The whole concept of 'security questions' is completely flawed
The whole concept of answering such questions correctly is flawed. Once you're born in Hobbiton and your mothers maiden name is Goose they become quite a bit harder to guess. Such constructed 'alter egos' make the security questions much less dangerous while still maintaining some recovery capacity.
Since when is a set of secondary passwords that you NEVER change and probably share between accounts safe?
Probably more to the point, astrology was the first real stab at a science of psychology. The attribution to "the stars" is of course nonsense (unless you consider seasonal factors that may select for or against various genes that in turn influence personality), but the recognition of a variety of basic personality types is spot-on.
No it's not. Each person exhibits a mixture of traits but attempts to enumerate a list of personality types are hopelessly inadequate. You end up with pseudo-science like Myers Briggs if you go down that path.
Wow, there was an opportunity there to fire up the brain before twitching the fingers.
With a response like that, all I can say is "pot, kettle black".
If you want to read a whole book on the harm that superstition does, read "Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark".
No matter that science and superstition started off as bedfellows in less enlightened times. We've long since outgrown it, and recognised it's danger. At least some of us have.
Seriously. What is so hard about installing an extension? Its one of the 'selling points' of firefox. Its not like you need to open config and play around with the values there or something.
Extensions are for adding optional advanced functionality not everyone needs or expects. I shouldn't need 3-4 extensions just to get sensible behaviour. I'd be happy to play around with default config. The extensions you install also tend to need to be configured.
Astrology is a superstitious hobby of zero scientific merit, but even within its own formulation this article should have no impact on it.
Nah it has plenty of merit. The Astrologers just have their own simplified secret charts. Just one sign: Stupidicus - the sign of the fool and his money easily parted.
Astrology is a superstitious hobby of zero scientific merit
I agree with all of that except the "zero." Astrology makes people interested in astronomy, which is of enormous scientific merit.
On the other hand, Its predictions and arguments have zero scientific merit, and adherence to its principles is evidence of ignorance, stpudity, or fraudulent intent.
That's like saying mass murder is good because it makes people interested in police work. Talk about zero merit.
The AP is perhaps the world's most important news service. Depressingly, the fact that people bought into it is real news.
That's your big problem? You do realise that the "serious" newspapers also print horoscopes don't you? Although I do find it appropriate that they appear alongside financial news (fiction) and celebrity gossip. They all have about the same merit.
Can you imagine how much it'd be worth if it was ad-supported?
Zuck would be Jimbo's bitch.
I'm sure that was in a recent movie? But they broke up didn't they?
Jimmy Whales: I think we should just be friends. Mark Zuckerberg: I don't want friends. Jimmy Whales: I was being polite, I had no intention of being friends with you. As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared. You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole.
What was the movie called again? The Anti-Social Not-Work?
Have you tried contributing lately? More hoops to jump through than a building permit. Chances are what you write will be removed even if you give good references. I use to contribute but I quickly came to the conclusion that I was wasting my time.
And I'm already beyond fixing something that as far as I'm concerned is broken out of the box. I have better things to do than download extensions to make software behave sensibly.
Estonia has used ID cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_ID_card) for some time and I am seriously surprised that more governments are not following the same footsteps. While the cards may introduce new security concerns, imagine the amount of bureaucracy that can be reduced if citizens can pay everything from traffic tickets to taxes using a simple card.
"may introduce new security concerns" huh? The Russian Mob must be drooling. No more having to forge 30 different documents. 1 to crack and you own (or create) someone.
Seriously... I work in the game industry and on one project I worked over 100 hours a week for four months straight.
Should I be rude but honest and tell you that you're both gullible and stupid? Or should I be more diplomatic and tell you that's nothing to boast about?
I'll take an amateur who's willing to learn over a "professional" who thinks he's infallible, any day.
How about 2 amateurs without a clue? 1 who posts idiotic questions he should know the answer to on slashdot, and his boss who is managing something he has no comprehension of?
Apple is the the strict parent that doesn't say they love, but makes sure all of your needs are taken care of. Google is the parent that leaves you the car keys and some cash for pizza, but also may have left the front door open when they left for their vacation.
