The submitter referenced Bush and the NSA's spying as reason for using encrypted email
True, but that's merely the last straw, as it were. It's been said that e-mail should more accurately be called "e-postcard" since anyone can snoop it. Do I have something to hide? Well, not really, at least not at the present time. But the point is that it's none of the government's freakin' business what email I'm sending (unless they can get a warrant... which seems to be too much trouble for this administration)
Despite the wording of the submission, this isn't really a political submission so much as an admission of the network effect on encrypted email: it does me no good unless a significant number of my contacts can also deal with the encryption. So how do we get the ball rolling?
(There are other notable benefits, not least of which is that if all (or at least most) of your regular contacts are using encrypted email, spam gets a lot easier to filter. (Unless the spammers start encrypting their email too, which seems unlikely...))
Back in May of this year, the news broke regarding FBI documents obtained by the ACLU revealing domestic surveillance of political activist groups (environmental, animal rights, peace and social justice groups, etc.).
Is there any valid technical reason, or do the authors simply think that HTML email is a Bad Idea?
(I happen to agree with other posters that using "limited" HTML is a reasonable way to achieve email with styled text. Sometimes it's nice to be able to emphasize a point, you know?)
The point is not that I need to encrypt emails to my Mom. (Though her recipe for buttermilk pie is really excellent and I can see why you might want to intercept that.)
The point is that unencrypted email is really more of an e-postcard -- anyone can read it, and it's none of their goddamned business what my mail is.
I've never used a parallel port in the nearly 20 years I've been in this industry. Never. Not once. I realize there are printers out there still using them (and dongles and such too probably), but geez, get a USB adapter or something!
My company recently got me a new IBM T43p laptop, which is excellent on the whole... except for the freakin' parallel port on the back that takes up a HUGE amount of space! To add insult to injury, there's no space for a DVI port (which you have to buy their docking station to get).
What I don't get is, if there really is such a demand for them, can't someone at least come up with a "mini-parallel" port that isn't the size of a DB25? Then include a small adapter that people can use for it. But holy crap, devoting that much real estate on a laptop to something that most people never use anymore...
Thanks to the responders who corrected me... my brain thought "static" and my fingers typed "strong". (I think my brain is nearly done for the year...)
I'll probably be flamed for suggesting a non-free, Flash-oriented solution on Slashdot, but...
Check out Macromedia Flex 2 (errr, I guess now it's "Adobe Flex 2"), currently available as a free alpha release
It's based around the (free) Eclipse IDE, and satisfies your requirements:
-- great look & feel -- well-suited to pulling info from the web (think weather & news) -- usable on the Linux and perhaps Mac OS X platforms as well as Windows (basically, anywhere Flash Player runs) -- standards-based to some extent, believe it or not: ActionScript 3 is essentially identical to EcmaScript 4
the injuries are largely because of the armor (added weight), not in spite of it
I call BS. If this had even a grain of accuracy, the NFL Player's Union would be screaming to reduce protective gear requirements -- way too many players stand to lose way too much money from injuries as it is. Anything that would improve their odds of another 7-figure paycheck would be promoted out the wazoo.
While it's true that I know mostly geeks, all of them use FlashBlock, without exception.
Well, we're both hopelessly anecdotal on evidence here, as I don't know anyone who does.
Question: is there any way to gather real percentages here? (ie, is there any way to 'sniff' the extensions installed in Firefox?)
But even then, I don't see how that's relevant. If it fails in such a major way for any real percentage of users, then it's flawed. It claims to have a graceful fallback (no flash = normal text), but it doesn't have such a fallback in a relatively common case.
Well, once again, we don't know what 'common' is, as AFAIK no one has stated *any* real data on the percentage of users running Flash Blockers of various sorts. (There is well-established data that something like 98% of web users are running with the Flash plugin installed... don't have a link handy, but it's easy to find.) I don't want to be deliberately argumentative, but gimme a hard number. What percentage of people are using FlashBlock... are we talking 10%? 1%? 0.1? Less?
