I don't know. If you ask me, "Thief" was really the origin of the genre. Sure, there were older games which involved stealth to some extent, but the many of the conventions and much of the gameplay of the first-person/third-person sneaker were born with "The Dark Project".
Haven't tried the "Premier" edition. The normal edition's CD is bootable, but it's just damn-near useless-- like I said, it only has a NAV scanner which doesn't work on NTFS partitions.
I also have some (unconnected) doubts about Symantec. They just aren't what they used to be. Has anyone tried a recent version of Norton Systemworks? The CD is bootable, but the only application available from boot is Norton Antivirus, and even that won't scan NTFS volumes. Ho many people are still using FAT?
So you can't run Norton Disk Doctor by booting from the CD, but you also can't run it to fix your hard drive from within Windows. If you try to tell it to scan and repair your system volume, it tells you it can't while Windows is running, and asks you to reboot in order to scan the disk. And what happens when you reboot? It runs a CHKDSK!
It seems like Symantec has gotten lazy, not offering significant new features, not updating their software to deal with spyware, NTFS volumes. or anything much else.
Now, none of this is terribly on-topic, but I've been using the Norton stuff for 15 years, and though Norton Utilities/Norton AntiVirus used to be a great little set of tools, lately it's just seemed sloppy and old.
As with all mergers of this sort, there's the possibility of arriving at a product that delivers the best of both worlds. For example, I like some things about GoLive and some things about Dreamweaver, so maybe taking the best from each will create a better product, and perhaps bring about new innovations as the features of each are integrated in clever ways.
However, there's also the possibility that we could get the worst of both worlds, and without any other real option except to go to an ordinary text editor.
Macromedia also makes Fireworks, a semi-Photoshop competitor (I say semi because it's more aimed at web developers than print-media designers), Freehand, a semi-Illustrator competitor (likewise semi-), as well as a couple of programs that will make PDFs, including FlashPaper.
Adobe also makes GoLive and LiveMotion, which compete with Dreamweaver and Flash.
So although they are aiming at slightly different industries (web-media and print media), there is a lot of overlap between the functionality offered as well as there being a lot of overlap between designers and agencies which work in the two media. Yeah, I'd say they're competitors.
Oh, I'm not complaining about drop shadows or 3D acceleration in UIs in general. I use OSX, and like the effects and how they're used. I was partially joking, but mostly commenting on the sentiment of, "Well, since there'll be 4Ghz processors, we'd better make the UI use all that extra processor up."
I mean, first of all, if that's the approach they're taking, it'll probably end up with lots of effects that don't help the UI, because they'd be forcing lots visual effects just because they can. I'm inclined to believe that things should be worked in gradually, made to fit in and work well with the UI instead of an arbitrary add-ons. Setting out to make complex effects sounds like adding lens flare to every photoshop you work on.
Second, I think I'd like to hear that they're trying to make the effects efficient, not using more power than they need. The effects in OSX, for example, don't require the most advanced video cards and processors from three years from now to work. So why are Microsoft's predicted system requirements so high?
And to those who say, "Why not? You want your video card to sit idle?" Well, maybe. Like for a notebook, it'd be nice to have lower power requirements. Also, if the new accelerated UI will be really good, then it'd be nice if it worked on slower systems. If it's not that good, and it's just useless eyecandy, then I'd rather save the power for other developers who can do something useful with it.
He says that Longhorn is designed to take advantage of all this muscle, and nowhere is that more evident than in the rich, three-dimensional interface known as Aero.
6. When we have all this muscle, do we really want it all to be spent on more complicated drop-shadows in the OS?
I think you hit on the key point for me (a sometimes adblock user). I think there's an argument to be had that, if a site is worth reading, it's worth supporting in some way. Many sites have some paid membership that will remove ads anyway, so you either support the site outright with money or by allowing it to advertise. I think most of us are fine with the idea. But the pop-ups, pop-unders, hovering ads that block website content, ugly flashing animated banners, and the like, they break the contract first.
