Assuming this is the same AC, who is the same as the moderator, but it's a fair bet at this stage...
That's the best you can come up with, after being decisively shown to be wrong in two different ways? Amazing. The "coward" in "anonymous coward" just keeps getting more appropriate, it seems...
I'm happy to have you waste a mod-point on something irrelevant. You could have screwed up on a post that was actually important, either by your poor reading comprehension or not being able to compare two times. Hopefully, once M2 is done with this, you won't get another one for a while.
If ever there was a time when the Overload joke is on topic, that was it...:)
I was just thinking the same thing. At first glance, the first one should have been modded up (but perhaps not all the way to 5), and the rest modded down as "redundant." However, a straightforward application of this joke can't really be justifiably modded up anymore, even if giant ant overlords really were taking over. It's just not funny, informative, or insightful now.
So in conclusion I suppose I'm saying that I for one welcome our new moderator overlords...
Just yesterday a friend of mine with an degree in economics was talking about the push in that field to move much of the work offshore.
This applies to any profession - there is no "safe" field. Look at law - despite what television tells you, most people with law degrees aren't engaging in clever courtroom rhetoric all day, or even at all, but doing "back office" stuff. This, too, can be offshored in time.
I'm not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, or that I have any answers, but it *is* obvious that saying "just get a new career in accounting/law/marketing/whatever!" is naive because there is no strictly "safe" field to start with, and never will be.
When first looking at the story title write up, I was aghast to see that someone would try to claim that they had patented Cascading Style Sheets.
Aside: Perhaps it would help if these story write ups contained slightly more than zero information? If we have to read the article to figure out what the story is even about, perhaps/. should give up on story titles and descriptions and just post raw HTML links. When submitting a story, at least try to imagine that people aren't as obsessed over the whole DVD thing (or whatever you're reporting on) as you and might not automatically know or care what "DVDCCA" is. It would have taken one well-written sentence to provide the context.
This is a browser issue that has nothing to do with Verisign/Sitefinder. Don't like how IE handles it? I don't blame you. There are other things I don't like about IE, which is why I use Opera. However, disliking MS or IE is no reason to make up fiction and try to pass it off as truth.
I never made stuff up, or tried to pass it off as truth. You need to go back, and see that I said "IIRC" before that all-important (too you) sentence. I honestly only remembered it jumping to the search page - perhaps that time I'd done a typo like "slashdotorg" or something. If you do something like that, you go straight to a search results page.
You shouldn't jump to conclusions about whether I'm trying to bash MS for fun. I don't particularly hate MS or IE. I just prefer Unix-like systems, as that's my background and I find it a nice developer environment.
I was only trying to work out what Firefox was doing, in fact, which is what this whole thing was about for me. That's all I was really interested in - I only mentioned IE's behaviour because I didn't think Firefox did that and was trying to work out why the poster thought it did.
BTW, I'm not a clown - just a juggler.:^) I'm a grown up with a bad attitude about people who just make things up. If you are going to get upset when people point out that what you are posting is, in fact, not true, perhaps you should be a bit more honest when you post in the first place. I'm not trying to piss you off, but what you said is simply not true.
Again, I did say "IIRC". "If I recall correctly." I could only remember it going off to some search site or other - I *thought* that was fairly clear. I wasn't just making stuff up for fun or out of hatred of Redmond or whatever - that's what just I remembered, but since I couldn't check I stuck IIRC in front, so I consider that statement to be completely honest.
An aside - IE *still* goes off to another site in order to display this "error message" though. That's just as bad as rushing off to a search results page to me. It shouldn't go to *any* site, but just display an error dialog!
Regardless, you're (sic) claim is that they redirect and don't even tell you they did it
Look at the URL. It clearly takes you to search.ninemsn.com.au. That is the fundamental problem. Understand? Try it with something where the search succeeds, and you won't even see an error. But error or not, going to another page is behaviour that is just broken.
Again, I call bullshit. Tell the truth, and you won't get pissed off when people say "That's not true".
