Well, assuming that home automation worked right, with minimal overhead, I could see use where an X-Term or some other controlling terminal is mounted near the equipment, like in a laundry room, so different specific controls could be set for different kinds of wash loads, but it seems that it would be a bit excessive.
Although I would certainly respect the hack, this is largely unnecessary as most (at least high-end) modern washers have these capabilities built-in. You might be able to convince me that connecting my Maytag to the (firewalled) Internet is useful because it can download new data (as it becomes available) on how to change its cycle behavior depending on different stains, but you would be hard-pressed to make me believe that remote control was the right design over an embedded solution for controlling the actual washer.
If it was made for local control, this might not be such a problem, since a central regulating computer could work with it. However, if it's using a web server, this screams 'inefficient' for that kind of use, and would be much better using something along the lines of UPSd or even some kind of peek-poke method, like we used for IO address manipulation. Otherwise, it wouldn't even work very well for home automation.
Not to be a skeptic, but I'm not sure it's even appropriate for most "home automation" applications:
"Honey? Did we blow a fuse? I can't turn on the lights and I need to cook the turkey!"
"Oh, sorry dear. The LAN's down. I should have a new part for the hub by Monday. Can we use the wood-burning stove in the mean time?"
For most tasks like laundry and cooking, a human already needs to be there to do a lot of the prep work (carrying the clothes to the appliance, preparing the ingredients, etc.). If no one's in a room, then the lights should probably not be on anyway, so remote light-switches seem almost wretchedly excessive to me.
The only thing I think "home automation" is good for is directed climate control with a centralized appliance (i.e., furnace, but this would require a lot of manual override ability in the event that the automation mechanism failed), and home entertainment (centrally-located media store with streaming media to all viewing centers in the house).
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I always thought a house was fer livin' in. Seems if yer already livin' in it, remote activation of them thar lights an' things would be kinda superfluous....
There may be some symbolic value about this raise, but fiscally it's pretty meaningless (about 2M$/year?). Contrast that to 800k people; each would get lofty 2.5 dollar benefits if it was given to them instead.
That's assuming that the relative magnitude makes the action excusable. If congressmembers' salaries were treated like the rest of the market, then they should have voted themselves a pay cut. I agree with your ideas of financing campaigns, but I think congress is sending a really big fuck you to the people of this country by voting themselves a raise, however miniscule, in the midst of our economic down-turn and all the corporate multimillionaire scandals. They're saying that the people of this country have to make do with less and have to suffer more...oh yeah...except if you work for congress.
Those 2.5 dollars is another lunch, or at least a snack, for those fucked by corporate greed. I'd rather see that than another damned Washington fat cat. It's absolutely disgusting. It sickens and embarrasses me.
A few years ago there was a bill that was passed by vote in Washington State which required any new tax to be put to the people for a vote.
The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court. Here people actually did care, but it didn't matter because the game was fixed.
Just today congress voted not to extend unemployment benefits after Dec. 27th (yes, two days after Christmas) for the 800,000 people out of work in the crashed economy. Oh, by they way, today they also voted for a $4,000 per year salary increase for each member of Congress.
It sounds like the same one that runs on every other Mozilla platform.
If that were true, then the behavior of the following would be the same across platforms:
// This is an undocumented // IE way of accessing the // attributes of a form // named FORMNAME
document.forms.FORMNAME;
// This is the standard // method
document.forms["FORMNAME"];
Note: the first statement works in all versions of IE that support JavaScript on both the WIndows and Mac OS X platforms. The first statement doesn't work in any version of Mozilla except the Windows versions. Several conclusions might be drawn from this:
The Mozilla JavaScript interpreter is different for its Windows binaries
Mozilla running on Windows is borrowing the built-in JavaScript interpreter
The Windows loader/linker (or equivalent) is forcing Mozilla to use the wrong JavaScript interpreter (though this is pretty unlikely)
If someone knows/finds out, please let me know. I'm dying to find out.
"But where will we go? I refuse to leave until I get an answer!"
(note: I don't take this threat too seriously)
Please don't confuse my comment with criticism of the activity of building a "lifeboat". If life is in danger of becoming extinguished, I have no doubts of the popularity of something like a lifeboat. I'm just claiming that popularity doesn't necessarily equate a good plan.
However, much like your sinking ship analogy, a lifeboat is a pretty weak bet without other measures (flares, other ship traffic in the area, homing beacons, a schedule indicating when your ship was to arrive at port so that when it doesn't someone actually misses you and sends out a search party, etc.).
