Woo, thanks AC, most interesting. I'm not too awfully excited by the Blue-ray or that other HD-DVD stuff, but this hologram disk looks like it could be the item.
If one keeps looking for presence of something that seemingly should be there but yet doesn't seem to be, perhaps it's time one considers that perhaps a lack of something might be responsible for the same effect? Nature abhors a vacuum and all that.
Hey, it's Tuesday: The day of the Tues! Happy Tuesday to you.
Hey, high achievement awards for science and technology handed out by a dishonest dolt. There's some humor there some where but I'm not digging for it, I just washed my hands.
Now you know why grammar, spelling and punctuation are so very important, dweeb.
Go on, flame me with an emoticon and I'll reply with a sentence which, when read, will require you take four years of psychotherapy to completely heal.
Circa 1966, a wire and plastic toy computing device, presumably from Edmund-Scientific. It would do "and" "or" and "and/or" statements, determined by where on the side panel you put the control pin, then the little plastic "punch cards" would process through the little computer and fall into the appropriate slot. It was fairly interesting at the time (I was elevenish.)
1970s, had a programmable calculator that got a considerable amount of use. A TI model but not the 56, think it was a 54 or something like that -- great for doing maths.
Vic-20 in early 1980's but it wasn't much use other than to make me know that the BASIC progamming language was/is crap.
1986, Atari 520 ST! Now this was a real computer and I'd have to say this is where the hobbist was created. Loved those Atari machines, very capable at a decent price. At the end it had been upgraded to 4 MB RAM and a higher speed, third-party CPU and case-modded into a PC tower case with a custom daughter board to provide power to the case lights and a really nifty security-cum-lock device that fit into the case in a floppy slot.
2006, Sager 9860, 2 GB RAM, 3.6 GHz hyperthreaded CPU, Slackware Linux, folds up and fits into my backpack. Yes, this is some very serious progress, but best of all is all the free and highly capable software.
1966 to 2006: Wonderful progress, the only bad experiences being any time I had to have anything to do with Microsoft -- how those people get away with selling such crap and not doing jail time I just don't know. Any other industry, they'd be ripped them apart at the seams by government and non-government lawyers, but I guess that's just a bad reflection on our government and the power of political money.
Learned behaviors are mental skills. Seems our brains are geared more for reacting to events around us than to ponderous analysis. This makes sense if you think about our evolution: Which is going to let you live longer to successfully breed, thinking about running away from the obvious danger, or just running and maybe thinking about it later.
Some suggest that we do actual thinking only to the point where we find a valid, working reaction. We then use that same reaction until it's obviously not working any longer, at which point we learn a new behavior. In other words, we react to events far more than we actually think about them. This explains many annoying things about human behavior.
Well, yes, it should be but it seems certain folks just won't take a clue even when it whacks them hard upside the wallet.
Microsoft OS has been a battle ground for many years now. It is continous trouble in many, many ways and the expense is outrageous (why else do you think Microsoft runs all those TCO and TOC ads -- they're trying to counter the reality with PR and BS, duh.)
Bottom line: You've made your bed, now lie in it. If you don't like the bedding, replace it with something more functional and less trouble. That your company has this problem is your company's fault: It's way too late in the game to be placing blame elsewhere. Even people who live in caves in little countries on other planets know Microsoft's OS is crap.
But you don't want to hear that and so you'll keep taking it in the ass from all directions. You Microsoft-slave-bitches cry and whine like helpless little girls when the solution is obvious but you just don't want to do it. I have no sympathy for you or your company. True justice here would be for you business competitors to quietly move off MS and wipe your sorry butts right out of the market.
Truely pathetic that you come _here_ to cry about Microsoft OS problems and to look for someone to give you an easy solution, especially since you refuse to accept the exceptionally obvious answer.
Does this mean that some day in the near future I have a chance to trade some (IP) for Veronica Zemanova? That's considerable motivation: Just thinking about it makes my initiative stat hover some where near the astroid belt.
I'll place my vote under the "drawn and quartered" category along with Mr. Reason, but only if it's a public drawing and quartering and they sell decent beer and popcorn...and if the executed has to pay all costs associated with his drawing and quartering, including my beer and popcorn...and if they use really big trucks to do the pulling in low-and-slow gear, not wimpy horses who might bolt at the sound of a cheering audience.
