Check out the FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) Robotics Competition (http://www.usfirst.org/robotics/). It has been a big thing out here on the Left Coast (California), and is gaining ground throughout the USA. It's beginning to draw international teams, and I'll bet they'll cover the globe as the word gets out.
FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Its aim is to get high school kids interested and motivated about science and technology. It's a great premise. Perhaps FIRST can help you, and vice versa. By hooking up with such a sophisticated organization, you gain an incredible support mechanism, and they gain another group of evangelists.
Give them a look-see. I woujld have given anything to be on a challenge team in high school! I bet it'll be a winner, all the way around.
Every Microsoft Windows user with a home computer connected directly to a broadband (cable/DSL) router inadvertently shares their hard drive capacity (and its contents) with the Internet. This, alone, adds petabytes and petabytes of capacity to the Internet, which - according to the RIAA - is even now being used to illegally store and download billions of dollars worth of copyright-protected national treasures, such as Roy Orbison's greatest hits.
"Microsoft - Where Do We Want You To Go, Today?"(tm)
They can't interpret it all because there is just too much of it.
They can't interpret it all because there are no technologies currently available to do so. (BTW - A database/datamart is not "a technology", for this discussion, it's just a place to hold information.)
Data-mining and data-visualization technologies that can handle a petabyte of data do not yet exist in the business world. I guarantee you that advanced research projects are tackling just such problems, and advancing the state of the arts. It won't be long before useful nuggets of information can be gleaned from these vast seas of numbers.
An advanced relationship-visualization tool can be found on the web at - TheyRule.net
Another one can be found at - Map of the Market
It's only a matter of time before all that data will yield useful clues to Total World Domination(tm). And who better than WalMart to exploit these clues to subdue the dominant world power, and move its base of wealth to a communist, human-rights-ignorant county, leaving a vast wasteland of low-wage, no-benefits, tax-roll-supported service-oriented jobs in its wake?
God Bless (what's left of) the USA
- Made in China
I think that the two camps (Hams and Hackers - in the good sense of that word - GSotW) are actually part of the same loop.
The spirit of altruism in both camps is the same. Ham Radio operators give to their communities in many ways - offering their communications skills during local events (walk-a-thons, festivals, etc.) and their emergency-preparedness skills to people in times of need (Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, hurricanes, etc.). They are motivated not by money, not by bragging rights, but by the genuine desire to help others.
Hackers (GSotW) are similarly motivated not by money, but by the genuine desire to help others. In their case, they want to empower others to do what they could never do before. They even try to save lives (e.g. Folding-at-Home).
You can now send an email to the deepest heart of Africa because some hams and some hackers got together and built a long-haul, Linux-based email-forwarding system over amateur packet radio.
Out of the loop? Not hardly. TCP/IP was given, freely, to the world. No one charges you for it. Now try to live in the digital world without it. Got a cell phone? Ham radio operators were making phone calls from their cars years before the first cell tower was conceived. Send any email lately? You guessed it - a hacker created Sendmail, which touches virtually every email sent over the Internet.
If it wasn't for hackers, you'd have no Internet. If it wasn't for Ham radio, you'd have no GPRS, FRS, Cell Phone, trunked radio system,...
These two camps are much closer than most realize. Primarily, they are related due to their spirit of altruism - their desire to do good will toward others with no compensation expected.
I don't think Google should block Microsoft's IP address ranges. If they did, how would Microsoft's employees get thier work done? You think they use search.msn.com? BAAAAAaaahhhh!
I believe that the difference between "Grid" and "Distributed" computing is more subtle, but very easy to explain.
If you need to have ONE memory image, with all CPU's using the exact same memory image at the exact same time, then that's Grid computing.
If you have many CPU's, each with their own memory image, and they can perform their work no matter what the other CPU's are doing, then that's Distributed computing.
Put this way, I believe you can really see the differences between Grid and Distributed computing. In general, when a problem solution requires intense inter-CPU communications you need a Grid computing solution. If, however, you can break a problem down into separate, discrete chunks, you're most likely able to use a Distributed computing solution.
The good news is that Distributed computing solutions are very cheap, and very scalable. Grid computing solutions are intensely network-throughput-dependent, and generally very costly to scale. But then again, hooking up two Cray supercomputers was never exactly cheap, anyhow you slice it. <g>
I was interviewed by a guy who claimed he knew all about programming, so they "picked him" because he could figure out who was BS'ing and who was telling the truth. Then he asked me, point-blank "How many instances have you coded?" When I replied - "You don't code an instance, you code a class that gets instantiated, thus creating an instance" he got that deer-caught-in-the-headlights look and said "...uh...yeah... I knew that. I was just checking to see if you knew what that meant."
Riiiiiiiiggggghhhhttt........
Then he followed that up with a - "You'd be surprised at how many people lie their way through that question..."
