Installing updates is gargantuan pain in the buttocks, especially when compared with ubuntu.
Especially since Windows has this weird thing where you have to enter a long alphanumeric code during the installation. Talk about confusing. Apparently I entered the wrong one and it kept giving error messages. After a couple months, the whole thing stopped working. I wonder what that code actually does, aside from breaking things when you enter the wrong one.
In fairness, Microsoft Windows sometimes feels like a great desktop OS where the designers never went back and reviewed their work. They have occasional spurts of activity where Microsoft goes back and fixes things, but that's only between spurts of activity where they add a bunch of nonsense that doesn't work, while breaking things.
If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.
I think a lot of people want OSX, but also want to run something that's free (libre & gratis) on commodity hardware. Hence, interest in a Linux distro that draws lots of [whatever] from OSX.
Passwords don't need to be killed. If you're thinking about replacing it with biometrics, I think that's thinking about the problem the wrong way too. The fact is, we already have all the technology we need to solve this problem much better than we do today. It's simple: instead of passwords, you should have a password protected private key, with a single password, and then use public keys for authentication. That way, you only need to know one password, and you've also eliminated a lot of the danger of snooping on connections because the private key isn't being sent.
Of course, it would require that everyone pretty much agree on one set of standards for how it's supposed to be implemented, and than developers have to build their products with those standards. Then you probably also want some trustworthy and inexpensive/free Certificate Authorities. Ideally you'd want to be able, though not required, to use the same private key for everything-- email encryption, ssh logins, maybe even credit card purchases-- so you'd need mechanisms for managing your keys, keeping them safe but also making them available when needed. Throw in some dual-factor authentication where you want a high level of security, and you've basically solved the issue.
Yes, that's what I was saying in my last paragraph. "To me, the only thing here that makes the slope a lot less slippery is that they're reportedly doing purely automated scans, comparing against a database of illegal images, as opposed to open-ended heuristics attempting to detect anything suspicious."
Whenever you can draw a real distinction, it makes the slippery slope less slippery. So the big difference here is that, presumably as part of their scans for viruses and other things, their scans have signatures for files that are unambiguously illegal to posses. They're not scanning in an open-ended way for files that kind of maybe might imply a crime. In fact, I believe there are specific rules for child pornography that make it very clear: if you find/detect child pornography, you are required to report it to certain authorities.
So ok, that makes this thing significantly less worrisome. But in my comment about Tiananmen Square, I was pointing out that this distinction doesn't completely remove the slipperiness, since when you say "it's ok for them to scan for and report files that are unambiguously illegal to posses," it leaves open the possibility for the government to make other material illegal to possess.
PDF isn't so bad, is it? It's an open standard with open source implementations, with open/royalty-free licensing for the patents involved. Or am I missing something?
Yes, it's a first-world problem, but at the same time, that doesn't excuse Sony (and Microsoft) for their false advertising.
Placed side by side with the worst atrocities in the world, all kinds of problems seem trivial. Still, they're problems. So you say "this guy has a serious first-world problem," and I say, "Isn't the world bad enough without companies like Sony and Microsoft piling on little bits of bullshit everywhere? Those little bits add up."
Of course they're scanning it. I would have assumed that they're scanning it for viruses/malware, for the sake of deduplication, and to provide indexing so that I can search it. It's been very public that Google also scans your email in order to serve ads, with the assurance (whether it comforts you or not) that this is all done by machines and Google employees don't see your email.
However, searching email for the sake of reporting illegal activity to law enforcement is a bit concerning. It seems easy to say, "Well yes, but they're only looking for child pornography," and who wants to defend child pornographers? But it seems valid to me to worry, in this case, about slippery slopes. After all, who would defend terrorists? Who would defend murderers? Who would defend drug dealers? It wouldn't take much of a leap to expect that Google and Microsoft would scan your storage and email for other illegal activities as well.
To me, the only thing here that makes the slope a lot less slippery is that they're reportedly doing purely automated scans, comparing against a database of illegal images, as opposed to open-ended heuristics attempting to detect anything suspicious. Still, I don't find that completely satisfying. I could imagine China asking Google to report anyone storing/sending images of Tiananmen Square.
