Death Row is made easier if you take the Trashmaster that's in the middle of the junkyard (although one time it wasn't there). Like Nf1nk said, the other cars just bounce right off. The helicopter is another option, although not by any means necessary.
I think The Driver isn't all that challenging... if you're a pretty good driver. Stay as close to Hilary as you can, and eventually he'll make a mistake. There's no secret, you just need to have a good feel for the physics of the game.
I agree with your sentiments, but I feel that the moral of this story has to do more with online privacy, or the lack thereof. It's kind of tough to defend an author who unethically posts a review of his own book, but it's not a slippery slope to think about how a simple error could cause privacy problems.
I know this is/. and all, but can we keep the anti-MS FUD in check?
I use XP at work, and I'm far from being a zealot. None of my close friends use Linux regularly, and I'm not about to try to convince them. Windows is flat-out better in a lot of areas. I happen to think that interface isn't one of them.
Anyhow, I have seen the issue arise more often when a file is already selected and then clicked once again. In fact, I would venture to bet that such an event is how most people discover that you can rename a file like that - accidentally.
The only reason this feature is obvious is because you're familiar with Windows. You can make an argument that the Rename option should be in that top-level menu option when you right-click on the file, but just because the Windows Way is most familiar doesn't make it best.
On a different note, a lot of distributions alias rm to rm -i in order to prevent new users from royally screwing up. I'd say that's an obfuscation (because said new users probably aren't familiar with aliases). Does that automatically make it bad?
Just checked on both Windows ME and XP, and confirmed my earlier memory of using the Right-click menu to rename files in Windows. As in Nautilus, the right click menu *does* contain the option to rename files...and I guess that's more often used than the delayed-double-click mechanism, which I think is an additional method to rename a file.
Windows does have that functionality, but I think the point of the Gnome rename interface is that you can't trigger the rename operation by the delayed double-click. Therein lies the enhancement.
I never did like the click-wait-click way of renaming in Windows (don't have much experience with OS X). As the article points out, it's often triggered accidentally, and it can be frustrating. Not only that, it's confusing to new users ("Wait, I thought I double-click to open something, not to rename it.").
The article may have some valid comments, but when it starts off with an obviously overlooked point, it loses credibility to me. Kudos to the Gnome team though, for all it's good work.
I don't think it was intentionally overlooked. I'm sure the Gnome developers are quite aware that you can right-click and choose Rename from within Windows. If anything, the article could have been a little more clear with the fact that the feature is removal of poorly-conceived functionality rather than the addition of the right-click option.
I had the back part of the screen on my Inspiron 5000e replaced under warranty. They could have easily refused the repair, although the laptop certainly hadn't been abused. The point at which the hinge attached to the back part of the flip-up screen wasn't well designed, and I didn't have much problem getting Dell to send somebody out to fix it. A friend of mine who works at Dell used my pictures in a meeting to discuss the problem with other design engineers. He said they see a ton of the same thing.
Now if only I could do something about the hdd controller on the thing...
Can you imagine someone writing "Oracle, Sybase and Postgres were compared. While the data and workloads were different, all products performed enough work to assess thier capabilities."
A very large sample of mail would negate almost all of the differences caused by using a different set of mail, but I get the feeling that each of these servers ran for about a day and the results were gleaned from that.
I don't know anything about Brightmail. Spamassassin end user whitelists entries can be set up in a number of ways.
...and it ain't that hard.
As aluded to in the summary, this is false with modern versions of Spamassassin, which uses Baysian filtering. (The author later says he couldn't get it working.)
Maybe I'm missing something or taking things that I consider basic for granted, but Bayesian filtering with SA is about as straightforward as it gets, except that instead of clicking a few buttons, you run one short command.
While it is true that one must be comfortable with a text editor to configure Spamassassin, thus perhaps putting it out of reach of point-and-click admins and technical journalists, I also wouldn't be prone to put my mail servers in the hands of either of those groups of people.
I think we've all known these types, and unfortunately they're more widespread than we'd like to think. Many simple solutions such as SA are ruled out because the admin doesn't have the skill to implement them. Note to any managers reading this: hire people with a solid background in the field, not those who list single-platform applications on their resume as "skills." Software changes, but a good administrator has the ability to adapt.
[SpamAssassin] filtered only 62 percent of spam, whereas the other products produced great results, blocking 90 percent to 96 percent of all the spam they encountered with few, if any, legitimate messages blocked.
To me, this statement is pretty telling. Harbaugh must get some completely different kinds of spam than me, because, even though I receive about 60 spam mails a day (directed to my "spam" folder, so I never see them until I scan the "From:" field and then delete them), maybe one per week makes it through the filter. And seeing as how I can't even remember the last time I got a false positive, that's a pretty damn good number.
