You're not thinking like a marketing/sales assclown. Making more money is the goal. The unfortunate side effect of breaking the TLD conventions is secondary.
Assclown #1:"Hey, I have this new idea to make more money."
Assclown #2:"Will it affect us personally?"
AC#1: "Probably not, but I'm not sure. We DO get more money out of it, though."
AC#2:"Ok, lets do it. The engineering guys can figure out the hard parts."
'Sorry,' came the reply. 'If the check light's not on, there's no diagnostic codes for us to look up. We can't fix it unless we know what's wrong.'
Nonsense. There are many situations where the level of problem is not enough to trigger the idiot light. A random, partial misfire for instance. Some problems need to be repeated within a certain time, or over a series of driving sysles to trip the light.
You ought to be able to plug your friggin' car into the serial port of your laptop and run diagnostics on emissions, compression, etc., as a matter of course.
Trivial. You just need to spend a dollar or two for the interface. Various places have a Win or Linux program for free. Others even show you how to write your own interface. All you need is the cable.
Friend of mine has one, and I fixed a random overheating problem by finding out cyl 2 & 6 were misfiring. Cleared the idiot light, and saved myself about $500 in new waterpump and troubleshooting.
...or is there a whole other set of "SooperSekrit" codes that cannot be read by such tools as AutoTap and others? No, AutoTap isn't free, but the base and enhanced code sets are available for Ford/GM/Chrysler.
2) Start viewing live performances as your bread and butter and your only means of actually, you know, making money within the industry. If your style of music doesn't lend itself well to live performance (techno, etc.), come up with a different form of spectacle to keep the audience entertained - they want to pay you money to participate in an event, and you need provide that event.
As you say, not everything lends itself to a live performance. But some things can only be done (and recorded) live.
Should the London Philharmonic income be limited to only those who can actually attend the performance? Or some group such as Mannheim Steamroller? I don't really want to buy a t-shirt from them.
Not everything lends itself to 'spectacle' or live performance.
Depends on whose definition of season is used. What does the contract actually say? Specific dates, or just "the entire season"?
Evidently, Real believes that includes spring training. MLB seems to have a different idea.
Personally, I think the season begins at opening day, and ends on the last game of the regular season. The post-season start just after that. But then I don't watch/follow baseball, and I'd never bother to try to watch a game on TV, much less on the PC. Having it in Real format would make me enjoy it even less.
What you should have done is to point out the failings in their current system, i.e Access. Point them towards a more robust solution, that will actually work for their needs. Then built it, and charged through the nose for it.
As it is, you left the thing to be built by someone else. On an insecure system. Possibly with worse skills than you.
Sometimes the developer has to push back against managements wishes. You might have won, but at worst, you'd be no worse off than you are now.
An autopilot that is consistently 1000 feet off, a poorly written control routine for an MRI, miscalibrated antilock brakes...can certainly cause death.
But ultimately, it comes back to whoever wrote it. Or specced it. Or tested it.
Software by itself is benign. Human implementation of it may be lacking, though.
someone a little more responsible and trained than 18 year old dropouts at the controls
I know it's hip to denigrate the education levels of the US military, but you couldn't be more wrong.
DoD has established a floor of 90% of recruits have HS diplomas. The Army and Navy meet that 90%, the Marines at 95%, and the Air Force at 99%.
The military takes in very, very few Tier II (GED) or Tier III (non GED or non diploma) recruits. And those people must score at least in the top 1/2 (Army & Navy) or top 1/3 (USAF) on the ASVAB entrance exam.
And the typical 18 year old (brand new E-1 or E-2) is not at the controls of that thing by himself, if at all.
Two harriers and at least one helicopter
Got any further info on that? Because no, there was no British helo shot down in OIF by a Patriot.
March 23 - Tornado April 2 - Possible F-18 Hornet Patriot destroyed by F-16 after it locked on to the Viper
My housemates all run Windows (98/XP) and they have constant problems with viruses and spyware.
You know why there is no or no spyware problem with Linux boxes? Because A) Linux users are (usually) more clueful, and B) There is no Gator or Bonzi written for Linux.
You can bet that if your housemates were running Linux, and there was a LinBonzi port, they have just as many problems. They'd do exactly the same thing. "Oh look! This friendly monkey will save all my passwords for me!" That's social engineering, not a weakness of the OS.
I think you just need to clue up your housemates, no matter what operating system they run.
If you give your credit card numbers to 100 random people, at least one of them will use it.
You have given nothing that is not in the phone book, except your birthdate.
The OP AC seemed to be talking about *all* your (and my) data. Bank account mnumbers, credit card numbers, SSAN (National ID Num?), credit information, tax records, etc, etc.
