kids by example.
Yes, bullies pick out on the apparent "weaker" ones. Why? They are weak, and want power by appearing strong in a social setting.
99% of the time, a bully will not respond when picking on a weaker kid if the picked on kid says something like "Go ahead, make my day" or "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?". Its worth noting that the picked on kid has to be willing to inflict and/or receive some temporary pain and embarrassment, but its worth it.
Power is all about perception. Its common for people perceived in power to have little "enemies". It makes them appear more powerful to have an enemy than to have all friends.
I wish I knew this stuff a long time ago. But unfortunately, my father was/is one of the "weaker" ones as well, and well, I was much smaller and knew less than he did at the time.
I agree, but it should be noted that the games are rated (M) and that a lot of retailers (2/3, last I heard) do currently restrict the sale of M-rated games to adults.
This is a little bit of a touchy issue. The closest comparison is to movies. Because they have a pretty clear and easy to understand rating system, and at theaters the theater has their own guidelines, etc. Its not a government law in most situations, it may be in certain towns or whatever, but movies are mostly self governed.
But, contrary to popular belief. Its kids at their _parents_ homes is where they get in most "trouble" or do what they would not do outside of their parents homes. Most good parents provide cable television that has plenty of movies and specials that cannot be seen by their kids outside of their home. Most good parents buy game consoles and games for their kids. Now, the trend is to buy them DVD players and movies.
Its incredible how much "trouble" kids get into with the toys that parents buy for them to shut them up and have them entertain themselves. Keep in mind that the most trouble with "unacceptable" content at home used to be National Geographic, or maybe dad's Playboys or other skin mags, but no hardcore sex or violence. Parents invite so much more "unacceptable" content into their homes today, but blame the content providers.
Blame is a very old thing, that works pretty good. It shifts the focus of attention, just like the parent said.
I'm not a bible thumper by any stretch of the imagination, its just that I know the bible better than any other religious text (I grew up in a "Christian" environment, whatever that means).
Where Adam blames Eve who blames the serpent for eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge.
Serpent gets punished. Eve gets "burdened"/punished, and Adam is stuck with them the rest of his time with no additional punishment:)
In fact, psychologists call the term for blame as "blame avoidance". I believe the term speaks for itself. If you come from an acronym or abbreviation background like computers or the military, you can call it BA, so that it sounds better, and confuses people with all of the other BA abbreviations in the world.
While we're on the subject, this post from you seemed quite reasonable. I may have jumped to conclusions in my last one, but you really did come across as a prick in your post I was responding to.
I'm actually a pretty reasonable guy. I call things how they are, and so that is "controversial" to some. Many times here on/. I post something that gets modded all over the place with "insightful/interesting/flamebait/and troll", and then I continue the discussion like this and get modded up. Look at my post history and some of the troll mods for examples.
The thing that kills me about people (including myself) is how rigid they they are about beliefs in things.
My original post was trying to elicit the feeling of "Hmm, do I really need AV software?" or "Hmm, is Windows to blame here?". I often make semi-ignorant comments about Windows to make people think and question if Windows is really a worthwhile platform considering its numerous flaws. I have answered that question, and I don't believe its worth it. I do realize that many businesses are "stuck" with windows because of 3rd party apps are only available for that platform, but now that Macs run on Intel chips, and semi-native encapsulation or virtualization is right around the corner -- Well, imagine not having to do Windows updates anymore? Imagine having a know working Windows system image in a window on your Mac that is secure enough to run your legacy app until a Mac port is available? Imagine not having to pay for an AV subscription? Imagine not having your paid for AV subscription deleting your files? Imagine again not having to do Windows updates?
And yes, all of my HPs and Dells are servers running Linux. My HPs are primarily Itaniums that kick ass! The Dells are just toy boxes for me to play with. I also have like 400 or so SPARC chips to play with, and other toys. I'm not a slacker when it comes to computing by any stretch of the imagination. Where I work, I don't think anybody really uses Windows anymore. I'm talking about the Windows sysadmins:) I don't interact with them much, and have been pretty much removed from the Windows world for quite some time, but I hear about weekly what MS is going to _not_ include in Vista, and what broken stuff like http://www.live.com/ is coming.
