The first college I went to had this poorly secured novell network running on an old Vax cluster.
They had it set up so that, to use a computer, you logged in as the computer, instead of as a user. I found out that, if you logged a pc into the network, using a username meant for a Mac, and if that Mac were not already logged in, it would completely screw up your priviledges, and let you do many things normally reserved for "Administrator".
Friend of mine wrote a batch script to send out an amusing system message once an hour. Unfortunately he didn't count zero correctly, and so the first one was an hour, but the second through 1000000th were somewhat quicker.
The first I knew of it was when I walked into a computer lab and heard this symphony of "beepbeepbeepbeepbeep" and saw a couple lab techs ripping the cables and stuff off of this poor little Mac while screaming, "ITS UNPLUGGED! WHY IS IT STILL SENDING MESSAGES?!?!"
Telnet was the default at my old alma mater up until recently. Talk about your lack of security.
Granted the whole thing was locked down on a big nasty solaris network, so there really wasn't much overall danger of system problems, just students snooping on each other.
Because the exact same argument applies to newspapers in general.
And you know what? I agree completely. I think all news should be free and unencumbered by ad revenue, special interest, corporate ownership, you name it. But that's the bitch of capitalism; it always comes down to money and everything is slanted in that direction.
So, since all the content in the newspaper is being generated by ad-biased reporters and editors (editors a LOT more than reporters) in the first place, then why not charge ads for the online stuff?
Though one of the uncle posts was right about the revenue stream from archives. Definitely somethign to think about.
Well, there is a subtle difference between flying and running, in that, if you stop running, nothing happens, but if you stop flying, you plummet to the ground and go splat.
I should have been more specific. For a human being, our specialization is intelligence and tool use. We make tools, and we use them to compensate for what we don't have by nature. The rest of our natural skillset is pretty low-end; we don't run as fast as most animals, we can't lift as much, we aren't as coordinated.
The reason for this is because we sacrificed a lot of the instinct and motor skill in our evolutionary quest for more brain. Birds aren't dumb...for animals. But compared to us? One of the reasons for that is because a good bit of their brain is taken up by the instinctive knowledge of flight. They understand it in a way that no human pilot ever will. But it is a handicap as well as a strength.
The secret weapon they use to kill the rogue swarms of psycho nano cameras is a gunk impurity that got into the STERILE nano-construction area. Like that woudl never occur naturally in non-sterile (i.e Everywhere) areas of the world.
The other thing which got to me was the amount of processing power these nano clouds were assumed to have. A sophisticated predator-prey model that would be CAPABLE of evolving into what those evolved into would need tremendous processing power.
So, lets see, what they would have to have? They'd need high bandwodth that couldn't be jammed (they'd be pretty worthless if you could just turn on a jammer and have them fall apart). They'd need non-volitile memory, because they're solar powered, and if they didn't have it, they'd be stupid again every morning. They'd need a sophisticated distributed processing alogrythm with massive failure tolerance and freakishly complex load balancing (this is more possible than most of it). And beyond all this, they'd need to be able to be microscopic flying cameras that could kill people.
In biological terms, most species have a "specialization". Which means that most species have ONE thing that they do really well. Birds aren't too smart because flying is hard to do. Same with cheetas, because running that fast requires really specific evolution.
Those little nano-bots would have to do the thing they're specialized by the design to do...And everything else as well. Christ, he's got them mimicing human behavior by the end! That is such an incredible stretch! I love sci-fi, but that book had me sneering almost from the very beginning.
Newspapers rarely make enough in issue sales to pay the cost of printing the issue. They make the money in advertising, plain and simple.
To have a paper like the New York Times, who can command advertising rates as high as any paper in the world, bitching and moaning about their web presence and hoarding their articles like some stupid info-miser shows nothing more than a complete lack of understanding somewhere in the company. There is no excuse for it.
If any website could sell enough ads to keep itself profitable it would be the website for the new york times. They could add to their revenue and readership in one fell swoop. But no.
It's dumbass media outlets like this that had better wake up and get with the program. Doing it the way you've always done it will do YOU in the end, and it won't be pretty.
Webserver gig is a fucking post-dot-bomb day job. Really, can you do web development and not know how to security config a webserver? Thats a pretty necessary skill.
I find that, in many cases, if I don't program a UI to be almost intrusively annoying (i.e a pop up every time they try to leave a required field blank, and then a second pop-up that tells them that 1^%TRGC is an invalid entry), I get useless data.
