anything that you download from the net would run inside of a VM.
Any Java application you run already does this, but it does not stop java worms or trojans. The trick is to run in a VM, have well thought out default permissions for applications, have reasonably easy configuration for the end user, and make sure that your system treats new applications in a properly paranoid manner and communicates that via the UI. I do think this is the way the industry is moving with Java, BSD jails, Linux Vservers, and MS's acquisition of Connectix
predict all of the needed options. The fact that you know of an option or two that everyone needs does not mean that all needed options are known.
You're mistaken. There is no reason to predict all possible options. You need merely provide a few, easy to understand template ACLs and let the programs request additional resources. If Windows did this two things would happen very quickly. First developers would write programs to match up with the templates to minimize user support costs. Two users would become suspicious of programs that requested access to things they do not understand. Basically access to the internet, user files (not created by this program), system files (not created by this program), and peripherals. Applications could be simply internet or not internet and it would be a big step forward. So you get a program in the mail. Your mail program should tell you, "hey this is a program, not a file." If you run it anyway it should say, "hey this is reading your personal files." if the user says ok to that it should say, "hey this is modifying your operating system" and if the user says ok to that it should say, "hey this wants to connect to the internet. Finally, it should say, "hey this wants to use your webcam. All of these things are pretty understandable, even to a novice user. If most of their applications (legitimate ones) behave properly and don't access their personal files or their os or the internet or their webcam, they will then be suspicious of programs that do access those resources, unless of course they are expecting the program to use their webcam and the internet.
That is not pretending to be any simpler than it is, but it is telling the user in plain english what is going on and giving them the option to allow it or stop it. Right now, unless they are an expert, they are not given any of these options, are not warned when applications do suspicious things, and are shown endless OK/Cancel dialogue boxes, or even just OK boxes, with no other options. The problem is that functionality is missing and the good UI design is missing. Add those two elements in and not only will education be greatly simplified, but in some cases it will be wholly unnecessary because the UI is self documenting.
Now I agree Word has no business accessing the internet or running executables and e-mail should, by default, never allow a user to open an executable. That still does not stop trojans or do anything about viruses that do find a chink somewhere. The key is letting users know what is going on, doing the right thing by default if they don't know, and explaining it to them. Do that and legitimate developers will fall in line or suffer for it and trojans and viruses will be largely mitigated.
The problem is the culture that Windows has engendered, which says "everything should be automagic -- don't think! -- just click and the world will be yours!"
I call this the "OK/Cancel" problem. Users get into the mindset that if they just click OK all the time things will work. You have to click OK a dozen times a day to keep your computer working, just like adding gas to a car. After a little while they don't even pay attention to what is being asked.
Part of the solution is simply to use better dialogue windows and part of it is to give the user better choices. I remember in Word (back in the day) I would get a dialogue box that said, "Warning, this word file contains macros that may be viruses, open it anyway? OK/Cancel" Talk about useless. What it needed was a button that said, "open the file, but don't run any macros." I know people who would have paid $500 bucks for that option. Aside from all the viruses that autorun (which are pretty much MS's fault) e-mail should never run executables when clicked without attaching a warning that says, this is a program, not a file. it may be a virus (Don't run)/(Run but don't allow access to my files of the internet)/(Run and let it access my files and the internet.)" That would stop most viruses right there. If Linux was the market leader it would have some of the same problems, but I bet someone would include that dialogue box and make all our lives easier. This is partially a problem with users, but mostly it is a problem with functionality. Users need fine grained control, good default settings, and a good user interface that lets them know what it is they are doing. I haven't seen all three of those yet, anywhere but it is very possible. The only reason it does not exist is because MS doesn't care because it has a monopoly and Apple/Linux developers don't have a problem yet and are thus not motivated to solve it.
very non-technical idiot in the other offices opened up multiple copies of those e-mails anyway.
You're confusing idiocy, with reasonable expectations. I expect that my e-mail program will read e-mail. I expect that when I open an e-mail it will display the text, included images, and, if I request it, it will display remote images. My e-mail client does that, and so did my last 3 or 4 e-mail clients over the last 10 years. What I do not, and should not expect, is for my e-mail program to run a virus, install anything, run random scripts, connect to remote servers, touch any of my files, write to my hard drive, or run any sort of executable. If it does that, it is broken. If it does that all the time, it is fundamentally broken and needs to be replaced, and the vendor blacklisted.
You complain about how stupid the non-technical users are, but you should not have to be technical or an expert to read e-mail. You should just open your messages and be able to read without fear. If you are one of those rare few people who need to have executables e-mailed to you, fine, but you should have to turn that feature on manually and your e-mail program should say, "hey this e-mail has an executable in it, do you want to install or run it? (Note this may be a worm or virus!)" I mean how hard is that already? Viruses should not run when you preview a mail, nor when you open a mail, nor when you double click on an attachment. They should run when you double click on them and then confirm that you know the contained item is a program that might be a virus.
If all e-mail programs did that (pretty much all but MS ones do now) would there still be viruses? Sure, but there would be a lot fewer and they would spread more slowly. And there is no reason why the number could not be further reduced by running new apps with restricted privileges, requiring you to not only agree to run a strange and untrusted program but to explicitly grant it access to the internet and/or your personal files and/or your operating system files. Sure there are people who would agree to even that, but those few people cannot be helped. The problem is more a technical one right now than an end user education one. Give them the right tools and then if they still screw up you can complain justly. End users of e-mail should not have to be experts.
Build an AV system that creates a VM sandbox that would then allow the a program to run to see what it would do, and if determind to work normally, then to pass the IO requests directly to the system.
