A friend of mine - yeah, that's it.. a friend - runs a website that has a registration process, whereby people create their own accounts and passwords. To my amazement (my friend tells me that...) the vast majority of users sign up and provide an email address and password that is obviously the same password used elsewhere around the internet. With this password, my friend can easily retrieve / delete people's email, access some paypal accounts, and sign into other common services around the net.
Good thing my friend is ethical! I can't emphasize enough - USE A DIFFRENT PASSWORD FOR EACH WEBSITE, such that no DB Admin from one site can guess your other passwords!
You may think I am crazy, but I wish some virus writer would write a "Plausible Deniability Virus". This virus, when installed, would auto-click "I agree" to any EULA that is displayed on screen. It would automatically distribute and download random MP3's, movies, software, and other copyrighted materials. It would add history of visiting porn sites to your web cache.
Then when your employer, the **AA, Microsoft, the FBI, or your spouse starts complaining about what thet found due to our lack of privacy, you could say "It might have been the PlausDen.A virus - not me!"
Not that I personally want this virus installed on my system... I just want the possibility that I may have had the virus.
There are some SPAM's that will continually entice people, regardless of the amount of education. And unfortunately, I think that there are reputable companies that are unwittingly behind them.
Spammer sends out millions of emails touting an unbelievably low "m or tga ge | r ate". Are you interested in a 30 year, no points fixed 1% interest rate? If you're shopping for a loan, then absolutely.
Suckers check it out. "Want information? Someone will be contacting you shortly. Just give us a little information.. name, phone number." The average person on the street - even SPAM haters - will think "This is probably too good to be true, but I'll check it out with a critical eye... I probably won't finance through this scum, but I better know what the going rate is, so I don't get screwed by my local bank...", and they submit their personal information
Now spammers have a huge list of people shopping for a mortgage. This list is transferred to a semi-legit shell company, who sells it to a completely legit Fortune 500-sized major banking institution. The major banking institution has no idea that these names are collected via SPAM. Under inquiry, the semi-legit company can claim that they "purchase lists of people shopping for mortgages and aggregate them".
Customer gets a call from some Fortune 500 size bank coincidentally asking if they are shopping for a loan, which they are. The Fortune 500 Bank has no clue that there was an offer of 1% 30 year loan, and the sucker has no idea how the major bank got their name. No one's pissed except the 99,999,999 people that were annoyed by the email. And the system continues.
You'll never rid yourself of that problem with education, unless we educate the major companies to consider their sources when buying lists! And even then, since the lists tend to work for the big companies, the problem won't go away anytime soon!
"Spider-Man 2" director Sam Raimi and original producing partners Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell are reteaming to produce a remake of the cult hit "The Evil Dead" through Ghost House Pictures, the joint venture of Raimi, Tapert and Senator Intl.
I thought for sure that the first messages in here would be "I just heard on the radio.... There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon."
I have renewed faith in the slashdot community. (Or were all those messages modded down already?)
Good luck, Patrick. Remember, laughter is the best medicine - but sometimes penicillin is needed.
It seems that the effort here is to allow end users to state their "problem" in natural language, and then a program gets generated to solve their problem.
Right now that happens - only the program gets generated by programmers (sometimes outsourced to India!)
Unfortunately, what the user says they want, and what they really want are usually very different things. Natural Language Programming really doesn't solve that problem.
The critical piece is the Designer, who sits between the end user and the programmer, and asks the tough questions: "Do you really want that? Let me explain the implications of what you just asked for." "How critical is that piece of functionality that you just added on a whim, but it just added 3 years to the project plan?" "You're asking for the data to be selected this way, but really there's no use for that - have you considered selecting the data this other way?" etc.
SURE, YOU DRESS FUNNY AND MAKE US LAUGH WHEN YOU'RE IN INTERNATIONAL VENUES
What really annoys me about many non-Americans is when they think that the United States is less "international" than their country. Your country is international to us; ours is international to you.
Just because our countries are different doesn't mean that one is better than the other. Ever think how silly foreigners look in the US? OK, so BFD.
Yours truly,
God
No wait.... what really annoys me is when non-Americans think they are God!
your post was humorous, though, even coming from an inferior non-American.
