there are plenty of things that the standard just does not define
The standard defines a mechanism to do what you want. The standard can't define everything. That's the case in any complex system. Consider C: i = ++i + ++i results in undefined behavior.
This is a "It hurts when I do this! Well, then don't do that!" situation.
While technically all desktop operating systems have technically equivalent security, there are cultural differences. You allude to them yourself: users of other systems are more likely to accept programs that break when upgrading. Windows users, on the other hand, expect backwards compatibility at almost any cost, and in accommodating them, Microsoft has left security holes open. (Also, security patches tend to be pushed when available for other operating systems; Microsoft uses the "Patch Tuesday" system.)
Also, there has been some research into isolating the web browser from the rest of the desktop; I think that approach has some potential even if it doesn't solve the dancing bunnies problem.
If you read the article, NCQ actually makes sense. The Intel drive actually finishes requests before the CPU gets around to asking "are you done yet?". That time between the drive finishing and the drive being told what to do next is spent idle. By supporting NCQ, the drive can convince the CPU to send large batches of commands and get rid of that latency.
It's faster for the same reason that FTP is faster than IRC DCC. FTP just keep sending bytes as long as the other end doesn't close the connection. IRC DCC sends a packet, waits for a reply, sends the next packet, and so on.
Unlike... Linux, the OS would prevent applications from overwriting protected memory, accessing I/O devices directly, or reprogramming the interrupt controller
What... the... hell? Linux has always prevented userland applications from doing these things, as have modern versions of Windows.
I asked some Austrians about this. To my surprise, parents can choose schools: they can choose among public schools anywhere in the country. However, parents are responsible for transportation. Just like in the US, parents can choose to send their children to private school. But if they do, they still have to pay public school taxes.
I would support a system like this for the United States (albeit with free transportation to the closest school or two.)
But what if the "auditors" are from the government, and the government believes that "creationism is reality"?
What if the "auditors" shut down the last private school that still teaches evolution?
Good point. But in your scenario, the government has already descended into theocracy. At that point, we have bigger problems on our hands. Normally, a government has a vested interest in making sure students are taught reality. It's good for industry, if nothing else.
What they're fighting for should be at most a state level issue and shouldn't be part of the federal election.
I truly do not understand why people think that pushing decisions down to the state level solves anything. State governments are often larger than those of whole nations. Why wouldn't the same problems that the federal government faces in a given decision apply to the states? At least, if the federal government resolves a given issue, there is consistency between the states, and the federal government can use its massive economies of scale to solve a given problem more efficiently.
Just to add to your excellent comment, when there is legitimate scientific disagreement, teachers generally do introduce students to the conflicting points of view. Consider the various interpretations of quantum mechanics. (I'm an Everett many-worlds man myself.)
Actually, our public school system is relatively poor (outside some exceptional suburban districts and magnet schools). We must improve it.
Observe that nations with centralized school curricula and low rates of religious indoctrination consistently top the standardized test rankings. Consider Japan. Notice that these countries also consistently rate as the best places in the world to live.
As for "mandatory indoctrination": we're not talking about matters of opinion here. Nobody is going to indoctrinate students into thinking that Faulkner is better than Geothe. We're talking about objective facts, and yes, mandatory "indoctrination" of reality is both a legitimate and a desirable goal of government.
Right. "Many eyes makes all bugs shallow" applies as well to science as it does code. As long as criticism is made in good faith, we all benefit in the end.
The problem is that creationists often ulterior motives. Instead of trying to achieve a more perfect understanding of the world, they try to undermine our confidence in the scientific method itself in order to make room for religious doctrine. They use fallacious arguments and deliberate obfuscation (I'm looking at you, Behe) to confuse the general public instead of educating their fellow scientists.
Another telltale sign that creationists do not argue in good faith is that they never propose alternative methods. "The eye cannot have evolved", a creationist might say, "therefore, the designer [God] did it." That's like saying "we have a descriptor leak in syslog(3). Therefore, system logging is a flawed concept."
I loathe Darkness404's views. But the above comment is not a troll. Darkness404 appears to genuinely believe his statements, and he is arguing in good faith. You may disagree with what he says, but the above comment is not a troll.
I'm sorry, but no. A civilization cannot stand while allowing absolute liberty. We accept certain restrictions so that we may continue to have a society. Murder is illegal. Rape is illegal. You can't shout "fire" in a crowded room. These things are restrictions on freedom, and for everyone's good.
Another restriction on freedom that's absolutely essential for a free society is mandatory education. Without education, the population does not develop critical thinking skills and falls prey to the first charismatic demagogue that comes along.
Allowing parents to send their children to schools that refuse to teach the facts is equivalent to allowing them to not educate their children at all. Both are unconscionable for a variety of reasons. Not only should school attendance be required, but private schools should be audited to ensure that their curriculum at least resembles reality. The more people are deluded by things like creationism and homeopathy, the weaker our democracy becomes.
Creationism has no place in biology class. Period.
