That all those cameras you see are mostly funny. They can't actually do anything when they see it and anybody committing a crime knows that and also knows that a camera is easily fooled.
Why not - everybody lies about something - you just have to figure out what!
An interesting comment from Groklaw:
Before selling Nathan's car to Marty, Scott had it repainted.
A really nice paint job. Scott claimed that the only thing of value that Marty
was buying was the artistic paint job.
The car was merely incidental - it was just the canvas for the art work.
Therefore, Nathan shouldn't be entitled to the money that Marty paid.
But I think that we can rule out motorsports... Electrical RC helicopters may work - but in a modified design...
And I think that Boxing is out too... Too messy...
But it sure would be interesting to take a kitten into space! Only problem would be the toilet... Cats are amazing in their behavior and abilities to get around.
Anyway - many ball games would work - even if the rules have to be twisted somewhat.
It's easier to look up a decent desert and place the solar arrays there. A lot easier to maintain.
Of course - it doesn't have to be a desert, just a place where it's seldom cloudy.
The transmission losses using microwave to transfer energy may make that setup unpractical anyway. And there is the health issue too. What if a solar array turns the radiation to downtown Los Angeles or other major city? Time for the greatest Darwin Award in history?
Time for all of us to let our laptops boot up into obscure korean, sami or other languages when they are going to inspect them. Maybe a power supply requiring a 400VAC feed too - and no battery:-)
Odd operating systems like AROS or text only interfaces may also do well. You just can't fail the nerdity test then!
In that case you will get front figures that takes care of business and downfall while the company behind goes into the clear if the patent is considered invalid.
Maybe a more extreme pricing of patents would keep the amount of bad patents down. Say that the one filing the patent will have to guarantee at least one million dollars or 20% of the fortune - whatever is the largest figure - before the filing will be accepted.
Ebay buying Skype made about as much sense as fish riding a bicycle. There were no market intersection or competition. But as long as Skype still works it's fine.
You can never distribute patches synchronously to all the PC:s in the world. And you can't hide what the patch fixes.
You are damned either way. The only way to avoid complete damnation from security vulnerabilities is to run a large number of different operating systems, but then you are damned to live a life in complete confusion about system maintenance instead.
The onion principle is a general security term that has been defined a long time ago, but the fact that we are all online in some way or another all the time means that the onion is rotten.
And that brings up the question of what the RIAA was expecting to gain? Maybe they wanted him to have free housing for a few years on the governments purse.
Most people hasn't even heard about MAC addresses and try to impress people by their knowledge of the existence of IP addresses...
You can spoof an IP address too. And it can also change over time - especially if you use DHCP.
And identifying illegal P2P - well - you also have legal P2P so how to distinguish them? Filenames are useless as an identifier. "Return of the killer tomatoes, amateur edition" - is that a legal file or someone's parody? Is it legal? Maybe I should make a video of molesting cherries? The end result can be cherry brandy!
Is the fact that Vista doesn't show a pop up in some cases where it instead silently replaces the file that you edited since it thinks that the edit was inappropriate. That's even worse.
I think that Microsoft first have to learn to avoid pissing users off and then design a system from that.
I agree that there are far too many cases where administrator access is required, and that those cases must be dealt with, but this is the wrong way. The basic design of Windows also makes it very hard for a user/program to quickly request and escalate privilege rights. You have the "Run As..." functionality, but that's not really useful since users normally doesn't have a secondary account.
In effect - they have made a historical error. If they had been more competent and compared their notes with functionality of other operating systems they would have understood that there are options and methods to improve the security.
In comparing with other operating systems I not only refer to *NIX as is but also features provided by MLS *NIX:es and OpenVMS. Uses of ACL:s or similar, privilege flags as in OpenVMS (which allows for an account to have potential for admin rights but not have it right away and is changed with the "SET PROC/PRIV=..." command). Of course it should be designed differently. And that even as an administrator it would be necessary to escalate privileges. This latest feature would have been a good reminder for those writing stupid accesses to really optimize their requirements. And if a software was to require privileges when executed that should be a feature that had to be enabled at installation of the software and not during runtime.