I've looked at that game, but as far as I can tell, it's not really a game as much as a graphics creation site -- and with a rather dated graphics engine too.
So, can someone in the know tell me if there really are gaming elements within this thing? Doesn't have to be slash 'em and loot 'em style, but any gaming element at all. Is it a moo, a mush, a rom, what?
I'm not getting the point of this thing, in case you can't tell, so help me out.
And the first time that user says okay to the dialog box asking for admin password to modify the registry and the program okayed isn't "a well-designed application" then they loose.
Having one central point that controls _everything_ is bad design. Comparing the Windows registry to/etc/profile isn't a good comparison since/etc/profile is a directory containing many different files while the registry acts as one control file at the HKLM level as you describe. This makes is awfully easy for one small program to do a lot of changes. Comparing the Windows registry to/etc/profile is comparing apples to oranges -- similar, but different.
Granted, a Mac or Linux user could find themselves in a similar boat if they say okay to the wrong thing, but the difference is that the one small program is going to have a much harder task of changing a lot of different files than just changing one file in a lot of different ways. It's also much easier to detect changes in a lot of different files than it is to detect alot of changes in one file. When you add in the separate locations for tools vs. config files, directory permissions, program and file permissions -- it becomes a non-trivial task on a Unix box to do what is a slamdunk on the Windows registry.
Either way, the end user does have responsibility for their actions, but the OS should not make it trivial for such changes to be made. ACLs are a good protective measure provided they are used in such a way as to limit the user's ability to make changes, but again the user has to be able to admin their own machine -- slicing up the pie doesn't make the pie smaller, just renders it into pieces. The user must be able to use the pieces and in a way that doesn't render him completely vulnerable with one click of the mouse.
"...changed Windows so that it requires an admin to password to modify the registry...That is what is happening with Vista"
This won't work for Microsoft Windows because Windows has a horrible design flaw which _is_ the registry. All it takes is one mistake, one slip-up by the user and the whole game is over. Why? Because the registry is a single point of control over the _entire_ system: Once the registry is compromised, the whole system is compromised and can never be trusted again until it's wiped and re-installed.
Vista will be touted as more secure by Microsoft but will end up being just another round of Microsoft suckering the suckers out of their cash. Until the OS is completely rebuilt with a secure design from the foundation up, it will never be more secure than it is now and Microsoft refuses to do that. Why? Because they'd end up with a Unix-type system and they can't compete on that level and they know it. In their minds, it's better money just to milk the Windows cow until it drops dead.
Microsoft Windows is a classic example of what happens when mistakes aren't acknowledged and are allowed to fester. That Microsoft continues to make money hand over fist with this situation provides a sterling example of the power of putting your business costs off onto others -- in this case, the customers.
They'll get along with this strategy for a while yet, but the road has a definite end.
The guys in this article seem to assume the internet as it currently exists will always be there, ripe and ready for their use. How can they be so sure?
The reality is the telcos in the U.S. are gearing up for a full-court press to get "their share of the pie" and could really mess things up, access-wise. If they succeed, say goodbye to the open internet as you now know it.
Businesses are furiously clamping down on any type of net access in a futile effort to keep their Microsoft-based PCs working from one hour to the next. Businesses will increasingly move towards closed intranets with extremely limited access to the general net.
Ma and Pa consumer are out big bucks for a PC which worked good for the first week, okay for the second week, slow for the third week and barely works at all at the end of the first month. They are less and less enthused with this PC/internet thing which keeps sucking money out of their bank accounts. The cure seems as bad as the injury, what will all the additional programs needed just to keep the base functionality of what they bought in the first place.
The U.S. federal government insists on retaining control of the internet but continues to show an absurd willingness to sacrifice the public good for the benefit of a few "business buddies" who give money to elected officials.
Will the internet as it currently exists still be functional five, ten years from now? That's a dicey bet at best and any business which bets the farm on internet-only access to their product is not paying attention.
They can give Microsoft an additional $50 American every year, that should fix their PC problems post haste: Who better than Microsoft to fix Microsoft products?
Now if you'll excuse me, Guido the wheel man is at the door wanting his $20 American for not trashing my wheels when I'm not using them -- he calls it "assurance" while I call it "insurance" but it's really just plain old extortion. You see, Guido sold me the wheels and tells me he can only keep them working if I pay him forever, otherwise something nasty is sure to happen and it will cost me even more money to get it fixed.
