On top of the inferior components, it's tough to upgrade components in many Dells. Even some Dell desktops built in the last 2 years don't have USB 2 ports. This can be a real hassle when connecting a newer printer/scanner/etc. And some of their cases make it hard to find commodity expansion cards, due to lack of slots or lack of headroom in the "sleek" cases. Many of the "original equipment" components have support only for the original OS installed on the box, so OS upgrades are a problem, too.
I understand that Dell would like you to simply replace the box more often, that's in their own interest. But it's in my own interest not to recommend Dell to people to whom I provide "informal" tech support.
Another problem is that Terms of Service and EULAs are usually written in extremely tricky language; it would require a legal professional many hours to understand them. So, users "agree" to a contract they cannot understand.
I've heard lawyers say that they use such language to be unambiguous, just like doctors and botanists etc. But while these other professions only occasionally try to screw other people over, it's a Lawyer's full-time job. So I just cross my fingers and click "OK". Thanks Robert Fulghum.
This shrillness may be attributed to a variety of causes, including social ineptitude, feelings of intellectual/moral/fiscal superority, attempted concealment of their own limited knowledge, etc., but there is just no excuse for this sort of behavior.
There's another possibile explantion one should mention:
I think the computer corallary to rule that "once you save someone's life they become your responsibility" is: "once you help someone with a computer-related problem, you become their IS guy". Perhaps this is what some of the gruffer responses are trying to prevent. Not that they couldn't be socially inept or smug on top of that.
I'm not endorsing this behavior, just mentioning it . . .
The tone of your comment indicates that the cop was stupid or nosy. Did it occur to you that perhaps the cop was just doing his job?
The tone of your comment indicates you don't have much experience with dealing with the police . . . The guy's on the phone, so the cop has to ask what he was doing. Not "Are you ok?" or "Do you need assistance?". I've been asked that when out late on a clear night with a bunch of telescopes pointed at the sky. They're not there to help, they want to issue a ticket or beat you up. Bonus if they can shoot you.
Homer: No, I do not know what shaden-frawde is.
[sarcasm] Please tell me, because I'm dying to know.
Lisa: It's a German term for `shameful joy', taking pleasure in the suffering
of others.
Homer: Oh, come on Lisa. I'm just glad to see him fall flat on his butt!
[getting mad]
He's usually all happy and comfortable, and surrounded by loved ones,
and it makes me feel... What's the opposite of that shameful joy
thing of yours?
Lisa: [nastily] Sour grapes.
Homer: Boy, those Germans have a word for everything!
Bush is an ass, but if you can't be honest about why you hate him, just keep your trap shut.
Ease off the coffee, man. You can hate people/things even for reasons others don't like. For instance, you appear to hate critics of Bush who fail to criticize Clinton for similar offenses . . .
We've been seeing a big decline in FAX usage for a while now, in companies of all sizes. The small firm I work at doesn't have a dedicated FAX line anymore, and we're not alone. Pretty soon the FAX will be as rare as Telex.
The last FAXes to go are likely the one's in lawyers' and doctors' offices. They like the hard copy, cause it seems more legal . . .
Security by obscurity? Sure. That is all your password is, after all too, it (sec by obs) isn't strictly a bad thing.
The difference between a secret password and a "secret" IT practice is that the password can be changed easily if the secret is revealed. Bruce Schneier calls this "brittle" secrets vs. resilient secrets, e.g. a lock with a key or combination (which can be changed) vs. the location of a secret door (which would be difficuilt to relocate).
Also, don't overlook the possibility that potential "bugs" in computers could be the more traditional hardware listening devices instead of/in addition to spyware.
Per the FEC regs, I believe you also have to provide them with source code
While what you say is true, I don't think it works so well in practice (to protect the integrity of elections). I was involved with the code certification effort for ES&S in 2003. Existing code that was deployed in the iVotronic was not certifiable because it was not properly structured, documented, etc. There are many requirements, such as number of lines per function, function header formats, naming conventions, side-effect bans, etc. that have to be met before submitting the code. We spent weeks reworking the source to comply with the standards and get it to compile. As far as I know, that code was never put into production -- I'm not sure it was even tested for functionality.
So I don't think that regulators really enforce the regs as strictly as we would hope. Maybe things have gotten better . . .
You would think that federal and state governments would have regulations governing exhaustive testing of electronic voting machines against requirements to avoid conflicts like this.
There are FEC requirements that the voting machine code be audited and certified by a third party, but they're rather ineffective. You just submit the code to an auditor (that you hire) for inspection. Difficulties verifying source code aside, there's also no way to guarantee that the source you had audited is the source that's compliled and loaded into the machine. And it's field upgradable, too, so no way to know for sure that it wasn't tampered with. Especially if the tamperer tried to avoid detection.
