I recently had to use OpenOffice.org to open an older PowerPoint presentation because my newer version of PowerPoint chose not to open it. I phrase it that way because PP2003 was quite capable of displaying the preview of the presentation in the File|Open dialog, but would not open the presentation for editing or display. OOo to the rescue.
Anyone who has a (Japanese) patent on software "modes" should be able to trump this one. Command modes are nearly as old as software. The "infringing" company must not have been able to afford as many lawyers, because the patent registers an idea that is obvious. But then again, I don't know Japanese patent law.
Just to take stock: software patents give large corporations the power to grind individual developers into paste. Copyright law is beginning to give corporations the power to turn those same guns on their own customers. Both of these facilities have been extended beyond all common sense into weapons for corporations against individuals. All that remains to be done is the creation of law that compels purchase. Not so good.
Call it all you like. My statements were made based on a study reported right here on Slashdot several months ago. It was one of those Linux vs. Windows vs. MacOS headlines. After ten minutes sifting through old headlines I gave up and posted the comment without the link. You try searching for Linux on Slashdot.
Personally I use Linux and Windows (for games) at home, and Windows in the office (no choice). I'm even hopeful that the Mac becomes a bigger success than it is. The facts are, however, that while MacOS itself is far more secure than Windows, the study found out that with the out-of-box configuration, the Mac could be compromised in 2 minutes whereas the Windows box took 5 minutes (the Linux box took longer). I'm going from memory, but these compromises were from someone who knew where the boxes were on the network. When the experiment was tried on the open internet the Windows machine was compromised within a few minutes, while the Mac wasn't compromised at all (nor was the Linux box).
So Windows has two strikes going for it. It is the hardest to secure (if it is possible at all) and it is the most frequently targeted.
I don't doubt that Apple is reponsive, nor do I doubt that MacOS has good security (it's BSD Unix under the covers, after all). But I believe the reason there hasn't been a virus for Mac OSX in the wild is because virus writers are giving it a good solid ignoring.
People aren't equal, but they should be treated equally under the law and with respect to opportunity given them. Asserting that every individual is identical betrays a loose grasp of reality.
The reason Macs don't get hit with spyware problems as much is because the biggest bang for an evil buck is in the Windows world. There was a comparison of default security settings of various flavors of Windows, Linux, and MacOS. The result was that the Mac was least secure by default.
Remember spyware and virus writers are targeting people, not operating systems. The more people using Macintosh computers the more incidents of instrusions on Macs there'll be.
Trillian behind psychiatric advice booth: "Oh, come on Marvin, the little red-haired girl was human, what did you expect? That'll be 5 cents." Marvin, holding head in hands: "Aaauuughhhh!" Ford: "Do you want to try my security towel?" ...
Federal law must not dictate belief. The law should not require a religion to accept a state definition of marriage, any more than a state should require one's favorite color to be blue. Don't play semantic games by dismissing the notion of marriage in the Christian sense as something archaic. To modern Christians it certainly is not, and the state should not be allowed to play word games either. In that sense, you ignore your parent post's point.
Leave "marriage" alone. If it must, let the law deal with some legal construct that poses as a suitable abstraction (civil union).
Forced acceptance is not the same as promotion of tolerance.
The trouble (for BestBuy) is that you and I tell our friends not to shop there either, including the not-so-uhhh-thrifty ones. Word of mouth advertising is still fairly powerful, and negative word of mouth is even harder to stop once it gets rolling.
I've got to agree with you. I've long thought that "complex adaptive systems theory" was nothing more than a "system" of words used to build an exceedingly complicated house-of-cards in order to say: "We have no freaking idea why things are the way they are, they just are that way." When I saw the words "reified" and "postmodern" together I knew I was dealing with academic fantasy and hand-waving, rather than a series of articles worth reading.
Rather than belaboring and bemoaning the demise of the blacksmith, he could have summed the whole thing up by saying technology causes change.
I also have a particularly strong objection to his omissions of punctuation. He kept forgetting to add prepostrophes to his text.
