For those that don't get the joke, what he describes is exactly how MacOS X deals with the blue screen problem.
I have never heard of a "blue screen problem" before now.
I'm sure Steve Jobs scrutinized every pixel of that in countless meetings, screamed at at least one employee who didn't quite get it right, and finally, well, he has the prettiest crash message that exists, yes, in five different languages.
He probably paid one of his developers to do that. Has Microsoft hired someone yet to display a meaningful error message when their OS crashes? Or do they still turn the screen blue and dump a bunch of hex characters?
As long as it's not you he's screaming at... you have to admire Steve. He really does care about these things. I'm a big Steve fan because I love the fact that he worked super-hard to create an environment with this kind of thought and atention to detail.
Why would he scream at me? Ha, I haven't met him yet, but he should get along fine with my hippie self. Yes, Apple has some of the finest attention to detail of any electronics company. Both at the software and hardware level. In fact, they have blurred the line between the two. The kernel panic I was talking about in OS X has to have a hook into the hardware, because the kernel is locked. I guess the image is either preloaded into the video card's memory, and their must be a ROM or some chip like a "watchdog" thing that pings the kernel from time to time, and if it does not answer, it dumps the screen.
I've only seen the screen a couple of times when there was a bug in their wireless driver, and the driver would crash when _not_ using the wireless LAN and you had the ethernet cable plugged in when you booted your machine. Very frustrating, the fix before the patch came out was to let the machine boot, and then plug in the ethernet.
Don't put bad memory in your G5:-(.
Why would anybody do a thing like that? I love it now that operating systems are basically stable. It makes troubleshooting so much easier. If the machine crashes, something must be wrong with the hardware. Pretty simple, eh?
I would never think of an entertainer as a leader unless they did something extra - like well lead.
OK. What is a leader? The best definition is "The foremost animal, such as a horse or dog, in a harnessed team."
Rock stars are on stage, up higher than everybody else, nobody at the place can speak louder than they can, everybody in the audience faces them, the people cheer them on, the people congregate to see them just as though they were seeing a politician or priest. If thats not what a leader is, I don't know what one is.
I still don't have my 5000 groupie girls who would spread their legs open for me en masse'
Computers piss people off. Why would making something that people see as a necessary evil want to fuck you?
If a rock band can attract 20,000 people or more to get together and have a good time and party, that is what people want to do. The reason they get laid is because if they can make 20,000+ people feel good for a couple hours, then they might be a good fuck too. Plus they are leaders and successful, which also has attraction as a mate.
Me: Ok, tell me what the screen says now. Mom: It's blue. Me: What do you mean "it's blue"? What does it say? Mom: It says, "9F D8 34 7B..." Me: Um, that's ok, ma, I don't speak hex. Mom: "... FA 25 3C A2..."
What kind of computer program does that?
Modern computers have a little screen that pops up if the OS crashes, that tells you in 5 or so languages to hold down your power button for a few seconds, and restart the machine. They also ask you on reboot if you want to send a bug report back to the manufacturer so they can fix the problem.
How is this different to running stuff off a CD? Stuff gets installed to the HD because 1: it's faster
A fast RAM disk on a piece of plastic would be at least 100x faster than a CD. Plus CDs are error prone, and easy to copy.
2: you can patch it
OK, make the chip writeable. They do it with firmware all the time.
3: Most people only have 1 CD drive - want to copy-paste from photoshop to office? Want your CAD app running whilst you write the documentation? Isolating apps from each other sucks.
That is another reason why the CD idea is dumb. The apps running off of the chip could be a simple USB drive. People carry them all the time that have apps to use on public machines that are not installed on the public machine. Stuff like a good web browser, putty, or whatever.
This model is only useful for independent apps, i.e. games. Even then I prefer them on a PC so I have mods, can use skype at the same time, etc.
That is what I'm talking about. Things like games, CAD, productivity applications like word processors, audio and video apps. Anything in the $50 range and up.
But guess what, so do labor protections, environmental protections, S-OX, food and drug regulations, and just about every other regulation. Yes. Regulation increases the cost of business. I'm not going to cry about that. It's the cost of a better society. I understand you don't agree. Luckily there's more people who agree with me than you.
But the point is that government should guide the majority, not inconvenience everybody. I am for regulations for standards in food handling, labor protection, and environmental regulations. Everybody benefits from those.
A better society does not need rules to "help" those with disabilities. A better society would just help those out, and they do it all the time anyway. Ever seen a blind person bump into somebody? Even if the other person is standing still, and not in the way, they apologize to the blind person like its their fault for standing there and then they are likely to guide the blind person in the right direction if they don't know where to go.
Why the fuck is there braille stuff everywhere? Sign manufactures must learn braille and make a separate manufacturing process to stamp the bumps. I have never seen, or heard of a blind person walking down hallways and feeling every inch of the walls to figure out where to go. That is stupid. They get somebody to guide them for free, and then they learn where to go after that.
The biggest problem I tend to face is that people don't know where the hardware ends, and where the OS Begins and where the OS Ends and the Applications begins. When they are doing something over the network or locally. They are just completely lost on the system.
That is so true. And the reason is to us is that we don't know where to start to fix their problem. My mother actually calls everything she sees on the screen as "Microsoft". Scary.
I don't know how to fix the problem. I mean, most people have no clue what "software" really is.
Man, I've been brainstorming lately.
I was a kid of the 70s and 80s and we had these cool Atari games that came in cartridges. I liked that model for some reason.
If software for new computers come in a cartridge it would solve many things.
1) piracy will basically stop, yes, ubergeeks will still do it, but everyday normal people won't. In fact, if you run a program at work or with your friends without inserting a cartridge, then they will know instantly that you did not pay for it.
2) It will isolate the app from the OS and other apps.