Because we're talking right now in a conversation about whether it's a good show, and whether it's somehow offensive (like "blackface" minstrel shows). Someone else said it was like blackface. I don't care for that comparison, especially since whatever hardships "nerds" have faced over the years, it doesn't really compare to the oppression that black people faced.
Regardless, I said, "That wouldn't be my argument against it. My argument is that it's not a good show." I went on to agree that it had a weird inauthentic relationship to "geek culture", but I wouldn't have a problem with that if it were a good show. Since it's not a good show, its inauthenticity is just another nail in the coffin.
It was exactly my point that the show doesn't represent you, nor does it try to
Your point was, it doesn't represent me or even try, but that I'm just like one of the characters.
Sorry, no, that wasn't your point at all. I get that you're trying to justify why you like the show that you do, in the face of someone suggesting that it appeals to bad associations of stupid people. In fairness, I'd be self-conscious too, because liking that show implies that you have bad taste.
But you reply to my post with a bunch of condescending nonsense, repeating exactly the kind of insulting response to the show that I was just saying that I found annoying. You're damned right I'm annoyed. I wouldn't go as far as "angry", but it's quite annoying.
And yes, you seem not to be very bright. I say this because (a) you apparently love dumb TV shows, which isn't so bad; (b) you don't seem to be able to understand posts that I think are written pretty clearly; and (c) it seems like you wouldn't be able to anticipate that if someone says, "I really hate when someone pokes me with a stick," and then you poke them with a stick, they're not going to be happy about it.
Jesus, you're dumb. Not "everyone else", just you.
Part of my point here is actually that "geeks" and "nerds" are people, and not just a set of stereotypes. You don't get to claim to understand who I, as a person, am, just because you watch a show with a poorly formed stereotypes that share relatively cosmetic features with me.
I've been called a geek and a nerd, and not been happy about it. I've then reached the point where I'm like, fuck it, I'm a geek. Fine. You have this stereotype, and I apparently fit it. But now, there's this weird attachment of people trying to claim themselves to be geeks also because, I don't know, it's trendy or something. OK, yeah, whatever. But then on top of that, there's a new contingent that wants to say, "I understand you, nine-times, and we can have a bonding moment, because I watch a show where I laugh at people fitting your stereotype. That makes us somehow the same, even though I don't even really understand the references, but I still laugh because they're a bunch of nerds!"
And you know what, I don't even really care that much about that. It's dumb, but that's not what really bothers me in the end. What bothers me in the end is that the show itself isn't funny, and yet I can't avoid idiots praising it in dumb ways.
That's a great, clever argument, since it basically closes off my options. No matter what I say, you can just respond, "Oh you, you're such a Sheldon! That's exactly what he'd say!" In reality, you're only illustrating the sort of dumb ideas that the show inspires. It makes people think they understand-- like I said, in about the way that a bunch of rich white suburban teenage boys, a couple of decades ago, might think that they understood inner city black culture because they bought a Starter jacket and listened to Vanilla Ice. And it's not a "no true scottsman" argument and more than it would be to say, "in fact, Vanilla Ice was not a true inner-city black person".
But fundamentally, it's not a "no true geek" argument. Really, it's a "these characters are weak, poorly written, and representative of nothing" argument. It's a "I've tried watching this show, and found it painfully unfunny" argument.
In this case it's not even that people think they understand geeks/nerds from watching this show... it's that they think they ARE geeks/nerds because they watch this show. "I love BBT! I'm such a nerd!"
Yeah, there's something about that aspect of it that annoys me when people talk about the show, and the Vanilla Ice comparison was the best thing that I could come up with. You don't understand black inner-city culture because you listen to rap. You're certainly not part of that group because you like a crappy version of rap.
So yeah, there's something in the appropriation of "nerd culture", but also the extremely poor way in which it's done. "I'm understand you, and I'm just like you, because I watch a sitcom in which the characters watch the same SciFi shows you watch."
