My pet theory is that marketing and religion work on the exact same thing and in the exact same way. Both make big promises, appeal to the emotional side of people, appeal to the lowest common denominator, promote group identity, promote hate of the other, etc. No surprise to hear about this study. I'm sure similar results will be had from anyone who is brand loyal.
I wouldn't be surprised if people who were generally skeptic were also marketing resistant and resistant to populist right-wing demagogues or other politics as religion.
So you mom needs an expert level linux admin to remote in and take care of her machine. Most windows users dont have that, they just wing it on their own.
She doesnt need to know a bazillion archaic command line utilities and go through usenet and ubunutu forums because youre doing it for her.
I love the irony of the "ZOMG LINUX IS EZ" crowd when they admit they need to ssh and micromanage all these "easy" to use machines. Hilarious.
Youre not following my point. I test adobe and browser vulnerabilities at work. They're not all the same and work in non-predictable ways.
Most of them do not work with limited user. Thats because when youre running as a local admin you're not running as a limited user + UAC you're running as some fucked up mixed of both and the UAC only appears during very specific actions and everything else is allowed. It is not the same as running as limited user. Not by a longshot.
Yes, the exploit gained calc.exe as standard user, but so what? If the browser itself was running as limited user it may not have even been able to get that. Windows security levels are really messed up because of the UAC. Its just a GUI for runas, it doesnt stop shit and its at best security theater.
Regardless, these asshats wont release the code, so we can all sit here and guess.
Only because you posted 2 hours after me. It works fine now on comcast. The problem cleared up. It was still on swedens end.
So the conspiracy theory you're selling me is that Comcast decided to block the pirate bay for 3 or 4 hours just for the fucking hell of it? Err, okay weirdo.
I doubt it was an intentional lie. They're just incompetent, which is different.
I called a while ago and they told me no caps. I said I was certain they were wrong and asked them to ask their manager. The manager told me they had caps. As well as any lazy google search.
Sometimes its incompetence, not malice.
The nice thing about comcast is that Im not on any contract. So if they piss me off, out they go. No ETF or other BS. I dont have that freedom with dishnetwork, tmobile, or if I went with Uverse.
Adobe isnt giving them the code to flash. I'm sure Google could do a better job than them if they had the code. Google, as well as all browser makers, are in the unfortunate position of dealing with this a dangerous binary blob that everyone wants as a plugin.
Google responsibly tried to sandbox it, and that sandbox has worked very well, but its no guarantee against adobes shit code. Not to mention, if they didnt auto-update it, then end users would never do it, thus more exploits. The sandbox isnt even the best feature of Chrome, its that it autoupdates that dangerous plugin for everyone. My only complaint is that it doesnt do this for Java, which is a much larger malware magnet. Or at least give me a "are you sure you want to run a java applet from this site" with signature information.
Also, I have yet to see how this exploit works when running as a limited user. A lot of flash and adobe exploits only seem to work when running as local admin. The UAC makes no difference.
Yearly re-image? I've been responsible for more Windows installs than I care to admit both professionally and personally and I almost never have to do a wipe. The very few times I've had to do this was with a serious malware infection or disk drive failure. If anything, my big IT peeve is the low quality of mechanical hard drives in general.
Heck, I've got a couple vintage XP machines with installs that are at least 5 or 6 years old. I booted one up, defragged it, updated the BIOS, updated flash, and it was as good as new. I give it to our interns and guests.
The problem is that we're talking about the lowest common denominator. These are the people who abuse their machines just like they abuse their cars. They're the kind who scream "HONDA SUCKS MINE BROKE" but if you press them for details you'll find out that they never did any of the maintenece and chronically drove it with low oil.
Sorry, but if you have 100 IQ or higher you'll be fine. Windows isn't the "nightmare" so many people think it is. Its hilarious to watch people in my office run off and buy macs and hand me a flash drive with "files" on it when they've done nothing else but copy a shortcut and not the actual file." Sure, you can do the same in Windows, but the point is that if you're an incompetent, moving to a new OS isn't going to help. You're going to have to accept incompetence, better yourself, and learn how to do things right.
I'm not going to even go into the clusterfuck of hairpulling that is the typical Linux desktop. Brin's full of shit if he thinks the linux desktop is easier or better to use for typical end users than Windows or OSX.