Actually, the article hints at Linus' mastery of the issue by clueing the reader in on a few consequences of hard real time systems. The problem is that while the OS would be capable of guaranteeing a response within tens or hundreds of microseconds, the overall response time of the system is reduced. Linus is quoted as saying he believes most people, even in the embedded space, don't want this as a standard feature of the OS. This is because there's a comparatively easy fix for getting quick response times: over-provision the hardware.
For HRT systems, however, it's not good enough that the response time is "probably good enough, most of the time." HRT systems require a guarantee, and that guarantee has a net effect of slowing down the system.
Compare it to "guaranteed-secure" encryption. It's possible (quantum encryption), but it requires a physical fiber connection (a polarized light-pipe) and some serious detection hardware.
The article goes on to say that Linus may consider putting pieces of the patch into the kernel in the future.
I'm sorry, but that's baloney. The U.S. is not the only nation that owes past dues, and other nations have neglected to pay for long enough that they've lost their right to vote. The U.S. is also not the only nation with veto power, and as the link from the other respondent shows, these other nations with veto power have often been the (successful) target of bribery.
Not so much, no. Memory leaks are usually caused by "leak idioms." Essentially, these are mistakes the developer makes while interpreting the design. UML is useful (and I'm an MDA guy--have a look at my blog), but it isn't enough to prevent a coder from stuffing objects in static collection variables and forgetting about them.
Unit tests together with code profilers are far more effective at revealing this sort of problem. Also, having an experienced programmer review the code can help tremendously.
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt it... Microsoft doesn't know how to do headless anything.
I completely disagree, I think they were great big piles of foaming crap.
Now that I'd pay for.
I recently had to use OpenOffice.org to open an older PowerPoint presentation because my newer version of PowerPoint chose not to open it. I phrase it that way because PP2003 was quite capable of displaying the preview of the presentation in the File|Open dialog, but would not open the presentation for editing or display. OOo to the rescue.
Anyone who has a (Japanese) patent on software "modes" should be able to trump this one. Command modes are nearly as old as software. The "infringing" company must not have been able to afford as many lawyers, because the patent registers an idea that is obvious. But then again, I don't know Japanese patent law.
Just to take stock: software patents give large corporations the power to grind individual developers into paste. Copyright law is beginning to give corporations the power to turn those same guns on their own customers. Both of these facilities have been extended beyond all common sense into weapons for corporations against individuals. All that remains to be done is the creation of law that compels purchase. Not so good.
I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if millions of souls were suddenly disappointed...
Call it all you like. My statements were made based on a study reported right here on Slashdot several months ago. It was one of those Linux vs. Windows vs. MacOS headlines. After ten minutes sifting through old headlines I gave up and posted the comment without the link. You try searching for Linux on Slashdot.
Personally I use Linux and Windows (for games) at home, and Windows in the office (no choice). I'm even hopeful that the Mac becomes a bigger success than it is. The facts are, however, that while MacOS itself is far more secure than Windows, the study found out that with the out-of-box configuration, the Mac could be compromised in 2 minutes whereas the Windows box took 5 minutes (the Linux box took longer). I'm going from memory, but these compromises were from someone who knew where the boxes were on the network. When the experiment was tried on the open internet the Windows machine was compromised within a few minutes, while the Mac wasn't compromised at all (nor was the Linux box).
So Windows has two strikes going for it. It is the hardest to secure (if it is possible at all) and it is the most frequently targeted.
I don't doubt that Apple is reponsive, nor do I doubt that MacOS has good security (it's BSD Unix under the covers, after all). But I believe the reason there hasn't been a virus for Mac OSX in the wild is because virus writers are giving it a good solid ignoring.
I hate to get programmer-ish about this, but perhaps it is the nonsensical rhetoric we've built up around "equality." How about:
and ideally...People aren't equal, but they should be treated equally under the law and with respect to opportunity given them. Asserting that every individual is identical betrays a loose grasp of reality.
The reason Macs don't get hit with spyware problems as much is because the biggest bang for an evil buck is in the Windows world. There was a comparison of default security settings of various flavors of Windows, Linux, and MacOS. The result was that the Mac was least secure by default.