Example: I was working with an organization who has to monitor child abuse cases. I went in to rework their abuse database. I found that the previous developer hadn't made the child's name a required field, and that the WHOLE FUCKING DATABASE HAD NO NAMES FOR THESE GODDAMN ABUSED KIDS. Unacceptable!!! People would go to a foster home and have to ask around by type of abuse to find the fucking kids!
So I changed that, and do you think they complained? Jesus yes they complained, but fuck 'em. The people who used the data didn't complain, and the kids sure as hell didn't.
In my experience, with sloppy low-skill data entry people, you make EVERYTHING that you absolutely have to have a required field, and then you just leave the rest off, because they're not doing a damn bit more work than they have to.
The reason I want control over things like my webserver, right down to the most basic level, is so I can keep an eye on it, make sure the security configs are okay, and kill it if it gets compromised.
I don't WANT that taken out of my hands. I've spent enough time using Windows that I don't TRUST the developers to know what the hell I need, and not treat me like someones grandma.
For the same reason, I don't throw in a lot of "notes" fields when I'm putting together a database. Sure users love it; it never tells them when they're making an error. If I NEED data, then they ARE putting it in correctly. If I don't need it, they can do whatever gives them the most pleasure.
If people ask for functionality that is complex, sometimes you have to sacrifice simplicity to do what they want done. Thats a simple reality.
If installing and playing a CD version of "Scrabble" is too much for this guy, there is no way he is ever going to be happy.
And Jesus, write my congressman? "My computer is hard to use, I want you to make it all better."
I've seen poorly designed software, with poorly thought out UI, but its a big step to go from that simple fact to some blanket article which just says what we all already know (User Interfaces should be intuitive and easy to use), and doesn't even address the issue of HOW to make an interface which is intuitive to everyone, including comptuer illiterate scrabble players.
It always pisses me off when someone jumps up and starts complaining because a lifetime spent doing things BESIDES using computers hasn't prepared them to be able to look at a screen and immediately understand what to do. Sorry folks, sometimes, even with the best interface, you have to RTFM.
My personal favorite is Bob@aol.com, mainly because it's so short. I pity the poor bastard who got that email address though...It seems like, with AOL, that address is bound to be in use.
Even more than that, thin client and terminal server applications have been around forever. Sure the scale would be cool, but there is nothing new here.
Actually, I think it is illegal by the DMCA, because you're owning a tool that can be used to circumvent security. I know NMAP walks on the thin line with the DMCA, so I can't see how a virus wouldn't.
Not that I care. People keep sending me viri; I have a whole mail folder full of them. If someone wants to claim that's illegal, I'm going to refer them to DSF#@@SDASDQ^2@aol.com.
It's still better to have actual linux drivers, but these probrams make it possible to use the Windows drivers in many circumstances (You have to pay for Linuxant, and Ndiswrapper works damn near perfectly as far as I can tell, so I recommend it.)
Trust me; finding the Stanley Cup is rocket science compared to most computer repair.
All hardware problems arise from a bad part. The only way to fix a bad part, is to either replace it, or pay some super-genius to fix it with a solder-gun and a circuit tester...and about a million dollars worth of non-portable specialist equipment---so really, repair is not an option. So its about replacement.
Replacement is only slightly more complicated than putting two legos together, easily within the realm of any half trained A++ certified techie with a static strap.
In every case, with every Celeron I've ever worked with, I've found "regular" (i.e. non-crippled) chips running anything near half of the Celeron's posted speed, to be far far more capable.
I'd rather be running an old PIII coppermine, or tualatin than any Celeron p.o.s. I've never seen any use for them except to snare uneducated consumers.
I saw Napster stuff on the shelves in there a couple days ago...made no sense to me then, and even less now. It was good, now its gone, let the brand die for gods sake.
Ummm, yea, I'm a subcontractor that works for a organization that gets their computers from the state...Who the hell do I complain to?
Beyond that, I assure you that the director of the company I was subcontracting for raised holy hell, and, in fact that it did make the papers. Two years ago. Heard anything about it? It's because no one cares.
I hate it when the government rips itself off by paying for things out of the wrong funds. That money should go for computer hardware (granted I think somone with a fucking brain should be making the purchasing decisions) not school repairs.
If the school looks like hell, then that should be a big clue sign that the government should, I don't know, GIVE THEM MONEY FOR THINGS THAT ARE USEFUL.
I don't know how they can spend so much on hardware, and not have a damn clue. I mean, if you've ever been to best buy, you should know better.
I used to do contract work for a Gov't agency, and they'd get shipments of computers that were four or five years old, still in the original box. More than half of them wouldn't even boot, and the ones that did were so hopelessly out of date...
Typical government stupidity/inefficiency. They pay too much because some dumbass senator snagged the contract for local pork, and then they spend YEARS deciding who needs "New" computers.
