Exactly - would you buy a car without test-driving it? Absolutely not. Expecting people to fork out tens of dollars on something that could very well turn out to be unstomachable crap is asking a lot.
Just to play devil's advocate here, I'm sure you do this all the time when you go to a restaurant you haven't been to before. It's easy to drop $15 or $20 on a meal and not know whether it's good. Not many places will offer you a sample of that prime rib steak you're about to order.
How does you're car's owner's manual help when you pull up to a cheap gas station and put crappy gas or cheap oil in the thing?
I'm not aware of places where you can buy crappy gas. I've been to many very run-down stations with random gas and it's always worked. My car has never crashed as a result of the gas I've put in it, whether it's from Shell or Chevron, or if it's from Bob's Gas Dump. Perhaps I don't get the same performance, but it still works fine.
Yeah, I guess you can't really stop some idiot from putting diesel into her fuel injection car... but with two minutes of instruction you can at least teach people everything they need to know to safely operate a vehicle. Take a brand new car and as long as you keep filling it with gas, it's going to work for years even if you never do anything else.
Oh, and by the way... the word you're looking for is "your". Your car's owners' manual. "You're" only ever means "you are". Speaking of stupidity being the root of all evil, I thought you might like to know that.:)
You're right, BHO are an awful idea, but the poor design of one piece of software does not mean computers aren't meant for regular people. All a "regular" person has to do is use mozilla.
And how does the use of Mozilla educate a "regular" person if they visit a website using Mozilla and the site tells them to download X software and install it in order to play that really catchy game that everyone is enjoying? Know what? Mozilla doesn't help there either.
That explains everything... Clearly, they are using a quantum-based computer. If you try to read the data to copy it, it gets changed. Can't fault them for trying to use the newest technology, I suppose.
Yes, it's the all-new Heisenberg Data Store 2000 from Uncertain Storage Inc.
yea but lack of interest in the tools that you use daily is a recipe for disaster.
The problem is that the tools aren't made for regular people to use. Imagine if you had to know how to construct your own differential before being allowed to drive a car. The fact that 99% of people likely know little to nothing about a differential doesn't affect the millions of people every day who drive a car safely, and it shouldn't have to!
Honda doesn't go and create Wheel Helper Objects which you can attach to your wheels to give you extra traction because it would be highly unsafe to do so. It would be easy for some malicious person to attach their own, or for you to attach the wrong one. Yet Microsoft's Browser Helper Objects allow for highly unsafe things to be attached without any warning whatsoever.
The problem isn't the people using the computer as yet another tool. The problem is that the computers aren't made for regular people to use.
Yep, this is the same reason why people still use the stock muffler and sound system that came with their car. After all, everybody knows that a responsible car owner will put in a better muffler and stereo than the default one.
can you really have problems at work in the us because you watch a "non-patriotic" website?
The "unpatriotic" bit doesn't really matter, but this part might not be the best to explain to the boss when the Nazi web filter software flags it for review:
Transcript of Long Overdue Exchange Between Vice President Dick "Christian Values Role Model" Cheney and Rage-Consumed Liberal Senator Patrick Leahy: "Tell you what, Senator Fucko - if fucking Iraq starts clamoring for fucking ice cream the way it begs for fucking electricity and fucking death, then I won't fuck you bureaucrat-style over YOUR fucking contracts to sell $50 pints of Ben & Jerry's Mink Dung Wheatgrass Fro-Yo to those fucking dune coons. OK?"
This article should take you back to the dot-com glory days. The opening paragraph:
"After an uncomfortable pause, he looked straight into the eyes of the woman he'd loved for years. As he moved in for the kiss, he caught a whiff of her shoulder and immediately thought of his computer."
What existing entries? The.iq TLD was deactivated some time ago, and currently doesn't appear to exist at all except on paper.
Perhaps so, but it looks like some domains were, in fact, registered. I'm sure there's a lot more than the twenty some-odd entries indexed by Google and someone paid for 'em.
But Iraq didn't choose to outsource its domain. ICANN made the decision for them. Abhorrent as censorship is, did they have the right to do that? Should a body like ICANN be involved in politics?
A TLD is virtual property and is owned by the creator. So whoever thought up the TLDs gets to control them. The interesting thing that could happen is if Iraq were handed control of the.iq TLD, they could simply wipe out all existing entries and decide to start fresh.