This does not scale too well for little programs. But I'm talking about expensive larger apps that you would only typically need at most 5. More on average 1.
Think about how easy upgrades would be? Throw away or sell old cartridge and insert a new one. Expensive software is coming with hardware dongles already. Why does the program have to live on my harddrive too? Why is it so hard to run the program I paid for on another computer?
Yawn. Dude you're so anti-regulation that this doesn't surprise me in the least. Your anecdotes do not justify a policy shift (wrt the overall goals of ADA.. implementation is always another matter), and your opinion is not any more important or right because you have disabled family members.
We don't need regulation. What is different about hanging out with people at work vs your home?
My cousin has been in a wheelchair since 1989. He basically hasn't worked or done much for other people since. He just drives around an parties all the time.
The reason he doesn't work is because the government pays him with our social security money every month. He gets like $600 or so a month, and does under the table jobs from time to time.
Because of the government regulations, its next to impossible for him to get a wheelchair, even though the government pays for the thing.
He should buy his own fucking wheelchair. I don't want the government even thinking about it. How does his wheelchair issues affect the public at large? It doesn't.
I'm disabled too. My vision and hearing is bad, so I wear glasses and a hearing aid. These are basic things I need to go to work and help other people. I have to buy them myself. My cousin has to wait for weeks or months to get his wheelchair that I pay for. Its ridiculous.
A voice system is complex? My neighbor had a Halloween pumpkin that said 50 different phrases in gorgeous clarity that he paid around $10 for at the drug store.
Sorry, but I don't buy it. In fact, I bet in 10 years the bing WILL be gone. Voice response makes more sense than trying to count bings.
Analog gauges are better for continuous data that has an upper and lower limit. Look at your speedometer if you don't believe me. In the 80's they tried digital ones, and they are hard to read and look goofy.
Nobody going to the 18th floor cares if they are currently on 3 or 16. All they care about is the progress towards their goal.
Not true in taller buildings when you're going to/from the upper floors and you have to stop at every. damn. floor. on the way up/down.
Yup. The worst is when you're on the ground floor, want to go to the 3rd or 4th, and someone hops into the elevator as the door is closing, and pushes the 2 button.
Stairs are next to elevators. I believe only service and freight elevators should stop on each floor. For people, stop on every other and walk up or down the stairs to the next floor. People do that many times a day in a 2 story house, why can't they go up or down one flight at work? Actually, the same would apply if you live in a highrise as well.
Check this out from the FTA:
In time, the new Fujitec system becomes even more efficient at grouping passengers by learning elevator-use patterns, said Rennekamp, whose team of engineers pioneered the software for the system. It does this by considering historical information to learn traffic variances in the building.
"The predictive logic in our software acts like neurons in our body, parking (the elevators) at certain floors, knowing where the demand might be at certain times."
They call it wrong though. Its not predictive, its learned from the past. This is where computing is going.
Google "learns" the misspellings through context and usage, it is not fed the dictionary. Slashcode, "learns" what is in the database for a while. It does that via http://www.danga.com/memcached/ I believe that is correct.
What the memcache enables is a larger "working memory" like you do when you repeat a phone number so you won't forget it.
Commercials are a thing of the past. They suck. Product placement is where its at, they just need to be less pushy with it. I'm sure everybody's seen those extended camera focus on a bag of Doritos or whatever, it takes away from the storyline.
Product placement works well, and pays well for athletic equipment. Nike pays people big bucks to wear their cloths. I have to buy mine.
Who cares? Google doesn't know shit, they never said they did. In fact they really don't even own anything.
All Google does is downloads freely available information (crawl, spider), organizes it well (database), and quickly and freely gives the important information to people when they ask for it (search). And they use a freely available OS to run the stuff (Linux).
People simply give Google money for advertising because they have the best real estate on the web. Google is the most popular website in the world.
On the other hand, if the money is big enough, would you really say no?
Yes, would you let someone kill you're wife for enough money? That is a very extreme example, but principles and human life are more important than money.
Insurance companies can set these guidelines very easily...
Sure, like insurance companies have regulated the height and strength of bumpers to make rear end collisions a non-repairable issue. Government should set guidelines, that is what they are there for. We trust them to make decisions that are best for all of us. If we don't like the decisions, we do what we want otherwise. The government standardized on the metric system over 100 years ago. For various reasons, we rejected that decision. Driving on the right side of the road is arbitrary, but it is much better standardized across the country, if not the world. Remember, cars came before insurance. Insurance is a scam. If you get into a wreck or drive perfectly, insurance companies make money off of you either way. They actually make more money off of you when you wreck.
Let the local governments regulate the environment. The federal and state governments are some of the worst polluters in history.
No. That is a federal issue. If its the local or state government, then companies will go where its cheapest to operate. Its also inefficient to have each local government analyze the data and make guidelines. Releasing potentially fatal or harmful things into the environment should not be allowed anywhere.
Why would a terrorist attack a nation that is peaceful, has open borders with no trade restrictions, and doesn't murder tens of thousands of people a year? Our country would not be a target if we returned to the days when we were friends to everyone and hated no one.
That was a joke to begin with, but OK. No, it goes against species preservation instinct to harm another person intentionally. Harm is done out of anger via revenge. Oh, and we are on order of at least 100k deaths per year, not measly 10k. A poll in Europe demonstrated that out of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and the USA, that most everyone polled said that the US was the largest threat to world peace. The data should speak for itself. Iran and Iraq only have hurt each other and their neighbors (still bad). North Korea hasn't attacked anybody. They did have a civil war a while back. USA has bombed every single one of these countries, and now the government is talking about going back and killing Koreans because its been a while. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/20 03-09-01-carter_x.htm
1. Ignorance (It is impossible for Sony to anticipate everything.)
2. Error (Incomplete analysis of the rootkit problem, or following habits that worked in the past but may not apply to the current situation.)
