All excellent advice. My biggest problem is that nmy manager lets them get away with it - he's more about making sure the customer feels "validated" rather than producing software that works or is on time. It's telling that my degree was in C.S. and his was in Communications.
To be fair, I don't really get held accountable for things needing changes, since I can prove that my design meets all existing requirements. It more of a personal pride thing: I invest lots of time and energy into the code, and then it withers and dies or has to be destroyed because a customer isn't paying attention and "forgot" something.
I love XP, I love it for several reasons. Having a Client involved during all phases of the project, much less have a day to day interaction with the team is a phenomenal idea.
That's all well and good, but what do you do when the client isn't interested? I have one client especially who actively tries to avoid my calls, and tries to ditch me ASAP when I do manage to get them on the phone. I'm not wasting their time: I am asking pertinient questions I need to know so the software functions in a manner they understand. What's the solution for unmotivated/uninterested clients?
Re:Penny-Arcade hit this on the head back in '02
on
Retro Gaming Gets Hot
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· Score: 1
OMFG. I thought I was the only one who even remembers M.A.S.K. or Centurions. Easily my favorite (post He-Man or Transformers).
Seems somewhat simple to me. Every MMORPG is set up with rules, enforced by TOS and programming. If you intentionally violate those rules, you deserve an appropriate consequence (banning, loss of XP, computer crime charges, etc). If it's legal in game for me to take my Big Honkin' Sword +3 and brain you with it, then there's no consequence to me, since I'm abiding by the "laws" of the virtual world.
Our fine friends in SB didn't abide by either their TOS, or by RL computer crime laws. Are they liable? Hell yes. Not because they inconvenienced someone who needs more sunlight, but because they physically compromised a server not belonging to them.
Basically, apply the laws of the world they broke the law in. "Wallhacking" is illegal in the virtual world, you get a virtual punishment: loss of XP, banning, etc. Hacking servers is illegal in the real world, you get real world punishment.
If we do not take action soon, the number of bright young kids going into computer science will plumment and our country will be void of software expertise....
Good. I know a bunch of programmers who need jobs and have plenty of expertise - thinning the herd is alright in my book.
Heh, everyone hold on, it's been a few years since the crypto class in college:
RSA is based on modular arithmetic. This is nasty stuff: it's not unbreakable, but so difficult to reverse that it's not practical to do so. Basically, when my client sends a request to start a SSL session to a server, I send a number g. The server and client use that number to create a shared key that they use to encrypt their messages.
Here's the fun part: the server can only unlock the shared messages using its private key. When I send it an encrypted message, it takes the server a certain amount of time to try and unlock it. If the number g I used to encrypt the message is close to the number that is the server's private key, it takes noticably less time for the server to respond with "good message" or "bad message". So by sending millions of queries, I can narrow in on the private key just by timing how long it takes the server to answer me.
Note it doesn't help me read messages, only to get the private key. Of course, once I have that key, I can read anything the server receives - like credit card numbers, email addresses, etc.
I've probably confused a few details - someone with more recent experience here feel free to correct me.
Holy shite. I live (well, I used to) in Clairemont - part of San Diego, NOT the other Claremont, California - (please note the spelling, that link is inconsistent) when the dude stole the tank. He wasn't disallusioned; he was nuts. And not everyone in Clairemont is a speed freak. Well, not most of them anyway.
Besides, it was classic hearing the SWAT team shit themselves on the police band. IIRC, dude managed to hang up the tank on the median of Hwy. 163, and the CHP took care of things from there.
How, exactly, is this guy relevant? When it comes down to it, the internet does nothing more than squirt a bit stream from one point to another. How, exactly, can this be taken over?
Well, the good ol US of A (of which I am a proud member - note I said of the country: the bozos running it are another matter) does in fact contain most of the network. So what? Are we going to turn it off? Tell DARPA to fsck off and drop that backbone it built? Not bloody likely. And since the jurisdiction of our laws (supposedly) don't reach beyond our borders, how exactly are we "taking over" the web?
