YES...thank you, many excellent points, and now i would like to attempt (run away, quickly) to add another level to this...
one of the common themes that seem to be present in the items of the hall of shame is that often, the manner in which mistakes are made suggests that they are being made by ARTISTS (for lack of a better term) rather than DESIGNERS. where as a designer is responsible for creating an interface "in the users' best interest", the artists are responsible for making the interface most initially appealing to the eye. the artists know a great deal about that which is appealing to look at but are generally not trained to look at how the interface will be used.
since the majority of people (or should i say "the average users") tend to look at things like screenshots first, and since the first impression often has the most weight (again, on average), the artists opinions are given more weight than the designer. the end result of course is an interface that looks pleasing and may even forcefully grab your attention, but after using it for some time, may prove to be lacking in usability.
this all basically relates to advertising and, subsequently, sales.
<rant> really, it all comes down to money. companies want to sell the most software, so they put the most effort into making things *appear* to be useful, when in fact they ignore and sometimes blatently contradict, basic rules of interface design. but this trick works of course, because how many people actually return a piece of software after they've installed it, used it, and become acustomed to it? very few in the grand scheme of things. </rant>
I do not recall anytime hearing a good UNIX machine being rebooted to a user space run program
a user-space program can in fact take down a *nix box. one of my friends has been working on a problem with the newer 3dfx x-server is taking out his display. of course, in this case the machine is still functioning, but hes found the only way to restore the display is to reboot the machine. on the other hand, im currently trying to narrow down why ive been able to sometimes crash machines running both 2.2.6 and vanilla 2.2.12 by running something like
while [ 0 ]; do mount/dev/cdrom; done
of course, both these cases are rare, but regardless, they are both cases of user-space programs doing bad things that eventually necessitate a reboot.
the best examples of user-space programs taking out *nix boxen however can be found in the bugtraq mailing list archives. for example, the 'land' attack from 2 years ago worked on several versions of *BSD, NeXTSTEP, Solaris, SunOS, and HP-UX.
and, as the original poster points out, killing init will certainly do bad things...
anyway, i agree, a decent system should not and most likely will not have this sort of problem. but the original post wasnt talking about "good UNIX systems" specifically. it seemed to be making the generalization that regardless of hardware or software, no system should ever have to be rebooted. while i agree that this would be ideal, we dont live in an ideal world. there are some systems out there that, due to software (we all know who this refers to) and/or hardware problems, have to be rebooted at least once during their lifespan.
Do geeks compile MAGIC codes into their kernel? I'm sure they do.
um...what? when i referred to recompiling the kernel, i was trying to alude to the fact that, on a linux system anyway, if you want to load a different kernel than the one currently running, you need to reboot the system. im not sure what you mean by "MAGIC codes"...
on a side note, im neither a mac nor a windoze user.
eh...i disagree. if youre developing some program that makes heavy use of system resources and/or performs some extremely low level functions, it wouldnt be too unheard of for you to have to reboot after you discover a bug in your software that makes the system unstable or unusable. slightly more reasonable, what if you (for whatever reason) decide to build a new kernel for your snappy open source OS?
People who think that copmuter can be rebooted to fix problems should be taught properly.
well, ive heard early version(s) of windoze95 had memory leak issues. so what do you suggest those who are stuck using the affected version(s) do once their system starts bogging down for lack of available memory? (note: answers like 'use [insert alternate os here]' are not acceptable for this question:P)
the point is, no system is perfect. they all need a reboot every now and then, be it to fix a problem or to upgrade. the real issue is the length of time between reboots.
1. [...] Very rarely do you see a desktop G4 running anything but the MacOS.
well, Yellow Dog Linux and LinuxPPC would run fine on it im sure. if i had money to blow on a new machine, id certainly consider a G4 for *my* desktop...so why wouldnt there be other people making the same consideration?
2. [...]...obviousely, here, it helps stability.
the fact that a weakness in the os helps workaround a problem in the processor is not, in my opinion, a Good Thing(tm).
3. [...]
er...right...its not available yet, so the only people that should be affected are overclockers (although it doesnt sound like overclocking is possible from other comments). ok, its good that theyre trying to fix it before they release the faster chips, but doesnt the paragraph i mentioned seem a little odd? i mean, theyre suggesting some people might encounter minor problems. but how can that be if a) noone has one of the effected chips yet and b) theyre going to fix it before they release it?
i think im just confused...i need a good beating. ah yes, quake...
Indeed, another source said, this issue might never evince itself in Macs, since the OS doesn't manipulate data rapidly enough to cause the problem -- the glitch would more likely effect more-efficient embedded operating systems. Even if data corruption should occur, a source said, the result would be nothing more than a system freeze, easily fixed with a restart.
#1) i dont like the fact that they assume MacOS is the only os that runs on macs #2) this seems to suggest (to me anyway that current versions of MacOS arent fast enough to keep up with the faster G4s.. #3) yes, rebooting, while an "easy" task, is not something id gladly do often, especially since its entirely possible i could lose data in any open applications that hadnt been saved
all in all, this whole article makes it seem like theyre taking a rather relaxed attitude toward this.
