Let's bring this into the physical world rather than the ethereal world of bits and bytes.
Stealing cars is illegal. I don't think there's any debate as to whether or not it should stay that way.
Figuring out how to break into cars and publishing that information is not illegal. (Well, it might be now undere the DMCA.) Especially if Ford makes a car that all you have to do is pull the handle four times real fast, or kick the corner of the door while pushing down the right spot, or some other reasonably trivial method to open a "locked" car.
Such information (how to, and how easy it is or isn't) on breaking into cars is valuable to consumers. They can choose to buy a car from a different manufacturer. They can install an alarm system. They can move to a safer neighborhood where they don't have to worry about people breaking into their car.
The same holds true in the digital world. If I as a consumer put some level of trust in a security system, I want to know how reliable that system is. In this specific case, if Blackboard's security is very weak, then I'll make sure never to have more than $100 in my debit account; as a school, I'll put cameras up to catch students stealing sodas with bogus cards, etc.
The bad guys out there WILL exploit any and all security holes they can find. As a consumer (whether a business buying an enterprise wide security solution, or a soccer mom hooking up to the Internet) it is in my best interest to know that people are out there actively trying to break anything that claims to protect me.
The act of breaking into someone else's machine, or using a bogus ID to steal products, is still illegal. And should be. But people need to know how easy it is or isn't to bypass any security measure so they can make an informed decision how far to trust that measure and what additional measures they may wish to employ.
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
If hacking is outlawed (and talking about it), only outlaws will know how to hack.
So who do you get to sue if someone makes a dupe of your ID card and raids your campus debit account, or breaks into your dorm room? The school? The hacker? The company that sold the school the lame ID system they claim is secure but is not?
I would think the schools would like to know why sodas, meals, etc. are disappearing from their supplies. Hmmm.... This Coke machine is empty, but only 5 Cokes were recorded to be bought from it. Hmmm...
This is the worst kind of security through obscurity.
Try "100,000 times faster THAN today's PCs". Sheesh. This error is creeping into books and magazines, too. I dread the day the linguists give up and just list "then" and "than" as alternate spellings for each other.
Good point. However, the bug was apparently reported to MSN a couple of weeks ago. To their credit, they did fix it. HOWEVER, their fix targets Opera 7; Opera 6 still gets the bad stuff. This may be stupidity rather than malice. We have no idea how the MSN web monkeys create stylesheets for various browsers. It may be that it was easy for them to create a new "Opera" stylesheet, but "oops" their process created a new v7 stylesheet, leaving the v6 stylesheet lying around. It may be trickier for them to go in a modify an existing stylesheet.
- Jasen.
P.S. Unless there was some REALLY good reason for making an Opera specific stylesheet in the first place, I still think websites in general should deliver generic, standards compliant stylesheets and expect the browsers to render such in a consistent manner.
If you read the article, you'll see that MSN is still sending a "special" stylesheet to Opera v6. So now MSN distinguishes between 2 different versions of Opera and sends the fixed stuff only to v7.
I don't see why any browser should receive a special stylesheet. - Except for IE so MS can take advantage of proprietary extensions to the "standards".
Maybe the issue is really how MSN handles stylesheet delivery? MSN may have some wonky system that makes it difficult for the poor lackeys maintaining the site to fix this in a simple universal way.
At first swipe, I agree that the vidPod seems lame - no one wants to watch video on a 2"x2" screen. However, as an extension to iPhoto and iDVD, I think the vidPod makes more sense.
Scenario: You're going to see Grandma. The highest tech piece of equipment she owns is a color TV - with a remote! (MAYBE she's cutting edge and owns a VCR.) However, being the yuppie-technocrat that you are, you have a digital camera, DV camera, and a Mac loaded with the way cool iPhoto and iDVD.
Now, how can you amaze Grandma with footage from little Suzie's latest soccer game, and photos from the family vacation to the timeshare in Mexico? You could: a) Print out photos and bring your DV camera to hook up to Grandma's TV. b) Burn photos and video to a DVD and bring your DVD player to Grandma's. or.... c) Write all your photos & video to your vidPod (which also holds the MP3s you listen to at the gym).
I think a marketing case could be made that scenario "c" is more convenient. Also, I like the post that mentioned direct dumping of digital pics to the vidPod; add in dumping of DV and I think you have a case for a near universal, portable storage device with various in/outputs - headphone, s-video, firewire, bluetooth.