Do you mean for a limited time so that it does not hurt performance (in which case worms/viruses can get around it by sleeping for a predefined time) or do you mean running in a VM all the time, which is actually just good ACLs for userland applications (something I have been preaching along with an easy UI and good defaults for several years)? Heck this can be done right now with Java application, except I don't know any JVMs that give the user the configuration tools needed to use them properly. When you download/install an application it should be ACL'ed with a preconfigured setting, like game, internet game, offline application, internet application, etc. This would have the added benefit of keeping developers from accessing the internet with applications that don't really need to, and encouraging them to use OS hooks to do updates. By default most applications don't need to use the internet and most don't need to access any files either not created by them or not specified by the user. That right there would kill 90% of the worms and viruses we see today.
Sounds good in theory, but doesnt work - like communism.
So you've actually tested one of these and found it did not work? Because otherwise, we're still in the theory stage and you're claiming it does not sound good. That is to say, "I don't think it sounds good in theory because of these reasons." What communism has to do with it is beyond me.
In future generations I sincerely believe that people will look back at us with some of the same revulsion with which we now view slave traders and others who stood by and watched the abuse of fellow humans proceed unchecked. If there's one thing we should have learned by now, it's that you can not judge humanity by things like location, size, or development. And yet we're still falling for the fundamental mistake that if it doesn't look like us, it must not be like us.
It's fine to believe that life begins at conception and that all life is meaningful. So here are some questions regarding that. Is human life more meaningful than animal or plant life? At what point in conception does life start. According to science sperm and Ova are both alive, even if they never meet. Both have the potential to be human beings some day. Do you find the death of sperm to be objectionable?
You claim we're falling for "the fundamental mistake that if it doesn't look like us, it must not be like us." I don't agree with that at all. The truth of the matter is, an octopus is much more deserving of life than an embryo at the stage you are talking about. An octopus can think and feel and move and survive on it's own. An embryo is a partially developed bundle of cells with no brain, no thoughts, no feelings, no abilities, and no chance of surviving on its own. For that matter, it is not even an individual, it can still be divided into parts and be the basis for twins or triplets.
Everything I have said is something scientifically determined, but the value that is placed upon things is very unscientific. You may value a severed human finger kept alive in a jar, more than you do the life of a kitten. Both the finger and the embryo are human cells with no consciousness, but to my mind the kitten is a lot more important and a lot more like me. If people found a way to use a severed human finger repair my mother's broken spinal column I'd chop mine off gladly. If they found a way to use stem cells to do the same thing I'd have no ethical objections to that either.
Placing value on life is always a subjective thing. Some people value all life, some only humans and animals, some only humans, and still others only a subset of humans. Most people have reasons for their beliefs, often rooted in religion. Personally, I don't object to the taking of life in and of itself. I think their are valid reasons to take plant and animal life, like for food and that there are valid reasons to take human life, like self preservation. I do believe that all life is worthy of respect and should not be wasted. I don't kill animals unless I plan to eat them. Human embryos, however, at the stage of development we are talking about, die all by themselves. More than half of them that develop die in the womb with no help at all. The particular ones we're talking about have already been removed and are thus assured of death. Personally, I'm all for making any use of them that can be. At least that life will not then be completely wasted.
Our fundamental difference of opinion is that you think that the lives of these embryos is more important than the possibility of saving a fully developed human's life. I'm sorry we can't agree on this. I'm also very concerned that you, and people like you will attempt to zealously stop any use from being made of these little bundles of cells to the point where you will prevent saving or improving the lives of people I care about. I urge you, maintain your belief if you will, but please do not try to legally enforce your will upon others.
How is saying that it's God's will that we not have another child not taking responsibility?
Because that is exactly what it is, assigning responsibility for what happens to god instead of yourself. By saying you've done all you can and now it is up to god, what you're also saying is that you've tried, not found an answer, and now you're giving up. There's nothing wrong with giving up. Maybe, there is no physical way to achieve your goal that you do not find immoral. The fact remains that making things happen is your responsibility and if you don't find a way, accept that failing as your own. A person who accepts personal responsibility for themselves will not write a failing off as God's will.
At least I have the guts to post this on Slashdot. That's more responsibility then the average Slashdotter. Most Slashdotters don't even have enough guts to say they believe in God!
First, posting about your religious beliefs on Slashdot is not necessarily a good thing in everyone's minds. Some people think it is immoral, disrespectful, or impolite to be pushy about their religious beliefs. Other people may very well not believe in your christian god, and would of course find lying about it unethical. Still other people regard religion as a very private matter that is between them and god, and not to be discussed with others at all. Assuming for just a moment you are only speaking to people with the same religious beliefs as you and who feel speaking out about their religion is a good thing you're still only making a devil's comparison. You've also probably killed fewer jews than Hitler, how does that make your failure to take personal responsibility for your life any less real?
I never said they were not real stem cells. Bone marrow contains undifferentiated stem cells, and has been used for a long time to treat various diseases of the blood. That said, no one has yet shown any way to use it to treat nerve, or complex tissue damage, which is the focus of embryonic and umbilical stem cell research. Up until the embryonic stem cell debate you'd hear about doctors treating various diseases with bone marrow transplants all the time. Then, the media hubub around stem cells made it an everyday term and someone started calling them adult stem cells to differentiate them from embryonic stem cells.
Which lends me to believe that the debate about embrionic[sic] stem cell research has very little to do with actually creating cures for diseases.
So you postulate that embryonic stem cell researchers are doing that research just to serve as a foil to organized religion and that they don't really think the science holds any promise? I think that explanation is very, very far fetched. The research existed long before the public debate and it is much more promising than "adult stem cells" which is a media term for bone marrow and is really only useful for treating components of ailments involving the blood. I think you need to do some more research.
Scavengers who kill pregnant women to sell off embryos, etc. It can lead to a lot of bad things if not kept in check.
One, the U.S. cannot legislate a stop to research. Already China and Europe are becoming more advanced than the U.S. with stem cell research in general. Two, it is useless to ban things that might contribute to a crime. Ban murder, not stem cell research; this last problem is already illegal. Three, passing more laws does not stop criminals from breaking them. If a murderer has to break 5 laws instead of 4 to kill a woman and steal her stem cells (god what a ridiculous argument to start with) then why does he care? People will want treatments for ailments and if they are illegal in the U.S. criminals will just perform them in secret clinics, there will be no medical oversight, and the money will go to organized crime which will make all our lives worse.