Another OS would just work to make themselves safe from viruses by improving their security, tightening up their code, and closing programming loopholes, but not Microsoft! No no no, they just add another piece of crap on to their already bloated code!
On top of that, they piss of the companies that have the most experience with viri at a time when they do not yet HAVE a competing product!
This is just such a bad idea. The anti-virus companies have been doing this for years! Norton in particular has made it the cornerstone of their business to fill the voids MS leaves in Windows.
Imagine a TV/DVD with built in amp...and only one remote control. Right now, all the combos like this suck, but what if they didn't? What if you didn't have to buy a component stereo, component DVD, and a TV which may or may not be fully compatible with all the other stuff?
Anyway, all multimedia crap overlaps, or can. Its all got the same purpose; to take digital or analog and turn it into video or sound.
Thats pretty much the point--It sucks that we have to have 100 different devices whose functionality overlaps. Think we'd all like to see that number pared down.
What they don't mention is that some kind of serious standards are going to have to be put in place for this convergence to get off the ground. I'm tired of seeing multiple Cell Towers next to each other because the damn companies can't agree on a standard.
Agreed. I've got a genius level IQ (Which ain't as cool as it sounds...120+ is considered genius level) and I feel like a moron half the time. And the more "non-traditionally" bright you are, the more trouble that you're going to have convincing very conventional employers who are good at measuring conventional intelligence that you are the right person for their (almost certainly) conventional job opening.
In the long run, a lot of it will depend on abilities other than your pure intelligence. If you have no communications skills, if you have no common sense, if you go around thinking you're smarter than everyone, you're going to have to BE smarter than everyone, or you're going to be unemployed.
Well, to clairify, the 85 in a 35 was on a bridge with TEN FREAKING LANES at the end of one of the most dangerous and congested roads in the united states.
I'm not saying speed is always good; if you'd read what I said, you would see that what I WAS saying is that bad driving is always bad, and it is bad driving (which includes speeding in a pedestrian zone) that should be punished, not a ten mile an hour discrepancy on a road whose posted speed limit has nothing to do with reality.
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The first college I went to had this poorly secured novell network running on an old Vax cluster.
They had it set up so that, to use a computer, you logged in as the computer, instead of as a user. I found out that, if you logged a pc into the network, using a username meant for a Mac, and if that Mac were not already logged in, it would completely screw up your priviledges, and let you do many things normally reserved for "Administrator".
Friend of mine wrote a batch script to send out an amusing system message once an hour. Unfortunately he didn't count zero correctly, and so the first one was an hour, but the second through 1000000th were somewhat quicker.
The first I knew of it was when I walked into a computer lab and heard this symphony of "beepbeepbeepbeepbeep" and saw a couple lab techs ripping the cables and stuff off of this poor little Mac while screaming, "ITS UNPLUGGED! WHY IS IT STILL SENDING MESSAGES?!?!"
Telnet was the default at my old alma mater up until recently. Talk about your lack of security.
Granted the whole thing was locked down on a big nasty solaris network, so there really wasn't much overall danger of system problems, just students snooping on each other.
Because the exact same argument applies to newspapers in general.
And you know what? I agree completely. I think all news should be free and unencumbered by ad revenue, special interest, corporate ownership, you name it. But that's the bitch of capitalism; it always comes down to money and everything is slanted in that direction.
So, since all the content in the newspaper is being generated by ad-biased reporters and editors (editors a LOT more than reporters) in the first place, then why not charge ads for the online stuff?
Though one of the uncle posts was right about the revenue stream from archives. Definitely somethign to think about.
Well, there is a subtle difference between flying and running, in that, if you stop running, nothing happens, but if you stop flying, you plummet to the ground and go splat.
I should have been more specific. For a human being, our specialization is intelligence and tool use. We make tools, and we use them to compensate for what we don't have by nature. The rest of our natural skillset is pretty low-end; we don't run as fast as most animals, we can't lift as much, we aren't as coordinated.
The reason for this is because we sacrificed a lot of the instinct and motor skill in our evolutionary quest for more brain. Birds aren't dumb...for animals. But compared to us? One of the reasons for that is because a good bit of their brain is taken up by the instinctive knowledge of flight. They understand it in a way that no human pilot ever will. But it is a handicap as well as a strength.
I have to disagree with the plausability.
The secret weapon they use to kill the rogue swarms of psycho nano cameras is a gunk impurity that got into the STERILE nano-construction area. Like that woudl never occur naturally in non-sterile (i.e Everywhere) areas of the world.