In the lifeboat in space idea, I doubt heavily that we'll be picked up by a friendly passing vessel. We would also need to plan for how it can take it's passengers to some area more habitable than the one being left behind (this is less like a lifeboat and more like an ejection seat in an aircraft). I'm just questioning what the rest of the plan is. Don't get me wrong, having a way off this rock is a necessary part, but it is not sufficient in and of itself.
Okay, I apologize in advance if this is ill-informed (the site was already slashdotted), or redundant by the time I post this, but say for the sake of argument that we have a lifeboat. Where are we going to go with it? Are we to assume we've already terraformed countless other planets with suns similar to our own?
Actually, I think more realistically, this would mean that Windows Mozilla would become the next hot bugtraq item. Mozilla running on Windows is not the same as Mozilla running on any other OS. Mozilla is guilty of using Windows-specific stuff too (like the JavaScript interpreter).
While that would be better for Mozilla (more bugs would be found faster, and there would be more incentive to become as homogenous across platforms as possible), I'm not sure it if would help Windows users all that much because by default Windows users are at or near the equivalent of root users. Windows is a security-week OS. Granted, integrating something like a web browser so tightly with the OS doesn't help, but the problem is still that regular Joe user is still allowed to do a lot of damage on his own with little or no checks and balances. Don't get me wrong. I don't like Windows, and I choose to run Linux on my desktop, but Microsoft-related security problems go a lot deaper than just IE.
Personally, I'm not sure there's a way around this problem. Attackers are smart and well-informed. Not being fooled into running bad stuff requires knowledge, a healthy dose of skepticism, and vigilance. The problem with Microsoft software in general is that it makes it trivial for the ignorant user to run bad stuff. If all the buffer overflow and security wholes were fixed tomorrow, it still wouldn't stop companies from developing spyware, nor would it stop attackers from using social engineering to find ways into systems. This plagues even the non-MS world (look at the recent compromises in OpenSSL and sendmail).
Here's an anology: Imagine that I was a "car cracker", and I devised a way to sneak into gas stations and replace their fuel with sugar water. NO ONE would notice until their cars stopped running and their engines siezed. Why? Who smells or tastes or tests gasoline from the pump before it goes into their car? The only real thing stopping someone from actually doing something like this is the logistics of cracking a gas station's fuel supply. As a result, people have a reasonable (and yes, in this case it is reasonable) amount of trust in what's coming out of the pump (even if it is gas-ohol).
However, it's much easier in the world of easily-reproducable flying bits to do something very similar. There's a much smaller barrier there. Now users really should smell/taste/test their gasoline before they put it into their car. The only problem is, just like with the car analogy, there's little to no tools available to make that process available to the common consumer. What's worse is that even if they were, the common consumer is so lazy, they probably wouldn't take advantage of them unless they were forced to.
No, I am not an advocate of DRM. I hate the stuff. If anyone ever tells me I can't use my computer the way I want, I'll kill 'em (metaphorically...I don't wish actual physical harm to befall anyone...it's not my place to judge and dispense punishment). My point is that Windows has a very long way to go before these types of problems will become manageable again, with or without Internet Explorer.
In a lot of situations, installing software is less like putting gas in your car and more like buying 50 kilos of cocaine. In that scenario the buyer doesn't trust that the seller hasn't cut the dope. As a result he has the tools (guns and methods of determining drug purity) to help ensure the transaction goes smoothly.
Okay, maybe that analogy doesn't work either, but I think you get my point.
It could never be made illegal...simply because it's a form of unwanted advertising.
This is somewhat correct, with the very real exception that SPAM results directly in the diminishing of the receiver's tangible monetary resources (in the form of bandwidth, disk space, etc.), similar to junk faxes (which are illegal).
One might argue that a shocking or distracting billboard does the same by causing automobile accidents, but there's no law against exposing bad drivers (though there probably should be a law against licensing them in the first place, but that's another story altogether).
However, I do applaud the government for taking this tactic. Practically speaking, most SPAM comes from a few sources. Demographically, they are mostly porn and fraud. If we eliminated the fraudulent SPAM, we'd be getting rid of a ton of it. One might suggest that sending adult advertisements to a child's e-mail address is not legal (as is selling a Penthouse to someone under 18 in some states), but that is a different battle.
...was attacked by HACKERS twice...please be ADVISED that this is your opportunity to be REMOVED...sending our regular e-mail THE STAINLESS STEEL NETWORK...done our best to "CLEAN" our list...click the LINK below...you must COPY and PASTE the link
Did anyone else read this and think the author had Turrets?
Microsoft Claimed it 'will recognize all your handwriting unless you can't read it yourself.