I have used Ahpah Software's SourceAgain Java decompiler for years, and I've never run up against any Java source code that it could not decompile. I've even challenged people on IRC to send me obfuscated files - each time, I returned them their original code (variable name changes, notwithstanding). They were always blown away.
I think I bought this product when it first came out, some time around 1998. Their site still appears up and running - http://www.ahpah.com
Their website even has a way to let you upload a class file, and it'll decompile the first five methods of your class, online, just to show you how good it is!
Go have a look. This thing blew everyone out of the water in 1998. I can't imagine it's any less capable 6 years later.
I just got off the phone with AOL (well, their India-based customer support, actually) and they say that AOL has no such device.
In fact, they got a supervisor on their radio who was barking questions like "how did you know about it?/Who told you?/Are you an AOL employee?/We don't have any such item." (etc.).
Sounds like AOL India is into a FUD campaign of their own. Maybe, being tens of thousands of miles away, they are actually the last to know about this device?
If anyone hears how to get one, please email me. I'd love to try it.
Bill Gates announced today that Microsoft has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with our new, intergalactic friends that grants them DRM-compliant access to all of our minds.
RIAA expressed gratitude that Microsoft was taking the lead in extending backward-thinking, money-grubbing, and innovation-squashing to previously-inaccessible corners of the galaxy.
FSF lawyers could not be reached for comment, as they have so far refused to cross-license Microsoft's "Legalease v.2.0" DRM technology, and are not allowed to speak.
Like most things in life, (but not in news-grabbing headlines), the "truth" here lies somewhere inbetween the various extremes. We need to get "our side" - the Programmer's side - of this story out there.
Programmers, like any other special-interest group, should band together to advertise our side of this story. Just like the healthcare industry is trying to PR it's way out of denying Mr. Jones his tripple-bypass surgery: blaming the tobacco industry on his failed health - and blaming McDonalds for clogging his arteries - they are putting their spin on the situation to get their side of the story out there into the public discourse, and (hopefully) influence those that are imposing laws and responsibilities onto their group.
Programmers should band together, get a P.R. machine, and tell everyone - "HEY!!! Programming computers is hard! Computers may be everywhere, but that doesn't mean that they're easy to program. It just means that there are thousands and thousands of very skilled and highly intelligent people out there, making sure they work correctly. And, oh, by the way - outsourcing to India is "bad". Lowering our salaries is "bad". Microsoft's way of doing everything is "bad"." (It is, isn't it?;) )
Only once we band together, get our own B.S. salesmen (oops, I mean P.R. campaign representatives) and put "our side" of the story out there are we going to get our perspective into the public discourse, and start to influence business decisions that directly impact not only our jobs (or lack thereof), but the methods and processes of how we perform our actual work.
Until then, companies will feel no remorse in kissin' your 401(k)-trackin', healthcare-wantin', starbucks-lovin', vacation-takin', SUV-drivin', come-in-at-10-o'clock'n' butt goodbye - You're being "outsourced" due to the "down/rightsizing" of the corporation, to help align resources with business initiatives, and produce results accretive to the bottom line. (Do you remember when they used to just say that you're FIRED cuz' they found a cheaper alternative, and the owner is using the extra profits to buy his mistress a condo on the beach?!.)
(Oh, and while you're out,... can you get me a double-bacon-cheeseburger and a pack of Marlboro Lite's?... I'll pay you back... Thanks!)
It doesn't matter if your computer "can do HTML". Grid API's don't need HTML to function. Grid API's do actual work. That's what us programmers need computers to do. That there is a nifty gosh cool neat-o GUI involved is irrelevant.
Grid API's and X-Windows are the "API's" of the future. Who cares what O/S you use to run them?
Re:opt-out is still wrong
on
Spammer Apologizes
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Spammers are the terrorists of the Internet, and opt-out is their RPG.
No matter how many dollars you spend to defend yourself, even "armor plating" your email server/networking devices, you can get hit anyway by some third-world stuupid with a 2400-baud modem and a dialup account. Everyone knows that opt-out is about as helpful as the armor plating on our troup transports that get "blowed up" every day.
You wake up every day, fearful that your inbox is innundated with breast/pe**s enhancement products, links to XXX websites, chain letters, viruses, virus hoaxes, and the like. All the while, the spammers are getting smarter and more informed about exactly who you are, what websites you frequent, and what exactly it will take to get you to click on their link.
I'm "terrorized" every day by this filth, to the point that I almost never check my 9-year-old AOL account anymore. I almost lost two domain names because Network "Abusions" (Solutions) only emailed me there, and the inbox is so full of spam that I didn't get the message until a week after my domains expired. Thank god Network Abusions doesn't miss an opportunity to take my money, and "let" me re-up even so.
Spam sucks, it's not slowing down, and opt-out is not the fix.
I imagine the codebase for a complex feature-rich browser could get quite large and complicated, and modern browsers seem to have everything built in but the kitchen sink (in Microsoft's case, an entire OS is embedded into IE...;), but why should a web browser EVER be capable of causing such chaos?