The problem I have is the anti-abortion crowd is using religious definitions of life to argue (very unscientifically) that an embryo is more alive and deserving of life than a carrot, and then extrapolating from that that it is morally wrong to encourage the deaths of embryos (most of which die naturally anyway). From this they further extrapolate that research that might use these dead embryos should be illegal. OK all you christians who are opposed to embryonic stem cell research out there answer this then, if stem cell research is morally wrong, why do you think your god designed them and the human body in such a way so that more than half of them die naturally at that stage?
I would refuse a treatment that involved using stem cells from an aborted embryo.
I respect your desire to not be treated with stem cells and promise not to use them to treat you. Now please don't try to keep my tax dollars from funding research into embryonic stem cells and don't ever try to stop me from using embryonic stem cells to treat my own illnesses. You see there has to be respect for other people's opinions in both directions if you want people to respect yours.
The objection is that if the use of these embryos for stem cell research is allowed then the demand for them will rise sharply... It's currently a byproduct because there is no market for it, but if the market is built the system will be abused.
So if people enjoy shooting at cars, and occasionally kill someone that's ok, but if we allow salvage companies to make a profit recycling those cars there will be a profit motive and more people will shoot at cars?!?
What the hell kind of logic is that? Either it is right or wrong. Embryos are naturally aborted about half the time. More embryos are aborted when more are created using fertility drugs. This has been the case for thousands of years. Now all of a sudden, it is wrong for that to happen and we have to minimize the number of times it happens? And we have to minimize it not by banning fertility drugs or researching ways to prevent embryos except when desired, but by banning the use of dead embryos for medical research? I'm sorry but if you want to stop embryos from dying you're going about it the least efficient way, and a way that is most detrimental to your fellow humans (you know the ones with developed brains that can think and move and do things). I try to be open minded about spiritually based beliefs but it is really, really hard when you beliefs are not even consistent with one another and then you come up with convoluted arguments as to why it is ok sometimes, but not others. Make up your mind.
I am against stem-cell research on the grounds that it should not be federally funded.
Then you are opposed to all government funded research? I agree it would be best if each individual got to distribute their money to whatever research, if any, they thought would benefit them the most. The problem is, governments expand and grab more and more power. They rarely if ever, give any power up. Since we're stuck with them providing funding for research with our tax dollars shouldn't the 50%+ of americans that think stem cell research is important have their tax dollars go to stem cell research?
Unfortunately, due to the tendency of bureaucracies to expand, the government has taken over the role of collecting from everyone money to be spent on research and then distributing that money to researchers. If the government never took on that role, there would be no problem. Since they have taken over that role, and are forcing everyone to pay taxes to support research then they ethically have to abide by the will of the people in distributing that money. I propose a yearly referendum. Everyone votes yea or nay on spending money on stem cell research and then the government spends money on stem cell research proportionally. I know I know it will never work properly. That is what happens when the government starts collecting unnecessary taxes in the first place.
I personally feel if God wants us to have another child it will happen.....the normal, old fashioned way.
I've noted many times that almost all successful, mainstream religions are founded on people absolving themselves of personal responsibility. Your statement is just a way of saying, "I'm not responsible for what happens god is. It's all god's fault."
I lose a good deal of respect for anyone who makes such a statement. If god wanted that baby to survive he'd pull him out of the river himself, why should I get my feet wet? Take responsibility for yourself already. If you have more children or not is up to you and your wife and biology (and a little physics). Don't expect god to knock her up or change her biology.
As an aside, please don't have any more children. We're suffering both an overpopulation problem and a problem with orphaned children. There are thousands of 8-15 year old children with no families and no homes. Most of them are minorities. Please adopt one if you want another child.
President Bush is the first president to allow federal funding of any kind to human embryonic stem cell research.
I'm going to have to disagree with this assertion as it is factually incorrect. By default, there is no restriction on what federal funding of science can be used to research. Bush was the first president to restrict the way federal funds can be used to research embryonic stem cells. James Thompson researched human embryonic stem cells from 1995-1998 mostly funded with federal grants and resulting in the first isolation of human embryonic stem cells. At that time talk about instituting a ban on stem cell research began and after Bush's election two years later, restrictions were placed on how labs that received federal moneys (most of them) could research stem cells.
there was a restriction on federal funding of research
This, also, is incorrect. The restriction was on which labs could receive federal grants based upon what type of research they did, not what research could be performed. Since nearly all labs are dependent upon federal grants this required the creation of wholly independent labs to research stem cells to prevent all the other projects from losing their funding as well.
There is absolutely no doubt that significant scientific benefit could come from cloning or farming of humans in more developed forms. So should we push forward with things such as that, full force? Or should we take pause ask important questions that define our very humanity?
The purpose of the government is to restrict our freedoms when necessary for our society and otherwise to leave judgement up to the individual. If you don't think cloning is ethical, or have doubts about it, then you are free to not partake in any cloning. The federal government, however, should not get involved until you can provide reasonable proof or evidence that it will cause problems to society or until a supermajority of the people decide that it is unethical and a danger to society.
I am saying that there should be ethical debate and discussion: as I'm sure many would agree, just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should.
With this, I agree entirely. I think there should be frank and open discussions. I also think, however, barring an agreement of the majority, the government should not get involved and tell individuals what to do. Everyone has the right to decide what is ethical or unethical for themselves. They just should not try to decide for others and try to use the government to enforce their morals on others.
What does that have to do with anything? Sure rich, white people are more likely to become senators, or politicians in general. I think that is a far cry from saying politicians become rich and white and men because of bribes. Bribes can make you rich, but adding in white and men is ridiculous. It is simply an attempt to bring racism and sexism into the issue to try and evoke some sort of emotional response. It is also very funny due to the way it was phrased. To answer the question, I think they were mostly born white and men (maybe a few had surgery) and most were born rich. Bribes might make them more wealthy, but rarely does it make them wealthy in the first place. It never makes them white or men.
