Believe me parents should be worried about porn sites, as some porn sites market to children. All is well if you don't mind your child visiting porn but some use deceptive practices to make kids click on porn links by putting in same safe cutesy image link and redirecting them to something other than what they think they are getting.
My uncle got caught out by this recently with one of his grandchildren (10 years old) so I educated him on the use of whitelists and setting up an account for the grandchildren to use with a list of approved sites rather than relying on a blacklist system. A number of other tech savvy parents I know also run separate accounts for the kids with time and whitelist restrictions to make sure the kids get the internet experience they want their kids to have and avoiding the traps put out there for kids.
I went and saw the film in cinema's as it looked like something that I might like. However I did not end up liking it at all, there was nothing really that I could put my finger on as to why, it just didn't work for me.
Well my uncle didn't when his grandson clicked on a banner of made for kids that directed said grandson to a porn site. But I told him how to setup a whitelist for his grandson's internet surfing to make the internet a bit more friendlier with a bit less porn.
Books I've read recently have ads in the back for other books in the series and other items. I don't mind those as they are not intrusive and easily ignored. However I'm sure that when ads are put in eBooks they will certainly be both intrusive, annoying and certainly not easily ignored.
And I would dearly love to see it in court. However I would imagine it would fit more under manslaughter rather than common law type murder, as I would imagine the trojan writer wasn't out to kill people. Though I would imagine you could argue malice is involved in writing trojans. I'm not a lawyer so don't take notice of anything I say.
Though going by the poorly translated article there was more going on then just the trojans, the trojan computer may of been more of a contributing factor rather than the primary reason for the crash, due to reasons stated in the article.
They were however thicker and made to have a gold colour instead of the silver 10c and 5c coins. Still people had a good old fashioned whinge about them. The government stood their ground and sure enough the whinging stopped and people moved on with their lives. Plus there was the big old stink about removing 1c and 2c coins from circulation. People have better things to do then worry about coins.
It should be noted however that people would glue 10c and 5c coins together and paint them gold to pass them off as $1 and $2 coins. They don't pass close scrutiny, though pubs and clubs and other less than well lit venues got the brunt of those types of fraud.
Australia's neighbour New Zealand is the biggest problem really. Some of their coins are quite similar to ours and get easily mistaken for Australian currency. I've been shortchanged countless times by New Zealand currency (mostly from vending machines). One time I noticed I was given a New Zealand 20c coin rather than an Australian one and the guy at the counter got rather aggressive when I insisted that I get my change in Australian currency instead of New Zealand currency, telling me that it didn't matter. I told him that if it didn't matter then he could take back the New Zealand coin and give me the Australian one. He didn't like that one fucking bit.
Back home they always tried to shutdown the dedicated arcades for 'Attracting an undesirable element'. ie more than 5 kids in one place at a time. Admittedly one of them was a dank dark hole of a joint and I wasn't sad to see that one go, but the other was a lovely bright affair with great games and not a single bad element in site, well not counting the kids, and there was never any trouble there.
The only place we could rely on was the bowling alley and its rather good selection of games both arcade and pinball. Good luck trying to shut that place down, it was far too popular.
I don't use virus scanners either. I have used a firewall, install updates and common sense to protect my computer as well. But then I know what I'm doing. its a bit like punishing the victims rather than the perpetrators of crimes. I can understand the point of view though, I've cleansed many a virus from friends/family PCs over the years and mandating something to be done by all users to decrease the impact would look like an attractive proposition, but really how is something like that going to be policed? What invasion of a users PC will be required to determine that it is adequately protected before access to the internet is granted.
Having had a number of bone headed customer support people "help" me I would imagine that people who are adequately protected get denied access because they are not using a "recommended" product as decided by their ISP. I could easily imagine ISPs getting deals with security vendors to push their products and then users of that ISP being required to use those products to get their service while the ISP and security vendors use it as an opportunity to get some revenue they would not otherwise get. But perhaps i'm just cynical.
I bought an Apple iPad from JB Hi-Fi on launch day from Perth Carousel, and no assistant there forced me to buy any accessories for it. I got the 3G version and they pointed out where the accessories were and asked if I wanted to get a 3G plan, I said I was fine and that was that. In fact the sales assistant was great getting me out of the store in next to no time. No strong arm tactics were used and there was no attempt at coercion. Had that tried any of that stuff on my I would of just told them to sod off. The accessory I did want (the Apple iPad case) was simply not available at the time in store due to a world wide shortage of them (nice move Apple *rolls eyes*).
Its sounding more like a case of over zealous sales assistants rather than store policy to me.