3. Immediate interest in stopping a computer from copying something, may override long-term interests of sustaining their reputation as honest and trustworthy.
4. Basic values of trusting your customers may require or prohibit certain actions like installing a rootkit, even if the long-term result might be unfavorable. (These long-term consequences may eventually cause changes in those same basic values.)
5. Installing malware on people's computers is always a self-defeating prophesy (Fear of some consequence drives people to find solutions before the problem occurs, thus the non-occurrence of the problem is unanticipated.)
This is a pretty good list. The order is significant. I go under the assumption that all wrongdoings is from ignorance. In fact, aside from a simple mistake like forgetting something, slipping on something that you did not see, or whatever, most "errors" are due to ignorance. The other three are too specific to the sony rootkit to talk about them in general terms.
The most intolerable wrongdoings are due to greed, which is what Sony did this time. Sure there was ignorance and an error in execution of the crappy software. Like Time-Warner-AOL, Sony has missed the boat. Sony makes electronic equipment. They are one of the best in the world. They also "own" roughly 1/3 of the music available. Why doesn't Sony do like they do with movies? Just sell equipment, new good equipment with new features, and give away the music in new and better formats (SACD, surround sound, 24bit, or something new) so that people are motivated to buy better equipment.
People diss Sony because of their proprietary formats. Their problem is that they continuously screw up the formats because they are basically the same as open and standard formats. If they gave away media, and the formats were good, they could sell more equipment.
IMAX is a proprietary format. Its also the best sound and video that anyone can get in the world. Also, IMAX movies are cheaper and better than the crap at the regular movie theater.
By the way, regardless of the magnitude of this problem currently, has Sony ever formally apologized for their damaging rootkit?
I'm not big into apologies. They are worthless. Especially when the person keeps doing the same thing that they apologized for.
I require 2 things. 1) restitution or compensation for whatever you fucked me over with, and 2) assurance that the person will not do the thing again.
Sony owes people cash for screwing up people's computers and their time. They screwed up. An apology is OK. I guess some people might feel better for a while because of it, and possibly earn a little respect back. But compensation and change speaks much more loudly and means so much more than a simple "Oh, OK, I'm sorry".
Me too. In fact, I'll take whatever is given to me. duh.
What we have today is not campaign finance reform, it's imcumbent protection racketeering.
OK. What I wonder, is where does these "campaign funds" go? If I owned a TV or radio station, and a candidate that was worthwhile and I believed in them, and he/she/it wanted to air an ad, I would let them do it for free. I mean, they are not making money off of advertising like any of those $19.95 things that come with more free stuff after you pay for it, they are trying to lead people to make their lives better. Right? Its just a job. Most people have jobs. The inverse, is that I would not let a candidate air an ad that I do not believe in, no matter what they paid. Why should I? Oh, I guess it makes more sense to charge both (or all) candidates to air right?
If one of the two parties wants to get their voice heard...
Its not that tough these days to put up a website or something. If they actually had something worthwhile to say, people would wait to hear them. People would pay big bucks and wait outside the place they are talking. But that does not happen, because people simply do not give much authority to the government. Government does not really impact people's lives in a positive way. Mostly what they do is limit our freedoms and take our money.
Sure there are things that are needed by the government. Someone needs to decide which side of the road we drive on, and standardize that across states. Someone needs to fine and keep businesses from being greedy and treating their employees or the environment. Someone needs to protect our property. I simply don't understand why $400 billion a year is not enough to protect our borders. Why is it so easy just to walk into this country? What if a terrorist decides to do that instead of going through the hassle of the airport? Unless its necessary like time is important or I'm going overseas (maybe), I would not subject myself to the crap that the airlines are required to put me through. Cars, busses, or trains are cheaper, and almost as fast. Anyone can drive 500 to 700 miles in a day.
Only on slashdot do I honestly think we'll see people buying $1000 worth of Apple Intel hardware for $2000
Your backwards. On slashdot, people would spend $200 worth of junk, and post an ask.slashdot.org question like, "How do I make Linux do X on junk hardware?"
Mac users love the OS, I don't know of on Machead friend who would ever run XP, even under penalty of death.
This kinda makes the first quote mute, right? Mac users love the OS _and_ hardware, and will pay for it. Today, if you buy spec-for-spec an Apple costs the same as other systems, and comes with good software too.
If you want a cheap computer and don't know what to do with it, I'll give one away.
I wonder if a serious baseball numbers-cruncher has ever delved into the influence of audience attendance on a team or player's game performance. How does a player perform when the stadium is 1/3 full? Maybe a normally marginal player performs slightly better...perhaps he is less intimidated by less people? Does the superstar slack off in front of 15,000 people vs. stepping up his game in front of 30,000+?
Money talks, the others hope to get lucky and 4 balls and walk.
Nobody would ever try to do an operations research optimization on attendance and performance.
Good performance == good attendance. Nobody wants to see their team continuously loose, unless something else fun is going on at the place. They tried to get attendance up by having mini-concerts at games. Didn't work too well.
Nobody wants 1/2 or a 1/3 attendance for one player to hit a ball better. A good player makes millions and can play under any circumstances (see Babe Ruth), and the seats need to be filled, the game needs to be aired on TV and radio, and ads need to be sold and viewed on the billboards and yada yada.
Selling the number of hits, the score, and the error count does not seem like a very interesting or profitable business plan to me.
Different people have different interests. And furthermore, this is not an XOR situation. You can go to the games and still analyze statistics on your own time. Your comments continue to show that you're not a fan of the game. Stop criticizing people who are for the way in which their interest manifests. Again, different people have different interests.