Unless the government points a gun to my fucking head, I'm not using linux as a desktop and I say this as a big linux server guy. Look, you can blame conspiracy theories all you like, but in the end the product is poor. Look at the clusterfuck that is Unity on Ubuntu or the mess of issues that typify linux desktop. No thanks.
Well said. People quickly forget that when a high profile employee speaks, hes just giving verbatim the position he'd paid to take. He's not some freewheeling loudmouth who does what he wants. Its employer/employee relationaship all the way down.
I find it interesting that because of the ruling MS could no longer dictate that OEMs not put any crapware and couldnt force its own free AV onto them. So end users now get these machines with a fairly decent version of windows, but bogged down in crapware and with multiple AV products screaming for subscriptions which most people ignore.
I'd rather the court just break them up into OS, office, and enterprise software solutions than this kind of odd hand-holding that in the end didn't do much good.
Open Source was going to take over the horrible overly expensive commercial unix market regardless. Apple would still be around and even kept alive by MS to avoid regulators, etc.
Outside of the Netscape issue, I dont think this was justified. I'd rather the court better handle this as its own issue. I'd also would rather have legislation in place that controls whether a large corporation can produce free/bundled software against a small competitor on a case by case basis. We already have undercutting and dumping laws for other industries.
I honestly think that even without this ruling Firefox, Linux, and Apple would have done just as well. The lack of a breakup really just turned this into a useless compromise. Shame the government had the balls to take them to court, but not to actually win anything.
Pardon me if I'm skeptical over the whole "ZOMG ID KILL MYSELF WITHOUT THE INTERNET!!"
Us older geeks know this isn't true. We did things you might recognize like read books or even socialize with our coworkers! We read magazine and wrote stories and played D&D and programmed non-network computers.
If anything, the "always on entertainment" pipe means less creative works, geek socializing, etc because we're forever stuck on this depressing loop of "Hey someone just sent me another video of someone getting kicked in the balls." Or "Hey, here's the outrage of the hour!"
Its not too surprising, it turns out that more entertainment channels and more uncritical viewers just leads us deeper in the lowest common denominator ghetto. Worse, always on information can just as likely be always on disinformation thus you have all these people who suddenly think they're political experts because they know the well-developed talking points over whether the president is really a citizen. But I digress.
I think the truly nerdy have larger issues, its not really a choice for them to go home and become smelly shut-ins, they do this because they cant function in any other way. They might suffer from aspergers, depression, social anxiety, childhood abuse, anger issues, hormonal issues, etc.
Or you bust your ass with some small business, suffer, and fall into deep debt. That's much more likely than "becoming a millionaire." Its kinda sad how many people live their lives on the assumption that great wealth is just a couple different decisions away.
I have a side-business running, I've worked for myself, but I never, ever went on with a "SCREW THE MAN, I'LL BE RICH SOON" because it so fucking improbable I'm not going to embarrass myself by assuming its going to come true. Its the business equivalent of the kid who goes to art school, acts all snobby because he know that in a year or two he'll be rich and famous. That's a losing attitude both in art and business.
Unfortunately, the "success is around the corner with no hard work or compromise" is used politically to advance the agenda of billioanres who feed you this myth and tell you "when you're rich like us, you'll be glad you have a low tax burden and that social services are underfunded."
>Government schools train people to be cogs for the machine
School, like anything in life, is what you make of it. Its not exactly a North Korean indoctrination facility, regardless of how often conservative pundits say they are.
The GP makes a good point. Too many "geeks" become asocial nerds unable to work effectively with others or understand basic social skills. This isn't some kind of free-wheeling "I'm running a startup" mentality, but the often seen smart-guy or smart-gal that is unable to motivate themselves or move up Maslow's pyramid to self-esteem or self-actualization and they become self-loathing WoW addicts or smelly neckbeards.
Read your TOS. A residential broadband contract guarantees nothing. The whole "ZOMG ITS FALSE ADVERTISING - ANY JUDGE WILL SEE IT - LOL WHATS THE PROBLEM!?!?" is far from convincing and historically highly inaccurate. If you think its so easy then why are all the tech powers fighting it out over neutrality? Hint: its not easy and Netflix really is one firewall rule away from bankrupcy.
