Don't forget the Corn Palace! I drove my family from northeast Nebraska to Rapid City to visit some friends, and the Corn Palace billboards became a running joke: "Only 36 miles to the Corn Palace!", then "Only 34 1/2 miles to the Corn Palace!", etc.
Oh, and same for Wall Drug, except that it was interesting on its own and not for ironic reasons.
any amount of bureaucracy and layers will pay for itself if it prevents a single huge mistake every couple years.
You're conveniently ignoring the opportunity cost of shooting down the occasional single huge success that might otherwise come along. Apple as a bureaucracy: "we're a computer company, not an entertainment company! An MP3 player? Can you imagine how stupid we'd feel if that bombed?"
You described my work environment pretty well, except we're 5:60. We have an internal legacy application maintainer, an internal new application developer, a Windows PC admin, a Windows server admin, and me (web dev, Unix admin, network admin, etc.). We'd be hard pressed to whittle that down.
Vote machine 1 reads current number of votes: 10
Vote machine 2 reads current number of votes: 10
Voter 1 and Voter 2 both cast their ballots for Obama simultaneously.
Others have pointed out that you don't keep a running tally. But even if you did, say, for summary purposes, that would be:
Vote machine 1 acquires a lock to the counter and reads current number of votes: 10
Vote machine 2 attempts to acquire the lock and is blocked
Vote machine 1 updates the counter and releases its lock
Vote machine 2 gets the lock and continues
At any rate, there is exactly one correct way to handle machine voting: use it as an input device that is capable of printing an official paper ballot flawlessly. Use the machine totals for preliminary results, but use the paper ballots for the certified results. It elimates the whole "butterfly ballot" and "hanging chad" debacle from 2000, and works even if the computers crash.
Civil disobedience is where we need to be now, to prevent us bleeding-heart liberals from needing to learn how to care for small arms.
Bleeding hearts? I'm about as conservative as it gets, but the idea of either party hijacking an election infuriates me. Maybe next time it'd be a Green supporter who throws an election to the left, or maybe a fascist who only elects hardcore pseudocons - oh, sorry, neocons.
Even if nothing else, if I didn't love democracy and care for the process, I'd still like to know that my guy won by an honest vote. I'd rather lose than win it traitorously.
but they had poll worker shortages last year and might need tech-savvy people to volunteer.
Want to really help? "Accidentally" run over the crate of voting machines, or allow it to fall off a bridge into a deep river. Do democracy a favor and destroy these abominations, you tech-savvy butterfingers!
A false sense of security is worse than a known insecurity.
I agree totally! People incorrectly trust that the certificate for https://www.theirbank.com/ was issued to Their Bank and not a random teenager who forged a letterhead, so we should do away with SSL.
Uh, self-signed certificates are WIDE OPEN to MITM attacks. That's kind of the point here?
You kind of almost (but not quite) have a point, except that you're unfairly targeting self-signed certs. In Firefox, go to Edit : Preferences : Advanced : Encryption : View Certificates. Do you think that every single one of those CAs is totally diligent in verifying identity before issuing certs, has been since the very beginning, and never has or will make mistakes? If not, then that one weak CA is the only thing standing between me and ownership of a certificate issued to "gmail.google.com". Maybe that's less likely and requires more planning than with the self-signed equivalent, but that's just a matter of degree. Either way, I'm now the MITM between you and your GMail account.
Oh, I agree with that. I just wanted to get across that in some very specific cases, self-signed certs are perfectly reasonable solutions. The OP was basically saying that they're always a bad idea rolled out by cheap or incompetent companies, and that's just not true.
We definitely provide the cert, but many of our users would be unwilling or unable to be walked through installing it. My industry has a pretty low percentage of computer-savvy customers. It's not that they're dumb, but that technical expertise just isn't needed or particularly valued in the industry we serve. We basically outsource a huge chunk of the IT staff they'd otherwise need to do their jobs, and reduce their technical demands to "be able to load our website".
Honestly, almost none of them use HTTPS anyway. It's mainly there for the couple of larger customers who wanted it (and who know how to install certs). Again, a third-party-signed cert just isn't valuable to us. It doesn't provide any benefits over a self-signed cert and costs money we'd rather spend on more interesting things.
Currently the only difference between a self signed cert and a $10 one is that the latter leaves you $10 poorer.
