It's been happening for quite awhile. Nearly ten years ago, I had the displeasure of dealing with someone within our organization that was exploiting security holes to gain more access than they should have had. Once we were on to them, we were deluged with evidence - weblogs, files on the PC, program history, and more.
The moral of the story is stay squeaky clean, or assume that some day you'll have to pay the piper. Your wife could be looking at your browser history. Your e-mail could be hacked. Live life as if all your secrets were public knowlege.
It's strange to think that technology really could lead to a more moral society. Usually politicians are preaching the opposite.
Back before I had a couple little kids, I pulled in my dad and his milling machine to make the Fossil computer. It's brass and wood, with a neat fossil as a badge.
It's now my daughter's computer, so it plays more Dora the Explorer than the latest high-end games. When I replace my main computer, I'll gut it and put in fancy new components. The main draw is that it's silent, with the main issue being heat (I have some big, slow fans to help with that).
Ah, beat me to the punch. I've been using NoScript and Firefox ever since my Windows 2003 Server was compromised into nothingness after my IE browser hit a Google cache that loaded up some nasty Javascript. It actually gave me nightmares for months afterwards, sort of like those driving dreams where you can't control the car. In this case, I'd watch horrified as hackers took over my PC, none of my typed commands actually doing anything.
In any case, NoScript works great, greatly reduces advertisements, and generally leads to a much nicer surfing experience. It's amazing how much JavaScript is used for frivilous, useless things.
The latest White Stripes' single, The Denial Twist, was helped into the Top 10 by 7-inch vinyl sales -- the band sold 5,500 singles in the format.
5,500 seems pretty tiny in the grand scheme of things. It must be that CD sales are so low that just a handful of singles can make a difference. Everyone else is just downloading the songs from their favorite torrent site and putting it on their iPod.
Furthermore, the released the fact that we don't know what significance this change will take.
Fact is a pretty strong word in science. Instead you'll generally see "consensus" or "strongly suggests" or "the theory supports". Facts tend to be only used when discussing measurable data, and even then they discuss margin of errors and possible problems in taking the readings.
If I jump off a building, a group of scientists would cheerfully predict when I'll hit the bottom and with how much force, though they'll admit that they can't account for confounding variables like wind speed and the possibility that Superman might wander by. There might be one chap who scoffs at the others and says it's worthless making a prediction as we can't tell if I has a parachute tucked away somewhere.
I see global climate change the same way. It's a complex issue and there's lots of details that still need to be sorted out. Still, if you ask a bunch of scientists their opinion on it, the consensus is that it's real, man-made, and will likely hit the bottom with a loud splat sooner rather than later.
These days, it seems that some of the more promising cancer treatments involve using the body's own defenses against cancer. The antiangiogenesis stuff didn't pan out as well as hoped (blocking blood vessel growth in tumors). Some of the treatments that fix a particular genetic defect in certain types of cancer are great, but extremely cancer-specific.
This approch does require a lot of work (tailoring a particular patient's T-cells to a particular cancer), so it's not a cheap fix. It also requires the patient's immune system to cooperate and do it's thing, something that only happened in 2 of the 17 patients. Still, to get complete remission where there was no hope is extremely promising. My guess is that we'll see more of this.
Basically if the human race can do two things: 1) Regrow organs that have worn out and 2) cure cancer, we'll live for a very long time.
Yet again I'm reminded that evolution doesn't stop and that these "simple" organisms have had just as much selection applied to their genome as the more "complex" organisms. People think of evolution as simple bacteria turning into more complicated multicellular organisms, which then turned into more complex animals and eventually the pinnacle of evolution, people.
The reality is that evolution doesn't have a goal and that single celled life is just as rich and complex as any of the more supposedly advanced life forms.
I develop Neverwinter Nights modules for fun and have done so for the last few years. My modules have been included in gaming magazines and I've won several awards. For awhile, I was getting quite a few job offers.
Now, don't take me wrong. I love games and I love making games. The main problem is that I seem to love them when I can develop games on my own terms, something of a rarity in the gaming industry. The pressure in the game industry is intense, with crunch time and publisher demands and an uncertain career path. Plus, if you falter, there's a dozen other people ready to take your place.
I opted for a much more stable and lucrative position in the healthcare industry. The work is interesting (web application development) and I like the people I work with. In what seems like a rarity these days, I can easily see myself spending the bulk of my career where I am. Already I've been here for 10 years and another thirty sounds just fine with me.
