The second one stops you cold, until you remember that China is as corrupt as all hell. Those with power will continue to do exactly as they please.
This I agree with you on mostly - it's not lawless, but definitely knowing the right palm to grease or being a member of the right family or party will get you a long, long ways in the mainland.
There are no surprises here, except to those dumb and immoral enough to do business with and invest in communist China.
I don't know about this. To me, it seems like trade often opens a lot of borders and helps spread wealth and education. The employees at the semiconductor plants I worked in in China were in better shape financially and better educated than their counterparts on the rice farms. To me, this seems like a (very slow) path to freedom, rather than a downgrade. Yes, the Japanese and European companies that owned the fabs were there because they could employ people and purchase land for pennies on the dollar vs. anywhere else, but it doesn't have to be entirely one-sided. An educated employee that can read is a big bonus on even a basic high-tech factory line, and an educated populace is more likely to desire democracy.
Hong Kong and Beijing are two of the most 'free' cities largely because of the amount of trade going through them. I don't admire the mainland Chinese government, but I'm not sure ostracizing them from the world community would make them be more reasonable.
Best I can tell, the Chinese government realizes these dangers to some degree - hence the customs checkpoints between mainland and Hong Kong being still active. But those checkpoints don't stop the spread of ideas very well...
End User License Agreement Be sure to carefully read and understand all of the rights and restrictions described in the EULA. You will be asked to review and either accept or not accept the terms of the EULA. This product will not set up on your computer unless and until you accept the terms of the EULA. For your future reference, you may print the text of the EULA from the eula.txt file of this product. You may also receive a copy of this EULA by contacting the Microsoft subsidiary serving your country, or by writing to : Microsoft Sales Information Center/One Microsoft Way/Redmond, WA 98052-6399.
IMPORTANT--READ CAREFULLY: This License Agreement for Pre-Release Software ("Agreement") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity, referred to in this Agreement as "Recipient" or "You") and Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") for the pre-release Microsoft SOFTWARE (as defined below) that accompanies this Agreement. An amendment or addendum to this Agreement may accompany this SOFTWARE. YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE SOFTWARE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE. Microsoft may, in its sole discretion, also provide further pre-releases of the SOFTWARE or related information to Recipient hereunder, in which case such further pre-releases and related information shall also be covered hereunder as "SOFTWARE."
MICROSOFT CORPORATION LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE
Microsoft SOFTWARE: Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, BETA
Accompanying this Agreement is a pre-release copy of the Microsoft software identified above which includes software, and related documentation and information (collectively the "SOFTWARE"). The SOFTWARE is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. The SOFTWARE is licensed, not sold.
NOTICE: THE SOFTWARE IS TIME SENSITIVE AND IS DESIGNED TO CEASE FUNCTIONING ON MARCH 1, 2005. NOTICE OF EXPIRATION WILL NOT ACTIVELY BE GIVEN SO YOU NEED TO PLAN FOR THE EXPIRATION DATE AND, PRIOR TO SUCH EXPIRATION, MAKE A COPY OF AND REMOVE YOUR DATA THAT YOU WISH TO USE IN THE FUTURE.
1. LICENSE.
(a) Subject to Recipient's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Microsoft grants to Recipient a limited, non-exclusive, nontransferable, non-assignable license to install, reproduce and use the SOFTWARE on up to ten (10) computers residing on Recipient's premises, solely for purposes of testing software programs that run in conjunction with the SOFTWARE, and to evaluate the SOFTWARE for the purpose of providing feedback thereon to Microsoft.
(b) The SOFTWARE contains time sensitive and beta prerelease code that is not at the level of performance and compatibility of a final, generally available, product offering and may not be used in a live operating environment where it may be relied upon to perform in the same manner as a commercially released product or with data that has not been sufficiently backed up. Due to the nature of the development work, Microsoft provides no assurance that any specific errors or discrepancies in the SOFTWARE will be corrected. Recipient expressly acknowledges and agrees that the SOFTWARE may change substantially prior to commercial release of the SOFTWARE.
(c) Internet-Enabled Features. Since this SOFTWARE is a prerelease version, some of its Internet-enabled features are turned on by default. Those features collect information from your computer and send it to Microsoft. The default settings in this version of the SOFTWARE do not necessarily reflect how the features will be configured in the commercially released version. For more details about these features, what information is collected, and how it is used see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=25076. If You choose to install and use this SOFTWARE, You authorize the automatic collection
In Texas they're mostly pretty nice, especially along the Interstates. I've taken naps at some of them when I misjudged how awake I was for long hauls and decided I needed a nap *before* getting to my destination or a convenient town.
Crime can happen, but if there's 10 truckers parked there resting (which is common), chances are people aren't going to try breaking into your car with you there as well. It's just too risky - the noise would bring additional help, and chances are at least one person at the stop is packing a piece.
That's one nice thing in Texas - I've seen it happen. If a person calls for help, people still generally come to see what's up. I've arrived a couple of times for others here myself and helped make sure people stayed polite.
So now it's being made criminal, but even within the bounds of current law, you can receive a lot of marketing email. Don't misuse the word criminal, please.
Marketing email directly from a company I do business with is one thing (acceptable, if annoying). Crap for viagra, home mortages, etc. is another. Most of the spam is very misleading anyway, and targetted towards old people that are easily manipulated (e.g. the mortage spams with the 'I spoke with you this morning' headers). That's borderline.
The crap with the viruses setting up spam relays is criminal.
If you want to avoid spam, do the same thing you'd do with advertising on TV: stop taking advantage of its products. Either buy content at a high enough markup that operators needn't sell your address, or use publically funded content. But don't expect to eradicate internet advertising while still getting everything for free. It just can't work that way..