You weren't really confused by what he wrote, were you?
Yes, in fact I was confused by the misspelling. I had to reread it to have it make sense. The author is trying to communicate a message, and if he wants to do it clearly, he should pay attention to the details.
I really think it's poor form to misspell something in a quote, implying that the original author was the poor speller, not the quoter. For instance, if I would quote you: tallbill says, "The kind of pedantic attention to grammer and spelling...", I am attributing the poor spelling of grammar to you.
I think it is a frightening thing, but very much worth noting, that since the Internet left academia in the early ninetees, not a single new protocol or application has a widely accepted standard. Every single new application that has come along since then has been a hodge-podge of incompatible solutions.
History will be the judge, but I think if you rolled back the clock to the eighties, you would say exactly the same thing about technologies that we take for granted now, as standards.
Case in Point:
Network protocols: The internet protocol suite was far from being the only protocol (or even the dominant one). SNA, for one, was incompatible and entrenched. And at the lower three layers of the OSI Model, X.25 didn't even consider random routing from a single point, as TCP/IP does.
See this table for a bunch of examples of non-TCP/IP protocols that are a hodge-podge of incompatible solutions.
Nothing has changed as of the nineties. Same problem, but the shakeout takes time.
The first is the peak of technical innovation, and the second is the billion-dollar investment or market.' It's often the rush for money that makes us move to fast to do the job right."
Somehow I doubt that MIT's Dave Clark said that we move to stop eating! Unless he is implying that we skip meals to write code...?
Perhaps the submitter meant to say we move "too" fast. In this case, the editor's gaffe changed the meaning entirely!
I bought an iPaq h4150 a couple of months back only to find it was end of lifed 3 weeks later. The device wasn't even selling for a year and it is already obsolete.
I don't see a problem with this. At some point companies need to innovate - HP did that. It makes no sense to pre-announce your new products, if they will kill sales of your old products. And (I assume) nothing "stopped working" on your unit the day that the new model was introduced. So "becoming obsolete" just means you don't have the latest gadget. Welcome to the world of technology!
Just think of it this way: you are only "renting" technology. No matter what the item is, eventually your entire investment is virtually worthless. (But in this case, you presumably still have years of useful life with your PDA.)
Slashdot Mirror
What's Slasdot?
Good thing my friend is ethical! I can't emphasize enough - USE A DIFFRENT PASSWORD FOR EACH WEBSITE, such that no DB Admin from one site can guess your other passwords!
At least they aren't requiring 5 years of Office 2003 experience, or 10 years of .net web development, or some other nonsense ads.
fixes the problem.
No, that delays the problem until it's a bigger storm.
Then when your employer, the **AA, Microsoft, the FBI, or your spouse starts complaining about what thet found due to our lack of privacy, you could say "It might have been the PlausDen.A virus - not me!"
Not that I personally want this virus installed on my system... I just want the possibility that I may have had the virus.
I have found that they always accept "no" for an answer. However, you could always ask them back - "You give me your number first."
Spammer sends out millions of emails touting an unbelievably low "m or tga ge | r ate". Are you interested in a 30 year, no points fixed 1% interest rate? If you're shopping for a loan, then absolutely.
Suckers check it out. "Want information? Someone will be contacting you shortly. Just give us a little information.. name, phone number." The average person on the street - even SPAM haters - will think "This is probably too good to be true, but I'll check it out with a critical eye... I probably won't finance through this scum, but I better know what the going rate is, so I don't get screwed by my local bank...", and they submit their personal information
Now spammers have a huge list of people shopping for a mortgage. This list is transferred to a semi-legit shell company, who sells it to a completely legit Fortune 500-sized major banking institution. The major banking institution has no idea that these names are collected via SPAM. Under inquiry, the semi-legit company can claim that they "purchase lists of people shopping for mortgages and aggregate them".
Customer gets a call from some Fortune 500 size bank coincidentally asking if they are shopping for a loan, which they are. The Fortune 500 Bank has no clue that there was an offer of 1% 30 year loan, and the sucker has no idea how the major bank got their name. No one's pissed except the 99,999,999 people that were annoyed by the email. And the system continues.