Nah, hijacking planes are passe. It's been done before and it's now expected, so why go the hard route when there are so many good targets still unguarded? Why not attack an undefended tunnel instead? In fact, it's kind of been done before, only then it was by accident. Scroll down to the "Tunnel Threatened" section with the paragraphs of blue text. Here's the summary:
"On May 13, 1949, a chemical truck loaded with 80 drums of carbon disulfide burned on the New Jersey side of the south tube, destroying wall and ceiling tiles for 600 feet."
Now this truck had eighty (!) 55 gallon drums... imagine if those were filled with purposely explosive materials, such as what was used by McVeigh. Granted, there are some restrictions imposed after 9/11, but as long as you can fit whatever explosives into an acceptably sized truck (less than 4 axles, no trailer, etc.), it shouldn't matter.
I don't know what the impact would be of destroying such a tunnel... yeah, a bunch of people in cars would die and you'd have some localized flooding, but I doubt the surrounding area would be massively flooded. Still, one hell of an inconvenience if you hit several tunnels at once in both directions.
Maybe this is why the FBI warned people to be on the lookout for people with atlases and almanacs. How about taking out several hydroelectric dams? The point is that taking over a plane is no longer all that serious.
I got that definition from dictionary.reference.com which cites the American Heritage Dictionary as its source. The thesaurus.reference.com entry similarly lists incredible which (in addition to the "not credible" definition) has synonyms such as: amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring, extraordinary, fabulous, great, wonderful, etc.
Both uses appear to be common. A quick search on CNN indicates that "incredible" is used to mean "amazing" more times than it's used to mean "not credible". Of course, the two aren't all that much different. Sometimes, something is so amazing that it almost defies credibility.
And the proper use of the word hacker pre-dates the media ideal (also known as market speak bullshit) and probably even pre-dates your being born.
I don't dispute the use of the word hacker to mean doing neat tricks (hacks) that things weren't specifically designed to do. All I'm claiming is that I've always heard the "breaks into computer systems" people being called hackers, and it's only been recently that usage of the word "cracker" has come into vogue to distinguish the good from the evil hackers.
It's altogether possible that the term cracker has been used for decades and I've only heard the term hacker. Regardless, the use of "hacker" in the malicious sense has been firmly entrenched into today's vernacular and I don't think it's going away anytime soon.
Wow, thank you for such stunning insight. From The Macintosh Bible, 1987:
"Color does make for a sexier-looking screen, but the quality on text on color monitors isn't good enough for extended word processing. In addition scrolling takes significantly longer on a color monitor than on a black-and-white monitor of the same size, and gray-scale slows things down just as much (assuming you have the same number of color and/or grays selected. So unless you are editing photographs in Adobe Photoshop or doing some other high-end graphics task, few users need color or gray-scale capabilities."
The translation here: for word processing applications, color doesn't add to usability. I'm sure I could come up with a better reference than that, if I had more time and interest.
But this isnt hacking!! THIS is hacking. What you're refereing to is cracking.
You know, it's only been within the last few years that I've heard any significant usage of the word "cracker" with regards to computer security. Before that, anyone who broke into a computer system was known as a hacker. Cracking was what you did to software to remove copy protection. Kevin Mitnick refers to himself as a hacker, and he broke into systems long before the politically correct term, cracker, came into usage.
While it's a nice effort to wish for a distinguishment between the two, the use of the word hacker for those who break into systems has long been established. Let it go, man.
Re:Depends on the kind of graffiti
on
Reverse Graffiti
·
· Score: 1
The analogy has to do with motivation. Some graffiti is done because of the thrill of spray painting where you know you shouldn't. In that case, providing an area which is okay to spray paint doesn't help as the fundamental motivation isn't satisfied.
How does the os know that I want to move an object up along the y axis instead of "back" along the z axis?
How about the use of a modifier key? No SHIFT key = move along Y axis. Hold down SHIFT key, and it moves along Z axis.
Or whatever. Really, this is a tech demo of a framework meant to inspire people to come up with their own concepts for how to manipulate windows. Don't consider what Sun has shown to be the one and only way of doing things. Just like the original Mac GUI isn't the only way to present an interface.
I mean really, rotating your windows upside down does anything for usability?
How does sticking notes to the back of windows help usability at all, when you can't see them without flipping each window around? How is this better than normal sticky/postitnotes applications?
I'm sure people said the same thing for color displays way back when. Color really doesn't do anything for usability. If you have to differentiate things with color then your interface is broken.
Or, perhaps as with color, people will eventually take these ideas and find a better way to present information. Now that the 2D barriers aren't there anymore, this will serve as inspiration for the uses which truly *do* affect usability. Calling this impractical because it's a technology demo is shortsighted.