If only that worked. Unfortunately, simply for the fact that I run a few domains and actually find it helpful for people to be able to contact me without unraveling a mangled email address (hence, I put my email up) - it gets harvested and abused. I can turn off the TV if it annoys me (actually don't currently own one) - I can't turn off the spam w/o loosing my business communication.
I've never bought something from spam, nor do they even get the satisfaction of those stupid image-link bugs getting pinged. Unfortunately, I can't stop the people they take advantage of from falling for their scams, any more than I can make the Citibank phishing expedition and Nigerian 419 scams unprofitable.
About 20 spam/day make it through the filter right now, with another 50 or so going to the spam bin. I get 5-10 legit emails per day. Bayesian filtering is dead now with the random garbage-spewers, so I need to test and install another solution on the server end (until the last 6 months or so, client filtering worked best for me - now it sucks ass). My life shouldn't revolve around dealing with spam. But I'm going to need to spend time on it anyway now.
Since I haven't spent much time on it, it *has* cost me more than time. I had a contract offer go into my spam bin, because the random words horked the bayesian filtering so badly. It wasn't the only false positive I've had, but it's the first time the delay before cleaning the spam bin cost me something - a contract. That just sucks.
So you want it wired to a laptop? If so, one thing I didn't see scanning the comments is Weeder Technologies' controllers. They do RS-232, which is a lot more friendly for a variety of control options than many of the parallel-port motor controllers.
I used their digital I/O and stepper motor controllers for my 3D scanner project - they're pretty good for low-res, low-budget projects.
There are three broad categories of teachers I've found in modern academia. The ones who love the subject and love teaching it even more, the ones who love research, and the ones who got a degree and couldn't cut it, so they went back to teach.
The first group are rare,. They could make much more money applying their skills in their field - but are usually the most prized teachers. I had the fortune of having maybe 3 or 4 such teachers in high-school and college, and loved their classes. Of course, teaching ability and performance rarely equals advancement for teachers - we discourage these people even after they've become teachers!
The second can go either way. The research comes before the students, but some still make extraordinary teachers. They tend to advance in universities as a result of their research - something the previous group often doesn't do. Some barely notice they have students though - I had a few who loved reading out of the books they wrote, verbatim, every class, and thought that was teaching. I stopped going to those classes - I could read faster without watching someone else's lips move to the words.
And the third, well, they unfortunately seem the most common these days, and are at best baby-sitters in early education and a disgraceful waste of money when you hit college. Unfortunately, with the low salaries and prestige afforded teachers these days, them's what ya get.
Now think a virus writer or spammer which steals less amounts from everyone. Not just time reinstalling the OS and/or cleaning the virus. But also time wasted because the pipe was choked with a packet storm. Time spent installing and updating AV programs. Time spent on tech support. Etc.
I've had to deal with viruses in corporate situations before, it ain't pleasant, it did waste my time, but..... the comparison you're giving just doesn't work.
And for christ's sake, leave the bloody Nazi references out. They're stupid.
.. is that the language often used for these pranks is cyberterrorism, and it's already a pretty serious felony. Now, there could be such a thing, but most of what I've seen coming from virus writers are teenagers playing pranks.
Since we've thrown the entire world on one ad-hoc network without securing anything, those pranks are damned expensive right now and there's a real problem. But.... most of the people causing these untold trillions of dollars of damage are bored teenagers, just as antisocial as a lot of other teenagers who are out smashing post office boxes, spray painting walls, and sniffing glue, that happen to be somewhat adept at using a computer.
There do seem to be a few pro's in the field that could be linked to the spam operations and possibly even corporate and government espionage, but they're still seriously in the minority.
So - does some kid doing something stupid warrant destroying the rest of the kid's life? Do these kids really understand the consequences of what they're doing and what kind of destruction they're causing? I think in most cases - no, they don't. In the rest, well - they're still kids. Punish them, let them know what they did was wrong, but don't try to lock them up for the rest of their lives or bury them under the jail for what to them seemed like a funny prank. There's a huge difference between creating a piece of code and shooting someone in the head.
I think we need to do two things.
Secure the damn networks so that your average 14-year old geek can't cause billions of dollars worth of damage with a few days of work.
Educate our kids in a more compassionate way, teaching them ethics and responsibility along with computer skills rather than sending them to a meat-grinder / day-care that does nothing but frustrate halfway intelligent people that want to learn something.
You kiddies these days, you think you're soooo special because you got the transistor! Back in my day, digital meant counting on your hands.
Seriously though, I think having a solid understanding of how computers work at a hardware level is extremely useful in helping one understand 'the big picture'. But I don't really see how gaining that by hacking in assembler on a G4 or K7 processor is any different than gaining that hacking on a 6809 OR 8088, and I question the usefulness of having 'POKE 65495,0' stuck in my head as a way to double the speed of my computer.
From what I've seen, it's the hands-on use and the love of the technology that makes a difference - not the age. Experience counts - I've definitely learned a lot over the decades (*sigh*) - but so much of what one learns is obsoleted by the next year that it's predominately the underlying truths that are useful. Stick a bright, interested kid with a passion for computers with a good mentor that makes them do complex real-world stuff, and I bet the kid would equal or often surpass most veterans within a few years.
It's just too bad that in most universities that's not what happens - especially for the first four wasted years. I honestly think apprenticeships would work quite a bit better in IT and software development.
Definitely have to agree with you. Compared to conditions that the people building our cellphones and computers are living under, Indian support rep companies sound nice.
At the factories I worked at in one of the southern 'special economic districts', it seemed like they just provided crowded dormitories and food for the teenage girls working the lines. I guess they could have been paid in addition, but certainly not enough to allow for any kind of 'upwardly mobile' trend or savings.