Gee...that's funny...I type a lot faster than I write. Of course, maybe that's why Handspring got rid of the letter pad and replaced it with a keyboard on their Treos....
I've looked at SkipStone before. Muhri's a hard guy to get in touch with (I haven't seen any activity on his site since August). Galeon has several active developers. Not to knock SkipStone at all (it's a cool lightweight browser), it's just tough when its only author/maintainer is a grad student....;)
...sending wireless signals over ordinary audio speakers so that humans can't hear them....
Is it just me, or does embedding data in white noise "sound" like it's already happend? Every time I pick up the phone when someone else is using the line for a dial-up connection, I am abruptly reminded of the transmission of data using seemingly random noise....
And how is this diffrent from steganography + a pair of 2,400 buad modems?
Besides, elephants have been doing this for millenia (with their feet instead of over their THX system).
Re:I find Mozilla on OS X slow
on
Is Mac OS X Slow?
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Of course I think Mozilla is bloatware, but that's me.
Amen to that. Chimera is the Galeon of OS X. (If you're tired of waiting for Mozilla, but like the rendering engine, try one of these...you'll never go back.)
*sigh* No, NOT GREP. You'd have sets of relations on things and you'd say, i want all these types of items that involve a certain relation. And I don't mean a filesystem relation but, all things related to project X, or all things related to my entertainment centre.
There are many things that I worry regarding the Web, but support for CmdrTacoScribble02.ttf is the least of our worries.
I have to agree here. The article claims that scientists are fed up with what they perceive to be their only two choices: PDF and special fonts in web pages. Here's a question: why don't they just use PNGs of formulas rendered in the fonts & software of the author's choosing? If hyperlinks within the formula is what they want (though I'm not sure I can see why), they can use an imagemap....
Slashdot Mirror
> That's like San Fransisco suing eBay...
Actually, it's more like eBay suing San Francisco.
Technically, I guess it wouldn't be San Francisco at all...it'd be more like Oakland.
Well, assuming that home automation worked right, with minimal overhead, I could see use where an X-Term or some other controlling terminal is mounted near the equipment, like in a laundry room, so different specific controls could be set for different kinds of wash loads, but it seems that it would be a bit excessive.
Although I would certainly respect the hack, this is largely unnecessary as most (at least high-end) modern washers have these capabilities built-in. You might be able to convince me that connecting my Maytag to the (firewalled) Internet is useful because it can download new data (as it becomes available) on how to change its cycle behavior depending on different stains, but you would be hard-pressed to make me believe that remote control was the right design over an embedded solution for controlling the actual washer.
That's like San Fransisco suing eBay...
Actually, it's more like eBay suing San Francisco. The term visa was here long before the corporation of the same name was.
The University of Essex
Cosmic Pussycat Designs (okay, maybe this one should be banned)
you get the idea...
Not to be a skeptic, but I'm not sure it's even appropriate for most "home automation" applications: For most tasks like laundry and cooking, a human already needs to be there to do a lot of the prep work (carrying the clothes to the appliance, preparing the ingredients, etc.). If no one's in a room, then the lights should probably not be on anyway, so remote light-switches seem almost wretchedly excessive to me.
The only thing I think "home automation" is good for is directed climate control with a centralized appliance (i.e., furnace, but this would require a lot of manual override ability in the event that the automation mechanism failed), and home entertainment (centrally-located media store with streaming media to all viewing centers in the house).
Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I always thought a house was fer livin' in. Seems if yer already livin' in it, remote activation of them thar lights an' things would be kinda superfluous....
There may be some symbolic value about this raise, but fiscally it's pretty meaningless (about 2M$/year?). Contrast that to 800k people; each would get lofty 2.5 dollar benefits if it was given to them instead.
That's assuming that the relative magnitude makes the action excusable. If congressmembers' salaries were treated like the rest of the market, then they should have voted themselves a pay cut. I agree with your ideas of financing campaigns, but I think congress is sending a really big fuck you to the people of this country by voting themselves a raise, however miniscule, in the midst of our economic down-turn and all the corporate multimillionaire scandals. They're saying that the people of this country have to make do with less and have to suffer more...oh yeah...except if you work for congress.
Those 2.5 dollars is another lunch, or at least a snack, for those fucked by corporate greed. I'd rather see that than another damned Washington fat cat. It's absolutely disgusting. It sickens and embarrasses me.
because we are to stupid to pass our own laws.
A few years ago there was a bill that was passed by vote in Washington State which required any new tax to be put to the people for a vote.