This guy wants to isolate Europe. Fine. So does most of the world. But don't bame your jingoism on American policies, as whacked as those policies may be. Or do we need to define the words "soverign nation" for you? Yep, even small countries in the Atlantic are allowed to make their own laws and have their own lawyers and programmers. Go figure.
Good Lord. It's time for lunch. I think I just ranted myself to death with no discernable point.
"Specify that an existing ban on the "advertisement" of any device that is used primarily for surreptitious electronic surveillance applies to online ads. The prohibition now covers only a "newspaper, magazine, handbill or other publication."
Does this mean those damn X-10 camera ads (which everyone knows people only buy stick in the girls locker room - surrpetitious surveilance.;) ) popping under my browser will now be illegal? We might get SOME good out of this thing....
Now any random fool that forgets to patch or upgrade or whatnot, and manages to pick up Nimbda, can claim they installed.NET and it's all M$'s fault, not their own stupidity.
Even C# with.net is better - it allow people to use whatever language they want on the same CLI...
Uhh...how again does C# allow you to use any languae on the CLR? You just specified the language.
And even then, that's not true. The CLR (pronounced VIRTUAL MACHINE for all you Java folks) allows only C#, Visual Basic.NET and M$ flavors of C++ to be complied down to a common intermediate language (pronounced BYTECODE for the the Java guys). They even had to badly hack VB and rip off Java to do it. Sure, you could write a compiler to turn Java or COBOL or Fortran or god knows what else in the common language, but frankly, I doubt many will bother. It's only fast because M$ has the ability to tailor the entire OS to the.NET framework. CLR is not the magic bullet we're looking for, and you don't get "any language you want". You get three, two of which are questionable.
I know, a bit off topic, but I can't stand pointless shilling for.NET simply because it's new.
Yes, you are upgrading the OS. Since COM DLLs are by convention binary compatible with older versions, the rest of the OS that uses the new DLLs may not actually change behavior or implementation, but you ARE upgrading a part of it, even if the "real" portions of the OS don't care.
Also, some other programs (the.NET IDE, for example) require certain versions of IE (6 to be exact), meaning some of the code in those DLLs isn't soley for IE; you're upgrading more than just IE.
Given the M$ penchant for random DLLs, it's entirely possible that removing or disabling all the parts of IE would indeed break Windows, since god know what else is thrown into the code with it - I think most of Windows Explorer is actually IE; not having a directory browser would make that sucker unusable. This is, of course, not a good defense - it's just proof that M$ has bad design at best, or malicious design at worst.
On another note, I fear for the CS department at MIT when a professor doesn't know the difference between a windowing environment and an actual OS. That truly scares me.
Because a brain-damaged monkey (read: anybody) could learn and use ASP in about 2 weeks of effort. I learned all I really use in ASP in less than a week. There's low cost fo training your people: "ASP for Dummies" is usally sufficient.
I've had the (dis)pleasure of using Chilisoft before to build an app on a linux box (and yes, I lobbied for PHP but management said no). I did enjoy that it ran the whole app with only a little tweaking, but it was a pain to install. And COM components I wanted to use? Forget it. Chilisoft provides an ADO interface and I think a FileScriptingObject; anything else you're SOL.
Until Apache has a way to implement a COM interface (OMG that's a nasty thought) so random components some company has dreamed up can be used, a lot of existing installs will stay with IIS so they don't have to rewrite things a JavaBeans. It's a matter of inertia, not security.
Can you get Sega of America to intervene on your behalf? Seems to me they might like to know why a device for their developers is considered illegal and try to resolve it.
Slashdot Mirror
The line is indeed "let slip the dogs of war". From Julius Caesar.
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/105600.html
Didn't even bother to do a good PS on the iPod.
Slash is becoming a Fark thread for the day...
All excellent advice. My biggest problem is that nmy manager lets them get away with it - he's more about making sure the customer feels "validated" rather than producing software that works or is on time. It's telling that my degree was in C.S. and his was in Communications.
