Iron!! LOL!!
Take Chromium source code
Change all instances of "Chromium" to "Iron"
Disable three user-configurable options and remove from the Options menu
Modify source code comments (to try and hide how little was changed)
PROFIT!!
Adobe either doesn't hire qualified programmers or somehow manages to thwart any from getting work done properly. I'm not sure what exactly the problem is, whether there's too much interference from people without foundation or perhaps they just don't provide the resources to do it correctly in the first place.
Adobe's big applications (Photoshop, Premier, etc) are quite good. The problem with Adobe PDF is not a lack of resources, skill or competence on the part of Adobe programmers. The problem is that a PDF reader/creator should be a small simple program, but some pointy haired boss somewhere constantly demands the addition of more and more "features" that are inappropriate, make the program ridiculously bloated and frequently lead to numerous sercurity flaws.
If you clean up redundant text in an article, people revert you because they were in love with the sentence they wrote, and want it to stay in the article.
Your example perfectly illustrates one of the biggest problems. You say the text you modifed is "redundant". You are you? What makes you right and them wrong? Maybe the text was fine as written and you lack the intelligence to appreciate it. Or maybe the original author was an idiot who has no ability to write coherently. Who decides which one is correct? You? Me? The Easter Bunny?
Einstein put it like this: the gravitational force we experience on Earth is identical to the force we would experience were we sitting in a spaceship accelerating at 1g.
1g is a measurement we made up. Since we define it as being equal to the gravity we normally feel, then yes, the gravity we feel on earth is the same as a spaceship accelerating at 1g.
At the single biggest security problem at the place were I work. We tried disabling it, but we had too many problems of people putting in flash drives or cd and the stupid flash based window not popping up like it did "on their home computer" and that "their computer was broken."
So your employees are too stupid/lazy to learn how to use a computer. Either train them or fire them.
I don't think anyone can ever take Russia seriously, especially after the Buran [wikipedia.org]. That catastrophic joke of a space program solidified Russia's standing as the nation of no innovative or original thought whatsoever.
Even the hangar that housed it was a poorly engineered disaster that was waiting to happen (and eventually did).
The Russian government may be totally incompetent - but I think this is exactly the point the author was making in his article. It isn't the Russian government that's the problem -- it's the Russian hackers who are very good at what they do and who are working independently of the government, with the government's tacit approval.
To be classified as Top Secret, the release of that information must cause imminent, serious harm to the United States and/or its allies and assets.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Classifying something as "Top Secet" simply requires some low level beaurocrat to slap a "Top Secret" stamp on a document.
A few years ago, the Air Force released a bunch of documents that had previously been classified as secret, concerning activities around Roswell, New Mexico in the late 1940's. The reason for releasing these documents was to dispel rumors about a UFO crash in that area and say "this is what people really saw". As I read through some of them I was amazed by the fact that these activities were very boring, mundane things that couldn't possibly pose any danger anyone is they were publicly known. And that's the real point here. The U.S. government - especially the military - routinely classifies millions of documents as "Top Secret" under the pretense of "National Security" when in truth, the real reason is:
Cover up embarrassing mistakes
Cover up activities that are illegal or unethical
Cover up activities that might be disapproved of by a substantial portion of the people
General paranoia
For a long time I've been wondering "why do we need phone books?". Other than occasionally looking up the number of a business in the Yellow Pages, I have never used the phone book to find somebody's phone number (and I'm probably a lot older than the average Slashdot reader). I already know the phone numbers of my friends and relatives, so why do I need the numbers of a hundred thousand strangers? Then there's people with unlisted phone numbers and cell phones, none of which are listed in any phone book.
Don't worry about Grandma, she has all the phone numbers she need written on bits of paper, stuck to the front of the refrigerator.
Problems like this are common because reader and flash are ubiquitous,
No, problems like this are common because companies keep cramming more and more unnecessary crap into their software. From the article:
In the absence of a patch, Adobe recommends deleting, renaming, or removing access to the authplay.dll file that ships with Adobe Reader and Acrobat 9.x. This will mitigate the threat but users will experience a non-exploitable crash or error message when opening a PDF file that contains SWF content.
Why do you need "SWF content" in a PDF file? And then there was the story from a couple months ago about the ability to embed executable commands in a PDF file, and it it isn't a flaw - it's a feature built into the PDF spec. Sloppy programming combined with more and more crap that doesn't belong, guarantees that these problems will keep showing up.
why do the moderate muslims not see that all eyes are on them?
if the crazies in the muslim world are to be counteracted, its not going to be by the us military, that's completely ineffective, as this is a war of ideas. the only tool against islamic wackjobs is... moderate muslims
What is a "moderate Muslim"? Is that like a moderate Communist? Many many years ago I was talking to a person who was telling me how wonderful communism was. I said to him "Look at China and the Soviet Union. How can you say communism is good?"