Of course, on the other hand, it was sometimes hard to be too angry at the western companies, since it looked like the farmers in the surrounding areas in China had it a lot worse than those who worked in the factories. At least the girls working the lines got steady meals, a clean place to sleep, and some basic education (reading and writing abilities help productivity in high-tech factories quite a bit).
Being a wage-slave for a multinational corp must have looked like the best option to the many peasants as well, considering that I was told - when watching peasants being beaten by the side of the road by police and I asked one of our reps what was going on - that people without the right papers aren't allowed into the special economic regions but that they come anyway in hopes of slipping in and finding a job.
I prefer going to more independant coffee shops or just brewing my own espresso at home, but I like my coffee strong. I like the taste and I like the caffeine buzz, too. The stronger the better. If they are trying to make a stronger cup of coffee, then for the most part I'd say it's because a lot of their customers like it that way. If they didn't, there wouldn't be such a market for double and triple-shot drinks.
I'd be all for companies labeling the caffeine content for you though so people wouldn't think it was some sort of conspiracy, although mandating that seems silly.
... is US corporate culture and not Insurance Company culture?
One of the least pleasant places I've worked was a large insurance company (my first job - internal pc tech). I think it has something to do with the fact that any customers anyone actually has to deal with are immediately presumed to be criminals for making a claim at all combined with the fact that really there just isn't much that's fun about insurance.
Find something more fun. If you have other interests, try to find a company that does things that align with those. *Then* worry about what country its in, unless you're just fed up with living in the US in general. Don't go work for an insurance company in Canada and expect it to be magically 'fun', although traveling internationally and living abroad can be worth doing by itself.
You don't mention what they want that you don't think is aesthetically pleasing, but remember that in your position you have *two* distinct sets of customers - the elderly group you're building the web site for, and anyone purchasing from them. Your primary responsibility, provided that everything is ethically sound, is to those that 'hired' you.
Ask them why they want features that you think are aesthetically unpleasing - they're artists, right? Shouldn't that mean they have some aesthetic sense and might be worth listening to?
As far as high-contrast colors that have been recommended - one problem that increases in frequency with age is colorblindness. Not the red/green type deficiencies, but there's a diabetes-related condition that causes a blue deficiency (tritanopia).
For some examples, check out VisCheck. You might also be interested in an experimental proggie I wrote to simulate various color deficiencies and remap the colors - CodeBlind.
You are aware that I said 'multiple developers' and 'multiple subscriptions' and 'testing' which is usually considered a part of software development? What's your point?
Okay, here, I'll slow it down a bit for those that don't grok the problems here...
Say I want to test a piece of software with 10 PC's simultaneously for 3 months without reformatting them. That's fine by the license - just activate each and go for it.
Now say I get two new machines in with completely different hardware that is supposedly having an incompatibility with the product. I remove XP on two of the old machines that have proven to work well with the product and do a format, then send them off to IT to be used for whatever. The licensed software has been removed - you'd think one could install it on the two new machines now and run for three more months without problems, yes? No, because of the stupid activation limitations. That's scenario 1.
Now, howabout a situation where there are 2 developers, each with his own MSDN license. Both are working on a single project, but their testing needs are different. Developer A needs to do a lot of different OS/configuration testing, but the actual hardware doesn't matter that much - let's say he's the apps guy. Developer B needs to test on every variation of hardware he can possibly get his hands on, because he's the driver guy working on a USB device. Because of the large variety of USB implementations out there (many of which are flawed in their own special way), he really needs to do hard-core, long term testing on several different machines. So, Developer A and Developer B pool their resources - both are working on the same project within a single room, so it makes sense that they should be able to do that. A gets 5 machines, B gets 15.
Now, combine the two situations and add more developers over a longer period of time. What you have now is a clusterfuck. Despite the fact that your team has legitimately purchased enough licenses to run on all the machines they have at any one time, you now have a definite possibility of a license shortage and you're forced to keep a list of all of the developer keys with tallies on how many times each has been used so you'll have known keys available when it comes time to remove old/broken/obsoleted test machines and bring in new ones.
Now, to add another issue in the mix - if you renew your subscription, you keep the same key and don't get additional reinstalls. So, either you beg your representative to refresh your key or give you a new one, or you're even more limited on test machines unless you cancel your MSDN subscription and buy a new one - getting 10 more installs in the process.
Perhaps you have a volume license agreement with volume keys, a corporate version of XP, or did not perform installs on 30-40 substantially different PC's. I've always had an individual Professional level subscription. With either, you may reinstall multiple times to a single PC so long as that PC's hardware does not change dramatically without decrementing your usage count more than once for that given PC.
However, there is a limit to the number of different/reconfigured PC's you can install to using the provided key, and yes tracking that can be a pain in the ass. I've worked on projects where we needed to test on lots of PC's over a multiple month period, and we ended up having to basically make a pool of keys from multiple subscriptions so that people with more extreme requirements (like the device driver guys) wouldn't run out of activations.
Yes, we could have constantly reinstalled without activating or kept calling MS tech support, but both of those also qualify as a pain in the ass in my book.
Quit helping the evil bastards justify their fascist agenda. The FBI certainly isn't going to return the favor by supplying rationalisms as to why the student might have perfectly innocent reasons for his request.
Save your bloody outrage for all the places where civil rights are being violated - there are plenty of them right now, but I simply don't see this as one of them. He didn't get thrown in jail - he got asked some questions trying to determine what the hell he wanted a blueprint of the tunnels so badly for.
Remember; There are only step-forwards, no step-backs in the game of Military Lock-Down.