The Archos video camera is intriguing, too. Unfortunately, adding this type of functionality would put Apple in direct competition with Sony, Canon, et al and I don't think Apple wants to go there.
Not just any laptop. An Apple PowerBook. Everyone knows Apples "just work". Haven't you ever noticed the "Alien Mothership" driver extension in the System folder?
- Jasen.
I was in Hong Kong recently. There are an AWFUL lot of people riding the subways with their headphones/earphones on/in, a cell phone in hand, and an MP3 player clipped to their jacket. (I didn't see many folks with a PDA too, but there were some.) Imagine any significant percentage of those folks using their cell phones to watch and listen to little TV shows to be entertained during the 5-10 minute subway ride from A to B. (Sports highlights, news, music videos, stand up comedians, short cartoons, etc.) This provides not only a useful service to the consumer - fill boring time - but provides a revenue stream to providers.
I'll go one step further, imagine advertiser suppported video on demand via cell phone - so the consumer doesn't have to pay connect/data charges. Cell phones become mini-TVs supported by the same paradigm as current broadcast TV.
IMHO, 3G, video and audio streaming via cell phones will really only take off in populations with large numbers of mass transit commuters, i.e. NOT the U.S. The cell phone becomes not only a comm link, but a personal entertainment center. In the U.S. our cars are our PETCs, in Hong Kong the cell phone is.
Yeah. That sounds like the right company. All the smart people will just make sure they live near an ADM executive, manager, or employee (in that order depending on wealth). Everyone will want their kids to go to the same schools as the ADM kids because, well, THEIR sporting events never seem to get rained out. And cities around the country will pay ADM huge amounts of money to put up stadiums - because ADM stadiums always seem to have good weather.
Seriously though, I remember reading or seeing something shortly after the WTC attack about meteorologists finally getting a chance to see how the weather behaves without any airliners mucking up the sky. IIRC, they determined jetliners SERIOUSLY affect the weather.
So, given that air travel and the attendant screwing with the weather caused by all the exhaust from thousands of jets is not going away, is it responsible to further muck about with the weather intentionally in an attempt to make it rain where we really want it to?
Something I find odd about the FS business is that I was on a trans-Pacific flight on United a couple weeks ago and they showed the Farscape episode that is an homage to Chuck Jones/Road Runner. I kept thinking to myself, "Why would the network bother to let (or pay for, I have no idea how airtime on jetliners is financed) United show a show that has been cancelled?"
Wouldn't one think that any episode of a show shown on an airplane would essentially be a big ad for the series?
And turn down that obnoxious rock-n-roll "music", too. Why back in the good old days we only had toggle switches and punch cards, not these new fangled keyboards with all their confusing buttons. Why can't people write in raw binary like any self respecting technocrat should?
Sheesh, all you people whining about the 2s and 4s and urs sound like a bunch of old grandmas. It took me maybe half an extra brain cell to work through the "hep" styling of the article. Perhaps "If it's too loud, you're too old" should now become "If it's too l337, you're too old."
At least the article intentionally butchered "standard" English. Unlike two of the worst misuses I'm seeing pop up all over the Net:
there vs. their then vs. than
but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first...
Obviously written by someone who doesn't own shares of HP. If HP management, i.e. Carly and the BoD, cared about shareholder value they wouldn't have bought that boat anchor Compaq.
What? You mean a movie that doesn't spoon feed the audience every bit of knowledge that the characters would have? Say it ain't so.
Personally, I liked the obscurities you mention. Who commissioned the clone army? Some Jedi that died some years ago. But wait, was he dead before the cloners say he commissioned the army? Then who really commissioned the clones?
Oh no! I may actually need to rewatch the movie to pick up on some of the finer points of the dialog and story development, rather than just watch things go boom and stare at Natalie Portman.
Personally, I hate movies that over-explain things. I'd much rather be a bit lost - even at the end - than be patronized.
- Jasen.
Why use an x86 processor?
1. Aren't there way more efficient processors out there?
2. Why use a competitor's CPU rather than IBM's own POWER chip? - Which happens to be one of those more efficient CPUs.
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I almost agree with this post. Almost.
Let's bring this into the physical world rather than the ethereal world of bits and bytes.
Stealing cars is illegal. I don't think there's any debate as to whether or not it should stay that way.
