There's research that shows that there's a point where your salary desire is sated, and more money while nice ceases to be the primary reason you work. In other words, once people are compensated at 100k/year they are more likely to be motivated by ping-pong tables and free soda type perks than 101k/year, even if the 1k is worth more.
Obviously, the majority of people have not hit that level yet.
That number for me would need to be $150,000 - as that would allow me to set aside a rainy day fund without having to cut basic things to the bone. My current problem is year over year - I end up with cash flow problems due to unplanned breakdowns that require significant outlay beyond what I've set aside - including dogs and cats getting older and costing more when they need to go to doctor, breakdown of home appliances and integrated components, and automotive repairs (I don't have a car payment - but things are breaking down on my car that require outlays), realestate tax increases, etc. On top of that - health care cost increases, and need to continue feeding 401K also takes a hit.
I think this is releative to regional differences in standard of living. In California - that number may be significantly higher than that I think is appropriate.
1. pay off the bills & repair everything -= $200,000 would do it (close out mortgage, student loans, and a few long term odds and ends and pending maintenance).
2. fund for children to finish college -= $100,000 ($50,000 per child - 2 children)
3. fund for wife and myself to further our educations -= $100,000 ($50,000 each) (education is very important - never stop learning)
5. entreprenurial fund: $2,600,000 -- would retire from current job early, and use these funds to start my own businesses. I would continue to work every day until I run out of these funds, or die - whichever comes first. Profits would pay our annual bills (food, taxes, maintenance/replacement etc), and otherwise be rolled back into the fund. This would be frugally managed.
Can't imagine not having something valuable to contribute. If I was insanely rich (billions of dollars) I would definitely be investing in organizations and businesses that I believe in - and probably could justify upgrading some things to make that easier to accomplish.
Would there be some parties, vacations, and trips abroad in there? You betcha. However, I can't see just partying or wandering aimlessly. Life has to have meaning, and meaning comes from within.
That is certainly true. It is also true you can survive on Dog Food for some time - but do you have quality of life, and how long can you keep that up before it starts impacting your longevity?
Windows --> Linux (Complete) - tired of 'flaky' stability and features from one Windows release to the next. Linux is good enough to game on now - and that's about all I was holding onto windows for. Tried gaming on Mac a long long time ago - and gave up as was prohibitively expensive. Code, game, and surf on Linux.
Macs --> ? No reason to upgrade hardware at this time because I can't afford it for a number of reasons, and the 'new' tech isn't compelling enough to go into debt for new hardware anyway. Existing systems do what I need, and have the integration that I need for creative endeavors (graphics, sound, writing).
This traffic wasn't a couple of UDP packets. It was a significant amount of TCP packets (unencrypted HTTP protocol) and other things I couldn't identify (presumably encrypted?). With 3 Windows machines on the network sending to the same targets across a single NAT'd IP address (what most residential customers have available to them) after a week to a few days (depending on the volume of activty) -- the network would slow down to a crawl. From the NAT article on Wikipedia:
With NAT, all communications sent to external hosts actually contain the external IP address and port information of the NAT device instead of internal host IP addresses or port numbers.
When a computer on the private (internal) network sends an IPv4 packet to the external network, the NAT device replaces the internal IP address in the source field of the packet header (sender's address) with the external IP address of the NAT device. PAT may then assign the connection a port number from a pool of available ports, inserting this port number in the source port field (much like the post office box number), and forwards the packet to the external network. The NAT device then makes an entry in a translation table containing the internal IP address, original source port, and the translated source port. Subsequent packets from the same connection are translated to the same port number. [PAT (Port Address Translation) resolves conflicts that would arise through two different hosts using the same source port number to establish unique connections at the same time. This is the case with my Windows machines, so even more levels of translation per packet] - Lod.]
The computer receiving a packet that has undergone NAT establishes a connection to the port and IP address specified in the altered packet, oblivious to the fact that the supplied address is being translated (analogous to using a post office box number).