Again, bullshit. I think we're heading for a halfway decent step back when the Supreme Court makes a decision on the Guantanamo case - I've got my fingers crossed. More and more people are beginning to wonder why they were lied to about the WMD intelligence and wtf some portions of the Patriot Act and similar legislation actually have to do with stopping terrorism - these are good signs. THOSE are civil rights violations - asking a guy some questions because he wants blueprints to networked tunnels he specifically isn't allowed to access anyway when he can't think of a better reason than 'I'd like to know the dimensions' isn't exactly a gross violation of his rights.
Anyway, as a student, I would have gotten a huge kick out of using a public access system like FOIA to get maps of underground tunnels!
Yep, me too - they would have killed some of the fun making maps, but they would have made getting turned around a hell of a lot harder. If nothing else, I could have sold them to some of the more dedicated spelunkers. However, I wouldn't have tried to force the people who didn't want me down there to give me the maps through an FOIA request - that's just not too bright.
The 'War on Terrorism' is a manufactured shill game. Anybody who falls for it is a fool.
No shit. But the people who jump up and down about reasonable investigations of suspicious activities dilute the attention paid to the real abuses that are going on under the guise of the War on Terrorism.
Remember - even if you're anti-establishment and rebelling against the injustices of the masses, you still have to actually think about things to avoid being the same kind of sheep as the pro-establishment people. Not every FBI investigation is a civil rights abuse, not everything Microsoft does is evil, and even GPL'd software can be ripe with security flaws.
And that's just bullshit. That would be the equivalent of being caught down the tunnels with a pair of boltcutters and some lockpicks.
What he did was the equivalent of peering behind all the PCs and seeing where all of the wiring goes. Not necessarily something I'd encourage (speaking as a Techie), but not exactly something I'd have someone hauled out for.
I didn't say exploiting the holes or logging in with the cracked passwords - I said running the scanners. I think the analogy is quite valid.
I'm not saying that he should be hauled away either - but there's definitely a reason that people would be rather curious as to why he'd want those documents, and why he'd pursue it when told no the first time. To me, asking him some questions about his intentions != being hauled away.
I also stated that terrorism wasn't exactly likely - I'm not a 9-11 shill, so don't use your knee-jerk reaction of "But this isn't terrorism!" against me. I'm just saying that what he did was damn well going to raise eyebrows and invite questions, and if he didn't realize that he needs a bonk from a good cluestick.
Running around in steam tunnels isn't exactly evil. I've uh, known a few people who did it:) But universities are also quite well known not to like people doing it for a variety of reasons and asking for a map for exploration through FOIA without at least coming up with a good excuse is moronic.
Actually, they do. You have to request a key online on msdn.microsoft.com in the subscribers area, and you get one that's tied to your account - generally good for 10 uses for a professional-level MSDN subscription. It's rather a pain in the arse really, because it means that for those you have to be extremely careful with the number of times you activate them - which can put a bit of a crimp in your plans when you want to run a large test farm for a product with more than 10 PC's.
XP and Longhorn-beta are special that way. Most other packages (2000 included) have generic MSDN keys.
There are people defending both sides, but there's one rather important piece of information missing - why did he want those record?
I don't buy the "Miller was curious about the dimensions of the network". Er..... If he put that reasoning in his FOIA request as well as just saying that to the press, I'd probably recommend an investigation too.
Tunnels like those are explored by bored college kids with moderate lockpicking skills on every campus I've ever been on, but they're definitely off limits and generally monitored by cameras and/or motion detectors. Hell, there are even organizations dedicated to the sport of exploring them. Any such explorers would love such plans, and that's about the only likely reason I can think of why someone would actually bother with the paperwork (and cash!) for an FOIA request (terrorist bombings aside - I said likely).
From the school's point of view - they don't want any students down there anyway, and could reasonably be expected to come down hard on someone caught in them. A student having the gnads to openly request such information through government channels after being denied it initially, but who isn't smart enough to at least come up with a plausible excuse for needing the information - Well, I think it's reasonable to suspect the person is up to something at least somewhat illicit along with being terminally stupid.
From a computer geek perspective - that's like some prick in a computer lab being surprised and self-righteous saying he wasn't doing anything wrong when you come over and yank his cable 'cause he's been using every known exploit scanner known to man against your server *while you're in the room, sitting at the server console and glaring at him*, along with running a few processes in the background with names like 'crack'.
You know, for a person with 'troll' in their nick, that's pretty damned insightful. Allow me to add my thoughts...
<RANT>
It's amazing how bitchy people are about a program that exists purely on the kindness and hard work of a handful of programmers, that they let everyone in the world use for free and modify if they want to.
What the hell is wrong with all these "we want everything for free - but fucking make sure it's as good as the best commercial app for the same job or we're going to gang-bang your mother" people?!?! Microsoft and SCO will never kill the free software movement, but these ungrateful pricks may as they suck the life and goodwill out of the developers!
Most real developers code for a living. Some of them code on their own time as well for love of coding and their generosity to others - it's a way of giving something back to the community. But if the community kicks them in the teeth as repayment....
If you have a problem with a free piece of software or want a new feature in it, please politely let the developers know how they could make the product better for you. But if you didn't pay for it, and you aren't helping make it better, you have no fucking right to bitch about it. If a free product isn't good enough, help fix it or go the hell away.
Eh? And what happens when you need to fix next week's patch after already releasing last week's worm? Are you going to flood the net with crap for each Microsoft update? Leave a 'back door' in your worm that no bad guys will find? It wouldn't work in the long run (and I'm being generous and allowing that there's a small chance in hell it might work short-term to patch a few current holes), and it'd be at least as annoying as the previous viruses. We already have NetSky et. all and a worm war - and I haven't noticed it helping the situation much. The idea is old (late 80's, google for DenZuk), and it failed then too.