Do MMOs need to be 10 year spanning projects? I'm comfortable with the idea of an MMO being launched and canceled in 2 years. We've already played the game, know its mechanics, etc why keep it on life support via raising level caps and expansions forever?
I'd love to live in a world where new and unique MMOs were launched every year instead of this kind of one-size-fits all Skinner box McDonaldization that Blizzard is so good at.
>On a personal note, the more I read about this game, the more I think that it's doomed to fail by design.
Look, if you want to keep playing the same old WoW, then go ahead and do that, but don't begrudge those who are trying something new.
>What the iPod did was make MP3 players cool, it made them a fashion accessory
I say this as both someone who borderline dislikes Apple and who owned several pre-iPod players: you are wrong and you're just playing to the crowd's biases and exceptions here.
In reality, the mp3 hardware scene was a mess of manufacturers whose interfaces and software were just terrible. Techies didn't mind, but Joe Average certainly did and didn't understand how to use this technology.
The ipod began to address all these issues. Joe Average got some hand-holding when he installed iTunes. His ipod sync'd up without him having to move or categorize or even find his own MP3s. iTunes would rip his music and also introduce him to an online store where here could buy music. And guess what? IT WAS EASY.
The other guys were releasing half-assed PDFs on how to use Windows Media Player or CDex to do burns. They would either put in some half assed sync software or another PDF on how to use windows explorer to copy MP3s. Joe Average doesnt even know what a file format is, let alone where his mp3s are (if he has any) let alone how to do a proper copy.
Guess which one the market chose? The other items like white earbuds are just marketing items that complement the hardware. It was a success without it. Again, interfaces and ease of use from out of the box matter. They matter quite a lot.
Seriously? Dan Rather is your big bogeyman from one mistake that he apologized and quit over vs hours and hours PER DAY OF COMPLETE DISINFORMATION on Fox?
Hannity and the rest weren't birthers? Err, they played up the hysteria quite well. I love how guys like you excuse them from playing up both sides. They'll legitimize it and then wash their hands of it when it gets too hot to handle. Here's Hannity loudly and childishly demanding the birth certificate.Conservative pundit Lou Dobbs went full retard with the birther nonsense that his boss had to make him stop. Sure Dobbs isn't Fox, but he's the conservative voice of CNN. These are two well known pundits. Here's conservative darling and occasional fox news commentator Sarah Palin legitimizing the issue.
And its not just the birther crap. Its the other conspiracy theories. A few years ago it was "Iraq is out to get us with WMD." Now its Obama wants our guns. Healthcare is going to send us to death panels, etc. Whatever gets the GOP base excited. Yet, they're all conspiracy theories. See, once you live in a bubble of disinformation its easy to start believing that the president isnt an American.
The real issue isn't bloggers vs mainstream press but learning how to recognize the ownership and bias of the established media outlets. Fox is a great example because its such a shitty and biased network that it perfectly illustrates why people should be skeptical of the media. The problem is that most people skeptical of the media do so because they think its liberal and see Fox as the alternative, when it reality, the news is fairly even-handed and pro-corporate, and its Fox that's the ideological nightmare.
The question is, why is everyone rooted? Do a simple google images search for any popular celebrity. Click on some images and you'll quickly be redirected to download "Antivirus 2011" or somesuch.
Its easy to blame Windows users for downloading trojans, but the real question is why isn't anyone securing their websites?
What is an EBS? Is it really just a Xen or VMWare disk image? Which data center corresponds with each availability zone? What are they using for storage iSCSI targets on a SAN?
Err, that's because when you spend $1400-$2500 on a computer you can't do upgrades like the people who spend $750 on a computer. So they've put themselves on a 3-4 year depreciation while I've put myself on a 1.5-2 year depreciation. In the long run we spend about the same, but I have the latest and greatest and none of the hassles of owning a vintage machine and they get the "mac experience" for their money. That's their mistake to make.
Slashdot Mirror
My pet theory is that marketing and religion work on the exact same thing and in the exact same way. Both make big promises, appeal to the emotional side of people, appeal to the lowest common denominator, promote group identity, promote hate of the other, etc. No surprise to hear about this study. I'm sure similar results will be had from anyone who is brand loyal.