VoIP is important for two reasons. First, it is a popular and traditional service that has traditionally been handled over dedicated lines. VoIP is a a consolidation, moving voice traffic to the same channels as the rest. Everyone has seen that both telephone and television are destined to be brought into the fold of regular IP traffic. This means internet traffic will have to adhere to the reliability standards of telephone and the bandwidth capacity for multiple full streaming video channels.
Second, VoIP is a poster child for guaranteed data rates for individual services. No one will put up with phone calls that drop or sound choppy. This has spurred adoption of MPLS and other technologies to insure certain traffic has priority and has a reliable speed. In 5 years your networked games will be able to have reliable speeds and service while your e-mail can still be a little less constant in delivery speed. This opens up the internet for not only games and telephony but a multitude of other applications that require reliable traffic speeds, all while keeping total bandwidth costs more reasonable.
How do you think the Senators get to be the rich white men they are?
I see, so they start off poor and black or hispanic, then get elected to an office, get bribes, get rich and get surgery to become white. I never knew about this facet of politics. You've really opened my eyes.
I am curious about these other population controls that have been enacted (not that they happened, but what happened); would you please tell me about them?
There have been numerous attempts to control undesirable populations, mostly by various state governments. The largest well proven occurrence was when 33 different states launched a program to sterilize women who were pregnant, but undesirable to the state. Usually these were black or other ethnic groups and usually women without husbands. Here is a link to a short article about one victim who the state of North Carolina sterilized.
Couple grand for a casket, couple grand for the headstone, couple grand for the plot (or more) - you would be better off donating that money as a memorial for the person.
I mostly agree with you, but at the same time there is something to be said for leaving something behind where you lived to tie future generations to the past. I used to walk down to an old cemetery when I was a kid and look at stones carved 150 or 200 years before I was born. Some would indicate things about the person buried there, like those whose stones were carved into a tree trunk or who chose to have a boulder instead of a regular headstone. Some of those people were my ancestors. After looking at the cemetery a while and wondering about those who had gone before me I'd walk down a little trail out the back of it and wander through the still older indian burial ground and wonder about how long ago the oldest person there was buried and what their life was like.
That old graveyard is one of the things that makes that place more than just a place. It makes it the land where I was born and where my ancestors lived and worked. Most of the old buildings have been torn down and the graveyard is one of the last remnants of the past. To me it has always been an important reminder.
I'll probably have what's left of me burned, but maybe I should arrange to have a small statue with my name on it left beside the trail out there. Someday maybe some little kid will sit down and furiously search the internet for some sign of who I was and wonder why I left the statue there.
It sounded like a troll to me. If I ask a specific question like, "I want to find a good CAD program that will run on a laptop running OS X" then it is not appropriate or useful to answer, "CAD programs only run on Windows, use Windows." It is doubly inappropriate to make glib and derogatory remarks about "playing with the big boys" while doing so.
The poster stated that they were looking for a Linux solution, telling them not to do what they want to is in no way helpful. If your opinion is there is no such solution, fine then say that. In any case as other posters have pointed out, there are a dozen or so companies that do what the user wanted. We obviously don't know the parameters within which this project must fit, aside from those stated. Maybe he is working in an environment where Windows is not allowed. Maybe he runs SELinux and wants to keep all his banking locked up, encrypted, and protected from hacking within a Linux v-server. Maybe he is just an engineer who uses his machine for Linux development and wants to do some more serious day trading than he has been. The point is, is someone asks a specific question, it is presumptuous and unproductive to tell them that what they are doing is incorrect and to do something else. Doing so in the manner the earlier poster did is either trolling or flaming.
In the microcosm of business, you need slaves and you need taskmasters. Being a slave sucks, and the taskmasters are sucky, but the cotton isn't going to pick itself.
I'll give you a counter example. You have a company where everyone has task assigned to their job. The company has a very nice profit sharing plan and a benefits package including stock options. Bugs are filed by customers and engineers and divvied up among the engineers for fixing. Development is also customer driven and then divvied up by the engineers. Each person works hard, not because their boss is exploiting them, but because they have a personal stake in the company doing well enough to keep paying them, give them a big profit sharing bonus, and make their stock options worth something.
There is no reason to have slaves if employees are treated well. You also get a lot more real work out of an employee when they are working for themselves and their own self satisfaction as well. You claim people are lazy and need to be forced to work. I think you're dead wrong. I've worked with plenty of brilliant engineers who could have been making twice as much somewhere else and retired earlier. Most of the cream of the crop developers do it because they want to more than for the money. If they are laid off they work on an open source project or pet research project until they find a new job. They come in at 2AM on a saturday when they have a good idea because work is closer to the bar and they want to type something up before they forget. If a company treats employees well and provides them with incentives based upon how well they and the company do, employees don't need to be treated like slaves. I'm sorry the places you work suck so badly. It sounds like a really shitty place to work, the kind of place that can make you dread coming in. Please understand, that is not the only way.
His statement that those people that Linux isn't "for" aren't looking hard enough is very short sighted.
It might have been, were that his statement. It wasn't though. He said people who can't find Linux support aren't looking hard enough. That is a really polite and nice way to say that they are the most incompetent computer person you could possibly have hired or they are intentionally not finding it because they want to create a non-existant problem either so they don't have to learn, so they can keep getting kickbacks, because they are lazy, or because MS just paid them a boatload of marketing cash. I mean just how piss drunk do you have to be to not be able to find Linux support? Type, "Linux support" into google and you get a dozen sponsored ads for companies offering linux support and a 50-50 mix of free and pay linux support sites for the regular results. Any IT purchaser or administrator that can't manage that not only needs to be fired, but you should sue them and the universities who gave them their credentials in the first place for fraud.
I am so sick of incompetent boobs, regurgitating this FUD.
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anything that you download from the net would run inside of a VM.