BTW, I'm a pretty big apple "fanboy", but I'm going to downgrade my G5 at home to Panther soon. I'm sick of the bugs in Tiger, and I have things to do with my home computer. I've also been modded as a troll for calling Apple out with their issues here as well. Oh well....
Employees often suck. In retail, they rip you off more than your "customers". (I can't call a shoplifter a customer:)
Kevin Mitnick was able to get employees to give him tons of "sensitive" information just by asking for it. They take their laptops home and surf porn and get 0wn3d and bring the trojans and malware inside the firewall. Hell, they can even VPN the crud in from home or Starbucks too.
I suggest 1) firing all employees you can 2) treat the remaining ones to a paycut 3) installing spy mechanisms inside of their office, computer, and bathrooms to "keep them honest", and let go of the ones that don't make the cut.
We don't need no stinking happy employee. We need one that does what they are told, and is already happy to do what they are told. Thats it.
What MercExchange LLC (US) has are a handful of patents that are titled as "consignment nodes" which seem to be completely centered around electronic auctions and commerce.
Newsflash! What MercExchange _is_ is a patent attorney, turned "inventor", to invent patents to give himself business to sue for.
But isn't claiming a patent on "buy it now" a bit like patenting the use of a cash register instead of the register itself?
I don't know. I see no value to patents. A patent without the money behind it to sue anybody and their mother is useless. Meaning, a patent is not something that gives anybody any legal protection. Those ads on TV that say, "If I had a patent, I'd be rich!" are lying. You need to be rich first _and_ have a patent in order to be rich. Oh, maybe you don't need a patent to be rich then.
A patent without the means or desire to put a product to market is useless.
The MercExchange people don't seem very nice. And thats coming from somebody (me) that was called an asshole a few minutes ago:)
These people are obviously confused. Their "About us" page says
Mercexchange's mission is to improve businesses through the application of new digital technologies, especially in networked environments. The businesses and products developed by MercExchange address large-scale consumer needs and business inefficiencies, resulting in new ways of doing business, new ways of creating value, and new industry paradigms.
However, a majority of their "news" is about suing eBay. There is one success story about how they licensed their "inventions" to autotrader.com. Which looks almost identical to cars.com, but cars.com (AFAIK) did not need the license from MercExchange.
I don't see where they are "improving business". If anybody disagrees, I would love to hear how they are "improving business".
Anybody who bought a brand name system with the 90-day NAV or McAfee trial version, but didn't just go to Best Buy and buy the new box version.
OK, I'm still clueless I guess.
I've bought brand name computer systems from HP, Dell, Sun, and Apple. And _none_ of them came with a 90-day NAV or McAfee trial version. I've bought something like 200 or so of these machines, and, again, none of them came with this stuff.
http://ca.mcafee.com/root/package.asp?pkgid=100 From McAfee, $42.99 (CAD) for the first year, $36.84 for a renewal. http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/v irus_protection/nav2006/index.html From Symantec, $29.99US for 1 year renewal, $59.99 for 2 years.
It seems like not paying the 59.99 option is the best.
Errr...a subscription to their anti-virus software?
And I need that for what?
You don't have to pay anything as long as you're not a moron and open every email attachment or install every free dialer program promising FR33 pR0N! It doesn't guarantee you won't get sick any more than health insurance guarantees you won't get sick.
OK, so only morons need to buy the stuff, and even then morons can still get their computers "sick". Hmm.
Then you're completely out of touch with the computer world, and shouldn't be allowed to use one.
Thats twice in one week that I've been told that! Three times, and I'm going to look behind me for a tail! The other time was here.
feigning ignorance of anti-virus software in general, as you really seem to be doing, just makes you look like an incompetent boob.
As far as Windows goes, yes, I'm an incompetent boob. I used to be a Windows developer, but I had another incompetent boob take care of the anti-virus stuff for me. I really haven't had the need personally or professionally to use a Windows machine since 2001.
For your case, though, I should have added an extra adjective: asshole. Because you certainly seem to be one of those.