Figuring out how to break into cars and publishing that information is not illegal. (Well, it might be now undere the DMCA.) Especially if Ford makes a car that all you have to do is pull the handle four times real fast, or kick the corner of the door while pushing down the right spot, or some other reasonably trivial method to open a "locked" car.
Such information (how to, and how easy it is or isn't) on breaking into cars is valuable to consumers. They can choose to buy a car from a different manufacturer. They can install an alarm system. They can move to a safer neighborhood where they don't have to worry about people breaking into their car.
The same holds true in the digital world. If I as a consumer put some level of trust in a security system, I want to know how reliable that system is. In this specific case, if Blackboard's security is very weak, then I'll make sure never to have more than $100 in my debit account; as a school, I'll put cameras up to catch students stealing sodas with bogus cards, etc.
The bad guys out there WILL exploit any and all security holes they can find. As a consumer (whether a business buying an enterprise wide security solution, or a soccer mom hooking up to the Internet) it is in my best interest to know that people are out there actively trying to break anything that claims to protect me.
The act of breaking into someone else's machine, or using a bogus ID to steal products, is still illegal. And should be. But people need to know how easy it is or isn't to bypass any security measure so they can make an informed decision how far to trust that measure and what additional measures they may wish to employ.
- Jasen.
If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns.
If hacking is outlawed (and talking about it), only outlaws will know how to hack.
So who do you get to sue if someone makes a dupe of your ID card and raids your campus debit account, or breaks into your dorm room? The school? The hacker? The company that sold the school the lame ID system they claim is secure but is not?
I would think the schools would like to know why sodas, meals, etc. are disappearing from their supplies. Hmmm.... This Coke machine is empty, but only 5 Cokes were recorded to be bought from it. Hmmm...
This is the worst kind of security through obscurity.
- Jasen.
"100,000 times faster then today's PCs"
Try "100,000 times faster THAN today's PCs". Sheesh. This error is creeping into books and magazines, too. I dread the day the linguists give up and just list "then" and "than" as alternate spellings for each other.
- Jasen.
The U.S. could go the route of Australia where you get fined if you don't vote.
- Jasen.
Good point. However, the bug was apparently reported to MSN a couple of weeks ago. To their credit, they did fix it. HOWEVER, their fix targets Opera 7; Opera 6 still gets the bad stuff. This may be stupidity rather than malice. We have no idea how the MSN web monkeys create stylesheets for various browsers. It may be that it was easy for them to create a new "Opera" stylesheet, but "oops" their process created a new v7 stylesheet, leaving the v6 stylesheet lying around. It may be trickier for them to go in a modify an existing stylesheet.
- Jasen.
P.S. Unless there was some REALLY good reason for making an Opera specific stylesheet in the first place, I still think websites in general should deliver generic, standards compliant stylesheets and expect the browsers to render such in a consistent manner.
If you read the article, you'll see that MSN is still sending a "special" stylesheet to Opera v6. So now MSN distinguishes between 2 different versions of Opera and sends the fixed stuff only to v7.
I don't see why any browser should receive a special stylesheet. - Except for IE so MS can take advantage of proprietary extensions to the "standards".
Maybe the issue is really how MSN handles stylesheet delivery? MSN may have some wonky system that makes it difficult for the poor lackeys maintaining the site to fix this in a simple universal way.
- Jasen.
At first swipe, I agree that the vidPod seems lame - no one wants to watch video on a 2"x2" screen. However, as an extension to iPhoto and iDVD, I think the vidPod makes more sense.
Scenario: You're going to see Grandma. The highest tech piece of equipment she owns is a color TV - with a remote! (MAYBE she's cutting edge and owns a VCR.) However, being the yuppie-technocrat that you are, you have a digital camera, DV camera, and a Mac loaded with the way cool iPhoto and iDVD.
Now, how can you amaze Grandma with footage from little Suzie's latest soccer game, and photos from the family vacation to the timeshare in Mexico?
You could:
a) Print out photos and bring your DV camera to hook up to Grandma's TV.
b) Burn photos and video to a DVD and bring your DVD player to Grandma's.
or....
c) Write all your photos & video to your vidPod (which also holds the MP3s you listen to at the gym).