Once you release a self-replicating entity, you loose control! This is a recurring theme in biological viruses, computer viruses, computer worms, the grey goo, etc. If you wrote a 'nice' worm, maybe you could keep a bit of temporary control by having a callback - until you DOS'd yourself if it spread well or someone else took over your machine or shut it down because either they want to own the worm and rent out infected machines or they just got sick of your worm running around and wasting their bandwidth.
That said, it might be interesting to make something more akin to a venus flytrap rather than just a honeypot.... If it got pinged by a known worm, it could respond automatically by rooting the box, removing the worm(s), and patching it. It'd still be illegal in most countries (unauthorized access / modifications), but at least the control would be centralized and the ethics thereof could be intelligently argued.
Of course, with anything like that, you're still going to trash *someone's* machine eventually. That said, I am very concerned about the current state of the worm business. It's only a matter of time until people start tracking *what* they actually get into rather than using these shotgun methods for peanut-level monetary gains renting zombie-net's out for spamming.
_Visual_ BASIC, however, I would tend to say is a bad language to start out with. Folks who cut their teeth on VB (again this is just in my experience) do tend to have poor programming style.
Personally, I think it's just a matter of whether people actually get logic and flow-control or not. After that, you raise up the ranks mastering design and architecture techniques and by specializing in various platforms/problem domains. I don't think the starting language matters much for someone with a logical mind.
However, VB and similar languages lower the bar for 'hello world' enough that people who just don't get logic can 'program'. Thus, you see things like someone comparing a value against each possibility from 0 to 255 individually just to unmap a bit field. The chances of the same person getting *anything* to assemble and link are minute.
So I don't know if I agree Dijkstra about BASIC itself
I didn't agree with him about a lot of things. Like those damned philosophers. If they can't be polite enough to just share and maybe give the guy to the left a knife for a bit, but they're too proper to just eat with their hands, they bloody well deserve to starve!
A quick google turns up an upcoming wireless product called frogpad. There are probably others - the only keyboard of that sort I've tried is the twiddler though, and they don't offer that as an option currently. You could probably build or buy a USB or PS2 -> Wireless adaptor if you were really wanting one.
If you're really interested in wearable stuff, check out MIT's wearable computing lab - they have reviews on various keyboards and other hardware. I wouldn't recommend buying the stuff to avoid RSI's, but there are some cool toys around.
Slashdot Mirror
This I agree with you on mostly - it's not lawless, but definitely knowing the right palm to grease or being a member of the right family or party will get you a long, long ways in the mainland.
I don't know about this. To me, it seems like trade often opens a lot of borders and helps spread wealth and education. The employees at the semiconductor plants I worked in in China were in better shape financially and better educated than their counterparts on the rice farms. To me, this seems like a (very slow) path to freedom, rather than a downgrade. Yes, the Japanese and European companies that owned the fabs were there because they could employ people and purchase land for pennies on the dollar vs. anywhere else, but it doesn't have to be entirely one-sided. An educated employee that can read is a big bonus on even a basic high-tech factory line, and an educated populace is more likely to desire democracy.
Hong Kong and Beijing are two of the most 'free' cities largely because of the amount of trade going through them. I don't admire the mainland Chinese government, but I'm not sure ostracizing them from the world community would make them be more reasonable.
Best I can tell, the Chinese government realizes these dangers to some degree - hence the customs checkpoints between mainland and Hong Kong being still active. But those checkpoints don't stop the spread of ideas very well...
End User License Agreement
Be sure to carefully read and understand all of the rights and restrictions described in the EULA. You will be asked to review and either accept or not accept the terms of the EULA. This product will not set up on your computer unless and until you accept the terms of the EULA. For your future reference, you may print the text of the EULA from the eula.txt file of this product. You may also receive a copy of this EULA by contacting the Microsoft subsidiary serving your country, or by writing to : Microsoft Sales Information Center/One Microsoft Way/Redmond, WA 98052-6399.
IMPORTANT--READ CAREFULLY: This License Agreement for Pre-Release Software ("Agreement") is a legal agreement between you (either an individual or a single entity, referred to in this Agreement as "Recipient" or "You") and Microsoft Corporation ("Microsoft") for the pre-release Microsoft SOFTWARE (as defined below) that accompanies this Agreement. An amendment or addendum to this Agreement may accompany this SOFTWARE. YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT BY INSTALLING, COPYING, OR OTHERWISE USING THE SOFTWARE. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE, DO NOT INSTALL, COPY, OR USE THE SOFTWARE. Microsoft may, in its sole discretion, also provide further pre-releases of the SOFTWARE or related information to Recipient hereunder, in which case such further pre-releases and related information shall also be covered hereunder as "SOFTWARE."
MICROSOFT CORPORATION LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PRE-RELEASE SOFTWARE
Microsoft SOFTWARE: Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition, BETA
Accompanying this Agreement is a pre-release copy of the Microsoft software identified above which includes software, and related documentation and information (collectively the "SOFTWARE"). The SOFTWARE is protected by copyright laws and international copyright treaties, as well as other intellectual property laws and treaties. The SOFTWARE is licensed, not sold.
NOTICE: THE SOFTWARE IS TIME SENSITIVE AND IS DESIGNED TO CEASE FUNCTIONING ON MARCH 1, 2005. NOTICE OF EXPIRATION WILL NOT ACTIVELY BE GIVEN SO YOU NEED TO PLAN FOR THE EXPIRATION DATE AND, PRIOR TO SUCH EXPIRATION, MAKE A COPY OF AND REMOVE YOUR DATA THAT YOU WISH TO USE IN THE FUTURE.