The other thing which got to me was the amount of processing power these nano clouds were assumed to have. A sophisticated predator-prey model that would be CAPABLE of evolving into what those evolved into would need tremendous processing power.
So, lets see, what they would have to have? They'd need high bandwodth that couldn't be jammed (they'd be pretty worthless if you could just turn on a jammer and have them fall apart). They'd need non-volitile memory, because they're solar powered, and if they didn't have it, they'd be stupid again every morning. They'd need a sophisticated distributed processing alogrythm with massive failure tolerance and freakishly complex load balancing (this is more possible than most of it). And beyond all this, they'd need to be able to be microscopic flying cameras that could kill people.
In biological terms, most species have a "specialization". Which means that most species have ONE thing that they do really well. Birds aren't too smart because flying is hard to do. Same with cheetas, because running that fast requires really specific evolution.
Those little nano-bots would have to do the thing they're specialized by the design to do...And everything else as well. Christ, he's got them mimicing human behavior by the end! That is such an incredible stretch! I love sci-fi, but that book had me sneering almost from the very beginning.
Newspapers rarely make enough in issue sales to pay the cost of printing the issue. They make the money in advertising, plain and simple.
To have a paper like the New York Times, who can command advertising rates as high as any paper in the world, bitching and moaning about their web presence and hoarding their articles like some stupid info-miser shows nothing more than a complete lack of understanding somewhere in the company. There is no excuse for it.
If any website could sell enough ads to keep itself profitable it would be the website for the new york times. They could add to their revenue and readership in one fell swoop. But no.
It's dumbass media outlets like this that had better wake up and get with the program. Doing it the way you've always done it will do YOU in the end, and it won't be pretty.
Webserver gig is a fucking post-dot-bomb day job. Really, can you do web development and not know how to security config a webserver? Thats a pretty necessary skill.
I find that, in many cases, if I don't program a UI to be almost intrusively annoying (i.e a pop up every time they try to leave a required field blank, and then a second pop-up that tells them that 1^%TRGC is an invalid entry), I get useless data.
Example: I was working with an organization who has to monitor child abuse cases. I went in to rework their abuse database. I found that the previous developer hadn't made the child's name a required field, and that the WHOLE FUCKING DATABASE HAD NO NAMES FOR THESE GODDAMN ABUSED KIDS. Unacceptable!!! People would go to a foster home and have to ask around by type of abuse to find the fucking kids!
So I changed that, and do you think they complained? Jesus yes they complained, but fuck 'em. The people who used the data didn't complain, and the kids sure as hell didn't.
In my experience, with sloppy low-skill data entry people, you make EVERYTHING that you absolutely have to have a required field, and then you just leave the rest off, because they're not doing a damn bit more work than they have to.
The reason I want control over things like my webserver, right down to the most basic level, is so I can keep an eye on it, make sure the security configs are okay, and kill it if it gets compromised.
I don't WANT that taken out of my hands. I've spent enough time using Windows that I don't TRUST the developers to know what the hell I need, and not treat me like someones grandma.
For the same reason, I don't throw in a lot of "notes" fields when I'm putting together a database. Sure users love it; it never tells them when they're making an error. If I NEED data, then they ARE putting it in correctly. If I don't need it, they can do whatever gives them the most pleasure.
If people ask for functionality that is complex, sometimes you have to sacrifice simplicity to do what they want done. Thats a simple reality.
LOL.
I'd love to see that guy try and use EMACS. Ctrl-X Ctrl-S is "Save/Quit" and Ctrl-Meta-PowerButton-Esc is "Go back to your fucking scrabble"
If installing and playing a CD version of "Scrabble" is too much for this guy, there is no way he is ever going to be happy.
And Jesus, write my congressman? "My computer is hard to use, I want you to make it all better."
I've seen poorly designed software, with poorly thought out UI, but its a big step to go from that simple fact to some blanket article which just says what we all already know (User Interfaces should be intuitive and easy to use), and doesn't even address the issue of HOW to make an interface which is intuitive to everyone, including comptuer illiterate scrabble players.
It always pisses me off when someone jumps up and starts complaining because a lifetime spent doing things BESIDES using computers hasn't prepared them to be able to look at a screen and immediately understand what to do. Sorry folks, sometimes, even with the best interface, you have to RTFM.
My personal favorite is Bob@aol.com, mainly because it's so short. I pity the poor bastard who got that email address though...It seems like, with AOL, that address is bound to be in use.
Even more than that, thin client and terminal server applications have been around forever. Sure the scale would be cool, but there is nothing new here.
Actually, I think it is illegal by the DMCA, because you're owning a tool that can be used to circumvent security. I know NMAP walks on the thin line with the DMCA, so I can't see how a virus wouldn't.