Are you mad? Apple and Google are commerical companies with leadership that has their own agendas. They aren't your parents, they aren't mythical benevolent creatures, and they aren't your friends. Grow up!
Is it just me or has quality control gone to hell on ALL consumer electronics and software in the last 2-3 years? From hard disks to phones, to....just about everything. It's as if every company's resposne to the GFC was to fire the entire quality control department and skip the test phase.
Our fearless leader armed with secret superweapon force western pig-dogs singlehandledly to restore what is rightfully ours. All praise our fearless leader!
I'll take an amateur who's willing to learn over a "professional" who thinks he's infallible, any day.
How about 2 amateurs that don't know what they're doing? As in a boss who can't manage his staff, and staff that asks obvious stupid questions on slashdot?
Have you ever been in love with an idea? We all love people, of course, but every once in a while we get an idea that is really neat and just might turn out to be important. That is the kind of idea that I got a few years back. Then about a year ago I realized that I should probably put in the effort needed to bring the idea to a reality. What ensued was insanity - I worked not 10 hour days but 14 hour days, 7 days a week for about a year until I was finished. Maybe the poster should make an honest assessment of the IDEA of the company to see if such effort is justified. I found my thrill and now have my finished project that I get to put my name on. Feels good.
Nice story. Whether you wasted that year depends on what the idea was But at least you didn't expect a bunch of people you were paying for 7 hour days to do the same for no benefit to themselves.
Also, it's very very different when you're in the zone and love what you're doing. But even then I would question wether productivity-wise you could have done the same doing 7-8 hour days and still having a life for that year.
The only reason this was posted to Slashdot is to get a large number of opinions from outside the company, so that the OP can shove it in his boss's face.
Why post that as AC? Regardless, how much authority do you think a bunch of slashdot answers explaining that the boss is an out of touch idiot and his employees should desert will have?
Boss is asking his opinion, ergo boss apparently cares enough to not just slam people over the head with his authority-stick. I could think of far worse people to work for. OP should be explaining to him the downsides of the plan, and perhaps suggesting better ways of achieving the desired goal - not pulling the pin and fucking off at the high-port.
No, the boss is a manager of people but does not understand that working them into the ground for a sustained period isn't going to save the company. He is either desperate or stupid or both. In any case a manager of software developers that does not know the answer to this question is an amateur at best and has no business running a company.
The only correct answer as far as I'm concerned. OP is an idiot for even posting the question. Correct response: Start handing around your resume, talking to head hunters and agencies, and old colleagues. Get out ASAP.
Boss is not going to pay more (or he'd be thinking of hiring more people, plus the company's not profitable). Boss is not smart enough to understand that what he's asking will result in lower quality and won't turn around profitability. Boss probably doesn't care about the welfare of the employee.
Same here for quite a while - fortunately Status-4-Evar plugin showed up to remedy that particular ill.
Yeah what's the bet the motherfuckers start blocking extensions when people decide they are standard? Ever since they took away the option to revert from Awfulbar and it started requiring an extension, I don't trust them. They've gone off the rails!
Peter (not so) Bright gives a long winded, read 4 pages of FUD
I come to slashdot for the articles but stay for one-sided submission summaries.
Not that I support Google's move but, come on, this is summary is a troll unto itself.
Yeah, completely unprofessional. But think of the possibilities. Billy Poohead Gates. Steve Monkeyboy Balmer. Steve Head Jobs (not to be confused with Richard Head Stallman). And that's just the start. We could give them all silly immature nicknames and ourselves a big pat on the back. All we need to do is lose some brain cells (alcohol will help with that) and act like 12 year olds (no help required)
Slashdot Mirror
The whole concept of 'security questions' is completely flawed
The whole concept of answering such questions correctly is flawed. Once you're born in Hobbiton and your mothers maiden name is Goose they become quite a bit harder to guess. Such constructed 'alter egos' make the security questions much less dangerous while still maintaining some recovery capacity.
