this is late to the party but: the LAST piece of actual code that I knwo of that Bill wrote was the port of Microsoft Basic to the Tandy Model 100 Portable, and, I also knwo the 2 glaring bugs he left in it.
This reminds me of the new product I was thinking of releasing into the Washington DC market: Bill of Rights Toilet Paper with all 10 printed on each sheet. I bet I would....clean up;)
On the other hand...a REALLY smart hacker would be looking close at the soft underbelly of Vista NOW and release something so smooth, so slick and so undetectable that it gets absorbed into the base VISTA install (next patch, MS dweeb says "What's this? Oh it has the stamp of our Bangalore office, who KNOWS what THEY are doing! It is probably ok and the company is so damn big who can tell..."). Vista goes on its way release after release, patch after patch, and finally, when saturation occurs; Trigger day follows.. I can think of about a dozen similar scenarios. But then I DID here Steve Balmer on a talk show describing the advanced security of Vista... The term "Bald Faced Lie" came to mind...but I would never say that...
I can see it now down at the casting counch: "Great idea baby, only, make the boy a girl, make her pregnant, divorce the parents, give the dog incurable cancer and change the setting to Marin County"
Good point. That is the very reason NASA sticks to 386 and earlier vintage computers from what I have read. Outside of the insulating atmosphere, cosmic rays pass throuh and have a tendency to be larger then the cicuit gap. This makes for some interesting and adverse additions to any computation.
Every now and then the normal press reports new advances in biological comuters, light based, heck I even read of a wooden one once... Nothing it seems ever comes of it though except interesting grad student papers Electronic comps are the work horse for now, and, for the future it seems we will just see....Moore of the same;)
its to fight cams? -much ado aboot nothing!:) the problem(?) was never cams. Since the days when I woored a video store and was given pre-release films to watch at home, it has never been about cams.
In the early 20th century, most cities had Trolly Lines. Most were electric. there was no need for road crowding, smoke billowing Buses. But Detroit realized building buses was a gold mine as long as City planning departments, the Mayor's urban task force and other such public servants could be persuaded to rip up the trolly lines. Thus our public leaders made decisions for the good of us all. The more it changes, the more it stays the same....
Ever checked your bank balance? Diebold makes ATM machines, and many other accounting and tabulating devices used in modern banking.. Every one of us can point to our bank balance which is $4-$20 off every month, always in the bank's favor. That is, all hundred millions of us... The only real question is: what is the percentage of the cut?
Stuffing the mattress would be a solution, if only the actual dollar could maintain the same value it had last Tuesday....
Problem is: amount in dispute = X. Lawyer consult = X + a zillion. That is how it always works.
The deck is stacked, the house always, wins, and as long as you keep that firmly in mind you are never disapointed.
remember the "do cell phone cause cancer"? Well I can just see the future: "New crack of security systems requires all citizens to have the firmware in thier mastoid implants re-flashed. Government speaks-person assures that the process is harmlelss harmless harmless....."
If I recall correctly, one of the issues that lead up to the Revolutionary War was something called a "lettre de cache". In today's world it seems a innocent and quaint concept.
Actually, those files were in my own/usr... directories which in the normal clean-up sweep of terminated employees were wiped. The software was written ON MY OWN TIME as a tool to help me do my own job which had absolutely nothing to do with programming. I am not a programmer, I was never trained as a programmer but I CAN program (in a number of languages from assembler to VB). Then again I can do auto mechanics, rough carpentry and a lot of other jobs too.. When a tradesman such as these shows up for a job, he brings his own tools. I see no reason I should provide MY tools to another though as a curtesy you can borrow my 5/16ths. When I leave, the toolbox goes with me. Actually, in that case, it stayed behind and, had anyone thought to archive my/user/bin they could have kept what I left. Not my call. OTOH, if you PAY ME for a product; a piece of code certainly I will write something for you. And that was my point. It will also be more a finished product then the slap-dash tools I was using there. Of course, that shop was already paying other people to program for them. Perhaps one of those professionals could have accomplished the task. Probably not, as a user I was already familiar with their product.
Columbus died in a poverty too. It is never the explorer, it is always the exploiter... his middle managers, 2 accountants, and the guys from marketing that walk off with the prize
I worked state gov once, and wrote some very useful code, useful to me and handy for co-workers. But I was never hired to write it,nor was I paid for writing it. When I left, I left the code in a file location that was not archived, was not backed up, and was not saved. Still available, still used and everyone was happy till... 30 days later it went bye bye. I get a call at my new job "Where are those files????" I said: "Gee I am not sure, did you archive them with your other (paid for) important software? No? well then gee I'm not sure, no, I did not keep a copy, no, I don't recall how it worked, but if you pay me a reasonable consulting fee I might possibly could...."