A packet coming from the external network is mapped to a corresponding internal IP address and port number from the translation table, replacing the external IP address and port number in the incoming packet header (similar to the translation from post office box number to street address). The packet is then forwarded over the inside network. Otherwise, if the destination port number of the incoming packet is not found in the translation table, the packet is dropped or rejected because the PAT device doesn't know where to send it.
As you can see - there is a lot of overhead to alter the outgoing and return packets - and all of that information needs to be kept up by the router/firewall in the residential gateway. Also note: including cellphones, tablets/pads, and other machines (Linux and Mac) - I have about 14 machines on the network - in addition to the 3 Windows machines - so the gateway is already overloaded. While there were some problems that manifested over the course of a year, and a reboot of the gateway would clear up, the installation of Windows 10 on the network caused this to accellerate to an unusable state immediately. If Windows were a dog, I would be tapping it on the nose with a rolled up newspaper for going on the floor.
The key problem for me was time. I don't have the time to learn how or even if these communications can be turned off in Windows, which is basically a blacklist solution. What is needed is a opt-in or whitelist solution, which is essentially what Linux offers out of the box (if you discount systemd - but that's a whole other thread).
My internal network is GigE around the house with a wifi device for the handheld devices - and I have no problems routing packets internally all day long. The issue is the gateway of the service provider, so you're partially right in that the service provider's residential network offering is a 'shitty network' solution. I expect they would only support 2 to 4 devices based upon their edge device and engineering.
I loaded Windows one last time when Windows 8 came out - and upgraded to Windows 10 on all of the systems used primarily for gaming in the household. That's when the problems started happening: I detected a large number of connections back to Redmond Washington coming from each machine. Taken together these connections brought my network to a stand still, primarily I believe due to NAT table conflicts and related resource issues on the router/firewall. I loaded Linux - and the problem went away.
With Steam, and other gaming venues for Linux - I'm done. Never going back to Windows again. If I were to buy a surface - it would be to load Linux on it - which would be a waste of money.
You don't need a PHD to get 'deep into a topic.' You just need motivation, time, and resources. Explain to me how that is not an alternative?
Just having a PHD doesn't make you smarter than everyone else in the room - just like having any other certification for that matter. I've met geniuses that didn't have any education beyond their primary education, and I've met stupid people holding advanced degrees wasting oxygen and space.
I'm also not anti-intellectual. Expanding your intellect does not require the blessing of a dogma enshrined ivory tower clan either. Can higher education be valuable on many levels - absolutely it can. Is it overused today, causing people to take on too much debt when their carreer doesn't afford the ability to pay back the investment within a reasonable period of time? Absolutely. There are limited formal means for people who are autodidacts to gain parity with the formal higher education mechanisms for vetting employees. There needs to be more opportunities for everyone who can perform along these lines - not just an elite few at the top.
Finally, hubris leads to nemesis - which is really the crux of this whole discussion on multiple levels.
That would be fine if I could define the parameters around 'how'.
The problem we have today is bloated unsecure code - due in large part to the focus on delivery of features, at the expense of just about everything else (security, integration, clarity, maintainability, performance, etc.)
The reason humans are not percieved as being capable of performing is because we don't give them the appropriate tools and even if they have the right tools we tie their hands with process. This is caused by IT executives reading about the latest trend in glossy magazines and making 'keeping up with the Jones's' a primary goal. On the flipside of that are the IT execs who believes coding and process of the 1960s is all you need. In short, stupidity.
AI can't fix that.
This is just a bid to make money for these companies selling you the next 'snakeoil'. 3 years from now we'll be reading how AI was a costly panacea...
No denying here. I would also like to understand what long term effects alcohol has on the brain as well in comparison.
If there are equally bad mental health problems associated with use of both substances, then we can come to a conclusion about legalization or not of any mind altering drug - including those things that are currently legal most places. Once we understand the relative impacts - we can make better decisions rather than coming to a conclusion about a single substance in isolation.