So, for example, a common sort of social contract is, if I meet you on the street, I won't punch you in the face if you don't punch me in the face. It's a little assumed agreement that keeps the world moving. If you look at me funny, I won't punch you in the face either. However, if you step on my toes, spit in my eye, and call my mom a whore, you might find yourself on the receiving end of a knuckle sandwich.
Likewise, I'm absolutely fine with a site making some money by feeding me relevant text ads. Heck, I've even clicked on some Google ads before, because they were targeted well enough that I was interested. Graphic ads are fine, but please don't make them horrible. I'll even tolerate animations to a point. But if you give me a pop-under, you've just spit in my face, and have no right to complain if I block your ads from then on.
But he's used to the system changes being more dramatic like in the P.C. world:
1) DOS (command line)
1.5) Windows 1.0, 2.0 (aborted)
2) Windows 3.0 (whoops kinda shitty, do over)
2.5) Windows 3.1 (works!)
3) Windows 95 (Now like MacOS!)
4) Windows 98 (Now with a web-browser built-in!)
5) Windows ME (What is the diff here again?)
Notice 1.5)-5) are all nothing but DOS running a new graphical shell. And other than "service-pack" level changes, I'm hard-pressed to describe how Win 95/98/ME differ at all.
6) Windows 2000 (Now using NT instead of DOS!)
7) Windows XP
And let's see what happens when you apply what seems to be Apple's current numbering convention (which is code-base.interface/feature updates.bug-fixes) to Microsoft's OS retroactively...
1.0.0-1.0.? : DOS
1.1.0 : Windows 3.1
1.2.0 : Windows 95
1.3.0 : Windows 98
1.3.1 : Windows 98 SE
1.3.2 : Windows ME
2.0.0 : Windows NT 3.1
2.1.0 : Windows NT 4.0
2.2.0 : Windows 2000
2.3.0 : Windows XP
2.3.2 : Windows XP SP2
... and I think I'm generous for indicating that Windows ME was even for "bug fixes" when it was far more bug-riddled than Windows 98.
People keep assuming that a +0.1 release is a "service pack" and therefore it's insane for Apple users to pay for the upgrades. It's a NUMBERING CONVENTION, not an absolute indicator of the importance of the upgrade.
Bullshit! What about Automator? What about Core Image/Core Data? What about VoiceOver?
Well, the Core-stuff won't be directly apparent to users. Hopefully it's effect will be seen through the apps developed to use it, but users aren't going to know what Core Image is, so from a user's perspective, it's not a "feature".
However, Automator does look really cool, and in my estimation, is going to be the under-hyped addition in Tiger. For anyone who doesn't know, Automator is a graphic interface program that allows you to create Applescripts without knowing any Applescript. Applescript has hooks into loads of applications, allowing quite a lot of control, and Automator will allow a relative novice to create things that look like Applications or add context menus to the OS to activate some powerful scripts without knowing a damn thing about programming. At the very least, it has potential, but if it works as well as Apple's demo indicates, it'll be damn cool.
Yes, because it's not worth trying to make a good movie that might possibly be a big hit if a few dozen "real Hitchhiker fans" won't be completely 100% satisfied.
What the MTA really needs to do is publish realtime subway position info. On billboards in the stations, on their website, on automated phone lines, as a pager/sms subscription/request service.
I'd love to see a simple electronic sign in the station that can give you an estimate of "Next train arriving in X minutes." Other cities have it, and even when they're not entirely accurate, it's nice to have an idea.
Another very simple (and cheap) thing I'd like to see is an RSS feed of outages. They already have a web site that tells you when one of the lines goes down, but as far as I know, no RSS feed. A simple RSS feed would allow people to check on their portable devices, and could allow for a nice Konfabulator widget (or whatever) sitting on your desktop, giving alerts when a train goes down. Why is that so hard?