I can believe that if you receive a variety of mail and if you took no time to configure SpamAssassin other than cranking it up, maybe then it'll only catch 80% of the spam. But 62%? I'm not sure if Harbaugh is skewing the benchmarks or if he just doesn't know what he's doing.
There are some legitimate issues with SpamAssassin that might not make it ready for the enterprise, but for a handful of users, I have been more than satisfied. And the price is right.
There's a pretty funny article over at Something Awful today about organization. The following quote sums up my thoughts on the subject quite nicely: Basically, I'm the world's laziest obsessive-compulsive.
...and one of the many conclusions drawn from seeing what is contained in, well, a container:
Conclusion: A colony of ants has set up shop in my filing cabinet, accepting damp cigarette butts in exchange for crafted rodent accessories. Their queen enjoys writing words alphabetically. At some point in my life that I don't remember I had an intense fetish for kettle voyeur photography.
I'm surprised I haven't seen this mentioned, but here's what I would do:
The university has probably "got you" in the sense that their AUP more than likely says that network resources must be used for school-related activities. This is, of course, selectively enforced when need be. Since the school has apparently associated Kazaa with "not school-related" (okay, that's not exactly a stretch), I'd share my class notes on Kazaa. Don't download anything, just share something that (1) you have the right to distribute, and (2) is unquestionably related to the school's academic mission.
They'll "catch" you, you can play dumb, they'll realize that you're smarter than you're letting on, and hopefully that will lead to a change in policy. You're paying for that network access. If they want to revoke it, ask them to show you in writing what clause you are violating. If they still refuse to play ball, take it to your student government and/or the campus newspaper. Be warned, however, that the IT policy makers will lose face from it (and rightfully so), so you may be a marked man in their eyes for the rest of your career at UF.
Amusing story: the opposite happened to me, where I was accused of something because I was the least clueful. I believe this was 8th grade, but an email (apparently a tasteless joke, although I never saw it) was sent from a friend @myschool.edu to a half a dozen other people @myschool.edu. Apparently someone forwarded the joke to a listserv, and that listserv's moderator fired off an email to abuse@myschool.edu
So we got called into the office of the Dean (this was prep school) who oversaw computer-related issues (not very well). He questioned us about the email, trying to find out who forwarded it. I didn't even know what a listserv was at the time, and told him so. He concluded that since nobody else said they did it (honor system and all), I must have done it, accidentally.
We got punished as a group, having to write a few paragraphs on why what we did was wrong. Yeah, didn't make much sense to me at the time, either.
About 90% of the posts prior to mine say something to the effect of, "If he hasn't contacted them, how could he have harassed them?" I think the objective thing to do is at least consider the fact that Gamespy could be telling the truth. Most posts related to this response are really dealing with semantics. This response from "Mark" was obviously almost casual in nature, so it's not a stretch to think that he may have accidentally contradicted himself with his words.
I admit that the way most of these things work out, it's likely that the company is in the wrong (not responding to bug disclosure and overreacting when the exploits get posted). But don't take everything you read on Slashdot as gospel.
Before you flame put yourself in the other guy's shoes, and before you mod me down consider if you're doing it because you disagree with me.
"Did you watch the game on Sunday? Wow!" mindless sheep.."
I was under the impression that I enjoyed watching sports purely as a form of entertainment (and that entertainment includes discussing sports with friends). Now, through the insight of your post, I realize that I have simply been following the herd. I shall hereby resign my fan status, and retire to Slashdot, where I will post only things that will be accepted as mainstream geek.
Whew, I almost fell in with those sports fan sheep who always say things because they think that's what others want to hear. Good thing I'm away from that and safe here on Slashdot.
If you haven't heard much about this lately, Salon.com recently ran an article detailing some of the injustices done by police at the instruction of the Secret Service. Saturday they posted some letters sent in by readers.
Note: you'll have to watch the brief commercial to get access to Salon, but once you do, you'll have full access to the premium content.
Additionally, the ACLU has filed motions (I believe that's the right term) on behalf of several protestors affected in this way, but I can't find a reference to the press release.
You know, the allowance is really just a derivative of the gift certificate. A recurring gift certificate (sounds a little better than saying you're paying for an account or subscription) sounds like a great marketing technique. There's nothing really groundbreaking about it, it's just a solid way to generate sales.
But the more I think about it, the more I think that iTunes can be big for Apple. They seem to have done iTunes right. Combine that with the fact that the iPod is heavily cherished/desired, and Apple is set up for a great holiday season.
