My stupidest moment in life isn't even in the same ballpark as failing to realize that Maryland is a state.
I have plenty of empathy and sympathy for people's honest mistakes and flaws, but I have no empathy or sympthy for people who choose to be woefully ignorant.
If only there were a decent FOSS source-control system out there, the end of free BitKeeper wouldn't be an issue.
Yeah, I know things like CVS and Subversion exist, and in particular CVS is often cited as being a "mature" and "capable" version control system. But in my experience they're awfully difficult and complicated to set up and maintain, particularly CVS. Setting up and maintaining a source control system shouldn't be a full-time job in addition to the code you're actually trying to develop. It should be amazingly simple to set up and use, with almost zero learning curve and very little distraction from actually working on your software.
For instance, I know several people on various SourceForge projects who basically gave up trying to work with SourceForge CVS because it's so damn complicated to get set up and working. Even when CVS hosting is offered for FREE people choose not to use it because it's such a pain in the ass. That right there should tell you something.
Someone just needs to invent a keyboard that is completely sealed. Not only would this prevent things like crumbs, dust, and hair from getting inside the keyboard and fouling it up, but it means you could just submerge the whole dang thing in alcohol or run it through the dishwasher to clean it. Sounds like hospitals and certain other environments would buy something like that right up.
Actually, I own season 1 of the original series on DVD, so it's quite fresh in my head. Yeah, it had plot holes, low-budget animation with obvious mistakes, etc... but none of that mattered so much because they got the characters, the writing, the voice-acting, and the overall "virtual universe" & over-arching storyline right. All those good aspects are basically missing from the newer Transformers cartoons I've seen.
People bitch every time Microsoft releases a significant security-related update for Windows that stops existing software from working. They never stop and think that the fault lies not with Microsoft for fixing a security hole but with the application makers for writing their software in such a way that it relies on a security hole. Like it or not, closing security holes is going to inevitably require existing software to be rewritten to not utilize those holes.
Of course, if Microsoft doesn't release a security update, then everyone bitches about the lack of security updates. So I guess there's just no pleasing some people.
So then did the new Battlestar Galactica remake or the original Star Wars lose you when they had "whoosh whoosh" engine noises and gunfire sounds in the vaccuum of space?
It's called suspension of disbelief. All SciFi has fiction to it -- otherwise it would just be science, and that's not much fun.
A live action Transformes movie would be pointlessly expensive and lame.
They would be better off bringing back the original Transformers series using modern animation, and targeting it as scifi for adults rather than a silly cartoon for kids.
The original US Transformers generation 1 series had a more personal, emotional, sci-fi aspect to it than do the modern shows like Transformers Armageddon. Granted, it had its 80's cheese factor (like, how many oil rig workers do you know who wear hard hats all the time on land and write touchy-feely entries in their diary every day?) But it also had better-written dialog and stories that were delivered with a more serious and measured touch.
The newer shows have better animation and dropped the corny 80's feel, but in the process picked up the corny 90's feel and all the horrible attributes of those ridiculous american-anime shows like YuGiOh and DragonballZ: terrible dialog spoken too fast and characters who do nothing but boast stupidly at each other constantly about their superior fighting powers like it's a pissing contest.
If they would just return to the original writing, characters, and story, but do it all using modern animation (maybe CGI), and target it more as scifi for the 20+ crowd instead of as cartoons for kids, then I think they'd really have something.
The government agencies or legislative bodies that host these periods of public comment never seem to listen to what anyone with an educated opposing view or well-founded criticism has to say anyway, so why even host such "public comment"? Is it just an effort to make the general public feel pacified or what?
This has sent a loud message to marketers in regard to consumer's preference as to tracking their online activities.
Bad assumption. This could just mean that people value their privacy. Most people don't even know what cookies are, but they do know that when they clear history, cookies, and everything else, then the next person who uses their computer to hit MSN or Yahoo or a variety of other sites won't accidentally be logged in using their cached credentials.
Also, you're forgetting about all the false positives that many corporate firewalls will generate.
This survey is hopelessly flawed. If you want to collect real data, you have to track how many times users actually go into their browser settings and manually clear the cookies, and you have to also ask them why they are doing it.