Since Diebold is saying that no third party can verify the integrity of their machines once someone's been alone with them, I have no idea how you could rely on the electronic results.
Diebod ols correct - they don't know what was done to the systems by this random clerk who decided to test. They could have added hardware, modified software... Who knows?
If the machines don't have a certain amount of tamper-resistance in them, then how can we allow thousands of people (votere) to go into a booth alone with the device (unmonitored physical access)?
As I understand it, bluetooth (like most wireless) isn't very secure. If that's the case, wouldn't it be prudent to fix this before giving it a speed boost?
For many applications, security just isn't very important but data rate is. E.g., connections bewteen home stereo components -- you wouldn't be too worried about someone evesdropping on your Bluetooth audio or video. After all, if they are in Bluetooth range, they can probably hear your stereo or see your TV.
so now we've got ultra-wide bandwidth combined with rapid frequency shifts
That's the idea behind frequency-hopping spread spectrum. By rapidly shifting bewteen frequencies used, you appear to raise the noise floor rather than injecting a spike at a particular frequency.
Wouldn't the designers of any system entrusted to protect the lives of others automatically reject DRM as an elemnent of that system if it could prove to be a point of failure?
The trouble is in anticipating all the ways that DRM developments in the future could endanger the systems you create today. You're not considering how to allow DRM, DRM developers are considering ways to get into your system after it's deployed.
Maybe you have an integrated control system for the automobile that you've developed. Because you're thinking ahead, you provide a way for a dealer or service tech. to update the system firmware with a CD in the integrated stereo. You (and your company) firugre you've saved millions in recall costs in the event of a latent bug in the firmware, but you've also left open a means of attack.
One could argue that you shouldn't leave such a gaping security hole, but it only takes one mistake or misjudgement. You have to predict all possible modes of failure in advance, while your DRM opponent has forever to figure out how to crack it. For an example (or two) consider console game system cracks.
Hmmm. When I read back through this comment, I guess one could substitute "virus", "trojan", "malware", etc. everwhere I've written "DRM".
The very first time I miss an emergency call because of this paint, I will be suing both the building and the company that made the paint. I might even sue the guy who applied the paint on the walls..
If you need to be able to receive emergency calls at all times, then you need to make sure your phone has reception everywhere you go. The world does not owe you the right to get a call at any time.
I just keep seeing the "report this to the proper authorities" comment, and I couldn't help but remember that Woody Woodpecker classic: "Bunco Busters", where the narrator keeps interrupting with that line. It was cynical and sarcastic even 50 years ago . . .
"The best laid plans o' mice and men gang aft astray,
and leave us naught but grief and pain for promised joy."
Right. 1785 and Burns describes depression perfectly. He's plowing a field when he turns up a mouse's house, sending her scurrying in panic. But there is no safety, there's no more building material to make a new house and Winter's on its way. The mouse had built a refuge and filled it with provisions to survive the cold months, and now everything's gone, there is no hope to rebuild. All its hard work destroyed. And still the mouse --who lives only in the present --is better off than the man, because he can remember and relive his failures and defeats, and look to the unseen future and "guess and fear".
In my previous job my desk was against the wall in a warehouse.
I work in a cave, you insensitive clod! Actually an abandoned limestone mine. Our office shares about 5000 sq. ft. with a small soap company in a 2000000 sq. ft. underground warehouse complex. Diesel semis drive through all the time, so the particulates in the air are pretty bad. The temperature is relatively constant, since we're about 100' below ground level, but humidity gets bad in the summer with the vent air pulled in (and condenses). There is no climate control. The walls and ceiling are rock, the floor is poured concrete. (echo . . . echo . . . echo) The lights are dim, and half of them are off all the time just in case they cause some rare skin disease (really!). And it smells really weird. Needless to say, I telecommute as much as possible. What would I give for an office? How about some daylight? Or fresh air. Rent is the highlight of the space, about $4US/sqft/year.
Sounds like David I will be with the new company. That mitigates my depression about this somewhat. Perhaps the new company can be called "Borland" and the ALM company can be called something else (how about "Inprise"?). I do this for a living, and I don't even know what "ALM" is. Borland has chased some wild geese over the years and the only constant has been the developer tools. Maybe it is better for the developer tools to have their own company.
They ignored the Open Source movement (Linux included) and hobby programmers.
They may have mishandled these, but they didn't totally ignore these markets. They sold low-cost versions of their language products for hobbyists, they had Kylix for Linux -- which they never really tried hard enough to promote (and gave up on too quickly). Maybe they should've cut the prices in half on the "Personal" line. Sure, they never open-sourced the Kylix IDE (and developers were always asking for it), but you got the source to almost the whole code library when you bought the "Pro" line of language from them.