Honestly I don't have time to respond to this nonsense if you can't behave like a grown-up person. I refuse to waste my time on clowns, so spew your vitriol in your reply if you like, but I won't be responding.
If you type in a proper domain name, IE will just give you a "This page cannot be displayed - Cannot find server or DNS Error". It only tries to do a search if you type in non domain name type expressions. eg a phrase with spaces or a single word without any dots in it which doesn't match a local host
Please *try* these things before posting misleading rubbish
Looks like it wasn't rubbish at all, doesn't it? And other people report exactly the same thing.
that will only spark further trollish messages
The irony is killing me. Now, since I'm not a reactionary zealot, I'm not going to assume you are being deliberately misleading, but that there's some difference between versions of MSIE and the guessing games they play with the URL field.
Other people have had similar results. It's worth noting that this guy, like me, appears to be in Australia (he was taken to ninemsn.com.au). So perhaps the guessing that IE does has been altered slightly for our version? I'll try it next time I get the chance.
Anyway, this is all right here, posted long before your "contribution", so perhaps you should have read that and so been better informed before you over-reacted?
If it's going to do this, it should pop up a dialog the first time, explaining what it's doing, and give you the chance to turn it off right then and there.
Bizarre. I guess I really *did* enter a URL, and it went to a search engine, as I recalled.
I guess, if nothing else, this effectively illustrates the problems with taking actions based on what is basically a guess.
If we can't figure out what it's going to do, and get what appear to be contradictory results, what chance does the average user have? The right way to do this is to have a separate text field for searching, which is linked to a search engine that you can select. Then there would be no more guessing games, and no more unintended and annoying behaviour.
I'm equally annoyed that Firefox does this. If anything, their mistake is worse as now there's even a search field next to the URL field. Since that's sitting right there, I *don't* expect the URL field to be doing searches as well.
Please *try* these things before posting misleading rubbish that will only spark further trollish messages.
If I had Windows available here, I would have. That's why I put "IIRC" in there. I was certainly right, in that it *sometimes* (depending on some text analysis) whisks you off to a search page. That's what I was recalling.
I just wasn't able to replicate it in Firebird as I didn't understand that it (and MSIE) was differentiating between "proper text" and domain names.
However, I actually consider this behaviour to be bad in *both* browsers, so just take a deep breath and settle down a bit.
Ah, I see. My text was clearly a URL. I guess this must mean I've never put anything else except a URL into the location field, as I've never noticed this before.
Anyway, I consider this behaviour being "on" by default to be a misfeature. I might raise it with the dev team. Still, as others have pointed out, it can be switched off or pointed somewhere else. Whereas, we're told, in MSIE can't be.
I just tried a domain name that doesn't exist, and instead of being taken to Google or any other place, I saw a "www.randomdomainname.org not found" dialog box instead. It doesn't even give me an option to feed it to a search engine from there.
IIRC, IE will take you immediately to a search engine without displaying any error message. This is the annoying and broken behaviour that the OP was talking about.
Perhaps you've installed a plug-in or extension that is doing this?
Also, M$'s way sends you back to a Microsoft page - which is expected
No, it isn't. I expect it to say "domain name not found". End of story.
Galvin said that the continued opposition stems from "an ideological belief by a narrow section of the technological community who don't believe you should innovate the core infrastructure of the Internet."
In our recent article a number of mistakes slipped past our content review processes. In this case "destroy" was incorrectly spelled "innovate". Also "ideological" clearly was meant be "correct". Likewise "narrow section" appeared instead of "all".
We apologise for these errors and any confusion they might have caused.
Tighter controls on circumventing technological protection of copyright material together with a mechanism for examining and as necessary introducing public interest exceptions in relation to technological protection measures, along with a transition period to provide the opportunity for public submissions in this area, as well as other measures in relation to circumvention tools
From this paragraph, it appears that the government would actually like to hear what the problems are with legislation that outlaws software that might potentially be used to infringe others "intellectual property". At least they are aware that this may cause problems, and I see this as a good thing.