There are several problems that seem insurmountable:
1. While you could block the internet from directly interacting with these devices - by definition something would need to interact with the widget - either directly or as a proxy - unless you are okay without remote access.
2. If you have a machine on your network that interacts with the device, and also interacts with the internet (say for web browsing - http protocol) - then a bug in your machine could be a conduit for further access to the IoT device.
The only way to be absolutely sure a device is secure is to not have it connected to the network -
It is a code of conduct violation to remove (print) proprietary and sensitive business documents from the systems they reside on. Editing tools are sufficient to read and mark up - as well as version control these documents. Needing paper is a crutch for people who have too much time on their hands (you have to print the document, mark it up, then type in your edits, and load/save the new version --- too many steps take too much time).
I deal with hundreds to thousands of business documents over the course of many years; there is barely enough time to read them before feedback is needed.
That being said - this does not take into account legal documents that have requirements to keep paper copies in file cabinets under lock and key -- but that is for the legal assistants and lawyers to deal with --- not the vast majority of people in business.
Not all 'computer science' cirriculae is equal either - particularly in recent years.
This is why I've long advocated never being 'just a programmer', or any other pigeonholed job for that matter. Define your work on your own terms as much as possible. When I first started working as a system admin / technical support specialist on the night shift (yeah - they had me doing two jobs at once) -- I took the time to automate a number of things, including the then current paper ticket system they kept in a binder and passed from shift to shift, as well as many of the systems checks and maintenance activities. As I moved to new jobs in the company, I continued to do this - providing value add, as well as easing my own workload burden along the way. I wouldn't say I'm indespensible - but I've managed to survive through 20 years of reorganizations, layoffs, and offshoring that severely impacted my 'just a programmer' peers.
There are many excellent points here - and as a programmer since I was a teenager and also in my 50s now - I have also thought about this problem a long time.
A good visual analogy to a computer system is Russian nesting dolls. Each doll can be equated to an underlying system and associated languages. At the deepest innermost layer you have microcode - running on an extremely simple state machine that has code written for it to emulate a Von Neuman central processing unit (CPU). Next comes binary numbers that can be inserted into registers and memory using the CPU. Up from that is assembly language - which is another extremely simple langauge used to communicate with the CPU in native binary. Above that are a plethora of compiler based languages - that essentially convert their human understandable grammars into native binary (or intermediary assembly language - and then to binary...details). At the same level there are also interpreters - which are interactive languages that can be programmed 'on the fly' one line at a time; each line is acted upon immediately when you enter it - and were used effectively for teaching students... Basic being one such language. They could also be used for high performance computing - LISP being an example. It's important to point out at this point - all languages don't have to be loaded on a given system - these are just the possibilities.
Now things get really interesting: virtual machines. A virtual machine is a simulated CPU that has its own simplified instruction set that an applicable language can compile against. The nice thing about a virtual machine, is it can be deployed across many different hardware architectures without the need to recompile your programs. Examples are Java's JVM, Python's virtual machine, and Javascript V8 virtual machine.
Finally you have application frameworks - collections of libraries and other functions that allow you to quickly build applications with less work - because most of the heavy lifting is already done for you. In this category I would also lump code generators - like the Unified Modelling Language (UML) - that has tools which takes a program defined using the UML language - and generates code in a specified programming language.
There are far more complexities to this than I've listed here. However, you can think of this in almost archaeological terms - each layer over time making it easier or faster for someone to build applications using a computer. Spreadsheet programs are a good example of building systems that allow an end user to leverage the power of the computer to handle complex calculations with little need for the user to understand programming at all.
That being said, I agree there are a lot of extraneous languages, frameworks, and development environments out there that makes it more likely that people will create buggy code. The farther away from the CPU - in terms of abstraction - the less you will know about what your application is really doing 'under the hood'. As a result, I do suggest a clear bias towards simplification in the selection of languages used to build the underlying systems for the use of people to solve problems, coupled with perhaps certification programs to make sure what is being built is being built good.