That's exactly why my company doesn't buy them. Our web application is used solely by our paying customers, so we personally know everyone who'll ever see our SSL site. Part of our initial training is telling them to accept our certificate the first time they log in. Given that our same CA cert is also used to sign our Jabber, Postfix, and OpenVPN certs (and anything else we happen to be experimenting with), that $10/host/year adds up quickly. And for what? We're no less secure than if we were paying Verisign.
The run-time cost, and also the hidden errors, because you obviously do not understand why there are types in the first place.
Nice try, son, but I've probably been hacking long than you've been alive. Trust me, I know what types are and why they're good, and also why strongly typed, dynamic languages are so popular right now.
If a program is running too slow, I see if there are algorithmic improvements I can make. Failing that, I replace critical parts with C (or C++). Failing that, we buy more hardware. I am far more expensive than any of the servers we own, and my boss is much more interested in paying me to add new features for our customers than to wring another 2% out of optimized, correct code.
Which in turns means there is something profound about maths and formal logic that you have not yet understood.
Lisp is also dynamically typed, and much beloved by computer scientists everywhere. Apparently there is more to math and formal logic than you've learned so far.
You also claim that raw machine code is ultimately powerful or versatile. This assumes you are capable of producing better assembly than your compiler.
No. It assumes that I am capable of producing more versatile assembly than my compiler. Of that, my friend, I am certain.
Is it hyper-critical that a visitor can only see one of 25 websites, or can you tolerate the idea that maybe one or two users can type in an IP? If you can't live with someone visiting an unapproved site if they're determined and resourceful enough to get around your restrictions, then scrap the whole damn project because you'll be playing whack-a-mole the whole time.
Put another way: you're on a nonprofit's budget. Is this the best way to spend its resources, or would you be better off tolerating the occasional unintended use?
No, copyright is most certainly not an inherent right. It's just a legal construct that the founding fathers thought would be a net win.
You are obligated to accept the terms, or not accept the fruits of their labor.
Oh please. If I like the way you've decorated your yard, then I can decorate mine exactly like it. I don't care how hard you worked to come up with that particular arrangement. If I like it, I can copy it. That's to illustrate the idea that you can most certainly enjoy the fruits of another's labor without their permission. Nothing but the law makes written works a protected class.
Those who support reasonable copyright aren't demanding that you pay money for their work, they're demanding that you either agree to their stipulations, or don't take their work. I fail to see what's particularly unfair about that.
The failure is that it isn't a natural, inherent right. Copyright is something whipped up to encourage artists to add to the public domain. Since Disney et al have stolen (yes, stolen, as in "deprived others of use") their early works from the public domain by paying to have copyright extended perpetually, I can't work up a lot of sympathy for people who take their new stuff without paying.
Basically, as a society, we're telling them to either agree to our stipulations or don't take our protections.
SACD has several copy prevention features at the physical level which, for the moment, appear to make SACD discs impossible to copy without resorting to the analog hole. These include physical pit modulation and 80 bit encryption of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disk that is only readable by a licensed SACD device. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, nor can SACDs be created except by the licensed disc replication facilities in Shizuoka and Salzburg.
Overpriced media that I can't copy or digitally rip, and that is locked in a deadly stranglehold by a tiny cabal of manufacturers? Sign me up!
I own the copy rights to tens of thousands of works. Hey! Here's another one!
I do own several, and make money off my copy rights.
Nice niche! On the other hand, I make money off writing material for paying customers, aka my boss. I and my colleagues outnumber you about 10,000:1.
I do not want to live in a world where there is no copy right law. It would end creativity. No one would write boks, or movies or take pictures of any quality. Why put the time in when you can't make money off it,
...he says while (probably) using an open source browser to send packets over a network built from open source components to an open source web server running an open source web application catering to open source advocates.
so instead I would be forced to do something else to support my family.
Cry me a river. I wish I could make money from reading Dilbert all day, but since society has decided that it doesn't consider that a profitable career, guess I'll have to find more productive employment.
Slashdot Mirror
N00b.
Don't forget the Corn Palace! I drove my family from northeast Nebraska to Rapid City to visit some friends, and the Corn Palace billboards became a running joke: "Only 36 miles to the Corn Palace!", then "Only 34 1/2 miles to the Corn Palace!", etc.
Oh, and same for Wall Drug, except that it was interesting on its own and not for ironic reasons.
any amount of bureaucracy and layers will pay for itself if it prevents a single huge mistake every couple years.
