Indeed. We constantly get requests to rename our distribution.exe file to.txt, put it in a.zip file, and send it as attachment... since plain.exe are rejected, as well as.zip files are rejected. But -then- we have to deal with angry users who cannot run our program.
Now, isn't that silly? If you don't think so, imagine explaining how to unzip and rename files to business folks... especially if their Windows is setup to hide file extensions (many have no idea what a file extension is!).
In my opinion, corps shouldn't concentrate on -filtering- things (nor blocking webmail), they should concentrate on educating users. In my opinion, anyone who doesn't know what a "Command Prompt" is, or how to rename files, or zip/unzip shouldn't be allowed to touch a computer.
The whole purpose behind Linux on a Dell would be to ensure that all hardware has an easily available Linux driver.
They could install their own Dell distro for all I care. I'll buy -that- only 'cause all their hardware would work under Linux, AND, I wouldn't have to pay for Windows.
I'd imagine most folks who want Linux on a Dell box have the same motives.
In fact, if they care for support, just offer those configurations without -software- support. Just hardware.
Indeed. 9/11 was a surprise---that's why it worked! Next time they attack (lets hope not), it will be similarly surprising; I seriously doubt they'll go via the airplane-into-building route again---folks simply won't sit still waiting for death anymore.
Just install strong doors in airplanes, and... that's it. Everything beyond that is a waste of resources (or worse, an attack vector).
No remote access allowed unless the pilot flips a switch in the plane.
Now it just takes 1 person to try to tackle the door---and someone on the ground can take over the flight (assuming they're technically capable of it).
Indeed. I also find it ironic that the presidential -election- runs a few hundred million dollars per candidate; mostly spent on advertising, fancy dinners, renting out big enclosures, and lots of balloons.
I wonder if security cameras are similarly illegal (as they're there primarily to film some sort of violence---and aren't there for journalistic purposes).
Who is to say that bacteria won't evolve defenses either way?
I think they should concentrate their resources on finding -new- antibiotics instead of worrying about what happens to the few that are known. It's a battle that can never be won, and folks should realize that it's better to continuously evolve (live on the edge, in a way) new defenses than to assume our current defenses are silver bullets.
I'd also like to mention the often b0rken back button and refresh button. It's so frustrating that half the web-apps out there don't support those.
In the (new!---2 months old) timesheet program we use at wr0k, both of those are b0rken (and there's no capability of printing out your timesheet except to print the whole page).
(note, this is at a -HUGE- corp that spent millions developing this web-app; not something that was coded by a high school student on their own time---or maybe it was!)
I generally find web-apps to be great, but they -do- have to be properly designed. A good design test: if it works in Netscape 3, then it will work for all past/future browsers.
Cryptic perl is a myth. It's only cryptic if you don't understand it (or if things aren't indented properly).
Whenever I come across code that just looks like `an explosion at an ascii factory', I first indent it (which usually fixes the readability). If that doesn't work, I try to figure out what it's trying to do (likely developer didn't know any better, and used some clunky code to do something trivial; usually code that can easily be `clarified' by replacing whole sections of it with a single regex).
Perl is surprisingly beautiful and easy to read language---you just have to know it well.
Re:7 centuries isn't feasible for humans
on
Interstellar Ark
·
· Score: 1
They don't have to be completely separated from the Earth. It's not like they stop talking to Earth as soon as they ship, and don't turn on the communication until they get there.
A few (well, ~10?) year latency in communication may be tough, but it would still ensure that society is more or less in sync technologically (provided the arc has industrial facilities---which it seems it will). If someone invents something on earth, it's streamed to the arc (and vice versa). Everyone could watch each other's TV programs (10 year delay though)---maybe even mirror the whole internet (so whatever you're browsing from the airship will be ~10 years old, but not 10 year latency for each request).
All I'm saying is that the culture doesn't have to get completely out of sync to the point where you feel like you're talking to someone from 700 years ago. (unless of course the earth suffers WW3 and all communication stops).