So, Australian/. readers, get *off*/. and get cracking on those submissions! Or, perhaps, get involved with some organization that's likely to put together such a submission and contribute. Or at least let them know it's an important issue. The Australian Computer Society might be a good place to start, for example. While you won't get rid of this completely, you may help mitigate it so that it's not ridiculously sweeping or draconian.
All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men only rant on Slashdot (or something).
"Computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes" -Edsgar Dijkstra
That's not to say that, however, that understanding machine code is not a useful skill, but it is certainly the wrong approach to teaching "computer science." When searching for this quote, I found this page which outlines why "computer science" is not about "hardware" at all.
Sun have been promising generics for Java since 1997, and I have been patiently waiting for it all this time.
I haven't had the chance to look at C# in detail yet, but it's certainly no co-incidence that these features finally saw renewed activity after C# appeared. So, thanks, MS, for applying a little competitive pressure onto Sun for us:)
I'm also a little disappointed to see just how similar Java generics are to C++'s templates. I was hoping that we were waiting for a *reason*, and that reason might be because it was a new and interesting approach. But, at least superficially, this looks almost exactly like C++ templates, with all the positives and negatives that go along with that.
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming this is the same AC, who is the same as the moderator, but it's a fair bet at this stage ...
...
That's the best you can come up with, after being decisively shown to be wrong in two different ways? Amazing. The "coward" in "anonymous coward" just keeps getting more appropriate, it seems
I'm happy to have you waste a mod-point on something irrelevant. You could have screwed up on a post that was actually important, either by your poor reading comprehension or not being able to compare two times. Hopefully, once M2 is done with this, you won't get another one for a while.
First you say:
if only the irony wasn't lost on you.
Then you say:
(at least in the page layout, didn't check the times)
Well done! Perhaps you should have?
I was wondering how many moderators wouldn't actually read the post properly. That's one "redundant" mod now, and counting.
If ever there was a time when the Overload joke is on topic, that was it... :)
...
I was just thinking the same thing. At first glance, the first one should have been modded up (but perhaps not all the way to 5), and the rest modded down as "redundant." However, a straightforward application of this joke can't really be justifiably modded up anymore, even if giant ant overlords really were taking over. It's just not funny, informative, or insightful now.
So in conclusion I suppose I'm saying that I for one welcome our new moderator overlords
No, it was briefly +5, but then got modded back down.
This is an old /. "joke."
;)
At this point I'll re-use another tired old catch-phrase, which is described on the very same Wikipedia page - "you must be new here"
... do not welcome our template joke instantiating overlords!
:( Anyway, I predict this story will set some sort of record for invocation of this template.
Oh, wait, that's me now as well
Martin: I would've thought that being hit by an atomic bomb would've killed him.
Bart: Now you know better.
Just yesterday a friend of mine with an degree in economics was talking about the push in that field to move much of the work offshore.
This applies to any profession - there is no "safe" field. Look at law - despite what television tells you, most people with law degrees aren't engaging in clever courtroom rhetoric all day, or even at all, but doing "back office" stuff. This, too, can be offshored in time.
I'm not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, or that I have any answers, but it *is* obvious that saying "just get a new career in accounting/law/marketing/whatever!" is naive because there is no strictly "safe" field to start with, and never will be.
When first looking at the story title write up, I was aghast to see that someone would try to claim that they had patented Cascading Style Sheets.
/. should give up on story titles and descriptions and just post raw HTML links. When submitting a story, at least try to imagine that people aren't as obsessed over the whole DVD thing (or whatever you're reporting on) as you and might not automatically know or care what "DVDCCA" is. It would have taken one well-written sentence to provide the context.
Aside: Perhaps it would help if these story write ups contained slightly more than zero information? If we have to read the article to figure out what the story is even about, perhaps
This is a browser issue that has nothing to do with Verisign/Sitefinder. Don't like how IE handles it? I don't blame you. There are other things I don't like about IE, which is why I use Opera. However, disliking MS or IE is no reason to make up fiction and try to pass it off as truth.