1. LICENSE.
(a) Subject to Recipient's compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, Microsoft grants to Recipient a limited, non-exclusive, nontransferable, non-assignable license to install, reproduce and use the SOFTWARE on up to ten (10) computers residing on Recipient's premises, solely for purposes of testing software programs that run in conjunction with the SOFTWARE, and to evaluate the SOFTWARE for the purpose of providing feedback thereon to Microsoft.
(b) The SOFTWARE contains time sensitive and beta prerelease code that is not at the level of performance and compatibility of a final, generally available, product offering and may not be used in a live operating environment where it may be relied upon to perform in the same manner as a commercially released product or with data that has not been sufficiently backed up. Due to the nature of the development work, Microsoft provides no assurance that any specific errors or discrepancies in the SOFTWARE will be corrected. Recipient expressly acknowledges and agrees that the SOFTWARE may change substantially prior to commercial release of the SOFTWARE.
(c) Internet-Enabled Features. Since this SOFTWARE is a prerelease version, some of its Internet-enabled features are turned on by default. Those features collect information from your computer and send it to Microsoft. The default settings in this version of the SOFTWARE do not necessarily reflect how the features will be configured in the commercially released version. For more details about these features, what information is collected, and how it is used see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=25076. If You choose to install and use this SOFTWARE, You authorize the automatic collection
Crime can happen, but if there's 10 truckers parked there resting (which is common), chances are people aren't going to try breaking into your car with you there as well. It's just too risky - the noise would bring additional help, and chances are at least one person at the stop is packing a piece.
That's one nice thing in Texas - I've seen it happen. If a person calls for help, people still generally come to see what's up. I've arrived a couple of times for others here myself and helped make sure people stayed polite.
Regarding send-safe...
Marketing email directly from a company I do business with is one thing (acceptable, if annoying). Crap for viagra, home mortages, etc. is another. Most of the spam is very misleading anyway, and targetted towards old people that are easily manipulated (e.g. the mortage spams with the 'I spoke with you this morning' headers). That's borderline.
The crap with the viruses setting up spam relays is criminal.
If only that worked. Unfortunately, simply for the fact that I run a few domains and actually find it helpful for people to be able to contact me without unraveling a mangled email address (hence, I put my email up) - it gets harvested and abused. I can turn off the TV if it annoys me (actually don't currently own one) - I can't turn off the spam w/o loosing my business communication.
I've never bought something from spam, nor do they even get the satisfaction of those stupid image-link bugs getting pinged. Unfortunately, I can't stop the people they take advantage of from falling for their scams, any more than I can make the Citibank phishing expedition and Nigerian 419 scams unprofitable.
About 20 spam/day make it through the filter right now, with another 50 or so going to the spam bin. I get 5-10 legit emails per day. Bayesian filtering is dead now with the random garbage-spewers, so I need to test and install another solution on the server end (until the last 6 months or so, client filtering worked best for me - now it sucks ass). My life shouldn't revolve around dealing with spam. But I'm going to need to spend time on it anyway now.
Since I haven't spent much time on it, it *has* cost me more than time. I had a contract offer go into my spam bin, because the random words horked the bayesian filtering so badly. It wasn't the only false positive I've had, but it's the first time the delay before cleaning the spam bin cost me something - a contract. That just sucks.
I used their digital I/O and stepper motor controllers for my 3D scanner project - they're pretty good for low-res, low-budget projects.
The first group are rare,. They could make much more money applying their skills in their field - but are usually the most prized teachers. I had the fortune of having maybe 3 or 4 such teachers in high-school and college, and loved their classes. Of course, teaching ability and performance rarely equals advancement for teachers - we discourage these people even after they've become teachers!
The second can go either way. The research comes before the students, but some still make extraordinary teachers. They tend to advance in universities as a result of their research - something the previous group often doesn't do. Some barely notice they have students though - I had a few who loved reading out of the books they wrote, verbatim, every class, and thought that was teaching. I stopped going to those classes - I could read faster without watching someone else's lips move to the words.
And the third, well, they unfortunately seem the most common these days, and are at best baby-sitters in early education and a disgraceful waste of money when you hit college. Unfortunately, with the low salaries and prestige afforded teachers these days, them's what ya get.
Uhm... lemme guess, you got PAID for that time, didn't you? And wait - you didn't secure those machines after the last time you got hit, did you? Hell, you openly advocate installing a less secure OS because it saves you time - deal with the results.
I've had to deal with viruses in corporate situations before, it ain't pleasant, it did waste my time, but..... the comparison you're giving just doesn't work.
And for christ's sake, leave the bloody Nazi references out. They're stupid.
Since we've thrown the entire world on one ad-hoc network without securing anything, those pranks are damned expensive right now and there's a real problem. But.... most of the people causing these untold trillions of dollars of damage are bored teenagers, just as antisocial as a lot of other teenagers who are out smashing post office boxes, spray painting walls, and sniffing glue, that happen to be somewhat adept at using a computer.
There do seem to be a few pro's in the field that could be linked to the spam operations and possibly even corporate and government espionage, but they're still seriously in the minority.
So - does some kid doing something stupid warrant destroying the rest of the kid's life? Do these kids really understand the consequences of what they're doing and what kind of destruction they're causing? I think in most cases - no, they don't. In the rest, well - they're still kids. Punish them, let them know what they did was wrong, but don't try to lock them up for the rest of their lives or bury them under the jail for what to them seemed like a funny prank. There's a huge difference between creating a piece of code and shooting someone in the head.
I think we need to do two things.
That's just hilarious.
Seriously though, I think having a solid understanding of how computers work at a hardware level is extremely useful in helping one understand 'the big picture'. But I don't really see how gaining that by hacking in assembler on a G4 or K7 processor is any different than gaining that hacking on a 6809 OR 8088, and I question the usefulness of having 'POKE 65495,0' stuck in my head as a way to double the speed of my computer.