Because there *used* to be a speed problem... and a bandwidth problem... and a portability problem... and a video-mode-compatibility problem... and a server-scalability problem... and...
It's not just "today's" issues that got computers to where they are today. By definition, yesterday's issues created today's legacy, and that includes today's legacy code. IE suffers as much from its own (and the Internet's own) legacy as much as from any "stuuuupid" programmer/decision/whatever. That there is legacy code in all applications is obvious. That there are exploits today that take advantage of yesterday's design decisions is not as obvious.
Did you know that IPv4 is vulnerable, at its core, to source-IP-address spoofing? And that EVERY system that utilizes TCP/IP connections can have those connections arbitrarily shut down by a malicious hacker? Does this mean Vint Cerf, et al, are idiots for not "programming in" security to IPv4? No, it means that their design legacy - which led to the Internet of today, hackers included - includes exploitable design decisions that - in today's light - are "obvious", but were nothing of the sort at the time they were made.
Let's not berate yesterday's visionaries because today's malcontents have managed to bastardize the former's brainchild.
Lest you think me insane, I agree with other posters in this thread that IE should not have implemented functionality at "ring zero". A website, therefore, should never be able to execute code on my computer, running as Super User. That's just a blatant no-no, and does represent an obvious (even back then) compromise opportunity.
This doesn't work - If I let my wife's computer download and install all patches that Microsoft deems "critical", I'd have removed a font that contains "inappropriate symbols" (gasp!), "updated" her CD player software to inform Microsoft about every single CD she plays (in their media player "upgrade"), downloaded the latest DRM which may prevent her from copying CD's she legally owns for use in the car (denying "fair use" per copyright law), installed "Active-X" updates - I refuse to let her run Active-X controls, period -, download "the latest.NET software" (aka passport & spyware), "update" my browser (Netscape) to add an MSN search toolbar, download updates that reset my DCOM settings (I turned them off using GRC's dcombobulator), re-enable network-based Plug-n-Pray, or download a driver for her networking card that disabled all networking!
No, I don't think I just want to blindly load all patches that Microsoft thinks I need. If I did, we couldn't listen to our CD's, secure our home network, prevent worms from getting into our computers, or even use her computer at all.
I was one programmer in a three-person startup company. I had two kids, both under 5. I was a single dad. I had to work 15-20 hour days, at times, to get the company off the ground. I had no problem - I left at 5:24pm when my train departed downtown, and got home by 6:15pm to pickup the kids from daycare. I fed them, bathed them, got them ready for the next day, and got them off to sleep. After that, I resumed my coding until 1-2am, then got up to do it all again. THEY never knew what I did after they were asleep - only I did. They came out just fine.
Don't code when they're around, don't ignore them for the CRT - don't ignore them for the boob tube, either, for that matter. DON'T IGNORE THEM. And when they have a recital/play/sporting event, GO HOME AND TAKE THEM.
Forget the boss. If they don't get it, get a different job. Pick one - family or career - to be numero uno. Once the other becomes secondary, it all works out just fine, and you will never look back.
The so-called "browser wars" are over. IE won... and lost.
Microsoft was not interested in "winning", per se. They just didn't want anyone *else* to win. It never was about who had the better product - only about Microsoft not losing the war. A war it misunderstood for years, joined late, and then used terrorist tactics to "win". They produced a technologically-incompatible product, disgourged massive amounts of marketing FUD about the incompatibilities that they, themselves, invented, and, finally, gave away their inferior product to commoditize the market and drive the original browser makers into the ground.
After the dust settled IE was the only browser made by a company that had not gone bankrupt. And, after your competition is obliterated, why innovate? Just keep cranking out copies of the same old cruft, and no one has anything to say about it. Stop spending your prescious billions on development, and market everyone so that they think Microsoft "did them a favor" by "watching out for their best interests", "staying free to innovate" without government intervention, and "letting the market decide". (cough) (cough) (bulls**t!) (cough)
Because Microsoft no longer cares about IE, it is now so far behind, technologically-speaking, that it is irrelevant. We wouldn't even know about Opera if it weren't for the fact that sooooooo many people have switched from the now-dead-end IE over to Opera. And Firebird is working even better than IE, even in Microsoft-only, web-based email access environments. Just try retrieving your email over the web using IE, talking to an Outlook-based email backend. IE constantly requires you to re-login, because - just like the rest of its code base - its HTTPS authentication code is full of bugs! Don't patch it, or your O/S will start crashing. Gee... thanks for the "innovations", Microsoft! -----
Well, to Microsoft's chagrin, the market *has* decided - anyone technically literate has already downloaded Opera, one of the Mozilla versions, or has been using lynx since day one! If that weren't true, who would ever had heard of Opera? The only reason we have is that soooooo many people have switched to it!
IE is dead. Go get (download) a *real* browser. Everybody else already has. (Long live Moz!)