Slashdot Mirror
Exactly - would you buy a car without test-driving it? Absolutely not. Expecting people to fork out tens of dollars on something that could very well turn out to be unstomachable crap is asking a lot.
Just to play devil's advocate here, I'm sure you do this all the time when you go to a restaurant you haven't been to before. It's easy to drop $15 or $20 on a meal and not know whether it's good. Not many places will offer you a sample of that prime rib steak you're about to order.
Another win for the virtual world. At least she's not puking her guts out like so many other 15+ year old girls.
One look at the picture in the article suggests that she's not bulimic. Or, if she is, she's not very good at it.
How does you're car's owner's manual help when you pull up to a cheap gas station and put crappy gas or cheap oil in the thing?
:)
I'm not aware of places where you can buy crappy gas. I've been to many very run-down stations with random gas and it's always worked. My car has never crashed as a result of the gas I've put in it, whether it's from Shell or Chevron, or if it's from Bob's Gas Dump. Perhaps I don't get the same performance, but it still works fine.
Yeah, I guess you can't really stop some idiot from putting diesel into her fuel injection car... but with two minutes of instruction you can at least teach people everything they need to know to safely operate a vehicle. Take a brand new car and as long as you keep filling it with gas, it's going to work for years even if you never do anything else.
Oh, and by the way... the word you're looking for is "your". Your car's owners' manual. "You're" only ever means "you are". Speaking of stupidity being the root of all evil, I thought you might like to know that.
You're right, BHO are an awful idea, but the poor design of one piece of software does not mean computers aren't meant for regular people. All a "regular" person has to do is use mozilla.
And how does the use of Mozilla educate a "regular" person if they visit a website using Mozilla and the site tells them to download X software and install it in order to play that really catchy game that everyone is enjoying? Know what? Mozilla doesn't help there either.
That explains everything... Clearly, they are using a quantum-based computer. If you try to read the data to copy it, it gets changed. Can't fault them for trying to use the newest technology, I suppose.
Yes, it's the all-new Heisenberg Data Store 2000 from Uncertain Storage Inc.
yea but lack of interest in the tools that you use daily is a recipe for disaster.
The problem is that the tools aren't made for regular people to use. Imagine if you had to know how to construct your own differential before being allowed to drive a car. The fact that 99% of people likely know little to nothing about a differential doesn't affect the millions of people every day who drive a car safely, and it shouldn't have to!
Honda doesn't go and create Wheel Helper Objects which you can attach to your wheels to give you extra traction because it would be highly unsafe to do so. It would be easy for some malicious person to attach their own, or for you to attach the wrong one. Yet Microsoft's Browser Helper Objects allow for highly unsafe things to be attached without any warning whatsoever.
The problem isn't the people using the computer as yet another tool. The problem is that the computers aren't made for regular people to use.
"laziness"
Yep, this is the same reason why people still use the stock muffler and sound system that came with their car. After all, everybody knows that a responsible car owner will put in a better muffler and stereo than the default one.
The "unpatriotic" bit doesn't really matter, but this part might not be the best to explain to the boss when the Nazi web filter software flags it for review:
This article should take you back to the dot-com glory days. The opening paragraph:
"After an uncomfortable pause, he looked straight into the eyes of the woman he'd loved for years. As he moved in for the kiss, he caught a whiff of her shoulder and immediately thought of his computer."
What existing entries? The .iq TLD was deactivated some time ago, and currently doesn't appear to exist at all except on paper.
Perhaps so, but it looks like some domains were, in fact, registered. I'm sure there's a lot more than the twenty some-odd entries indexed by Google and someone paid for 'em.
Unfortunately, it's not a joke.
Already registered. Redirects to whitehouse.gov.
Should redirect to whitehouse.org (somewhat unsafe for work -- whitehouse/christian parody).
But Iraq didn't choose to outsource its domain. ICANN made the decision for them. Abhorrent as censorship is, did they have the right to do that? Should a body like ICANN be involved in politics?
.iq TLD, they could simply wipe out all existing entries and decide to start fresh.
A TLD is virtual property and is owned by the creator. So whoever thought up the TLDs gets to control them. The interesting thing that could happen is if Iraq were handed control of the
Nah, hijacking planes are passe. It's been done before and it's now expected, so why go the hard route when there are so many good targets still unguarded? Why not attack an undefended tunnel instead? In fact, it's kind of been done before, only then it was by accident. Scroll down to the "Tunnel Threatened" section with the paragraphs of blue text. Here's the summary:
"On May 13, 1949, a chemical truck loaded with 80 drums of carbon disulfide burned on the New Jersey side of the south tube, destroying wall and ceiling tiles for 600 feet."