From what I've seen, it's the hands-on use and the love of the technology that makes a difference - not the age. Experience counts - I've definitely learned a lot over the decades (*sigh*) - but so much of what one learns is obsoleted by the next year that it's predominately the underlying truths that are useful. Stick a bright, interested kid with a passion for computers with a good mentor that makes them do complex real-world stuff, and I bet the kid would equal or often surpass most veterans within a few years.
It's just too bad that in most universities that's not what happens - especially for the first four wasted years. I honestly think apprenticeships would work quite a bit better in IT and software development.
At the factories I worked at in one of the southern 'special economic districts', it seemed like they just provided crowded dormitories and food for the teenage girls working the lines. I guess they could have been paid in addition, but certainly not enough to allow for any kind of 'upwardly mobile' trend or savings.
Of course, on the other hand, it was sometimes hard to be too angry at the western companies, since it looked like the farmers in the surrounding areas in China had it a lot worse than those who worked in the factories. At least the girls working the lines got steady meals, a clean place to sleep, and some basic education (reading and writing abilities help productivity in high-tech factories quite a bit).
Being a wage-slave for a multinational corp must have looked like the best option to the many peasants as well, considering that I was told - when watching peasants being beaten by the side of the road by police and I asked one of our reps what was going on - that people without the right papers aren't allowed into the special economic regions but that they come anyway in hopes of slipping in and finding a job.
I prefer going to more independant coffee shops or just brewing my own espresso at home, but I like my coffee strong. I like the taste and I like the caffeine buzz, too. The stronger the better. If they are trying to make a stronger cup of coffee, then for the most part I'd say it's because a lot of their customers like it that way. If they didn't, there wouldn't be such a market for double and triple-shot drinks.
I'd be all for companies labeling the caffeine content for you though so people wouldn't think it was some sort of conspiracy, although mandating that seems silly.
"Yes, I'd like the 1000mg coffee. Thank you."
One of the least pleasant places I've worked was a large insurance company (my first job - internal pc tech). I think it has something to do with the fact that any customers anyone actually has to deal with are immediately presumed to be criminals for making a claim at all combined with the fact that really there just isn't much that's fun about insurance.
Find something more fun. If you have other interests, try to find a company that does things that align with those. *Then* worry about what country its in, unless you're just fed up with living in the US in general. Don't go work for an insurance company in Canada and expect it to be magically 'fun', although traveling internationally and living abroad can be worth doing by itself.
Ask them why they want features that you think are aesthetically unpleasing - they're artists, right? Shouldn't that mean they have some aesthetic sense and might be worth listening to?
As far as high-contrast colors that have been recommended - one problem that increases in frequency with age is colorblindness. Not the red/green type deficiencies, but there's a diabetes-related condition that causes a blue deficiency (tritanopia).
For some examples, check out VisCheck. You might also be interested in an experimental proggie I wrote to simulate various color deficiencies and remap the colors - CodeBlind.
Okay, here, I'll slow it down a bit for those that don't grok the problems here...
Say I want to test a piece of software with 10 PC's simultaneously for 3 months without reformatting them. That's fine by the license - just activate each and go for it.
Now say I get two new machines in with completely different hardware that is supposedly having an incompatibility with the product. I remove XP on two of the old machines that have proven to work well with the product and do a format, then send them off to IT to be used for whatever. The licensed software has been removed - you'd think one could install it on the two new machines now and run for three more months without problems, yes? No, because of the stupid activation limitations. That's scenario 1.
Now, howabout a situation where there are 2 developers, each with his own MSDN license. Both are working on a single project, but their testing needs are different. Developer A needs to do a lot of different OS/configuration testing, but the actual hardware doesn't matter that much - let's say he's the apps guy. Developer B needs to test on every variation of hardware he can possibly get his hands on, because he's the driver guy working on a USB device. Because of the large variety of USB implementations out there (many of which are flawed in their own special way), he really needs to do hard-core, long term testing on several different machines. So, Developer A and Developer B pool their resources - both are working on the same project within a single room, so it makes sense that they should be able to do that. A gets 5 machines, B gets 15.
Now, combine the two situations and add more developers over a longer period of time. What you have now is a clusterfuck. Despite the fact that your team has legitimately purchased enough licenses to run on all the machines they have at any one time, you now have a definite possibility of a license shortage and you're forced to keep a list of all of the developer keys with tallies on how many times each has been used so you'll have known keys available when it comes time to remove old/broken/obsoleted test machines and bring in new ones.
Now, to add another issue in the mix - if you renew your subscription, you keep the same key and don't get additional reinstalls. So, either you beg your representative to refresh your key or give you a new one, or you're even more limited on test machines unless you cancel your MSDN subscription and buy a new one - getting 10 more installs in the process.
Got it?
However, there is a limit to the number of different/reconfigured PC's you can install to using the provided key, and yes tracking that can be a pain in the ass. I've worked on projects where we needed to test on lots of PC's over a multiple month period, and we ended up having to basically make a pool of keys from multiple subscriptions so that people with more extreme requirements (like the device driver guys) wouldn't run out of activations.
Yes, we could have constantly reinstalled without activating or kept calling MS tech support, but both of those also qualify as a pain in the ass in my book.
Suck your own smoke.
Again, bullshit. I think we're heading for a halfway decent step back when the Supreme Court makes a decision on the Guantanamo case - I've got my fingers crossed. More and more people are beginning to wonder why they were lied to about the WMD intelligence and wtf some portions of the Patriot Act and similar legislation actually have to do with stopping terrorism - these are good signs. THOSE are civil rights violations - asking a guy some questions because he wants blueprints to networked tunnels he specifically isn't allowed to access anyway when he can't think of a better reason than 'I'd like to know the dimensions' isn't exactly a gross violation of his rights.