WHQL. Yes. I believe it was when Windows XP first came out (or maybe it was still when win2k was new?), Microsoft had a version of the driver in the OS and on the Windows update site with a lot of OpenGL features stripped. It worked, but was a little broken and very slow, but Direct3D worked fine. The same version of WHQL signed drivers from Nvidia's site didn't have OpenGL problems, but Windows would still claim the drivers were unsigned, and Windows Update would always ask you to "upgrade" to Microsoft's version, even if the Nvidia drivers already installed were newer.
So basically, there were conspiracy theories that it was done on purpose, but nothing definitive. Seriously, am I the only one who remembers this? I wasn't even sure it this behavior ever really changed, but it was enough to convince me to always get drivers from the manufacturer (not MS) and ignore the driver signing warnings Windows threw up.
This might not change much, windows users are generally lazy.
Exactly-- Laziness. Laziness is why it might work. If Microsoft shipped their OS so users, by default, were logged in as a user-level account, people might be too lazy to change it. As it is, they're logged in as an administrator by default, and users are too lazy to change it.
How many people do you think abort the installation of unsigned drivers, even when XP warns them that they are unsigned. I'd presume it is a very high percentage.
The percentage might be higher if the signed-driver thing didn't seem to be used for Microsoft's anti-competitive purposes. Or does no one else remember the fiasco where Windows would complain when you tried to install certified drivers from Nvidia, and instead direct you to install a Microsoft-altered version of the driver with crippled OpenGL?
It will take a big shift in attitudes (or Microsoft forcing the user to jump though hoops) to make many home users have anything but admin-privilege accounts.
And I think that, right there, that's the problem many of us have with Windows' security (you know, when you hear all the MS-bashing about bad security?). Microsoft has sought to appease users/developers who don't understand/care about security measures, and so they've left out the hoops you would have to jump through in order to accomplish things. However, this means that viruses/worms/trojans/spyware/whatever have to jump through fewer hoops as well.
Personally, I'd like to see Microsoft be brave, risk alienating their customers, and do things the right way. The question is, has the bad press about security made Microsoft feel threatened enough to take that risk.
Again, I don't think we're disagreeing. I would say that very often (i.e. generally) allowing people to compete produces a more efficient outcome. Sometimes, for certain things, a government is more efficient. Sometimes governments handle things that the point isn't just to be "efficient", but to promote the common good in a way a for-profit company might not.
Or does it seem to you we disagree? (or are you just going into detail/examples?)
It seems to me the two of you aren't in disagreement. He's saying he's "generally" against something, and you're saying "at times" it's good. Maybe those times when it's efficient are what caused him to say "generally" instead of "always".
And yes, I would say that "generally" the government is not the most efficient means to acheive a goal. Governments aren't generally set up to be efficient, and they usually have little motivation to be efficient, so they generally aren't that efficient. But then again, sometimes "efficiency" isn't really the point, is it?
I'm just waiting for this technology to become the next spell-check/grammar-check. You know, you're typing along, and suddenly your sentence gets a blue squiggly underline, and it tells you, "You are retarded. Learn to write, dumbass."
Ah,damn. I just ran this post through my funny-check, and against my intentions, this post is not "teh funny".
Some researchers now believe that "the intelligence is in the IO".
I'm glad you said that. What strikes me is that people often forget about the "O" when they think about intelligence. Perception is insufficient. You need activity too-- and not just motion, but making changes in your world. You need interactivity with your world before intelligence is possible.
And, as creepy as it is, in order to have this sort of interactivity, you need motivation. Your actions in the world need to have a purpose, and aim, a goal. For that you need desire.
So in this vein, in order to grow an intelligence (artificial or otherwise), you need a being with the ability to sense and perceive it's environment, the ability to interact with that environment and change it, the will and desire to do so, the ability to try different means to their goals.
Now, you need more than that, and there's a lot that goes into each one of those conditions, but you'll need *at least* that much just to have a proper IO. In order to turn that into intelligence, you need *at least* a memory to recall what actions in the past yeilded what results, and the ability to compare different situations and view them as "alike" or similar (to be used with the memory as a precondition for learning). And that will won't yield an advanced intelligence.