Your point appears to me to be that Ham Radio is no longer relevant. et tu, Brute? (You're a ham.) =)
You just cited emergency communications, and said "aside from [that]". But "that" is one of the original justifications the government gave for creating the amateur radio system in the first place - to provide a mechanism for communications in times of disaster/crisis/where public safety is in jeapordy. This service to the public is still absolutely relevant.
Just ask the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, any hurricane, most earthquakes, (in USA, Mexico, or even worldwide), and every other natural disaster where the existing communications infrastructure has been compromised (or overwhelmed by users).
Not to mention - you'll see Amateur Radio operators helping out at every Cancer Walk/Run, March-of-Dimes event, (etc), and the list goes on.
Treating Amateur Radio as irrelevant because it created, fostered, and/or promoted the technologies we all now enjoy (Auto Patch => Cell Phone, FAX => Telephone-based FAX, RTTY/BAUDOT => ASCII, GPRS => GPS handhelds, 220Mhz comm => Business Band, Walkie Talkies + Repeaters => Police/Fire/Ambulance trunking radio systems.....) is disingenuous. Many of the very technologies that you've cited above were either created, fostered, or promoted to the masses by Amateur Radio.
Ham radio is not irrelevant. In fact, the exact opposite is true - it's actually way ahead of it's time!
Look for the Next Big Thing(tm) to start now, and first, in the Amateur Radio world.
I agree that Microsoft is not the only company to let major problems that "nobody will notice" go, without fixing them.
Having said that, name one other company that produces a product that A) resides upon MILLIONS of computer systems, worldwide, B) controls and/or administers major infrastructure systems (railways, airlines, hospitals, financial houses, trading companies, banks, etc.), and C) with one easy, "unknown" exploit, can bring to a halt said infrastructure.
This seems to speak more to the dangers of technological "monotheism" (e.g. the lack of diversity in computing platforms) than any "inherent evil" in Microsoft's bug-fixing (or lack thereof) practices.
...that we're definitely wasting time *every* day due to the current state of Microsoft Windows desktop software.
Crashes, fixes, updates, patches, security updates, spam (due to insecure Outlook email clients, etc.) and the like are a daily issue for Microsoft Windows users. In fact - no lie - I just rebooted my machine due to Windows XP "detecting and recovering from a device error". All I was doing was using my computer.... (sigh). BTW - if XP did "detect and recover" from it, why did I have to reboot? That's not "recovery", that's "hanging on by a thread, and allowing me to reboot". (sigh, again).
It'll only get worse for Microsoft Windows users.
Solutions? A) Switch to a Mac - my mother hasn't crashed her Mac since she got it, two years ago. B) Switch to command-mode - it is incredibly hard to crash a server these days from the command-prompt. (I guess it's incredibly hard to do any *actual work* from the command mode, if all you've ever used was a GUI.) For us Unix stalwarts, it's much much much faster than using a GUI. C) Switch to another O/S (i.e. Linux). Since Microsoft illegally killed all it's O/S competitors, that leaves just a couple. Go to eBay and pickup an old copy of DR-DOS, or DeskView, OS/2 or the like. You won't crash nearly as often. D) Toe the line and grin and bear it. Sadly, that's the most likely outcome for Joe and Jane Doe.
When I first heard of this Grand Challenge I was estatic. I thought I could "compete with the big boys". Ever since that day I have been working steadfastly on my robot - integrating computing power with grid technologies, beefing up off-the-shelf sonar gear (fish-finders!) for horizontal and non-water use, experimenting with vision-processing software, developing a custom "behavior stack" using subsumption and goal-based directives - and integrating the whole mess into a cohesive package. But God Love 'Em, DARPA screws it up again - someone like me, who can do for a dollar what the "good ol'e boy" defense establishment can't do for fifteen times that price, is totally out of the competition.
Oh, well. Guess I'll just "redeploy", and use all of my "off hours" working overtime at my day job so that I can afford to pay the ever-increasing taxes - billions and billions of defecit-spending-dollars, paid to the military establishment that I was so determined to underbid... (sigh)
Any student of U.S. Law, and even of logic, has already discovered SCO's taunts, rants and raves as singularly this - an attempt to fluff up the price of SCO stock so that the insiders (Mc Bride, the SCO board, etc.) can cash out before SCO itself collapses under the weight of its non-innovation.
I didn't agree to any terms of service to be SPAMMED. I agreed to have my email-capable PAGER sent alerts on certain news articles. I *NEVER* asked or allowed them to send me any SPAM.
RTFM is all well, and good, but I have turned off these alerts ALMOST A YEAR AGO, yet I'm getting their warning saying they'll spam me now, unless I sign on and tell them not to.
Those bastards lied - LIED - about the EULA. They said I could terminate my account. THEY kept it after I terminated it, reactivated it, and used it to SPAM ME!
This is abuse. Pure and simple. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my agreeing with (or not reading) any now-changed license agreement.