Not that I care. People keep sending me viri; I have a whole mail folder full of them. If someone wants to claim that's illegal, I'm going to refer them to DSF#@@SDASDQ^2@aol.com.
There are a couple of good tools out there that will make most cards work, albeit in a gimpy Windows-esque fashion, without a few advanced features.
Linuxant and Ndiswrapper
It's still better to have actual linux drivers, but these probrams make it possible to use the Windows drivers in many circumstances (You have to pay for Linuxant, and Ndiswrapper works damn near perfectly as far as I can tell, so I recommend it.)
Trust me; finding the Stanley Cup is rocket science compared to most computer repair.
All hardware problems arise from a bad part. The only way to fix a bad part, is to either replace it, or pay some super-genius to fix it with a solder-gun and a circuit tester...and about a million dollars worth of non-portable specialist equipment---so really, repair is not an option. So its about replacement.
Replacement is only slightly more complicated than putting two legos together, easily within the realm of any half trained A++ certified techie with a static strap.
In every case, with every Celeron I've ever worked with, I've found "regular" (i.e. non-crippled) chips running anything near half of the Celeron's posted speed, to be far far more capable.
I'd rather be running an old PIII coppermine, or tualatin than any Celeron p.o.s. I've never seen any use for them except to snare uneducated consumers.
I saw Napster stuff on the shelves in there a couple days ago...made no sense to me then, and even less now. It was good, now its gone, let the brand die for gods sake.
Ummm, yea, I'm a subcontractor that works for a organization that gets their computers from the state...Who the hell do I complain to?
Beyond that, I assure you that the director of the company I was subcontracting for raised holy hell, and, in fact that it did make the papers. Two years ago. Heard anything about it? It's because no one cares.
I hate it when the government rips itself off by paying for things out of the wrong funds. That money should go for computer hardware (granted I think somone with a fucking brain should be making the purchasing decisions) not school repairs.
If the school looks like hell, then that should be a big clue sign that the government should, I don't know, GIVE THEM MONEY FOR THINGS THAT ARE USEFUL.
I don't know how they can spend so much on hardware, and not have a damn clue. I mean, if you've ever been to best buy, you should know better.
I used to do contract work for a Gov't agency, and they'd get shipments of computers that were four or five years old, still in the original box. More than half of them wouldn't even boot, and the ones that did were so hopelessly out of date...
Typical government stupidity/inefficiency. They pay too much because some dumbass senator snagged the contract for local pork, and then they spend YEARS deciding who needs "New" computers.
It's so asinine!
Another OS would just work to make themselves safe from viruses by improving their security, tightening up their code, and closing programming loopholes, but not Microsoft! No no no, they just add another piece of crap on to their already bloated code!
On top of that, they piss of the companies that have the most experience with viri at a time when they do not yet HAVE a competing product!
This is just such a bad idea. The anti-virus companies have been doing this for years! Norton in particular has made it the cornerstone of their business to fill the voids MS leaves in Windows.
Imagine a TV/DVD with built in amp...and only one remote control. Right now, all the combos like this suck, but what if they didn't? What if you didn't have to buy a component stereo, component DVD, and a TV which may or may not be fully compatible with all the other stuff?
Anyway, all multimedia crap overlaps, or can. Its all got the same purpose; to take digital or analog and turn it into video or sound.
Thats pretty much the point--It sucks that we have to have 100 different devices whose functionality overlaps. Think we'd all like to see that number pared down.
What they don't mention is that some kind of serious standards are going to have to be put in place for this convergence to get off the ground. I'm tired of seeing multiple Cell Towers next to each other because the damn companies can't agree on a standard.
Agreed. I've got a genius level IQ (Which ain't as cool as it sounds...120+ is considered genius level) and I feel like a moron half the time. And the more "non-traditionally" bright you are, the more trouble that you're going to have convincing very conventional employers who are good at measuring conventional intelligence that you are the right person for their (almost certainly) conventional job opening.
In the long run, a lot of it will depend on abilities other than your pure intelligence. If you have no communications skills, if you have no common sense, if you go around thinking you're smarter than everyone, you're going to have to BE smarter than everyone, or you're going to be unemployed.
Well, to clairify, the 85 in a 35 was on a bridge with TEN FREAKING LANES at the end of one of the most dangerous and congested roads in the united states.
I'm not saying speed is always good; if you'd read what I said, you would see that what I WAS saying is that bad driving is always bad, and it is bad driving (which includes speeding in a pedestrian zone) that should be punished, not a ten mile an hour discrepancy on a road whose posted speed limit has nothing to do with reality.