Yes, but trains worked fine for decades using steam, wood, and coal for fuel. Some people propose that society could simply revert back to such a system for our shipping needs. Unfortunately we just don't have the rail infrastructure that would be required to do.
The problem with all these alternative-power vehicles is that none of them so far have proven that they can work effectively for our nation's trucking system.
The real crisis we will hit when the oil really gets scarce out won't be an inability to run the kids to soccer practice in the SUV, or even an inability to drive to work. It will be an inability to ship food and other goods from the places they are produced to the places they are consumed. The danger with the oil shortage is that billions of people will starve to death and be unable to get their hands on medicine, clothes, or other basic goods.
Yes, I know that we have trains, and I'm fully aware of prototype hydrogen commuter buses. The problem with trains is that a very small percentage of shipped consumer goods are actually shipped by train. We couldn't turn our entire shipping industry over to the existing rail network and expect it to handle the load. And the problem with hydrogen-powered vehicles is that it takes more energy and money to prepare and distribute the hydrogen than you actually get out of the hydrogen in the end... so while prototypes are nice proof-of-concept, they do not present a viable sustainable solution to the energy problem.
Sorry, but I'm tired of seeing stories like this one posted to Slashdot with ridiculously optimistic comments about some new technology taking over the world. Cool technology alone is not enough -- it has to be a net positive in terms of economy and society for it to be a real solution.
I hear Rodney Dangerfield gets very little respect. I also hear that Aretha Franklin has to really put her foot down to get any.
Seriously... if you're not getting the respect you want, chances are that it's because of some larger ongoing interpersonal context that has been established.
It sounds silly, but when you present an idea to people, or do work for them, the respect and consideration they give to the idea or results is wholly dependent on their preexisting opinion of you (whether it is inaccurate or not). Even if the idea itself is great or you do outstanding work, if they don't like you, your ideas won't be considered and your work won't be respected.
Be honest with yourself and others and seek to clearly understand the interpersonal context people have with you. Then, change it by addressing it explicitly -- don't expect things like producing better results or offering better ideas to change anyone's mind, because it won't. Instead, work on things like being less critical or defensive.
Well, you're completely wrong, but obviously you aren't going to be persuaded away from your flawed opinion regardless of any amount of idealism on my part. So, EOA (end of argument).
The only problem is that you've given two mutually exclusive conditions.
No I haven't. You don't have to sacrifice one to get the other. You're just conditioned to think that way because of all the poorly designed OSes that currently exist.
Regardless of the user's level of expertise, and regardless of the purpose the PC will serve (desktop/server/etc), every user and every purpose will benefit from having certain common core tasks work in a bulletproof, consistent way.
Of course you wouldn't turn a home user loose with a server OS and admin privileges and expect them to not configure something stupidly or insecurely. For instance, they could format the drive the system resides on, or remove critical system files. I'm not suggesting anyone attempt to idiot-proof such scenarios. This is exactly why consumer desktop users should not be running as Administrator/root.
What I am suggesting is that certain common core tasks, like adding/removing programs, adding/removing devices/drivers, and choosing which programs launch at start/login should not be considered privileged or administrative chores. OSes have traditionally been architected around the idea that these tasks are major administrative things that won't be done frequently, but in reality these are things that ordinary users need to be able to do on a pretty regular basis. The base OS should be architected so as to provide a bulletproof, user-friendly implementation of these that is available to all types of users and which cannot possibly foobar the state of your system or other installed programs. Having such a bulletproof architecture not only benefits desktop users, but it makes the lives of ubergeek system administrators easier as well.
At my place of employment we use Asserts liberally but with an emphasis on using them properly. Specifically, asserts are not a substitute for appropriate error handling. An assert should be used only as a mechanism for bringing developer or tester attention to a special case or flaw and making it convenient to debug (by providing a change to break in). Subsequent error handling should still follow. Another way to look at this is that asserts should always be ignorable (the product doesn't crash, corrupt data, or enter an unrecoverable state if the assert is ignored).
The root cause of all of these problems is poor OS design. A properly-designed consumer OS needs to do two things to avoid these kinds of problems:
Provide the user with complete control over every detail of their own system, but...
...make it impossible for the user to fuck themselves over with that power
Windows XP does a half-assed job on both counts, and that's the fundamental problem. Longhorn will take some steps to address these issues, although I'm betting it will still only be about 2/3-assed.