And not only that, but this "hip with kids" name recognition will probably generate a lot more computer sales around the same time. Little Jimmy is dying for an iPod and could use a new computer as well? Let's get him a G5 to match the iPod, and a year's allowance of 20 songs per month.
I know there have been a lot of "this is what's going to allow [insert company name here] to gain some serious footing in the marketplace" talk around here, but it seems to me that it might actually come to fruition for Apple.
As has been uttered many times, these kinds of cases could be like setting a teeball stand up for Sammy Sosa (sorry, got to tie it in to current events). We laughed about ROT-13 being a security system so trivial that we couldn't believe Adobe would claim it as such.
Even more so than that, anybody can understand how poor and overly broad the DMCA is.
Try telling non-geek members of your family that some Princeton kid is being prosecuted for pointing out that holding down the shift key can defeat a CD's copy protection. Now, if your family is a Yale legacy, be prepared for "How many Princeton students does it take to drop a company's stock 20%?" jokes.
With events like this putting the DMCA in the public's eye, I think the subject might become a topic come election time.
Ethics and law are two entirely different (and sometimes diametrically opposed) things.
Very true.
It is not illegal to set out a machine to be compromised.
Perhaps not criminally illegal, but I believe the owner could certainly be held liable for damages. Imagine if a virus writer put a destructive virus on a stack of floppies and left them precariously around a public computer lab. When the program on one of those disks gets run by some curious person, don't you feel that the virus writer is at least somewhat liable, even though he didn't "pull the trigger"?
Slashdot Mirror
"How about a tiny but exciting..."
And yes, the robot was male. I can't remember if he's the one who spoke German or not.
Joe's Garage acts I, II, and III: Truly a great work.
PLAINTIFF, Real Networks, Inc. hereby does... ::Buffering...::Buffering...::
Dude, that was a famous old urban-myth email chain letter hoaxes.
Actually, that one is much older than the web, according to my grandmother. It's been around the snail-mail circuit YEARS ago.
(Very minor spoilers below)
Death Row is made easier if you take the Trashmaster that's in the middle of the junkyard (although one time it wasn't there). Like Nf1nk said, the other cars just bounce right off. The helicopter is another option, although not by any means necessary.
I think The Driver isn't all that challenging... if you're a pretty good driver. Stay as close to Hilary as you can, and eventually he'll make a mistake. There's no secret, you just need to have a good feel for the physics of the game.
I didn't know Richard Gere had a /. account.
I know, I know, the first time you heard that one you almost fell off your dinosaur...
I agree with your sentiments, but I feel that the moral of this story has to do more with online privacy, or the lack thereof. It's kind of tough to defend an author who unethically posts a review of his own book, but it's not a slippery slope to think about how a simple error could cause privacy problems.
I know this is /. and all, but can we keep the anti-MS FUD in check?
I use XP at work, and I'm far from being a zealot. None of my close friends use Linux regularly, and I'm not about to try to convince them. Windows is flat-out better in a lot of areas. I happen to think that interface isn't one of them.
Anyhow, I have seen the issue arise more often when a file is already selected and then clicked once again. In fact, I would venture to bet that such an event is how most people discover that you can rename a file like that - accidentally.
The only reason this feature is obvious is because you're familiar with Windows. You can make an argument that the Rename option should be in that top-level menu option when you right-click on the file, but just because the Windows Way is most familiar doesn't make it best.
On a different note, a lot of distributions alias rm to rm -i in order to prevent new users from royally screwing up. I'd say that's an obfuscation (because said new users probably aren't familiar with aliases). Does that automatically make it bad?
Just checked on both Windows ME and XP, and confirmed my earlier memory of using the Right-click menu to rename files in Windows. As in Nautilus, the right click menu *does* contain the option to rename files...and I guess that's more often used than the delayed-double-click mechanism, which I think is an additional method to rename a file.
Windows does have that functionality, but I think the point of the Gnome rename interface is that you can't trigger the rename operation by the delayed double-click. Therein lies the enhancement.
I never did like the click-wait-click way of renaming in Windows (don't have much experience with OS X). As the article points out, it's often triggered accidentally, and it can be frustrating. Not only that, it's confusing to new users ("Wait, I thought I double-click to open something, not to rename it.").
The article may have some valid comments, but when it starts off with an obviously overlooked point, it loses credibility to me. Kudos to the Gnome team though, for all it's good work.
I don't think it was intentionally overlooked. I'm sure the Gnome developers are quite aware that you can right-click and choose Rename from within Windows. If anything, the article could have been a little more clear with the fact that the feature is removal of poorly-conceived functionality rather than the addition of the right-click option.