Now this truck had eighty (!) 55 gallon drums... imagine if those were filled with purposely explosive materials, such as what was used by McVeigh. Granted, there are some restrictions imposed after 9/11, but as long as you can fit whatever explosives into an acceptably sized truck (less than 4 axles, no trailer, etc.), it shouldn't matter.
I don't know what the impact would be of destroying such a tunnel... yeah, a bunch of people in cars would die and you'd have some localized flooding, but I doubt the surrounding area would be massively flooded. Still, one hell of an inconvenience if you hit several tunnels at once in both directions.
Maybe this is why the FBI warned people to be on the lookout for people with atlases and almanacs. How about taking out several hydroelectric dams? The point is that taking over a plane is no longer all that serious.
And I bet you think irregardless is a word too.
Nope. Go fish.
I got that definition from dictionary.reference.com which cites the American Heritage Dictionary as its source. The thesaurus.reference.com entry similarly lists incredible which (in addition to the "not credible" definition) has synonyms such as: amazing, astounding, awe-inspiring, extraordinary, fabulous, great, wonderful, etc.
Both uses appear to be common. A quick search on CNN indicates that "incredible" is used to mean "amazing" more times than it's used to mean "not credible". Of course, the two aren't all that much different. Sometimes, something is so amazing that it almost defies credibility.
Finally! The technology I need for my X-Prize entry. Scaled Composites, look out!!
And the proper use of the word hacker pre-dates the media ideal (also known as market speak bullshit) and probably even pre-dates your being born.
I don't dispute the use of the word hacker to mean doing neat tricks (hacks) that things weren't specifically designed to do. All I'm claiming is that I've always heard the "breaks into computer systems" people being called hackers, and it's only been recently that usage of the word "cracker" has come into vogue to distinguish the good from the evil hackers.
It's altogether possible that the term cracker has been used for decades and I've only heard the term hacker. Regardless, the use of "hacker" in the malicious sense has been firmly entrenched into today's vernacular and I don't think it's going away anytime soon.
Actually no, they didn't.
Wow, thank you for such stunning insight. From The Macintosh Bible, 1987:
"Color does make for a sexier-looking screen, but the quality on text on color monitors isn't good enough for extended word processing. In addition scrolling takes significantly longer on a color monitor than on a black-and-white monitor of the same size, and gray-scale slows things down just as much (assuming you have the same number of color and/or grays selected. So unless you are editing photographs in Adobe Photoshop or doing some other high-end graphics task, few users need color or gray-scale capabilities."
The translation here: for word processing applications, color doesn't add to usability. I'm sure I could come up with a better reference than that, if I had more time and interest.
But this isnt hacking!! THIS is hacking. What you're refereing to is cracking.
You know, it's only been within the last few years that I've heard any significant usage of the word "cracker" with regards to computer security. Before that, anyone who broke into a computer system was known as a hacker. Cracking was what you did to software to remove copy protection. Kevin Mitnick refers to himself as a hacker, and he broke into systems long before the politically correct term, cracker, came into usage.
While it's a nice effort to wish for a distinguishment between the two, the use of the word hacker for those who break into systems has long been established. Let it go, man.
The analogy has to do with motivation. Some graffiti is done because of the thrill of spray painting where you know you shouldn't. In that case, providing an area which is okay to spray paint doesn't help as the fundamental motivation isn't satisfied.
How does the os know that I want to move an object up along the y axis instead of "back" along the z axis?
How about the use of a modifier key? No SHIFT key = move along Y axis. Hold down SHIFT key, and it moves along Z axis.
Or whatever. Really, this is a tech demo of a framework meant to inspire people to come up with their own concepts for how to manipulate windows. Don't consider what Sun has shown to be the one and only way of doing things. Just like the original Mac GUI isn't the only way to present an interface.
I mean really, rotating your windows upside down does anything for usability?
How does sticking notes to the back of windows help usability at all, when you can't see them without flipping each window around? How is this better than normal sticky/postitnotes applications?
I'm sure people said the same thing for color displays way back when. Color really doesn't do anything for usability. If you have to differentiate things with color then your interface is broken.
Or, perhaps as with color, people will eventually take these ideas and find a better way to present information. Now that the 2D barriers aren't there anymore, this will serve as inspiration for the uses which truly *do* affect usability. Calling this impractical because it's a technology demo is shortsighted.
Incredible is a synonym for astonishing.
Perhaps you should ask for more interesting places "designated" for art?
Wouldn't that be like asking all the flashers to do their thing down at a nude beach? Kinda defeats the purpose, doesn't it?