The real conspiracy here is why we spend so much time fighting over things that are fringe issues. We know we can't get compromise on these things - so why do we focus on them - when it would be more beneficial to work together on things we can find common ground?
I believe most people in the country are willing to work together to solve common problems. We have proved that over and over again throughout our history. Sadly, this comes only when the country is existentially threatened. Hopefully that won't be too late the next time it happens.
This is why I recommend an independent rating system in the post above.
With a system like that - the consumer/user of software would have an idea about what is the best software to use from the standpoint of quality, user interface, and integration capabilities.
Zero days cost more than all the floppy disks and CDs combined. Back in the day - most things were not networked. Today that's all there is*. Those flaws hurt the customer and the company, and depending on what we are talking about (e.g. network connected cars and industrial control systems) may cause loss of life and property.
The problem space isn't as cut and dried as you would make it out to be.
( * Note: I know that isn't all there is...but I would argue the amount of stand alone non-networked apps out there today is statistically insignificant. )
The prime directive of anyone associated with building software for end users must be to create bug free, secure systems that are effortless for people to use.
This needs to flow throughout an organization - whether you are the architect, designer, marketer, developer, tester, accountant, whatever. Everyone must be on the same page when it comes to this goal. Everyone needs to really understand what that entails in practice.
I've been both on the building, and receiving end of things when this goes wrong - and it goes wrong too often than is necessary, primarily because an organization does not have that unifying goal. From a user's perspective it sucks because you end up with a confusing mish-mash of tools with no unifying concept behind the interfaces, and which fail to integrate data effectively to avoid redundancy. 'Painful' is a good adjective that describes using such systems. From the developer's point of view you end up unable to do your best work. Finance or management doesn't provide the right resources, time, or unifying definitions for the solutions in the company's stable - everything seems to be a one-off that you end up throwing over the wall until the next project comes along. Responsibility and ownership is minimal at best - leading to long nights debugging production code, and too many times devolves into finger pointing and recriminations.
Given the current state of affairs I think it is time for people to find new concepts of how software and systems development really should work for all of us.
One thing that occurs to me is we should stop rewarding companies / projects (in the case of open source) for producing poor quality systems and software. If you want to build crufty systems for yourself, that's one thing. Don't foist that off on the public. A way to make it easy for end users to identify such systems could be a certification mechanism - an independent body that could look at various criteria to rate software and systems on an scale (e.g. unrated, low quality, medium quality, high quality, etc). The criteria used could be things that matter - such as bug history, security bug history, availability of code for independent review, complexity vs. simplicity of code reviewed, ease of use, ease of integration with other systems and data, etc.
Similarly, I think development tools, and organizations and companies that develop tools and systems should similarly be rated to allow potential consumers and users of their work to make more informed decisions.
The Supreme Court has upheld the freedom of speech in a large number of cases including:
Snyder v. Phelps (2011) (Westborough Baptist Church), National Socialist Party v. Skokie (1977) (NAZIs) Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) (KKK), and Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) (Gave speech in Chicago that caused protesters to riot).
Not sure what 'hate speech' laws you are talking about.
...Unless you are talking about foreign countries - in which case they can similarly attempt to extradite etc. Not quite sure where you are going with this.
The crack occurred on US soil (there the servers/storage lives) - therefore falls under US law. US can go after the foreign actors in this and extradite for prosecution - as well as take other actions with Russia itself as a sovereign nation.
I'm not aware of any genetic testing that is used to validate candidates for various jobs in the military. If that is happenning I think we would all be interested in verifiable reference sources.
(Computer Science) computing an operating system that is not specific to a particular supplier, but conforms to more widely compatible standards
Bingo! - The key word in that definition is 'compatible' - which is not the case when you're talking about Microsoft Windows.