Any Java application you run already does this, but it does not stop java worms or trojans. The trick is to run in a VM, have well thought out default permissions for applications, have reasonably easy configuration for the end user, and make sure that your system treats new applications in a properly paranoid manner and communicates that via the UI. I do think this is the way the industry is moving with Java, BSD jails, Linux Vservers, and MS's acquisition of Connectix
predict all of the needed options. The fact that you know of an option or two that everyone needs does not mean that all needed options are known.
You're mistaken. There is no reason to predict all possible options. You need merely provide a few, easy to understand template ACLs and let the programs request additional resources. If Windows did this two things would happen very quickly. First developers would write programs to match up with the templates to minimize user support costs. Two users would become suspicious of programs that requested access to things they do not understand. Basically access to the internet, user files (not created by this program), system files (not created by this program), and peripherals. Applications could be simply internet or not internet and it would be a big step forward. So you get a program in the mail. Your mail program should tell you, "hey this is a program, not a file." If you run it anyway it should say, "hey this is reading your personal files." if the user says ok to that it should say, "hey this is modifying your operating system" and if the user says ok to that it should say, "hey this wants to connect to the internet. Finally, it should say, "hey this wants to use your webcam. All of these things are pretty understandable, even to a novice user. If most of their applications (legitimate ones) behave properly and don't access their personal files or their os or the internet or their webcam, they will then be suspicious of programs that do access those resources, unless of course they are expecting the program to use their webcam and the internet.
That is not pretending to be any simpler than it is, but it is telling the user in plain english what is going on and giving them the option to allow it or stop it. Right now, unless they are an expert, they are not given any of these options, are not warned when applications do suspicious things, and are shown endless OK/Cancel dialogue boxes, or even just OK boxes, with no other options. The problem is that functionality is missing and the good UI design is missing. Add those two elements in and not only will education be greatly simplified, but in some cases it will be wholly unnecessary because the UI is self documenting.
Now I agree Word has no business accessing the internet or running executables and e-mail should, by default, never allow a user to open an executable. That still does not stop trojans or do anything about viruses that do find a chink somewhere. The key is letting users know what is going on, doing the right thing by default if they don't know, and explaining it to them. Do that and legitimate developers will fall in line or suffer for it and trojans and viruses will be largely mitigated.
The problem is the culture that Windows has engendered, which says "everything should be automagic -- don't think! -- just click and the world will be yours!"
I call this the "OK/Cancel" problem. Users get into the mindset that if they just click OK all the time things will work. You have to click OK a dozen times a day to keep your computer working, just like adding gas to a car. After a little while they don't even pay attention to what is being asked.
Part of the solution is simply to use better dialogue windows and part of it is to give the user better choices. I remember in Word (back in the day) I would get a dialogue box that said, "Warning, this word file contains macros that may be viruses, open it anyway? OK/Cancel" Talk about useless. What it needed was a button that said, "open the file, but don't run any macros." I know people who would have paid $500 bucks for that option. Aside from all the viruses that autorun (which are pretty much MS's fault) e-mail should never run executables when clicked without attaching a warning that says, this is a program, not a file. it may be a virus (Don't run)/(Run but don't allow access to my files of the internet)/(Run and let it access my files and the internet.)" That would stop most viruses right there. If Linux was the market leader it would have some of the same problems, but I bet someone would include that dialogue box and make all our lives easier. This is partially a problem with users, but mostly it is a problem with functionality. Users need fine grained control, good default settings, and a good user interface that lets them know what it is they are doing. I haven't seen all three of those yet, anywhere but it is very possible. The only reason it does not exist is because MS doesn't care because it has a monopoly and Apple/Linux developers don't have a problem yet and are thus not motivated to solve it.
very non-technical idiot in the other offices opened up multiple copies of those e-mails anyway.
You're confusing idiocy, with reasonable expectations. I expect that my e-mail program will read e-mail. I expect that when I open an e-mail it will display the text, included images, and, if I request it, it will display remote images. My e-mail client does that, and so did my last 3 or 4 e-mail clients over the last 10 years. What I do not, and should not expect, is for my e-mail program to run a virus, install anything, run random scripts, connect to remote servers, touch any of my files, write to my hard drive, or run any sort of executable. If it does that, it is broken. If it does that all the time, it is fundamentally broken and needs to be replaced, and the vendor blacklisted.
You complain about how stupid the non-technical users are, but you should not have to be technical or an expert to read e-mail. You should just open your messages and be able to read without fear. If you are one of those rare few people who need to have executables e-mailed to you, fine, but you should have to turn that feature on manually and your e-mail program should say, "hey this e-mail has an executable in it, do you want to install or run it? (Note this may be a worm or virus!)" I mean how hard is that already? Viruses should not run when you preview a mail, nor when you open a mail, nor when you double click on an attachment. They should run when you double click on them and then confirm that you know the contained item is a program that might be a virus.
If all e-mail programs did that (pretty much all but MS ones do now) would there still be viruses? Sure, but there would be a lot fewer and they would spread more slowly. And there is no reason why the number could not be further reduced by running new apps with restricted privileges, requiring you to not only agree to run a strange and untrusted program but to explicitly grant it access to the internet and/or your personal files and/or your operating system files. Sure there are people who would agree to even that, but those few people cannot be helped. The problem is more a technical one right now than an end user education one. Give them the right tools and then if they still screw up you can complain justly. End users of e-mail should not have to be experts.
Build an AV system that creates a VM sandbox that would then allow the a program to run to see what it would do, and if determind to work normally, then to pass the IO requests directly to the system.
Do you mean for a limited time so that it does not hurt performance (in which case worms/viruses can get around it by sleeping for a predefined time) or do you mean running in a VM all the time, which is actually just good ACLs for userland applications (something I have been preaching along with an easy UI and good defaults for several years)? Heck this can be done right now with Java application, except I don't know any JVMs that give the user the configuration tools needed to use them properly. When you download/install an application it should be ACL'ed with a preconfigured setting, like game, internet game, offline application, internet application, etc. This would have the added benefit of keeping developers from accessing the internet with applications that don't really need to, and encouraging them to use OS hooks to do updates. By default most applications don't need to use the internet and most don't need to access any files either not created by them or not specified by the user. That right there would kill 90% of the worms and viruses we see today.