Making games as a hobby seemed to be the best choice for me. I enjoy the creative aspect of the work and the freedom to make the story I want to tell. It's fun to be able to give my work away for essentially free and bring a bit of joy to the world. There are occasional frustrations, such as debugging and post-release tension, but for the most part it's an enjoyable pastime that I hope to continue well into the future.
I think we'll see more specialized OSs
on
A New Kind of OS
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
For example, users will see flavors of the OS that are secure, fast, web-based, all-inclusive, or geared towards some specialized function such as controlling a robot or doing scientific calculations. Already you see Linux forks all over the place, just for this reason. I think the trend will continue down that path - an OS for every need.
But seriously, if you've bought something with Windows DRM, you could spent a few minutes searching around on Bittorrent and download a DRM-free version of it.
The only thing I could see this being helpful for are cases where the media is unpopular and there's a fair use need to circumvent the DRM.
I use it to transport data from high-bandwidth to low-bandwidth areas, not much more. If my family has computer problems, they typically drop off the entire thing on my doorstep. Making housecalls is annoying because there's always that one little utility or piece of hardware I forgot to bring. My nerd cave is full of wonders, and is appropriately treated with awe.
or any other time, really. There's no valid scientific definition of life and death.
This is what the stem cell debate is all about, really. Religious people feel that life is a holy, special thing, and that human beings are unique due to divine will.
If a guy in a lab coat can take cells from inside my body and grow a new person, what makes me special? Life becomes just a mechanical process, a loose description for a certain type of interaction between atoms.
Hey, you won't get any arguments here. I too think some of the city planning decisions around water are pretty crazy.
There's been some minor wars fought over water rights, and certainly a number of court battles. The big thing right now is the midwest where they no longer allow people to drill new wells in some areas. In eastern Oregon (near where I live), water management is central to property management. If you can't irrigate your property, it's basically scrub.
China and Russia have rarely gotten along. In decades past, they had a good chunk of their nukes pointed at each other, large armies stationed at their border, and their politics didn't always match dispite their supposed shared Communism.
These days, you'd be hard pressed to call either country Communist. I think of both as sort of Wild-West capitalist societies. Now they seem to be forming an economic alliance against the other growing political powers - mostly Europe and the US. It's been interesting watching how similar their replies are in the current Iran negotiations.
I think they're both interested in developing their high tech sectors, and see it as a natural partnership. Russia has lots of experience, while China has a very well-developed industrial base.
Well, not that I'm a good sample size when it comes to statistics, but I lift weights regularly and most people consider me in excellent physical shape (6 foot, 185 lbs). I'm vegetarian, not vegan, so I do end up drinking milk, though not much cheese. I have a master's degree in biology and while you can find dietary experts claiming completely opposite things, I'd like to think that I've thought about things carefully over the last fifteen years or so.
Processed foods are very much a problem. That includes meat - people who eat large amounts of processed meat appear to have increased cancer risks. I would rather see people replacing them with fruits, vegetables, and grain, however. They cost less, it's better for the environment, and it's better for your health.
Land in America isn't a problem (though you're ignoring the rest of the world wanting beef), but other issues are. Fresh water is being used up faster than it's being stored. Beef requires a lot of grain, and grain requires fresh water. Plus remember that around 20% of our beef is imported, around 3.2 billion pounds in 2002. That requires land and other resources in other countries as well (mostly Canada and Australia).
I'm not saying eating meat is inherently evil. There's lots of other sources of protein in the world that appear to be healthier and use less resources. I see meat being used as a seasoning for dishes, not the main meal at every sitting. Toss in some chicken for your salad, have some slices of turkey on your sandwich. Just don't go out for steak and burgers every meal.
It's far more likely that textured vegetable protein, which has had millions of years of evolution behind it, will end up be more efficient to produce than grown steaks. Another issue is that the stuff inside steak that's "tasty", also happens to be bad for you if it's a significant portion of your diet. Saturated fats and high protein diets seem to cause long-term issues.
Now, I happen to be vegetarian, but certainly not for your standard ethical reasons. I'm all for animal experimentation, for example. I just find that our country's meat-heavy diet is expensive and inefficient. We're depleting our fresh water aquifers at a rapid rate, trying to grow feed for our cattle. American's waists are expanding, in part from our high-calorie meat diet.
And, to end on a lighter note, here's a funny little story called They're Made Out of Meat that's hysterical.