Since when is a set of secondary passwords that you NEVER change and probably share between accounts safe?
You don't own a car? That is probably the "most dangerous" class of item that people own.
Are you married? *ducks for cover from the feminists*
Probably more to the point, astrology was the first real stab at a science of psychology. The attribution to "the stars" is of course nonsense (unless you consider seasonal factors that may select for or against various genes that in turn influence personality), but the recognition of a variety of basic personality types is spot-on.
No it's not. Each person exhibits a mixture of traits but attempts to enumerate a list of personality types are hopelessly inadequate. You end up with pseudo-science like Myers Briggs if you go down that path.
Wow, there was an opportunity there to fire up the brain before twitching the fingers.
With a response like that, all I can say is "pot, kettle black".
If you want to read a whole book on the harm that superstition does, read "Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark".
No matter that science and superstition started off as bedfellows in less enlightened times. We've long since outgrown it, and recognised it's danger. At least some of us have.
Then you're using the wrong browser.
Seriously. What is so hard about installing an extension? Its one of the 'selling points' of firefox. Its not like you need to open config and play around with the values there or something.
Extensions are for adding optional advanced functionality not everyone needs or expects. I shouldn't need 3-4 extensions just to get sensible behaviour. I'd be happy to play around with default config. The extensions you install also tend to need to be configured.
Astrology is a superstitious hobby of zero scientific merit, but even within its own formulation this article should have no impact on it.
Nah it has plenty of merit. The Astrologers just have their own simplified secret charts. Just one sign: Stupidicus - the sign of the fool and his money easily parted.
Astrology is a superstitious hobby of zero scientific merit
I agree with all of that except the "zero." Astrology makes people interested in astronomy, which is of enormous scientific merit.
On the other hand, Its predictions and arguments have zero scientific merit, and adherence to its principles is evidence of ignorance, stpudity, or fraudulent intent.
That's like saying mass murder is good because it makes people interested in police work. Talk about zero merit.
The AP is perhaps the world's most important news service. Depressingly, the fact that people bought into it is real news.
That's your big problem? You do realise that the "serious" newspapers also print horoscopes don't you? Although I do find it appropriate that they appear alongside financial news (fiction) and celebrity gossip. They all have about the same merit.
It said "Maternity Ward"...
Pah, those star sign predictions are never right. I was born under "Women's Hospital" and I was born a boy and I'm not even gay!
That revenue stream is tiny.
Can you imagine how much it'd be worth if it was ad-supported?
Zuck would be Jimbo's bitch.
I'm sure that was in a recent movie? But they broke up didn't they?
Jimmy Whales: I think we should just be friends.
Mark Zuckerberg: I don't want friends.
Jimmy Whales: I was being polite, I had no intention of being friends with you. As if every thought that tumbles through your head was so clever it would be a crime for it not to be shared. You are probably going to be a very successful computer person. But you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole.
What was the movie called again? The Anti-Social Not-Work?
What's stopping you from fixing it?
Have you tried contributing lately? More hoops to jump through than a building permit. Chances are what you write will be removed even if you give good references. I use to contribute but I quickly came to the conclusion that I was wasting my time.
there's already an extension to add the status bar functionality back
And I'm already beyond fixing something that as far as I'm concerned is broken out of the box. I have better things to do than download extensions to make software behave sensibly.
Estonia has used ID cards (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_ID_card) for some time and I am seriously surprised that more governments are not following the same footsteps. While the cards may introduce new security concerns, imagine the amount of bureaucracy that can be reduced if citizens can pay everything from traffic tickets to taxes using a simple card.
"may introduce new security concerns" huh? The Russian Mob must be drooling. No more having to forge 30 different documents. 1 to crack and you own (or create) someone.
Seriously... I work in the game industry and on one project I worked over 100 hours a week for four months straight.
Should I be rude but honest and tell you that you're both gullible and stupid? Or should I be more diplomatic and tell you that's nothing to boast about?
I'll take an amateur who's willing to learn over a "professional" who thinks he's infallible, any day.