I mean, if you want to understand and identify with "geek culture", at least actually watch Star Trek and BSG. Don't just watch a show where the characters watch those shows, and where that fact is used as a punchline. I can appreciate someone trying to bond with me, saying, "I'm such a nerd now. I just started watching Doctor Who!" It doesn't make you a nerd, but at least you're actually watching something that I like, and we can kind of bond over that. But don't be like, "We have so much in common now! Sheldon is my favorite character, and he loves Doctor Who just like you! But I wouldn't watch that show because it looks dumb. Wanna watch football?"
Or maybe it just annoys me on the same level as if someone said, "I'm really into serious mythology because I love the show 'Once upon a time'."
... or whatever. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it, and I suspect I wouldn't care at all if it were just a funny show. I mostly put it in the same category as "King of Queens", in that I'm sure that if I watched enough of it, I'd eventually find some laughs. But do I really want to work that hard to find some laughs?
Since you mentioned "Friends", I don't think people really believe that New Yorkers spend all of their time hanging out in a coffee shop.
Yeah, but nobody was trying to say, "Friends is a great show because it's finally New Yorkers' chance to feel represented." People do seem to be latching on to "Big Bang Theory" as some sort of recognition, appreciation, or celebration of geeks and "geek culture".
That leads to the question: is string theory like geocentrism, in that it's not strictly disproven but it's an unnecessary pain in the ass?
I don't think this goes far enough in explaining the issue. Geocentrism wasn't much of a theory, it was more of an assumed state. Insofar as it was a theory, the evidence for it was the empirical observation that we seem to be standing still while the rest of the universe moves around us. If you want to talk about a theory that assumed geocentrism, I believe there were a few different ones, either involving angels or aether or some other explanation of what stars were. Arguably, many of them weren't "scientific" theories, as they weren't grounded in science, nor did they provide a framework for testing them scientifically.
And that's one way in which geocentrism might be related to String Theory. It's arguably not a "scientific theory" because it's not exactly grounded in scientific testing/observation, and there's not yet an opportunity to test it. People really get this whole "theory" thing wrong. In reaction to "creationism", there's been a big push to have "theory" defined in such a way that theories are inherently proven, but that's coming it the whole thing from the wrong direction. A theory can be completely unproven and have no support, but only has to be a coherent explanation for a set of phenomena. The issue is that in order to be a scientific theory, it has to have some relation to science.
So that brings the question around to, what does the process of science generally require to consider a theory to be valid and scientific? Well, to start, you have to have the phenomena being explained being scientific in nature. Explaining the behavior of particles: scientific. Explaining the behavior of God: not scientific. So that's the first requirement, and string theory passes.
Second, the theory has to make use of scientific principles and techniques to form a coherent explanation. It must be related to existing theories that are related. So for example, if you're talking about behavior of particles, it should related to existing theories about particles and the forces that govern them. It must either adopt and fit in with existing theories, or else provide an alternate theory that explains the same observations that existing theories explain. In order to be considered a superior theory, it must either explain those observations better or more elegantly, or else explain additional observations that the prior theory failed to explain. Last I've read, it's still debatable whether String Theory passes this test. People are still working on fitting it to observations, and it may explain some things more elegantly while failing to explain other things.
The third big requirement is that it needs to be testable. More specifically, the requirement generally put forward is that it needs to make some kind of new prediction that other theories failed to predict, which eventually turns out to be true. For example, Einstein came up with a new theory to explain how light moves. That theory resulted in the prediction that you could take a very fast plane trip that would cause time to pass more slowly for you, while traveling on the plan, than it would for someone sitting on the ground. No prior theory would have anticipated this result, and in fact many people still find it difficult to wrap their heads around, but the prediction seemed to be true.
It's on this last requirement that String Theory, as far as I know, fails. As far as I've read, it has not made new predictions, unanticipated by other theories, which have turned out to be true. In that sense, you could argue that it's lacks specificity required by a scientific theory, and so is not a proper scientific theory. At least not yet, until more things are hashed out.
I don't have a horse in this race. Just throwing in my 2 cents.
The argument against is that BBT is, essentially, Nerd Blackface.
That wouldn't be my argument against it. My argument is that it's not a good show. I don't find the characters relateable. I don't think it's particularly funny. It seems like someone took a very bland, unoriginal sitcom and attached a geek gimmick to try to make it interesting, but in my mind it fails. It's not interesting, and the geek gimmick doesn't really work.