Deleting my account, having them reactivate it and use it's information to spam me is NOT ETHICAL.
Slashdot Mirror
FIRST was founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway. Its aim is to get high school kids interested and motivated about science and technology. It's a great premise. Perhaps FIRST can help you, and vice versa. By hooking up with such a sophisticated organization, you gain an incredible support mechanism, and they gain another group of evangelists.
Give them a look-see. I woujld have given anything to be on a challenge team in high school! I bet it'll be a winner, all the way around.
The Internet DOES have more data than that.
Every Microsoft Windows user with a home computer connected directly to a broadband (cable/DSL) router inadvertently shares their hard drive capacity (and its contents) with the Internet. This, alone, adds petabytes and petabytes of capacity to the Internet, which - according to the RIAA - is even now being used to illegally store and download billions of dollars worth of copyright-protected national treasures, such as Roy Orbison's greatest hits.
"Microsoft - Where Do We Want You To Go, Today?"(tm)
They can't interpret it all because there are no technologies currently available to do so. (BTW - A database/datamart is not "a technology", for this discussion, it's just a place to hold information.)
Data-mining and data-visualization technologies that can handle a petabyte of data do not yet exist in the business world. I guarantee you that advanced research projects are tackling just such problems, and advancing the state of the arts. It won't be long before useful nuggets of information can be gleaned from these vast seas of numbers.
An advanced relationship-visualization tool can be found on the web at - TheyRule.net
Another one can be found at - Map of the Market
It's only a matter of time before all that data will yield useful clues to Total World Domination(tm). And who better than WalMart to exploit these clues to subdue the dominant world power, and move its base of wealth to a communist, human-rights-ignorant county, leaving a vast wasteland of low-wage, no-benefits, tax-roll-supported service-oriented jobs in its wake?
God Bless (what's left of) the USA - Made in China
I think that the two camps (Hams and Hackers - in the good sense of that word - GSotW) are actually part of the same loop.
The spirit of altruism in both camps is the same. Ham Radio operators give to their communities in many ways - offering their communications skills during local events (walk-a-thons, festivals, etc.) and their emergency-preparedness skills to people in times of need (Oklahoma City Bombing, 9/11, hurricanes, etc.). They are motivated not by money, not by bragging rights, but by the genuine desire to help others.
Hackers (GSotW) are similarly motivated not by money, but by the genuine desire to help others. In their case, they want to empower others to do what they could never do before. They even try to save lives (e.g. Folding-at-Home).
You can now send an email to the deepest heart of Africa because some hams and some hackers got together and built a long-haul, Linux-based email-forwarding system over amateur packet radio.
Out of the loop? Not hardly. TCP/IP was given, freely, to the world. No one charges you for it. Now try to live in the digital world without it. Got a cell phone? Ham radio operators were making phone calls from their cars years before the first cell tower was conceived. Send any email lately? You guessed it - a hacker created Sendmail, which touches virtually every email sent over the Internet.
If it wasn't for hackers, you'd have no Internet. If it wasn't for Ham radio, you'd have no GPRS, FRS, Cell Phone, trunked radio system,...
These two camps are much closer than most realize. Primarily, they are related due to their spirit of altruism - their desire to do good will toward others with no compensation expected.
God Bless both camps!
I don't think Google should block Microsoft's IP address ranges. If they did, how would Microsoft's employees get thier work done? You think they use search.msn.com? BAAAAAaaahhhh!
If you need to have ONE memory image, with all CPU's using the exact same memory image at the exact same time, then that's Grid computing.
If you have many CPU's, each with their own memory image, and they can perform their work no matter what the other CPU's are doing, then that's Distributed computing.
Put this way, I believe you can really see the differences between Grid and Distributed computing. In general, when a problem solution requires intense inter-CPU communications you need a Grid computing solution. If, however, you can break a problem down into separate, discrete chunks, you're most likely able to use a Distributed computing solution.
The good news is that Distributed computing solutions are very cheap, and very scalable. Grid computing solutions are intensely network-throughput-dependent, and generally very costly to scale. But then again, hooking up two Cray supercomputers was never exactly cheap, anyhow you slice it. <g>
Riiiiiiiiggggghhhhttt........
Then he followed that up with a - "You'd be surprised at how many people lie their way through that question..."
Needless to say, I refused the job offer...
I have used Ahpah Software's SourceAgain Java decompiler for years, and I've never run up against any Java source code that it could not decompile. I've even challenged people on IRC to send me obfuscated files - each time, I returned them their original code (variable name changes, notwithstanding). They were always blown away.
I think I bought this product when it first came out, some time around 1998. Their site still appears up and running - http://www.ahpah.com
Their website even has a way to let you upload a class file, and it'll decompile the first five methods of your class, online, just to show you how good it is!
Go have a look. This thing blew everyone out of the water in 1998. I can't imagine it's any less capable 6 years later.