His reply was "Oh no... that's not true communism".
Well, true communism or not, that's how it is practiced in every communist country in the world. And the same is true of Islam. There is no country where Islam is the dominant religion and where there is freedom of speech codified in law and where you can criticize Islam or Mohammed without suffering serious consequences... possibly death.
You can try to claim that the problem is just a few "crazies" but that's false. The "crazies" are Islam.
Lauren Rosenberg sought directions between two addresses in Utah about 3 kilometers apart and the top result suggested that she follow a busy rural highway for several hundred meters.
Then again, MySpace did have a userbase comparable to Facebook. And yet it seems to have gone from being the the place to be to "are you still on myspace?" in a very short space of time.
If social networks function in the same way as (say) eBay, then you'd be right. In that case the size of the user base is itself a resource that draws in more users. But suppose there's a different dynamic at work. Suppose it functions like a fashion accessory. Then users could prove a lot more fickle that you'd expect.
Social networking is very much a fad, like a "fashion accessory".
Geocities --> Yahoo --> Live Journal --> My Space
At one time, each one of these was very popular. It was "the place to be". Then the popularity died out as people moved on to the "the next big thing". Facebook is currently "the place to be" but the last 10 years suggests that it won't last.
Your math is wrong, let me help you:
500,000 jobs x $13,000 for Indian workers = $650,000,000 in wages.
$51,000,000,000 - $650,000,000 = $50,350,000,000 in dividends for shareholders and bonuses for executives
Sorry, but the math is still wrong.
First, the actual amount of money lost by the software industry is very close to zero. As in ZIP ZILPH NADA NOTHING. This is because piracy does not equal lost revenue:
1 - There is no software so important that you can't live without it (this also applies to movies, music, etc)
2 - A substantial portion of the population will never buy your product. Never. If they can get it for free they will take it, but otherwise they will simply do without it (see number 1)
3 - Because of points 1 and 2, uncrackable DRM/Copy Protection would produce no significant increase in revenue -- certainly nowhere near the absurd number claimed by the BSA.
Second, even if you eradicated piracy and the software industry really did realize increased revenue of $500 Gazillion dollars (US), the number of jobs created would be very close to zero. We're not manufacturing widgets here. If sales of Photoshop increase sharply they don't need to hire more programmers.
Don't forget about Opera. As Firefox and Chrome become bloated, there is an alternative.
The problem isn't "bloat". I don't find Firefox or Chrome to be "bloated". You can have a small fast program with a really sucky user interface -- like Chrome for example. History in Chrome is useless -- it only shows the website, not the actual page you visited within the website, making search impossible. You have to run Chrome with a special command line switch to get a bookmark toolbar. Sorry, but bookmarks are a key essential feature of a browser. And the list goes on and on....
I don't expect Chrome to be just like Firefox. I can handle different. I can't handle inferior. Speed isn't everything. Speed without function isn't very useful.
the most striking change to Firefox 4 is the user interface, which takes a great deal of inspiration from Google Chrome.
Great. That means I will be staying with the current version of Firefox for a long time. I just tried Chrome a few days ago and the user interface totally sucks. What is is with these people who have to fuck up a good design just so they can make it different and justify a new version number.
"Lost sales are impossible to measure accurately because they are a hypothetical scenario: "What if the game couldn't be pirated, what would have happened?" Nobody can answer that question."
We can't answer with 100% accuracy, but we can come really really close. There's a certain percentage of people who are never going to buy a particular product. Never. If they can get it for free they will take it, otherwise they will simply do without it. The amount of sales lost to "piracy" is very close to zero.
Facebook is like a friend that can't keep his mouth shut. Don't tell him EVERYTHING
Wrong. Don't tell him ANYTHING. Facebook, MySpace and all the other "social networking" crap is utterly useless, except for those people trolling through the data (advertisers, identity thieves, etc). You would be surprised how just a tiny bit of seemly unimportant information can be added together with hundreds of bits of other seemingly unimportant information to reveal a whole lot more than you want to be revealed.
Somebody had the bright idea that people would want every purchase they ever made available to their friends. Like you, I consider this idea demented, though it wouldn't surprise me if there were a lot of people who would find it kind of cool.
The idea behind Blippy, as best as I can figure, is that your friends can see all the cool stuff you buy and then leave comments telling you how cool you are. However, if you look at Blippy, what you actually see is an endless list of Taco Bell, Wendys, Exxon, Trader Joes and other mundane purchases. The truth is, the average person doesn't buy a lot of cool stuff.