If you wanted to talk about it's problem with relation to "geek culture", I don't feel like it's right to say it's like "nerd blackface". I would argue the problem is more like, if you had a bunch of kids thinking that they understand urban black culture because they're listening to rap music, but the rap music they're listening to is Vanilla Ice.
Sorry, no, you don't understand geeks and nerds and "geek culture" from watching Big Bang Theory. You don't understand comic books and Doctor Who from learning the references that the show uses. From the episodes that I've seen, the characters don't seem like authentic geeks and nerds. Not really. It mostly seems like a crappy "Friends" ripoff where the characters are all wearing nerd costumes and talking in nasal voices. I don't think it's mainstreaming geek culture, but more like jumping on the bandwagon of geek culture that has managed to mainstream itself.
That's my take. I don't require that anyone else agrees.
What are "intelligent and reasonable people", and what does it mean to "exert mind control"?
Because a lot of people like to think, "I'm a smart person. You can't just make me do things." That's only kind of true. All of us can be influenced through psychological manipulation. All of us can be tricked into forming incorrect conclusions based on faulty, incorrect, or incomplete information. If I can control what information you have access to over a long period of time, I definitely can have a big influence on what you believe, as well as how you behave. I can't "exert mind control" in the sense of completely controlling you to do any arbitrary thing that I say, but I can have a big influence on who you like, who you hate, what products you buy, what ideology you subscribe to, and what political allegiances you hold.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but PCI compliance doesn't necessarily require a firewall between each system that takes credit cards. It just requires a firewall to protect all the systems that take credit cards. If you have a few POS systems and a SQL server that access credit card info, you don't need a software firewall on each of those systems. You could set up one hardware firewall that protects all of those systems from Internet traffic (and other LAN traffic, if needed).
It depends on what you're talking about, and where. A firewall between the LAN and the Internet, yes. Generally speaking, put it up, and then figure out what needs to be opened.
Beyond that, it starts to get a bit more foggy. Security is often a trade-off between making access too easy for attackers vs. making access to hard for authorized personnel. It's not uncommon for security software to do more harm than good, blocking things that shouldn't be blocked, breaking the networking stack in weird ways. When it comes to software antivirus and firewalls, my view is that you should use the more lightweight, least intrusive solution that meets your needs.
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that the original poster is asking about the built-in Windows firewall. Should that be enabled on all machines?
Honestly, determining whether you need a firewall isn't as simple as "yes, always, all the time" or "no you don't need one." You have to know what the firewall is doing, and what security is required. You can set up a firewall, allow all ports to be forwarded through without inspection, and while you have a firewall, it's not helping you. Or you could have a server running a secure OS with only the vital ports opened, without access to anything other than the Internet, in which case a firewall probably isn't doing you a lot of good.
Also, it seems you're talking about a software firewall installed on the server? I wouldn't trust it. If I'm running Internet accessible servers, I generally want separate hardware firewall, and I want to put those servers into a separate DMZ if I can. I might leave the built-in Windows firewall turned on if it's not causing any problems, but if I have to disable it, I don't worry too much about it because I have the hardware firewall.
A properly secured Linux/Unix server should be able to sit directly on the Internet without issues, but you may as well put it behind the hardware firewall if you have the option.
But are we talking about disabling the built-in software firewall on a machine that's only accessible by other computers on the LAN? That's probably fine. You should have some security preventing unauthorized personnel from accessing the LAN, and I would assume the SQL databse it password protected, right?
I guess my bottom line here is this: Since you can't trust a the built-in Windows firewall to actually protect from very much, you shouldn't worry too much about disabling it. Make sure your network is secure without it.
Ok, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it seems your argument boils down to "It's useless because I say it's useless. Nevermind that you earlier pointed out that it could be useful, because I decided that it's useless."
Slashdot Mirror
Installing updates is gargantuan pain in the buttocks, especially when compared with ubuntu.
Especially since Windows has this weird thing where you have to enter a long alphanumeric code during the installation. Talk about confusing. Apparently I entered the wrong one and it kept giving error messages. After a couple months, the whole thing stopped working. I wonder what that code actually does, aside from breaking things when you enter the wrong one.