I think a better approach would be to stop buying (and pirating) all their crap. If everyone, just stopped buying it for like 1 week that would send a message that we the people that give them all their cash are sick of what they are doing and want it changed. Nothing will make them roll over faster than not getting their money from their sales.
Plenty of examples of big business caving in to a well organised customer opposition to their practices. Like that good old McDonalds bun crisis, now that was an example of the man sticking it to big business that had hilarious results.
My coding philosophy has always been to keep the code as simple as possible. Especially after being the victim of so many over engineered pieces of programming.
When I first left Uni I went to a big defence contracting company and went from graduate programmer to work area lead in 8 weeks, as much out of circumstance as capability (ie there was no one else to take the position of that work area lead). I did good work, and just as importantly (as I was told my management during my work review) by being a happy person and having good morale that brushed off onto others. No matter what stress we were under I just went around be happy and relaxed laughing and whatnot. At other jobs people have also commented on how it was nice having someone around that wasn't acting all stressed out during the crunch times.
Happy and helpful. Thats what I have always been at my jobs, and it works.
Got my beta key today and hopped on to download the Mac client. I might have a Bootcamped Windows 7 on my other partition but if I get to choose Mac then Mac it is. While I know this is a joke, don't underestimate that part of the success of its franchises is that they do offer support for multiple platforms and make their products work on platforms that didn't even exist at the time that the game was created. ie Original Starcraft working under Mac OS X.
This story reminds me of older Slashdot discussions on using blacklists to stop spam and how entire countries should be blocked. I pointed out that they should start with the USA but they didn't really like that point of view, being American and all.
In Australia we also have "Theft by finding" laws which have recently and very publicly undone a Melbourne couple. Many people don't realise that these laws exist and can have quite serious consequences to their lives if they don't make an attempt to get the property back its owners.
I just use a credit card with a low limit for shopping both out in the real world and on the internet and just act smart. I have never had any theft from my card by any unauthorised charges yet. I have had one retailer not supply the goods I purchased (on an authorised charge mind you) because he was a lying scum bag, but I got my money back from that and hopefully my complaints to the regulatory authorities will land him in jail, since he was an insolvent trader.
Yeah, World War II let me be born as well. Without it my father and his grandparents wouldn't of left England to come to Australia, Dad wouldn't of met Mum and I wouldn't of been born. I don't chuck parties about WWII either.
Small enterprise certainly don't mind the free stuff. I've lost track of the number of contracts i've had where I basically downloaded everything from the development environment to the server software cause the only money the business wanted to spend was on my rates.
It also helped that for the first time in gaming history the pistol in Halo 1 was actually a good choice of weapon instead of a default way to alert your peers that you were a sure kill.
I'm a computer programmer. And going by the reaction of my peers, a good one. I enjoyed science, physics and chemistry theory were easy for me, but I never had any aptitude for mathematics (though I could do some mean stoichiometry). Simple stuff wasn't a problem, logic, stats, discrete mathematics, translating mathematical equations into computer code, all the basics I can handle, but when it came to the complex stuff I was just completely useless at it. I could program neural networks, but when it came to things like calculus I could barely hang on while others found it easy.
Everything says that I should be good at maths but I'm just not, but programming I have an aptitude for, the problem solving aspect of it, breaking things down, I just get. If I get a complex maths type problem to overcome in my job, then I know how to do the research to get me to a solution and get on with doing what I do best. I've finished systems that other programmers were fired from because they couldn't handle the complexity of what had to be done (and when I say finished, I mean I threw away what was there and started again because it was just so awful, just don't tell the boss lol).
I've worked with super smart people whose maths skills dwarf mine, but have produced the most awfully complex code that just wasn't necessary to get the job done. My philosophy, keep it as simple as possible all the time. I've had interesting work which required some good maths work to get done, while it wasn't my forte, I at least have a skill set where I can research what I need to get to an understanding to get the job done.
While I think TFA makes some good points, i don't think its the be all and end all if like me, your math just sucks, but you have an aptitude for programming itself.
And it can work en masse. Its just a pity that the masses are not motivated very often to coordinate a united front. Though nowadays they would probably be labelled terrorists or something. I remember when McD's was crippled by patrons ordering all their burgers without the bun. The ensuing glut of buns left restaurants virtually crippled, with more deliveries of buns coming in. I had a hearty chuckle about that one. McD's soon capitulated to the protesters demands. Though it was so long ago I can't remember what it was about. Then of course there are those pesky revolutions and such.
Slashdot Mirror
Believe me parents should be worried about porn sites, as some porn sites market to children. All is well if you don't mind your child visiting porn but some use deceptive practices to make kids click on porn links by putting in same safe cutesy image link and redirecting them to something other than what they think they are getting.