Given that in human culture the average length of time any political structure lasts before the Barbarians move in and sack the place is around 200 years, planning to store and contain anything for a time longer then the time from the beginning of the Bronze Age till a week ago last Tuesday is somewhat..whats that word? oh yes: STUPID.
as I recall, the fittings on the Apollo 13 launch were metric, the Comamnd Module English. Some fittings were square, others round.... If I was on the moon I would hate to need to change my O2 bottle and in an emergency, the one from contractor B has a English nozzle fitting. Consisitency is not just a good idea here....
24/7 video/audio hookup? use of a human agreed upon pass phrase (Murray Sent Me! worked in speak easys)? I think having a human brain somewhere in the network is a good idea, not a problem, besides...why be 10k miles away? Your boss could just telepresense you there, or better...telepresense a recording of what you once were all controlled by modern CG type graphics... Why hire you?
Might I suggest a proven and workable security system that for many years served quite well, worked flawlessly, and besides serving the customer, provided a unique customer experience which enhanced the transaction with good feelings all around and a willingness on the customer's part to bring more business to the bank?
This system involved the use of a key security feature we will call a "Human Teller". The Teller would smile and say "Good Morning Mr. Thomas", verifying Mr. Thomas' identity both visually and when Thomas replies, aurally. Use of this feature does have the disadvantages associated with hiring a human being, but advances in technology do occasionally bear a heavy price.
Indeed. Complex documents with embedded personal data, auto texts, remembered changes, and other fun information that can get you and your company in deep doo-doo if Joe User without a clue uses the product. Many cases in the news on this of late, and many many many such cases I personally have nipped in the bud in my own shop. Thanks Microsoft! Seems to me a personal meet with Sam in accounting with face time to discus the whichness of what on paragraph 2 would be more productive, less dangerous and frankly result in a more human epistle then the processed words our current systems create.
Rather then learning new technology, it does seem a more productive use of time would be to better learn to use the tech at hand, and...to...LEARN TO WRITE
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this is late to the party but: the LAST piece of actual code that I knwo of that Bill wrote was the port of Microsoft Basic to the Tandy Model 100 Portable, and, I also knwo the 2 glaring bugs he left in it.
This reminds me of the new product I was thinking of releasing into the Washington DC market: ;)
Bill of Rights Toilet Paper with all 10 printed on each sheet. I bet I would....clean up
On the other hand...a REALLY smart hacker would be looking close at the soft underbelly of Vista NOW and release something so smooth, so slick and so undetectable that it gets absorbed into the base VISTA install (next patch, MS dweeb says "What's this? Oh it has the stamp of our Bangalore office, who KNOWS what THEY are doing! It is probably ok and the company is so damn big who can tell..."). Vista goes on its way release after release, patch after patch, and finally, when saturation occurs; Trigger day follows..
I can think of about a dozen similar scenarios. But then I DID here Steve Balmer on a talk show describing the advanced security of Vista... The term "Bald Faced Lie" came to mind...but I would never say that...
I can see it now down at the casting counch: "Great idea baby, only, make the boy a girl, make her pregnant, divorce the parents, give the dog incurable cancer and change the setting to Marin County"
Good point. That is the very reason NASA sticks to 386 and earlier vintage computers from what I have read. Outside of the insulating atmosphere, cosmic rays pass throuh and have a tendency to be larger then the cicuit gap. This makes for some interesting and adverse additions to any computation. ;)
Every now and then the normal press reports new advances in biological comuters, light based, heck I even read of a wooden one once... Nothing it seems ever comes of it though except interesting grad student papers Electronic comps are the work horse for now, and, for the future it seems we will just see....Moore of the same
its to fight cams? -much ado aboot nothing! :)
the problem(?) was never cams. Since the days when I woored a video store and was given pre-release films to watch at home, it has never been about cams.
I have WORKED in a bank. and I do/did....THOUSANDS.
In the early 20th century, most cities had Trolly Lines. Most were electric. there was no need for road crowding, smoke billowing Buses. But Detroit realized building buses was a gold mine as long as City planning departments, the Mayor's urban task force and other such public servants could be persuaded to rip up the trolly lines. Thus our public leaders made decisions for the good of us all. The more it changes, the more it stays the same....
Ever checked your bank balance? Diebold makes ATM machines, and many other accounting and tabulating devices used in modern banking.. Every one of us can point to our bank balance which is $4-$20 off every month, always in the bank's favor. That is, all hundred millions of us...