More on 'Open Systems' can be found here: Wikipedia.org:
The definition of "open system" can be said to have become more formalized in the 1990s with the emergence of independently administered software standards such as The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification.
Although computer users today are used to a high degree of both hardware and software interoperability, in the 20th century the open systems concept could be promoted by Unix vendors as a significant differentiator. IBM and other companies resisted the trend for decades, exemplified by a now-famous warning in 1991 by an IBM account executive that one should be "careful about getting locked into open systems".
However, in the first part of the 21st century many of these same legacy system vendors, particularly IBM and Hewlett-Packard, began to adopt Linux as part of their overall sales strategy, with "open source" marketed as trumping "open system". Consequently, an IBM mainframe with Linux on z Systems is marketed as being more of an open system than commodity computers using closed-source Microsoft Windows—or even those using Unix, despite its open systems heritage. In response, more companies are opening the source code to their products, with a notable example being Sun Microsystems and their creation of the OpenOffice.org and OpenSolaris projects, based on their formerly closed-source StarOffice and Solaris software products.
Slashdot Mirror
There's research that shows that there's a point where your salary desire is sated, and more money while nice ceases to be the primary reason you work. In other words, once people are compensated at 100k/year they are more likely to be motivated by ping-pong tables and free soda type perks than 101k/year, even if the 1k is worth more.
Obviously, the majority of people have not hit that level yet.
That number for me would need to be $150,000 - as that would allow me to set aside a rainy day fund without having to cut basic things to the bone. My current problem is year over year - I end up with cash flow problems due to unplanned breakdowns that require significant outlay beyond what I've set aside - including dogs and cats getting older and costing more when they need to go to doctor, breakdown of home appliances and integrated components, and automotive repairs (I don't have a car payment - but things are breaking down on my car that require outlays), realestate tax increases, etc. On top of that - health care cost increases, and need to continue feeding 401K also takes a hit. I think this is releative to regional differences in standard of living. In California - that number may be significantly higher than that I think is appropriate.
1. pay off the bills & repair everything -= $200,000 would do it (close out mortgage, student loans, and a few long term odds and ends and pending maintenance).
2. fund for children to finish college -= $100,000 ($50,000 per child - 2 children)
3. fund for wife and myself to further our educations -= $100,000 ($50,000 each) (education is very important - never stop learning)
4. diversified investment fund: $2,000,000 --- stocks, bonds, money market
5. entreprenurial fund: $2,600,000 -- would retire from current job early, and use these funds to start my own businesses. I would continue to work every day until I run out of these funds, or die - whichever comes first. Profits would pay our annual bills (food, taxes, maintenance/replacement etc), and otherwise be rolled back into the fund. This would be frugally managed.
Can't imagine not having something valuable to contribute. If I was insanely rich (billions of dollars) I would definitely be investing in organizations and businesses that I believe in - and probably could justify upgrading some things to make that easier to accomplish.
Would there be some parties, vacations, and trips abroad in there? You betcha. However, I can't see just partying or wandering aimlessly. Life has to have meaning, and meaning comes from within.
That is certainly true. It is also true you can survive on Dog Food for some time - but do you have quality of life, and how long can you keep that up before it starts impacting your longevity?
Not switching because:
Windows --> Linux (Complete) - tired of 'flaky' stability and features from one Windows release to the next. Linux is good enough to game on now - and that's about all I was holding onto windows for. Tried gaming on Mac a long long time ago - and gave up as was prohibitively expensive. Code, game, and surf on Linux.
Macs --> ? No reason to upgrade hardware at this time because I can't afford it for a number of reasons, and the 'new' tech isn't compelling enough to go into debt for new hardware anyway. Existing systems do what I need, and have the integration that I need for creative endeavors (graphics, sound, writing).