My uncle got caught out by this recently with one of his grandchildren (10 years old) so I educated him on the use of whitelists and setting up an account for the grandchildren to use with a list of approved sites rather than relying on a blacklist system. A number of other tech savvy parents I know also run separate accounts for the kids with time and whitelist restrictions to make sure the kids get the internet experience they want their kids to have and avoiding the traps put out there for kids.
Just ask "What would Batman do?".
I went and saw the film in cinema's as it looked like something that I might like. However I did not end up liking it at all, there was nothing really that I could put my finger on as to why, it just didn't work for me.
This media frenzy makes my pine for the Stuart Littlemore days of Media Watch.
Well my uncle didn't when his grandson clicked on a banner of made for kids that directed said grandson to a porn site. But I told him how to setup a whitelist for his grandson's internet surfing to make the internet a bit more friendlier with a bit less porn.
Well "Not guilty" and "Innocent" are 2 different legal terms that many people get confused over, as Judge Judy likes to point out.
Books I've read recently have ads in the back for other books in the series and other items. I don't mind those as they are not intrusive and easily ignored. However I'm sure that when ads are put in eBooks they will certainly be both intrusive, annoying and certainly not easily ignored.
And I would dearly love to see it in court. However I would imagine it would fit more under manslaughter rather than common law type murder, as I would imagine the trojan writer wasn't out to kill people. Though I would imagine you could argue malice is involved in writing trojans. I'm not a lawyer so don't take notice of anything I say. Though going by the poorly translated article there was more going on then just the trojans, the trojan computer may of been more of a contributing factor rather than the primary reason for the crash, due to reasons stated in the article.
They were however thicker and made to have a gold colour instead of the silver 10c and 5c coins. Still people had a good old fashioned whinge about them. The government stood their ground and sure enough the whinging stopped and people moved on with their lives. Plus there was the big old stink about removing 1c and 2c coins from circulation. People have better things to do then worry about coins.
It should be noted however that people would glue 10c and 5c coins together and paint them gold to pass them off as $1 and $2 coins. They don't pass close scrutiny, though pubs and clubs and other less than well lit venues got the brunt of those types of fraud.
Australia's neighbour New Zealand is the biggest problem really. Some of their coins are quite similar to ours and get easily mistaken for Australian currency. I've been shortchanged countless times by New Zealand currency (mostly from vending machines). One time I noticed I was given a New Zealand 20c coin rather than an Australian one and the guy at the counter got rather aggressive when I insisted that I get my change in Australian currency instead of New Zealand currency, telling me that it didn't matter. I told him that if it didn't matter then he could take back the New Zealand coin and give me the Australian one. He didn't like that one fucking bit.
Back home they always tried to shutdown the dedicated arcades for 'Attracting an undesirable element'. ie more than 5 kids in one place at a time. Admittedly one of them was a dank dark hole of a joint and I wasn't sad to see that one go, but the other was a lovely bright affair with great games and not a single bad element in site, well not counting the kids, and there was never any trouble there.
The only place we could rely on was the bowling alley and its rather good selection of games both arcade and pinball. Good luck trying to shut that place down, it was far too popular.
I don't use virus scanners either. I have used a firewall, install updates and common sense to protect my computer as well. But then I know what I'm doing. its a bit like punishing the victims rather than the perpetrators of crimes. I can understand the point of view though, I've cleansed many a virus from friends/family PCs over the years and mandating something to be done by all users to decrease the impact would look like an attractive proposition, but really how is something like that going to be policed? What invasion of a users PC will be required to determine that it is adequately protected before access to the internet is granted.
Having had a number of bone headed customer support people "help" me I would imagine that people who are adequately protected get denied access because they are not using a "recommended" product as decided by their ISP. I could easily imagine ISPs getting deals with security vendors to push their products and then users of that ISP being required to use those products to get their service while the ISP and security vendors use it as an opportunity to get some revenue they would not otherwise get. But perhaps i'm just cynical.
Yes, and what do the powered license plates display when they break? And what will they display when hacked?
I bought an Apple iPad from JB Hi-Fi on launch day from Perth Carousel, and no assistant there forced me to buy any accessories for it. I got the 3G version and they pointed out where the accessories were and asked if I wanted to get a 3G plan, I said I was fine and that was that. In fact the sales assistant was great getting me out of the store in next to no time. No strong arm tactics were used and there was no attempt at coercion. Had that tried any of that stuff on my I would of just told them to sod off. The accessory I did want (the Apple iPad case) was simply not available at the time in store due to a world wide shortage of them (nice move Apple *rolls eyes*).