Very true. However, if I could pocket $600k a week with a half full ballpark of 30,000 people, I would not even worry about trying to collect $10 a week or month from some geek that wants to read about RBIs, errors, and homeruns. All of this data is freely available anyway. Go here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/ Sure, they probably make a modest amount of cash off of the niche stats market, nothing on order of $600k a week. If you think its worth it, go ahead. $600k is nothing to sneeze at.
So open-minded and accepting of people who enjoy different things than you, I see. I believe you should get back to hiding beneath your bridge.
Huh? I can be as openminded under my bridge all I want, it probably doesn't pay much. To get paid for things you need 2 things. 1) skill at doing something 2) people have to like it, so they will pay you money.
Linus is a millionaire off of free software. He has 1 and 2.
A janitor has 1 and 2 also. His skill is less, anybody can do it. If you do a shitty job or don't show up or even if you piss them off, janitor is out of a job.
I believe the OP was referring to the role of statistics in the fan's mind.
OK. Thats pretty dumb.
Who would pay $10/week or even a month for statistics over going to see a game?
Especially if the players and fans are on strike?
$5 every 2 or 3 months lets me read and write stuff here, where I'm a part of things.
$10 a month or worse a week does not seem like its worth my money for basic statistics (mean and count) for people running around with a ball in a field.
Bear in mind statistics are one of the most important components in baseball.
No its not. The most important part of baseball is filling up a stadium every week.
The important statistic is the bottom line. If your average stadium only sells 1/2 of its capacity (about 30,000) @ $10 a ticket, that is $300,000 a week or $1.2million a month. Give 1/2 to the players, keep the rest.
My house has glass doors and windows (not Microsoft).
If someone really wanted to steal my stolen music, they could easily take my whole computer and stereo while I'm at work. More risky if caught, because I'd fuck their world up. But its certainly easier than breaking into my Mac via the network. And more profitable because they either get a nice computer, or can sell it for at least $1k.
Spend a million dollars on security and you have almost nothing tangiable to show for it.
Lose a million dollars, and you wish you had done things differently.
Security is directly proportional to the stuff you are securing. I don't put a chain and padlock on my wallet, because it is rare that there is $50 in it, and my drivers license and work IDs are more valuable than that to me.
When the Brinks truck comes by work to pick up and deliver the cash to the bank, they have a big strong truck and a guy or two with shotguns. Hmm. Fort Knox has an army base next to it. Dunno if anything is in there or not.
Of all the pieces of software out there at the moment, Windows XP is the most frustrating. In terms of security, XP should completly out-class Linux/Unix in every metric of measurement. Instead, it's the most disease ridden piece of shit ever concieved by humanity.
Yup. Yes, I'm an apple fanboy, but for a reason. OS X has remote access via file sharing and ssh. It also comes with a web server, and I guess other stuff, I don't use my personal computers as a server. I spurged, and turned on file sharing on my home Mac so I could easily DND files from my PowerBook to it from time to time. Mostly "stolen" music I snagged while at work.
So I turned on file sharing, and here is the damage to my system:
netstat -an | grep LISTEN Bullshit lameness filter is lame. It opens up ports 427 and 548.
I'm behind my wireless router's firewall. After turning on file sharing, look at this:
Other Macintosh users can access your computer at afp://192.168.2.175/ or browse for "My excellent's iMac G5" by choosing Network from the Go menu in the Finder.
The "My excellent's", is actually my real name, I'm not going to put that here.
I'm broadcasting my IP address! Hmm, its a private one.
Not too tough for an "advanced feature", and its even secure by default. I'm limited by someone hopping onto my WAP, AND brute forcing my username and password.
Its not going to happen, and if it did, I hope the person does not delete all of my free music.
I wouldn't use a WAP if I was worried about anything. A simple firewall box would be more than sufficient.
Other computer systems leave these advanced features on by default, and make it more difficult than clicking on a checkbox to disable it.
What if the laptop's last SSID required WEP or WPA (and has it configured in a profile)? Will it still connect if _less_ security is required?
What difference does it matter?
This would have to be a direct targeted attack on an individual or small group of individuals, but is still possible.
Script kiddie situation:
Sets up rogue WAP, and gives free internet connection to the laptop. All ssh and SSL or other encrypted channels goes through the free WAP.
Advanced script kiddie situation:
Sets up rogue WAP, and gives free internet connection to the laptop. The kid then has a number of popular local banks' website replicated _without_ SSL and resolves the DNS to a rogue bank site and snags username/password info. (Profit!!!) This could be as advanced as a transparent web proxy that does sed s/https/http/g;
Super advanced and traceable and more expensive version:
Do Advanced script kiddie situation, but buy real SSL certs and then snag username/passwords AND (Profit!!!)
The last one is simply not worth the risk and complexity of buying bankofam1rica.com SSL certs, AND having to be physically close to targets without any trace./me heads to coffee shop with WAP and PowerBook and looks for higher end Dell's and Viao's.
The real funny thing is that the article is a cross between an anti-Microsoft flame and another newsvertisement.
TFA also says, "Both companies have lost a lot of relevance in the modern world, where cost-effective open source software and disposable commodity hardware reign supreme."
Oops. That is the meat of the article. Its hard to keep stock prices up when you are "loosing relevance" in your area of doing business. Stock plot here.
Offtopic, but I have to know. I am not a stock or money person. Is it normal for stock graphs to have a logarithmic y axis in terms of dollar amount and percentage by default? I thought that both money and percentages were linear. I understand where log transforms of data are important for things like perception in hearing and many other things, but does this make sense to some money guru out there?
Slashdot Mirror
For those that don't get the joke, what he describes is exactly how MacOS X deals with the blue screen problem.
... you have to admire Steve. He really does care about these things. I'm a big Steve fan because I love the fact that he worked super-hard to create an environment with this kind of thought and atention to detail.