I loved and still enjoy building apps with Turbo C, Delphi, etc. This development makes me unspeakably sad. I remember going to Borland conferences, interacting with developers and engineers doing really cool stuff with Borland Tools. 9/11 put an end to programmer conferences in companies I worked for, and I didn't have the spare change to go on my own.
People argue that VB killed Delphi and therefore Borland. That's too bad, because VB just wasn't in the same league as Delphi. Sure you could point and click and create a simple app. But it was a full-featured compiler that could build stand-alone applications, DLLs, static libraries, etc. years before VB. Borland probably took too long bring two-way tools to C++ as well.
I still use Delphi to develop Windows apps, and I hope that Borland will reconsider this move.
I think this is related to the "Century of Flight" centennial celebrated in 2003 -- in reference to the Wright Brothers. NASA seems involved in thst celebration, they commissioned the theme song, scheduled events, etc.
"Isn't it to say, if you incorrectly fingered this woman as a pirate, how can you prove that you accurately identified me as a pirate?"
The proper thing to do is to judge each case on its own merit. Some people the RIAA have sued have been caught red-handed. In other cases, there was a mistake. Again: judge each case on its own merit. This is how you would want to be treated if you were brought into court for anything, isn't it?
Well, one of the merits of the next case is that the plaintiff (RIAA) has a tendency to blindly point fingers at random individuals in hopes they'll find something illegal. I don't see any reason to adopt a "brand new day" policy when dealing with a litigant with a history of filing bogus suits.
Slashdot Mirror
I understand that Dell would like you to simply replace the box more often, that's in their own interest. But it's in my own interest not to recommend Dell to people to whom I provide "informal" tech support.
I've heard lawyers say that they use such language to be unambiguous, just like doctors and botanists etc. But while these other professions only occasionally try to screw other people over, it's a Lawyer's full-time job. So I just cross my fingers and click "OK". Thanks Robert Fulghum.
There's another possibile explantion one should mention:
I think the computer corallary to rule that "once you save someone's life they become your responsibility" is: "once you help someone with a computer-related problem, you become their IS guy". Perhaps this is what some of the gruffer responses are trying to prevent. Not that they couldn't be socially inept or smug on top of that.
I'm not endorsing this behavior, just mentioning it . . .
The tone of your comment indicates you don't have much experience with dealing with the police . . . The guy's on the phone, so the cop has to ask what he was doing. Not "Are you ok?" or "Do you need assistance?". I've been asked that when out late on a clear night with a bunch of telescopes pointed at the sky. They're not there to help, they want to issue a ticket or beat you up. Bonus if they can shoot you.
Yes. Radio Shack had a line of X-10 products, as did Sears. My mom still has a radio shack X-10 desk clock/x-10 timer ca. 1980 that still works.
7F23: "When Flanders Failed"
http://www.snpp.com/episodes/7F23.html
Ease off the coffee, man. You can hate people/things even for reasons others don't like. For instance, you appear to hate critics of Bush who fail to criticize Clinton for similar offenses . . .
The last FAXes to go are likely the one's in lawyers' and doctors' offices. They like the hard copy, cause it seems more legal . . .
The coolest thing about that is that you can open up the case and sit down in a train station or on a sidewalk and hack for spare change.
The difference between a secret password and a "secret" IT practice is that the password can be changed easily if the secret is revealed. Bruce Schneier calls this "brittle" secrets vs. resilient secrets, e.g. a lock with a key or combination (which can be changed) vs. the location of a secret door (which would be difficuilt to relocate).
Also, don't overlook the possibility that potential "bugs" in computers could be the more traditional hardware listening devices instead of/in addition to spyware.
While what you say is true, I don't think it works so well in practice (to protect the integrity of elections). I was involved with the code certification effort for ES&S in 2003. Existing code that was deployed in the iVotronic was not certifiable because it was not properly structured, documented, etc. There are many requirements, such as number of lines per function, function header formats, naming conventions, side-effect bans, etc. that have to be met before submitting the code. We spent weeks reworking the source to comply with the standards and get it to compile. As far as I know, that code was never put into production -- I'm not sure it was even tested for functionality.
So I don't think that regulators really enforce the regs as strictly as we would hope. Maybe things have gotten better . . .
There are FEC requirements that the voting machine code be audited and certified by a third party, but they're rather ineffective. You just submit the code to an auditor (that you hire) for inspection. Difficulties verifying source code aside, there's also no way to guarantee that the source you had audited is the source that's compliled and loaded into the machine. And it's field upgradable, too, so no way to know for sure that it wasn't tampered with. Especially if the tamperer tried to avoid detection.