"During these tests many people have criticized us for not applying the twenty-one security patches that currently exist for Red Hat 6.0. However, their omission serves to illustrate our point. We only installed shipping software available from the vendors for this test (other than the applications of course). No hot fixes were applied to the NT server. We did however install service pack five. This was much easier because it was a single file."
aaaahh! this is pathetic! exactly what do they think an NT service pack is? in the descrip tion of the service pack there are no less than 10 fixes listed under security, not to mention at least one DoS i saw just skimming the networking section. basically what theyre saying is they didnt update their redhat box to be fully secure even though redhat has all the updates nicely laid out, just because it wasnt all packed up into a single file. what laziness!
if i owned a company and my sysadmins refused to update a server with multiple known security issues just because he/she would have to play with more than one file theyd be looking for another job. basically this paragraph admits (in my interpretation anyway) that they were biased towards NT because it was easier to use.
well, if you think about it...most of MS's products are geared towards people like this person (we may know them as clueless newbies, lusers, etc). so in a way it makes sense to have those same people trying it out. i can see giving them a fast system as an 'incentive' basically, and id be willing to bet they were told to try more than just games. it just so happened that they wanted to try out Civ first...i dont blame them...
fwiw, bind 4.9.7, although officially depreciated, was ported to NT in may of 1998. the isp i used to work for used it as their primary dns. its available from the ISC ftp site here.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
Re:Adjust the duration instead of the % moderatabl
on
Moderation Ideas
·
· Score: 1
the problem with this idea is that it penalizes the people who read/. with below average frequency. like, if the system gives moderator points to someone at 1am, but they dont read/. until their lunch break, they may never get their chance.
its true that if the % system is used, someone with moderator points may not be able to moderate an article they feel deserves it (good or bad), but like rob said, most likely someone will come along and get it eventually.
regarding the side question(s): i dont see why m2 moderation would not be instantaneous, but then i only know what i read in faqs. see the moderation faq for more info about moderation and m2.
well, one thing you could do would be to delete (er, if possible) and create a new account. this would reset your karma to 0. true, you wouldnt *gain* any karma for a couple months, but depending on how negative yours is now, that may be less time than it would take to get your current account up to >0.
incidentally, one of the reasons a new account doesnt start accumulating karma immediately is probably to avoid situations like yours...you just happened to have bad timing i guess...
Slashdot Mirror
YES...thank you, many excellent points, and now i would like to attempt (run away, quickly) to add another level to this...
one of the common themes that seem to be present in the items of the hall of shame is that often, the manner in which mistakes are made suggests that they are being made by ARTISTS (for lack of a better term) rather than DESIGNERS. where as a designer is responsible for creating an interface "in the users' best interest", the artists are responsible for making the interface most initially appealing to the eye. the artists know a great deal about that which is appealing to look at but are generally not trained to look at how the interface will be used.
since the majority of people (or should i say "the average users") tend to look at things like screenshots first, and since the first impression often has the most weight (again, on average), the artists opinions are given more weight than the designer. the end result of course is an interface that looks pleasing and may even forcefully grab your attention, but after using it for some time, may prove to be lacking in usability.
this all basically relates to advertising and, subsequently, sales.
<rant>
really, it all comes down to money. companies want to sell the most software, so they put the most effort into making things *appear* to be useful, when in fact they ignore and sometimes blatently contradict, basic rules of interface design. but this trick works of course, because how many people actually return a piece of software after they've installed it, used it, and become acustomed to it? very few in the grand scheme of things.
</rant>
hey neat, i got <> to work...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
I do not recall anytime hearing a good UNIX machine being rebooted to a user space run program
/dev/cdrom; done
a user-space program can in fact take down a *nix box. one of my friends has been working on a problem with the newer 3dfx x-server is taking out his display. of course, in this case the machine is still functioning, but hes found the only way to restore the display is to reboot the machine. on the other hand, im currently trying to narrow down why ive been able to sometimes crash machines running both 2.2.6 and vanilla 2.2.12 by running something like
while [ 0 ]; do mount
of course, both these cases are rare, but regardless, they are both cases of user-space programs doing bad things that eventually necessitate a reboot.
the best examples of user-space programs taking out *nix boxen however can be found in the bugtraq mailing list archives. for example, the 'land' attack from 2 years ago worked on several versions of *BSD, NeXTSTEP, Solaris, SunOS, and HP-UX.
and, as the original poster points out, killing init will certainly do bad things...
anyway, i agree, a decent system should not and most likely will not have this sort of problem. but the original post wasnt talking about "good UNIX systems" specifically. it seemed to be making the generalization that regardless of hardware or software, no system should ever have to be rebooted. while i agree that this would be ideal, we dont live in an ideal world. there are some systems out there that, due to software (we all know who this refers to) and/or hardware problems, have to be rebooted at least once during their lifespan.