:^) I'm a grown up with a bad attitude about people who just make things up. If you are going to get upset when people point out that what you are posting is, in fact, not true, perhaps you should be a bit more honest when you post in the first place. I'm not trying to piss you off, but what you said is simply not true.
I never made stuff up, or tried to pass it off as truth. You need to go back, and see that I said "IIRC" before that all-important (too you) sentence. I honestly only remembered it jumping to the search page - perhaps that time I'd done a typo like "slashdotorg" or something. If you do something like that, you go straight to a search results page.
You shouldn't jump to conclusions about whether I'm trying to bash MS for fun. I don't particularly hate MS or IE. I just prefer Unix-like systems, as that's my background and I find it a nice developer environment.
I was only trying to work out what Firefox was doing, in fact, which is what this whole thing was about for me. That's all I was really interested in - I only mentioned IE's behaviour because I didn't think Firefox did that and was trying to work out why the poster thought it did.
BTW, I'm not a clown - just a juggler.
Again, I did say "IIRC". "If I recall correctly." I could only remember it going off to some search site or other - I *thought* that was fairly clear. I wasn't just making stuff up for fun or out of hatred of Redmond or whatever - that's what just I remembered, but since I couldn't check I stuck IIRC in front, so I consider that statement to be completely honest.
An aside - IE *still* goes off to another site in order to display this "error message" though. That's just as bad as rushing off to a search results page to me. It shouldn't go to *any* site, but just display an error dialog!
Regardless, you're (sic) claim is that they redirect and don't even tell you they did it
Look at the URL. It clearly takes you to search.ninemsn.com.au. That is the fundamental problem. Understand? Try it with something where the search succeeds, and you won't even see an error. But error or not, going to another page is behaviour that is just broken.
Again, I call bullshit. Tell the truth, and you won't get pissed off when people say "That's not true".
Honestly I don't have time to respond to this nonsense if you can't behave like a grown-up person. I refuse to waste my time on clowns, so spew your vitriol in your reply if you like, but I won't be responding.
If you type in a proper domain name, IE will just give you a "This page cannot be displayed - Cannot find server or DNS Error". It only tries to do a search if you type in non domain name type expressions. eg a phrase with spaces or a single word without any dots in it which doesn't match a local host
= DN SAS&q=www.randomdomainname.org
This doesn't appear to be true.
If I enter "www.randomdomainname.org", I get:
http://search.ninemsn.com.au/dnserror.aspx?FORM
Please *try* these things before posting misleading rubbish
Looks like it wasn't rubbish at all, doesn't it? And other people report exactly the same thing.
that will only spark further trollish messages
The irony is killing me. Now, since I'm not a reactionary zealot, I'm not going to assume you are being deliberately misleading, but that there's some difference between versions of MSIE and the guessing games they play with the URL field.
Under IE6, entering "www.randomdomainname.org" into the URL field takes me to:
= DN SAS&q=www.randomdomainname.org
http://search.ninemsn.com.au/dnserror.aspx?FORM
Really?
Other people have had similar results. It's worth noting that this guy, like me, appears to be in Australia (he was taken to ninemsn.com.au). So perhaps the guessing that IE does has been altered slightly for our version? I'll try it next time I get the chance.
Anyway, this is all right here, posted long before your "contribution", so perhaps you should have read that and so been better informed before you over-reacted?
If it's going to do this, it should pop up a dialog the first time, explaining what it's doing, and give you the chance to turn it off right then and there.
Bizarre. I guess I really *did* enter a URL, and it went to a search engine, as I recalled.
I guess, if nothing else, this effectively illustrates the problems with taking actions based on what is basically a guess.
If we can't figure out what it's going to do, and get what appear to be contradictory results, what chance does the average user have? The right way to do this is to have a separate text field for searching, which is linked to a search engine that you can select. Then there would be no more guessing games, and no more unintended and annoying behaviour.