At the very least, they could've named brands X, Y, Z, etc., and provided the numbers for those. Would be interesting if the differences are more than marginal.
If just before clicking "Proceed with payment", the deal is $X, then you'll have to pay $X. This story is not on "what users were charged with", but on "what users agreed to pay on checkout".
And amazon agreed to sell at that price. The agreement works both ways. How do you think stock markets manage to avoid all the ``oh, sorry, I didn't mean to sell it at -that- price!'' complaints. Both parties participate in the transaction.
Bugs cost money. Period. They had a bug, it cost them a few million. Live with it. Maybe they should hire better developers, or more QA folks, or spend more time debugging their code? Making it a customer's problem is -not- the right solution.
If an ATM gave you money and didn't deduct it from your account, would you tell the bank?
Amm... would you?
I think a better question is: if situation was reversed, would the corp be nice to their -former- customers?
Lets say a glitch in their system caused the price of some product be $2 more than what it really `should' be (what they were intending it to be). They sell 2 million units. Would they (upon discovering the bug) notify and return the money, or jump in joy that they managed to sell something for more than its worth (more than what they were expecting to sell for)?
I like amazon. But bugs or no, if the customers managed to get a ``great deal'' (thanks to this bug), then... well... they got the great deal. Customers didn't illegally gain access to system; the system was setup by Amazon, and it allowed the customers to get that great deal. If nothing else, this just illustrates that developers writing code that deals with money should be -very- paranoid about their code.
Folks screw up in stock markets all the time (with millions of dollars), you don't see'em coming back a few weeks later saying "oh, sorry, I didn't really mean to buy so high, or sell so low."
Hmm... I'd claim it's Microsoft's fault for breaking backwards compatibility.
Before the shipped Windows 95, they ensured that all major software (and ipod support is `major' now a days) worked. Even down to fixing Windows to emulate old behavior for -that- particular instance.
I thought exactly the same thing when I read all that. I don't have an ipod, so all this is news to me. Wow. What a crap/unfriendly setup for a product! And people claim they're engineered well. Ha! I've tried out many other MP3 players, and most work as USB mass storage drives (iriver), where you just drop a file into a folder, and... well... the player just finds it. No hidden folders, etc., or any other similar crap.
I hate sports as much as the next dork but seriously, if you were a network executive and you had to choose between a guaranteed ratings grabber like FOOTBALL!! or a moderately successful science fiction cartoon which way would you go?
Ironically, in everyday life, I don't run into hardcore football fans. Do they exist?, or is it all a marketing myth trying to turn everyone into fans by hyping up football. Most folks I know only watch the superbowl 'cause of the commercials (not the game).
Old software may not get any faster due to a change in focus toward parallelism vs. increased core speed, but it's not going to suddenly come to a screeching halt any more than my DOS programs from 15 years ago are.
8086 had 29,000 transistors. Opteron has 230,000,000 transistors.
Now, imagine a CPU with 8192 cores, each one as fast as an 8086. Now imagine doing 8 thousand (basic; [multiplication, etc. would be extra]) operations in 1 clock tick.
This is something (or close to it) that's possible with current technology, yet noone is doing it.
While I agree with what you say, I'd imagine there are uses for CPUs with -many- cores each one being no faster than your old 8086 (I seriously doubt we'll get 10000 modern cores into the size of a single CPU).
Ie: massive parallelism, with each core being relatively feeble computationally. I'd also imagine such a setup having the ability to outperform single core processors by quite a margin at tasks specifically built that utilize the parallelism.
Slashdot Mirror
Indeed. We constantly get requests to rename our distribution .exe file to .txt, put it in a .zip file, and send it as attachment... since plain .exe are rejected, as well as .zip files are rejected. But -then- we have to deal with angry users who cannot run our program.
Now, isn't that silly? If you don't think so, imagine explaining how to unzip and rename files to business folks... especially if their Windows is setup to hide file extensions (many have no idea what a file extension is!).