Ouch. A funny thing is that when I took a personality class from the psychology department, the teacher asked if there were any personalities that were missing from the book. I raised my hand, and said, "Asshole!". That must of been a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Does an anti-virus subscription get rid of assholes?
I mean, yes, you're lazy, but damn, man, it's just Google.
My point was that I don't use any computers that need such a thing or to my knowledge, there are even subscription offerings for anti-virus subscriptions.
Currently, I run OS X, Linux, and Solaris, and I have never known anybody that has needed an anti-virus subscription for them.
Would you fix the holes in a boat with sticky tape instead of checking that the boat doesn't have holes before you put it in the water?
Would you buy a boat that you know has holes in it, and put it in the water anyway?
Forgive my lack of sympathy for the uninformed, but there are computer systems that are not fundamentally broken and need "anti-virus" tape to fix the holes before putting the computer "in the water".
The real irony is that all the people who are too lazy/stupid/uneducated to update their anti-virus subscription were protected against this.....
Name me one unlazy, smart, or educated person that pays for an anti-virus subscription?
Enlighten me. How much does something like that cost? How much of my time does it take to run it? What does it give me? Is this parallel to health insurance for my computer? So I only have to pay a copay of $25 or so for an in-office visit?
Granted, I'm lazy, but I'm not dumb or uneducated, but I have no concept of an "anti-virus subscription".
We are required to wipe the drives when we leave with something like a hardware 3 pass low level uniquely random sequencer based on radioactive decay.
I got a little overboard there. I do not work in a secure environment. I believe this is for our privacy when we leave, or maybe it has to do with security for financial information, or maybe it has no reason, but it is a policy.
This guy got raped by the system before the real deal. Gotta love our freedoms!
Slashdot Mirror
I "inherited" a badly designed MySQL database that a couple of developers were shoveling data into with their nifty little apps. Empty dates were sometimes NULL and sometimes 0000-00-00 and sometimes something else.
I "inherited" a badly written C++ project where an integer was to be displayed as ASCII text, and the data structure was a character field, and not an integer. Oh, sometimes the number was stored as hex or base 10. Now, the cute part was that this excellent programmer converted the datatype to and from base 10 and hex, and his exhaustive testing apparently never went past 10.
Now, this code was copied and pasted about 3 or 4 times for different modules like admin or customer or something like that. And each one was subtly different.
My point is that the tool is not always the problem. Now if C++'s integer arithmetic had an issue, that is another story, but the programmer simply was not good.
Now, MySQL is not a very logical or robust DB at all times, but it is documented, and any competent programmer could have gotten around the 0000-00-00, NULL, and "something else" things.
I checked some of MySQL's date functions, and one of them does this:
mysql> SELECT CURTIME();
-> '23:50:26'
mysql> SELECT CURTIME() + 0;
-> 235026
That is weird. The curtime value in numeric context is only good for comparison to another valid curtime() whatever, but it can't be added or subtracted as an integer. Yes, MySQL _should_ make date fields something generic xor NULL, or a valid date, not Feb 31, 2000, but its something that needs to be done at the programming level. Personally, I always use UNIX timestamps (seconds since 1970). They can be directly added, sorted, and converted into any timezone, and its very portable. But thats just me. (Yes, UNIX timestamps do nothing before 1970, etc, etc).
Why do oppressive regimes get special treatment?
Time will tell.
WTF? I hope you don't get paid for your legal brainery. Same goes for the mods that gave you insightful.
Yeah. But the thing is this.
What law is there that the judge is going by here?
me: reads article real quick to see.
OK, exactly as I thought, there is none.
FTA:
"A civil subpoena by the government is not one of the methods that ECPA lists" as a permissible mechanism for obtaining search results, said Gidari, a partner in the Seattle office of the Perkins Coie law firm.
Deciding to grant part of the Justice Department's request--effectively splitting the difference--would permit Ware to avoid some of these thorny privacy concerns. It would also avoid the possibility of setting a precedent that could create new hurdles for prosecutors in future criminal investigations.