What is more amazing than the existence of Blippy, is the fact that Blippy has obtained more than $12 million in VC money, despite the fact that they currently have no way of generating any revenue. It's almost like the dotcom bust of 10 years ago never happened.
"Microsoft discovered the problems occurred on machines infected with the Alureon rootkit"
There are many reasons to hate Microsoft, and their QA failure when it comes to security is certainnly one of them. However, the spread of rootkits, viruses and other malware is primarily caused by user stupidity, something that is not Microsoft's fault. In the early days of personal computers I took the time to learn how things worked. If you're having the problem described in this article then you can wipe your hard drive and re-install Windows. If you don't know how to do this, then maybe it's time you learned. If you're not willing to learn, then do the rest of the world a favor and throw your computer out the nearest window.
"2.30 will probably be the final version of the 2.0 series"
I've noticed that open source software generally seems to be more hung-up and obsessed with version numbers than proprietary software. For example Linus Torvalds has said that there will never be a version 3.0 of the Linux kernel. So I guess 2.9.99.99.999 will be the end of the line.
I don't get the big hang-up with version numbers. Who cares if it is 2.30 or 3.0? My current nVidia video driver for Windows is 196.21 -- as long as it works, who cares?
Slashdot Mirror
Iron!! LOL!! Take Chromium source code Change all instances of "Chromium" to "Iron" Disable three user-configurable options and remove from the Options menu Modify source code comments (to try and hide how little was changed) PROFIT!!
Adobe's big applications (Photoshop, Premier, etc) are quite good. The problem with Adobe PDF is not a lack of resources, skill or competence on the part of Adobe programmers. The problem is that a PDF reader/creator should be a small simple program, but some pointy haired boss somewhere constantly demands the addition of more and more "features" that are inappropriate, make the program ridiculously bloated and frequently lead to numerous sercurity flaws.
So Google has written their own PDF plugin that's even crappier than Adobe's. What exactly is the point of this?
Your example perfectly illustrates one of the biggest problems. You say the text you modifed is "redundant". You are you? What makes you right and them wrong? Maybe the text was fine as written and you lack the intelligence to appreciate it. Or maybe the original author was an idiot who has no ability to write coherently. Who decides which one is correct? You? Me? The Easter Bunny?
1g is a measurement we made up. Since we define it as being equal to the gravity we normally feel, then yes, the gravity we feel on earth is the same as a spaceship accelerating at 1g.
I'm no Einstein, but, DUH!!
So your employees are too stupid/lazy to learn how to use a computer. Either train them or fire them.
Why isn't the memory card formatted and completely blank?
No, companies should stop selling memory cards with unnecessary crap installed.
The Russian government may be totally incompetent - but I think this is exactly the point the author was making in his article. It isn't the Russian government that's the problem -- it's the Russian hackers who are very good at what they do and who are working independently of the government, with the government's tacit approval.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Classifying something as "Top Secet" simply requires some low level beaurocrat to slap a "Top Secret" stamp on a document.
A few years ago, the Air Force released a bunch of documents that had previously been classified as secret, concerning activities around Roswell, New Mexico in the late 1940's. The reason for releasing these documents was to dispel rumors about a UFO crash in that area and say "this is what people really saw". As I read through some of them I was amazed by the fact that these activities were very boring, mundane things that couldn't possibly pose any danger anyone is they were publicly known. And that's the real point here. The U.S. government - especially the military - routinely classifies millions of documents as "Top Secret" under the pretense of "National Security" when in truth, the real reason is:
Cover up embarrassing mistakes
Cover up activities that are illegal or unethical
Cover up activities that might be disapproved of by a substantial portion of the people
General paranoia
For a long time I've been wondering "why do we need phone books?". Other than occasionally looking up the number of a business in the Yellow Pages, I have never used the phone book to find somebody's phone number (and I'm probably a lot older than the average Slashdot reader). I already know the phone numbers of my friends and relatives, so why do I need the numbers of a hundred thousand strangers? Then there's people with unlisted phone numbers and cell phones, none of which are listed in any phone book.
Don't worry about Grandma, she has all the phone numbers she need written on bits of paper, stuck to the front of the refrigerator.
No, problems like this are common because companies keep cramming more and more unnecessary crap into their software. From the article:
Why do you need "SWF content" in a PDF file? And then there was the story from a couple months ago about the ability to embed executable commands in a PDF file, and it it isn't a flaw - it's a feature built into the PDF spec. Sloppy programming combined with more and more crap that doesn't belong, guarantees that these problems will keep showing up.
LOL
What is a "moderate Muslim"? Is that like a moderate Communist? Many many years ago I was talking to a person who was telling me how wonderful communism was. I said to him "Look at China and the Soviet Union. How can you say communism is good?"