In fairness, Microsoft Windows sometimes feels like a great desktop OS where the designers never went back and reviewed their work. They have occasional spurts of activity where Microsoft goes back and fixes things, but that's only between spurts of activity where they add a bunch of nonsense that doesn't work, while breaking things.
If I wanted OS X I'd run OS X. I'm not sure why Slashdot is bothering to cover a distro whose claim to fame is ripping off somebody elses design. Or at least cover it and act like they're doing something unique.
I think a lot of people want OSX, but also want to run something that's free (libre & gratis) on commodity hardware. Hence, interest in a Linux distro that draws lots of [whatever] from OSX.
Passwords don't need to be killed. If you're thinking about replacing it with biometrics, I think that's thinking about the problem the wrong way too. The fact is, we already have all the technology we need to solve this problem much better than we do today. It's simple: instead of passwords, you should have a password protected private key, with a single password, and then use public keys for authentication. That way, you only need to know one password, and you've also eliminated a lot of the danger of snooping on connections because the private key isn't being sent.
Of course, it would require that everyone pretty much agree on one set of standards for how it's supposed to be implemented, and than developers have to build their products with those standards. Then you probably also want some trustworthy and inexpensive/free Certificate Authorities. Ideally you'd want to be able, though not required, to use the same private key for everything-- email encryption, ssh logins, maybe even credit card purchases-- so you'd need mechanisms for managing your keys, keeping them safe but also making them available when needed. Throw in some dual-factor authentication where you want a high level of security, and you've basically solved the issue.
Yes, that's what I was saying in my last paragraph. "To me, the only thing here that makes the slope a lot less slippery is that they're reportedly doing purely automated scans, comparing against a database of illegal images, as opposed to open-ended heuristics attempting to detect anything suspicious."
Whenever you can draw a real distinction, it makes the slippery slope less slippery. So the big difference here is that, presumably as part of their scans for viruses and other things, their scans have signatures for files that are unambiguously illegal to posses. They're not scanning in an open-ended way for files that kind of maybe might imply a crime. In fact, I believe there are specific rules for child pornography that make it very clear: if you find/detect child pornography, you are required to report it to certain authorities.
So ok, that makes this thing significantly less worrisome. But in my comment about Tiananmen Square, I was pointing out that this distinction doesn't completely remove the slipperiness, since when you say "it's ok for them to scan for and report files that are unambiguously illegal to posses," it leaves open the possibility for the government to make other material illegal to possess.
PDF isn't so bad, is it? It's an open standard with open source implementations, with open/royalty-free licensing for the patents involved. Or am I missing something?
Yes, it's a first-world problem, but at the same time, that doesn't excuse Sony (and Microsoft) for their false advertising.
Placed side by side with the worst atrocities in the world, all kinds of problems seem trivial. Still, they're problems. So you say "this guy has a serious first-world problem," and I say, "Isn't the world bad enough without companies like Sony and Microsoft piling on little bits of bullshit everywhere? Those little bits add up."
Of course they're scanning it. I would have assumed that they're scanning it for viruses/malware, for the sake of deduplication, and to provide indexing so that I can search it. It's been very public that Google also scans your email in order to serve ads, with the assurance (whether it comforts you or not) that this is all done by machines and Google employees don't see your email.
However, searching email for the sake of reporting illegal activity to law enforcement is a bit concerning. It seems easy to say, "Well yes, but they're only looking for child pornography," and who wants to defend child pornographers? But it seems valid to me to worry, in this case, about slippery slopes. After all, who would defend terrorists? Who would defend murderers? Who would defend drug dealers? It wouldn't take much of a leap to expect that Google and Microsoft would scan your storage and email for other illegal activities as well.
To me, the only thing here that makes the slope a lot less slippery is that they're reportedly doing purely automated scans, comparing against a database of illegal images, as opposed to open-ended heuristics attempting to detect anything suspicious. Still, I don't find that completely satisfying. I could imagine China asking Google to report anyone storing/sending images of Tiananmen Square.