Further, the desire necessary for proper IO should rightfully be such that it would cause the intelligence to continue to exist, to learn, to grow, and to adapt, the goal of the desire must be never-accomplished, and its environment must be complex.
It seems we can program anything done with conscious thought--algebra, logic, and so forth. It's mostly the things we do unconsciously--recognize objects, interpret terrain, extract meaning from sentences--that can't be put adequately into code. Would the code for these unconscious processes really be complicated, or is it just that we don't have mental access to the techniques?
Even the "conscious thought" that we program, however, is not intelligent. What I mean is, algebra, logic, and so forth-- we can program a computer to give a certain output when given input, and that's about it. I give the computer 2+2, and it gives me 4, but the computer doesn't think the answer is 4. The computer doesn't understand that if I have 2 apples and I get two more, I have 4, even if you program it so that when I ask, "If I have 2 apples and I get two more, how many do I have then?" it says "4".
What many people fail to grasp is that our ability to understand math (i.e. an ability greater than the execution of calculations by a machine) is bound up with and generated from those "unconscious processes" like recognizing objects, interpret terrain, and extracting meaning from sentences. Those processes would be EXTREMELY difficult to code properly, they would require a lot of processing power, and we don't have direct "mental access" to the techniques used. Also, even these "unconscious processes" (recognizing objects, terrain, speech) are founded on even more basic processes that we have even less access to.
Additionally, those with the programming skills to execute the "coding properly" and those with the skills to "have mental access" are generally going to be different kinds of thinkers. In fact, these two different types of thinkers tend to have a certain level of disdain for one another, and rarely work well together.
However, if you wish to create a real AI, the unconscious stuff needs to come first, generating a base to work with. Instead of creating a full AI that understands everything all at once, you set a framework, build a rudimentary intelligence, and then "teach" that intelligence. (I believe this is the general idea behind the "baby bootstrapping" being referenced)
Unfortunately, this will create an intelligence that is just as limited and irrational at humans. But that's what intelligence is, after all.
I mean, lets assume the user is trying to install AOL Instant Messanger. So, the install goes ok, but the firewall isn't configured for it. The user can't change it, so they can't IM.
Honestly, the way I feel about it, it's up to the firewall and IM people to figure that out. Either figure out better schemes for determining "suspicious behavior" (and in the case of the IM client, avoid being labelled "suspicious"), or the firewall should block it until someone who knows what they're doing reconfigures the firewall. At least, that would be better than having people who don't have any idea what they're doing changing their firewall settings from I-don't-know-what to I-still-don't-know-what.
Bam, support call - "My PC is broken, I can't type to my friends *whine*".
Good. The support people can help them. That's their job. In the end, it'll be easier on tech support to field these sorts of trouble calls than perform all the spyware removal they're doing now.
One, suggest the user pay someone to come out to install every program that tries to get online...
Worse things could happen. People who don't know anything about cars aren't expected to rebuild their carburetors, and people who don't know anything about computers shouldn't be expected to reconfigure firewalls. When you buy software, many stores will install it for you. Personally, I think that if you buy a computer, you should find a good tech, the same way that when you buy a car, you find a good mechanic. Take your computer in for maintenance twice a year or so, take your computer in when you're having trouble or need work done. Needing a tech for *every* install would be a bit much, but so is expecting everyone to be a computer expert.
Most people will notice a pattern that everytime they install any internet enabled app (near every app now), they have to call support. And support always has them do the same thing, flip some switch, then after making stuff work, flip it back.
If so, then at least by the time they've figured that out, they've been lead through several installs and learned something about the way their computers work. If every time I took my car in to do an oil-change, the guy at Jiffy Lube made me do it while he supervised, then it's probably true that after a while, many customers would start feeling comfortable changing their own oil. However, by the time that happened, they'd know how to change their oil.