... that's not true communism".
... possibly death.
His reply was "Oh no
Well, true communism or not, that's how it is practiced in every communist country in the world. And the same is true of Islam. There is no country where Islam is the dominant religion and where there is freedom of speech codified in law and where you can criticize Islam or Mohammed without suffering serious consequences
You can try to claim that the problem is just a few "crazies" but that's false. The "crazies" are Islam.
There are no kilometers in Utah.
I thought that tranny's name was RuPaul.
Social networking is very much a fad, like a "fashion accessory".
Geocities --> Yahoo --> Live Journal --> My Space
At one time, each one of these was very popular. It was "the place to be". Then the popularity died out as people moved on to the "the next big thing". Facebook is currently "the place to be" but the last 10 years suggests that it won't last.
Sorry, but the math is still wrong.
First, the actual amount of money lost by the software industry is very close to zero. As in ZIP ZILPH NADA NOTHING. This is because piracy does not equal lost revenue:
1 - There is no software so important that you can't live without it (this also applies to movies, music, etc)
2 - A substantial portion of the population will never buy your product. Never. If they can get it for free they will take it, but otherwise they will simply do without it (see number 1)
3 - Because of points 1 and 2, uncrackable DRM/Copy Protection would produce no significant increase in revenue -- certainly nowhere near the absurd number claimed by the BSA.
Second, even if you eradicated piracy and the software industry really did realize increased revenue of $500 Gazillion dollars (US), the number of jobs created would be very close to zero. We're not manufacturing widgets here. If sales of Photoshop increase sharply they don't need to hire more programmers.
The problem isn't "bloat". I don't find Firefox or Chrome to be "bloated". You can have a small fast program with a really sucky user interface -- like Chrome for example. History in Chrome is useless -- it only shows the website, not the actual page you visited within the website, making search impossible. You have to run Chrome with a special command line switch to get a bookmark toolbar. Sorry, but bookmarks are a key essential feature of a browser. And the list goes on and on ....
I don't expect Chrome to be just like Firefox. I can handle different. I can't handle inferior. Speed isn't everything. Speed without function isn't very useful.
Great. That means I will be staying with the current version of Firefox for a long time. I just tried Chrome a few days ago and the user interface totally sucks. What is is with these people who have to fuck up a good design just so they can make it different and justify a new version number.
We can't answer with 100% accuracy, but we can come really really close. There's a certain percentage of people who are never going to buy a particular product. Never. If they can get it for free they will take it, otherwise they will simply do without it. The amount of sales lost to "piracy" is very close to zero.
Wrong. Don't tell him ANYTHING. Facebook, MySpace and all the other "social networking" crap is utterly useless, except for those people trolling through the data (advertisers, identity thieves, etc). You would be surprised how just a tiny bit of seemly unimportant information can be added together with hundreds of bits of other seemingly unimportant information to reveal a whole lot more than you want to be revealed.
The idea behind Blippy, as best as I can figure, is that your friends can see all the cool stuff you buy and then leave comments telling you how cool you are. However, if you look at Blippy, what you actually see is an endless list of Taco Bell, Wendys, Exxon, Trader Joes and other mundane purchases. The truth is, the average person doesn't buy a lot of cool stuff.
What is more amazing than the existence of Blippy, is the fact that Blippy has obtained more than $12 million in VC money, despite the fact that they currently have no way of generating any revenue. It's almost like the dotcom bust of 10 years ago never happened.
"Microsoft discovered the problems occurred on machines infected with the Alureon rootkit"
There are many reasons to hate Microsoft, and their QA failure when it comes to security is certainnly one of them. However, the spread of rootkits, viruses and other malware is primarily caused by user stupidity, something that is not Microsoft's fault. In the early days of personal computers I took the time to learn how things worked. If you're having the problem described in this article then you can wipe your hard drive and re-install Windows. If you don't know how to do this, then maybe it's time you learned. If you're not willing to learn, then do the rest of the world a favor and throw your computer out the nearest window.
"why should something that is easily remedied with technology be a concern of government?"
Easily remedied with techology? You're kidding right? If spam can be "easily remedied with technology" then why hasn't it been eradicated already?
"2.30 will probably be the final version of the 2.0 series"
I've noticed that open source software generally seems to be more hung-up and obsessed with version numbers than proprietary software. For example Linus Torvalds has said that there will never be a version 3.0 of the Linux kernel. So I guess 2.9.99.99.999 will be the end of the line.
I don't get the big hang-up with version numbers. Who cares if it is 2.30 or 3.0? My current nVidia video driver for Windows is 196.21 -- as long as it works, who cares?