Because we're talking right now in a conversation about whether it's a good show, and whether it's somehow offensive (like "blackface" minstrel shows). Someone else said it was like blackface. I don't care for that comparison, especially since whatever hardships "nerds" have faced over the years, it doesn't really compare to the oppression that black people faced.
Regardless, I said, "That wouldn't be my argument against it. My argument is that it's not a good show." I went on to agree that it had a weird inauthentic relationship to "geek culture", but I wouldn't have a problem with that if it were a good show. Since it's not a good show, its inauthenticity is just another nail in the coffin.
As I said elsewhere, I'd probably find all of it forgivable if Big Bang Theory were funny.
Now you're just trolling.
It was exactly my point that the show doesn't represent you, nor does it try to
Your point was, it doesn't represent me or even try, but that I'm just like one of the characters.
Sorry, no, that wasn't your point at all. I get that you're trying to justify why you like the show that you do, in the face of someone suggesting that it appeals to bad associations of stupid people. In fairness, I'd be self-conscious too, because liking that show implies that you have bad taste.
But you reply to my post with a bunch of condescending nonsense, repeating exactly the kind of insulting response to the show that I was just saying that I found annoying. You're damned right I'm annoyed. I wouldn't go as far as "angry", but it's quite annoying.
And yes, you seem not to be very bright. I say this because (a) you apparently love dumb TV shows, which isn't so bad; (b) you don't seem to be able to understand posts that I think are written pretty clearly; and (c) it seems like you wouldn't be able to anticipate that if someone says, "I really hate when someone pokes me with a stick," and then you poke them with a stick, they're not going to be happy about it.
Jesus, you're dumb. Not "everyone else", just you.
Part of my point here is actually that "geeks" and "nerds" are people, and not just a set of stereotypes. You don't get to claim to understand who I, as a person, am, just because you watch a show with a poorly formed stereotypes that share relatively cosmetic features with me.
I've been called a geek and a nerd, and not been happy about it. I've then reached the point where I'm like, fuck it, I'm a geek. Fine. You have this stereotype, and I apparently fit it. But now, there's this weird attachment of people trying to claim themselves to be geeks also because, I don't know, it's trendy or something. OK, yeah, whatever. But then on top of that, there's a new contingent that wants to say, "I understand you, nine-times, and we can have a bonding moment, because I watch a show where I laugh at people fitting your stereotype. That makes us somehow the same, even though I don't even really understand the references, but I still laugh because they're a bunch of nerds!"
And you know what, I don't even really care that much about that. It's dumb, but that's not what really bothers me in the end. What bothers me in the end is that the show itself isn't funny, and yet I can't avoid idiots praising it in dumb ways.
That's a great, clever argument, since it basically closes off my options. No matter what I say, you can just respond, "Oh you, you're such a Sheldon! That's exactly what he'd say!" In reality, you're only illustrating the sort of dumb ideas that the show inspires. It makes people think they understand-- like I said, in about the way that a bunch of rich white suburban teenage boys, a couple of decades ago, might think that they understood inner city black culture because they bought a Starter jacket and listened to Vanilla Ice. And it's not a "no true scottsman" argument and more than it would be to say, "in fact, Vanilla Ice was not a true inner-city black person".
But fundamentally, it's not a "no true geek" argument. Really, it's a "these characters are weak, poorly written, and representative of nothing" argument. It's a "I've tried watching this show, and found it painfully unfunny" argument.
In this case it's not even that people think they understand geeks/nerds from watching this show... it's that they think they ARE geeks/nerds because they watch this show. "I love BBT! I'm such a nerd!"
Yeah, there's something about that aspect of it that annoys me when people talk about the show, and the Vanilla Ice comparison was the best thing that I could come up with. You don't understand black inner-city culture because you listen to rap. You're certainly not part of that group because you like a crappy version of rap.
So yeah, there's something in the appropriation of "nerd culture", but also the extremely poor way in which it's done. "I'm understand you, and I'm just like you, because I watch a sitcom in which the characters watch the same SciFi shows you watch."