99% of all installers are a matter of next, next, next, finish...
...which, of course, is part of the problem. You're right, some developers are getting better at this, but making it so users have to click through long wizards of stupid questions is part of what gets users in the "If I just click 'ok' it will make the annoying box go away" habit.
Perhaps there should be an OS-wide switch, or an option on user accounts, that identifies the user as "advanced" or "normal". Basically, under most circumstances, 99% of the options should be hidden. Firewalls should block suspicious activity without asking and without telling. Web browser should not install any software on the computer. Security policies should be inviolable. Warning messages should be in very clear language, written with the assumption that the user knows nothing about computers. You should have to *know something* in order to change these options, meaning a window shouldn't pop up asking, "Would you like to allow dkfihh.exe to access 127.0.0.1:21?" If you want your computer to ask questions like that, there should be an option, and the option should be hidden well enough that if you want to access it, you should have to know enough about computers to understand what that question is asking. Otherwise, firewalls should block pretty much anything suspicious. Those developing applications should adapt, figuring out a way to make their traffic not-suspicious (perhaps working with firewall vendors to do so).
So, when I said, "There are a lot of different things to do at various levels to lessen these problems..." part of what I had in mind was that all the options should be hidden, and all the pop-up windows asking, "Would you like to violate security?" should stop, unless you flip an option somewhere that only geeks will find. Second, you're right, ISPs should take on some of the responsibility, and there's lots that they can do. Computer manufacturers can ship every computer with better security software, and application developers can make their programs adhere to higher security standards so that software will work without asking the user "Do you want to allow this program system-destroy-enabling privileges." OS developers can work to diminish the degree to which anything needs system-destroy-enabling privileges.
But making users "smarter" just aint gonna happen, and the engeers at work should always assume Murphy's law (If you make something less than utterly-fool-proof, some fool will break it).
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I don't know. If you ask me, "Thief" was really the origin of the genre. Sure, there were older games which involved stealth to some extent, but the many of the conventions and much of the gameplay of the first-person/third-person sneaker were born with "The Dark Project".
There's a PS2 and PC version of Splinter Cell.
Haven't tried the "Premier" edition. The normal edition's CD is bootable, but it's just damn-near useless-- like I said, it only has a NAV scanner which doesn't work on NTFS partitions.
So you can't run Norton Disk Doctor by booting from the CD, but you also can't run it to fix your hard drive from within Windows. If you try to tell it to scan and repair your system volume, it tells you it can't while Windows is running, and asks you to reboot in order to scan the disk. And what happens when you reboot? It runs a CHKDSK!
It seems like Symantec has gotten lazy, not offering significant new features, not updating their software to deal with spyware, NTFS volumes. or anything much else.
Now, none of this is terribly on-topic, but I've been using the Norton stuff for 15 years, and though Norton Utilities/Norton AntiVirus used to be a great little set of tools, lately it's just seemed sloppy and old.
We could hope that Adobe would open Flash up and create an excellent SVG/Flash hybrid. I'm not holding my breath, but we could hope...
However, there's also the possibility that we could get the worst of both worlds, and without any other real option except to go to an ordinary text editor.
Good news? Bad news? Hard to tell.
Adobe also makes GoLive and LiveMotion, which compete with Dreamweaver and Flash.
So although they are aiming at slightly different industries (web-media and print media), there is a lot of overlap between the functionality offered as well as there being a lot of overlap between designers and agencies which work in the two media. Yeah, I'd say they're competitors.
I mean, first of all, if that's the approach they're taking, it'll probably end up with lots of effects that don't help the UI, because they'd be forcing lots visual effects just because they can. I'm inclined to believe that things should be worked in gradually, made to fit in and work well with the UI instead of an arbitrary add-ons. Setting out to make complex effects sounds like adding lens flare to every photoshop you work on.
Second, I think I'd like to hear that they're trying to make the effects efficient, not using more power than they need. The effects in OSX, for example, don't require the most advanced video cards and processors from three years from now to work. So why are Microsoft's predicted system requirements so high?
