Automobile manufacturers do not make parts for 'competitors', i.e, GM doesn't make parts for Ford. Ford makes parts for all of their Marques, and Chevrolet makes parts for all of THEIR marques, etc.
The reason it matters if a Chevrolet engine is in another car with someone else's label is that Chevy spends literally hundreds of millions of dollars per year making sure that you know that Chevy is "The Heartbeat of America", and Ford spends an equivalently large sum of money making sure that you know that Fords are "Built Ford Tough". Brand identification is critical.
Now this doesn't change the fact that Ford, for instance, owns not just Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury, but also Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Aston Martin. Or rather, those marques all share owners... but, in the long run, so does every manufacturer
In short, the reason that auto makers don't make parts for competitors is because there really aren't any competitors; they are nothing more than diversifications of common owner's stock portfolios competing for our headspace, not necessarily for marketshare.
Consumerism in action
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KISS
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· Score: 3, Insightful
This is a direct result of the intense marketing pressure applied to the bulk of Western Humanity equating stuff with happiness.
And we keep buying stuff because the last batch didn't make us happy; we figure if Johnny bought it, and he seems happy about it, that it will make us happy, too. Every advertising dollar spent is attempting to create needs, not serve them.
You're right, there was no decree of the Supreme Court appointing George W. Bush. That is fact. You're absolutely, 100% correct in that.
I did read your post. I know what the Supreme Court did.
I will contest, however, your assertion that "Gore tried to change election law during the election". The Florida code does specify an accurate count. It does not specifically prohibit a recount. When the accuracy of the count is challenged, one might expect that it should be in some way validated. When there is reason to believe that the state illegally excluded voters (which the URL from the NAACP agreement *does* state; it just says that the NAACP doesn't allege that it was intentional) it is not unreasonable to ask that these issues be addressed. This is asking for the enforcement of the Constitutional right of Americans to excercise the vote, and in fact supersedes state laws.
Attempting to change the electoral process in the middle of an election recount in an attempt to change the outcome in your favor is not endorced or permitted anywhere in the constitution.
There was no attempt made to change the 'electoral process', only to cause it to adhere to its principles (i.e., the electoral college votes for a given state being cast for the candidate that got the most votes in that state).
And from the settlement of that court action, the NAACP conceeds that:
Plaintiffs have not alleged that Defendants acted in a purposefully discriminatory manner toward any group
Surely you understand the difference between "I am not accusing you of intentional wrongdoing" and "I believe you did not engage in intentional wrongdoing"? This is standard language when one's case does not pivot on intent; if in fact the behavior violated the rights of black voters, it becomes irrelevant from a *constitutional* standpoint whether or not that violation was intentional. Thus the NAACP gains nothing by accusing someone of wilfully violating the Constitution, and the opposite party is more likely to concede an inadvertent violation than an intentional one.
Actually, I have read this book, and I find it comical how many ignorant facts, blatant mistruths, logical fallicies, and downright partisan rhetoric people will believe from somebody who has a vested interest in discrediting the Bush presidency.
It's simple to make unfounded assertions. Do you understand what "vested interest" means? You gave no information that suggested anything other than Mr. Palast belives that George Bush is a Bad Guy, not that there was any vested interest in that position for him. Explain to me what Mr. Palast's 'vested interest' is (like, for instance, Cheney's Vested Interest in the Iraq war is that he will profit from the assignment of Halliburton as the primary contractor - that is a 'vested interest') in this issue is? You haven't illustrated any of the 'ignorant facts' (what the hell is an ignorant fact, anyway/) 'blatant mistruths' (I'm assuming you mean 'untruths' or 'lies',right?), or logical fallacies you mention, and have no evidence I seethat Mr Palast engages in 'artisan rhetoric' other than the fact that he's not a GeeDubya supporter.
You're welcome to your opinion (ie, not believing the claims that the State of Florida illegally deprived black voters of their rights), but unfortunately, that doesn't change the events that *did* occur.
You're also welcome to declare that you've already made up your mind, 'don't confuse me with the facts'.
But I'm having a tough time finding any support for your inferential claim that it's constitutional for the Supreme Court to appoint the President of the United States. I've been snooping through the Constitution (yeah, we can still read it personally, you know) and can't find anything that even *sounds* like it might be saying that - I'd appreciate it if you would enlighten me as to the article or amendment that says so!