Its sounding more like a case of over zealous sales assistants rather than store policy to me.
I think a better approach would be to stop buying (and pirating) all their crap. If everyone, just stopped buying it for like 1 week that would send a message that we the people that give them all their cash are sick of what they are doing and want it changed. Nothing will make them roll over faster than not getting their money from their sales.
Plenty of examples of big business caving in to a well organised customer opposition to their practices. Like that good old McDonalds bun crisis, now that was an example of the man sticking it to big business that had hilarious results.
My coding philosophy has always been to keep the code as simple as possible. Especially after being the victim of so many over engineered pieces of programming.
When I first left Uni I went to a big defence contracting company and went from graduate programmer to work area lead in 8 weeks, as much out of circumstance as capability (ie there was no one else to take the position of that work area lead). I did good work, and just as importantly (as I was told my management during my work review) by being a happy person and having good morale that brushed off onto others. No matter what stress we were under I just went around be happy and relaxed laughing and whatnot. At other jobs people have also commented on how it was nice having someone around that wasn't acting all stressed out during the crunch times.
Happy and helpful. Thats what I have always been at my jobs, and it works.
Got my beta key today and hopped on to download the Mac client. I might have a Bootcamped Windows 7 on my other partition but if I get to choose Mac then Mac it is. While I know this is a joke, don't underestimate that part of the success of its franchises is that they do offer support for multiple platforms and make their products work on platforms that didn't even exist at the time that the game was created. ie Original Starcraft working under Mac OS X.
This story reminds me of older Slashdot discussions on using blacklists to stop spam and how entire countries should be blocked. I pointed out that they should start with the USA but they didn't really like that point of view, being American and all.
In Australia we also have "Theft by finding" laws which have recently and very publicly undone a Melbourne couple. Many people don't realise that these laws exist and can have quite serious consequences to their lives if they don't make an attempt to get the property back its owners.
I just use a credit card with a low limit for shopping both out in the real world and on the internet and just act smart. I have never had any theft from my card by any unauthorised charges yet. I have had one retailer not supply the goods I purchased (on an authorised charge mind you) because he was a lying scum bag, but I got my money back from that and hopefully my complaints to the regulatory authorities will land him in jail, since he was an insolvent trader.
Yeah, World War II let me be born as well. Without it my father and his grandparents wouldn't of left England to come to Australia, Dad wouldn't of met Mum and I wouldn't of been born. I don't chuck parties about WWII either.
Small enterprise certainly don't mind the free stuff. I've lost track of the number of contracts i've had where I basically downloaded everything from the development environment to the server software cause the only money the business wanted to spend was on my rates.
It also helped that for the first time in gaming history the pistol in Halo 1 was actually a good choice of weapon instead of a default way to alert your peers that you were a sure kill.
Unfortunately for the messenger, sometimes they are the only ones at hand for some violence.
I'm a computer programmer. And going by the reaction of my peers, a good one. I enjoyed science, physics and chemistry theory were easy for me, but I never had any aptitude for mathematics (though I could do some mean stoichiometry). Simple stuff wasn't a problem, logic, stats, discrete mathematics, translating mathematical equations into computer code, all the basics I can handle, but when it came to the complex stuff I was just completely useless at it. I could program neural networks, but when it came to things like calculus I could barely hang on while others found it easy.
Everything says that I should be good at maths but I'm just not, but programming I have an aptitude for, the problem solving aspect of it, breaking things down, I just get. If I get a complex maths type problem to overcome in my job, then I know how to do the research to get me to a solution and get on with doing what I do best. I've finished systems that other programmers were fired from because they couldn't handle the complexity of what had to be done (and when I say finished, I mean I threw away what was there and started again because it was just so awful, just don't tell the boss lol).
I've worked with super smart people whose maths skills dwarf mine, but have produced the most awfully complex code that just wasn't necessary to get the job done. My philosophy, keep it as simple as possible all the time. I've had interesting work which required some good maths work to get done, while it wasn't my forte, I at least have a skill set where I can research what I need to get to an understanding to get the job done.
While I think TFA makes some good points, i don't think its the be all and end all if like me, your math just sucks, but you have an aptitude for programming itself.
And it can work en masse. Its just a pity that the masses are not motivated very often to coordinate a united front. Though nowadays they would probably be labelled terrorists or something. I remember when McD's was crippled by patrons ordering all their burgers without the bun. The ensuing glut of buns left restaurants virtually crippled, with more deliveries of buns coming in. I had a hearty chuckle about that one. McD's soon capitulated to the protesters demands. Though it was so long ago I can't remember what it was about. Then of course there are those pesky revolutions and such.