I mean, if you want to understand and identify with "geek culture", at least actually watch Star Trek and BSG. Don't just watch a show where the characters watch those shows, and where that fact is used as a punchline. I can appreciate someone trying to bond with me, saying, "I'm such a nerd now. I just started watching Doctor Who!" It doesn't make you a nerd, but at least you're actually watching something that I like, and we can kind of bond over that. But don't be like, "We have so much in common now! Sheldon is my favorite character, and he loves Doctor Who just like you! But I wouldn't watch that show because it looks dumb. Wanna watch football?"
Or maybe it just annoys me on the same level as if someone said, "I'm really into serious mythology because I love the show 'Once upon a time'."
... or whatever. I don't know. I don't know how to explain it, and I suspect I wouldn't care at all if it were just a funny show. I mostly put it in the same category as "King of Queens", in that I'm sure that if I watched enough of it, I'd eventually find some laughs. But do I really want to work that hard to find some laughs?
Since you mentioned "Friends", I don't think people really believe that New Yorkers spend all of their time hanging out in a coffee shop.
Yeah, but nobody was trying to say, "Friends is a great show because it's finally New Yorkers' chance to feel represented." People do seem to be latching on to "Big Bang Theory" as some sort of recognition, appreciation, or celebration of geeks and "geek culture".
That leads to the question: is string theory like geocentrism, in that it's not strictly disproven but it's an unnecessary pain in the ass?
I don't think this goes far enough in explaining the issue. Geocentrism wasn't much of a theory, it was more of an assumed state. Insofar as it was a theory, the evidence for it was the empirical observation that we seem to be standing still while the rest of the universe moves around us. If you want to talk about a theory that assumed geocentrism, I believe there were a few different ones, either involving angels or aether or some other explanation of what stars were. Arguably, many of them weren't "scientific" theories, as they weren't grounded in science, nor did they provide a framework for testing them scientifically.
And that's one way in which geocentrism might be related to String Theory. It's arguably not a "scientific theory" because it's not exactly grounded in scientific testing/observation, and there's not yet an opportunity to test it. People really get this whole "theory" thing wrong. In reaction to "creationism", there's been a big push to have "theory" defined in such a way that theories are inherently proven, but that's coming it the whole thing from the wrong direction. A theory can be completely unproven and have no support, but only has to be a coherent explanation for a set of phenomena. The issue is that in order to be a scientific theory, it has to have some relation to science.
So that brings the question around to, what does the process of science generally require to consider a theory to be valid and scientific? Well, to start, you have to have the phenomena being explained being scientific in nature. Explaining the behavior of particles: scientific. Explaining the behavior of God: not scientific. So that's the first requirement, and string theory passes.
Second, the theory has to make use of scientific principles and techniques to form a coherent explanation. It must be related to existing theories that are related. So for example, if you're talking about behavior of particles, it should related to existing theories about particles and the forces that govern them. It must either adopt and fit in with existing theories, or else provide an alternate theory that explains the same observations that existing theories explain. In order to be considered a superior theory, it must either explain those observations better or more elegantly, or else explain additional observations that the prior theory failed to explain. Last I've read, it's still debatable whether String Theory passes this test. People are still working on fitting it to observations, and it may explain some things more elegantly while failing to explain other things.
The third big requirement is that it needs to be testable. More specifically, the requirement generally put forward is that it needs to make some kind of new prediction that other theories failed to predict, which eventually turns out to be true. For example, Einstein came up with a new theory to explain how light moves. That theory resulted in the prediction that you could take a very fast plane trip that would cause time to pass more slowly for you, while traveling on the plan, than it would for someone sitting on the ground. No prior theory would have anticipated this result, and in fact many people still find it difficult to wrap their heads around, but the prediction seemed to be true.
It's on this last requirement that String Theory, as far as I know, fails. As far as I've read, it has not made new predictions, unanticipated by other theories, which have turned out to be true. In that sense, you could argue that it's lacks specificity required by a scientific theory, and so is not a proper scientific theory. At least not yet, until more things are hashed out.
I don't have a horse in this race. Just throwing in my 2 cents.
The argument against is that BBT is, essentially, Nerd Blackface.
That wouldn't be my argument against it. My argument is that it's not a good show. I don't find the characters relateable. I don't think it's particularly funny. It seems like someone took a very bland, unoriginal sitcom and attached a geek gimmick to try to make it interesting, but in my mind it fails. It's not interesting, and the geek gimmick doesn't really work.