You're conveniently ignoring the opportunity cost of shooting down the occasional single huge success that might otherwise come along. Apple as a bureaucracy: "we're a computer company, not an entertainment company! An MP3 player? Can you imagine how stupid we'd feel if that bombed?"
You described my work environment pretty well, except we're 5:60. We have an internal legacy application maintainer, an internal new application developer, a Windows PC admin, a Windows server admin, and me (web dev, Unix admin, network admin, etc.). We'd be hard pressed to whittle that down.
intensive purposes
"Intents and purposes." Somewhere, an English teacher cries.
Vote machine 1 reads current number of votes: 10
Vote machine 2 reads current number of votes: 10
Voter 1 and Voter 2 both cast their ballots for Obama simultaneously.
Others have pointed out that you don't keep a running tally. But even if you did, say, for summary purposes, that would be:
Vote machine 1 acquires a lock to the counter and reads current number of votes: 10
Vote machine 2 attempts to acquire the lock and is blocked
Vote machine 1 updates the counter and releases its lock
Vote machine 2 gets the lock and continues
At any rate, there is exactly one correct way to handle machine voting: use it as an input device that is capable of printing an official paper ballot flawlessly. Use the machine totals for preliminary results, but use the paper ballots for the certified results. It elimates the whole "butterfly ballot" and "hanging chad" debacle from 2000, and works even if the computers crash.
It means democratvotes gets incremented each three democrat vote.
Read that again, Stroustrup.
Civil disobedience is where we need to be now, to prevent us bleeding-heart liberals from needing to learn how to care for small arms.
Bleeding hearts? I'm about as conservative as it gets, but the idea of either party hijacking an election infuriates me. Maybe next time it'd be a Green supporter who throws an election to the left, or maybe a fascist who only elects hardcore pseudocons - oh, sorry, neocons.
Even if nothing else, if I didn't love democracy and care for the process, I'd still like to know that my guy won by an honest vote. I'd rather lose than win it traitorously.
So it never increments if democratvotes == 0? Give them credit for more subtlety than that.
but they had poll worker shortages last year and might need tech-savvy people to volunteer.
Want to really help? "Accidentally" run over the crate of voting machines, or allow it to fall off a bridge into a deep river. Do democracy a favor and destroy these abominations, you tech-savvy butterfingers!
A false sense of security is worse than a known insecurity.
I agree totally! People incorrectly trust that the certificate for https://www.theirbank.com/ was issued to Their Bank and not a random teenager who forged a letterhead, so we should do away with SSL.
Uh, self-signed certificates are WIDE OPEN to MITM attacks. That's kind of the point here?
You kind of almost (but not quite) have a point, except that you're unfairly targeting self-signed certs. In Firefox, go to Edit : Preferences : Advanced : Encryption : View Certificates. Do you think that every single one of those CAs is totally diligent in verifying identity before issuing certs, has been since the very beginning, and never has or will make mistakes? If not, then that one weak CA is the only thing standing between me and ownership of a certificate issued to "gmail.google.com". Maybe that's less likely and requires more planning than with the self-signed equivalent, but that's just a matter of degree. Either way, I'm now the MITM between you and your GMail account.
Maybe you're not as experienced as you think?
Maybe you're not as paranoid as you should be.
Oh, I agree with that. I just wanted to get across that in some very specific cases, self-signed certs are perfectly reasonable solutions. The OP was basically saying that they're always a bad idea rolled out by cheap or incompetent companies, and that's just not true.
We definitely provide the cert, but many of our users would be unwilling or unable to be walked through installing it. My industry has a pretty low percentage of computer-savvy customers. It's not that they're dumb, but that technical expertise just isn't needed or particularly valued in the industry we serve. We basically outsource a huge chunk of the IT staff they'd otherwise need to do their jobs, and reduce their technical demands to "be able to load our website".
Honestly, almost none of them use HTTPS anyway. It's mainly there for the couple of larger customers who wanted it (and who know how to install certs). Again, a third-party-signed cert just isn't valuable to us. It doesn't provide any benefits over a self-signed cert and costs money we'd rather spend on more interesting things.
Currently the only difference between a self signed cert and a $10 one is that the latter leaves you $10 poorer.
That's exactly why my company doesn't buy them. Our web application is used solely by our paying customers, so we personally know everyone who'll ever see our SSL site. Part of our initial training is telling them to accept our certificate the first time they log in. Given that our same CA cert is also used to sign our Jabber, Postfix, and OpenVPN certs (and anything else we happen to be experimenting with), that $10/host/year adds up quickly. And for what? We're no less secure than if we were paying Verisign.