Sounds good in theory, but doesnt work - like communism.
So you've actually tested one of these and found it did not work? Because otherwise, we're still in the theory stage and you're claiming it does not sound good. That is to say, "I don't think it sounds good in theory because of these reasons." What communism has to do with it is beyond me.
In future generations I sincerely believe that people will look back at us with some of the same revulsion with which we now view slave traders and others who stood by and watched the abuse of fellow humans proceed unchecked. If there's one thing we should have learned by now, it's that you can not judge humanity by things like location, size, or development. And yet we're still falling for the fundamental mistake that if it doesn't look like us, it must not be like us.
It's fine to believe that life begins at conception and that all life is meaningful. So here are some questions regarding that. Is human life more meaningful than animal or plant life? At what point in conception does life start. According to science sperm and Ova are both alive, even if they never meet. Both have the potential to be human beings some day. Do you find the death of sperm to be objectionable?
You claim we're falling for "the fundamental mistake that if it doesn't look like us, it must not be like us." I don't agree with that at all. The truth of the matter is, an octopus is much more deserving of life than an embryo at the stage you are talking about. An octopus can think and feel and move and survive on it's own. An embryo is a partially developed bundle of cells with no brain, no thoughts, no feelings, no abilities, and no chance of surviving on its own. For that matter, it is not even an individual, it can still be divided into parts and be the basis for twins or triplets.
Everything I have said is something scientifically determined, but the value that is placed upon things is very unscientific. You may value a severed human finger kept alive in a jar, more than you do the life of a kitten. Both the finger and the embryo are human cells with no consciousness, but to my mind the kitten is a lot more important and a lot more like me. If people found a way to use a severed human finger repair my mother's broken spinal column I'd chop mine off gladly. If they found a way to use stem cells to do the same thing I'd have no ethical objections to that either.
Placing value on life is always a subjective thing. Some people value all life, some only humans and animals, some only humans, and still others only a subset of humans. Most people have reasons for their beliefs, often rooted in religion. Personally, I don't object to the taking of life in and of itself. I think their are valid reasons to take plant and animal life, like for food and that there are valid reasons to take human life, like self preservation. I do believe that all life is worthy of respect and should not be wasted. I don't kill animals unless I plan to eat them. Human embryos, however, at the stage of development we are talking about, die all by themselves. More than half of them that develop die in the womb with no help at all. The particular ones we're talking about have already been removed and are thus assured of death. Personally, I'm all for making any use of them that can be. At least that life will not then be completely wasted.
Our fundamental difference of opinion is that you think that the lives of these embryos is more important than the possibility of saving a fully developed human's life. I'm sorry we can't agree on this. I'm also very concerned that you, and people like you will attempt to zealously stop any use from being made of these little bundles of cells to the point where you will prevent saving or improving the lives of people I care about. I urge you, maintain your belief if you will, but please do not try to legally enforce your will upon others.
How is saying that it's God's will that we not have another child not taking responsibility?
Because that is exactly what it is, assigning responsibility for what happens to god instead of yourself. By saying you've done all you can and now it is up to god, what you're also saying is that you've tried, not found an answer, and now you're giving up. There's nothing wrong with giving up. Maybe, there is no physical way to achieve your goal that you do not find immoral. The fact remains that making things happen is your responsibility and if you don't find a way, accept that failing as your own. A person who accepts personal responsibility for themselves will not write a failing off as God's will.
At least I have the guts to post this on Slashdot. That's more responsibility then the average Slashdotter. Most Slashdotters don't even have enough guts to say they believe in God!
First, posting about your religious beliefs on Slashdot is not necessarily a good thing in everyone's minds. Some people think it is immoral, disrespectful, or impolite to be pushy about their religious beliefs. Other people may very well not believe in your christian god, and would of course find lying about it unethical. Still other people regard religion as a very private matter that is between them and god, and not to be discussed with others at all. Assuming for just a moment you are only speaking to people with the same religious beliefs as you and who feel speaking out about their religion is a good thing you're still only making a devil's comparison. You've also probably killed fewer jews than Hitler, how does that make your failure to take personal responsibility for your life any less real?
I never said they were not real stem cells. Bone marrow contains undifferentiated stem cells, and has been used for a long time to treat various diseases of the blood. That said, no one has yet shown any way to use it to treat nerve, or complex tissue damage, which is the focus of embryonic and umbilical stem cell research. Up until the embryonic stem cell debate you'd hear about doctors treating various diseases with bone marrow transplants all the time. Then, the media hubub around stem cells made it an everyday term and someone started calling them adult stem cells to differentiate them from embryonic stem cells.
Which lends me to believe that the debate about embrionic[sic] stem cell research has very little to do with actually creating cures for diseases.
So you postulate that embryonic stem cell researchers are doing that research just to serve as a foil to organized religion and that they don't really think the science holds any promise? I think that explanation is very, very far fetched. The research existed long before the public debate and it is much more promising than "adult stem cells" which is a media term for bone marrow and is really only useful for treating components of ailments involving the blood. I think you need to do some more research.
Scavengers who kill pregnant women to sell off embryos, etc. It can lead to a lot of bad things if not kept in check.
One, the U.S. cannot legislate a stop to research. Already China and Europe are becoming more advanced than the U.S. with stem cell research in general. Two, it is useless to ban things that might contribute to a crime. Ban murder, not stem cell research; this last problem is already illegal. Three, passing more laws does not stop criminals from breaking them. If a murderer has to break 5 laws instead of 4 to kill a woman and steal her stem cells (god what a ridiculous argument to start with) then why does he care? People will want treatments for ailments and if they are illegal in the U.S. criminals will just perform them in secret clinics, there will be no medical oversight, and the money will go to organized crime which will make all our lives worse.