LOL! The judicial system exists for the evaluation of the laws passed by the legislative system; Gore's attempt to 'change the law' was not in any way a violation of the American system of checks and balances.
It's also easy to make unfounded assertions. Mr. Palast (author of the book) offers a considerable amount of evidence that anyone can verify. I would like to see your rebuttal of his evidence that a large number of voters were illegally deprived of their constitutional right to vote by the actions of the State of Florida. I gave the link, anyone can read his assertions - what is your rebuttal?
Hrm... Perhaps there is something to be inferred from the situation where an attempt to enforce the Constitution is ILLEGAL (in caps).
And isn't it odd that the state that just happened to have the problems with the voting process just happened to be the state whose governor was the brother of one of the candidates?
And isn't it simply horrible that someone would bring a court action to redress the blatant violations of the rights of Black Americans in Florida by the State of Florida?
Did you read the book? Or even the first chapter? I would note that the Supreme Court's appointment of the President who LOST the election is BLATANTLY illegal. I would also note that Florida's voting process was biased against Black voters ( who vote overwhelmingly Democrat in Fla )... Read the book. Then tell me you think the election in 2k was a reasonable expression of the Constitution and the electorate.
Read the book - even the first chapter - and you'll realize that a 'recount' isn't what we thought it was in 2000. No actual counting went on. We're just asking - no, begging - for a repeat of the constitutional rape of the electorate that happened in 2000.
Actually its not [trivial to convert from binary format to useful format] unless the person has the specs. Ever tried it? Oh I forgot , every on slashdot as a 190 IQ.
Actually, yes, on many occasions; it's often tedious, but rarely difficult, provided one knows what kind of data one is converting. And no, I don't have an IQ of 190... I'm at least 30 or 40 points short of that.;-)
Since when? XML data files are entities that only ger referenced occasionally and hence only have to be parsed occsaionally. They don't get referenced dozens of times a second.
Hrm. Perhaps you should explore the application of the assertions you are making and explore their ramifications in context. XML data structures are <typically> accessed once on read and once on write, and in between those situations, the data structures are manipulated in some format internal to the program using them. I've not seen many applications that maintain the XML text as part of their internal data representation. Just as HTML is a means of encoding the expression of formatting, XML is a means of encoding data formatting; just as the HTML ASCII stream is not the same as the rendered page, the data structures in a program's memory space is not the same as the XML description of that data structure.
Instead of practising your tediously patronising acronyms why don't you practice getting a clue.
Ah, an ad hominem attack. This certainly illustrates the superiority of your cluefulness.
Isn't the art of good coding to make things as efficient as possible?
Perhaps, but you're using entirely the wrong criteria to determine efficiency. If our primary goal is creating proprietary data structures, then it might be more efficient to do it your way. If our primary goal is communication - i.e., broad usefulness of data structures in multiple application domains and types - XML is *far more efficient*. And at execution time, there's little penalty, because the XML data can be parsed into your C struct with little effort, and juggled entirely within that context until sucha time as you feel the need to send the data to hard drive or other application.
I said CASUAL snooping. If someone can just run tcpdump on a LAN they can read all the correspondance going on. If they have to figure out the protocol they'll probably
not bother unless they have malicious intent.
ROFLMAO!!! You just don't get it, do you? The point the previous poster was making may have escaped you, so I'll try and express it in simpler terms. Regardless of the format you use, if you don't take action to secure data (i.e., encryption) you might as well be posting it on a bulletin board - even if your protocol is binary; the conversion is trivial.
Just in case you didn't catch this, AIM uses HTML; yahoo may, as well, I haven't looked at yahoo messages on-the-wire. XML isn't offered as a 'secure transmission method', but a nearly-universal data-description and encoding format that allows data translation to be much more efficient than the 'efficient' binary data structures you're touting.
Yes it was [developed to solve a certain set of problems], but being a high level network protocol was NOT one of them.
LOL!!! Perhaps you'd like to educate us on what domain of problems XML is designed to resolve and why this particular application falls outside that domain? In fact, this would be a classic case for XML - interoperable data description and encapsulation. What works for data files also works for data exchange, and stream compression eliminates the 'data set size' advantage of your C structs.
1. Click on icon.
2. Save file to disk (from the dialog that warns the user about the pitfalls of running unknown code and assuming default settings).