:-(.
I have never heard of a "blue screen problem" before now.
I'm sure Steve Jobs scrutinized every pixel of that in countless meetings, screamed at at least one employee who didn't quite get it right, and finally, well, he has the prettiest crash message that exists, yes, in five different languages.
He probably paid one of his developers to do that. Has Microsoft hired someone yet to display a meaningful error message when their OS crashes? Or do they still turn the screen blue and dump a bunch of hex characters?
As long as it's not you he's screaming at
Why would he scream at me? Ha, I haven't met him yet, but he should get along fine with my hippie self. Yes, Apple has some of the finest attention to detail of any electronics company. Both at the software and hardware level. In fact, they have blurred the line between the two. The kernel panic I was talking about in OS X has to have a hook into the hardware, because the kernel is locked. I guess the image is either preloaded into the video card's memory, and their must be a ROM or some chip like a "watchdog" thing that pings the kernel from time to time, and if it does not answer, it dumps the screen.
I've only seen the screen a couple of times when there was a bug in their wireless driver, and the driver would crash when _not_ using the wireless LAN and you had the ethernet cable plugged in when you booted your machine. Very frustrating, the fix before the patch came out was to let the machine boot, and then plug in the ethernet.
Don't put bad memory in your G5
Why would anybody do a thing like that? I love it now that operating systems are basically stable. It makes troubleshooting so much easier. If the machine crashes, something must be wrong with the hardware. Pretty simple, eh?
I would never think of an entertainer as a leader unless they did something extra - like well lead.
OK. What is a leader? The best definition is "The foremost animal, such as a horse or dog, in a harnessed team."
Rock stars are on stage, up higher than everybody else, nobody at the place can speak louder than they can, everybody in the audience faces them, the people cheer them on, the people congregate to see them just as though they were seeing a politician or priest. If thats not what a leader is, I don't know what one is.
I still don't have my 5000 groupie girls who would spread their legs open for me en masse'
Computers piss people off. Why would making something that people see as a necessary evil want to fuck you?
If a rock band can attract 20,000 people or more to get together and have a good time and party, that is what people want to do. The reason they get laid is because if they can make 20,000+ people feel good for a couple hours, then they might be a good fuck too. Plus they are leaders and successful, which also has attraction as a mate.
Me: Ok, tell me what the screen says now. ..." ..."
Mom: It's blue.
Me: What do you mean "it's blue"? What does it say?
Mom: It says, "9F D8 34 7B
Me: Um, that's ok, ma, I don't speak hex.
Mom: "... FA 25 3C A2
What kind of computer program does that?
Modern computers have a little screen that pops up if the OS crashes, that tells you in 5 or so languages to hold down your power button for a few seconds, and restart the machine. They also ask you on reboot if you want to send a bug report back to the manufacturer so they can fix the problem.
How is this different to running stuff off a CD?
Stuff gets installed to the HD because
1: it's faster
A fast RAM disk on a piece of plastic would be at least 100x faster than a CD. Plus CDs are error prone, and easy to copy.
2: you can patch it
OK, make the chip writeable. They do it with firmware all the time.
3: Most people only have 1 CD drive - want to copy-paste from photoshop to office? Want your CAD app running whilst you write the documentation? Isolating apps from each other sucks.
That is another reason why the CD idea is dumb. The apps running off of the chip could be a simple USB drive. People carry them all the time that have apps to use on public machines that are not installed on the public machine. Stuff like a good web browser, putty, or whatever.
This model is only useful for independent apps, i.e. games. Even then I prefer them on a PC so I have mods, can use skype at the same time, etc.
That is what I'm talking about. Things like games, CAD, productivity applications like word processors, audio and video apps. Anything in the $50 range and up.
But guess what, so do labor protections, environmental protections, S-OX, food and drug regulations, and just about every other regulation. Yes. Regulation increases the cost of business. I'm not going to cry about that. It's the cost of a better society. I understand you don't agree. Luckily there's more people who agree with me than you.
But the point is that government should guide the majority, not inconvenience everybody. I am for regulations for standards in food handling, labor protection, and environmental regulations. Everybody benefits from those.
A better society does not need rules to "help" those with disabilities. A better society would just help those out, and they do it all the time anyway. Ever seen a blind person bump into somebody? Even if the other person is standing still, and not in the way, they apologize to the blind person like its their fault for standing there and then they are likely to guide the blind person in the right direction if they don't know where to go.
Why the fuck is there braille stuff everywhere? Sign manufactures must learn braille and make a separate manufacturing process to stamp the bumps. I have never seen, or heard of a blind person walking down hallways and feeling every inch of the walls to figure out where to go. That is stupid. They get somebody to guide them for free, and then they learn where to go after that.
The biggest problem I tend to face is that people don't know where the hardware ends, and where the OS Begins and where the OS Ends and the Applications begins. When they are doing something over the network or locally. They are just completely lost on the system.
That is so true. And the reason is to us is that we don't know where to start to fix their problem. My mother actually calls everything she sees on the screen as "Microsoft". Scary.
I don't know how to fix the problem. I mean, most people have no clue what "software" really is.
Man, I've been brainstorming lately.
I was a kid of the 70s and 80s and we had these cool Atari games that came in cartridges. I liked that model for some reason.
If software for new computers come in a cartridge it would solve many things.
1) piracy will basically stop, yes, ubergeeks will still do it, but everyday normal people won't. In fact, if you run a program at work or with your friends without inserting a cartridge, then they will know instantly that you did not pay for it.
2) It will isolate the app from the OS and other apps.
This does not scale too well for little programs. But I'm talking about expensive larger apps that you would only typically need at most 5. More on average 1.