So when I want to code constants in my scripts, my pinkies will have to dance all about? What about repetitive stress (my left pinkie used to go numb)? What about the extra time? Who cares about the children. Think about the people who's job it is to type words in upper case all day long.
To be honest, I quickly bored of being a SQL admin. I've been back to programming for many years now, making the switch when web development became the thing to do. Fortunately it wasn't a fad.
Being a SQL admin, I know quite a bit about the database backends we work with. Being able to troubleshoot locks and design intelligent indexes and interfaces is incredibly useful.
I ended up with a masters in biology education, with no intention of teaching high school science (my student teaching was that bad). Fortunately having a master's degree provides a nice foot in the door. Later on I got several Microsoft certifications, which helped me move from being a programmer to a SQL Server administrator.
There are some professions that are specific to a job, but any master's degree helps in a competitive field. Once you're in, of course, it's all about what you can do.
Personally I'd love to see something like Blogger for the enterprise. We're suffering under the yoke of Microsoft, initially with FrontPage (which worked, but was quirky), and now Sharepoint (which is crazy expensive and even more quirky).
The vast majority of customers just want to make simple web pages and upload some documents. They don't have need for fancy things (and if they do, we build them applications). WYSIWYG is a "must have" for the enterprise environment, and the Writely/GooglePages implementation seems pretty darn good. Unfortunately for me, Google seems focused on the Internet, which we're not going to do (mostly for security reasons).
It sounds like your concern is that people using the equipment will surf the web inappropriately, potentially compromising the machine and losing valuable data.
How about making a 3x5 sign and tape it on the machine that lets them know that their web surfing is being monitored and if they fiddle with the machine to go anywhere else, they'll be fired. Periodically audit the weblogs at your firewall and see if anyone at that device is doing anything.
I run into this problem all the time. People ask for some security measure when it's easier to simply make and enforce a policy. I work with medical records and the question is always "how do you keep people from looking at records inappropriately?" The thing is, if there's any false positive and the information isn't easily available, someone could die. So we audit. Lots and lots of auditing. And fire people when they're idiots.
Slashdot Mirror
It's been happening for quite awhile. Nearly ten years ago, I had the displeasure of dealing with someone within our organization that was exploiting security holes to gain more access than they should have had. Once we were on to them, we were deluged with evidence - weblogs, files on the PC, program history, and more.
The moral of the story is stay squeaky clean, or assume that some day you'll have to pay the piper. Your wife could be looking at your browser history. Your e-mail could be hacked. Live life as if all your secrets were public knowlege.
It's strange to think that technology really could lead to a more moral society. Usually politicians are preaching the opposite.
Back before I had a couple little kids, I pulled in my dad and his milling machine to make the Fossil computer. It's brass and wood, with a neat fossil as a badge.
It's now my daughter's computer, so it plays more Dora the Explorer than the latest high-end games. When I replace my main computer, I'll gut it and put in fancy new components. The main draw is that it's silent, with the main issue being heat (I have some big, slow fans to help with that).
Ah, beat me to the punch. I've been using NoScript and Firefox ever since my Windows 2003 Server was compromised into nothingness after my IE browser hit a Google cache that loaded up some nasty Javascript. It actually gave me nightmares for months afterwards, sort of like those driving dreams where you can't control the car. In this case, I'd watch horrified as hackers took over my PC, none of my typed commands actually doing anything.
In any case, NoScript works great, greatly reduces advertisements, and generally leads to a much nicer surfing experience. It's amazing how much JavaScript is used for frivilous, useless things.
The latest White Stripes' single, The Denial Twist, was helped into the Top 10 by 7-inch vinyl sales -- the band sold 5,500 singles in the format.
5,500 seems pretty tiny in the grand scheme of things. It must be that CD sales are so low that just a handful of singles can make a difference. Everyone else is just downloading the songs from their favorite torrent site and putting it on their iPod.
Will only collectors buy music in the future?
What if he thinks "vibrate quickly"?
Furthermore, the released the fact that we don't know what significance this change will take.
Fact is a pretty strong word in science. Instead you'll generally see "consensus" or "strongly suggests" or "the theory supports". Facts tend to be only used when discussing measurable data, and even then they discuss margin of errors and possible problems in taking the readings.
If I jump off a building, a group of scientists would cheerfully predict when I'll hit the bottom and with how much force, though they'll admit that they can't account for confounding variables like wind speed and the possibility that Superman might wander by. There might be one chap who scoffs at the others and says it's worthless making a prediction as we can't tell if I has a parachute tucked away somewhere.