If the woman in this article is such a heroic professional, why is she only cleaning off the malware and not getting the users off Microsoft OSes? Surely she has figured out by now that the cleaned machines get trashed again. Maybe she just really likes being needed. Maybe this is PR trash planted by some Microsoft goon.
Maybe Mac and Linux folks are laughing like crazed loons after reading this "heroic" article.
"...after the rubber hit the road the document meant very little..."
A good business plan is a working document, you keep it updated to reflect where the business is at currently, where it's been and where you want it to go.
Think of it as your master planning document and it will serve you well.
"... In the US, Yahoo! must adhere to US law. In France, they must adhere to the applicable French and EU laws..."
Yes, but this does not allow them to do in France what is illegal in the U.S., or it shouldn't. If this is the case, then the legal systems are being used by the corporations to Balkanize the world and we're all screwed.
In other words, Yahoo! cannot violate U.S. law even when they're operating in another country, regardless what that country's laws say are legal. If Yahoo! wants to move elsewhere, that is their business but no U.S. company or registered corportation should be allowed to violate U.S. law anywhere in this galaxy just because the law elsewhere is different.
If this is the way these corporations are using legal systems, then the legal systems need to fixed right now.
"...they are all based on a specific "definition" of time,..."
Very true yet hard to convince folks that our perception of "time" is just and only that, our perception, filtered through sensory organs, language and symbols, thought and then socially acceptable explanations.
I suspect that time will show (heh) that our perception of our Universe and it's actions and what's really going on are very different -- we are severely limited by our perceptions and so see the Universe in a very specific way which isn't necessarily helpful in determining truth. Hopefully the quantum science folks will get us further down the path to the truth of space and matter, which will likely prove to be two different ways of seeing the very same thing. In other words, it's our perception which creates differences in "things" which otherwise may not be so very different after all.
The ancient Hindus deduced that the Universe is an illusion. The quantum science folks may reach the same conclusion impirically.
The math: illusion *.5 = illusion still
Layman's terms: What you sense _is_ your Universe, there is nothing more.
The Fifth Element has a good story line, is well written, is beautifully filmed and is serious/sad/funny and profound all at the same time. It's one of the very best "Action Films" ever made.
And yes, the Superbit release is very high quality.
Here we have the source of the problem: Some people are allowed to gain profit at the expense of others with no accountability for how that profit was gained.
I suggest shareholders start suffering fines and jail time for the actions of corporate officers. Ethics would decend upon the corporate world very, very quickly.
Concerning the legality of corporate behavior in other countries: Is not a corporation beholden to honor the laws of the country in which it is incorporated? If not, this is wrong and should be corrected.
Besides the obvious extortion theme, the one thought that comes to mind is trust: Why would I trust Microsoft to make their AV software any better than their OS software?
Indeed, Microsoft's history suggests that this product won't be worth more than a tinker's damn until it's been on the market for five years, has been patched several hundred times and is on it's third or fourth major release.
History suggests that only fools trust Microsoft to do anything but put more money into the pockets of Microsoft. People who want or need quality use anything _but_ Microsoft products.
"what you're asking the player to do should be fun."
Or challenging. Eve Online looks like it has a decent challenge level, the rest of them look to be gerbel wheels for humans.
Maybe it's just me, but the whole magic/fantasy thing seems to be approaching the "too worn to wear" point. Maybe the game makers could mix it up a bit and do a "Glory Road" type of game where the players are from the present but find themselves in different times and places and have to figure out how to survive and prosper. "Dr Who" has this type of element in some ways. Would be nice instead of having to kill the poor old green dragon the player gets dumped into a nesting area of t-rex on old Earth with only what weapons and supplies he had from his last area (20th century American ghetto, for example.)
Slashdot Mirror
Woo, thanks AC, most interesting. I'm not too awfully excited by the Blue-ray or that other HD-DVD stuff, but this hologram disk looks like it could be the item.
I'll definitely be watching for this.
Thanks again.
amusing.
Cheers.
If one keeps looking for presence of something that seemingly should be there but yet doesn't seem to be, perhaps it's time one considers that perhaps a lack of something might be responsible for the same effect? Nature abhors a vacuum and all that.