The only real question is: what is the percentage of the cut?
Stuffing the mattress would be a solution, if only the actual dollar could maintain the same value it had last Tuesday....
Type in comamnds in an application? but does it work in DOS 6.22?
Problem is: amount in dispute = X. Lawyer consult = X + a zillion. That is how it always works.
The deck is stacked, the house always, wins, and as long as you keep that firmly in mind you are never disapointed.
remember the "do cell phone cause cancer"? Well I can just see the future: "New crack of security systems requires all citizens to have the firmware in thier mastoid implants re-flashed. Government speaks-person assures that the process is harmlelss harmless harmless....."
Wait, I thought the Dems won. Doesn't that mean there was no cheating?
If I recall correctly, one of the issues that lead up to the Revolutionary War was something called a "lettre de cache". In today's world it seems a innocent and quaint concept.
Actually, those files were in my own /usr... directories which in the normal clean-up sweep of terminated employees were wiped. The software was written ON MY OWN TIME as a tool to help me do my own job which had absolutely nothing to do with programming. I am not a programmer, I was never trained as a programmer but I CAN program (in a number of languages from assembler to VB). Then again I can do auto mechanics, rough carpentry and a lot of other jobs too.. When a tradesman such as these shows up for a job, he brings his own tools. I see no reason I should provide MY tools to another though as a curtesy you can borrow my 5/16ths. When I leave, the toolbox goes with me. Actually, in that case, it stayed behind and, had anyone thought to archive my /user/bin they could have kept what I left. Not my call. OTOH, if you PAY ME for a product; a piece of code certainly I will write something for you. And that was my point. It will also be more a finished product then the slap-dash tools I was using there. Of course, that shop was already paying other people to program for them. Perhaps one of those professionals could have accomplished the task. Probably not, as a user I was already familiar with their product.
Columbus died in a poverty too. It is never the explorer, it is always the exploiter... his middle managers, 2 accountants, and the guys from marketing that walk off with the prize
I worked state gov once, and wrote some very useful code, useful to me and handy for co-workers. But I was never hired to write it,nor was I paid for writing it. When I left, I left the code in a file location that was not archived, was not backed up, and was not saved. Still available, still used and everyone was happy till... 30 days later it went bye bye. I get a call at my new job "Where are those files????" I said: "Gee I am not sure, did you archive them with your other (paid for) important software? No? well then gee I'm not sure, no, I did not keep a copy, no, I don't recall how it worked, but if you pay me a reasonable consulting fee I might possibly could...."
Given that in human culture the average length of time any political structure lasts before the Barbarians move in and sack the place is around 200 years, planning to store and contain anything for a time longer then the time from the beginning of the Bronze Age till a week ago last Tuesday is somewhat ..whats that word? oh yes: STUPID.
WHS is for media? Are you sure Microsoft didn't mean "VHS" or...is it still Beta? :)
Typical response to a problem: form a committee!
he said with a collective smirk
as I recall, the fittings on the Apollo 13 launch were metric, the Comamnd Module English. Some fittings were square, others round.... If I was on the moon I would hate to need to change my O2 bottle and in an emergency, the one from contractor B has a English nozzle fitting. Consisitency is not just a good idea here....
24/7 video/audio hookup? use of a human agreed upon pass phrase (Murray Sent Me! worked in speak easys)? I think having a human brain somewhere in the network is a good idea, not a problem, besides...why be 10k miles away? Your boss could just telepresense you there, or better...telepresense a recording of what you once were all controlled by modern CG type graphics... Why hire you?
Might I suggest a proven and workable security system that for many years served quite well, worked flawlessly, and besides serving the customer, provided a unique customer experience which enhanced the transaction with good feelings all around and a willingness on the customer's part to bring more business to the bank?
This system involved the use of a key security feature we will call a "Human Teller". The Teller would smile and say "Good Morning Mr. Thomas", verifying Mr. Thomas' identity both visually and when Thomas replies, aurally. Use of this feature does have the disadvantages associated with hiring a human being, but advances in technology do occasionally bear a heavy price.
Indeed. Complex documents with embedded personal data, auto texts, remembered changes, and other fun information that can get you and your company in deep doo-doo if Joe User without a clue uses the product. Many cases in the news on this of late, and many many many such cases I personally have nipped in the bud in my own shop. Thanks Microsoft! Seems to me a personal meet with Sam in accounting with face time to discus the whichness of what on paragraph 2 would be more productive, less dangerous and frankly result in a more human epistle then the processed words our current systems create.
Rather then learning new technology, it does seem a more productive use of time would be to better learn to use the tech at hand, and...to...LEARN TO WRITE