I see global climate change the same way. It's a complex issue and there's lots of details that still need to be sorted out. Still, if you ask a bunch of scientists their opinion on it, the consensus is that it's real, man-made, and will likely hit the bottom with a loud splat sooner rather than later.
These days, it seems that some of the more promising cancer treatments involve using the body's own defenses against cancer. The antiangiogenesis stuff didn't pan out as well as hoped (blocking blood vessel growth in tumors). Some of the treatments that fix a particular genetic defect in certain types of cancer are great, but extremely cancer-specific.
This approch does require a lot of work (tailoring a particular patient's T-cells to a particular cancer), so it's not a cheap fix. It also requires the patient's immune system to cooperate and do it's thing, something that only happened in 2 of the 17 patients. Still, to get complete remission where there was no hope is extremely promising. My guess is that we'll see more of this.
Basically if the human race can do two things: 1) Regrow organs that have worn out and 2) cure cancer, we'll live for a very long time.
Very true.
Yet again I'm reminded that evolution doesn't stop and that these "simple" organisms have had just as much selection applied to their genome as the more "complex" organisms. People think of evolution as simple bacteria turning into more complicated multicellular organisms, which then turned into more complex animals and eventually the pinnacle of evolution, people.
The reality is that evolution doesn't have a goal and that single celled life is just as rich and complex as any of the more supposedly advanced life forms.
I develop Neverwinter Nights modules for fun and have done so for the last few years. My modules have been included in gaming magazines and I've won several awards. For awhile, I was getting quite a few job offers.
Now, don't take me wrong. I love games and I love making games. The main problem is that I seem to love them when I can develop games on my own terms, something of a rarity in the gaming industry. The pressure in the game industry is intense, with crunch time and publisher demands and an uncertain career path. Plus, if you falter, there's a dozen other people ready to take your place.
I opted for a much more stable and lucrative position in the healthcare industry. The work is interesting (web application development) and I like the people I work with. In what seems like a rarity these days, I can easily see myself spending the bulk of my career where I am. Already I've been here for 10 years and another thirty sounds just fine with me.
Making games as a hobby seemed to be the best choice for me. I enjoy the creative aspect of the work and the freedom to make the story I want to tell. It's fun to be able to give my work away for essentially free and bring a bit of joy to the world. There are occasional frustrations, such as debugging and post-release tension, but for the most part it's an enjoyable pastime that I hope to continue well into the future.
For example, users will see flavors of the OS that are secure, fast, web-based, all-inclusive, or geared towards some specialized function such as controlling a robot or doing scientific calculations. Already you see Linux forks all over the place, just for this reason. I think the trend will continue down that path - an OS for every need.
But seriously, if you've bought something with Windows DRM, you could spent a few minutes searching around on Bittorrent and download a DRM-free version of it.
The only thing I could see this being helpful for are cases where the media is unpopular and there's a fair use need to circumvent the DRM.
I use it to transport data from high-bandwidth to low-bandwidth areas, not much more. If my family has computer problems, they typically drop off the entire thing on my doorstep. Making housecalls is annoying because there's always that one little utility or piece of hardware I forgot to bring. My nerd cave is full of wonders, and is appropriately treated with awe.
Laptop as marital aide.
or any other time, really. There's no valid scientific definition of life and death.
This is what the stem cell debate is all about, really. Religious people feel that life is a holy, special thing, and that human beings are unique due to divine will.
If a guy in a lab coat can take cells from inside my body and grow a new person, what makes me special? Life becomes just a mechanical process, a loose description for a certain type of interaction between atoms.
Hey, you won't get any arguments here. I too think some of the city planning decisions around water are pretty crazy.
There's been some minor wars fought over water rights, and certainly a number of court battles. The big thing right now is the midwest where they no longer allow people to drill new wells in some areas. In eastern Oregon (near where I live), water management is central to property management. If you can't irrigate your property, it's basically scrub.
China and Russia have rarely gotten along. In decades past, they had a good chunk of their nukes pointed at each other, large armies stationed at their border, and their politics didn't always match dispite their supposed shared Communism.
These days, you'd be hard pressed to call either country Communist. I think of both as sort of Wild-West capitalist societies. Now they seem to be forming an economic alliance against the other growing political powers - mostly Europe and the US. It's been interesting watching how similar their replies are in the current Iran negotiations.