Hey, it's Tuesday: The day of the Tues! Happy Tuesday to you.
Hey, high achievement awards for science and technology handed out by a dishonest dolt. There's some humor there some where but I'm not digging for it, I just washed my hands.
Now you know why grammar, spelling and punctuation are so very important, dweeb.
Go on, flame me with an emoticon and I'll reply with a sentence which, when read, will require you take four years of psychotherapy to completely heal.
Make my day, junya! *cackle*
Cherrios.
Circa 1966, a wire and plastic toy computing device, presumably from Edmund-Scientific. It would do "and" "or" and "and/or" statements, determined by where on the side panel you put the control pin, then the little plastic "punch cards" would process through the little computer and fall into the appropriate slot. It was fairly interesting at the time (I was elevenish.)
1970s, had a programmable calculator that got a considerable amount of use. A TI model but not the 56, think it was a 54 or something like that -- great for doing maths.
Vic-20 in early 1980's but it wasn't much use other than to make me know that the BASIC progamming language was/is crap.
1986, Atari 520 ST! Now this was a real computer and I'd have to say this is where the hobbist was created. Loved those Atari machines, very capable at a decent price. At the end it had been upgraded to 4 MB RAM and a higher speed, third-party CPU and case-modded into a PC tower case with a custom daughter board to provide power to the case lights and a really nifty security-cum-lock device that fit into the case in a floppy slot.
2006, Sager 9860, 2 GB RAM, 3.6 GHz hyperthreaded CPU, Slackware Linux, folds up and fits into my backpack. Yes, this is some very serious progress, but best of all is all the free and highly capable software.
1966 to 2006: Wonderful progress, the only bad experiences being any time I had to have anything to do with Microsoft -- how those people get away with selling such crap and not doing jail time I just don't know. Any other industry, they'd be ripped them apart at the seams by government and non-government lawyers, but I guess that's just a bad reflection on our government and the power of political money.
"These aren't 'mental skills' - they're learned behaviors."
Learned behaviors are mental skills. Seems our brains are geared more for reacting to events around us than to ponderous analysis. This makes sense if you think about our evolution: Which is going to let you live longer to successfully breed, thinking about running away from the obvious danger, or just running and maybe thinking about it later.
Some suggest that we do actual thinking only to the point where we find a valid, working reaction. We then use that same reaction until it's obviously not working any longer, at which point we learn a new behavior. In other words, we react to events far more than we actually think about them. This explains many annoying things about human behavior.
Cheers.
"This should be a cautionary tale..."
Well, yes, it should be but it seems certain folks just won't take a clue even when it whacks them hard upside the wallet.
Microsoft OS has been a battle ground for many years now. It is continous trouble in many, many ways and the expense is outrageous (why else do you think Microsoft runs all those TCO and TOC ads -- they're trying to counter the reality with PR and BS, duh.)
Bottom line: You've made your bed, now lie in it. If you don't like the bedding, replace it with something more functional and less trouble. That your company has this problem is your company's fault: It's way too late in the game to be placing blame elsewhere. Even people who live in caves in little countries on other planets know Microsoft's OS is crap.
But you don't want to hear that and so you'll keep taking it in the ass from all directions. You Microsoft-slave-bitches cry and whine like helpless little girls when the solution is obvious but you just don't want to do it. I have no sympathy for you or your company. True justice here would be for you business competitors to quietly move off MS and wipe your sorry butts right out of the market.
Truely pathetic that you come _here_ to cry about Microsoft OS problems and to look for someone to give you an easy solution, especially since you refuse to accept the exceptionally obvious answer.
DUH!
Does this mean that some day in the near future I have a chance to trade some (IP) for Veronica Zemanova? That's considerable motivation: Just thinking about it makes my initiative stat hover some where near the astroid belt.
What to code, what to code! *groan*
Cherrios.
Thanks for the thoughtful answer cowscows, I'll have to have a closer look.
Happy weekend to yous.
I'll place my vote under the "drawn and quartered" category along with Mr. Reason, but only if it's a public drawing and quartering and they sell decent beer and popcorn...and if the executed has to pay all costs associated with his drawing and quartering, including my beer and popcorn...and if they use really big trucks to do the pulling in low-and-slow gear, not wimpy horses who might bolt at the sound of a cheering audience.