To be perverse about it, what if I installed a GreaseMonkey script that blocked all images? A lot of sites would 'fail' for me too, without a graceful fallback.
As for me, I'd immediately leave any site that popped up half a dozen flash boxes on my screen as it seems like it's an ad-ridden hell hole. Not a good impression to give to the people who use the web the most and don't mind telling others about it.
Well, yeah, so would I. But I've never encountered such a situation.
Yes, so one needs to be created. There have been several proposals. Pick one of the standards and get one of the browsers to implement it.
No argument there, but as I pointed out in another comment, even if the proposal was agreed upon *today* and bug-free implementations of it were added to all major browsers *tomorrow*, it would be *years* before there would be enough market penetration of it for major websites to rely on it.
Which is not to say that such an effort isn't worthwhile -- merely that this is a solution that works *today* for -- literally -- 98% of web users.
So what it sounds like to me is that you need an easy way for a user to download and use your font. There's got to be a better way than using a Flash app.
There should be, but there isn't.
Yes, it's true that it fails for people using FlashBlock. As a practical matter, though, what percentage of mainstream (ie non-/.) web surfers use it?
Basically, IE4 and IE5 for Windows had various levels of bugs and flakiness (including crashes) in their PNG support.
I don't know what current market percentages are for these, but my understanding is that IE5 (at least) is still prevalent enough that major sites must plan for it. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
> Text selection does not obey any of the standard text selection behaviours for my platform:
I guess I don't understand why this isn't a trivial issue.
I mean, sure, for a text *editor* these would be real and major objections.
But we're not talking about a text *editor*. We're talking about a *browser*.
The only thing I ever use selection for is copy-and-paste out. (And that's usually with select-all rather than mouse clicking.) I realize my workflow doesn't match everyone's, but c'mon....
It's certainly possible to add functionality to CSS to do this, but it will be years before enough people are using browsers that support this for mainstream sites to rely on it. sIFR is certainly not perfect, but allows a surprisingly workable solution for 98% of web users right now.
The knee-jerk reaction of some people whenever they see Flash is that it must be inaccessible because it's Flash. What we've done with sIFR, however, is turn that model completely on its head. Your (X)HTML document is still the exact same document it was before sIFR kicked in. Your code is untouched and sIFR is completely abstracted to the javascript layer; therefore, your accessibility, your search engine friendliness, and your semantics are the same as they were before the day you decided you like nice fonts.
.. my site wouldn't get indexed properly by my favorite search engine
*ahem*
RTFA:
The knee-jerk reaction of some people whenever they see Flash is that it must be inaccessible because it's Flash. What we've done with sIFR, however, is turn that model completely on its head. Your (X)HTML document is still the exact same document it was before sIFR kicked in. Your code is untouched and sIFR is completely abstracted to the javascript layer; therefore, your accessibility, your search engine friendliness, and your semantics are the same as they were before the day you decided you like nice fonts.
Slashdot Mirror
If I'm ever suspected of a crime, I expect due process of law to be followed.
If they present me with a warrant, I'll be happy to give 'em my decryption key. (Well, maybe not *happy* about it...)
And sending personal notes in envelopes -- rather than as postcards -- might also make me look like I'm trying to hide something.
I don't care if these fuckwits think it looks suspicious or not.
To borrow a phrase...
First they came for the people using encrypted email and I did not speak out because I wasn't using encrypted email.
The submitter referenced Bush and the NSA's spying as reason for using encrypted email
True, but that's merely the last straw, as it were. It's been said that e-mail should more accurately be called "e-postcard" since anyone can snoop it. Do I have something to hide? Well, not really, at least not at the present time. But the point is that it's none of the government's freakin' business what email I'm sending (unless they can get a warrant... which seems to be too much trouble for this administration)
Despite the wording of the submission, this isn't really a political submission so much as an admission of the network effect on encrypted email: it does me no good unless a significant number of my contacts can also deal with the encryption. So how do we get the ball rolling?