I'm equally annoyed that Firefox does this. If anything, their mistake is worse as now there's even a search field next to the URL field. Since that's sitting right there, I *don't* expect the URL field to be doing searches as well.
Please *try* these things before posting misleading rubbish that will only spark further trollish messages.
If I had Windows available here, I would have. That's why I put "IIRC" in there. I was certainly right, in that it *sometimes* (depending on some text analysis) whisks you off to a search page. That's what I was recalling.
I just wasn't able to replicate it in Firebird as I didn't understand that it (and MSIE) was differentiating between "proper text" and domain names.
However, I actually consider this behaviour to be bad in *both* browsers, so just take a deep breath and settle down a bit.
Ah, I see. My text was clearly a URL. I guess this must mean I've never put anything else except a URL into the location field, as I've never noticed this before.
Anyway, I consider this behaviour being "on" by default to be a misfeature. I might raise it with the dev team. Still, as others have pointed out, it can be switched off or pointed somewhere else. Whereas, we're told, in MSIE can't be.
And firebird^H^H^H^Hfox does it for google ...
Are you sure?
I just tried a domain name that doesn't exist, and instead of being taken to Google or any other place, I saw a "www.randomdomainname.org not found" dialog box instead. It doesn't even give me an option to feed it to a search engine from there.
IIRC, IE will take you immediately to a search engine without displaying any error message. This is the annoying and broken behaviour that the OP was talking about.
Perhaps you've installed a plug-in or extension that is doing this?
Also, M$'s way sends you back to a Microsoft page - which is expected
No, it isn't. I expect it to say "domain name not found". End of story.
Galvin said that the continued opposition stems from "an ideological belief by a narrow section of the technological community who don't believe you should innovate the core infrastructure of the Internet."
In our recent article a number of mistakes slipped past our content review processes. In this case "destroy" was incorrectly spelled "innovate". Also "ideological" clearly was meant be "correct". Likewise "narrow section" appeared instead of "all".
We apologise for these errors and any confusion they might have caused.
I know, it's a controversial idea. :)
/. readers, get *off* /. and get cracking on those submissions! Or, perhaps, get involved with some organization that's likely to put together such a submission and contribute. Or at least let them know it's an important issue. The Australian Computer Society might be a good place to start, for example. While you won't get rid of this completely, you may help mitigate it so that it's not ridiculously sweeping or draconian.
From the article:
Tighter controls on circumventing technological protection of copyright material together with a mechanism for examining and as necessary introducing public interest exceptions in relation to technological protection measures, along with a transition period to provide the opportunity for public submissions in this area, as well as other measures in relation to circumvention tools
From this paragraph, it appears that the government would actually like to hear what the problems are with legislation that outlaws software that might potentially be used to infringe others "intellectual property". At least they are aware that this may cause problems, and I see this as a good thing.
So, Australian
All that is required for evil to flourish is that good men only rant on Slashdot (or something).
"Computer science is as much about computers as astronomy is about telescopes" -Edsgar Dijkstra
That's not to say that, however, that understanding machine code is not a useful skill, but it is certainly the wrong approach to teaching "computer science." When searching for this quote, I found this page which outlines why "computer science" is not about "hardware" at all.
Sun have been promising generics for Java since 1997, and I have been patiently waiting for it all this time.
:)
I haven't had the chance to look at C# in detail yet, but it's certainly no co-incidence that these features finally saw renewed activity after C# appeared. So, thanks, MS, for applying a little competitive pressure onto Sun for us
I'm also a little disappointed to see just how similar Java generics are to C++'s templates. I was hoping that we were waiting for a *reason*, and that reason might be because it was a new and interesting approach. But, at least superficially, this looks almost exactly like C++ templates, with all the positives and negatives that go along with that.
"foreach": C# innovated and already has this, implemented years ago
...
Innovated?! How long have Perl and Python had this feature?
That's a bizarre definition of "innovate" you've got there