Cheers. So who's first?
Dude, I'm still working on the first one.
I've looked at that game, but as far as I can tell, it's not really a game as much as a graphics creation site -- and with a rather dated graphics engine too.
So, can someone in the know tell me if there really are gaming elements within this thing? Doesn't have to be slash 'em and loot 'em style, but any gaming element at all. Is it a moo, a mush, a rom, what?
I'm not getting the point of this thing, in case you can't tell, so help me out.
Thanks.
And the first time that user says okay to the dialog box asking for admin password to modify the registry and the program okayed isn't "a well-designed application" then they loose.
/etc/profile isn't a good comparison since /etc/profile is a directory containing many different files while the registry acts as one control file at the HKLM level as you describe. This makes is awfully easy for one small program to do a lot of changes. Comparing the Windows registry to /etc/profile is comparing apples to oranges -- similar, but different.
Having one central point that controls _everything_ is bad design. Comparing the Windows registry to
Granted, a Mac or Linux user could find themselves in a similar boat if they say okay to the wrong thing, but the difference is that the one small program is going to have a much harder task of changing a lot of different files than just changing one file in a lot of different ways. It's also much easier to detect changes in a lot of different files than it is to detect alot of changes in one file. When you add in the separate locations for tools vs. config files, directory permissions, program and file permissions -- it becomes a non-trivial task on a Unix box to do what is a slamdunk on the Windows registry.
Either way, the end user does have responsibility for their actions, but the OS should not make it trivial for such changes to be made. ACLs are a good protective measure provided they are used in such a way as to limit the user's ability to make changes, but again the user has to be able to admin their own machine -- slicing up the pie doesn't make the pie smaller, just renders it into pieces. The user must be able to use the pieces and in a way that doesn't render him completely vulnerable with one click of the mouse.
Thank you for the reply, best of days to you.
"...changed Windows so that it requires an admin to password to modify the registry...That is what is happening with Vista"
This won't work for Microsoft Windows because Windows has a horrible design flaw which _is_ the registry. All it takes is one mistake, one slip-up by the user and the whole game is over. Why? Because the registry is a single point of control over the _entire_ system: Once the registry is compromised, the whole system is compromised and can never be trusted again until it's wiped and re-installed.
Vista will be touted as more secure by Microsoft but will end up being just another round of Microsoft suckering the suckers out of their cash. Until the OS is completely rebuilt with a secure design from the foundation up, it will never be more secure than it is now and Microsoft refuses to do that. Why? Because they'd end up with a Unix-type system and they can't compete on that level and they know it. In their minds, it's better money just to milk the Windows cow until it drops dead.
Microsoft Windows is a classic example of what happens when mistakes aren't acknowledged and are allowed to fester. That Microsoft continues to make money hand over fist with this situation provides a sterling example of the power of putting your business costs off onto others -- in this case, the customers.
They'll get along with this strategy for a while yet, but the road has a definite end.
Cheers.
The guys in this article seem to assume the internet as it currently exists will always be there, ripe and ready for their use. How can they be so sure?
The reality is the telcos in the U.S. are gearing up for a full-court press to get "their share of the pie" and could really mess things up, access-wise. If they succeed, say goodbye to the open internet as you now know it.
Businesses are furiously clamping down on any type of net access in a futile effort to keep their Microsoft-based PCs working from one hour to the next. Businesses will increasingly move towards closed intranets with extremely limited access to the general net.
Ma and Pa consumer are out big bucks for a PC which worked good for the first week, okay for the second week, slow for the third week and barely works at all at the end of the first month. They are less and less enthused with this PC/internet thing which keeps sucking money out of their bank accounts. The cure seems as bad as the injury, what will all the additional programs needed just to keep the base functionality of what they bought in the first place.
The U.S. federal government insists on retaining control of the internet but continues to show an absurd willingness to sacrifice the public good for the benefit of a few "business buddies" who give money to elected officials.
Will the internet as it currently exists still be functional five, ten years from now? That's a dicey bet at best and any business which bets the farm on internet-only access to their product is not paying attention.
Ciao.
They can give Microsoft an additional $50 American every year, that should fix their PC problems post haste: Who better than Microsoft to fix Microsoft products?