Think about how easy upgrades would be? Throw away or sell old cartridge and insert a new one. Expensive software is coming with hardware dongles already. Why does the program have to live on my harddrive too? Why is it so hard to run the program I paid for on another computer?
Yawn. Dude you're so anti-regulation that this doesn't surprise me in the least. Your anecdotes do not justify a policy shift (wrt the overall goals of ADA.. implementation is always another matter), and your opinion is not any more important or right because you have disabled family members.
We don't need regulation. What is different about hanging out with people at work vs your home?
My cousin has been in a wheelchair since 1989. He basically hasn't worked or done much for other people since. He just drives around an parties all the time.
The reason he doesn't work is because the government pays him with our social security money every month. He gets like $600 or so a month, and does under the table jobs from time to time.
Because of the government regulations, its next to impossible for him to get a wheelchair, even though the government pays for the thing.
He should buy his own fucking wheelchair. I don't want the government even thinking about it. How does his wheelchair issues affect the public at large? It doesn't.
I'm disabled too. My vision and hearing is bad, so I wear glasses and a hearing aid. These are basic things I need to go to work and help other people. I have to buy them myself. My cousin has to wait for weeks or months to get his wheelchair that I pay for. Its ridiculous.
A voice system is complex? My neighbor had a Halloween pumpkin that said 50 different phrases in gorgeous clarity that he paid around $10 for at the drug store.
Sorry, but I don't buy it. In fact, I bet in 10 years the bing WILL be gone. Voice response makes more sense than trying to count bings.
Analog gauges are better for continuous data that has an upper and lower limit. Look at your speedometer if you don't believe me. In the 80's they tried digital ones, and they are hard to read and look goofy.
Nobody going to the 18th floor cares if they are currently on 3 or 16. All they care about is the progress towards their goal.
Not true in taller buildings when you're going to/from the upper floors and you have to stop at every. damn. floor. on the way up/down.
Yup. The worst is when you're on the ground floor, want to go to the 3rd or 4th, and someone hops into the elevator as the door is closing, and pushes the 2 button.
Stairs are next to elevators. I believe only service and freight elevators should stop on each floor. For people, stop on every other and walk up or down the stairs to the next floor. People do that many times a day in a 2 story house, why can't they go up or down one flight at work? Actually, the same would apply if you live in a highrise as well.
Check this out from the FTA:
In time, the new Fujitec system becomes even more efficient at grouping passengers by learning elevator-use patterns, said Rennekamp, whose team of engineers pioneered the software for the system. It does this by considering historical information to learn traffic variances in the building.
"The predictive logic in our software acts like neurons in our body, parking (the elevators) at certain floors, knowing where the demand might be at certain times."
They call it wrong though. Its not predictive, its learned from the past. This is where computing is going.
Google "learns" the misspellings through context and usage, it is not fed the dictionary. Slashcode, "learns" what is in the database for a while. It does that via http://www.danga.com/memcached/ I believe that is correct.
What the memcache enables is a larger "working memory" like you do when you repeat a phone number so you won't forget it.
Imagine having no commercials...
You should have stopped there.
Commercials are a thing of the past. They suck. Product placement is where its at, they just need to be less pushy with it. I'm sure everybody's seen those extended camera focus on a bag of Doritos or whatever, it takes away from the storyline.
Product placement works well, and pays well for athletic equipment. Nike pays people big bucks to wear their cloths. I have to buy mine.
So what does Google know that I don't?
:)
Who cares? Google doesn't know shit, they never said they did. In fact they really don't even own anything.
All Google does is downloads freely available information (crawl, spider), organizes it well (database), and quickly and freely gives the important information to people when they ask for it (search). And they use a freely available OS to run the stuff (Linux).
People simply give Google money for advertising because they have the best real estate on the web. Google is the most popular website in the world.
Google is like a closet organizer
On the other hand, if the money is big enough, would you really say no?
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Yes, would you let someone kill you're wife for enough money? That is a very extreme example, but principles and human life are more important than money.
Insurance companies can set these guidelines very easily...
Sure, like insurance companies have regulated the height and strength of bumpers to make rear end collisions a non-repairable issue. Government should set guidelines, that is what they are there for. We trust them to make decisions that are best for all of us. If we don't like the decisions, we do what we want otherwise. The government standardized on the metric system over 100 years ago. For various reasons, we rejected that decision. Driving on the right side of the road is arbitrary, but it is much better standardized across the country, if not the world. Remember, cars came before insurance. Insurance is a scam. If you get into a wreck or drive perfectly, insurance companies make money off of you either way. They actually make more money off of you when you wreck.
Let the local governments regulate the environment. The federal and state governments are some of the worst polluters in history.
No. That is a federal issue. If its the local or state government, then companies will go where its cheapest to operate. Its also inefficient to have each local government analyze the data and make guidelines. Releasing potentially fatal or harmful things into the environment should not be allowed anywhere.
Why would a terrorist attack a nation that is peaceful, has open borders with no trade restrictions, and doesn't murder tens of thousands of people a year? Our country would not be a target if we returned to the days when we were friends to everyone and hated no one.
That was a joke to begin with, but OK. No, it goes against species preservation instinct to harm another person intentionally. Harm is done out of anger via revenge. Oh, and we are on order of at least 100k deaths per year, not measly 10k. A poll in Europe demonstrated that out of Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and the USA, that most everyone polled said that the US was the largest threat to world peace. The data should speak for itself. Iran and Iraq only have hurt each other and their neighbors (still bad). North Korea hasn't attacked anybody. They did have a civil war a while back. USA has bombed every single one of these countries, and now the government is talking about going back and killing Koreans because its been a while. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2
1. Ignorance (It is impossible for Sony to anticipate everything.)
2. Error (Incomplete analysis of the rootkit problem, or following habits that worked in the past but may not apply to the current situation.)