The run-time cost, and also the hidden errors, because you obviously do not understand why there are types in the first place.
Nice try, son, but I've probably been hacking long than you've been alive. Trust me, I know what types are and why they're good, and also why strongly typed, dynamic languages are so popular right now.
If a program is running too slow, I see if there are algorithmic improvements I can make. Failing that, I replace critical parts with C (or C++). Failing that, we buy more hardware. I am far more expensive than any of the servers we own, and my boss is much more interested in paying me to add new features for our customers than to wring another 2% out of optimized, correct code.
Which in turns means there is something profound about maths and formal logic that you have not yet understood.
Lisp is also dynamically typed, and much beloved by computer scientists everywhere. Apparently there is more to math and formal logic than you've learned so far.
You also claim that raw machine code is ultimately powerful or versatile. This assumes you are capable of producing better assembly than your compiler.
No. It assumes that I am capable of producing more versatile assembly than my compiler. Of that, my friend, I am certain.
Is it hyper-critical that a visitor can only see one of 25 websites, or can you tolerate the idea that maybe one or two users can type in an IP? If you can't live with someone visiting an unapproved site if they're determined and resourceful enough to get around your restrictions, then scrap the whole damn project because you'll be playing whack-a-mole the whole time.
Put another way: you're on a nonprofit's budget. Is this the best way to spend its resources, or would you be better off tolerating the occasional unintended use?
SACDs sound phenomenal compared to vanilla CDs.
Only if you like the sound of silence, which is all you hear when you're on the pro-liberty side of Digital Restrictions Management.
No, copyright is most certainly not an inherent right. It's just a legal construct that the founding fathers thought would be a net win.
You are obligated to accept the terms, or not accept the fruits of their labor.
Oh please. If I like the way you've decorated your yard, then I can decorate mine exactly like it. I don't care how hard you worked to come up with that particular arrangement. If I like it, I can copy it. That's to illustrate the idea that you can most certainly enjoy the fruits of another's labor without their permission. Nothing but the law makes written works a protected class.
Those who support reasonable copyright aren't demanding that you pay money for their work, they're demanding that you either agree to their stipulations, or don't take their work. I fail to see what's particularly unfair about that.
The failure is that it isn't a natural, inherent right. Copyright is something whipped up to encourage artists to add to the public domain. Since Disney et al have stolen (yes, stolen, as in "deprived others of use") their early works from the public domain by paying to have copyright extended perpetually, I can't work up a lot of sympathy for people who take their new stuff without paying.
Basically, as a society, we're telling them to either agree to our stipulations or don't take our protections.
Sadly greed killed off DVD-Audio and SA-CD.
Yep, but you're wrong about which kind of greed:
SACD has several copy prevention features at the physical level which, for the moment, appear to make SACD discs impossible to copy without resorting to the analog hole. These include physical pit modulation and 80 bit encryption of the audio data, with a key encoded on a special area of the disk that is only readable by a licensed SACD device. The HD layer of an SACD disc cannot be played back on computer CD/DVD drives, nor can SACDs be created except by the licensed disc replication facilities in Shizuoka and Salzburg.
Overpriced media that I can't copy or digitally rip, and that is locked in a deadly stranglehold by a tiny cabal of manufacturers? Sign me up!
Somehow, I knew - knew! - that you'd be chiming in on this one.
I know of at least US$20,000 worth of losses due cancelled gigs due to to RIAA paranoia so far.
How'd that happen?
Easy to say when you don't own a copy right.
I own the copy rights to tens of thousands of works. Hey! Here's another one!
I do own several, and make money off my copy rights.
Nice niche! On the other hand, I make money off writing material for paying customers, aka my boss. I and my colleagues outnumber you about 10,000:1.
I do not want to live in a world where there is no copy right law. It would end creativity. No one would write boks, or movies or take pictures of any quality. Why put the time in when you can't make money off it,
...he says while (probably) using an open source browser to send packets over a network built from open source components to an open source web server running an open source web application catering to open source advocates.
so instead I would be forced to do something else to support my family.
Cry me a river. I wish I could make money from reading Dilbert all day, but since society has decided that it doesn't consider that a profitable career, guess I'll have to find more productive employment.
When you have a language like Python, which is defined by a single (very slow) implementation
Which of C Python, PyPy, Jython, or IronPython is the only implementation?