And then there are some programs that are REALLY stupid - they need to be installed as the user "Administrator". That's really annoying.
Remember that users are really stupid when using your program, but allow functionality to inform the advanced users to be informed about what has gone wrong. Don't be afraid of detailed application dumps - if they are verbose they can actually tell a developer a lot - and even a system administrator may be able to pick up what's wrong. A message like "Insufficient Access" and no more information is likely to piss people off. A binary hex dump that only could be interpreted by a secret program is likewise. Sometimes I miss the several pages of symbolic stack dumps that may happen on the OpenVMS system if something was going out the window... The *NIX core files are also very useful. Both have their share of lack of information but usually you get the general idea about what was wrong. The windows way of doing it is to just provide the user with a message stating that something went wrong and that it was an illegal operation, but not the history behind it like a human readable stack dump.
Is always a question of statistics with a random noise involved.
The amount of noise involved strongly depends on which sport that is involved. Basket is a sport where a lot of points is scored, which in turn means that the noise is relatively low while football (what americans call soccer for some strange reason and what americans call football is more like rugby) has a lot of noise since the ability to score a goal there is depending a lot on luck.
This essentially means that counting points is a good way to score a basketball team while counting goals won't give much clue to how good a given football team is. You must look at other factors on a football team instead. And not all those factors can be as easily measured. Of course - the other factors are also important for a basket team. Other factors involved are the composition of players, individual player mood/health/inspiration, latest matches, history between the teams, referee behavior, weather, spectators, location, timezone etc. Add to this the element of randomness caused by the impact of the ball on a surface, player positions at certain points of the game etc.
And don't forget that a flow not necessarily has to go one path but actually can take multiple paths. This means that directing a flow through a single path can be a bad idea. Allowing it to trickle through multiple paths is a better idea.
Just compare it with how water can flow through a maze with multiple ways through the maze. The trick is to avoid bottlenecks.
Another issue is that even though the path that seems to have the best performance from the view of the end-routers may actually be the worst since the traffic in some major links is too high.
It's like car traffic - sometimes it's better to take the back road instead of the highway because the highway is clogged.
Slashdot Mirror
That all those cameras you see are mostly funny. They can't actually do anything when they see it and anybody committing a crime knows that and also knows that a camera is easily fooled.
"Use at your own risk" should be sufficient. Remaining wording is just a waste of time.
But I like the following copyright note:
Anyway - I think it would be better with someone a bit younger - and with some style. Why not Ewan McGregor?
Colin Ferguson may also do fine!
Time to manufacture conductive underwear then. Just short the tazer and avoid the trouble.
An interesting comment from Groklaw:
One
Two
Three or more...
Anyone out to hunt crows or other similar intelligent animals can probably confirm this.
But I think that we can rule out motorsports... Electrical RC helicopters may work - but in a modified design...
And I think that Boxing is out too... Too messy...
But it sure would be interesting to take a kitten into space! Only problem would be the toilet... Cats are amazing in their behavior and abilities to get around.
Anyway - many ball games would work - even if the rules have to be twisted somewhat.
Velodrome bicycling will have a new meaning...
Of course - it doesn't have to be a desert, just a place where it's seldom cloudy.
The transmission losses using microwave to transfer energy may make that setup unpractical anyway. And there is the health issue too. What if a solar array turns the radiation to downtown Los Angeles or other major city? Time for the greatest Darwin Award in history?
As usual - computers will be of value for anyone needing money for drugs. To a drug-addict that means that tapes must have some value too.
Odd operating systems like AROS or text only interfaces may also do well. You just can't fail the nerdity test then!
No - it wasn't the vacuum it was the heat from the drag caused by the supersonic speed that heated the plane enough to stop the leaks.
In that case you will get front figures that takes care of business and downfall while the company behind goes into the clear if the patent is considered invalid. Maybe a more extreme pricing of patents would keep the amount of bad patents down. Say that the one filing the patent will have to guarantee at least one million dollars or 20% of the fortune - whatever is the largest figure - before the filing will be accepted.
One of the relics of an overturned empire...