3. Locate file in filesystem (really difficult for many users).
4. Click on icon to run.
Well, that's interesting. I haven't been infected, and IANAWU (I Am Not A Windows User - when I can help it), but my readings indicated that the way this newest one worked was by disguising an executable file as a.doc or.zip, etc, thus when the user clicked on it, it executed. If your assertion is true, it only further illustrates the stupidity of the 'average' windows user.
You've just illustrated why Linux is not yet ready for the desktop. Like it or not most end users won't put up with this crap. If Linux becomes popular on the desktop you can bet that this process will be greatly simplified.
There is an irreducible dichotomy between security and convenience. People once made the same assertion you did when they were used to NetBIOS user-level networking (no login, no security) and were forced to use logins by Novell or the like. (not kidding - check out some of the old USENET archives). The *fact* is that significant behaviors should not be extremely convenient - it encourages poor behavior.
That said, I suppose it's entirely possible that some dolt will create a mail client for *nix or other OS that will behave JUST LIKE outlook when it comes to executing mail attachments. This will be a Really Bad Idea (tm) and most *nix users will decry it as stupidity of the worst sort. Period.
but where I'm from (e.g. America), the IT market is oversaturated, getting outsourced to cheaper places, and it maybe we are starting to come out.
No, wait! Isn't this the place that still is approving H1b visa applications because we have insufficient trained technical people? How can we be 'oversaturated' then?
Not security. Superior design. Convenience over reasonable precaution is what gives us nightmares like the macroviruses and email viruses that cause Windows machines to crash mail servers and bring email transmission to a crawl.
The perception seems to be that integration is a new thing that came along with Windows. Actually, the originators of the email system could have made the command line email clients like pine, mutt, etc, capable of decoding and executing binary packages, but every one of them - to the man - would have told you that was a *really* bad idea. Just because it's convenient doesn't mean it's wise.
In fact, however, if you insist on doing such things, the more integrated desktop environments like Gnome and KDE may offer the opportunity to 'execute binary attachment' (the newsreader Pan does, if memory serves me).
The biggest single point is that the standard *nix way of doing things makes it more difficult for simple social engineering to crash the mail infrastructure or your particular mail box - superior design, even though 'convenience' can be percieved as lower.
I can't speak *specifically* to OSX, but I can speak from a generic *nix perspective -
Windows
click on icon, execute program
Linux
click on icon
mail client asks what to do (decode, save, open in VIM)
user selects 'save'
mail client saves file to home dir (or other specified dir)
user either finds file in GUI File Manager, or opens terminal to home dir
user chmod +x file
finally, user ~/file <enter>
See the difference here? Now, it's not that I think that there won't be a lot of 'Joe User' types that might go through this series of steps to run "anna_kournikova.mpeg", but there will literally be millions who are too lazy to do so.
Two things. The assertion that Platform X is 'just as insecure as Windows' is technopolitik Vunderbabble of the worst sort; the fact is that the claim that they are 'as insecure' as Windows is unfounded, and undemonstrable unless and until there are as many targets for would-be virus/trojan/hack/script kiddie toolbox writers that are platform X as there are Windows boxen for them to excercise their nefarious talents upon. It's an outgrowth of the kind of sloppy thinking that suggests that all programmers produce equivalent code; they don't, as any programmer can tell you. So get over it.
Second, it's obvious that you are as near as one can come to being completely ignorant about anything but your precious "pro-MS fanboy bloatware"... I don't have a *single* *nix box (Linux, BSD, or Slowlaris) that will 1) decode (uudecode) a binary file as executable without my direct intervention to cause it to occur, or 2) execute said code in any way - even scripts for a scripting language that's embedded (for expandability and extensibility of the client) won't execute by clicking on them when they appear as an attachment in an email.
This is not to suggest that there are not undiscovered security vulnerabilities in *nix that may be revealed if and when it spreads across the face of the earth supplanting Windows boxen righteously; however, I will assert that I believe that those security failures will not approach the generalized impact of the Windows virii/trojans - and you know what? I have *exactly* as much data to support that view as the generalized "let's be nice to the poor little Winders crowd" Technopolitik 'your platform is just as bad' FUD.
</FLAME>
Lots of people have tried to define art; in the end, I think it becomes obvious that anything anyone creates and calls art is art... All I can do is decide whether or not I like it.
Yeah it's a shame how black and white people tend to be. When someone lends something to me it's borrowing, but when I steal it, that makes it wrong.