For instance, normal users will no longer run as administrators by default, and new security infrastructure will safely allow qualified code to carry out administrative operations when it needs to on behalf of the user. But this will probably only work for new software written to take advantage of it. It will be years before all the existing WinXP-generation software gets phased out and replaced by equivalent Longhorn versions that utilize this approach, so in the meanwhile, people will still probably set themselves to run as Administrators so all their existing software will work.
Another instance: Device Manager is the right idea for managing devices and drivers, but it's not nearly bulletproof enough. Device management in WinXP has a variety of buggy behaviors that I won't go into here, but they would all need to be fixed, and the user should never have to boot into "safe mode" to deal with some device or driver issue.
A third instance: it's simply poor design that a program can launch at Windows start or user login in a hidden way or without the user having specifically chosen for that to happen by placing an icon into their Startup folder in the start menu. All these various hidden ways (Run and RunOnce regkeys, etc) for programs to launch themselves at startup need to be eliminated from the design of the OS, to put that control exclusively in the hands of the user. This alone would go a LONG way toward ridding the world of spyware/malware.
In my experience, Monster Cable makes decent quality stuff but it's way overpriced. You pay for the brand name.
Some people here are claiming that quality of cabling makes no perceptable difference. In their situations this may be true, but not everyone's situation is the same. Some people live in an area with far more surrounding RF/EM radiation and noise than others. Some people own equipment that is more susceptible to noise in the signal. And some people notice things more than others.
My experience is that Monster Cable and other similar-quality cabling will indeed alleviate a lot of hiss/hum/interference issues in certain situations simply because it is shielded better than average cabling. If you live in an area with a lot of EM/RF interference, better-quality cabling may solve the issue. I still wouldn't recommend Monster Cable as a brand though, simply because they are way overpriced.
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My stupidest moment in life isn't even in the same ballpark as failing to realize that Maryland is a state.
I have plenty of empathy and sympathy for people's honest mistakes and flaws, but I have no empathy or sympthy for people who choose to be woefully ignorant.
If only there were a decent FOSS source-control system out there, the end of free BitKeeper wouldn't be an issue.
Yeah, I know things like CVS and Subversion exist, and in particular CVS is often cited as being a "mature" and "capable" version control system. But in my experience they're awfully difficult and complicated to set up and maintain, particularly CVS. Setting up and maintaining a source control system shouldn't be a full-time job in addition to the code you're actually trying to develop. It should be amazingly simple to set up and use, with almost zero learning curve and very little distraction from actually working on your software.
For instance, I know several people on various SourceForge projects who basically gave up trying to work with SourceForge CVS because it's so damn complicated to get set up and working. Even when CVS hosting is offered for FREE people choose not to use it because it's such a pain in the ass. That right there should tell you something.
Someone just needs to invent a keyboard that is completely sealed. Not only would this prevent things like crumbs, dust, and hair from getting inside the keyboard and fouling it up, but it means you could just submerge the whole dang thing in alcohol or run it through the dishwasher to clean it. Sounds like hospitals and certain other environments would buy something like that right up.
He'd never heard of the state of Maryland.
People that stupid should be euthanized. Seriously.
I think this is the first time I've ever actually seen a humorously true Linux-bashing post modded above 0 on Slashdot. My, how the tide has turned.
Actually, I own season 1 of the original series on DVD, so it's quite fresh in my head. Yeah, it had plot holes, low-budget animation with obvious mistakes, etc... but none of that mattered so much because they got the characters, the writing, the voice-acting, and the overall "virtual universe" & over-arching storyline right. All those good aspects are basically missing from the newer Transformers cartoons I've seen.
People bitch every time Microsoft releases a significant security-related update for Windows that stops existing software from working. They never stop and think that the fault lies not with Microsoft for fixing a security hole but with the application makers for writing their software in such a way that it relies on a security hole. Like it or not, closing security holes is going to inevitably require existing software to be rewritten to not utilize those holes.
Of course, if Microsoft doesn't release a security update, then everyone bitches about the lack of security updates. So I guess there's just no pleasing some people.