(There are other notable benefits, not least of which is that if all (or at least most) of your regular contacts are using encrypted email, spam gets a lot easier to filter. (Unless the spammers start encrypting their email too, which seems unlikely...))
Yep, but they have to *want* to open *my* envelope.
/ 0642
It's true, I don't have anything to hide at the present time. But who knows when they might decide that I'm a target?
e.g.:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/20/9408
Back in May of this year, the news broke regarding FBI documents obtained by the ACLU revealing domestic surveillance of political activist groups (environmental, animal rights, peace and social justice groups, etc.).
That seems like an odd limitation.
Is there any valid technical reason, or do the authors simply think that HTML email is a Bad Idea?
(I happen to agree with other posters that using "limited" HTML is a reasonable way to achieve email with styled text. Sometimes it's nice to be able to emphasize a point, you know?)
This is the route I took, but trying to convince others that it was worthwhile was another story.
Yeah, this is real problem.
What we really need is for email providers to step up and make encrypted email the default.
What would it take for this to be built in to Thunderbird default installs in the future, I wonder?
The point is not that I need to encrypt emails to my Mom. (Though her recipe for buttermilk pie is really excellent and I can see why you might want to intercept that.)
The point is that unencrypted email is really more of an e-postcard -- anyone can read it, and it's none of their goddamned business what my mail is.
Don't like it? Vote for a non-fascist next time.
I did (along with the majority of US voters)... alas, it didn't seem to matter.
I've never used a parallel port in the nearly 20 years I've been in this industry. Never. Not once. I realize there are printers out there still using them (and dongles and such too probably), but geez, get a USB adapter or something!
My company recently got me a new IBM T43p laptop, which is excellent on the whole... except for the freakin' parallel port on the back that takes up a HUGE amount of space! To add insult to injury, there's no space for a DVI port (which you have to buy their docking station to get).
What I don't get is, if there really is such a demand for them, can't someone at least come up with a "mini-parallel" port that isn't the size of a DB25? Then include a small adapter that people can use for it. But holy crap, devoting that much real estate on a laptop to something that most people never use anymore...
Thanks to the responders who corrected me... my brain thought "static" and my fingers typed "strong". (I think my brain is nearly done for the year...)
However, on projects where there are multiple developers and maintainers, is dynamic typing a hindrance?
In my experience (with JavaScript/ActionScript, not Python): yes. Your mileage may vary.
I suppose it comes down to if you document thoroughly what comes in and out of a function/class. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Hey, I've got an idea! We could have the compiler actually check to ensure that the documentation for argument types is present.
And for bonus points, it could also check to make sure that the types used match the comments.
We could call this, oh, I dunno, "strong typing"...
Seems to me this guy is way more about self-promotion than anything else.
I'll probably be flamed for suggesting a non-free, Flash-oriented solution on Slashdot, but...
Check out Macromedia Flex 2 (errr, I guess now it's "Adobe Flex 2"), currently available as a free alpha release
It's based around the (free) Eclipse IDE, and satisfies your requirements:
-- great look & feel
-- well-suited to pulling info from the web (think weather & news)
-- usable on the Linux and perhaps Mac OS X platforms as well as Windows (basically, anywhere Flash Player runs)
-- standards-based to some extent, believe it or not: ActionScript 3 is essentially identical to EcmaScript 4
"Home of the phrase that started it all, "Superman is a dick." Witness an ever growing selection of examples of Superman acting like... well, a dick."
http://www.superdickery.com/dick/1.html
Yep.
And Intel should provide us an entire OS and suite of applications for free when we buy their CPUs!
(Oh, wait, I'm on Slashdot... I guess the implied sarcasm will be greeted with a "duh, yeah" look...)
the injuries are largely because of the armor (added weight), not in spite of it
I call BS. If this had even a grain of accuracy, the NFL Player's Union would be screaming to reduce protective gear requirements -- way too many players stand to lose way too much money from injuries as it is. Anything that would improve their odds of another 7-figure paycheck would be promoted out the wazoo.