I think a marketing case could be made that scenario "c" is more convenient. Also, I like the post that mentioned direct dumping of digital pics to the vidPod; add in dumping of DV and I think you have a case for a near universal, portable storage device with various in/outputs - headphone, s-video, firewire, bluetooth.
The Archos video camera is intriguing, too. Unfortunately, adding this type of functionality would put Apple in direct competition with Sony, Canon, et al and I don't think Apple wants to go there.
Not just any laptop. An Apple PowerBook. Everyone knows Apples "just work". Haven't you ever noticed the "Alien Mothership" driver extension in the System folder? - Jasen.
I was in Hong Kong recently. There are an AWFUL lot of people riding the subways with their headphones/earphones on/in, a cell phone in hand, and an MP3 player clipped to their jacket. (I didn't see many folks with a PDA too, but there were some.) Imagine any significant percentage of those folks using their cell phones to watch and listen to little TV shows to be entertained during the 5-10 minute subway ride from A to B. (Sports highlights, news, music videos, stand up comedians, short cartoons, etc.) This provides not only a useful service to the consumer - fill boring time - but provides a revenue stream to providers.
I'll go one step further, imagine advertiser suppported video on demand via cell phone - so the consumer doesn't have to pay connect/data charges. Cell phones become mini-TVs supported by the same paradigm as current broadcast TV.
IMHO, 3G, video and audio streaming via cell phones will really only take off in populations with large numbers of mass transit commuters, i.e. NOT the U.S. The cell phone becomes not only a comm link, but a personal entertainment center. In the U.S. our cars are our PETCs, in Hong Kong the cell phone is.
Yeah. That sounds like the right company. All the smart people will just make sure they live near an ADM executive, manager, or employee (in that order depending on wealth). Everyone will want their kids to go to the same schools as the ADM kids because, well, THEIR sporting events never seem to get rained out. And cities around the country will pay ADM huge amounts of money to put up stadiums - because ADM stadiums always seem to have good weather.
Seriously though, I remember reading or seeing something shortly after the WTC attack about meteorologists finally getting a chance to see how the weather behaves without any airliners mucking up the sky. IIRC, they determined jetliners SERIOUSLY affect the weather.
So, given that air travel and the attendant screwing with the weather caused by all the exhaust from thousands of jets is not going away, is it responsible to further muck about with the weather intentionally in an attempt to make it rain where we really want it to?
Something I find odd about the FS business is that I was on a trans-Pacific flight on United a couple weeks ago and they showed the Farscape episode that is an homage to Chuck Jones/Road Runner. I kept thinking to myself, "Why would the network bother to let (or pay for, I have no idea how airtime on jetliners is financed) United show a show that has been cancelled?" Wouldn't one think that any episode of a show shown on an airplane would essentially be a big ad for the series?
> I WANT OSX on the intel platform !!!
You can have it. It's called Darwin.
And turn down that obnoxious rock-n-roll "music", too. Why back in the good old days we only had toggle switches and punch cards, not these new fangled keyboards with all their confusing buttons. Why can't people write in raw binary like any self respecting technocrat should?
Sheesh, all you people whining about the 2s and 4s and urs sound like a bunch of old grandmas. It took me maybe half an extra brain cell to work through the "hep" styling of the article. Perhaps "If it's too loud, you're too old" should now become "If it's too l337, you're too old."
At least the article intentionally butchered "standard" English. Unlike two of the worst misuses I'm seeing pop up all over the Net:
there vs. their
then vs. than
but I guess they have to worry about shareholders first...
Obviously written by someone who doesn't own shares of HP. If HP management, i.e. Carly and the BoD, cared about shareholder value they wouldn't have bought that boat anchor Compaq.
What? You mean a movie that doesn't spoon feed the audience every bit of knowledge that the characters would have? Say it ain't so. Personally, I liked the obscurities you mention. Who commissioned the clone army? Some Jedi that died some years ago. But wait, was he dead before the cloners say he commissioned the army? Then who really commissioned the clones? Oh no! I may actually need to rewatch the movie to pick up on some of the finer points of the dialog and story development, rather than just watch things go boom and stare at Natalie Portman. Personally, I hate movies that over-explain things. I'd much rather be a bit lost - even at the end - than be patronized. - Jasen.
Why use an x86 processor? 1. Aren't there way more efficient processors out there? 2. Why use a competitor's CPU rather than IBM's own POWER chip? - Which happens to be one of those more efficient CPUs.