And to those who say, "Why not? You want your video card to sit idle?" Well, maybe. Like for a notebook, it'd be nice to have lower power requirements. Also, if the new accelerated UI will be really good, then it'd be nice if it worked on slower systems. If it's not that good, and it's just useless eyecandy, then I'd rather save the power for other developers who can do something useful with it.
6. When we have all this muscle, do we really want it all to be spent on more complicated drop-shadows in the OS?
So, for example, a common sort of social contract is, if I meet you on the street, I won't punch you in the face if you don't punch me in the face. It's a little assumed agreement that keeps the world moving. If you look at me funny, I won't punch you in the face either. However, if you step on my toes, spit in my eye, and call my mom a whore, you might find yourself on the receiving end of a knuckle sandwich.
Likewise, I'm absolutely fine with a site making some money by feeding me relevant text ads. Heck, I've even clicked on some Google ads before, because they were targeted well enough that I was interested. Graphic ads are fine, but please don't make them horrible. I'll even tolerate animations to a point. But if you give me a pop-under, you've just spit in my face, and have no right to complain if I block your ads from then on.
1) DOS (command line)
1.5) Windows 1.0, 2.0 (aborted)
2) Windows 3.0 (whoops kinda shitty, do over)
2.5) Windows 3.1 (works!)
3) Windows 95 (Now like MacOS!)
4) Windows 98 (Now with a web-browser built-in!)
5) Windows ME (What is the diff here again?)
Notice 1.5)-5) are all nothing but DOS running a new graphical shell. And other than "service-pack" level changes, I'm hard-pressed to describe how Win 95/98/ME differ at all.
6) Windows 2000 (Now using NT instead of DOS!)
7) Windows XP
And let's see what happens when you apply what seems to be Apple's current numbering convention (which is code-base.interface/feature updates.bug-fixes) to Microsoft's OS retroactively...
1.0.0-1.0.? : DOS
1.1.0 : Windows 3.1
1.2.0 : Windows 95
1.3.0 : Windows 98
1.3.1 : Windows 98 SE
1.3.2 : Windows ME
2.0.0 : Windows NT 3.1
2.1.0 : Windows NT 4.0
2.2.0 : Windows 2000
2.3.0 : Windows XP
2.3.2 : Windows XP SP2
... and I think I'm generous for indicating that Windows ME was even for "bug fixes" when it was far more bug-riddled than Windows 98.
People keep assuming that a +0.1 release is a "service pack" and therefore it's insane for Apple users to pay for the upgrades. It's a NUMBERING CONVENTION, not an absolute indicator of the importance of the upgrade.
Well, the Core-stuff won't be directly apparent to users. Hopefully it's effect will be seen through the apps developed to use it, but users aren't going to know what Core Image is, so from a user's perspective, it's not a "feature".
However, Automator does look really cool, and in my estimation, is going to be the under-hyped addition in Tiger. For anyone who doesn't know, Automator is a graphic interface program that allows you to create Applescripts without knowing any Applescript. Applescript has hooks into loads of applications, allowing quite a lot of control, and Automator will allow a relative novice to create things that look like Applications or add context menus to the OS to activate some powerful scripts without knowing a damn thing about programming. At the very least, it has potential, but if it works as well as Apple's demo indicates, it'll be damn cool.
Yes, because it's not worth trying to make a good movie that might possibly be a big hit if a few dozen "real Hitchhiker fans" won't be completely 100% satisfied.
I'd love to see a simple electronic sign in the station that can give you an estimate of "Next train arriving in X minutes." Other cities have it, and even when they're not entirely accurate, it's nice to have an idea.
Another very simple (and cheap) thing I'd like to see is an RSS feed of outages. They already have a web site that tells you when one of the lines goes down, but as far as I know, no RSS feed. A simple RSS feed would allow people to check on their portable devices, and could allow for a nice Konfabulator widget (or whatever) sitting on your desktop, giving alerts when a train goes down. Why is that so hard?