I think they're both interested in developing their high tech sectors, and see it as a natural partnership. Russia has lots of experience, while China has a very well-developed industrial base.
Well, not that I'm a good sample size when it comes to statistics, but I lift weights regularly and most people consider me in excellent physical shape (6 foot, 185 lbs). I'm vegetarian, not vegan, so I do end up drinking milk, though not much cheese. I have a master's degree in biology and while you can find dietary experts claiming completely opposite things, I'd like to think that I've thought about things carefully over the last fifteen years or so.
Processed foods are very much a problem. That includes meat - people who eat large amounts of processed meat appear to have increased cancer risks. I would rather see people replacing them with fruits, vegetables, and grain, however. They cost less, it's better for the environment, and it's better for your health.
Land in America isn't a problem (though you're ignoring the rest of the world wanting beef), but other issues are. Fresh water is being used up faster than it's being stored. Beef requires a lot of grain, and grain requires fresh water. Plus remember that around 20% of our beef is imported, around 3.2 billion pounds in 2002. That requires land and other resources in other countries as well (mostly Canada and Australia).
I'm not saying eating meat is inherently evil. There's lots of other sources of protein in the world that appear to be healthier and use less resources. I see meat being used as a seasoning for dishes, not the main meal at every sitting. Toss in some chicken for your salad, have some slices of turkey on your sandwich. Just don't go out for steak and burgers every meal.
It's far more likely that textured vegetable protein, which has had millions of years of evolution behind it, will end up be more efficient to produce than grown steaks. Another issue is that the stuff inside steak that's "tasty", also happens to be bad for you if it's a significant portion of your diet. Saturated fats and high protein diets seem to cause long-term issues.
Now, I happen to be vegetarian, but certainly not for your standard ethical reasons. I'm all for animal experimentation, for example. I just find that our country's meat-heavy diet is expensive and inefficient. We're depleting our fresh water aquifers at a rapid rate, trying to grow feed for our cattle. American's waists are expanding, in part from our high-calorie meat diet.
And, to end on a lighter note, here's a funny little story called They're Made Out of Meat that's hysterical.
I was in college by then, and drinking heavily.
So when I want to code constants in my scripts, my pinkies will have to dance all about? What about repetitive stress (my left pinkie used to go numb)? What about the extra time? Who cares about the children. Think about the people who's job it is to type words in upper case all day long.
Const STATUS As String = "UNHAPPY"
To be honest, I quickly bored of being a SQL admin. I've been back to programming for many years now, making the switch when web development became the thing to do. Fortunately it wasn't a fad.
Being a SQL admin, I know quite a bit about the database backends we work with. Being able to troubleshoot locks and design intelligent indexes and interfaces is incredibly useful.
I ended up with a masters in biology education, with no intention of teaching high school science (my student teaching was that bad). Fortunately having a master's degree provides a nice foot in the door. Later on I got several Microsoft certifications, which helped me move from being a programmer to a SQL Server administrator.
There are some professions that are specific to a job, but any master's degree helps in a competitive field. Once you're in, of course, it's all about what you can do.
Personally I'd love to see something like Blogger for the enterprise. We're suffering under the yoke of Microsoft, initially with FrontPage (which worked, but was quirky), and now Sharepoint (which is crazy expensive and even more quirky).
The vast majority of customers just want to make simple web pages and upload some documents. They don't have need for fancy things (and if they do, we build them applications). WYSIWYG is a "must have" for the enterprise environment, and the Writely/GooglePages implementation seems pretty darn good. Unfortunately for me, Google seems focused on the Internet, which we're not going to do (mostly for security reasons).
It sounds like your concern is that people using the equipment will surf the web inappropriately, potentially compromising the machine and losing valuable data.
How about making a 3x5 sign and tape it on the machine that lets them know that their web surfing is being monitored and if they fiddle with the machine to go anywhere else, they'll be fired. Periodically audit the weblogs at your firewall and see if anyone at that device is doing anything.
I run into this problem all the time. People ask for some security measure when it's easier to simply make and enforce a policy. I work with medical records and the question is always "how do you keep people from looking at records inappropriately?" The thing is, if there's any false positive and the information isn't easily available, someone could die. So we audit. Lots and lots of auditing. And fire people when they're idiots.
When I start thinking about the data sent to things like my monitor and speakers, I'd think you'd quickly run into bandwidth issues.