You'll never rid yourself of that problem with education, unless we educate the major companies to consider their sources when buying lists! And even then, since the lists tend to work for the big companies, the problem won't go away anytime soon!
What state is he the Senator of?
I have renewed faith in the slashdot community. (Or were all those messages modded down already?)
Good luck, Patrick. Remember, laughter is the best medicine - but sometimes penicillin is needed.
Right now that happens - only the program gets generated by programmers (sometimes outsourced to India!)
Unfortunately, what the user says they want, and what they really want are usually very different things. Natural Language Programming really doesn't solve that problem.
The critical piece is the Designer, who sits between the end user and the programmer, and asks the tough questions: "Do you really want that? Let me explain the implications of what you just asked for." "How critical is that piece of functionality that you just added on a whim, but it just added 3 years to the project plan?" "You're asking for the data to be selected this way, but really there's no use for that - have you considered selecting the data this other way?" etc.
What really annoys me about many non-Americans is when they think that the United States is less "international" than their country. Your country is international to us; ours is international to you.
Just because our countries are different doesn't mean that one is better than the other. Ever think how silly foreigners look in the US? OK, so BFD.
Yours truly,
God
No wait.... what really annoys me is when non-Americans think they are God!
your post was humorous, though, even coming from an inferior non-American.
Look at the little dots that tell you what is on file for each company. Choose the ones that have some documents on file. (In other words, RTF Legend)
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
Are you for torturing kids or against it? You seem to contradict yourself.
Where do people come up with these product names?
Yes, in fact I was confused by the misspelling. I had to reread it to have it make sense. The author is trying to communicate a message, and if he wants to do it clearly, he should pay attention to the details.
I really think it's poor form to misspell something in a quote, implying that the original author was the poor speller, not the quoter. For instance, if I would quote you: tallbill says, "The kind of pedantic attention to grammer and spelling...", I am attributing the poor spelling of grammar to you.
History will be the judge, but I think if you rolled back the clock to the eighties, you would say exactly the same thing about technologies that we take for granted now, as standards.
Case in Point:
Network protocols: The internet protocol suite was far from being the only protocol (or even the dominant one). SNA, for one, was incompatible and entrenched. And at the lower three layers of the OSI Model, X.25 didn't even consider random routing from a single point, as TCP/IP does.
See this table for a bunch of examples of non-TCP/IP protocols that are a hodge-podge of incompatible solutions.
Nothing has changed as of the nineties. Same problem, but the shakeout takes time.
ACM Queue vol. 2, no. 6 - September 2004
by GORDON BELL, MICROSOFT BAY AREA RESEARCH CENTER
After reading this Microsoft employee's views on standards, I think it's time to rename the place he works to
"Bay Area Research Facility".
Somehow I doubt that MIT's Dave Clark said that we move to stop eating! Unless he is implying that we skip meals to write code...?
Perhaps the submitter meant to say we move "too" fast. In this case, the editor's gaffe changed the meaning entirely!
My first thought... "so that's how you spell 'quadriplegic'."
Quite scary that I am learning to spell on Slashdot! (it IS spelled right!)
Now, according to today's news, there won't be any quadriplegics, if we put the Johns in the oval office.
So much for "no child left behind". It's truly.
I hate the spelling police, but this one was too tempting.
I forget, do we like HP or hate them? Or do we like them but hate Carly?
I don't see a problem with this. At some point companies need to innovate - HP did that. It makes no sense to pre-announce your new products, if they will kill sales of your old products. And (I assume) nothing "stopped working" on your unit the day that the new model was introduced. So "becoming obsolete" just means you don't have the latest gadget. Welcome to the world of technology!
Just think of it this way: you are only "renting" technology. No matter what the item is, eventually your entire investment is virtually worthless. (But in this case, you presumably still have years of useful life with your PDA.)
Guess it's slashdottted for everyone but you?
I've developed both.
I'm not a disciple of either.
They both have their place.
Not a very poetic Haiku...
How about
I use Open Source
and closed source software as well
They both have their place
In Japan, it was funnier.
There would be no comments here, if we all R'd TFA. Too much reading for my small brain.