With just a couple of those pieces of info, I can be you. Apply for (and get) credit, get a new drivers license, apply for a job (as you).
No, they're not going to target me or you specifically. But the criminal mind is going to target someone. I'd rather my name not be on his list of available identities.
If you could buy something online, and have the bill sent to someone else, would you? Probably not. But a lot of people would.
Everybody always focusses on "no data collected" as the right answer for building a good world. "All data public," I think, makes an equally good, perhaps more mature, world.
...as said by the AC.
Ok Sparky, fess up. Make public all *your* data. Let's see your name, bank acct nums, credit cards. SSAN, birthdate, address, salary.
Bartering may be easier, but still not nearly easy enough.
How do I get from 'cows' to 'this particular model new tractor'?
Inevitably, it would involve a complex chain of deals. Several people in the middle between me and my new tractor. And I don't want to deal with all of their opinions, evaluations of worth, lack of salesmanship, attitudes, problems and delays. I want to drive to the John Deere store on Saturday morn, and bring home my new tractor Saturday afternoon, after a little haggling.
And what does the tractor factory owner pay his builders in? Parts of cows? Who slaughters and slices up the cows?
A single exchange medium (the dollar/euro/yen/rupee/ruble) is just too damn convienient.
But this is easier. You're trading email for email on an even trade.
It's more complex than the current email system. And introduces the possibilty of charging your work (spammers) to someone else. Email/SMTP in itself would need a serious change (verification, and no possibility of spoofs) before this could work. And if we can do that, we don't need the penny exchange.
Tie your accounts to a PayPal account...not difficult.
Not difficult at all. Trivial. But that is precisely what I don't want to do. They are free, and relatively anonymous for a reason.
No one manages it, it could be set up by your IP along with your email account
i.e., managed by the ISP. They would have to manage changing bank accounts, etc. The banks would have to deal with swapping penny amounts around. Or the ISP/mail server would have to maintain a credit amount. Far too much work for no benefit.
I have a few free email accounts, from various sources. Now, they'd have to be tied to a bank account. No thanks.
What happens when Grandmas PC is zombied? She gets the bill? Too bad...she should have locked down her PC? Nonsense. The spams have already been sent, no matter what the resolution between Grandma and the email bill turns out to be.
I thought barter was clear
Barter, in a complex society, is far from clear. I have 2 cows, and need a new tractor. The guy who built the tractor doesn't want a cow, but instead wants his driveway repaved. The driveway guys want neither a tractor or a cow.
How do I get my tractor, and how does he get his driveway repaved? And what do the repavers get paid with?
With a good amount of pressure, salted with some confident smiles, I'm definitely confident in the fact that yes, something like that may have happened.
8 years later, and no one has talked? 1/2 or more of those people on this mythical ship are no longer in the military.
You mean to tell me...not once in the last 8 years has anyone, after having too many beers, said to a (nonmilitary)buddy..."Guess what..."
No one has had a change of heart? No one has (even anonymously) sent the details to a newspaper or TV station?
No disgruntled sailors with an axe to grind?
oh bullshit.
It's possible. It's also possible that green monkeys may fly out of my ass. But I don't think so.
Granted..it is a LOT more steps to go through to get it to do anything meaningful. But, could you write a set of instructions that: runs a keylogger asks for admin rights and pops up the Admin pw box Searches through all docs, and finds valid email addresses Sends itself to those addresses reports back to home base and as an after thought, deletes all your/jpg files.
Sure you could. The tricky part is getting the user to run it. And that's where this one is pretty good. It doesn't do anything that can't be done on another system. It just needs to convince the user that it is something else.
Slashdot Mirror
The same thing that keeps a fighter from shooting down anything over the U.S.: We'll bomb the hell out of your country if you do it!
Actually, the several thousand miles of open ocean on either side are far more effective.
You're not thinking like a marketing/sales assclown. Making more money is the goal. The unfortunate side effect of breaking the TLD conventions is secondary.
Assclown #1:"Hey, I have this new idea to make more money."
Assclown #2:"Will it affect us personally?"
AC#1: "Probably not, but I'm not sure. We DO get more money out of it, though."
AC#2:"Ok, lets do it. The engineering guys can figure out the hard parts."
High 5's and martini's all around.
'Sorry,' came the reply. 'If the check light's not on, there's no diagnostic codes for us to look up. We can't fix it unless we know what's wrong.'
Nonsense. There are many situations where the level of problem is not enough to trigger the idiot light. A random, partial misfire for instance.
Some problems need to be repeated within a certain time, or over a series of driving sysles to trip the light.