Except for the fact that you completely miss the entire point; if you 'steal' my car, I no longer have any use of it; painting a pretty picture (I've seen everything from Marylin Monroe to "I Rok" tagged onto things) on the side of a train or a bus may annoy someone, but it doesn't keep the object form serving its purpose - i.e., the bus can still pick people up and deliver them to their stops, and people can still go into the county courthouse and pay their taxes.
The other thing that you've left out is that, in the case of a 'public' building or other property, the person doing the 'tagging' is at least nominally a part-owner in that public property; Again, perhaps annoying, but not completely irrelevant.
I love *nix. I hate Windows. But really, I don't have any delusions that my Debian box would be so much better off than Windows if it were actually being targeted by hackers.
Have you ever logged into #linux on any IRC server? Within 15 seconds you'll see people running exploit attempts against your box. If you run up a default 'everything' install of, say, Red Hat 7.0, and throw it on a live internet IP, it will probably be compromised within a couple of days. It took exactly 24 hours for one I put up (on a static IP) to test this thesis.
I think that the assertion that Windows machines are the target of so much intense hacker attention is FUD in many ways; virii, perhaps, but not hackers. I mean, if you are going to have an open relay, would you rather have a linux box, or a windows one - that may or may not even have the software necessary to *send* mail?
I'll stand by my assertion that my linux boxen are categorically more secure than my windows boxen even with the same administrative philosophies accurately applied .
Re:Eventually, that might not help.
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More MyDoom Gloom
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The significant issue that your post raises is that in most *nix environments, the worm would be limited to the behavior of the execution environment; java, perl, php, etc. On my workstations, all you would be able to affect (if you persuaded me to run it) is *my files*, not the core OS files.
I know that the Windows "supporters" will consider it a pointless troll, but no matter how politically incorrect some may feel that it is, there *is* a difference between Operating Systems, and that difference is clearly illustrated in situations such as this.
" What is truly entertaining is that all of the linux drones get a burr up their ass every time someone (with or without an agenda) says anything but linux is the greatest thing ever."
While in some sense, I agree with your sentiment here, I'm forced to take some exception. My reaction would have been the same if the platform had been OSX or *BSD instead of Linux. The fact is that millions of people will suck this crap up as though it were gospel and contribute to the horseshit that flows from Redmond in an uninterrupted stream. The problem is that Microsoft has, once again, chosen marketing over improvement, and once again, there will be millions of people too dense to access this simple concept. It's frustration, not just with M$, but with the entire process, from top to bottom, that enables corporations to manage the perceptions of the masses... This is the same process that gave us GeeDubya.
"Quote:As usual, Wally World is asking others to innovate on their behalf, to their benefit, and asking the supplier to foot the bill. The suppliers don't have a choice, because if you're not in Wal~Mart, you're not anywhere.
Reply1: The wholesalers won't foot the bill, it'll be passed down the food chain to the consumers.
"Reply#1 is correct...the net costs will be passed on to consumers. In the case, Wal-Mart (I believe correctly) thinks the the addition of RFID's will lower overall costs. The net gain in productivity and efficiency more than makes up for the addition few cent charge for each tag."
Actually, the truth is somewhere in the middle. If the result was truly as simple as 'passing the cost downstream to the consumer', the manufacturers would not be resisting Wal-Mart's mandate to include RFID in their shipping containers. In fact, Wal-Mart essentially dictates how much they will pay for items, and the addition of something like the RFID will not be fully absorbed in the wholesale cost of the item - which means the supplier must either increase efficiency or take a cut in their margin of profit.
As to the behavior of a capitalistic society, there are quite a few people laboring under significant misapprehensions. This society ceased to be a 'capitalist' society when corporations began funding our representatives of all types. Check out www.opensecrets.org if you're interested in who makes the laws. The fact is that you and I (probably) can start a business (subject to all the rules, regulations, and barriers to entry), but we cannot apply significant leverage to any government, local, state, or federal, in order to change the rules and regulations (like taxes, zoning, tariffs, copyright laws, etc) so that we can be successful. The multinationals like Wal-Mart, Sony, etc, *can* and *do*. There's only one King in America; I won't mention its name, but its initial is "$".
That's because they don't want you sucking up their precious power.
I'd wager that there are enough people with cell phones, PDAs, laptops, and portable music devices that to provide any significant number of outlets would generate a hefty boost in the electric bill... Not to mention that they couldn't put in 'a few'.
Sorry, off topic, I know, but damn...
"ADD is not a joke, it's a serious problem. Treat it as such."
WTF?