I just got off the phone with AOL (well, their India-based customer support, actually) and they say that AOL has no such device.
In fact, they got a supervisor on their radio who was barking questions like "how did you know about it?/Who told you?/Are you an AOL employee?/We don't have any such item." (etc.).
Sounds like AOL India is into a FUD campaign of their own. Maybe, being tens of thousands of miles away, they are actually the last to know about this device?
If anyone hears how to get one, please email me. I'd love to try it.
Thanks!
Bill Gates announced today that Microsoft has signed an exclusive licensing agreement with our new, intergalactic friends that grants them DRM-compliant access to all of our minds.
RIAA expressed gratitude that Microsoft was taking the lead in extending backward-thinking, money-grubbing, and innovation-squashing to previously-inaccessible corners of the galaxy.
FSF lawyers could not be reached for comment, as they have so far refused to cross-license Microsoft's "Legalease v.2.0" DRM technology, and are not allowed to speak.
Like most things in life, (but not in news-grabbing headlines), the "truth" here lies somewhere inbetween the various extremes. We need to get "our side" - the Programmer's side - of this story out there.
;) )
Programmers, like any other special-interest group, should band together to advertise our side of this story. Just like the healthcare industry is trying to PR it's way out of denying Mr. Jones his tripple-bypass surgery: blaming the tobacco industry on his failed health - and blaming McDonalds for clogging his arteries - they are putting their spin on the situation to get their side of the story out there into the public discourse, and (hopefully) influence those that are imposing laws and responsibilities onto their group.
Programmers should band together, get a P.R. machine, and tell everyone - "HEY!!! Programming computers is hard! Computers may be everywhere, but that doesn't mean that they're easy to program. It just means that there are thousands and thousands of very skilled and highly intelligent people out there, making sure they work correctly. And, oh, by the way - outsourcing to India is "bad". Lowering our salaries is "bad". Microsoft's way of doing everything is "bad"." (It is, isn't it?
Only once we band together, get our own B.S. salesmen (oops, I mean P.R. campaign representatives) and put "our side" of the story out there are we going to get our perspective into the public discourse, and start to influence business decisions that directly impact not only our jobs (or lack thereof), but the methods and processes of how we perform our actual work.
Until then, companies will feel no remorse in kissin' your 401(k)-trackin', healthcare-wantin', starbucks-lovin', vacation-takin', SUV-drivin', come-in-at-10-o'clock'n' butt goodbye - You're being "outsourced" due to the "down/rightsizing" of the corporation, to help align resources with business initiatives, and produce results accretive to the bottom line. (Do you remember when they used to just say that you're FIRED cuz' they found a cheaper alternative, and the owner is using the extra profits to buy his mistress a condo on the beach?!.)
(Oh, and while you're out,... can you get me a double-bacon-cheeseburger and a pack of Marlboro Lite's?... I'll pay you back... Thanks!)
It is "spelt" "spelled". For crying out loud, where the hell did this weird "spelt" mistake come from anyway?
Because grig API's will win, hands-down.
It doesn't matter if your computer "can do HTML". Grid API's don't need HTML to function. Grid API's do actual work. That's what us programmers need computers to do. That there is a nifty gosh cool neat-o GUI involved is irrelevant.
Grid API's and X-Windows are the "API's" of the future. Who cares what O/S you use to run them?
Spammers are the terrorists of the Internet, and opt-out is their RPG.
No matter how many dollars you spend to defend yourself, even "armor plating" your email server/networking devices, you can get hit anyway by some third-world stuupid with a 2400-baud modem and a dialup account. Everyone knows that opt-out is about as helpful as the armor plating on our troup transports that get "blowed up" every day.
You wake up every day, fearful that your inbox is innundated with breast/pe**s enhancement products, links to XXX websites, chain letters, viruses, virus hoaxes, and the like. All the while, the spammers are getting smarter and more informed about exactly who you are, what websites you frequent, and what exactly it will take to get you to click on their link.
I'm "terrorized" every day by this filth, to the point that I almost never check my 9-year-old AOL account anymore. I almost lost two domain names because Network "Abusions" (Solutions) only emailed me there, and the inbox is so full of spam that I didn't get the message until a week after my domains expired. Thank god Network Abusions doesn't miss an opportunity to take my money, and "let" me re-up even so.
Spam sucks, it's not slowing down, and opt-out is not the fix.
Because there *used* to be a speed problem... and a bandwidth problem... and a portability problem... and a video-mode-compatibility problem... and a server-scalability problem... and...
It's not just "today's" issues that got computers to where they are today. By definition, yesterday's issues created today's legacy, and that includes today's legacy code. IE suffers as much from its own (and the Internet's own) legacy as much as from any "stuuuupid" programmer/decision/whatever. That there is legacy code in all applications is obvious. That there are exploits today that take advantage of yesterday's design decisions is not as obvious.