I had the back part of the screen on my Inspiron 5000e replaced under warranty. They could have easily refused the repair, although the laptop certainly hadn't been abused. The point at which the hinge attached to the back part of the flip-up screen wasn't well designed, and I didn't have much problem getting Dell to send somebody out to fix it. A friend of mine who works at Dell used my pictures in a meeting to discuss the problem with other design engineers. He said they see a ton of the same thing.
Now if only I could do something about the hdd controller on the thing...
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,1484,00. html
Can you imagine someone writing "Oracle, Sybase and Postgres were compared. While the data and workloads were different, all products performed enough work to assess thier capabilities."
...and it ain't that hard.
A very large sample of mail would negate almost all of the differences caused by using a different set of mail, but I get the feeling that each of these servers ran for about a day and the results were gleaned from that.
I don't know anything about Brightmail. Spamassassin end user whitelists entries can be set up in a number of ways.
As aluded to in the summary, this is false with modern versions of Spamassassin, which uses Baysian filtering. (The author later says he couldn't get it working.)
Maybe I'm missing something or taking things that I consider basic for granted, but Bayesian filtering with SA is about as straightforward as it gets, except that instead of clicking a few buttons, you run one short command.
While it is true that one must be comfortable with a text editor to configure Spamassassin, thus perhaps putting it out of reach of point-and-click admins and technical journalists, I also wouldn't be prone to put my mail servers in the hands of either of those groups of people.
I think we've all known these types, and unfortunately they're more widespread than we'd like to think. Many simple solutions such as SA are ruled out because the admin doesn't have the skill to implement them. Note to any managers reading this: hire people with a solid background in the field, not those who list single-platform applications on their resume as "skills." Software changes, but a good administrator has the ability to adapt.
[SpamAssassin] filtered only 62 percent of spam, whereas the other products produced great results, blocking 90 percent to 96 percent of all the spam they encountered with few, if any, legitimate messages blocked.
To me, this statement is pretty telling. Harbaugh must get some completely different kinds of spam than me, because, even though I receive about 60 spam mails a day (directed to my "spam" folder, so I never see them until I scan the "From:" field and then delete them), maybe one per week makes it through the filter. And seeing as how I can't even remember the last time I got a false positive, that's a pretty damn good number.
I can believe that if you receive a variety of mail and if you took no time to configure SpamAssassin other than cranking it up, maybe then it'll only catch 80% of the spam. But 62%? I'm not sure if Harbaugh is skewing the benchmarks or if he just doesn't know what he's doing.
There are some legitimate issues with SpamAssassin that might not make it ready for the enterprise, but for a handful of users, I have been more than satisfied. And the price is right.
There's a pretty funny article over at Something Awful today about organization. The following quote sums up my thoughts on the subject quite nicely: Basically, I'm the world's laziest obsessive-compulsive.
...and one of the many conclusions drawn from seeing what is contained in, well, a container:
Conclusion: A colony of ants has set up shop in my filing cabinet, accepting damp cigarette butts in exchange for crafted rodent accessories. Their queen enjoys writing words alphabetically. At some point in my life that I don't remember I had an intense fetish for kettle voyeur photography.
I'm surprised I haven't seen this mentioned, but here's what I would do:
The university has probably "got you" in the sense that their AUP more than likely says that network resources must be used for school-related activities. This is, of course, selectively enforced when need be. Since the school has apparently associated Kazaa with "not school-related" (okay, that's not exactly a stretch), I'd share my class notes on Kazaa. Don't download anything, just share something that (1) you have the right to distribute, and (2) is unquestionably related to the school's academic mission.
They'll "catch" you, you can play dumb, they'll realize that you're smarter than you're letting on, and hopefully that will lead to a change in policy. You're paying for that network access. If they want to revoke it, ask them to show you in writing what clause you are violating. If they still refuse to play ball, take it to your student government and/or the campus newspaper. Be warned, however, that the IT policy makers will lose face from it (and rightfully so), so you may be a marked man in their eyes for the rest of your career at UF.
Amusing story: the opposite happened to me, where I was accused of something because I was the least clueful. I believe this was 8th grade, but an email (apparently a tasteless joke, although I never saw it) was sent from a friend @myschool.edu to a half a dozen other people @myschool.edu. Apparently someone forwarded the joke to a listserv, and that listserv's moderator fired off an email to abuse@myschool.edu
So we got called into the office of the Dean (this was prep school) who oversaw computer-related issues (not very well). He questioned us about the email, trying to find out who forwarded it. I didn't even know what a listserv was at the time, and told him so. He concluded that since nobody else said they did it (honor system and all), I must have done it, accidentally.