This traffic wasn't a couple of UDP packets. It was a significant amount of TCP packets (unencrypted HTTP protocol) and other things I couldn't identify (presumably encrypted?). With 3 Windows machines on the network sending to the same targets across a single NAT'd IP address (what most residential customers have available to them) after a week to a few days (depending on the volume of activty) -- the network would slow down to a crawl. From the NAT article on Wikipedia:
As you can see - there is a lot of overhead to alter the outgoing and return packets - and all of that information needs to be kept up by the router/firewall in the residential gateway. Also note: including cellphones, tablets/pads, and other machines (Linux and Mac) - I have about 14 machines on the network - in addition to the 3 Windows machines - so the gateway is already overloaded. While there were some problems that manifested over the course of a year, and a reboot of the gateway would clear up, the installation of Windows 10 on the network caused this to accellerate to an unusable state immediately. If Windows were a dog, I would be tapping it on the nose with a rolled up newspaper for going on the floor.
The key problem for me was time. I don't have the time to learn how or even if these communications can be turned off in Windows, which is basically a blacklist solution. What is needed is a opt-in or whitelist solution, which is essentially what Linux offers out of the box (if you discount systemd - but that's a whole other thread).
My internal network is GigE around the house with a wifi device for the handheld devices - and I have no problems routing packets internally all day long. The issue is the gateway of the service provider, so you're partially right in that the service provider's residential network offering is a 'shitty network' solution. I expect they would only support 2 to 4 devices based upon their edge device and engineering.
I loaded Windows one last time when Windows 8 came out - and upgraded to Windows 10 on all of the systems used primarily for gaming in the household. That's when the problems started happening: I detected a large number of connections back to Redmond Washington coming from each machine. Taken together these connections brought my network to a stand still, primarily I believe due to NAT table conflicts and related resource issues on the router/firewall. I loaded Linux - and the problem went away.
With Steam, and other gaming venues for Linux - I'm done. Never going back to Windows again. If I were to buy a surface - it would be to load Linux on it - which would be a waste of money.
heh :)
You don't need a PHD to get 'deep into a topic.' You just need motivation, time, and resources. Explain to me how that is not an alternative?
Just having a PHD doesn't make you smarter than everyone else in the room - just like having any other certification for that matter. I've met geniuses that didn't have any education beyond their primary education, and I've met stupid people holding advanced degrees wasting oxygen and space.
I'm also not anti-intellectual. Expanding your intellect does not require the blessing of a dogma enshrined ivory tower clan either. Can higher education be valuable on many levels - absolutely it can. Is it overused today, causing people to take on too much debt when their carreer doesn't afford the ability to pay back the investment within a reasonable period of time? Absolutely. There are limited formal means for people who are autodidacts to gain parity with the formal higher education mechanisms for vetting employees. There needs to be more opportunities for everyone who can perform along these lines - not just an elite few at the top.
Finally, hubris leads to nemesis - which is really the crux of this whole discussion on multiple levels.
That would be fine if I could define the parameters around 'how'.
The problem we have today is bloated unsecure code - due in large part to the focus on delivery of features, at the expense of just about everything else (security, integration, clarity, maintainability, performance, etc.)
The reason humans are not percieved as being capable of performing is because we don't give them the appropriate tools and even if they have the right tools we tie their hands with process. This is caused by IT executives reading about the latest trend in glossy magazines and making 'keeping up with the Jones's' a primary goal. On the flipside of that are the IT execs who believes coding and process of the 1960s is all you need. In short, stupidity.
AI can't fix that.
This is just a bid to make money for these companies selling you the next 'snakeoil'. 3 years from now we'll be reading how AI was a costly panacea...
No denying here. I would also like to understand what long term effects alcohol has on the brain as well in comparison.
If there are equally bad mental health problems associated with use of both substances, then we can come to a conclusion about legalization or not of any mind altering drug - including those things that are currently legal most places. Once we understand the relative impacts - we can make better decisions rather than coming to a conclusion about a single substance in isolation.
That is science.
