These guys use a fabric composite; that's probably more effective than the Safariland Ballistic Clipboard made of 3/8" Lexan back in the 70's. I had one. It was big and a bit awkward -- about the size of this one. And the Lexan wasn't expected to be effective against supersonic bullets like 9mm,.357 Magnum or.44 Magnum. This Kevlar sandwich should be more effective and may be a bit lighter, but it still requires another hand. How does it integrate with a flashlight? A good cop will keep his/her weapon hand free -- just in case. At night the other hand will be holding a light. If they want to make a real winner they will incorporate a good LED light with the control(s) where the left hand is holding the clipboard. The hard part will be to make the light control simple and intuitive without accidental on (or off) events.
Did they do any research on the name? Did they even offer a deal for the name to Ballistic Clipboard, LLC?
The reference to Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" is a good one -- both ways.
Giving them both their due, neither cars nor software are perfect. Both could stand improvement. I don't see anything in this world that couldn't use a little improvement.
On the other hand, "Unsave at Any Speed" unfairly characterized Chevrolette's Corvair as poorly designed when the real problem was that many Corvair owners took no responsibility for routine maintenance. The Corvair has been called the poor man's Porche because it was a well balanced car that would perform well if its tires were properly inflated.
In the same way, much of today's software is amazingly good, especially considering the cost to acquire FLOSS. Most of the software used by people who use/. can be updated at regular intervals (like keeping the tires inflated), and most of us take advantage of those updates to keep our systems clean.
Joe Sixpack wants to surf his p0rn; he doesn't want to "waste time" with those pesky software updates. If his tires run flat he'll just buy new ones. Now let him go where he wants to go!
When was the last time we held car manufacturers liable for damage caused by potholes? Do we expect car manufacturers to keep us safe from the consequences of driving over nails or off a clif?
Yes, everything could stand some improvement, especially those silly shrink-wrap or click-wrap license agreements. I still don't see how the software that is not guaranteed to do anything useful has to be treated like the crown jewels. But that does not seem to be the focus of "Geekonomics." Let's work on reducing the targets for malware while we thank those who provide the software that works as well as it does.
So my question (and the question of many others) is why Microsoft released Vista with so many obvious problems.
You might say that is the fault of the beta testers, most of whom were probably not as interested in reporting bugs as in having the latest toy. But the beta testers' names are not on the product. They didn't release it. Ultimately it is Microsoft's responsibility to be sure the product is clean before it is released to the general public.
I'm glad they're fixing some of the problems, but I wish they had fixed more of them before general release.
You ended your post with what I consider the most obvious sign of a hoax (or worse): "...forward this to everyone you know!" I have *never* seen valid e-mail with this request. Now if we could just get our innocent friends to realize this, we would have a lot less spreading of malware. [big sigh]
I have been impressed with ClamAV on other features, but checking http://clamav-du.securesites.net/cgi-bin/clamgrok for the keywords PktLoss gave us did not produce anything even remotely useful. Since ClamAV is FOSS, perhaps someone might be interested in improving their database search. It would be a nice enhancement.
One of the UK Linux magazines just ran a review of several AV packages for Linux. ISTR ClamAV caught all the samples they offered it. This suggests their signature database is as good as anyone else's so it would make a nice foundation for the kind of search PktLoss suggests.
BTW, kudos to PktLoss for trying to help a friend. He might consider installing Windows in VMWare on BSD or Linux as a way to more easily recover from a test gone bad. It should be pretty easy to restore the OS image file that was backed up before testing the malware.
So, what [CmdrTaco] is saying is, in his view, the complaints are the problem.
Actually, if you go back and re-read the article, he is saying the volume of complaints remained nearly constant regardless of the subject of the complaint. Therefore, many complaints about spelling and grammar are not really objecting to the spelling or grammar; that just happens to be a convenient target for someone who feels the need to complain.