So, IANAL, but civil suits are not a matter of law per se. You are not "guilty" of anything, just liable or whatever jargon there is for it at most. Even if Google were a person, they could only fine them or whatever else illegal action against Google, but nothing really can come from it.
Google stick to your guns please, so I can keep mine in my holster.
And this is why I long for a search engine that isn't based in the US, and which isn't subject to US law.
:)
Try google.de, google.fr, google.cn
Sheitt. US law is no longer subject to US law anymore.
Because we all know that if the government really wanted that information from Google, they'd have persued it via Patriot Act style secret warrants. Since I haven't heard about a bunch of Google employees going to jail, I assume they're following the law.
Clearly, you know nothing about the USA PATRIOT Act.
1) There are no warrants under it.
2) You do not hear of people going to jail. They are illegally seized and detained indefinitely without charge or warrant and without legal council.
It is subject to government scrutiny when you type something into Google.
scrutiny (skr?t'n-?)
n., pl. -nies.
1 A close, careful examination or study.
2 Close observation; surveillance.
That too is illegal according to our constitution, without a warrant for a specific charge looking for specific information.
Iduno. I can't tell if I'm over thinking this or under thinking it.
I know if you live in the US, you should think more about this stuff.
Still it would make a good T-shirt: "Everything I Needed to know about social interaction I learned when I was 2." and on the back "NO!"
Hilarious!
Everyone always repeats it like the other person is going to back down, when in fact the person who Dirty Harry said this too went for his gun. Just hope that if you challenge someone with that Dirty Harry line the other person does indeed not feel lucky, otherwise you better hope it was 5 shots and not 6.
Well, Dirty Harry just got into a gunfight with the guy, and had no bullets left.
I guess a white flag and "I'm sorry, I'm out of bullets, lets get together for lunch and work this out next week" would have been the more memorable ending to the movie.
Oh, and the guy did _not_ go for his gun.
Girls night out is lame on slashdot.
Bullying is a bigger problem than your simplistic solution of hitting back can solve.
But the parent came up with a _working_ solution to the "bigger problem".
What is yours?
Oh, and Reena Virk did not fight back, and died at the first onset of a gang beating that ended up with "Witnesses later testified that one of the accused bragged that she had one foot on Virk's head and smoked a cigarette as Virk lay in the water. "
That does not seem applicable here.
The "what if" thing is stupid. "What if a meteorite came down and smashed both your kid and the bully into a pile of debris?"
There is intuition to be played into these situations. It also takes confidence to do the standing up. You're not going to get very far by saying "Could you please stop bullying me around? I don't like it, and I just might hurt you if I can and you don't have a knife or your friends join in. In other words, please???"
Confrontation is required in animal to animal conflict. Every animal does it. Hell, even small kids first learn confrontation as a tool before most other words:
NO!
And we are talking about 2 year old kids that have _nothing_ to back it up with.
(Hint: do you trust your bank's authorization scheme on their website?...
Riddle me this. Could you create a page that looks just like this? http://www.wachovia.com/ that is a typosquatted site. Via my querty keyboard typo generator, here are some suggestions: wacgovia wavhovia wschovia wachpvia qachovia wachovis wachocia wachivia wachobia eachovia wachovoa wacjovia wachovua waxhovia Just go and register some of the good ones, and pay the $7.95 fee to your non-local sleezy registrar, and make every login merely redirect them to the login page at Wachovia, but feel free to collect the username/password.
Now, if I (or you, or someone you love) typed any of those combinations by accident, how do you trust a non SSL page to ever be your bank, and not a typosquatter, or someone that DNS poisoned, or whatever? Remember, SSL certs require the name of the server to match the cert, and they are able to be validated by the user. No, its not perfect, but a little better than a plaintext http login eh?
When I ssh to an unknown machine, it asks me, "Do you wanna talk to them? You have never talked to them before" And if the cert has changed on the machine, it asks me "DO YOU WANT TO TALK TO THESE PEOPLE AT ALL???? SOMETHING IS VERY WRONG HERE!"
http/https does none of these things.
I can't wait until I can do brick and mortar banking with a username/password like the computer logins. I can't wait until I can purchase things without a credit card, but rather just give them a username/password. Its good enough right?