There are several problems that seem insurmountable:
1. While you could block the internet from directly interacting with these devices - by definition something would need to interact with the widget - either directly or as a proxy - unless you are okay without remote access.
2. If you have a machine on your network that interacts with the device, and also interacts with the internet (say for web browsing - http protocol) - then a bug in your machine could be a conduit for further access to the IoT device.
The only way to be absolutely sure a device is secure is to not have it connected to the network -
It is a code of conduct violation to remove (print) proprietary and sensitive business documents from the systems they reside on. Editing tools are sufficient to read and mark up - as well as version control these documents. Needing paper is a crutch for people who have too much time on their hands (you have to print the document, mark it up, then type in your edits, and load/save the new version --- too many steps take too much time).
I deal with hundreds to thousands of business documents over the course of many years; there is barely enough time to read them before feedback is needed.
That being said - this does not take into account legal documents that have requirements to keep paper copies in file cabinets under lock and key -- but that is for the legal assistants and lawyers to deal with --- not the vast majority of people in business.
Not all 'computer science' cirriculae is equal either - particularly in recent years.
This is why I've long advocated never being 'just a programmer', or any other pigeonholed job for that matter. Define your work on your own terms as much as possible. When I first started working as a system admin / technical support specialist on the night shift (yeah - they had me doing two jobs at once) -- I took the time to automate a number of things, including the then current paper ticket system they kept in a binder and passed from shift to shift, as well as many of the systems checks and maintenance activities. As I moved to new jobs in the company, I continued to do this - providing value add, as well as easing my own workload burden along the way. I wouldn't say I'm indespensible - but I've managed to survive through 20 years of reorganizations, layoffs, and offshoring that severely impacted my 'just a programmer' peers.
There are many excellent points here - and as a programmer since I was a teenager and also in my 50s now - I have also thought about this problem a long time.
A good visual analogy to a computer system is Russian nesting dolls. Each doll can be equated to an underlying system and associated languages. At the deepest innermost layer you have microcode - running on an extremely simple state machine that has code written for it to emulate a Von Neuman central processing unit (CPU). Next comes binary numbers that can be inserted into registers and memory using the CPU. Up from that is assembly language - which is another extremely simple langauge used to communicate with the CPU in native binary. Above that are a plethora of compiler based languages - that essentially convert their human understandable grammars into native binary (or intermediary assembly language - and then to binary...details). At the same level there are also interpreters - which are interactive languages that can be programmed 'on the fly' one line at a time; each line is acted upon immediately when you enter it - and were used effectively for teaching students... Basic being one such language. They could also be used for high performance computing - LISP being an example. It's important to point out at this point - all languages don't have to be loaded on a given system - these are just the possibilities.
Now things get really interesting: virtual machines. A virtual machine is a simulated CPU that has its own simplified instruction set that an applicable language can compile against. The nice thing about a virtual machine, is it can be deployed across many different hardware architectures without the need to recompile your programs. Examples are Java's JVM, Python's virtual machine, and Javascript V8 virtual machine.
Finally you have application frameworks - collections of libraries and other functions that allow you to quickly build applications with less work - because most of the heavy lifting is already done for you. In this category I would also lump code generators - like the Unified Modelling Language (UML) - that has tools which takes a program defined using the UML language - and generates code in a specified programming language.
There are far more complexities to this than I've listed here. However, you can think of this in almost archaeological terms - each layer over time making it easier or faster for someone to build applications using a computer. Spreadsheet programs are a good example of building systems that allow an end user to leverage the power of the computer to handle complex calculations with little need for the user to understand programming at all.
That being said, I agree there are a lot of extraneous languages, frameworks, and development environments out there that makes it more likely that people will create buggy code. The farther away from the CPU - in terms of abstraction - the less you will know about what your application is really doing 'under the hood'. As a result, I do suggest a clear bias towards simplification in the selection of languages used to build the underlying systems for the use of people to solve problems, coupled with perhaps certification programs to make sure what is being built is being built good.