Did you know that IPv4 is vulnerable, at its core, to source-IP-address spoofing? And that EVERY system that utilizes TCP/IP connections can have those connections arbitrarily shut down by a malicious hacker? Does this mean Vint Cerf, et al, are idiots for not "programming in" security to IPv4? No, it means that their design legacy - which led to the Internet of today, hackers included - includes exploitable design decisions that - in today's light - are "obvious", but were nothing of the sort at the time they were made.
Let's not berate yesterday's visionaries because today's malcontents have managed to bastardize the former's brainchild.
Lest you think me insane, I agree with other posters in this thread that IE should not have implemented functionality at "ring zero". A website, therefore, should never be able to execute code on my computer, running as Super User. That's just a blatant no-no, and does represent an obvious (even back then) compromise opportunity.
This doesn't work - If I let my wife's computer download and install all patches that Microsoft deems "critical", I'd have removed a font that contains "inappropriate symbols" (gasp!), "updated" her CD player software to inform Microsoft about every single CD she plays (in their media player "upgrade"), downloaded the latest DRM which may prevent her from copying CD's she legally owns for use in the car (denying "fair use" per copyright law), installed "Active-X" updates - I refuse to let her run Active-X controls, period -, download "the latest .NET software" (aka passport & spyware), "update" my browser (Netscape) to add an MSN search toolbar, download updates that reset my DCOM settings (I turned them off using GRC's dcombobulator), re-enable network-based Plug-n-Pray, or download a driver for her networking card that disabled all networking!
No, I don't think I just want to blindly load all patches that Microsoft thinks I need. If I did, we couldn't listen to our CD's, secure our home network, prevent worms from getting into our computers, or even use her computer at all.
Nope, not gonna do it...
I was one programmer in a three-person startup company. I had two kids, both under 5. I was a single dad. I had to work 15-20 hour days, at times, to get the company off the ground. I had no problem - I left at 5:24pm when my train departed downtown, and got home by 6:15pm to pickup the kids from daycare. I fed them, bathed them, got them ready for the next day, and got them off to sleep. After that, I resumed my coding until 1-2am, then got up to do it all again. THEY never knew what I did after they were asleep - only I did. They came out just fine.
Don't code when they're around, don't ignore them for the CRT - don't ignore them for the boob tube, either, for that matter. DON'T IGNORE THEM. And when they have a recital/play/sporting event, GO HOME AND TAKE THEM.
Forget the boss. If they don't get it, get a different job. Pick one - family or career - to be numero uno. Once the other becomes secondary, it all works out just fine, and you will never look back.
The so-called "browser wars" are over. IE won... and lost.
Microsoft was not interested in "winning", per se. They just didn't want anyone *else* to win. It never was about who had the better product - only about Microsoft not losing the war. A war it misunderstood for years, joined late, and then used terrorist tactics to "win". They produced a technologically-incompatible product, disgourged massive amounts of marketing FUD about the incompatibilities that they, themselves, invented, and, finally, gave away their inferior product to commoditize the market and drive the original browser makers into the ground.
After the dust settled IE was the only browser made by a company that had not gone bankrupt. And, after your competition is obliterated, why innovate? Just keep cranking out copies of the same old cruft, and no one has anything to say about it. Stop spending your prescious billions on development, and market everyone so that they think Microsoft "did them a favor" by "watching out for their best interests", "staying free to innovate" without government intervention, and "letting the market decide". (cough) (cough) (bulls**t!) (cough)
Because Microsoft no longer cares about IE, it is now so far behind, technologically-speaking, that it is irrelevant. We wouldn't even know about Opera if it weren't for the fact that sooooooo many people have switched from the now-dead-end IE over to Opera. And Firebird is working even better than IE, even in Microsoft-only, web-based email access environments. Just try retrieving your email over the web using IE, talking to an Outlook-based email backend. IE constantly requires you to re-login, because - just like the rest of its code base - its HTTPS authentication code is full of bugs! Don't patch it, or your O/S will start crashing. Gee... thanks for the "innovations", Microsoft!
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Well, to Microsoft's chagrin, the market *has* decided - anyone technically literate has already downloaded Opera, one of the Mozilla versions, or has been using lynx since day one! If that weren't true, who would ever had heard of Opera? The only reason we have is that soooooo many people have switched to it!
IE is dead. Go get (download) a *real* browser. Everybody else already has. (Long live Moz!)
Your point appears to me to be that Ham Radio is no longer relevant. et tu, Brute? (You're a ham.) =)
You just cited emergency communications, and said "aside from [that]". But "that" is one of the original justifications the government gave for creating the amateur radio system in the first place - to provide a mechanism for communications in times of disaster/crisis/where public safety is in jeapordy. This service to the public is still absolutely relevant.
Just ask the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing, 9/11, any hurricane, most earthquakes, (in USA, Mexico, or even worldwide), and every other natural disaster where the existing communications infrastructure has been compromised (or overwhelmed by users).