I find it just amazing the congress never even tried to hold the telecos to thier promises. I guess they had some pretty good lobbiests or congress just really is that inept (or both).
Well, the congress critters got paid, right? They don't get paid for holding promises (I can't believe I just wrote that!)
Anywhoo, can someone fill me in here?
Why does "streaming" suck?
By that I mean that I can get HDTV shows on my TV via cable that are 1080i (1920x1080) resolution with quality audio (don't know the details here), but I would be lucky to get a stream of 640x480 without dropped frames or whatever _over the same cable line_.
What is the difference?
To me, the whole "streaming" and IP thing sucks for media. Actually, DTV has some limitations over analog TV. Occasionally, DTV can have audio lags or dropouts and massive pixelization and other artifacts. My cable providers offerings for Comedy Central over "digital" cable sucks in quality compared to the analog version.
I do not know the underlying networking issues here at all, but I do know that streaming is completely inferior to what is available now, and it will probably always be inferior (hence the need for "next gen optical network".
I would love to know what the attraction for using IP or other networking options over whatever "broadcast" is. To me, I prefer the quality and reliability of the "old school" method.
I also directly informed the teachers about our plan (their one-word reaction: "good!").
Its refreshing to hear of male characteristics still being taught to males. I applaud what the parent has done for his kid and other kids by example.
Yes, bullies pick out on the apparent "weaker" ones. Why? They are weak, and want power by appearing strong in a social setting.
99% of the time, a bully will not respond when picking on a weaker kid if the picked on kid says something like "Go ahead, make my day" or "Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?". Its worth noting that the picked on kid has to be willing to inflict and/or receive some temporary pain and embarrassment, but its worth it.
Power is all about perception. Its common for people perceived in power to have little "enemies". It makes them appear more powerful to have an enemy than to have all friends.
I wish I knew this stuff a long time ago. But unfortunately, my father was/is one of the "weaker" ones as well, and well, I was much smaller and knew less than he did at the time.
I agree, but it should be noted that the games are rated (M) and that a lot of retailers (2/3, last I heard) do currently restrict the sale of M-rated games to adults.
This is a little bit of a touchy issue. The closest comparison is to movies. Because they have a pretty clear and easy to understand rating system, and at theaters the theater has their own guidelines, etc. Its not a government law in most situations, it may be in certain towns or whatever, but movies are mostly self governed.
But, contrary to popular belief. Its kids at their _parents_ homes is where they get in most "trouble" or do what they would not do outside of their parents homes. Most good parents provide cable television that has plenty of movies and specials that cannot be seen by their kids outside of their home. Most good parents buy game consoles and games for their kids. Now, the trend is to buy them DVD players and movies.
Its incredible how much "trouble" kids get into with the toys that parents buy for them to shut them up and have them entertain themselves. Keep in mind that the most trouble with "unacceptable" content at home used to be National Geographic, or maybe dad's Playboys or other skin mags, but no hardcore sex or violence. Parents invite so much more "unacceptable" content into their homes today, but blame the content providers.
Hmm...
Blame is a very old thing, that works pretty good. It shifts the focus of attention, just like the parent said.
1 2
:)
I'm not a bible thumper by any stretch of the imagination, its just that I know the bible better than any other religious text (I grew up in a "Christian" environment, whatever that means).
The Adam and Eve, Garden of Eden story is excellent. Its very much worth a read, and much of what it says is still true to this day. Take a look at: http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/3.html#
Where Adam blames Eve who blames the serpent for eating from the forbidden tree of knowledge.
Serpent gets punished. Eve gets "burdened"/punished, and Adam is stuck with them the rest of his time with no additional punishment
In fact, psychologists call the term for blame as "blame avoidance". I believe the term speaks for itself. If you come from an acronym or abbreviation background like computers or the military, you can call it BA, so that it sounds better, and confuses people with all of the other BA abbreviations in the world.
While we're on the subject, this post from you seemed quite reasonable. I may have jumped to conclusions in my last one, but you really did come across as a prick in your post I was responding to.