Remember spyware and virus writers are targeting people, not operating systems. The more people using Macintosh computers the more incidents of instrusions on Macs there'll be.
The problem is he was a hand-gun, and that shouldn't stop a truck...
I can't believe I just posted that... My Macross fan-club membership might be revoked for discussing one of the other giant robot series.
(Explodes into ball of geek fire)
That'd be a ./-ing, which amusingly, sounds far more violent.
With corresponding penalties to INT and a -25% chance to get a girlfriend.
Yeah... I should've read the class description a little better before starting my geek character:
INT +10WIS +4
CHA -7
STR -5
DEX -2
State machines aren't easier, they're just different.
Wait until you see the next trailer:
Trillian behind psychiatric advice booth: "Oh, come on Marvin, the little red-haired girl was human, what did you expect? That'll be 5 cents."
Marvin, holding head in hands: "Aaauuughhhh!"
Ford: "Do you want to try my security towel?"
...
Agreed.
Federal law must not dictate belief. The law should not require a religion to accept a state definition of marriage, any more than a state should require one's favorite color to be blue. Don't play semantic games by dismissing the notion of marriage in the Christian sense as something archaic. To modern Christians it certainly is not, and the state should not be allowed to play word games either. In that sense, you ignore your parent post's point.
Leave "marriage" alone. If it must, let the law deal with some legal construct that poses as a suitable abstraction (civil union).
Forced acceptance is not the same as promotion of tolerance.
The trouble (for BestBuy) is that you and I tell our friends not to shop there either, including the not-so-uhhh-thrifty ones. Word of mouth advertising is still fairly powerful, and negative word of mouth is even harder to stop once it gets rolling.
Spread the word.
I've got to agree with you. I've long thought that "complex adaptive systems theory" was nothing more than a "system" of words used to build an exceedingly complicated house-of-cards in order to say: "We have no freaking idea why things are the way they are, they just are that way." When I saw the words "reified" and "postmodern" together I knew I was dealing with academic fantasy and hand-waving, rather than a series of articles worth reading.
Rather than belaboring and bemoaning the demise of the blacksmith, he could have summed the whole thing up by saying technology causes change.
I also have a particularly strong objection to his omissions of punctuation. He kept forgetting to add prepostrophes to his text.
Actually, the article hints at Linus' mastery of the issue by clueing the reader in on a few consequences of hard real time systems. The problem is that while the OS would be capable of guaranteeing a response within tens or hundreds of microseconds, the overall response time of the system is reduced. Linus is quoted as saying he believes most people, even in the embedded space, don't want this as a standard feature of the OS. This is because there's a comparatively easy fix for getting quick response times: over-provision the hardware.
For HRT systems, however, it's not good enough that the response time is "probably good enough, most of the time." HRT systems require a guarantee, and that guarantee has a net effect of slowing down the system.
Compare it to "guaranteed-secure" encryption. It's possible (quantum encryption), but it requires a physical fiber connection (a polarized light-pipe) and some serious detection hardware.
The article goes on to say that Linus may consider putting pieces of the patch into the kernel in the future.
I'm trying to figure out if that's like wrapping dead fish in crap, or wrapping crap in dead fish... And then lighting it on fire.
back end indeed. Well said.
In Canada they go with the more unusual "metric buttload."
I'm sorry, but that's baloney. The U.S. is not the only nation that owes past dues, and other nations have neglected to pay for long enough that they've lost their right to vote. The U.S. is also not the only nation with veto power, and as the link from the other respondent shows, these other nations with veto power have often been the (successful) target of bribery.
Not so much, no. Memory leaks are usually caused by "leak idioms." Essentially, these are mistakes the developer makes while interpreting the design. UML is useful (and I'm an MDA guy--have a look at my blog), but it isn't enough to prevent a coder from stuffing objects in static collection variables and forgetting about them.
Unit tests together with code profilers are far more effective at revealing this sort of problem. Also, having an experienced programmer review the code can help tremendously.