While it's true that I know mostly geeks, all of them use FlashBlock, without exception.
Well, we're both hopelessly anecdotal on evidence here, as I don't know anyone who does.
Question: is there any way to gather real percentages here? (ie, is there any way to 'sniff' the extensions installed in Firefox?)
But even then, I don't see how that's relevant. If it fails in such a major way for any real percentage of users, then it's flawed. It claims to have a graceful fallback (no flash = normal text), but it doesn't have such a fallback in a relatively common case.
Well, once again, we don't know what 'common' is, as AFAIK no one has stated *any* real data on the percentage of users running Flash Blockers of various sorts. (There is well-established data that something like 98% of web users are running with the Flash plugin installed... don't have a link handy, but it's easy to find.) I don't want to be deliberately argumentative, but gimme a hard number. What percentage of people are using FlashBlock... are we talking 10%? 1%? 0.1? Less?
To be perverse about it, what if I installed a GreaseMonkey script that blocked all images? A lot of sites would 'fail' for me too, without a graceful fallback.
As for me, I'd immediately leave any site that popped up half a dozen flash boxes on my screen as it seems like it's an ad-ridden hell hole. Not a good impression to give to the people who use the web the most and don't mind telling others about it.
Well, yeah, so would I. But I've never encountered such a situation.
Yes, so one needs to be created. There have been several proposals. Pick one of the standards and get one of the browsers to implement it.
No argument there, but as I pointed out in another comment, even if the proposal was agreed upon *today* and bug-free implementations of it were added to all major browsers *tomorrow*, it would be *years* before there would be enough market penetration of it for major websites to rely on it.
Which is not to say that such an effort isn't worthwhile -- merely that this is a solution that works *today* for -- literally -- 98% of web users.
So what it sounds like to me is that you need an easy way for a user to download and use your font. There's got to be a better way than using a Flash app.
There should be, but there isn't.
Yes, it's true that it fails for people using FlashBlock. As a practical matter, though, what percentage of mainstream (ie non-/.) web surfers use it?
http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/pngapbr.html
Basically, IE4 and IE5 for Windows had various levels of bugs and flakiness (including crashes) in their PNG support.
I don't know what current market percentages are for these, but my understanding is that IE5 (at least) is still prevalent enough that major sites must plan for it. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)
> Text selection does not obey any of the standard text selection behaviours for my platform:
I guess I don't understand why this isn't a trivial issue.
I mean, sure, for a text *editor* these would be real and major objections.
But we're not talking about a text *editor*. We're talking about a *browser*.
The only thing I ever use selection for is copy-and-paste out. (And that's usually with select-all rather than mouse clicking.) I realize my workflow doesn't match everyone's, but c'mon....
It's certainly possible to add functionality to CSS to do this, but it will be years before enough people are using browsers that support this for mainstream sites to rely on it. sIFR is certainly not perfect, but allows a surprisingly workable solution for 98% of web users right now.
RTFA:
The knee-jerk reaction of some people whenever they see Flash is that it must be inaccessible because it's Flash. What we've done with sIFR, however, is turn that model completely on its head. Your (X)HTML document is still the exact same document it was before sIFR kicked in. Your code is untouched and sIFR is completely abstracted to the javascript layer; therefore, your accessibility, your search engine friendliness, and your semantics are the same as they were before the day you decided you like nice fonts.
.. my site wouldn't get indexed properly by my favorite search engine
*ahem*
RTFA:
The knee-jerk reaction of some people whenever they see Flash is that it must be inaccessible because it's Flash. What we've done with sIFR, however, is turn that model completely on its head. Your (X)HTML document is still the exact same document it was before sIFR kicked in. Your code is untouched and sIFR is completely abstracted to the javascript layer; therefore, your accessibility, your search engine friendliness, and your semantics are the same as they were before the day you decided you like nice fonts.
Except that Google now indexes SWF files too. So it will be able to tell that there is "mixed" content there.
= filetype%3Aswf+contrary+evidence
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q