However, I think a history and philosophy of science class would be very useful. In general, when I learn anything new, be it programming or physics, following the progression of the field from its beginnings to its modern understanding helps me understand the subject. In the same way, it would help for students to be introduced to the geocentric model of the solar system, creationism, the caloric theory of heat and so on. It would help them understand the deficiencies in these models and give them an appreciation of why our models are better.
Teaching past failed science also imparts a certain humility. It allows students to understand that while today's science describes the universe well, a future understanding may be better. It would put to rest this science-as-a-religion meme and allow students to understand that scientists are not merely priests in an arcane cult.
In a modern operating system with a unified buffer cache, memory is just a cache for disk. The converse also applies: disk is a spillover store for memory.
In a modern operating system, without memory locking, there is no guarantee a given page will not be written to disk.
Memory locking usually requires root privileges; I somehow doubt that Chrome and Safari are running with them.
Why do you keep harping on what genes are instead of what they do? Genes code for proteins. They work the same way, and even use the same encoding, whether you're talking about a tomato plant or a yeast cell or a human being. When we find or create a gene for a desirable trait, why not use it? It's not as if it the bacteria we've programmed to produce human insulin are growing brains and hands.
Show me where we managed to cross breed rice with a carrot, never mind a grass with an insect.
FUD. Who cares where the genes come from? We have genes in common with yeast. I also have no problem with creating genes from scratch. Copying and pasting from insects is a short-term crutch.
And we've been making massive changes in our time on earth. The original carrot was black. Maize was originally almost inedible. Dairy cows are very different from wild oxen. You try eating a wild banana lately?
Oh, and you can write a debugger and use it for nefarious purposes without anyone else knowing.
You can't sell GMO without letting lots of people know about it. Or will Monsato give it away free and surreptitiously?
You can't eat a debugger either. Neither my point nor yours is relevant to the analogy.
GMOs are not integral to feeding us now. But they offer several advantages, and are increasingly common. (The world, incidentally, has failed to end.) Consider golden rice. In a world 100 years from now, when GMOs have become integrated into our food system, growing non-GMO crops will seem as absurd as writing software without debuggers is today.
And I would argue that debuggers, disassemblers, packet sniffers, and so on can actually cause massive social problems. Consider all the identity theft that's occurred over the past few years. How many of these incidents are directly attributable to malware surreptitiously installed in a drive-by download using a security exploit discovered with a debugger?
You're right in that we couldn't practically ban debuggers even if we wanted to. But that point isn't central to my analogy.
Because banning debuggers is much easier than fighting abuse.
In other words, of the two, attempting to ban debuggers is going to keep me safer than attempting to curb Russian spammers et al's abusive practices, even if supporting debuggers and curbing black hat malfeasance would be the superior outcome.
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And that makes it impossible to develop new browsers, leading to stagnation.
The standard defines a mechanism to do what you want. The standard can't define everything. That's the case in any complex system. Consider C: i = ++i + ++i results in undefined behavior.
This is a "It hurts when I do this! Well, then don't do that!" situation.
What's wrong with visibility: hidden? Or using position: absolute to keep unused images out of the client area (and without affecting layout)?
Thank you. This kind of comment is spot on.
While technically all desktop operating systems have technically equivalent security, there are cultural differences. You allude to them yourself: users of other systems are more likely to accept programs that break when upgrading. Windows users, on the other hand, expect backwards compatibility at almost any cost, and in accommodating them, Microsoft has left security holes open. (Also, security patches tend to be pushed when available for other operating systems; Microsoft uses the "Patch Tuesday" system.)
Also, there has been some research into isolating the web browser from the rest of the desktop; I think that approach has some potential even if it doesn't solve the dancing bunnies problem.
If you read the article, NCQ actually makes sense. The Intel drive actually finishes requests before the CPU gets around to asking "are you done yet?". That time between the drive finishing and the drive being told what to do next is spent idle. By supporting NCQ, the drive can convince the CPU to send large batches of commands and get rid of that latency.
It's faster for the same reason that FTP is faster than IRC DCC. FTP just keep sending bytes as long as the other end doesn't close the connection. IRC DCC sends a packet, waits for a reply, sends the next packet, and so on.
What... the... hell? Linux has always prevented userland applications from doing these things, as have modern versions of Windows.
I asked some Austrians about this. To my surprise, parents can choose schools: they can choose among public schools anywhere in the country. However, parents are responsible for transportation. Just like in the US, parents can choose to send their children to private school. But if they do, they still have to pay public school taxes.
I would support a system like this for the United States (albeit with free transportation to the closest school or two.)
Good point. But in your scenario, the government has already descended into theocracy. At that point, we have bigger problems on our hands. Normally, a government has a vested interest in making sure students are taught reality. It's good for industry, if nothing else.
I truly do not understand why people think that pushing decisions down to the state level solves anything. State governments are often larger than those of whole nations. Why wouldn't the same problems that the federal government faces in a given decision apply to the states? At least, if the federal government resolves a given issue, there is consistency between the states, and the federal government can use its massive economies of scale to solve a given problem more efficiently.
Just to add to your excellent comment, when there is legitimate scientific disagreement, teachers generally do introduce students to the conflicting points of view. Consider the various interpretations of quantum mechanics. (I'm an Everett many-worlds man myself.)