Not to mention - you'll see Amateur Radio operators helping out at every Cancer Walk/Run, March-of-Dimes event, (etc), and the list goes on.
Treating Amateur Radio as irrelevant because it created, fostered, and/or promoted the technologies we all now enjoy (Auto Patch => Cell Phone, FAX => Telephone-based FAX, RTTY/BAUDOT => ASCII, GPRS => GPS handhelds, 220Mhz comm => Business Band, Walkie Talkies + Repeaters => Police/Fire/Ambulance trunking radio systems.....) is disingenuous. Many of the very technologies that you've cited above were either created, fostered, or promoted to the masses by Amateur Radio.
Ham radio is not irrelevant. In fact, the exact opposite is true - it's actually way ahead of it's time!
Look for the Next Big Thing(tm) to start now, and first, in the Amateur Radio world.
- Mike S.
Licensed since 1978
Cudos!
;)
I've been after Slashdot to give each user the ability to BLOCK all posts moderated as "Funny", as most are only sardonic, or caustic at best.
If Slashdot would do us this one favor, we could let those that want to commiserate do so, while others discuss such topics openly and intelligently.
While we're at it, why not have them create a mod of "BiasedToTheGills"...
- Mike S.
I agree that Microsoft is not the only company to let major problems that "nobody will notice" go, without fixing them.
Having said that, name one other company that produces a product that A) resides upon MILLIONS of computer systems, worldwide, B) controls and/or administers major infrastructure systems (railways, airlines, hospitals, financial houses, trading companies, banks, etc.), and C) with one easy, "unknown" exploit, can bring to a halt said infrastructure.
This seems to speak more to the dangers of technological "monotheism" (e.g. the lack of diversity in computing platforms) than any "inherent evil" in Microsoft's bug-fixing (or lack thereof) practices.
...that we're definitely wasting time *every* day due to the current state of Microsoft Windows desktop software.
Crashes, fixes, updates, patches, security updates, spam (due to insecure Outlook email clients, etc.) and the like are a daily issue for Microsoft Windows users. In fact - no lie - I just rebooted my machine due to Windows XP "detecting and recovering from a device error". All I was doing was using my computer.... (sigh). BTW - if XP did "detect and recover" from it, why did I have to reboot? That's not "recovery", that's "hanging on by a thread, and allowing me to reboot". (sigh, again).
It'll only get worse for Microsoft Windows users.
Solutions? A) Switch to a Mac - my mother hasn't crashed her Mac since she got it, two years ago. B) Switch to command-mode - it is incredibly hard to crash a server these days from the command-prompt. (I guess it's incredibly hard to do any *actual work* from the command mode, if all you've ever used was a GUI.) For us Unix stalwarts, it's much much much faster than using a GUI. C) Switch to another O/S (i.e. Linux). Since Microsoft illegally killed all it's O/S competitors, that leaves just a couple. Go to eBay and pickup an old copy of DR-DOS, or DeskView, OS/2 or the like. You won't crash nearly as often. D) Toe the line and grin and bear it. Sadly, that's the most likely outcome for Joe and Jane Doe.
When I first heard of this Grand Challenge I was estatic. I thought I could "compete with the big boys". Ever since that day I have been working steadfastly on my robot - integrating computing power with grid technologies, beefing up off-the-shelf sonar gear (fish-finders!) for horizontal and non-water use, experimenting with vision-processing software, developing a custom "behavior stack" using subsumption and goal-based directives - and integrating the whole mess into a cohesive package. But God Love 'Em, DARPA screws it up again - someone like me, who can do for a dollar what the "good ol'e boy" defense establishment can't do for fifteen times that price, is totally out of the competition.
Oh, well. Guess I'll just "redeploy", and use all of my "off hours" working overtime at my day job so that I can afford to pay the ever-increasing taxes - billions and billions of defecit-spending-dollars, paid to the military establishment that I was so determined to underbid... (sigh)
Any student of U.S. Law, and even of logic, has already discovered SCO's taunts, rants and raves as singularly this - an attempt to fluff up the price of SCO stock so that the insiders (Mc Bride, the SCO board, etc.) can cash out before SCO itself collapses under the weight of its non-innovation.
I didn't agree to any terms of service to be SPAMMED. I agreed to have my email-capable PAGER sent alerts on certain news articles. I *NEVER* asked or allowed them to send me any SPAM.
RTFM is all well, and good, but I have turned off these alerts ALMOST A YEAR AGO, yet I'm getting their warning saying they'll spam me now, unless I sign on and tell them not to.
Those bastards lied - LIED - about the EULA. They said I could terminate my account. THEY kept it after I terminated it, reactivated it, and used it to SPAM ME!
This is abuse. Pure and simple. It has nothing whatsoever to do with my agreeing with (or not reading) any now-changed license agreement.
Deleting my account, having them reactivate it and use it's information to spam me is NOT ETHICAL.
Period.