Find a new dealer.
You ought to be able to plug your friggin' car into the serial port of your laptop and run diagnostics on emissions, compression, etc., as a matter of course.
Trivial. You just need to spend a dollar or two for the interface. Various places have a Win or Linux program for free. Others even show you how to write your own interface. All you need is the cable.
Friend of mine has one, and I fixed a random overheating problem by finding out cyl 2 & 6 were misfiring. Cleared the idiot light, and saved myself about $500 in new waterpump and troubleshooting.
...or is there a whole other set of "SooperSekrit" codes that cannot be read by such tools as AutoTap and others?
No, AutoTap isn't free, but the base and enhanced code sets are available for Ford/GM/Chrysler.
And there are other, cheaper models around.
Or do these guys want the programming and the reader (cable) for free from the maufacturers?
2) Start viewing live performances as your bread and butter and your only means of actually, you know, making money within the industry. If your style of music doesn't lend itself well to live performance (techno, etc.), come up with a different form of spectacle to keep the audience entertained - they want to pay you money to participate in an event, and you need provide that event.
As you say, not everything lends itself to a live performance. But some things can only be done (and recorded) live.
Should the London Philharmonic income be limited to only those who can actually attend the performance? Or some group such as Mannheim Steamroller? I don't really want to buy a t-shirt from them.
Not everything lends itself to 'spectacle' or live performance.
Depends on whose definition of season is used. What does the contract actually say? Specific dates, or just "the entire season"?
Evidently, Real believes that includes spring training. MLB seems to have a different idea.
Personally, I think the season begins at opening day, and ends on the last game of the regular season. The post-season start just after that.
But then I don't watch/follow baseball, and I'd never bother to try to watch a game on TV, much less on the PC. Having it in Real format would make me enjoy it even less.
Shame on Real for not being more specific.
Now I have good anti-spam filters, and I probably only opened about 300 of those
Why?
this last round of worms came in an email that pretty much said exactly that.
"Hi, I'm the admin from [YourISP]. We think you have a virus. Please run the attached program, and blah blah blah."
The next round will have something like "Please type in [EvilURL].com and run the 'virus remover' you see there."
How is Joe Averages' Grandma supposed to tell the difference?
You're not being imaginitive enough...;)
Autopilot
You don't know the 1000' failure and workaround until it happens a couple of times. Those first few may well be toast
MRI
You inform of your metal implant, and the tech adjusts accordingly, but it still delivers too much power to the wrong place
ABS
One side functions correctly, and the other doesn't and locks up, but only when the temp is between 8 and 17 deg F. You spin out into a tree.
What you should have done is to point out the failings in their current system, i.e Access. Point them towards a more robust solution, that will actually work for their needs. Then built it, and charged through the nose for it.
As it is, you left the thing to be built by someone else. On an insecure system. Possibly with worse skills than you.
Sometimes the developer has to push back against managements wishes. You might have won, but at worst, you'd be no worse off than you are now.
Not by itself, no.
An autopilot that is consistently 1000 feet off, a poorly written control routine for an MRI, miscalibrated antilock brakes...can certainly cause death.
But ultimately, it comes back to whoever wrote it. Or specced it. Or tested it.
Software by itself is benign.
Human implementation of it may be lacking, though.
It is strange then that they would shell out $649 for an app they seemingly only use to retouch NASA photographs.
Or even the insane sum of $0 for a shareware copy of PSP.
someone a little more responsible and trained than 18 year old dropouts at the controls
I know it's hip to denigrate the education levels of the US military, but you couldn't be more wrong.
DoD has established a floor of 90% of recruits have HS diplomas.
The Army and Navy meet that 90%, the Marines at 95%, and the Air Force at 99%.
The military takes in very, very few Tier II (GED) or Tier III (non GED or non diploma) recruits. And those people must score at least in the top 1/2 (Army & Navy) or top 1/3 (USAF) on the ASVAB entrance exam.
And the typical 18 year old (brand new E-1 or E-2) is not at the controls of that thing by himself, if at all.
Two harriers and at least one helicopter
Got any further info on that? Because no, there was no British helo shot down in OIF by a Patriot.
March 23 - Tornado
April 2 - Possible F-18 Hornet
Patriot destroyed by F-16 after it locked on to the Viper
My housemates all run Windows (98/XP) and they have constant problems with viruses and spyware.
You know why there is no or no spyware problem with Linux boxes? Because
A) Linux users are (usually) more clueful, and
B) There is no Gator or Bonzi written for Linux.