We got punished as a group, having to write a few paragraphs on why what we did was wrong. Yeah, didn't make much sense to me at the time, either.
About 90% of the posts prior to mine say something to the effect of, "If he hasn't contacted them, how could he have harassed them?" I think the objective thing to do is at least consider the fact that Gamespy could be telling the truth. Most posts related to this response are really dealing with semantics. This response from "Mark" was obviously almost casual in nature, so it's not a stretch to think that he may have accidentally contradicted himself with his words.
I admit that the way most of these things work out, it's likely that the company is in the wrong (not responding to bug disclosure and overreacting when the exploits get posted). But don't take everything you read on Slashdot as gospel.
Before you flame put yourself in the other guy's shoes, and before you mod me down consider if you're doing it because you disagree with me.
"Did you watch the game on Sunday? Wow!" mindless sheep.."
I was under the impression that I enjoyed watching sports purely as a form of entertainment (and that entertainment includes discussing sports with friends). Now, through the insight of your post, I realize that I have simply been following the herd. I shall hereby resign my fan status, and retire to Slashdot, where I will post only things that will be accepted as mainstream geek.
Whew, I almost fell in with those sports fan sheep who always say things because they think that's what others want to hear. Good thing I'm away from that and safe here on Slashdot.
Jeez, even if that's all somebody did it would be worth paying someone $20,000/year just to avoid serious cock-ups like this one.
This marks the second time I've seen the word/phrase "cock-ups" used in a sentence. The first time was when I read the article this morning.
Is that some sort of across the pond thing? Because I can tell you what it means on this side of the Atlantic...
From what I can remember from my learnin' days, in order to successfully argue that someone has committed libel, you need to prove three things:
1. What was written is false.
2. The person who wrote it knew it was false.
3. Damage was caused by what was written.
Perhaps someone who doesn't need to prepend a statement with "IANAL" can clarify and expound.
If you haven't heard much about this lately, Salon.com recently ran an article detailing some of the injustices done by police at the instruction of the Secret Service. Saturday they posted some letters sent in by readers.
Note: you'll have to watch the brief commercial to get access to Salon, but once you do, you'll have full access to the premium content.
Additionally, the ACLU has filed motions (I believe that's the right term) on behalf of several protestors affected in this way, but I can't find a reference to the press release.
You know, the allowance is really just a derivative of the gift certificate. A recurring gift certificate (sounds a little better than saying you're paying for an account or subscription) sounds like a great marketing technique. There's nothing really groundbreaking about it, it's just a solid way to generate sales.
But the more I think about it, the more I think that iTunes can be big for Apple. They seem to have done iTunes right. Combine that with the fact that the iPod is heavily cherished/desired, and Apple is set up for a great holiday season.
And not only that, but this "hip with kids" name recognition will probably generate a lot more computer sales around the same time. Little Jimmy is dying for an iPod and could use a new computer as well? Let's get him a G5 to match the iPod, and a year's allowance of 20 songs per month.
I know there have been a lot of "this is what's going to allow [insert company name here] to gain some serious footing in the marketplace" talk around here, but it seems to me that it might actually come to fruition for Apple.
I am guessing his lawyers explained to him in simple words his chances of winning that lawsuit...
If by "simple words" you mean "vociferous laughter", you're probably right.
Lawyer: Wait, let me get this straight... you want to sue him for WHAT?
Thank Jebus for corporate idiocy.
As has been uttered many times, these kinds of cases could be like setting a teeball stand up for Sammy Sosa (sorry, got to tie it in to current events). We laughed about ROT-13 being a security system so trivial that we couldn't believe Adobe would claim it as such.
Even more so than that, anybody can understand how poor and overly broad the DMCA is.
Try telling non-geek members of your family that some Princeton kid is being prosecuted for pointing out that holding down the shift key can defeat a CD's copy protection. Now, if your family is a Yale legacy, be prepared for "How many Princeton students does it take to drop a company's stock 20%?" jokes.
With events like this putting the DMCA in the public's eye, I think the subject might become a topic come election time.
Ethics and law are two entirely different (and sometimes diametrically opposed) things.
Very true.
It is not illegal to set out a machine to be compromised.
Perhaps not criminally illegal, but I believe the owner could certainly be held liable for damages. Imagine if a virus writer put a destructive virus on a stack of floppies and left them precariously around a public computer lab. When the program on one of those disks gets run by some curious person, don't you feel that the virus writer is at least somewhat liable, even though he didn't "pull the trigger"?