Any community will have members who complain. That is part of life. The way I read the article, complaints are a convenient metric. Some of us could wish for more constructive comments overall, but that is not something I'll hold my breath for.:-)
Agreed. It sounds to me like we need some way to reduce the impact of some very vocal children. Others have mentioned Friend/Foe lists and other means to reduce the clutter for each individual reader. This is good, but it seems to not go quite far enough.
Slashdot is a very democratic community. Everyone gets an equal voice. The problem is that not everyone is mature enough to participate constructively. We moderate and metamoderate, but the moderators are not always mature, just active. Perhaps what we need is some way to reduce the impact of moderators who encourage this juvenile behavior. Leaving that up to Cmdr Taco and CowboyNeal would only add fuel to the conspiracy theories.
Metamoderation should resolve the problem of inappropriate moderation, but we still have the vocal conspiracy problem so perhaps metamoderation needs to be "enhanced." What would it take to add some AI (meta)moderation that specifically looked for off-topic posts then (1) moderate down off-topic threads and (2) reduce the karma of those who post off-topic. After enough reduction in karma, those who cannot stay on-topic will not be able to moderate.
I understand your reluctance to fund Microsoft, but also consider that, as you said, their "Natural" keyboard is pretty well designed. I think of it as voting with my dollars for products I appreciate, regardless of who made them (well, almost regardless:-).
A sister in law has RSI and wears wrist braces at work with a conventional keyboard. She comes home to the original MS Natural keyboard and takes off the braces -- there is that much difference (YMMV). I bought one for home and liked it so much I bought one for work. Others a work don't want anything to do with my "weird" keyboard so a side benefit is a certain (low) level of security.
All that said, I am in the market for a better keyboard. The one I bought for work (Natural Keyboard Pro) has become oddly worn in the shift keys so that I have to reach farther to press the centers of these keys or they bind (down stroke only). This is after only 10 months or so of moderate use.
As has been said by others in this thread, quality has its price. I'm saving my pennies and keeping my eyes open for a higher quality keyboard that has at least as good a design as the MS Natural series. It's not a bad keyboard at all.
Slashdot Mirror
These guys use a fabric composite; that's probably more effective than the Safariland Ballistic Clipboard made of 3/8" Lexan back in the 70's. I had one. It was big and a bit awkward -- about the size of this one. And the Lexan wasn't expected to be effective against supersonic bullets like 9mm, .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum. This Kevlar sandwich should be more effective and may be a bit lighter, but it still requires another hand. How does it integrate with a flashlight? A good cop will keep his/her weapon hand free -- just in case. At night the other hand will be holding a light. If they want to make a real winner they will incorporate a good LED light with the control(s) where the left hand is holding the clipboard. The hard part will be to make the light control simple and intuitive without accidental on (or off) events.
Did they do any research on the name? Did they even offer a deal for the name to Ballistic Clipboard, LLC?
The reference to Ralph Nader's "Unsafe at Any Speed" is a good one -- both ways.
/. can be updated at regular intervals (like keeping the tires inflated), and most of us take advantage of those updates to keep our systems clean.
Giving them both their due, neither cars nor software are perfect. Both could stand improvement. I don't see anything in this world that couldn't use a little improvement.
On the other hand, "Unsave at Any Speed" unfairly characterized Chevrolette's Corvair as poorly designed when the real problem was that many Corvair owners took no responsibility for routine maintenance. The Corvair has been called the poor man's Porche because it was a well balanced car that would perform well if its tires were properly inflated.
In the same way, much of today's software is amazingly good, especially considering the cost to acquire FLOSS. Most of the software used by people who use
Joe Sixpack wants to surf his p0rn; he doesn't want to "waste time" with those pesky software updates. If his tires run flat he'll just buy new ones. Now let him go where he wants to go!
When was the last time we held car manufacturers liable for damage caused by potholes? Do we expect car manufacturers to keep us safe from the consequences of driving over nails or off a clif?
Yes, everything could stand some improvement, especially those silly shrink-wrap or click-wrap license agreements. I still don't see how the software that is not guaranteed to do anything useful has to be treated like the crown jewels. But that does not seem to be the focus of "Geekonomics." Let's work on reducing the targets for malware while we thank those who provide the software that works as well as it does.