Since Diebold is saying that no third party can verify the integrity of their machines once someone's been alone with them, I have no idea how you could rely on the electronic results.
For many applications, security just isn't very important but data rate is. E.g., connections bewteen home stereo components -- you wouldn't be too worried about someone evesdropping on your Bluetooth audio or video. After all, if they are in Bluetooth range, they can probably hear your stereo or see your TV.
That's the idea behind frequency-hopping spread spectrum. By rapidly shifting bewteen frequencies used, you appear to raise the noise floor rather than injecting a spike at a particular frequency.
The trouble is in anticipating all the ways that DRM developments in the future could endanger the systems you create today. You're not considering how to allow DRM, DRM developers are considering ways to get into your system after it's deployed.
Maybe you have an integrated control system for the automobile that you've developed. Because you're thinking ahead, you provide a way for a dealer or service tech. to update the system firmware with a CD in the integrated stereo. You (and your company) firugre you've saved millions in recall costs in the event of a latent bug in the firmware, but you've also left open a means of attack.
One could argue that you shouldn't leave such a gaping security hole, but it only takes one mistake or misjudgement. You have to predict all possible modes of failure in advance, while your DRM opponent has forever to figure out how to crack it. For an example (or two) consider console game system cracks.
Hmmm. When I read back through this comment, I guess one could substitute "virus", "trojan", "malware", etc. everwhere I've written "DRM".
If you need to be able to receive emergency calls at all times, then you need to make sure your phone has reception everywhere you go. The world does not owe you the right to get a call at any time.
I just keep seeing the "report this to the proper authorities" comment, and I couldn't help but remember that Woody Woodpecker classic: "Bunco Busters", where the narrator keeps interrupting with that line. It was cynical and sarcastic even 50 years ago . . .
Right. 1785 and Burns describes depression perfectly. He's plowing a field when he turns up a mouse's house, sending her scurrying in panic. But there is no safety, there's no more building material to make a new house and Winter's on its way. The mouse had built a refuge and filled it with provisions to survive the cold months, and now everything's gone, there is no hope to rebuild. All its hard work destroyed. And still the mouse --who lives only in the present --is better off than the man, because he can remember and relive his failures and defeats, and look to the unseen future and "guess and fear".
I work in a cave, you insensitive clod! Actually an abandoned limestone mine. Our office shares about 5000 sq. ft. with a small soap company in a 2000000 sq. ft. underground warehouse complex. Diesel semis drive through all the time, so the particulates in the air are pretty bad. The temperature is relatively constant, since we're about 100' below ground level, but humidity gets bad in the summer with the vent air pulled in (and condenses). There is no climate control. The walls and ceiling are rock, the floor is poured concrete. (echo . . . echo . . . echo) The lights are dim, and half of them are off all the time just in case they cause some rare skin disease (really!). And it smells really weird. Needless to say, I telecommute as much as possible. What would I give for an office? How about some daylight? Or fresh air. Rent is the highlight of the space, about $4US/sqft/year.
Sounds like David I will be with the new company. That mitigates my depression about this somewhat. Perhaps the new company can be called "Borland" and the ALM company can be called something else (how about "Inprise"?). I do this for a living, and I don't even know what "ALM" is. Borland has chased some wild geese over the years and the only constant has been the developer tools. Maybe it is better for the developer tools to have their own company.
They may have mishandled these, but they didn't totally ignore these markets. They sold low-cost versions of their language products for hobbyists, they had Kylix for Linux -- which they never really tried hard enough to promote (and gave up on too quickly). Maybe they should've cut the prices in half on the "Personal" line. Sure, they never open-sourced the Kylix IDE (and developers were always asking for it), but you got the source to almost the whole code library when you bought the "Pro" line of language from them.
I loved and still enjoy building apps with Turbo C, Delphi, etc. This development makes me unspeakably sad. I remember going to Borland conferences, interacting with developers and engineers doing really cool stuff with Borland Tools. 9/11 put an end to programmer conferences in companies I worked for, and I didn't have the spare change to go on my own.
People argue that VB killed Delphi and therefore Borland. That's too bad, because VB just wasn't in the same league as Delphi. Sure you could point and click and create a simple app. But it was a full-featured compiler that could build stand-alone applications, DLLs, static libraries, etc. years before VB. Borland probably took too long bring two-way tools to C++ as well.
I still use Delphi to develop Windows apps, and I hope that Borland will reconsider this move.
I think this is related to the "Century of Flight" centennial celebrated in 2003 -- in reference to the Wright Brothers. NASA seems involved in thst celebration, they commissioned the theme song, scheduled events, etc.
Lucky. I had to get a Dolphinplasty for my dorsal fin.