So basically, there were conspiracy theories that it was done on purpose, but nothing definitive. Seriously, am I the only one who remembers this? I wasn't even sure it this behavior ever really changed, but it was enough to convince me to always get drivers from the manufacturer (not MS) and ignore the driver signing warnings Windows threw up.
Exactly-- Laziness. Laziness is why it might work. If Microsoft shipped their OS so users, by default, were logged in as a user-level account, people might be too lazy to change it. As it is, they're logged in as an administrator by default, and users are too lazy to change it.
The percentage might be higher if the signed-driver thing didn't seem to be used for Microsoft's anti-competitive purposes. Or does no one else remember the fiasco where Windows would complain when you tried to install certified drivers from Nvidia, and instead direct you to install a Microsoft-altered version of the driver with crippled OpenGL?
And I think that, right there, that's the problem many of us have with Windows' security (you know, when you hear all the MS-bashing about bad security?). Microsoft has sought to appease users/developers who don't understand/care about security measures, and so they've left out the hoops you would have to jump through in order to accomplish things. However, this means that viruses/worms/trojans/spyware/whatever have to jump through fewer hoops as well.
Personally, I'd like to see Microsoft be brave, risk alienating their customers, and do things the right way. The question is, has the bad press about security made Microsoft feel threatened enough to take that risk.
Or does it seem to you we disagree? (or are you just going into detail/examples?)
And yes, I would say that "generally" the government is not the most efficient means to acheive a goal. Governments aren't generally set up to be efficient, and they usually have little motivation to be efficient, so they generally aren't that efficient. But then again, sometimes "efficiency" isn't really the point, is it?
Ah,damn. I just ran this post through my funny-check, and against my intentions, this post is not "teh funny".
I'm glad you said that. What strikes me is that people often forget about the "O" when they think about intelligence. Perception is insufficient. You need activity too-- and not just motion, but making changes in your world. You need interactivity with your world before intelligence is possible.
And, as creepy as it is, in order to have this sort of interactivity, you need motivation. Your actions in the world need to have a purpose, and aim, a goal. For that you need desire.
So in this vein, in order to grow an intelligence (artificial or otherwise), you need a being with the ability to sense and perceive it's environment, the ability to interact with that environment and change it, the will and desire to do so, the ability to try different means to their goals.
Now, you need more than that, and there's a lot that goes into each one of those conditions, but you'll need *at least* that much just to have a proper IO. In order to turn that into intelligence, you need *at least* a memory to recall what actions in the past yeilded what results, and the ability to compare different situations and view them as "alike" or similar (to be used with the memory as a precondition for learning). And that will won't yield an advanced intelligence.
Further, the desire necessary for proper IO should rightfully be such that it would cause the intelligence to continue to exist, to learn, to grow, and to adapt, the goal of the desire must be never-accomplished, and its environment must be complex.
Even the "conscious thought" that we program, however, is not intelligent. What I mean is, algebra, logic, and so forth-- we can program a computer to give a certain output when given input, and that's about it. I give the computer 2+2, and it gives me 4, but the computer doesn't think the answer is 4. The computer doesn't understand that if I have 2 apples and I get two more, I have 4, even if you program it so that when I ask, "If I have 2 apples and I get two more, how many do I have then?" it says "4".
What many people fail to grasp is that our ability to understand math (i.e. an ability greater than the execution of calculations by a machine) is bound up with and generated from those "unconscious processes" like recognizing objects, interpret terrain, and extracting meaning from sentences. Those processes would be EXTREMELY difficult to code properly, they would require a lot of processing power, and we don't have direct "mental access" to the techniques used. Also, even these "unconscious processes" (recognizing objects, terrain, speech) are founded on even more basic processes that we have even less access to.