The law was ruled unconstitutional by the Washington State Supreme Court. Here people actually did care, but it didn't matter because the game was fixed.
Just today congress voted not to extend unemployment benefits after Dec. 27th (yes, two days after Christmas) for the 800,000 people out of work in the crashed economy. Oh, by they way, today they also voted for a $4,000 per year salary increase for each member of Congress.
It sounds like the same one that runs on every other Mozilla platform.
If that were true, then the behavior of the following would be the same across platforms:
document.forms.FORMNAME;
document.forms["FORMNAME"];
Note: the first statement works in all versions of IE that support JavaScript on both the WIndows and Mac OS X platforms. The first statement doesn't work in any version of Mozilla except the Windows versions. Several conclusions might be drawn from this:
- The Mozilla JavaScript interpreter is different for its Windows binaries
- Mozilla running on Windows is borrowing the built-in JavaScript interpreter
- The Windows loader/linker (or equivalent) is forcing Mozilla to use the wrong JavaScript interpreter (though this is pretty unlikely)
If someone knows/finds out, please let me know. I'm dying to find out."The ship is sinking! Get in the lifeboats"
"But where will we go? I refuse to leave until I get an answer!"
(note: I don't take this threat too seriously)
Please don't confuse my comment with criticism of the activity of building a "lifeboat". If life is in danger of becoming extinguished, I have no doubts of the popularity of something like a lifeboat. I'm just claiming that popularity doesn't necessarily equate a good plan.
However, much like your sinking ship analogy, a lifeboat is a pretty weak bet without other measures (flares, other ship traffic in the area, homing beacons, a schedule indicating when your ship was to arrive at port so that when it doesn't someone actually misses you and sends out a search party, etc.).
In the lifeboat in space idea, I doubt heavily that we'll be picked up by a friendly passing vessel. We would also need to plan for how it can take it's passengers to some area more habitable than the one being left behind (this is less like a lifeboat and more like an ejection seat in an aircraft). I'm just questioning what the rest of the plan is. Don't get me wrong, having a way off this rock is a necessary part, but it is not sufficient in and of itself.
Okay, I apologize in advance if this is ill-informed (the site was already slashdotted), or redundant by the time I post this, but say for the sake of argument that we have a lifeboat. Where are we going to go with it? Are we to assume we've already terraformed countless other planets with suns similar to our own?
Actually, I think more realistically, this would mean that Windows Mozilla would become the next hot bugtraq item. Mozilla running on Windows is not the same as Mozilla running on any other OS. Mozilla is guilty of using Windows-specific stuff too (like the JavaScript interpreter).
While that would be better for Mozilla (more bugs would be found faster, and there would be more incentive to become as homogenous across platforms as possible), I'm not sure it if would help Windows users all that much because by default Windows users are at or near the equivalent of root users. Windows is a security-week OS. Granted, integrating something like a web browser so tightly with the OS doesn't help, but the problem is still that regular Joe user is still allowed to do a lot of damage on his own with little or no checks and balances. Don't get me wrong. I don't like Windows, and I choose to run Linux on my desktop, but Microsoft-related security problems go a lot deaper than just IE.
Personally, I'm not sure there's a way around this problem. Attackers are smart and well-informed. Not being fooled into running bad stuff requires knowledge, a healthy dose of skepticism, and vigilance. The problem with Microsoft software in general is that it makes it trivial for the ignorant user to run bad stuff. If all the buffer overflow and security wholes were fixed tomorrow, it still wouldn't stop companies from developing spyware, nor would it stop attackers from using social engineering to find ways into systems. This plagues even the non-MS world (look at the recent compromises in OpenSSL and sendmail).
Here's an anology: Imagine that I was a "car cracker", and I devised a way to sneak into gas stations and replace their fuel with sugar water. NO ONE would notice until their cars stopped running and their engines siezed. Why? Who smells or tastes or tests gasoline from the pump before it goes into their car? The only real thing stopping someone from actually doing something like this is the logistics of cracking a gas station's fuel supply. As a result, people have a reasonable (and yes, in this case it is reasonable) amount of trust in what's coming out of the pump (even if it is gas-ohol).
However, it's much easier in the world of easily-reproducable flying bits to do something very similar. There's a much smaller barrier there. Now users really should smell/taste/test their gasoline before they put it into their car. The only problem is, just like with the car analogy, there's little to no tools available to make that process available to the common consumer. What's worse is that even if they were, the common consumer is so lazy, they probably wouldn't take advantage of them unless they were forced to.