If you wanted to talk about it's problem with relation to "geek culture", I don't feel like it's right to say it's like "nerd blackface". I would argue the problem is more like, if you had a bunch of kids thinking that they understand urban black culture because they're listening to rap music, but the rap music they're listening to is Vanilla Ice.
Sorry, no, you don't understand geeks and nerds and "geek culture" from watching Big Bang Theory. You don't understand comic books and Doctor Who from learning the references that the show uses. From the episodes that I've seen, the characters don't seem like authentic geeks and nerds. Not really. It mostly seems like a crappy "Friends" ripoff where the characters are all wearing nerd costumes and talking in nasal voices. I don't think it's mainstreaming geek culture, but more like jumping on the bandwagon of geek culture that has managed to mainstream itself.
That's my take. I don't require that anyone else agrees.
What are "intelligent and reasonable people", and what does it mean to "exert mind control"?
Because a lot of people like to think, "I'm a smart person. You can't just make me do things." That's only kind of true. All of us can be influenced through psychological manipulation. All of us can be tricked into forming incorrect conclusions based on faulty, incorrect, or incomplete information. If I can control what information you have access to over a long period of time, I definitely can have a big influence on what you believe, as well as how you behave. I can't "exert mind control" in the sense of completely controlling you to do any arbitrary thing that I say, but I can have a big influence on who you like, who you hate, what products you buy, what ideology you subscribe to, and what political allegiances you hold.
But I heard they were both in Gartner's Magic Quadrant!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but PCI compliance doesn't necessarily require a firewall between each system that takes credit cards. It just requires a firewall to protect all the systems that take credit cards. If you have a few POS systems and a SQL server that access credit card info, you don't need a software firewall on each of those systems. You could set up one hardware firewall that protects all of those systems from Internet traffic (and other LAN traffic, if needed).
It depends on what you're talking about, and where. A firewall between the LAN and the Internet, yes. Generally speaking, put it up, and then figure out what needs to be opened.
Beyond that, it starts to get a bit more foggy. Security is often a trade-off between making access too easy for attackers vs. making access to hard for authorized personnel. It's not uncommon for security software to do more harm than good, blocking things that shouldn't be blocked, breaking the networking stack in weird ways. When it comes to software antivirus and firewalls, my view is that you should use the more lightweight, least intrusive solution that meets your needs.
I'm not sure, but it seems to me that the original poster is asking about the built-in Windows firewall. Should that be enabled on all machines?
Honestly, determining whether you need a firewall isn't as simple as "yes, always, all the time" or "no you don't need one." You have to know what the firewall is doing, and what security is required. You can set up a firewall, allow all ports to be forwarded through without inspection, and while you have a firewall, it's not helping you. Or you could have a server running a secure OS with only the vital ports opened, without access to anything other than the Internet, in which case a firewall probably isn't doing you a lot of good.
Also, it seems you're talking about a software firewall installed on the server? I wouldn't trust it. If I'm running Internet accessible servers, I generally want separate hardware firewall, and I want to put those servers into a separate DMZ if I can. I might leave the built-in Windows firewall turned on if it's not causing any problems, but if I have to disable it, I don't worry too much about it because I have the hardware firewall.
A properly secured Linux/Unix server should be able to sit directly on the Internet without issues, but you may as well put it behind the hardware firewall if you have the option.
But are we talking about disabling the built-in software firewall on a machine that's only accessible by other computers on the LAN? That's probably fine. You should have some security preventing unauthorized personnel from accessing the LAN, and I would assume the SQL databse it password protected, right?
I guess my bottom line here is this: Since you can't trust a the built-in Windows firewall to actually protect from very much, you shouldn't worry too much about disabling it. Make sure your network is secure without it.
Ok, I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but it seems your argument boils down to "It's useless because I say it's useless. Nevermind that you earlier pointed out that it could be useful, because I decided that it's useless."
Glad we got that sorted out.
A "combined score" for speed and ratio is useless, as that relation is not linear.
It seems now that it's not about the relation being linear, but about something else that you won't say. I'm afraid I'm not closer to understanding.