You can bet that if your housemates were running Linux, and there was a LinBonzi port, they have just as many problems. They'd do exactly the same thing. "Oh look! This friendly monkey will save all my passwords for me!" That's social engineering, not a weakness of the OS.
I think you just need to clue up your housemates, no matter what operating system they run.
If you give your credit card numbers to 100 random people, at least one of them will use it.
You have given nothing that is not in the phone book, except your birthdate.
The OP AC seemed to be talking about *all* your (and my) data. Bank account mnumbers, credit card numbers, SSAN (National ID Num?), credit information, tax records, etc, etc.
With just a couple of those pieces of info, I can be you. Apply for (and get) credit, get a new drivers license, apply for a job (as you).
No, they're not going to target me or you specifically. But the criminal mind is going to target someone. I'd rather my name not be on his list of available identities.
If you could buy something online, and have the bill sent to someone else, would you? Probably not. But a lot of people would.
umm...that was my point exactly. Better to do a face to face rather than get the authorities involved.
Everybody always focusses on "no data collected" as the right answer for building a good world. "All data public," I think, makes an equally good, perhaps more mature, world.
...as said by the AC.
Ok Sparky, fess up. Make public all *your* data. Let's see your name, bank acct nums, credit cards. SSAN, birthdate, address, salary.
After all...it's the mature thing to do, right?
They could have just called the FBI first. I think a nice frendly chat first works better for all parties, don't you?
Bartering may be easier, but still not nearly easy enough.
How do I get from 'cows' to 'this particular model new tractor'?
Inevitably, it would involve a complex chain of deals. Several people in the middle between me and my new tractor. And I don't want to deal with all of their opinions, evaluations of worth, lack of salesmanship, attitudes, problems and delays. I want to drive to the John Deere store on Saturday morn, and bring home my new tractor Saturday afternoon, after a little haggling.
And what does the tractor factory owner pay his builders in? Parts of cows? Who slaughters and slices up the cows?
A single exchange medium (the dollar/euro/yen/rupee/ruble) is just too damn convienient.
But this is easier. You're trading email for email on an even trade.
It's more complex than the current email system. And introduces the possibilty of charging your work (spammers) to someone else. Email/SMTP in itself would need a serious change (verification, and no possibility of spoofs) before this could work.
And if we can do that, we don't need the penny exchange.
Tie your accounts to a PayPal account...not difficult.
Not difficult at all. Trivial. But that is precisely what I don't want to do. They are free, and relatively anonymous for a reason.
No one manages it, it could be set up by your IP along with your email account
i.e., managed by the ISP. They would have to manage changing bank accounts, etc. The banks would have to deal with swapping penny amounts around. Or the ISP/mail server would have to maintain a credit amount. Far too much work for no benefit.
I have a few free email accounts, from various sources. Now, they'd have to be tied to a bank account. No thanks.
What happens when Grandmas PC is zombied? She gets the bill? Too bad...she should have locked down her PC? Nonsense. The spams have already been sent, no matter what the resolution between Grandma and the email bill turns out to be.
I thought barter was clear
Barter, in a complex society, is far from clear. I have 2 cows, and need a new tractor. The guy who built the tractor doesn't want a cow, but instead wants his driveway repaved. The driveway guys want neither a tractor or a cow.
How do I get my tractor, and how does he get his driveway repaved? And what do the repavers get paid with?
Ease and anonymity.
You can influence (steal/spoof/scam) more things and people faster via CPU, and it involves little physical risk to you.
Oh, and technophobes probably had a hand in writing it into law...
get an email, get a penny, send an email, send a penny
Paid by whom, to whom, managed by whom?
With a good amount of pressure, salted with some confident smiles, I'm definitely confident in the fact that yes, something like that may have happened.
8 years later, and no one has talked? 1/2 or more of those people on this mythical ship are no longer in the military.
You mean to tell me...not once in the last 8 years has anyone, after having too many beers, said to a (nonmilitary)buddy..."Guess what..."
No one has had a change of heart?
No one has (even anonymously) sent the details to a newspaper or TV station?
No disgruntled sailors with an axe to grind?
oh bullshit.
It's possible. It's also possible that green monkeys may fly out of my ass. But I don't think so.
Never heard of a Linux virus?
/jpg files.
Granted..it is a LOT more steps to go through to get it to do anything meaningful.
But, could you write a set of instructions that:
runs a keylogger
asks for admin rights and pops up the Admin pw box
Searches through all docs, and finds valid email addresses
Sends itself to those addresses
reports back to home base
and as an after thought, deletes all your
Sure you could.
The tricky part is getting the user to run it. And that's where this one is pretty good. It doesn't do anything that can't be done on another system. It just needs to convince the user that it is something else.