I wouldn't be surprised if people who were generally skeptic were also marketing resistant and resistant to populist right-wing demagogues or other politics as religion.
So you mom needs an expert level linux admin to remote in and take care of her machine. Most windows users dont have that, they just wing it on their own.
She doesnt need to know a bazillion archaic command line utilities and go through usenet and ubunutu forums because youre doing it for her.
I love the irony of the "ZOMG LINUX IS EZ" crowd when they admit they need to ssh and micromanage all these "easy" to use machines. Hilarious.
Youre not following my point. I test adobe and browser vulnerabilities at work. They're not all the same and work in non-predictable ways.
Most of them do not work with limited user. Thats because when youre running as a local admin you're not running as a limited user + UAC you're running as some fucked up mixed of both and the UAC only appears during very specific actions and everything else is allowed. It is not the same as running as limited user. Not by a longshot.
Yes, the exploit gained calc.exe as standard user, but so what? If the browser itself was running as limited user it may not have even been able to get that. Windows security levels are really messed up because of the UAC. Its just a GUI for runas, it doesnt stop shit and its at best security theater.
Regardless, these asshats wont release the code, so we can all sit here and guess.
Only because you posted 2 hours after me. It works fine now on comcast. The problem cleared up. It was still on swedens end.
So the conspiracy theory you're selling me is that Comcast decided to block the pirate bay for 3 or 4 hours just for the fucking hell of it? Err, okay weirdo.
I doubt it was an intentional lie. They're just incompetent, which is different.
I called a while ago and they told me no caps. I said I was certain they were wrong and asked them to ask their manager. The manager told me they had caps. As well as any lazy google search.
Sometimes its incompetence, not malice.
The nice thing about comcast is that Im not on any contract. So if they piss me off, out they go. No ETF or other BS. I dont have that freedom with dishnetwork, tmobile, or if I went with Uverse.
Tracert from Chicago comcast customer. (as image because of slashdot's lame lameness filter)
http://i.imgur.com/x26hd.jpg
Problem is in Sweden, not here.
Really? I just did about:plugins and clicked disable on Flash.
Or use flashblock.
Or start Chrome with -disable-plugins
Adobe isnt giving them the code to flash. I'm sure Google could do a better job than them if they had the code. Google, as well as all browser makers, are in the unfortunate position of dealing with this a dangerous binary blob that everyone wants as a plugin.
Google responsibly tried to sandbox it, and that sandbox has worked very well, but its no guarantee against adobes shit code. Not to mention, if they didnt auto-update it, then end users would never do it, thus more exploits. The sandbox isnt even the best feature of Chrome, its that it autoupdates that dangerous plugin for everyone. My only complaint is that it doesnt do this for Java, which is a much larger malware magnet. Or at least give me a "are you sure you want to run a java applet from this site" with signature information.
Also, I have yet to see how this exploit works when running as a limited user. A lot of flash and adobe exploits only seem to work when running as local admin. The UAC makes no difference.
Yearly re-image? I've been responsible for more Windows installs than I care to admit both professionally and personally and I almost never have to do a wipe. The very few times I've had to do this was with a serious malware infection or disk drive failure. If anything, my big IT peeve is the low quality of mechanical hard drives in general.
Heck, I've got a couple vintage XP machines with installs that are at least 5 or 6 years old. I booted one up, defragged it, updated the BIOS, updated flash, and it was as good as new. I give it to our interns and guests.
The problem is that we're talking about the lowest common denominator. These are the people who abuse their machines just like they abuse their cars. They're the kind who scream "HONDA SUCKS MINE BROKE" but if you press them for details you'll find out that they never did any of the maintenece and chronically drove it with low oil.
Sorry, but if you have 100 IQ or higher you'll be fine. Windows isn't the "nightmare" so many people think it is. Its hilarious to watch people in my office run off and buy macs and hand me a flash drive with "files" on it when they've done nothing else but copy a shortcut and not the actual file." Sure, you can do the same in Windows, but the point is that if you're an incompetent, moving to a new OS isn't going to help. You're going to have to accept incompetence, better yourself, and learn how to do things right.
I'm not going to even go into the clusterfuck of hairpulling that is the typical Linux desktop. Brin's full of shit if he thinks the linux desktop is easier or better to use for typical end users than Windows or OSX.