The problem I have is the anti-abortion crowd is using religious definitions of life to argue (very unscientifically) that an embryo is more alive and deserving of life than a carrot, and then extrapolating from that that it is morally wrong to encourage the deaths of embryos (most of which die naturally anyway). From this they further extrapolate that research that might use these dead embryos should be illegal. OK all you christians who are opposed to embryonic stem cell research out there answer this then, if stem cell research is morally wrong, why do you think your god designed them and the human body in such a way so that more than half of them die naturally at that stage?
I would refuse a treatment that involved using stem cells from an aborted embryo.
I respect your desire to not be treated with stem cells and promise not to use them to treat you. Now please don't try to keep my tax dollars from funding research into embryonic stem cells and don't ever try to stop me from using embryonic stem cells to treat my own illnesses. You see there has to be respect for other people's opinions in both directions if you want people to respect yours.
The objection is that if the use of these embryos for stem cell research is allowed then the demand for them will rise sharply... It's currently a byproduct because there is no market for it, but if the market is built the system will be abused.
So if people enjoy shooting at cars, and occasionally kill someone that's ok, but if we allow salvage companies to make a profit recycling those cars there will be a profit motive and more people will shoot at cars?!?
What the hell kind of logic is that? Either it is right or wrong. Embryos are naturally aborted about half the time. More embryos are aborted when more are created using fertility drugs. This has been the case for thousands of years. Now all of a sudden, it is wrong for that to happen and we have to minimize the number of times it happens? And we have to minimize it not by banning fertility drugs or researching ways to prevent embryos except when desired, but by banning the use of dead embryos for medical research? I'm sorry but if you want to stop embryos from dying you're going about it the least efficient way, and a way that is most detrimental to your fellow humans (you know the ones with developed brains that can think and move and do things). I try to be open minded about spiritually based beliefs but it is really, really hard when you beliefs are not even consistent with one another and then you come up with convoluted arguments as to why it is ok sometimes, but not others. Make up your mind.
I am against stem-cell research on the grounds that it should not be federally funded.
Then you are opposed to all government funded research? I agree it would be best if each individual got to distribute their money to whatever research, if any, they thought would benefit them the most. The problem is, governments expand and grab more and more power. They rarely if ever, give any power up. Since we're stuck with them providing funding for research with our tax dollars shouldn't the 50%+ of americans that think stem cell research is important have their tax dollars go to stem cell research?
Unfortunately, due to the tendency of bureaucracies to expand, the government has taken over the role of collecting from everyone money to be spent on research and then distributing that money to researchers. If the government never took on that role, there would be no problem. Since they have taken over that role, and are forcing everyone to pay taxes to support research then they ethically have to abide by the will of the people in distributing that money. I propose a yearly referendum. Everyone votes yea or nay on spending money on stem cell research and then the government spends money on stem cell research proportionally. I know I know it will never work properly. That is what happens when the government starts collecting unnecessary taxes in the first place.
I personally feel if God wants us to have another child it will happen.....the normal, old fashioned way.
I've noted many times that almost all successful, mainstream religions are founded on people absolving themselves of personal responsibility. Your statement is just a way of saying, "I'm not responsible for what happens god is. It's all god's fault."
I lose a good deal of respect for anyone who makes such a statement. If god wanted that baby to survive he'd pull him out of the river himself, why should I get my feet wet? Take responsibility for yourself already. If you have more children or not is up to you and your wife and biology (and a little physics). Don't expect god to knock her up or change her biology.
As an aside, please don't have any more children. We're suffering both an overpopulation problem and a problem with orphaned children. There are thousands of 8-15 year old children with no families and no homes. Most of them are minorities. Please adopt one if you want another child.
President Bush is the first president to allow federal funding of any kind to human embryonic stem cell research.
I'm going to have to disagree with this assertion as it is factually incorrect. By default, there is no restriction on what federal funding of science can be used to research. Bush was the first president to restrict the way federal funds can be used to research embryonic stem cells. James Thompson researched human embryonic stem cells from 1995-1998 mostly funded with federal grants and resulting in the first isolation of human embryonic stem cells. At that time talk about instituting a ban on stem cell research began and after Bush's election two years later, restrictions were placed on how labs that received federal moneys (most of them) could research stem cells.
there was a restriction on federal funding of research
This, also, is incorrect. The restriction was on which labs could receive federal grants based upon what type of research they did, not what research could be performed. Since nearly all labs are dependent upon federal grants this required the creation of wholly independent labs to research stem cells to prevent all the other projects from losing their funding as well.
There is absolutely no doubt that significant scientific benefit could come from cloning or farming of humans in more developed forms. So should we push forward with things such as that, full force? Or should we take pause ask important questions that define our very humanity?
The purpose of the government is to restrict our freedoms when necessary for our society and otherwise to leave judgement up to the individual. If you don't think cloning is ethical, or have doubts about it, then you are free to not partake in any cloning. The federal government, however, should not get involved until you can provide reasonable proof or evidence that it will cause problems to society or until a supermajority of the people decide that it is unethical and a danger to society.
I am saying that there should be ethical debate and discussion: as I'm sure many would agree, just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean you should.
With this, I agree entirely. I think there should be frank and open discussions. I also think, however, barring an agreement of the majority, the government should not get involved and tell individuals what to do. Everyone has the right to decide what is ethical or unethical for themselves. They just should not try to decide for others and try to use the government to enforce their morals on others.
What does that have to do with anything? Sure rich, white people are more likely to become senators, or politicians in general. I think that is a far cry from saying politicians become rich and white and men because of bribes. Bribes can make you rich, but adding in white and men is ridiculous. It is simply an attempt to bring racism and sexism into the issue to try and evoke some sort of emotional response. It is also very funny due to the way it was phrased. To answer the question, I think they were mostly born white and men (maybe a few had surgery) and most were born rich. Bribes might make them more wealthy, but rarely does it make them wealthy in the first place. It never makes them white or men.