Additionally, those with the programming skills to execute the "coding properly" and those with the skills to "have mental access" are generally going to be different kinds of thinkers. In fact, these two different types of thinkers tend to have a certain level of disdain for one another, and rarely work well together.
However, if you wish to create a real AI, the unconscious stuff needs to come first, generating a base to work with. Instead of creating a full AI that understands everything all at once, you set a framework, build a rudimentary intelligence, and then "teach" that intelligence. (I believe this is the general idea behind the "baby bootstrapping" being referenced)
Unfortunately, this will create an intelligence that is just as limited and irrational at humans. But that's what intelligence is, after all.
Honestly, the way I feel about it, it's up to the firewall and IM people to figure that out. Either figure out better schemes for determining "suspicious behavior" (and in the case of the IM client, avoid being labelled "suspicious"), or the firewall should block it until someone who knows what they're doing reconfigures the firewall. At least, that would be better than having people who don't have any idea what they're doing changing their firewall settings from I-don't-know-what to I-still-don't-know-what.
Bam, support call - "My PC is broken, I can't type to my friends *whine*".
Good. The support people can help them. That's their job. In the end, it'll be easier on tech support to field these sorts of trouble calls than perform all the spyware removal they're doing now.
One, suggest the user pay someone to come out to install every program that tries to get online...
Worse things could happen. People who don't know anything about cars aren't expected to rebuild their carburetors, and people who don't know anything about computers shouldn't be expected to reconfigure firewalls. When you buy software, many stores will install it for you. Personally, I think that if you buy a computer, you should find a good tech, the same way that when you buy a car, you find a good mechanic. Take your computer in for maintenance twice a year or so, take your computer in when you're having trouble or need work done. Needing a tech for *every* install would be a bit much, but so is expecting everyone to be a computer expert.
Most people will notice a pattern that everytime they install any internet enabled app (near every app now), they have to call support. And support always has them do the same thing, flip some switch, then after making stuff work, flip it back.
If so, then at least by the time they've figured that out, they've been lead through several installs and learned something about the way their computers work. If every time I took my car in to do an oil-change, the guy at Jiffy Lube made me do it while he supervised, then it's probably true that after a while, many customers would start feeling comfortable changing their own oil. However, by the time that happened, they'd know how to change their oil.
...which, of course, is part of the problem. You're right, some developers are getting better at this, but making it so users have to click through long wizards of stupid questions is part of what gets users in the "If I just click 'ok' it will make the annoying box go away" habit.
Perhaps there should be an OS-wide switch, or an option on user accounts, that identifies the user as "advanced" or "normal". Basically, under most circumstances, 99% of the options should be hidden. Firewalls should block suspicious activity without asking and without telling. Web browser should not install any software on the computer. Security policies should be inviolable. Warning messages should be in very clear language, written with the assumption that the user knows nothing about computers. You should have to *know something* in order to change these options, meaning a window shouldn't pop up asking, "Would you like to allow dkfihh.exe to access 127.0.0.1:21?" If you want your computer to ask questions like that, there should be an option, and the option should be hidden well enough that if you want to access it, you should have to know enough about computers to understand what that question is asking. Otherwise, firewalls should block pretty much anything suspicious. Those developing applications should adapt, figuring out a way to make their traffic not-suspicious (perhaps working with firewall vendors to do so).
So, when I said, "There are a lot of different things to do at various levels to lessen these problems..." part of what I had in mind was that all the options should be hidden, and all the pop-up windows asking, "Would you like to violate security?" should stop, unless you flip an option somewhere that only geeks will find. Second, you're right, ISPs should take on some of the responsibility, and there's lots that they can do. Computer manufacturers can ship every computer with better security software, and application developers can make their programs adhere to higher security standards so that software will work without asking the user "Do you want to allow this program system-destroy-enabling privileges." OS developers can work to diminish the degree to which anything needs system-destroy-enabling privileges.
But making users "smarter" just aint gonna happen, and the engeers at work should always assume Murphy's law (If you make something less than utterly-fool-proof, some fool will break it).