Now if you'll excuse me, Guido the wheel man is at the door wanting his $20 American for not trashing my wheels when I'm not using them -- he calls it "assurance" while I call it "insurance" but it's really just plain old extortion. You see, Guido sold me the wheels and tells me he can only keep them working if I pay him forever, otherwise something nasty is sure to happen and it will cost me even more money to get it fixed.
If the woman in this article is such a heroic professional, why is she only cleaning off the malware and not getting the users off Microsoft OSes? Surely she has figured out by now that the cleaned machines get trashed again. Maybe she just really likes being needed. Maybe this is PR trash planted by some Microsoft goon.
Maybe Mac and Linux folks are laughing like crazed loons after reading this "heroic" article.
Cherrios.
"...after the rubber hit the road the document meant very little..."
A good business plan is a working document, you keep it updated to reflect where the business is at currently, where it's been and where you want it to go.
Think of it as your master planning document and it will serve you well.
Cheers.
"... In the US, Yahoo! must adhere to US law. In France, they must adhere to the applicable French and EU laws..."
Yes, but this does not allow them to do in France what is illegal in the U.S., or it shouldn't. If this is the case, then the legal systems are being used by the corporations to Balkanize the world and we're all screwed.
In other words, Yahoo! cannot violate U.S. law even when they're operating in another country, regardless what that country's laws say are legal. If Yahoo! wants to move elsewhere, that is their business but no U.S. company or registered corportation should be allowed to violate U.S. law anywhere in this galaxy just because the law elsewhere is different.
If this is the way these corporations are using legal systems, then the legal systems need to fixed right now.
"...they are all based on a specific "definition" of time,..."
.5 = illusion still
Very true yet hard to convince folks that our perception of "time" is just and only that, our perception, filtered through sensory organs, language and symbols, thought and then socially acceptable explanations.
I suspect that time will show (heh) that our perception of our Universe and it's actions and what's really going on are very different -- we are severely limited by our perceptions and so see the Universe in a very specific way which isn't necessarily helpful in determining truth. Hopefully the quantum science folks will get us further down the path to the truth of space and matter, which will likely prove to be two different ways of seeing the very same thing. In other words, it's our perception which creates differences in "things" which otherwise may not be so very different after all.
The ancient Hindus deduced that the Universe is an illusion. The quantum science folks may reach the same conclusion impirically.
The math: illusion *
Layman's terms: What you sense _is_ your Universe, there is nothing more.
Agree strongly with you on this.
The Fifth Element has a good story line, is well written, is beautifully filmed and is serious/sad/funny and profound all at the same time. It's one of the very best "Action Films" ever made.
And yes, the Superbit release is very high quality.
"...maximizing shareholder profits..."
Here we have the source of the problem: Some people are allowed to gain profit at the expense of others with no accountability for how that profit was gained.
I suggest shareholders start suffering fines and jail time for the actions of corporate officers. Ethics would decend upon the corporate world very, very quickly.
Concerning the legality of corporate behavior in other countries: Is not a corporation beholden to honor the laws of the country in which it is incorporated? If not, this is wrong and should be corrected.
Heya,
That was rather funny, thanks for the laugh.
Happy day to you.
Has anyone yet found out where the mussel men are getting all those virgins?
Inquiring minds wanna know.
Besides the obvious extortion theme, the one thought that comes to mind is trust: Why would I trust Microsoft to make their AV software any better than their OS software?
Indeed, Microsoft's history suggests that this product won't be worth more than a tinker's damn until it's been on the market for five years, has been patched several hundred times and is on it's third or fourth major release.
History suggests that only fools trust Microsoft to do anything but put more money into the pockets of Microsoft. People who want or need quality use anything _but_ Microsoft products.
Cheers!
"what you're asking the player to do should be fun."
Or challenging. Eve Online looks like it has a decent challenge level, the rest of them look to be gerbel wheels for humans.
Maybe it's just me, but the whole magic/fantasy thing seems to be approaching the "too worn to wear" point. Maybe the game makers could mix it up a bit and do a "Glory Road" type of game where the players are from the present but find themselves in different times and places and have to figure out how to survive and prosper. "Dr Who" has this type of element in some ways. Would be nice instead of having to kill the poor old green dragon the player gets dumped into a nesting area of t-rex on old Earth with only what weapons and supplies he had from his last area (20th century American ghetto, for example.)
If it's too easy or too rote, it's not fun.