Perhaps you've not heard jokes about car wrecks, mysogyny, philandering, cancer, death, terrorists, racial stereotypes, rampant stupidity, innocent ignorance...
What the hell else *would* we joke about, besides "serious problems" and sex?
The problem with this idea is that most people have never experienced lenses of real quality, and magazines tend to rate lenses 'on a curve', so to speak.
I've worked with a lot of 35 mm lenses, from Canon, Nikon, and Pentax, on bodies ranging from Canon F1s, T90s, Nikon f3s and f4s, and Pentax LXs (all dinosaurs by this crowd's standards:) and no Japanese lens I have ever encountered stands up to European (Zeiss, Leitz, and Schneider) lenses in overall image quality. Many of the Japanese lenses exhibit fairly high resolution, but most have nothing like the contrast and saturation of their Bavarian counterparts.
Before anyone turns on the flamethrowers, let me point out that I used to pooh-pooh the people who made these statements. I owned a rather extensive collection of Mamiya and Bronica medium format cameras, along with Canon and Nikon 35 mm equipment. Then one day a fellow I knew, who was fond of making the kind of statements I made in the previous paragraph, handed me two cameras, and told me to go shoot pictures with them before I started shooting off my mouth. One was a Leica m3, and the other was a Hasselblad ELM.
There was NO comparison. I now own Hasselblad equipment as a direct result of that comparison, even though I went into it not believing there was any difference.
Aside from rare standouts (tamron 90mm 2.5 macro, tamron 300mm 2.8 tele, Vivitar series 1 70-210 f3.8 - i think ), independent lenses are crap by comparison even with the manufacturer's like Canon and Nikon, to say nothing of the lenses from Europe.
Decent, when applied to lenses, must be qualified. The independent manufacturer's Pro lines are probably better than the major (Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus, Pentax) manufacturer's consumer market lenses, but have rarely come even close to the mid range, much less the rare-earth lenses from the Big 5, who in turn have rarely approached the overall quality of the European lenses.
Everybody get that?:) If cameras were operating systems, Hassy, Rollei, and Leica would be Linux, BSD, and maybe OSX; the Big 5 would be Microsoft.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Automobile manufacturers do not make parts for 'competitors', i.e, GM doesn't make parts for Ford. Ford makes parts for all of their Marques, and Chevrolet makes parts for all of THEIR marques, etc.
The reason it matters if a Chevrolet engine is in another car with someone else's label is that Chevy spends literally hundreds of millions of dollars per year making sure that you know that Chevy is "The Heartbeat of America", and Ford spends an equivalently large sum of money making sure that you know that Fords are "Built Ford Tough". Brand identification is critical.
Now this doesn't change the fact that Ford, for instance, owns not just Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury, but also Mazda, Volvo, Jaguar, Land Rover, and Aston Martin. Or rather, those marques all share owners... but, in the long run, so does every manufacturer
In short, the reason that auto makers don't make parts for competitors is because there really aren't any competitors; they are nothing more than diversifications of common owner's stock portfolios competing for our headspace, not necessarily for marketshare.
And we keep buying stuff because the last batch didn't make us happy; we figure if Johnny bought it, and he seems happy about it, that it will make us happy, too. Every advertising dollar spent is attempting to create needs, not serve them.
I did read your post. I know what the Supreme Court did.
I will contest, however, your assertion that "Gore tried to change election law during the election". The Florida code does specify an accurate count. It does not specifically prohibit a recount. When the accuracy of the count is challenged, one might expect that it should be in some way validated. When there is reason to believe that the state illegally excluded voters (which the URL from the NAACP agreement *does* state; it just says that the NAACP doesn't allege that it was intentional) it is not unreasonable to ask that these issues be addressed. This is asking for the enforcement of the Constitutional right of Americans to excercise the vote, and in fact supersedes state laws.
There was no attempt made to change the 'electoral process', only to cause it to adhere to its principles (i.e., the electoral college votes for a given state being cast for the candidate that got the most votes in that state).
Surely you understand the difference between "I am not accusing you of intentional wrongdoing" and "I believe you did not engage in intentional wrongdoing"? This is standard language when one's case does not pivot on intent; if in fact the behavior violated the rights of black voters, it becomes irrelevant from a *constitutional* standpoint whether or not that violation was intentional. Thus the NAACP gains nothing by accusing someone of wilfully violating the Constitution, and the opposite party is more likely to concede an inadvertent violation than an intentional one.