Yep, me too - they would have killed some of the fun making maps, but they would have made getting turned around a hell of a lot harder. If nothing else, I could have sold them to some of the more dedicated spelunkers. However, I wouldn't have tried to force the people who didn't want me down there to give me the maps through an FOIA request - that's just not too bright. No shit. But the people who jump up and down about reasonable investigations of suspicious activities dilute the attention paid to the real abuses that are going on under the guise of the War on Terrorism.Remember - even if you're anti-establishment and rebelling against the injustices of the masses, you still have to actually think about things to avoid being the same kind of sheep as the pro-establishment people. Not every FBI investigation is a civil rights abuse, not everything Microsoft does is evil, and even GPL'd software can be ripe with security flaws.
I'm not saying that he should be hauled away either - but there's definitely a reason that people would be rather curious as to why he'd want those documents, and why he'd pursue it when told no the first time. To me, asking him some questions about his intentions != being hauled away.
I also stated that terrorism wasn't exactly likely - I'm not a 9-11 shill, so don't use your knee-jerk reaction of "But this isn't terrorism!" against me. I'm just saying that what he did was damn well going to raise eyebrows and invite questions, and if he didn't realize that he needs a bonk from a good cluestick.
Running around in steam tunnels isn't exactly evil. I've uh, known a few people who did it :) But universities are also quite well known not to like people doing it for a variety of reasons and asking for a map for exploration through FOIA without at least coming up with a good excuse is moronic.
XP and Longhorn-beta are special that way. Most other packages (2000 included) have generic MSDN keys.
I don't buy the "Miller was curious about the dimensions of the network". Er..... If he put that reasoning in his FOIA request as well as just saying that to the press, I'd probably recommend an investigation too.
Tunnels like those are explored by bored college kids with moderate lockpicking skills on every campus I've ever been on, but they're definitely off limits and generally monitored by cameras and/or motion detectors. Hell, there are even organizations dedicated to the sport of exploring them. Any such explorers would love such plans, and that's about the only likely reason I can think of why someone would actually bother with the paperwork (and cash!) for an FOIA request (terrorist bombings aside - I said likely).
From the school's point of view - they don't want any students down there anyway, and could reasonably be expected to come down hard on someone caught in them. A student having the gnads to openly request such information through government channels after being denied it initially, but who isn't smart enough to at least come up with a plausible excuse for needing the information - Well, I think it's reasonable to suspect the person is up to something at least somewhat illicit along with being terminally stupid.
From a computer geek perspective - that's like some prick in a computer lab being surprised and self-righteous saying he wasn't doing anything wrong when you come over and yank his cable 'cause he's been using every known exploit scanner known to man against your server *while you're in the room, sitting at the server console and glaring at him*, along with running a few processes in the background with names like 'crack'.
<RANT>
It's amazing how bitchy people are about a program that exists purely on the kindness and hard work of a handful of programmers, that they let everyone in the world use for free and modify if they want to.
What the hell is wrong with all these "we want everything for free - but fucking make sure it's as good as the best commercial app for the same job or we're going to gang-bang your mother" people?!?! Microsoft and SCO will never kill the free software movement, but these ungrateful pricks may as they suck the life and goodwill out of the developers!
Most real developers code for a living. Some of them code on their own time as well for love of coding and their generosity to others - it's a way of giving something back to the community. But if the community kicks them in the teeth as repayment....
If you have a problem with a free piece of software or want a new feature in it, please politely let the developers know how they could make the product better for you. But if you didn't pay for it, and you aren't helping make it better, you have no fucking right to bitch about it. If a free product isn't good enough, help fix it or go the hell away.
</RANT>
Once you release a self-replicating entity, you loose control! This is a recurring theme in biological viruses, computer viruses, computer worms, the grey goo, etc. If you wrote a 'nice' worm, maybe you could keep a bit of temporary control by having a callback - until you DOS'd yourself if it spread well or someone else took over your machine or shut it down because either they want to own the worm and rent out infected machines or they just got sick of your worm running around and wasting their bandwidth.
That said, it might be interesting to make something more akin to a venus flytrap rather than just a honeypot.... If it got pinged by a known worm, it could respond automatically by rooting the box, removing the worm(s), and patching it. It'd still be illegal in most countries (unauthorized access / modifications), but at least the control would be centralized and the ethics thereof could be intelligently argued.
Of course, with anything like that, you're still going to trash *someone's* machine eventually. That said, I am very concerned about the current state of the worm business. It's only a matter of time until people start tracking *what* they actually get into rather than using these shotgun methods for peanut-level monetary gains renting zombie-net's out for spamming.
Personally, I think it's just a matter of whether people actually get logic and flow-control or not. After that, you raise up the ranks mastering design and architecture techniques and by specializing in various platforms/problem domains. I don't think the starting language matters much for someone with a logical mind.
However, VB and similar languages lower the bar for 'hello world' enough that people who just don't get logic can 'program'. Thus, you see things like someone comparing a value against each possibility from 0 to 255 individually just to unmap a bit field. The chances of the same person getting *anything* to assemble and link are minute.
I didn't agree with him about a lot of things. Like those damned philosophers. If they can't be polite enough to just share and maybe give the guy to the left a knife for a bit, but they're too proper to just eat with their hands, they bloody well deserve to starve!
If you're really interested in wearable stuff, check out MIT's wearable computing lab - they have reviews on various keyboards and other hardware. I wouldn't recommend buying the stuff to avoid RSI's, but there are some cool toys around.