No, I am not an advocate of DRM. I hate the stuff. If anyone ever tells me I can't use my computer the way I want, I'll kill 'em (metaphorically...I don't wish actual physical harm to befall anyone...it's not my place to judge and dispense punishment). My point is that Windows has a very long way to go before these types of problems will become manageable again, with or without Internet Explorer.
In a lot of situations, installing software is less like putting gas in your car and more like buying 50 kilos of cocaine. In that scenario the buyer doesn't trust that the seller hasn't cut the dope. As a result he has the tools (guns and methods of determining drug purity) to help ensure the transaction goes smoothly.
Okay, maybe that analogy doesn't work either, but I think you get my point.
sheesh, it feels good to flame someone for being retarded.
So does it feel as good when you find out that you just flamed someone for an attempt at humor through sarcasm?
I guess "retarded" is all relative....
I don't think a book on the subject is really necessary.
A book is needed if one wants to get published and make money from book sales....
It doesnt affect the actual living-or-death state of actual real people.
Read as: it doesn't negatively affect the bonuses of the company execs or the board.
Isn't it funny how almost everything in life can somehow be related to the Simpsons?
Simpsons did it! Dude, they've been on the air for like 13 years. Of course they've done everything already.
It could never be made illegal...simply because it's a form of unwanted advertising.
This is somewhat correct, with the very real exception that SPAM results directly in the diminishing of the receiver's tangible monetary resources (in the form of bandwidth, disk space, etc.), similar to junk faxes (which are illegal).
One might argue that a shocking or distracting billboard does the same by causing automobile accidents, but there's no law against exposing bad drivers (though there probably should be a law against licensing them in the first place, but that's another story altogether).
However, I do applaud the government for taking this tactic. Practically speaking, most SPAM comes from a few sources. Demographically, they are mostly porn and fraud. If we eliminated the fraudulent SPAM, we'd be getting rid of a ton of it. One might suggest that sending adult advertisements to a child's e-mail address is not legal (as is selling a Penthouse to someone under 18 in some states), but that is a different battle.
...was attacked by HACKERS twice...please be ADVISED that this is your opportunity to be REMOVED...sending our regular e-mail THE STAINLESS STEEL NETWORK...done our best to "CLEAN" our list...click the LINK below...you must COPY and PASTE the link
Did anyone else read this and think the author had Turrets?
Microsoft Claimed it 'will recognize all your handwriting unless you can't read it yourself.
Gee...that's funny...I type a lot faster than I write. Of course, maybe that's why Handspring got rid of the letter pad and replaced it with a keyboard on their Treos....
This is "innovation"?
I've looked at SkipStone before. Muhri's a hard guy to get in touch with (I haven't seen any activity on his site since August). Galeon has several active developers. Not to knock SkipStone at all (it's a cool lightweight browser), it's just tough when its only author/maintainer is a grad student.... ;)
...sending wireless signals over ordinary audio speakers so that humans can't hear them....
Is it just me, or does embedding data in white noise "sound" like it's already happend? Every time I pick up the phone when someone else is using the line for a dial-up connection, I am abruptly reminded of the transmission of data using seemingly random noise....
$ # Patent pending...
$ bzip2 -c </lib/libc.so.6 >/dev/audio
And how is this diffrent from steganography + a pair of 2,400 buad modems?
Besides, elephants have been doing this for millenia (with their feet instead of over their THX system).
Of course I think Mozilla is bloatware, but that's me.
Amen to that. Chimera is the Galeon of OS X. (If you're tired of waiting for Mozilla, but like the rendering engine, try one of these...you'll never go back.)
*sigh* No, NOT GREP. You'd have sets of relations on things and you'd say, i want all these types of items that involve a certain relation. And I don't mean a filesystem relation but, all things related to project X, or all things related to my entertainment centre.
Oh...so you mean:
join | awk | sort | uniq | less
There are many things that I worry regarding the Web, but support for CmdrTacoScribble02.ttf is the least of our worries.
I have to agree here. The article claims that scientists are fed up with what they perceive to be their only two choices: PDF and special fonts in web pages. Here's a question: why don't they just use PNGs of formulas rendered in the fonts & software of the author's choosing? If hyperlinks within the formula is what they want (though I'm not sure I can see why), they can use an imagemap....
Just my too scents.
"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."
Actually love of power is probably the root of all kinds of evil. Money just makes it easily accessable.
[The] European Union, has decided to spend 250,000 Euros on studying how government computers in EU states could be migrated to Linux....
:)
Heck, why don't they just spend the quarter million on actually doing the migration. You could probably get most of it done for that....
(This was meant to be funny, not a troll.)