It's simple to make unfounded assertions. Do you understand what "vested interest" means? You gave no information that suggested anything other than Mr. Palast belives that George Bush is a Bad Guy, not that there was any vested interest in that position for him. Explain to me what Mr. Palast's 'vested interest' is (like, for instance, Cheney's Vested Interest in the Iraq war is that he will profit from the assignment of Halliburton as the primary contractor - that is a 'vested interest') in this issue is? You haven't illustrated any of the 'ignorant facts' (what the hell is an ignorant fact, anyway/) 'blatant mistruths' (I'm assuming you mean 'untruths' or 'lies',right?), or logical fallacies you mention, and have no evidence I seethat Mr Palast engages in 'artisan rhetoric' other than the fact that he's not a GeeDubya supporter.
You're also welcome to declare that you've already made up your mind, 'don't confuse me with the facts'.
But I'm having a tough time finding any support for your inferential claim that it's constitutional for the Supreme Court to appoint the President of the United States. I've been snooping through the Constitution (yeah, we can still read it personally, you know) and can't find anything that even *sounds* like it might be saying that - I'd appreciate it if you would enlighten me as to the article or amendment that says so!
It's also easy to make unfounded assertions. Mr. Palast (author of the book) offers a considerable amount of evidence that anyone can verify. I would like to see your rebuttal of his evidence that a large number of voters were illegally deprived of their constitutional right to vote by the actions of the State of Florida. I gave the link, anyone can read his assertions - what is your rebuttal?
And isn't it odd that the state that just happened to have the problems with the voting process just happened to be the state whose governor was the brother of one of the candidates?
And isn't it simply horrible that someone would bring a court action to redress the blatant violations of the rights of Black Americans in Florida by the State of Florida?
Did you read the book? Or even the first chapter? I would note that the Supreme Court's appointment of the President who LOST the election is BLATANTLY illegal. I would also note that Florida's voting process was biased against Black voters ( who vote overwhelmingly Democrat in Fla )... Read the book. Then tell me you think the election in 2k was a reasonable expression of the Constitution and the electorate.
Actually, yes, on many occasions; it's often tedious, but rarely difficult, provided one knows what kind of data one is converting. And no, I don't have an IQ of 190... I'm at least 30 or 40 points short of that. ;-)
Hrm. Perhaps you should explore the application of the assertions you are making and explore their ramifications in context. XML data structures are <typically> accessed once on read and once on write, and in between those situations, the data structures are manipulated in some format internal to the program using them. I've not seen many applications that maintain the XML text as part of their internal data representation. Just as HTML is a means of encoding the expression of formatting, XML is a means of encoding data formatting; just as the HTML ASCII stream is not the same as the rendered page, the data structures in a program's memory space is not the same as the XML description of that data structure.
Ah, an ad hominem attack. This certainly illustrates the superiority of your cluefulness.
Perhaps, but you're using entirely the wrong criteria to determine efficiency. If our primary goal is creating proprietary data structures, then it might be more efficient to do it your way. If our primary goal is communication - i.e., broad usefulness of data structures in multiple application domains and types - XML is *far more efficient*. And at execution time, there's little penalty, because the XML data can be parsed into your C struct with little effort, and juggled entirely within that context until sucha time as you feel the need to send the data to hard drive or other application.
ROFLMAO!!! You just don't get it, do you? The point the previous poster was making may have escaped you, so I'll try and express it in simpler terms. Regardless of the format you use, if you don't take action to secure data (i.e., encryption) you might as well be posting it on a bulletin board - even if your protocol is binary; the conversion is trivial.
Just in case you didn't catch this, AIM uses HTML; yahoo may, as well, I haven't looked at yahoo messages on-the-wire. XML isn't offered as a 'secure transmission method', but a nearly-universal data-description and encoding format that allows data translation to be much more efficient than the 'efficient' binary data structures you're touting.
LOL!!! Perhaps you'd like to educate us on what domain of problems XML is designed to resolve and why this particular application falls outside that domain? In fact, this would be a classic case for XML - interoperable data description and encapsulation. What works for data files also works for data exchange, and stream compression eliminates the 'data set size' advantage of your C structs.
Well, that's interesting. I haven't been infected, and IANAWU (I Am Not A Windows User - when I can help it), but my readings indicated that the way this newest one worked was by disguising an executable file as a .doc or .zip, etc, thus when the user clicked on it, it executed. If your assertion is true, it only further illustrates the stupidity of the 'average' windows user.