In my opinion, corps shouldn't concentrate on -filtering- things (nor blocking webmail), they should concentrate on educating users. In my opinion, anyone who doesn't know what a "Command Prompt" is, or how to rename files, or zip/unzip shouldn't be allowed to touch a computer.
I think distro is irrelevant.
The whole purpose behind Linux on a Dell would be to ensure that all hardware has an easily available Linux driver.
They could install their own Dell distro for all I care. I'll buy -that- only 'cause all their hardware would work under Linux, AND, I wouldn't have to pay for Windows.
I'd imagine most folks who want Linux on a Dell box have the same motives.
In fact, if they care for support, just offer those configurations without -software- support. Just hardware.
Indeed. 9/11 was a surprise---that's why it worked! Next time they attack (lets hope not), it will be similarly surprising; I seriously doubt they'll go via the airplane-into-building route again---folks simply won't sit still waiting for death anymore.
Just install strong doors in airplanes, and... that's it. Everything beyond that is a waste of resources (or worse, an attack vector).
No remote access allowed unless the pilot flips a switch in the plane.
Now it just takes 1 person to try to tackle the door---and someone on the ground can take over the flight (assuming they're technically capable of it).
A NEO is just as likely to take out China or Iran as New York or Kansas.
In every movie I've ever seen, New York always gets it the worst. The rest of the world doesn't seem to suffer at all.
I'm pretty sure that if I get smashed by an asteroid I won't be too concerned.
Indeed. It's the waiting that everyone cannot stand.
Indeed. I also find it ironic that the presidential -election- runs a few hundred million dollars per candidate; mostly spent on advertising, fancy dinners, renting out big enclosures, and lots of balloons.
But eh, it's not the end of the world.
I wonder if security cameras are similarly illegal (as they're there primarily to film some sort of violence---and aren't there for journalistic purposes).
Who is to say that bacteria won't evolve defenses either way?
I think they should concentrate their resources on finding -new- antibiotics instead of worrying about what happens to the few that are known. It's a battle that can never be won, and folks should realize that it's better to continuously evolve (live on the edge, in a way) new defenses than to assume our current defenses are silver bullets.
I'd also like to mention the often b0rken back button and refresh button. It's so frustrating that half the web-apps out there don't support those.
In the (new!---2 months old) timesheet program we use at wr0k, both of those are b0rken (and there's no capability of printing out your timesheet except to print the whole page).
(note, this is at a -HUGE- corp that spent millions developing this web-app; not something that was coded by a high school student on their own time---or maybe it was!)
I generally find web-apps to be great, but they -do- have to be properly designed. A good design test: if it works in Netscape 3, then it will work for all past/future browsers.
is Hawking a real physicist?
Either that, or his voicebox computer is the first instance of AI.
Indeed. They (congress, whoever is in charge) should prove that the tax code is self consistent :-)
This story is a perfect illustration how stupid the current generation of state-of-the-art AI is (or lack of).
Anyone who ever said `there aren't any opportunities in IT', try to solve this problem!
Cryptic perl is a myth. It's only cryptic if you don't understand it (or if things aren't indented properly).
Whenever I come across code that just looks like `an explosion at an ascii factory', I first indent it (which usually fixes the readability). If that doesn't work, I try to figure out what it's trying to do (likely developer didn't know any better, and used some clunky code to do something trivial; usually code that can easily be `clarified' by replacing whole sections of it with a single regex).
Perl is surprisingly beautiful and easy to read language---you just have to know it well.
They don't have to be completely separated from the Earth. It's not like they stop talking to Earth as soon as they ship, and don't turn on the communication until they get there.
A few (well, ~10?) year latency in communication may be tough, but it would still ensure that society is more or less in sync technologically (provided the arc has industrial facilities---which it seems it will). If someone invents something on earth, it's streamed to the arc (and vice versa). Everyone could watch each other's TV programs (10 year delay though)---maybe even mirror the whole internet (so whatever you're browsing from the airship will be ~10 years old, but not 10 year latency for each request).