To be fair, I don't really get held accountable for things needing changes, since I can prove that my design meets all existing requirements. It more of a personal pride thing: I invest lots of time and energy into the code, and then it withers and dies or has to be destroyed because a customer isn't paying attention and "forgot" something.
I love XP, I love it for several reasons. Having a Client involved during all phases of the project, much less have a day to day interaction with the team is a phenomenal idea.
That's all well and good, but what do you do when the client isn't interested? I have one client especially who actively tries to avoid my calls, and tries to ditch me ASAP when I do manage to get them on the phone. I'm not wasting their time: I am asking pertinient questions I need to know so the software functions in a manner they understand. What's the solution for unmotivated/uninterested clients?
OMFG. I thought I was the only one who even remembers M.A.S.K. or Centurions. Easily my favorite (post He-Man or Transformers).
So....imagine a Beowulf cluster of *me*!
[rimshot...]
As a lark, I did a search for "shelving retailer" in google, and the first 8 of 10 links were in fact about people selling shelving.
Go figure.
Seems somewhat simple to me. Every MMORPG is set up with rules, enforced by TOS and programming. If you intentionally violate those rules, you deserve an appropriate consequence (banning, loss of XP, computer crime charges, etc). If it's legal in game for me to take my Big Honkin' Sword +3 and brain you with it, then there's no consequence to me, since I'm abiding by the "laws" of the virtual world.
Our fine friends in SB didn't abide by either their TOS, or by RL computer crime laws. Are they liable? Hell yes. Not because they inconvenienced someone who needs more sunlight, but because they physically compromised a server not belonging to them.
Basically, apply the laws of the world they broke the law in. "Wallhacking" is illegal in the virtual world, you get a virtual punishment: loss of XP, banning, etc. Hacking servers is illegal in the real world, you get real world punishment.
If we do not take action soon, the number of bright young kids going into computer science will plumment and our country will be void of software expertise....
Good. I know a bunch of programmers who need jobs and have plenty of expertise - thinning the herd is alright in my book.
Heh, everyone hold on, it's been a few years since the crypto class in college:
RSA is based on modular arithmetic. This is nasty stuff: it's not unbreakable, but so difficult to reverse that it's not practical to do so. Basically, when my client sends a request to start a SSL session to a server, I send a number g. The server and client use that number to create a shared key that they use to encrypt their messages.
Here's the fun part: the server can only unlock the shared messages using its private key. When I send it an encrypted message, it takes the server a certain amount of time to try and unlock it. If the number g I used to encrypt the message is close to the number that is the server's private key, it takes noticably less time for the server to respond with "good message" or "bad message". So by sending millions of queries, I can narrow in on the private key just by timing how long it takes the server to answer me.
Note it doesn't help me read messages, only to get the private key. Of course, once I have that key, I can read anything the server receives - like credit card numbers, email addresses, etc.
I've probably confused a few details - someone with more recent experience here feel free to correct me.
Let me clear that up:
;)
Microsoft-centric: Any item with Microsoft products or services as its core subject.
Pro-Microsoft: Something you woun't find on Slashdot...what were you thinking?
Nevermind that the Xbox will likely be scrap by the time they actually crack it. Classic of example of "Hey, cool, but....why?"
Holy shite. I live (well, I used to) in Clairemont - part of San Diego, NOT the other Claremont, California - (please note the spelling, that link is inconsistent) when the dude stole the tank. He wasn't disallusioned; he was nuts. And not everyone in Clairemont is a speed freak. Well, not most of them anyway.
Besides, it was classic hearing the SWAT team shit themselves on the police band. IIRC, dude managed to hang up the tank on the median of Hwy. 163, and the CHP took care of things from there.
URI = = URL
Maybe isolating Europe isn't so bad after all. I can only manage being violated by one DMCA at a time, thanks.
How, exactly, is this guy relevant? When it comes down to it, the internet does nothing more than squirt a bit stream from one point to another. How, exactly, can this be taken over?