There is an irreducible dichotomy between security and convenience. People once made the same assertion you did when they were used to NetBIOS user-level networking (no login, no security) and were forced to use logins by Novell or the like. (not kidding - check out some of the old USENET archives). The *fact* is that significant behaviors should not be extremely convenient - it encourages poor behavior.
That said, I suppose it's entirely possible that some dolt will create a mail client for *nix or other OS that will behave JUST LIKE outlook when it comes to executing mail attachments. This will be a Really Bad Idea (tm) and most *nix users will decry it as stupidity of the worst sort. Period.
No, wait! Isn't this the place that still is approving H1b visa applications because we have insufficient trained technical people? How can we be 'oversaturated' then?
The perception seems to be that integration is a new thing that came along with Windows. Actually, the originators of the email system could have made the command line email clients like pine, mutt, etc, capable of decoding and executing binary packages, but every one of them - to the man - would have told you that was a *really* bad idea. Just because it's convenient doesn't mean it's wise.
In fact, however, if you insist on doing such things, the more integrated desktop environments like Gnome and KDE may offer the opportunity to 'execute binary attachment' (the newsreader Pan does, if memory serves me).
The biggest single point is that the standard *nix way of doing things makes it more difficult for simple social engineering to crash the mail infrastructure or your particular mail box - superior design, even though 'convenience' can be percieved as lower.
Windows
click on icon, execute program
Linux
click on icon
mail client asks what to do (decode, save, open in VIM)
user selects 'save'
mail client saves file to home dir (or other specified dir)
user either finds file in GUI File Manager, or opens terminal to home dir
user chmod +x file
finally, user ~/file <enter>
See the difference here? Now, it's not that I think that there won't be a lot of 'Joe User' types that might go through this series of steps to run "anna_kournikova.mpeg", but there will literally be millions who are too lazy to do so.
Two things. The assertion that Platform X is 'just as insecure as Windows' is technopolitik Vunderbabble of the worst sort; the fact is that the claim that they are 'as insecure' as Windows is unfounded, and undemonstrable unless and until there are as many targets for would-be virus/trojan/hack/script kiddie toolbox writers that are platform X as there are Windows boxen for them to excercise their nefarious talents upon. It's an outgrowth of the kind of sloppy thinking that suggests that all programmers produce equivalent code; they don't, as any programmer can tell you. So get over it.
Second, it's obvious that you are as near as one can come to being completely ignorant about anything but your precious "pro-MS fanboy bloatware"... I don't have a *single* *nix box (Linux, BSD, or Slowlaris) that will 1) decode (uudecode) a binary file as executable without my direct intervention to cause it to occur, or 2) execute said code in any way - even scripts for a scripting language that's embedded (for expandability and extensibility of the client) won't execute by clicking on them when they appear as an attachment in an email.
This is not to suggest that there are not undiscovered security vulnerabilities in *nix that may be revealed if and when it spreads across the face of the earth supplanting Windows boxen righteously; however, I will assert that I believe that those security failures will not approach the generalized impact of the Windows virii/trojans - and you know what? I have *exactly* as much data to support that view as the generalized "let's be nice to the poor little Winders crowd" Technopolitik 'your platform is just as bad' FUD. </FLAME>
Lots of people have tried to define art; in the end, I think it becomes obvious that anything anyone creates and calls art is art... All I can do is decide whether or not I like it.
Except for the fact that you completely miss the entire point; if you 'steal' my car, I no longer have any use of it; painting a pretty picture (I've seen everything from Marylin Monroe to "I Rok" tagged onto things) on the side of a train or a bus may annoy someone, but it doesn't keep the object form serving its purpose - i.e., the bus can still pick people up and deliver them to their stops, and people can still go into the county courthouse and pay their taxes.
The other thing that you've left out is that, in the case of a 'public' building or other property, the person doing the 'tagging' is at least nominally a part-owner in that public property; Again, perhaps annoying, but not completely irrelevant.
Have you ever logged into #linux on any IRC server? Within 15 seconds you'll see people running exploit attempts against your box. If you run up a default 'everything' install of, say, Red Hat 7.0, and throw it on a live internet IP, it will probably be compromised within a couple of days. It took exactly 24 hours for one I put up (on a static IP) to test this thesis.
I think that the assertion that Windows machines are the target of so much intense hacker attention is FUD in many ways; virii, perhaps, but not hackers. I mean, if you are going to have an open relay, would you rather have a linux box, or a windows one - that may or may not even have the software necessary to *send* mail?