Unless the government points a gun to my fucking head, I'm not using linux as a desktop and I say this as a big linux server guy. Look, you can blame conspiracy theories all you like, but in the end the product is poor. Look at the clusterfuck that is Unity on Ubuntu or the mess of issues that typify linux desktop. No thanks.
Well said. People quickly forget that when a high profile employee speaks, hes just giving verbatim the position he'd paid to take. He's not some freewheeling loudmouth who does what he wants. Its employer/employee relationaship all the way down.
I find it interesting that because of the ruling MS could no longer dictate that OEMs not put any crapware and couldnt force its own free AV onto them. So end users now get these machines with a fairly decent version of windows, but bogged down in crapware and with multiple AV products screaming for subscriptions which most people ignore.
I'd rather the court just break them up into OS, office, and enterprise software solutions than this kind of odd hand-holding that in the end didn't do much good.
Open Source was going to take over the horrible overly expensive commercial unix market regardless. Apple would still be around and even kept alive by MS to avoid regulators, etc.
Outside of the Netscape issue, I dont think this was justified. I'd rather the court better handle this as its own issue. I'd also would rather have legislation in place that controls whether a large corporation can produce free/bundled software against a small competitor on a case by case basis. We already have undercutting and dumping laws for other industries.
I honestly think that even without this ruling Firefox, Linux, and Apple would have done just as well. The lack of a breakup really just turned this into a useless compromise. Shame the government had the balls to take them to court, but not to actually win anything.
Pardon me if I'm skeptical over the whole "ZOMG ID KILL MYSELF WITHOUT THE INTERNET!!"
Us older geeks know this isn't true. We did things you might recognize like read books or even socialize with our coworkers! We read magazine and wrote stories and played D&D and programmed non-network computers.
If anything, the "always on entertainment" pipe means less creative works, geek socializing, etc because we're forever stuck on this depressing loop of "Hey someone just sent me another video of someone getting kicked in the balls." Or "Hey, here's the outrage of the hour!"
Its not too surprising, it turns out that more entertainment channels and more uncritical viewers just leads us deeper in the lowest common denominator ghetto. Worse, always on information can just as likely be always on disinformation thus you have all these people who suddenly think they're political experts because they know the well-developed talking points over whether the president is really a citizen. But I digress.
I think the truly nerdy have larger issues, its not really a choice for them to go home and become smelly shut-ins, they do this because they cant function in any other way. They might suffer from aspergers, depression, social anxiety, childhood abuse, anger issues, hormonal issues, etc.
He is referring to type C personalities:
A is a leader/alpha ape, B is a social butterfly, and C is the overly serious obsessed with details type.
Or you bust your ass with some small business, suffer, and fall into deep debt. That's much more likely than "becoming a millionaire." Its kinda sad how many people live their lives on the assumption that great wealth is just a couple different decisions away.
I have a side-business running, I've worked for myself, but I never, ever went on with a "SCREW THE MAN, I'LL BE RICH SOON" because it so fucking improbable I'm not going to embarrass myself by assuming its going to come true. Its the business equivalent of the kid who goes to art school, acts all snobby because he know that in a year or two he'll be rich and famous. That's a losing attitude both in art and business.
Unfortunately, the "success is around the corner with no hard work or compromise" is used politically to advance the agenda of billioanres who feed you this myth and tell you "when you're rich like us, you'll be glad you have a low tax burden and that social services are underfunded."
>Government schools train people to be cogs for the machine
School, like anything in life, is what you make of it. Its not exactly a North Korean indoctrination facility, regardless of how often conservative pundits say they are.
The GP makes a good point. Too many "geeks" become asocial nerds unable to work effectively with others or understand basic social skills. This isn't some kind of free-wheeling "I'm running a startup" mentality, but the often seen smart-guy or smart-gal that is unable to motivate themselves or move up Maslow's pyramid to self-esteem or self-actualization and they become self-loathing WoW addicts or smelly neckbeards.
>I just download the good stuff anyway.
So did I, but its odd to download a torrent that's zero bytes long. On the other hand, my upload ratio is epic.
is just fancy talk for "This stuff is leading directly to sexbots. You'll thank us later."