3. Immediate interest in stopping a computer from copying something, may override long-term interests of sustaining their reputation as honest and trustworthy.
4. Basic values of trusting your customers may require or prohibit certain actions like installing a rootkit, even if the long-term result might be unfavorable. (These long-term consequences may eventually cause changes in those same basic values.)
5. Installing malware on people's computers is always a self-defeating prophesy (Fear of some consequence drives people to find solutions before the problem occurs, thus the non-occurrence of the problem is unanticipated.)
This is a pretty good list. The order is significant. I go under the assumption that all wrongdoings is from ignorance. In fact, aside from a simple mistake like forgetting something, slipping on something that you did not see, or whatever, most "errors" are due to ignorance. The other three are too specific to the sony rootkit to talk about them in general terms.
The most intolerable wrongdoings are due to greed, which is what Sony did this time. Sure there was ignorance and an error in execution of the crappy software. Like Time-Warner-AOL, Sony has missed the boat. Sony makes electronic equipment. They are one of the best in the world. They also "own" roughly 1/3 of the music available. Why doesn't Sony do like they do with movies? Just sell equipment, new good equipment with new features, and give away the music in new and better formats (SACD, surround sound, 24bit, or something new) so that people are motivated to buy better equipment.
People diss Sony because of their proprietary formats. Their problem is that they continuously screw up the formats because they are basically the same as open and standard formats. If they gave away media, and the formats were good, they could sell more equipment.
IMAX is a proprietary format. Its also the best sound and video that anyone can get in the world. Also, IMAX movies are cheaper and better than the crap at the regular movie theater.
By the way, regardless of the magnitude of this problem currently, has Sony ever formally apologized for their damaging rootkit?
I'm not big into apologies. They are worthless. Especially when the person keeps doing the same thing that they apologized for.
I require 2 things. 1) restitution or compensation for whatever you fucked me over with, and 2) assurance that the person will not do the thing again.
Sony owes people cash for screwing up people's computers and their time. They screwed up. An apology is OK. I guess some people might feel better for a while because of it, and possibly earn a little respect back. But compensation and change speaks much more loudly and means so much more than a simple "Oh, OK, I'm sorry".
Why? I welcome all money, foreign or local.
Me too. In fact, I'll take whatever is given to me. duh.
What we have today is not campaign finance reform, it's imcumbent protection racketeering.
OK. What I wonder, is where does these "campaign funds" go? If I owned a TV or radio station, and a candidate that was worthwhile and I believed in them, and he/she/it wanted to air an ad, I would let them do it for free. I mean, they are not making money off of advertising like any of those $19.95 things that come with more free stuff after you pay for it, they are trying to lead people to make their lives better. Right? Its just a job. Most people have jobs. The inverse, is that I would not let a candidate air an ad that I do not believe in, no matter what they paid. Why should I? Oh, I guess it makes more sense to charge both (or all) candidates to air right?
If one of the two parties wants to get their voice heard...
Its not that tough these days to put up a website or something. If they actually had something worthwhile to say, people would wait to hear them. People would pay big bucks and wait outside the place they are talking. But that does not happen, because people simply do not give much authority to the government. Government does not really impact people's lives in a positive way. Mostly what they do is limit our freedoms and take our money.
Sure there are things that are needed by the government. Someone needs to decide which side of the road we drive on, and standardize that across states. Someone needs to fine and keep businesses from being greedy and treating their employees or the environment. Someone needs to protect our property. I simply don't understand why $400 billion a year is not enough to protect our borders. Why is it so easy just to walk into this country? What if a terrorist decides to do that instead of going through the hassle of the airport? Unless its necessary like time is important or I'm going overseas (maybe), I would not subject myself to the crap that the airlines are required to put me through. Cars, busses, or trains are cheaper, and almost as fast. Anyone can drive 500 to 700 miles in a day.
Only on slashdot do I honestly think we'll see people buying $1000 worth of Apple Intel hardware for $2000
Your backwards. On slashdot, people would spend $200 worth of junk, and post an ask.slashdot.org question like, "How do I make Linux do X on junk hardware?"
Mac users love the OS, I don't know of on Machead friend who would ever run XP, even under penalty of death.
This kinda makes the first quote mute, right? Mac users love the OS _and_ hardware, and will pay for it. Today, if you buy spec-for-spec an Apple costs the same as other systems, and comes with good software too.
If you want a cheap computer and don't know what to do with it, I'll give one away.
I wonder if a serious baseball numbers-cruncher has ever delved into the influence of audience attendance on a team or player's game performance. How does a player perform when the stadium is 1/3 full? Maybe a normally marginal player performs slightly better...perhaps he is less intimidated by less people? Does the superstar slack off in front of 15,000 people vs. stepping up his game in front of 30,000+?
Money talks, the others hope to get lucky and 4 balls and walk.
Nobody would ever try to do an operations research optimization on attendance and performance.
Good performance == good attendance. Nobody wants to see their team continuously loose, unless something else fun is going on at the place. They tried to get attendance up by having mini-concerts at games. Didn't work too well.
Nobody wants 1/2 or a 1/3 attendance for one player to hit a ball better. A good player makes millions and can play under any circumstances (see Babe Ruth), and the seats need to be filled, the game needs to be aired on TV and radio, and ads need to be sold and viewed on the billboards and yada yada.
Selling the number of hits, the score, and the error count does not seem like a very interesting or profitable business plan to me.
How do the fans go on strike exactly?
/ sportsfansofamerica.htm
It was half of a joke, half reality after the 2002 player strike. Some fans who had season tickets would go to games and take a cardboard cutout of a fan that said, "Fan on strike". More info http://www.eworldwire.com/headlines/majornewswire
Different people have different interests. And furthermore, this is not an XOR situation. You can go to the games and still analyze statistics on your own time. Your comments continue to show that you're not a fan of the game. Stop criticizing people who are for the way in which their interest manifests. Again, different people have different interests.