As usual - and nothing surprising. The worst thing is that we are more or less forced into Vista unless we go to Linux, FreeBSD or AROS.
Ebay buying Skype made about as much sense as fish riding a bicycle. There were no market intersection or competition. But as long as Skype still works it's fine.
You are damned either way. The only way to avoid complete damnation from security vulnerabilities is to run a large number of different operating systems, but then you are damned to live a life in complete confusion about system maintenance instead.
The onion principle is a general security term that has been defined a long time ago, but the fact that we are all online in some way or another all the time means that the onion is rotten.
And that brings up the question of what the RIAA was expecting to gain? Maybe they wanted him to have free housing for a few years on the governments purse.
It wasn't me - it was my clone!
You can spoof an IP address too. And it can also change over time - especially if you use DHCP.
And identifying illegal P2P - well - you also have legal P2P so how to distinguish them? Filenames are useless as an identifier. "Return of the killer tomatoes, amateur edition" - is that a legal file or someone's parody? Is it legal? Maybe I should make a video of molesting cherries? The end result can be cherry brandy!
But it's really good to read!
I think that Microsoft first have to learn to avoid pissing users off and then design a system from that.
I agree that there are far too many cases where administrator access is required, and that those cases must be dealt with, but this is the wrong way. The basic design of Windows also makes it very hard for a user/program to quickly request and escalate privilege rights. You have the "Run As..." functionality, but that's not really useful since users normally doesn't have a secondary account.
In effect - they have made a historical error. If they had been more competent and compared their notes with functionality of other operating systems they would have understood that there are options and methods to improve the security.
In comparing with other operating systems I not only refer to *NIX as is but also features provided by MLS *NIX:es and OpenVMS. Uses of ACL:s or similar, privilege flags as in OpenVMS (which allows for an account to have potential for admin rights but not have it right away and is changed with the "SET PROC/PRIV=..." command). Of course it should be designed differently. And that even as an administrator it would be necessary to escalate privileges. This latest feature would have been a good reminder for those writing stupid accesses to really optimize their requirements. And if a software was to require privileges when executed that should be a feature that had to be enabled at installation of the software and not during runtime.
And then there are some programs that are REALLY stupid - they need to be installed as the user "Administrator". That's really annoying.
Remember that users are really stupid when using your program, but allow functionality to inform the advanced users to be informed about what has gone wrong. Don't be afraid of detailed application dumps - if they are verbose they can actually tell a developer a lot - and even a system administrator may be able to pick up what's wrong. A message like "Insufficient Access" and no more information is likely to piss people off. A binary hex dump that only could be interpreted by a secret program is likewise. Sometimes I miss the several pages of symbolic stack dumps that may happen on the OpenVMS system if something was going out the window... The *NIX core files are also very useful. Both have their share of lack of information but usually you get the general idea about what was wrong. The windows way of doing it is to just provide the user with a message stating that something went wrong and that it was an illegal operation, but not the history behind it like a human readable stack dump.
Also interesting to see what they will write on the parking ticket...
Oh how I miss the OS8MT on the Z80 processor...
But OpenVMS will do as well...
The amount of noise involved strongly depends on which sport that is involved. Basket is a sport where a lot of points is scored, which in turn means that the noise is relatively low while football (what americans call soccer for some strange reason and what americans call football is more like rugby) has a lot of noise since the ability to score a goal there is depending a lot on luck.
This essentially means that counting points is a good way to score a basketball team while counting goals won't give much clue to how good a given football team is. You must look at other factors on a football team instead. And not all those factors can be as easily measured. Of course - the other factors are also important for a basket team. Other factors involved are the composition of players, individual player mood/health/inspiration, latest matches, history between the teams, referee behavior, weather, spectators, location, timezone etc. Add to this the element of randomness caused by the impact of the ball on a surface, player positions at certain points of the game etc.
Just compare it with how water can flow through a maze with multiple ways through the maze. The trick is to avoid bottlenecks.
Another issue is that even though the path that seems to have the best performance from the view of the end-routers may actually be the worst since the traffic in some major links is too high.
It's like car traffic - sometimes it's better to take the back road instead of the highway because the highway is clogged.