I'll stand by my assertion that my linux boxen are categorically more secure than my windows boxen even with the same administrative philosophies accurately applied .
I know that the Windows "supporters" will consider it a pointless troll, but no matter how politically incorrect some may feel that it is, there *is* a difference between Operating Systems, and that difference is clearly illustrated in situations such as this.
Reply1: The wholesalers won't foot the bill, it'll be passed down the food chain to the consumers.
"Reply#1 is correct...the net costs will be passed on to consumers. In the case, Wal-Mart (I believe correctly) thinks the the addition of RFID's will lower overall costs. The net gain in productivity and efficiency more than makes up for the addition few cent charge for each tag."
Actually, the truth is somewhere in the middle. If the result was truly as simple as 'passing the cost downstream to the consumer', the manufacturers would not be resisting Wal-Mart's mandate to include RFID in their shipping containers. In fact, Wal-Mart essentially dictates how much they will pay for items, and the addition of something like the RFID will not be fully absorbed in the wholesale cost of the item - which means the supplier must either increase efficiency or take a cut in their margin of profit.
As to the behavior of a capitalistic society, there are quite a few people laboring under significant misapprehensions. This society ceased to be a 'capitalist' society when corporations began funding our representatives of all types. Check out www.opensecrets.org if you're interested in who makes the laws. The fact is that you and I (probably) can start a business (subject to all the rules, regulations, and barriers to entry), but we cannot apply significant leverage to any government, local, state, or federal, in order to change the rules and regulations (like taxes, zoning, tariffs, copyright laws, etc) so that we can be successful. The multinationals like Wal-Mart, Sony, etc, *can* and *do*. There's only one King in America; I won't mention its name, but its initial is "$".
That's because they don't want you sucking up their precious power.
I'd wager that there are enough people with cell phones, PDAs, laptops, and portable music devices that to provide any significant number of outlets would generate a hefty boost in the electric bill... Not to mention that they couldn't put in 'a few'.
Sorry, off topic, I know, but damn ...
"ADD is not a joke, it's a serious problem. Treat it as such."
WTF?
Perhaps you've not heard jokes about car wrecks, mysogyny, philandering, cancer, death, terrorists, racial stereotypes, rampant stupidity, innocent ignorance...
What the hell else *would* we joke about, besides "serious problems" and sex?
In terms of Common Criteria evaluation, please consider this link.
This should address certifications questions.
The problem with this idea is that most people have never experienced lenses of real quality, and magazines tend to rate lenses 'on a curve', so to speak.
I've worked with a lot of 35 mm lenses, from Canon, Nikon, and Pentax, on bodies ranging from Canon F1s, T90s, Nikon f3s and f4s, and Pentax LXs (all dinosaurs by this crowd's standards :) and no Japanese lens I have ever encountered stands up to European (Zeiss, Leitz, and Schneider) lenses in overall image quality. Many of the Japanese lenses exhibit fairly high resolution, but most have nothing like the contrast and saturation of their Bavarian counterparts.
Before anyone turns on the flamethrowers, let me point out that I used to pooh-pooh the people who made these statements. I owned a rather extensive collection of Mamiya and Bronica medium format cameras, along with Canon and Nikon 35 mm equipment. Then one day a fellow I knew, who was fond of making the kind of statements I made in the previous paragraph, handed me two cameras, and told me to go shoot pictures with them before I started shooting off my mouth. One was a Leica m3, and the other was a Hasselblad ELM.
There was NO comparison. I now own Hasselblad equipment as a direct result of that comparison, even though I went into it not believing there was any difference.
Aside from rare standouts (tamron 90mm 2.5 macro, tamron 300mm 2.8 tele, Vivitar series 1 70-210 f3.8 - i think ), independent lenses are crap by comparison even with the manufacturer's like Canon and Nikon, to say nothing of the lenses from Europe.
Decent, when applied to lenses, must be qualified. The independent manufacturer's Pro lines are probably better than the major (Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Olympus, Pentax) manufacturer's consumer market lenses, but have rarely come even close to the mid range, much less the rare-earth lenses from the Big 5, who in turn have rarely approached the overall quality of the European lenses.
Everybody get that? :) If cameras were operating systems, Hassy, Rollei, and Leica would be Linux, BSD, and maybe OSX; the Big 5 would be Microsoft. :)