Actually, our public school system is relatively poor (outside some exceptional suburban districts and magnet schools). We must improve it.
Observe that nations with centralized school curricula and low rates of religious indoctrination consistently top the standardized test rankings. Consider Japan. Notice that these countries also consistently rate as the best places in the world to live.
As for "mandatory indoctrination": we're not talking about matters of opinion here. Nobody is going to indoctrinate students into thinking that Faulkner is better than Geothe. We're talking about objective facts, and yes, mandatory "indoctrination" of reality is both a legitimate and a desirable goal of government.
Right. "Many eyes makes all bugs shallow" applies as well to science as it does code. As long as criticism is made in good faith, we all benefit in the end.
The problem is that creationists often ulterior motives. Instead of trying to achieve a more perfect understanding of the world, they try to undermine our confidence in the scientific method itself in order to make room for religious doctrine. They use fallacious arguments and deliberate obfuscation (I'm looking at you, Behe) to confuse the general public instead of educating their fellow scientists.
Another telltale sign that creationists do not argue in good faith is that they never propose alternative methods. "The eye cannot have evolved", a creationist might say, "therefore, the designer [God] did it." That's like saying "we have a descriptor leak in syslog(3). Therefore, system logging is a flawed concept."
I loathe Darkness404's views. But the above comment is not a troll. Darkness404 appears to genuinely believe his statements, and he is arguing in good faith. You may disagree with what he says, but the above comment is not a troll.
Thanks for the citations. I wasn't aware of the Edwards case!
I'm sorry, but no. A civilization cannot stand while allowing absolute liberty. We accept certain restrictions so that we may continue to have a society. Murder is illegal. Rape is illegal. You can't shout "fire" in a crowded room. These things are restrictions on freedom, and for everyone's good.
Another restriction on freedom that's absolutely essential for a free society is mandatory education. Without education, the population does not develop critical thinking skills and falls prey to the first charismatic demagogue that comes along.
Allowing parents to send their children to schools that refuse to teach the facts is equivalent to allowing them to not educate their children at all. Both are unconscionable for a variety of reasons. Not only should school attendance be required, but private schools should be audited to ensure that their curriculum at least resembles reality. The more people are deluded by things like creationism and homeopathy, the weaker our democracy becomes.
I love these threads. They let me really boost my foe count.
Creationism has no place in biology class. Period.
However, I think a history and philosophy of science class would be very useful. In general, when I learn anything new, be it programming or physics, following the progression of the field from its beginnings to its modern understanding helps me understand the subject. In the same way, it would help for students to be introduced to the geocentric model of the solar system, creationism, the caloric theory of heat and so on. It would help them understand the deficiencies in these models and give them an appreciation of why our models are better.
Teaching past failed science also imparts a certain humility. It allows students to understand that while today's science describes the universe well, a future understanding may be better. It would put to rest this science-as-a-religion meme and allow students to understand that scientists are not merely priests in an arcane cult.
I dimly recall that being a Voyager episode.
Repeat after me: page file
In a modern operating system with a unified buffer cache, memory is just a cache for disk. The converse also applies: disk is a spillover store for memory.
In a modern operating system, without memory locking, there is no guarantee a given page will not be written to disk.
Memory locking usually requires root privileges; I somehow doubt that Chrome and Safari are running with them.
Why do you keep harping on what genes are instead of what they do? Genes code for proteins. They work the same way, and even use the same encoding, whether you're talking about a tomato plant or a yeast cell or a human being. When we find or create a gene for a desirable trait, why not use it? It's not as if it the bacteria we've programmed to produce human insulin are growing brains and hands.
FUD. Who cares where the genes come from? We have genes in common with yeast. I also have no problem with creating genes from scratch. Copying and pasting from insects is a short-term crutch.
And we've been making massive changes in our time on earth. The original carrot was black. Maize was originally almost inedible. Dairy cows are very different from wild oxen. You try eating a wild banana lately?
You can't eat a debugger either. Neither my point nor yours is relevant to the analogy.
Yes, but grain is safe and easily imported.
Sure it is. It's just cruder and slower than directly modifying the genome.
No. The analogy is sound.
GMOs are not integral to feeding us now. But they offer several advantages, and are increasingly common. (The world, incidentally, has failed to end.) Consider golden rice. In a world 100 years from now, when GMOs have become integrated into our food system, growing non-GMO crops will seem as absurd as writing software without debuggers is today.
And I would argue that debuggers, disassemblers, packet sniffers, and so on can actually cause massive social problems. Consider all the identity theft that's occurred over the past few years. How many of these incidents are directly attributable to malware surreptitiously installed in a drive-by download using a security exploit discovered with a debugger?
You're right in that we couldn't practically ban debuggers even if we wanted to. But that point isn't central to my analogy.
Because banning debuggers is much easier than fighting abuse.
In other words, of the two, attempting to ban debuggers is going to keep me safer than attempting to curb Russian spammers et al's abusive practices, even if supporting debuggers and curbing black hat malfeasance would be the superior outcome.