Do geeks compile MAGIC codes into their kernel? I'm sure they do.
um...what? when i referred to recompiling the kernel, i was trying to alude to the fact that, on a linux system anyway, if you want to load a different kernel than the one currently running, you need to reboot the system. im not sure what you mean by "MAGIC codes"...
on a side note, im neither a mac nor a windoze user.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
No reboot is ok. No matter what.
:P)
eh...i disagree. if youre developing some program that makes heavy use of system resources and/or performs some extremely low level functions, it wouldnt be too unheard of for you to have to reboot after you discover a bug in your software that makes the system unstable or unusable.
slightly more reasonable, what if you (for whatever reason) decide to build a new kernel for your snappy open source OS?
People who think that copmuter can be rebooted to fix problems should be taught properly.
well, ive heard early version(s) of windoze95 had memory leak issues. so what do you suggest those who are stuck using the affected version(s) do once their system starts bogging down for lack of available memory? (note: answers like 'use [insert alternate os here]' are not acceptable for this question
the point is, no system is perfect. they all need a reboot every now and then, be it to fix a problem or to upgrade. the real issue is the length of time between reboots.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
1. [...] Very rarely do you see a desktop G4 running anything but the MacOS.
...obviousely, here, it helps stability.
well, Yellow Dog Linux and LinuxPPC would run fine on it im sure. if i had money to blow on a new machine, id certainly consider a G4 for *my* desktop...so why wouldnt there be other people making the same consideration?
2. [...]
the fact that a weakness in the os helps workaround a problem in the processor is not, in my opinion, a Good Thing(tm).
3. [...]
er...right...its not available yet, so the only people that should be affected are overclockers (although it doesnt sound like overclocking is possible from other comments). ok, its good that theyre trying to fix it before they release the faster chips, but doesnt the paragraph i mentioned seem a little odd? i mean, theyre suggesting some people might encounter minor problems. but how can that be if a) noone has one of the effected chips yet and b) theyre going to fix it before they release it?
i think im just confused...i need a good beating. ah yes, quake...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
actually that whole paragraph worries me:
Indeed, another source said, this issue might never evince itself in Macs, since the OS doesn't manipulate data rapidly enough to cause the problem -- the glitch would more likely effect more-efficient embedded operating systems. Even if data corruption should occur, a source said, the result would be nothing more than a system freeze, easily fixed with a restart.
#1) i dont like the fact that they assume MacOS is the only os that runs on macs
#2) this seems to suggest (to me anyway that current versions of MacOS arent fast enough to keep up with the faster G4s..
#3) yes, rebooting, while an "easy" task, is not something id gladly do often, especially since its entirely possible i could lose data in any open applications that hadnt been saved
all in all, this whole article makes it seem like theyre taking a rather relaxed attitude toward this.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
"During these tests many people have criticized us for not applying the twenty-one security patches that currently exist for Red Hat 6.0. However, their omission serves to illustrate our point. We only installed shipping software available from the vendors for this test (other than the applications of course). No hot fixes were applied to the NT server. We did however install service pack five. This was much easier because it was a single file."
aaaahh! this is pathetic! exactly what do they think an NT service pack is? in the descrip tion of the service pack there are no less than 10 fixes listed under security, not to mention at least one DoS i saw just skimming the networking section. basically what theyre saying is they didnt update their redhat box to be fully secure even though redhat has all the updates nicely laid out, just because it wasnt all packed up into a single file. what laziness!
if i owned a company and my sysadmins refused to update a server with multiple known security issues just because he/she would have to play with more than one file theyd be looking for another job. basically this paragraph admits (in my interpretation anyway) that they were biased towards NT because it was easier to use.
sad...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
well, if you think about it...most of MS's products are geared towards people like this person (we may know them as clueless newbies, lusers, etc). so in a way it makes sense to have those same people trying it out. i can see giving them a fast system as an 'incentive' basically, and id be willing to bet they were told to try more than just games. it just so happened that they wanted to try out Civ first...i dont blame them...
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
fwiw, bind 4.9.7, although officially depreciated, was ported to NT in may of 1998. the isp i used to work for used it as their primary dns. its available from the ISC ftp site here.
--Siva
Keyboard not found.
the problem with this idea is that it penalizes the people who read /. with below average frequency. like, if the system gives moderator points to someone at 1am, but they dont read /. until their lunch break, they may never get their chance.
its true that if the % system is used, someone with moderator points may not be able to moderate an article they feel deserves it (good or bad), but like rob said, most likely someone will come along and get it eventually.
regarding the side question(s): i dont see why m2 moderation would not be instantaneous, but then i only know what i read in faqs. see the moderation faq for more info about moderation and m2.
--siva
Keyboard not found.
well, one thing you could do would be to delete (er, if possible) and create a new account. this would reset your karma to 0. true, you wouldnt *gain* any karma for a couple months, but depending on how negative yours is now, that may be less time than it would take to get your current account up to >0.
incidentally, one of the reasons a new account doesnt start accumulating karma immediately is probably to avoid situations like yours...you just happened to have bad timing i guess...
--siva
Keyboard not found.
actually, its version 3.3.3.1 as opposed to 3.3.1
Keyboard not found.