Well, the good ol US of A (of which I am a proud member - note I said of the country: the bozos running it are another matter) does in fact contain most of the network. So what? Are we going to turn it off? Tell DARPA to fsck off and drop that backbone it built? Not bloody likely. And since the jurisdiction of our laws (supposedly) don't reach beyond our borders, how exactly are we "taking over" the web?
This guy wants to isolate Europe. Fine. So does most of the world. But don't bame your jingoism on American policies, as whacked as those policies may be. Or do we need to define the words "soverign nation" for you? Yep, even small countries in the Atlantic are allowed to make their own laws and have their own lawyers and programmers. Go figure.
Good Lord. It's time for lunch. I think I just ranted myself to death with no discernable point.
"Specify that an existing ban on the "advertisement" of any device that is used primarily for surreptitious electronic surveillance applies to online ads. The prohibition now covers only a "newspaper, magazine, handbill or other publication."
;) ) popping under my browser will now be illegal? We might get SOME good out of this thing....
Does this mean those damn X-10 camera ads (which everyone knows people only buy stick in the girls locker room - surrpetitious surveilance.
Now any random fool that forgets to patch or upgrade or whatnot, and manages to pick up Nimbda, can claim they installed .NET and it's all M$'s fault, not their own stupidity.
Microsoft: We screw up so you don't have to.
Even C# with .net is better - it allow people to use whatever language they want on the same CLI...
.NET framework. CLR is not the magic bullet we're looking for, and you don't get "any language you want". You get three, two of which are questionable.
.NET simply because it's new.
Uhh...how again does C# allow you to use any languae on the CLR? You just specified the language.
And even then, that's not true. The CLR (pronounced VIRTUAL MACHINE for all you Java folks) allows only C#, Visual Basic.NET and M$ flavors of C++ to be complied down to a common intermediate language (pronounced BYTECODE for the the Java guys). They even had to badly hack VB and rip off Java to do it. Sure, you could write a compiler to turn Java or COBOL or Fortran or god knows what else in the common language, but frankly, I doubt many will bother. It's only fast because M$ has the ability to tailor the entire OS to the
I know, a bit off topic, but I can't stand pointless shilling for
Sounds like you need some Planetside!
Yes, you are upgrading the OS. Since COM DLLs are by convention binary compatible with older versions, the rest of the OS that uses the new DLLs may not actually change behavior or implementation, but you ARE upgrading a part of it, even if the "real" portions of the OS don't care.
.NET IDE, for example) require certain versions of IE (6 to be exact), meaning some of the code in those DLLs isn't soley for IE; you're upgrading more than just IE.
Also, some other programs (the
Which leads to another problem: with an LCD-suit, where would you put which app?
Errr...wonder where you'd put "touch"?
Given the M$ penchant for random DLLs, it's entirely possible that removing or disabling all the parts of IE would indeed break Windows, since god know what else is thrown into the code with it - I think most of Windows Explorer is actually IE; not having a directory browser would make that sucker unusable. This is, of course, not a good defense - it's just proof that M$ has bad design at best, or malicious design at worst. On another note, I fear for the CS department at MIT when a professor doesn't know the difference between a windowing environment and an actual OS. That truly scares me.
Because a brain-damaged monkey (read: anybody) could learn and use ASP in about 2 weeks of effort. I learned all I really use in ASP in less than a week. There's low cost fo training your people: "ASP for Dummies" is usally sufficient. I've had the (dis)pleasure of using Chilisoft before to build an app on a linux box (and yes, I lobbied for PHP but management said no). I did enjoy that it ran the whole app with only a little tweaking, but it was a pain to install. And COM components I wanted to use? Forget it. Chilisoft provides an ADO interface and I think a FileScriptingObject; anything else you're SOL. Until Apache has a way to implement a COM interface (OMG that's a nasty thought) so random components some company has dreamed up can be used, a lot of existing installs will stay with IIS so they don't have to rewrite things a JavaBeans. It's a matter of inertia, not security.
Can you get Sega of America to intervene on your behalf? Seems to me they might like to know why a device for their developers is considered illegal and try to resolve it.