/. I post something that gets modded all over the place with "insightful/interesting/flamebait/and troll", and then I continue the discussion like this and get modded up. Look at my post history and some of the troll mods for examples.
:) I don't interact with them much, and have been pretty much removed from the Windows world for quite some time, but I hear about weekly what MS is going to _not_ include in Vista, and what broken stuff like http://www.live.com/ is coming.
I'm actually a pretty reasonable guy. I call things how they are, and so that is "controversial" to some. Many times here on
The thing that kills me about people (including myself) is how rigid they they are about beliefs in things.
My original post was trying to elicit the feeling of "Hmm, do I really need AV software?" or "Hmm, is Windows to blame here?". I often make semi-ignorant comments about Windows to make people think and question if Windows is really a worthwhile platform considering its numerous flaws. I have answered that question, and I don't believe its worth it. I do realize that many businesses are "stuck" with windows because of 3rd party apps are only available for that platform, but now that Macs run on Intel chips, and semi-native encapsulation or virtualization is right around the corner -- Well, imagine not having to do Windows updates anymore? Imagine having a know working Windows system image in a window on your Mac that is secure enough to run your legacy app until a Mac port is available? Imagine not having to pay for an AV subscription? Imagine not having your paid for AV subscription deleting your files? Imagine again not having to do Windows updates?
And yes, all of my HPs and Dells are servers running Linux. My HPs are primarily Itaniums that kick ass! The Dells are just toy boxes for me to play with. I also have like 400 or so SPARC chips to play with, and other toys. I'm not a slacker when it comes to computing by any stretch of the imagination. Where I work, I don't think anybody really uses Windows anymore. I'm talking about the Windows sysadmins
BTW, I'm a pretty big apple "fanboy", but I'm going to downgrade my G5 at home to Panther soon. I'm sick of the bugs in Tiger, and I have things to do with my home computer. I've also been modded as a troll for calling Apple out with their issues here as well. Oh well....
I know I'll get moderated as a troll again because I suggest using Linux over Windows, but
Modeline "800x480" 40 800 864 928 1088 480 481 484 509 +hsync
Will do the trick for X. No drivers necessary.
Employees often suck. In retail, they rip you off more than your "customers". (I can't call a shoplifter a customer
Kevin Mitnick was able to get employees to give him tons of "sensitive" information just by asking for it. They take their laptops home and surf porn and get 0wn3d and bring the trojans and malware inside the firewall. Hell, they can even VPN the crud in from home or Starbucks too.
I suggest 1) firing all employees you can 2) treat the remaining ones to a paycut 3) installing spy mechanisms inside of their office, computer, and bathrooms to "keep them honest", and let go of the ones that don't make the cut.
We don't need no stinking happy employee. We need one that does what they are told, and is already happy to do what they are told. Thats it.
is not that sharp according to Business Week :)
:)
After all, this guy is 31 and this guy is 30. Hell, at 37, I might be able to squeak by
What MercExchange LLC (US) has are a handful of patents that are titled as "consignment nodes" which seem to be completely centered around electronic auctions and commerce.
i n_us_va_great_falls.php
Newsflash! What MercExchange _is_ is a patent attorney, turned "inventor", to invent patents to give himself business to sue for.
Here is the info: http://patents.oncloud8.com/paa/us_patent_agents_
40235 ATTORNEY Thomas Woolston 703-757-6503 MercExchange, LLC P O Box 1272 Great Falls, VA 22066
The phone number is interesting missing from MercExchange's "contact us" page -- http://www.mercexchange.com/contactus.htm
I called it, and got no answer, but it did say MercExchange on the answering machine.
I don't know. I see no value to patents. A patent without the money behind it to sue anybody and their mother is useless. Meaning, a patent is not something that gives anybody any legal protection. Those ads on TV that say, "If I had a patent, I'd be rich!" are lying. You need to be rich first _and_ have a patent in order to be rich. Oh, maybe you don't need a patent to be rich then.
A patent without the means or desire to put a product to market is useless.