So my question (and the question of many others) is why Microsoft released Vista with so many obvious problems.
You might say that is the fault of the beta testers, most of whom were probably not as interested in reporting bugs as in having the latest toy. But the beta testers' names are not on the product. They didn't release it. Ultimately it is Microsoft's responsibility to be sure the product is clean before it is released to the general public.
I'm glad they're fixing some of the problems, but I wish they had fixed more of them before general release.
You ended your post with what I consider the most obvious sign of a hoax (or worse): "...forward this to everyone you know!" I have *never* seen valid e-mail with this request. Now if we could just get our innocent friends to realize this, we would have a lot less spreading of malware. [big sigh]
I have been impressed with ClamAV on other features, but checking http://clamav-du.securesites.net/cgi-bin/clamgrok for the keywords PktLoss gave us did not produce anything even remotely useful. Since ClamAV is FOSS, perhaps someone might be interested in improving their database search. It would be a nice enhancement.
One of the UK Linux magazines just ran a review of several AV packages for Linux. ISTR ClamAV caught all the samples they offered it. This suggests their signature database is as good as anyone else's so it would make a nice foundation for the kind of search PktLoss suggests.
BTW, kudos to PktLoss for trying to help a friend. He might consider installing Windows in VMWare on BSD or Linux as a way to more easily recover from a test gone bad. It should be pretty easy to restore the OS image file that was backed up before testing the malware.
So, what [CmdrTaco] is saying is, in his view, the complaints are the problem.
Actually, if you go back and re-read the article, he is saying the volume of complaints remained nearly constant regardless of the subject of the complaint. Therefore, many complaints about spelling and grammar are not really objecting to the spelling or grammar; that just happens to be a convenient target for someone who feels the need to complain.
Any community will have members who complain. That is part of life. The way I read the article, complaints are a convenient metric. Some of us could wish for more constructive comments overall, but that is not something I'll hold my breath for. :-)
Agreed. It sounds to me like we need some way to reduce the impact of some very vocal children. Others have mentioned Friend/Foe lists and other means to reduce the clutter for each individual reader. This is good, but it seems to not go quite far enough.
Slashdot is a very democratic community. Everyone gets an equal voice. The problem is that not everyone is mature enough to participate constructively. We moderate and metamoderate, but the moderators are not always mature, just active. Perhaps what we need is some way to reduce the impact of moderators who encourage this juvenile behavior. Leaving that up to Cmdr Taco and CowboyNeal would only add fuel to the conspiracy theories.
Metamoderation should resolve the problem of inappropriate moderation, but we still have the vocal conspiracy problem so perhaps metamoderation needs to be "enhanced." What would it take to add some AI (meta)moderation that specifically looked for off-topic posts then (1) moderate down off-topic threads and (2) reduce the karma of those who post off-topic. After enough reduction in karma, those who cannot stay on-topic will not be able to moderate.
I understand your reluctance to fund Microsoft, but also consider that, as you said, their "Natural" keyboard is pretty well designed. I think of it as voting with my dollars for products I appreciate, regardless of who made them (well, almost regardless :-).
A sister in law has RSI and wears wrist braces at work with a conventional keyboard. She comes home to the original MS Natural keyboard and takes off the braces -- there is that much difference (YMMV). I bought one for home and liked it so much I bought one for work. Others a work don't want anything to do with my "weird" keyboard so a side benefit is a certain (low) level of security.
All that said, I am in the market for a better keyboard. The one I bought for work (Natural Keyboard Pro) has become oddly worn in the shift keys so that I have to reach farther to press the centers of these keys or they bind (down stroke only). This is after only 10 months or so of moderate use.
As has been said by others in this thread, quality has its price. I'm saving my pennies and keeping my eyes open for a higher quality keyboard that has at least as good a design as the MS Natural series. It's not a bad keyboard at all.