Read your TOS. A residential broadband contract guarantees nothing. The whole "ZOMG ITS FALSE ADVERTISING - ANY JUDGE WILL SEE IT - LOL WHATS THE PROBLEM!?!?" is far from convincing and historically highly inaccurate. If you think its so easy then why are all the tech powers fighting it out over neutrality? Hint: its not easy and Netflix really is one firewall rule away from bankrupcy.
Do MMOs need to be 10 year spanning projects? I'm comfortable with the idea of an MMO being launched and canceled in 2 years. We've already played the game, know its mechanics, etc why keep it on life support via raising level caps and expansions forever?
I'd love to live in a world where new and unique MMOs were launched every year instead of this kind of one-size-fits all Skinner box McDonaldization that Blizzard is so good at.
>On a personal note, the more I read about this game, the more I think that it's doomed to fail by design.
Look, if you want to keep playing the same old WoW, then go ahead and do that, but don't begrudge those who are trying something new.
>What the iPod did was make MP3 players cool, it made them a fashion accessory
I say this as both someone who borderline dislikes Apple and who owned several pre-iPod players: you are wrong and you're just playing to the crowd's biases and exceptions here.
In reality, the mp3 hardware scene was a mess of manufacturers whose interfaces and software were just terrible. Techies didn't mind, but Joe Average certainly did and didn't understand how to use this technology.
The ipod began to address all these issues. Joe Average got some hand-holding when he installed iTunes. His ipod sync'd up without him having to move or categorize or even find his own MP3s. iTunes would rip his music and also introduce him to an online store where here could buy music. And guess what? IT WAS EASY.
The other guys were releasing half-assed PDFs on how to use Windows Media Player or CDex to do burns. They would either put in some half assed sync software or another PDF on how to use windows explorer to copy MP3s. Joe Average doesnt even know what a file format is, let alone where his mp3s are (if he has any) let alone how to do a proper copy.
Guess which one the market chose? The other items like white earbuds are just marketing items that complement the hardware. It was a success without it. Again, interfaces and ease of use from out of the box matter. They matter quite a lot.
Seriously? Dan Rather is your big bogeyman from one mistake that he apologized and quit over vs hours and hours PER DAY OF COMPLETE DISINFORMATION on Fox?
Hannity and the rest weren't birthers? Err, they played up the hysteria quite well. I love how guys like you excuse them from playing up both sides. They'll legitimize it and then wash their hands of it when it gets too hot to handle. Here's Hannity loudly and childishly demanding the birth certificate. Conservative pundit Lou Dobbs went full retard with the birther nonsense that his boss had to make him stop. Sure Dobbs isn't Fox, but he's the conservative voice of CNN. These are two well known pundits. Here's conservative darling and occasional fox news commentator Sarah Palin legitimizing the issue.
And its not just the birther crap. Its the other conspiracy theories. A few years ago it was "Iraq is out to get us with WMD." Now its Obama wants our guns. Healthcare is going to send us to death panels, etc. Whatever gets the GOP base excited. Yet, they're all conspiracy theories. See, once you live in a bubble of disinformation its easy to start believing that the president isnt an American.
The real issue isn't bloggers vs mainstream press but learning how to recognize the ownership and bias of the established media outlets. Fox is a great example because its such a shitty and biased network that it perfectly illustrates why people should be skeptical of the media. The problem is that most people skeptical of the media do so because they think its liberal and see Fox as the alternative, when it reality, the news is fairly even-handed and pro-corporate, and its Fox that's the ideological nightmare.
The question is, why is everyone rooted? Do a simple google images search for any popular celebrity. Click on some images and you'll quickly be redirected to download "Antivirus 2011" or somesuch.
Its easy to blame Windows users for downloading trojans, but the real question is why isn't anyone securing their websites?
What is an EBS? Is it really just a Xen or VMWare disk image? Which data center corresponds with each availability zone? What are they using for storage iSCSI targets on a SAN?
Err, that's because when you spend $1400-$2500 on a computer you can't do upgrades like the people who spend $750 on a computer. So they've put themselves on a 3-4 year depreciation while I've put myself on a 1.5-2 year depreciation. In the long run we spend about the same, but I have the latest and greatest and none of the hassles of owning a vintage machine and they get the "mac experience" for their money. That's their mistake to make.