I guess HTTP, FTP, SSH, ... were not services.
VoIP is important for two reasons. First, it is a popular and traditional service that has traditionally been handled over dedicated lines. VoIP is a a consolidation, moving voice traffic to the same channels as the rest. Everyone has seen that both telephone and television are destined to be brought into the fold of regular IP traffic. This means internet traffic will have to adhere to the reliability standards of telephone and the bandwidth capacity for multiple full streaming video channels.
Second, VoIP is a poster child for guaranteed data rates for individual services. No one will put up with phone calls that drop or sound choppy. This has spurred adoption of MPLS and other technologies to insure certain traffic has priority and has a reliable speed. In 5 years your networked games will be able to have reliable speeds and service while your e-mail can still be a little less constant in delivery speed. This opens up the internet for not only games and telephony but a multitude of other applications that require reliable traffic speeds, all while keeping total bandwidth costs more reasonable.
How do you think the Senators get to be the rich white men they are?
I see, so they start off poor and black or hispanic, then get elected to an office, get bribes, get rich and get surgery to become white. I never knew about this facet of politics. You've really opened my eyes.
I am curious about these other population controls that have been enacted (not that they happened, but what happened); would you please tell me about them?
There have been numerous attempts to control undesirable populations, mostly by various state governments. The largest well proven occurrence was when 33 different states launched a program to sterilize women who were pregnant, but undesirable to the state. Usually these were black or other ethnic groups and usually women without husbands. Here is a link to a short article about one victim who the state of North Carolina sterilized.
Couple grand for a casket, couple grand for the headstone, couple grand for the plot (or more) - you would be better off donating that money as a memorial for the person.
I mostly agree with you, but at the same time there is something to be said for leaving something behind where you lived to tie future generations to the past. I used to walk down to an old cemetery when I was a kid and look at stones carved 150 or 200 years before I was born. Some would indicate things about the person buried there, like those whose stones were carved into a tree trunk or who chose to have a boulder instead of a regular headstone. Some of those people were my ancestors. After looking at the cemetery a while and wondering about those who had gone before me I'd walk down a little trail out the back of it and wander through the still older indian burial ground and wonder about how long ago the oldest person there was buried and what their life was like.
That old graveyard is one of the things that makes that place more than just a place. It makes it the land where I was born and where my ancestors lived and worked. Most of the old buildings have been torn down and the graveyard is one of the last remnants of the past. To me it has always been an important reminder.
I'll probably have what's left of me burned, but maybe I should arrange to have a small statue with my name on it left beside the trail out there. Someday maybe some little kid will sit down and furiously search the internet for some sign of who I was and wonder why I left the statue there.
It sounded like a troll to me. If I ask a specific question like, "I want to find a good CAD program that will run on a laptop running OS X" then it is not appropriate or useful to answer, "CAD programs only run on Windows, use Windows." It is doubly inappropriate to make glib and derogatory remarks about "playing with the big boys" while doing so.
The poster stated that they were looking for a Linux solution, telling them not to do what they want to is in no way helpful. If your opinion is there is no such solution, fine then say that. In any case as other posters have pointed out, there are a dozen or so companies that do what the user wanted. We obviously don't know the parameters within which this project must fit, aside from those stated. Maybe he is working in an environment where Windows is not allowed. Maybe he runs SELinux and wants to keep all his banking locked up, encrypted, and protected from hacking within a Linux v-server. Maybe he is just an engineer who uses his machine for Linux development and wants to do some more serious day trading than he has been. The point is, is someone asks a specific question, it is presumptuous and unproductive to tell them that what they are doing is incorrect and to do something else. Doing so in the manner the earlier poster did is either trolling or flaming.
In the microcosm of business, you need slaves and you need taskmasters. Being a slave sucks, and the taskmasters are sucky, but the cotton isn't going to pick itself.
I'll give you a counter example. You have a company where everyone has task assigned to their job. The company has a very nice profit sharing plan and a benefits package including stock options. Bugs are filed by customers and engineers and divvied up among the engineers for fixing. Development is also customer driven and then divvied up by the engineers. Each person works hard, not because their boss is exploiting them, but because they have a personal stake in the company doing well enough to keep paying them, give them a big profit sharing bonus, and make their stock options worth something.
There is no reason to have slaves if employees are treated well. You also get a lot more real work out of an employee when they are working for themselves and their own self satisfaction as well. You claim people are lazy and need to be forced to work. I think you're dead wrong. I've worked with plenty of brilliant engineers who could have been making twice as much somewhere else and retired earlier. Most of the cream of the crop developers do it because they want to more than for the money. If they are laid off they work on an open source project or pet research project until they find a new job. They come in at 2AM on a saturday when they have a good idea because work is closer to the bar and they want to type something up before they forget. If a company treats employees well and provides them with incentives based upon how well they and the company do, employees don't need to be treated like slaves. I'm sorry the places you work suck so badly. It sounds like a really shitty place to work, the kind of place that can make you dread coming in. Please understand, that is not the only way.
His statement that those people that Linux isn't "for" aren't looking hard enough is very short sighted.
It might have been, were that his statement. It wasn't though. He said people who can't find Linux support aren't looking hard enough. That is a really polite and nice way to say that they are the most incompetent computer person you could possibly have hired or they are intentionally not finding it because they want to create a non-existant problem either so they don't have to learn, so they can keep getting kickbacks, because they are lazy, or because MS just paid them a boatload of marketing cash. I mean just how piss drunk do you have to be to not be able to find Linux support? Type, "Linux support" into google and you get a dozen sponsored ads for companies offering linux support and a 50-50 mix of free and pay linux support sites for the regular results. Any IT purchaser or administrator that can't manage that not only needs to be fired, but you should sue them and the universities who gave them their credentials in the first place for fraud.
I am so sick of incompetent boobs, regurgitating this FUD.