How about 2 amateurs without a clue? 1 who posts idiotic questions he should know the answer to on slashdot, and his boss who is managing something he has no comprehension of?
Apple is the the strict parent that doesn't say they love, but makes sure all of your needs are taken care of. Google is the parent that leaves you the car keys and some cash for pizza, but also may have left the front door open when they left for their vacation.
Are you mad? Apple and Google are commerical companies with leadership that has their own agendas. They aren't your parents, they aren't mythical benevolent creatures, and they aren't your friends. Grow up!
Is it just me or has quality control gone to hell on ALL consumer electronics and software in the last 2-3 years? From hard disks to phones, to....just about everything. It's as if every company's resposne to the GFC was to fire the entire quality control department and skip the test phase.
Our fearless leader armed with secret superweapon force western pig-dogs singlehandledly to restore what is rightfully ours. All praise our fearless leader!
I'll take an amateur who's willing to learn over a "professional" who thinks he's infallible, any day.
How about 2 amateurs that don't know what they're doing? As in a boss who can't manage his staff, and staff that asks obvious stupid questions on slashdot?
Have you ever been in love with an idea? We all love people, of course, but every once in a while we get an idea that is really neat and just might turn out to be important. That is the kind of idea that I got a few years back. Then about a year ago I realized that I should probably put in the effort needed to bring the idea to a reality. What ensued was insanity - I worked not 10 hour days but 14 hour days, 7 days a week for about a year until I was finished. Maybe the poster should make an honest assessment of the IDEA of the company to see if such effort is justified. I found my thrill and now have my finished project that I get to put my name on. Feels good.
Nice story. Whether you wasted that year depends on what the idea was But at least you didn't expect a bunch of people you were paying for 7 hour days to do the same for no benefit to themselves.
Also, it's very very different when you're in the zone and love what you're doing. But even then I would question wether productivity-wise you could have done the same doing 7-8 hour days and still having a life for that year.
The only reason this was posted to Slashdot is to get a large number of opinions from outside the company, so that the OP can shove it in his boss's face.
Why post that as AC? Regardless, how much authority do you think a bunch of slashdot answers explaining that the boss is an out of touch idiot and his employees should desert will have?
Boss is asking his opinion, ergo boss apparently cares enough to not just slam people over the head with his authority-stick. I could think of far worse people to work for. OP should be explaining to him the downsides of the plan, and perhaps suggesting better ways of achieving the desired goal - not pulling the pin and fucking off at the high-port.
No, the boss is a manager of people but does not understand that working them into the ground for a sustained period isn't going to save the company. He is either desperate or stupid or both. In any case a manager of software developers that does not know the answer to this question is an amateur at best and has no business running a company.
'Nuff said!
The only correct answer as far as I'm concerned. OP is an idiot for even posting the question. Correct response: Start handing around your resume, talking to head hunters and agencies, and old colleagues. Get out ASAP.
Boss is not going to pay more (or he'd be thinking of hiring more people, plus the company's not profitable). Boss is not smart enough to understand that what he's asking will result in lower quality and won't turn around profitability. Boss probably doesn't care about the welfare of the employee.
Sounds like OP is in a sinking ship.
That's a show stopper for me.
Same here for quite a while - fortunately Status-4-Evar plugin showed up to remedy that particular ill.
Yeah what's the bet the motherfuckers start blocking extensions when people decide they are standard? Ever since they took away the option to revert from Awfulbar and it started requiring an extension, I don't trust them. They've gone off the rails!
Peter (not so) Bright gives a long winded, read 4 pages of
FUD
I come to slashdot for the articles but stay for one-sided
submission summaries.
Not that I support Google's move but, come on, this is summary is a
troll unto itself.
Yeah, completely unprofessional. But think of the possibilities. Billy Poohead Gates. Steve Monkeyboy Balmer. Steve Head Jobs (not to be confused with Richard Head Stallman). And that's just the start. We could give them all silly immature nicknames and ourselves a big pat on the back. All we need to do is lose some brain cells (alcohol will help with that) and act like 12 year olds (no help required)