All I'm saying is that the culture doesn't have to get completely out of sync to the point where you feel like you're talking to someone from 700 years ago. (unless of course the earth suffers WW3 and all communication stops).
At the very least, they could've named brands X, Y, Z, etc., and provided the numbers for those. Would be interesting if the differences are more than marginal.
If just before clicking "Proceed with payment", the deal is $X, then you'll have to pay $X. This story is not on "what users were charged with", but on "what users agreed to pay on checkout".
And amazon agreed to sell at that price. The agreement works both ways. How do you think stock markets manage to avoid all the ``oh, sorry, I didn't mean to sell it at -that- price!'' complaints. Both parties participate in the transaction.
Bugs cost money. Period. They had a bug, it cost them a few million. Live with it. Maybe they should hire better developers, or more QA folks, or spend more time debugging their code? Making it a customer's problem is -not- the right solution.
If an ATM gave you money and didn't deduct it from your account, would you tell the bank?
Amm... would you?
I think a better question is: if situation was reversed, would the corp be nice to their -former- customers?
Lets say a glitch in their system caused the price of some product be $2 more than what it really `should' be (what they were intending it to be). They sell 2 million units. Would they (upon discovering the bug) notify and return the money, or jump in joy that they managed to sell something for more than its worth (more than what they were expecting to sell for)?
I like amazon. But bugs or no, if the customers managed to get a ``great deal'' (thanks to this bug), then... well... they got the great deal. Customers didn't illegally gain access to system; the system was setup by Amazon, and it allowed the customers to get that great deal. If nothing else, this just illustrates that developers writing code that deals with money should be -very- paranoid about their code.
Folks screw up in stock markets all the time (with millions of dollars), you don't see'em coming back a few weeks later saying "oh, sorry, I didn't really mean to buy so high, or sell so low."
Computers used to cost millions. It used to be cheaper to have humans to addition than via a machine. Things change.
...we all need to just accept that they are people. That sooner or later something bad is going to happen because of that,
And that's why it's cheaper and safer to send robots.
Vista has been coming forever
Hmm... I'd claim it's Microsoft's fault for breaking backwards compatibility.
Before the shipped Windows 95, they ensured that all major software (and ipod support is `major' now a days) worked. Even down to fixing Windows to emulate old behavior for -that- particular instance.
Why can't the iPod find the files on its own?
I thought exactly the same thing when I read all that. I don't have an ipod, so all this is news to me. Wow. What a crap/unfriendly setup for a product! And people claim they're engineered well. Ha! I've tried out many other MP3 players, and most work as USB mass storage drives (iriver), where you just drop a file into a folder, and... well... the player just finds it. No hidden folders, etc., or any other similar crap.
How do they intend to have a vehicle ready by then?
Magic. Kind of like the solution to the deficit.
I hate sports as much as the next dork but seriously, if you were a network executive and you had to choose between a guaranteed ratings grabber like FOOTBALL!! or a moderately successful science fiction cartoon which way would you go?
Ironically, in everyday life, I don't run into hardcore football fans. Do they exist?, or is it all a marketing myth trying to turn everyone into fans by hyping up football. Most folks I know only watch the superbowl 'cause of the commercials (not the game).
Old software may not get any faster due to a change in focus toward parallelism vs. increased core speed, but it's not going to suddenly come to a screeching halt any more than my DOS programs from 15 years ago are.
8086 had 29,000 transistors.
Opteron has 230,000,000 transistors.
Now, imagine a CPU with 8192 cores, each one as fast as an 8086.
Now imagine doing 8 thousand (basic; [multiplication, etc. would be extra]) operations in 1 clock tick.
This is something (or close to it) that's possible with current technology, yet noone is doing it.
While I agree with what you say, I'd imagine there are uses for CPUs with -many- cores each one being no faster than your old 8086 (I seriously doubt we'll get 10000 modern cores into the size of a single CPU).
Ie: massive parallelism, with each core being relatively feeble computationally. I'd also imagine such a setup having the ability to outperform single core processors by quite a margin at tasks specifically built that utilize the parallelism.