The real conspiracy here is why we spend so much time fighting over things that are fringe issues. We know we can't get compromise on these things - so why do we focus on them - when it would be more beneficial to work together on things we can find common ground?
I believe most people in the country are willing to work together to solve common problems. We have proved that over and over again throughout our history. Sadly, this comes only when the country is existentially threatened. Hopefully that won't be too late the next time it happens.
This is why I recommend an independent rating system in the post above.
With a system like that - the consumer/user of software would have an idea about what is the best software to use from the standpoint of quality, user interface, and integration capabilities.
Zero days cost more than all the floppy disks and CDs combined. Back in the day - most things were not networked. Today that's all there is*. Those flaws hurt the customer and the company, and depending on what we are talking about (e.g. network connected cars and industrial control systems) may cause loss of life and property.
The problem space isn't as cut and dried as you would make it out to be.
( * Note: I know that isn't all there is...but I would argue the amount of stand alone non-networked apps out there today is statistically insignificant. )
The prime directive of anyone associated with building software for end users must be to create bug free, secure systems that are effortless for people to use.
This needs to flow throughout an organization - whether you are the architect, designer, marketer, developer, tester, accountant, whatever. Everyone must be on the same page when it comes to this goal. Everyone needs to really understand what that entails in practice.
I've been both on the building, and receiving end of things when this goes wrong - and it goes wrong too often than is necessary, primarily because an organization does not have that unifying goal. From a user's perspective it sucks because you end up with a confusing mish-mash of tools with no unifying concept behind the interfaces, and which fail to integrate data effectively to avoid redundancy. 'Painful' is a good adjective that describes using such systems. From the developer's point of view you end up unable to do your best work. Finance or management doesn't provide the right resources, time, or unifying definitions for the solutions in the company's stable - everything seems to be a one-off that you end up throwing over the wall until the next project comes along. Responsibility and ownership is minimal at best - leading to long nights debugging production code, and too many times devolves into finger pointing and recriminations.
Given the current state of affairs I think it is time for people to find new concepts of how software and systems development really should work for all of us.
One thing that occurs to me is we should stop rewarding companies / projects (in the case of open source) for producing poor quality systems and software. If you want to build crufty systems for yourself, that's one thing. Don't foist that off on the public. A way to make it easy for end users to identify such systems could be a certification mechanism - an independent body that could look at various criteria to rate software and systems on an scale (e.g. unrated, low quality, medium quality, high quality, etc). The criteria used could be things that matter - such as bug history, security bug history, availability of code for independent review, complexity vs. simplicity of code reviewed, ease of use, ease of integration with other systems and data, etc.
Similarly, I think development tools, and organizations and companies that develop tools and systems should similarly be rated to allow potential consumers and users of their work to make more informed decisions.
Until the sewage pipe springs a leak and spews fecal matter all over your bread.
The Supreme Court has upheld the freedom of speech in a large number of cases including:
Snyder v. Phelps (2011) (Westborough Baptist Church), National Socialist Party v. Skokie (1977) (NAZIs) Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) (KKK), and Terminiello v. Chicago (1949) (Gave speech in Chicago that caused protesters to riot).
Not sure what 'hate speech' laws you are talking about.
Did Pakistan extradite Bin Laden?
The crack occurred on US soil (there the servers/storage lives) - therefore falls under US law. US can go after the foreign actors in this and extradite for prosecution - as well as take other actions with Russia itself as a sovereign nation.
I'm not aware of any genetic testing that is used to validate candidates for various jobs in the military. If that is happenning I think we would all be interested in verifiable reference sources.
Read this , and come back and tell me if you think Microsoft Windows is really an open system.
Bingo! - The key word in that definition is 'compatible' - which is not the case when you're talking about Microsoft Windows.
More on 'Open Systems' can be found here: Wikipedia.org: