So... it sometimes works, but is generally not reliable enough for anyone to bother reusing it. The Greeks lost that battle, too -- if the death ray worked well, they could have just burned everything (at least until the evening came).
The story sounds plausible. Archimedes invented something that managed to set one or two ships on fire (and most likely the fire was extinguished in no time), but was unable to have any strategic meaning.
Is this because PHP is inherently unreadable, or because it's so easy to learn that a lot of incompetent people who barely deserve the title "programmer" use it?
The latter, absolutely. PHP is trivial to use, and I've seen it used by someone who couldn't even do a simple while loop. It's the Visual Basic of WWW programming, with all of its benefits and downsides.
On the other hand, I (and I meet the typical geek traits to an extreme: socially inept, incapable of focusing on uninterested things to the point of dropping from the university, having taken spots near the top on many programming contests including ACM world finals and the very top on a CEOI), after using Perl for some random tasks for years, I can't call myself anything but an amateur there. I'm not a web programmer nor do I develop applications in Perl -- just use it for the random odd tasks, but still.
It's comparing Apples and Microsofts, er, pears here. PHP is just meant for a completely different kind of users than Perl. But, the fact that the latter tend to be seasoned programmers offsets the fact that Perl is the proverbial line noise language, designed by someone who won IOCCC twice.
As someone impartial to the Java-vs-PHP debate (and a soldier to a third side), I would describe PHP as Visual Basic of server-side development. It's very easy to use, but most code is monstrously sloppy and/or insecure -- I might have been unlucky, but the three times I fixed problems in php code (and usually rewrote things in Perl), the code had glaring holes and was totally unreadable. You're reading this right -- I rewrote things to Perl to make them readable.
The problem with Java is that you can't really integrate it with anything other than Java itself -- Sun can teach Microsoft a lot when it comes to blocking third-party improvements. Until, as you say, gcj or any other piece of free software catches up, Java won't be usable. It died as a client-side language, and is struggling on the server as well.
I need it to do a good job of scanning my computer for media.
Why not store all your media in a single location? That's a much simpler solution. You see, many, many years ago, wise people invented something called "directory structure". It can match the band/album/song hierarchy exactly, while still giving you the option to omit a field without having everything lumped together into a single broken cathegory.
Now, a small comparison. Let's say you want to listen to Dimmu Borgir's Stormblåst. Me: 123 mp3/Di[tab]/St[tab]/* -- around 1 second You: First, you need to get your media player. You'll need to either navigate through the menu (~5sec) or aim the mouse at the shortcut you made in your launch bar/kicker/dock (~0.5sec). Then, the media player has to load (Winamp 5.094 on a 3Ghz XP machine ~7sec or ~3.5sec if it's already in memory). Then, you need to navigate to the album you want -- the time varies wildly with the media player in question, but it's certain you'll have to either go through a couple of lists or scroll through a single long one. Then, you need to select all the songs in the album, and click 'play'.
Now, which solution is simpler, easier to use and faster? And, while you're restricted to only trivial artist/album/song queries, I can always resort to 123 `find xxx`, or, for ultimate firepower, 123 `perl -e 'xxx'`.
Sweden, Finland, Norway -- good, but too small. Britland -- nearly same as the US, but smaller. China -- obvious. Africa -- what is that "Internet" thingy? India -- perhaps. Germany -- censorship. France -- you can't let them touch anything not made by a french-speaking person. Muslim countries -- no infrastructure, a lack of will to do anything constructive. Australia -- a remote colony of UK. Russia -- they're too busy establishing Putinjugend and fighting not-obedient-enough businesspeople.
In other words, a randomly choosen replacement is a lot worse than what we have right now.
I would propose to have the root name servers entrusted to a coalition of:
China -- to protect the freedom of speech Poland -- to ensure reliability of connections Sierra Leone -- to ensure cheap and widely available services USA -- to curb bottom dwelling scum-suckers like RIAA
But really... if an organisation is to take over the root servers, UN is not far from Al Quaeda and RIAA. Just add corruption and take away any traces of balls.
Even worse, if you remove all the germs, your immune system will stay defenseless. You do need to be in contact with the spores if you want to be able to resist them -- and you will have to resist these sooner or later.
It's hard to imagine, but newspapers will be modular, dynamic, constantly updating. ... and they will self-destruct after you read them once. Welcome to the DRM world!
Also, Stallman's "Right to Read" may be sadly so true...
I bet that machine didn't have a RAID on a Sil 3112a controller. That is, unless you are beefy enough to take the laptop, a tent and a lot of supplies onto that mountain.
Don't forget that you're not the target audience. Ads are aimed at idiots, not you.
When communism collapsed in Poland and we got our first ads, washing powder named "Pollena 2000" was marketed using a reference to one of Polish best known book. The TV ad they used is still quoted as the best Polish ad ever -- and yet, it caused a decline in sales. Why? The bulk of the audience is nearly mindless, they don't read any books and even if they happen to remember something they were forced to read in school, it brings traumatic memories.
You're talking about the worm's payload, not the parts it needs to spread. It doesn't have to be even included within the worm itself -- you can download any needed things after you gained control over the target box.
If you are running anything i386 compatible (and yeah, I do mean Pentium 17 and/or x86-64) box, why you won't just run the stuff natively? You see, you don't need to emulate anything.
Microsoft can't revoke your DOS 6.22 license, and there is FreeDOS... (disclaimer: while I do have a DOS partition, I didn't boot it in like a year)
In other news, Symantec brings complaint against Linus Torvalds, Apple and Theo de Raadt over producing operating systems with less holes than a swiss cheese.
If there are security updates, the software update should notify the user ASAP. Not everybody checks a news site that would mention FF updates.
1.5beta2 is not a security update -- it's a preview of the next major release. Not stable yet (well, unless you compare it to IE/AOL Netscape/...) and not considered to be fit for the general public. It's a release for developers and adventureous users.
That's if you're a company admin, have intelligent bosses, and it's you who is the god of all machines.
And what about ISPs? And what about companies where bosses are not going to stand an admin telling them what to do? And what about organizations where admins are to "help people", not to "hinder work"?
Personally, I'm lucky to work in a company small enough that I can personally spank every person who does something bad -- and thanks to Microsoft's cooperation everyone knows damn well that they can't afford to run Internet Explorer and the like. However, I do consulting work for two local ISPs, and I'm the person who gets called on every problem, including worm outbreaks (their admins know how to set up an antenna, but are completely stumped when it comes to traffic shaping or even blocking ports). No matter how loudly you tell the clients to clean their machines, they will hammer on your network all the time. Educating the users is a lost fight -- all you can do is isolating users from each other.
As long as you downplay such arguments, you're playing the RIAA game. It's a matter of public awareness -- if people in Ukraine would downplay arguments about their government doing what it was doing, they would end up with Belarus 2.
Simple. Just don't include any spreading code in the payload; send the worm from your own machines. As these "nematodes" are supposed to be used only by large companies and ISPs, their owner already possesses the network, and thus can apply the exploits to valid targets only.
This is not such bad a concept -- with VERY few exceptions, nearly all networks are full to the brim with idiots. Setting policies can help, but often you have no real way to enforce them. Try telling your clients that that Weather Bug or M$ Outlook is not something they should be using... But if you use controlled exploits right, you can fix the problems without having to deal with just the symptoms.
Re:And this surprising how?
on
RIAA Sues a Child
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Slashdot Mirror
Wrong. This is not a dupe.
/. article]
/. article]
/. story is about the MIT experiment, the latter is about Myth Busters.
First, the Myth Busters claimed the story about Archimedes is a myth.
Second, some guys from MIT managed to reproduce the death ray. [->a
Third, the Myth Busters made another experiment as a rebuffal to MIT. [->this
The former
So... it sometimes works, but is generally not reliable enough for anyone to bother reusing it. The Greeks lost that battle, too -- if the death ray worked well, they could have just burned everything (at least until the evening came).
The story sounds plausible. Archimedes invented something that managed to set one or two ships on fire (and most likely the fire was extinguished in no time), but was unable to have any strategic meaning.
Is this because PHP is inherently unreadable, or because it's so easy to learn that a lot of incompetent people who barely deserve the title "programmer" use it?
The latter, absolutely. PHP is trivial to use, and I've seen it used by someone who couldn't even do a simple while loop. It's the Visual Basic of WWW programming, with all of its benefits and downsides.
On the other hand, I (and I meet the typical geek traits to an extreme: socially inept, incapable of focusing on uninterested things to the point of dropping from the university, having taken spots near the top on many programming contests including ACM world finals and the very top on a CEOI), after using Perl for some random tasks for years, I can't call myself anything but an amateur there. I'm not a web programmer nor do I develop applications in Perl -- just use it for the random odd tasks, but still.
It's comparing Apples and Microsofts, er, pears here. PHP is just meant for a completely different kind of users than Perl. But, the fact that the latter tend to be seasoned programmers offsets the fact that Perl is the proverbial line noise language, designed by someone who won IOCCC twice.
As someone impartial to the Java-vs-PHP debate (and a soldier to a third side), I would describe PHP as Visual Basic of server-side development. It's very easy to use, but most code is monstrously sloppy and/or insecure -- I might have been unlucky, but the three times I fixed problems in php code (and usually rewrote things in Perl), the code had glaring holes and was totally unreadable. You're reading this right -- I rewrote things to Perl to make them readable.
The problem with Java is that you can't really integrate it with anything other than Java itself -- Sun can teach Microsoft a lot when it comes to blocking third-party improvements. Until, as you say, gcj or any other piece of free software catches up, Java won't be usable. It died as a client-side language, and is struggling on the server as well.
Thus, the bottom line is: long live Larry Wall!
Like, SuckIt?
I need it to do a good job of scanning my computer for media.
Why not store all your media in a single location? That's a much simpler solution.
You see, many, many years ago, wise people invented something called "directory structure". It can match the band/album/song hierarchy exactly, while still giving you the option to omit a field without having everything lumped together into a single broken cathegory.
Now, a small comparison. Let's say you want to listen to Dimmu Borgir's Stormblåst.
Me:
123 mp3/Di[tab]/St[tab]/*
-- around 1 second
You:
First, you need to get your media player. You'll need to either navigate through the menu (~5sec) or aim the mouse at the shortcut you made in your launch bar/kicker/dock (~0.5sec). Then, the media player has to load (Winamp 5.094 on a 3Ghz XP machine ~7sec or ~3.5sec if it's already in memory). Then, you need to navigate to the album you want -- the time varies wildly with the media player in question, but it's certain you'll have to either go through a couple of lists or scroll through a single long one. Then, you need to select all the songs in the album, and click 'play'.
Now, which solution is simpler, easier to use and faster?
And, while you're restricted to only trivial artist/album/song queries, I can always resort to 123 `find xxx`, or, for ultimate firepower, 123 `perl -e 'xxx'`.
I just mention the alternatives we have.
Sweden, Finland, Norway -- good, but too small.
Britland -- nearly same as the US, but smaller.
China -- obvious.
Africa -- what is that "Internet" thingy?
India -- perhaps.
Germany -- censorship.
France -- you can't let them touch anything not made by a french-speaking person.
Muslim countries -- no infrastructure, a lack of will to do anything constructive.
Australia -- a remote colony of UK.
Russia -- they're too busy establishing Putinjugend and fighting not-obedient-enough businesspeople.
In other words, a randomly choosen replacement is a lot worse than what we have right now.
Uhm, the actions of their government?
Don't forget the Little Red Book, Tianan-men square, the Great Chinese Firewall, and so on.
I would propose to have the root name servers entrusted to a coalition of:
China -- to protect the freedom of speech
Poland -- to ensure reliability of connections
Sierra Leone -- to ensure cheap and widely available services
USA -- to curb bottom dwelling scum-suckers like RIAA
But really... if an organisation is to take over the root servers, UN is not far from Al Quaeda and RIAA. Just add corruption and take away any traces of balls.
Yeah, this system would be just perfect to catch those who exceed speed limits -- and this is just a start.
Even worse, if you remove all the germs, your immune system will stay defenseless. You do need to be in contact with the spores if you want to be able to resist them -- and you will have to resist these sooner or later.
But you see, they need bigger numbers... they have a recent loss (-> Chineese noodles) to cover.
Hell yeah, especially if you consider: the curriculum includes talking really fast.
See, I'm typing really slow now to make sure you can understand me.
... and they will self-destruct after you read them once. Welcome to the DRM world!
Also, Stallman's "Right to Read" may be sadly so true...
I bet that machine didn't have a RAID on a Sil 3112a controller. That is, unless you are beefy enough to take the laptop, a tent and a lot of supplies onto that mountain.
Don't forget that you're not the target audience. Ads are aimed at idiots, not you.
When communism collapsed in Poland and we got our first ads, washing powder named "Pollena 2000" was marketed using a reference to one of Polish best known book. The TV ad they used is still quoted as the best Polish ad ever -- and yet, it caused a decline in sales. Why? The bulk of the audience is nearly mindless, they don't read any books and even if they happen to remember something they were forced to read in school, it brings traumatic memories.
You're talking about the worm's payload, not the parts it needs to spread. It doesn't have to be even included within the worm itself -- you can download any needed things after you gained control over the target box.
If you are running anything i386 compatible (and yeah, I do mean Pentium 17 and/or x86-64) box, why you won't just run the stuff natively? You see, you don't need to emulate anything.
Microsoft can't revoke your DOS 6.22 license, and there is FreeDOS...
(disclaimer: while I do have a DOS partition, I didn't boot it in like a year)
In other news, Symantec brings complaint against Linus Torvalds, Apple and Theo de Raadt over producing operating systems with less holes than a swiss cheese.
If there are security updates, the software update should notify the user ASAP. Not everybody checks a news site that would mention FF updates.
1.5beta2 is not a security update -- it's a preview of the next major release. Not stable yet (well, unless you compare it to IE/AOL Netscape/...) and not considered to be fit for the general public.
It's a release for developers and adventureous users.
That's if you're a company admin, have intelligent bosses, and it's you who is the god of all machines.
And what about ISPs? And what about companies where bosses are not going to stand an admin telling them what to do? And what about organizations where admins are to "help people", not to "hinder work"?
Personally, I'm lucky to work in a company small enough that I can personally spank every person who does something bad -- and thanks to Microsoft's cooperation everyone knows damn well that they can't afford to run Internet Explorer and the like. However, I do consulting work for two local ISPs, and I'm the person who gets called on every problem, including worm outbreaks (their admins know how to set up an antenna, but are completely stumped when it comes to traffic shaping or even blocking ports). No matter how loudly you tell the clients to clean their machines, they will hammer on your network all the time. Educating the users is a lost fight -- all you can do is isolating users from each other.
Having used an ISP where the admins installed "Inktomi TrafficServer(tm)", the only thing I can say is: "Ouch. Right.".
As long as you downplay such arguments, you're playing the RIAA game. It's a matter of public awareness -- if people in Ukraine would downplay arguments about their government doing what it was doing, they would end up with Belarus 2.
Simple. Just don't include any spreading code in the payload; send the worm from your own machines.
As these "nematodes" are supposed to be used only by large companies and ISPs, their owner already possesses the network, and thus can apply the exploits to valid targets only.
This is not such bad a concept -- with VERY few exceptions, nearly all networks are full to the brim with idiots. Setting policies can help, but often you have no real way to enforce them. Try telling your clients that that Weather Bug or M$ Outlook is not something they should be using... But if you use controlled exploits right, you can fix the problems without having to deal with just the symptoms.
Well, we already had a precedent for this.