The MercExchange people don't seem very nice. And thats coming from somebody (me) that was called an asshole a few minutes ago
These people are obviously confused. Their "About us" page saysHowever, a majority of their "news" is about suing eBay. There is one success story about how they licensed their "inventions" to autotrader.com. Which looks almost identical to cars.com, but cars.com (AFAIK) did not need the license from MercExchange.
I don't see where they are "improving business". If anybody disagrees, I would love to hear how they are "improving business".
Oh, big news! I did a little poking, and look what I found -- http://patents.oncloud8.com/paa/us_patent_agents_
The benevolent businessman, is actually a (insert drumroll...) patent attorney! Now I understand.
Anybody who bought a brand name system with the 90-day NAV or McAfee trial version, but didn't just go to Best Buy and buy the new box version.
v irus_protection/nav2006/index.html
OK, I'm still clueless I guess.
I've bought brand name computer systems from HP, Dell, Sun, and Apple. And _none_ of them came with a 90-day NAV or McAfee trial version. I've bought something like 200 or so of these machines, and, again, none of them came with this stuff.
http://ca.mcafee.com/root/package.asp?pkgid=100
From McAfee, $42.99 (CAD) for the first year, $36.84 for a renewal.
http://www.symantec.com/home_homeoffice/products/
From Symantec, $29.99US for 1 year renewal, $59.99 for 2 years.
It seems like not paying the 59.99 option is the best.
Errr...a subscription to their anti-virus software?
And I need that for what?
You don't have to pay anything as long as you're not a moron and open every email attachment or install every free dialer program promising FR33 pR0N!
It doesn't guarantee you won't get sick any more than health insurance guarantees you won't get sick.
OK, so only morons need to buy the stuff, and even then morons can still get their computers "sick". Hmm.
Then you're completely out of touch with the computer world, and shouldn't be allowed to use one.
Thats twice in one week that I've been told that! Three times, and I'm going to look behind me for a tail! The other time was here.
feigning ignorance of anti-virus software in general, as you really seem to be doing, just makes you look like an incompetent boob.
As far as Windows goes, yes, I'm an incompetent boob. I used to be a Windows developer, but I had another incompetent boob take care of the anti-virus stuff for me. I really haven't had the need personally or professionally to use a Windows machine since 2001.
For your case, though, I should have added an extra adjective: asshole.
Because you certainly seem to be one of those.
Ouch. A funny thing is that when I took a personality class from the psychology department, the teacher asked if there were any personalities that were missing from the book. I raised my hand, and said, "Asshole!". That must of been a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Does an anti-virus subscription get rid of assholes?
I mean, yes, you're lazy, but damn, man, it's just Google.
My point was that I don't use any computers that need such a thing or to my knowledge, there are even subscription offerings for anti-virus subscriptions.
Currently, I run OS X, Linux, and Solaris, and I have never known anybody that has needed an anti-virus subscription for them.
Am I missing out on the fun?
Where is the Google map of the Universe? I'd like to go to the "Restaurant at the end of the Universe".
Take a left where the post office used to be.
Would you fix the holes in a boat with sticky tape instead of checking that the boat doesn't have holes before you put it in the water?
Would you buy a boat that you know has holes in it, and put it in the water anyway?
Forgive my lack of sympathy for the uninformed, but there are computer systems that are not fundamentally broken and need "anti-virus" tape to fix the holes before putting the computer "in the water".
The real irony is that all the people who are too lazy/stupid/uneducated to update their anti-virus subscription were protected against this.....
Name me one unlazy, smart, or educated person that pays for an anti-virus subscription?
Enlighten me. How much does something like that cost? How much of my time does it take to run it? What does it give me? Is this parallel to health insurance for my computer? So I only have to pay a copay of $25 or so for an in-office visit?
Granted, I'm lazy, but I'm not dumb or uneducated, but I have no concept of an "anti-virus subscription".
We are required to wipe the drives when we leave with something like a hardware 3 pass low level uniquely random sequencer based on radioactive decay.
I got a little overboard there. I do not work in a secure environment. I believe this is for our privacy when we leave, or maybe it has to do with security for financial information, or maybe it has no reason, but it is a policy.
This guy got raped by the system before the real deal. Gotta love our freedoms!