So then did the new Battlestar Galactica remake or the original Star Wars lose you when they had "whoosh whoosh" engine noises and gunfire sounds in the vaccuum of space?
It's called suspension of disbelief. All SciFi has fiction to it -- otherwise it would just be science, and that's not much fun.
A live action Transformes movie would be pointlessly expensive and lame.
They would be better off bringing back the original Transformers series using modern animation, and targeting it as scifi for adults rather than a silly cartoon for kids.
The original US Transformers generation 1 series had a more personal, emotional, sci-fi aspect to it than do the modern shows like Transformers Armageddon. Granted, it had its 80's cheese factor (like, how many oil rig workers do you know who wear hard hats all the time on land and write touchy-feely entries in their diary every day?) But it also had better-written dialog and stories that were delivered with a more serious and measured touch.
The newer shows have better animation and dropped the corny 80's feel, but in the process picked up the corny 90's feel and all the horrible attributes of those ridiculous american-anime shows like YuGiOh and DragonballZ: terrible dialog spoken too fast and characters who do nothing but boast stupidly at each other constantly about their superior fighting powers like it's a pissing contest.
If they would just return to the original writing, characters, and story, but do it all using modern animation (maybe CGI), and target it more as scifi for the 20+ crowd instead of as cartoons for kids, then I think they'd really have something.
You can buy yourself an "Ask Slashdot" top story on Slashdot!
You don't say?
The government agencies or legislative bodies that host these periods of public comment never seem to listen to what anyone with an educated opposing view or well-founded criticism has to say anyway, so why even host such "public comment"? Is it just an effort to make the general public feel pacified or what?
This has sent a loud message to marketers in regard to consumer's preference as to tracking their online activities.
Bad assumption. This could just mean that people value their privacy. Most people don't even know what cookies are, but they do know that when they clear history, cookies, and everything else, then the next person who uses their computer to hit MSN or Yahoo or a variety of other sites won't accidentally be logged in using their cached credentials.
Also, you're forgetting about all the false positives that many corporate firewalls will generate.
This survey is hopelessly flawed. If you want to collect real data, you have to track how many times users actually go into their browser settings and manually clear the cookies, and you have to also ask them why they are doing it.
Yes, but trains worked fine for decades using steam, wood, and coal for fuel. Some people propose that society could simply revert back to such a system for our shipping needs. Unfortunately we just don't have the rail infrastructure that would be required to do.
The problem with all these alternative-power vehicles is that none of them so far have proven that they can work effectively for our nation's trucking system.
The real crisis we will hit when the oil really gets scarce out won't be an inability to run the kids to soccer practice in the SUV, or even an inability to drive to work. It will be an inability to ship food and other goods from the places they are produced to the places they are consumed. The danger with the oil shortage is that billions of people will starve to death and be unable to get their hands on medicine, clothes, or other basic goods.
Yes, I know that we have trains, and I'm fully aware of prototype hydrogen commuter buses. The problem with trains is that a very small percentage of shipped consumer goods are actually shipped by train. We couldn't turn our entire shipping industry over to the existing rail network and expect it to handle the load. And the problem with hydrogen-powered vehicles is that it takes more energy and money to prepare and distribute the hydrogen than you actually get out of the hydrogen in the end... so while prototypes are nice proof-of-concept, they do not present a viable sustainable solution to the energy problem.
Sorry, but I'm tired of seeing stories like this one posted to Slashdot with ridiculously optimistic comments about some new technology taking over the world. Cool technology alone is not enough -- it has to be a net positive in terms of economy and society for it to be a real solution.
This poll has a serious lack of options.
It has a serious lack of a poll question, too.
This is the most factually accurate story Slashdot has ever posted.
I hear Rodney Dangerfield gets very little respect. I also hear that Aretha Franklin has to really put her foot down to get any.
Seriously... if you're not getting the respect you want, chances are that it's because of some larger ongoing interpersonal context that has been established.
It sounds silly, but when you present an idea to people, or do work for them, the respect and consideration they give to the idea or results is wholly dependent on their preexisting opinion of you (whether it is inaccurate or not). Even if the idea itself is great or you do outstanding work, if they don't like you, your ideas won't be considered and your work won't be respected.