Very true. However, if I could pocket $600k a week with a half full ballpark of 30,000 people, I would not even worry about trying to collect $10 a week or month from some geek that wants to read about RBIs, errors, and homeruns. All of this data is freely available anyway. Go here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/ Sure, they probably make a modest amount of cash off of the niche stats market, nothing on order of $600k a week. If you think its worth it, go ahead. $600k is nothing to sneeze at.
So open-minded and accepting of people who enjoy different things than you, I see. I believe you should get back to hiding beneath your bridge.
Huh? I can be as openminded under my bridge all I want, it probably doesn't pay much. To get paid for things you need 2 things. 1) skill at doing something 2) people have to like it, so they will pay you money.
Linus is a millionaire off of free software. He has 1 and 2.
A janitor has 1 and 2 also. His skill is less, anybody can do it. If you do a shitty job or don't show up or even if you piss them off, janitor is out of a job.
I believe the OP was referring to the role of statistics in the fan's mind.
OK. Thats pretty dumb.
Who would pay $10/week or even a month for statistics over going to see a game?
Especially if the players and fans are on strike?
$5 every 2 or 3 months lets me read and write stuff here, where I'm a part of things.
$10 a month or worse a week does not seem like its worth my money for basic statistics (mean and count) for people running around with a ball in a field.
Bear in mind statistics are one of the most important components in baseball.
No its not. The most important part of baseball is filling up a stadium every week.
The important statistic is the bottom line. If your average stadium only sells 1/2 of its capacity (about 30,000) @ $10 a ticket, that is $300,000 a week or $1.2million a month. Give 1/2 to the players, keep the rest.
My house has glass doors and windows (not Microsoft).
If someone really wanted to steal my stolen music, they could easily take my whole computer and stereo while I'm at work. More risky if caught, because I'd fuck their world up. But its certainly easier than breaking into my Mac via the network. And more profitable because they either get a nice computer, or can sell it for at least $1k.
Spend a million dollars on security and you have almost nothing tangiable to show for it.
Lose a million dollars, and you wish you had done things differently.
Security is directly proportional to the stuff you are securing. I don't put a chain and padlock on my wallet, because it is rare that there is $50 in it, and my drivers license and work IDs are more valuable than that to me.
When the Brinks truck comes by work to pick up and deliver the cash to the bank, they have a big strong truck and a guy or two with shotguns. Hmm. Fort Knox has an army base next to it. Dunno if anything is in there or not.
Of all the pieces of software out there at the moment, Windows XP is the most frustrating. In terms of security, XP should completly out-class Linux/Unix in every metric of measurement. Instead, it's the most disease ridden piece of shit ever concieved by humanity.
Yup. Yes, I'm an apple fanboy, but for a reason. OS X has remote access via file sharing and ssh. It also comes with a web server, and I guess other stuff, I don't use my personal computers as a server. I spurged, and turned on file sharing on my home Mac so I could easily DND files from my PowerBook to it from time to time. Mostly "stolen" music I snagged while at work.
So I turned on file sharing, and here is the damage to my system:
netstat -an | grep LISTEN
Bullshit lameness filter is lame. It opens up ports 427 and 548.
I'm behind my wireless router's firewall. After turning on file sharing, look at this:
Other Macintosh users can access your computer at afp://192.168.2.175/ or browse for "My excellent's iMac G5" by choosing Network from the Go menu in the Finder.
The "My excellent's", is actually my real name, I'm not going to put that here.
I'm broadcasting my IP address! Hmm, its a private one.
Not too tough for an "advanced feature", and its even secure by default. I'm limited by someone hopping onto my WAP, AND brute forcing my username and password.
Its not going to happen, and if it did, I hope the person does not delete all of my free music.
I wouldn't use a WAP if I was worried about anything. A simple firewall box would be more than sufficient.
Other computer systems leave these advanced features on by default, and make it more difficult than clicking on a checkbox to disable it.
What if the laptop's last SSID required WEP or WPA (and has it configured in a profile)? Will it still connect if _less_ security is required?
/me heads to coffee shop with WAP and PowerBook and looks for higher end Dell's and Viao's.
What difference does it matter?
This would have to be a direct targeted attack on an individual or small group of individuals, but is still possible.
Script kiddie situation:
Sets up rogue WAP, and gives free internet connection to the laptop. All ssh and SSL or other encrypted channels goes through the free WAP.
Advanced script kiddie situation:
Sets up rogue WAP, and gives free internet connection to the laptop. The kid then has a number of popular local banks' website replicated _without_ SSL and resolves the DNS to a rogue bank site and snags username/password info. (Profit!!!) This could be as advanced as a transparent web proxy that does sed s/https/http/g;
Super advanced and traceable and more expensive version:
Do Advanced script kiddie situation, but buy real SSL certs and then snag username/passwords AND (Profit!!!)
The last one is simply not worth the risk and complexity of buying bankofam1rica.com SSL certs, AND having to be physically close to targets without any trace.
Another insightful post mismodded as funny.
The real funny thing is that the article is a cross between an anti-Microsoft flame and another newsvertisement.
TFA also says, "Both companies have lost a lot of relevance in the modern world, where cost-effective open source software and disposable commodity hardware reign supreme."
Oops. That is the meat of the article. Its hard to keep stock prices up when you are "loosing relevance" in your area of doing business. Stock plot here.
Offtopic, but I have to know. I am not a stock or money person. Is it normal for stock graphs to have a logarithmic y axis in terms of dollar amount and percentage by default? I thought that both money and percentages were linear. I understand where log transforms of data are important for things like perception in hearing and many other things, but does this make sense to some money guru out there?