Be honest with yourself and others and seek to clearly understand the interpersonal context people have with you. Then, change it by addressing it explicitly -- don't expect things like producing better results or offering better ideas to change anyone's mind, because it won't. Instead, work on things like being less critical or defensive.
He's a total nerd with no social life AND he's a murderer! I'm sure the ladies are all over him.
Well, you're completely wrong, but obviously you aren't going to be persuaded away from your flawed opinion regardless of any amount of idealism on my part. So, EOA (end of argument).
The only problem is that you've given two mutually exclusive conditions.
No I haven't. You don't have to sacrifice one to get the other. You're just conditioned to think that way because of all the poorly designed OSes that currently exist.
Regardless of the user's level of expertise, and regardless of the purpose the PC will serve (desktop/server/etc), every user and every purpose will benefit from having certain common core tasks work in a bulletproof, consistent way.
Of course you wouldn't turn a home user loose with a server OS and admin privileges and expect them to not configure something stupidly or insecurely. For instance, they could format the drive the system resides on, or remove critical system files. I'm not suggesting anyone attempt to idiot-proof such scenarios. This is exactly why consumer desktop users should not be running as Administrator/root.
What I am suggesting is that certain common core tasks, like adding/removing programs, adding/removing devices/drivers, and choosing which programs launch at start/login should not be considered privileged or administrative chores. OSes have traditionally been architected around the idea that these tasks are major administrative things that won't be done frequently, but in reality these are things that ordinary users need to be able to do on a pretty regular basis. The base OS should be architected so as to provide a bulletproof, user-friendly implementation of these that is available to all types of users and which cannot possibly foobar the state of your system or other installed programs. Having such a bulletproof architecture not only benefits desktop users, but it makes the lives of ubergeek system administrators easier as well.
Did anyone else notice you can take it multiple times?
At my place of employment we use Asserts liberally but with an emphasis on using them properly. Specifically, asserts are not a substitute for appropriate error handling. An assert should be used only as a mechanism for bringing developer or tester attention to a special case or flaw and making it convenient to debug (by providing a change to break in). Subsequent error handling should still follow. Another way to look at this is that asserts should always be ignorable (the product doesn't crash, corrupt data, or enter an unrecoverable state if the assert is ignored).
The root cause of all of these problems is poor OS design. A properly-designed consumer OS needs to do two things to avoid these kinds of problems:
Windows XP does a half-assed job on both counts, and that's the fundamental problem. Longhorn will take some steps to address these issues, although I'm betting it will still only be about 2/3-assed.
For instance, normal users will no longer run as administrators by default, and new security infrastructure will safely allow qualified code to carry out administrative operations when it needs to on behalf of the user. But this will probably only work for new software written to take advantage of it. It will be years before all the existing WinXP-generation software gets phased out and replaced by equivalent Longhorn versions that utilize this approach, so in the meanwhile, people will still probably set themselves to run as Administrators so all their existing software will work.
Another instance: Device Manager is the right idea for managing devices and drivers, but it's not nearly bulletproof enough. Device management in WinXP has a variety of buggy behaviors that I won't go into here, but they would all need to be fixed, and the user should never have to boot into "safe mode" to deal with some device or driver issue.
A third instance: it's simply poor design that a program can launch at Windows start or user login in a hidden way or without the user having specifically chosen for that to happen by placing an icon into their Startup folder in the start menu. All these various hidden ways (Run and RunOnce regkeys, etc) for programs to launch themselves at startup need to be eliminated from the design of the OS, to put that control exclusively in the hands of the user. This alone would go a LONG way toward ridding the world of spyware/malware.
In my experience, Monster Cable makes decent quality stuff but it's way overpriced. You pay for the brand name.
Some people here are claiming that quality of cabling makes no perceptable difference. In their situations this may be true, but not everyone's situation is the same. Some people live in an area with far more surrounding RF/EM radiation and noise than others. Some people own equipment that is more susceptible to noise in the signal. And some people notice things more than others.
My experience is that Monster Cable and other similar-quality cabling will indeed alleviate a lot of hiss/hum/interference issues in certain situations simply because it is shielded better than average cabling. If you live in an area with a lot of EM/RF interference, better-quality cabling may solve the issue. I still wouldn't recommend Monster Cable as a brand though, simply because they are way overpriced.