That is actually an impressive level of bad grammar.
I mean I pride myself on subtle things, like never under any circumstances using "it's" without the apostrophe and even dragging out "irregardless" from time to time, but this is just brilliant.
I think what you've said kind of mirrors why "the humanities" might be exploding.
There is no industry for them to branch into. They are all cramming into one funnel, and the proposed solution seems to be to toss more in. If the only viable career path for a CS student was to become a CS prof, we'd be having the same problem.
Oh I totally agree with this. Relying on the user to "make the decision" is (or should be) the last resort when a programmer can't figure out how to deal with a situation.
In the specific area of certificate verification on web browsers, the problem has been too many false positives. Lots of people are sloppy with their certificates, and users have gotten used to the idea that any error mentioning a certificate is probably no big deal (because the other 100 times they clicked the ok button the world didn't end). This then served only to encourage people to be even more sloppy (the user will just click the warning that comes up, no big deal).
Things are moving in a good direction now, with most of the major browsers making the dialog more menacing and (in the case of firefox at least) requiring several not-so-intuitive steps, and this having the effect of making letting your certificates expire/using incorrect certificates more of a big deal because you will lose traffic. I think we are at least at a point where most users will stop when they get one of these more complicated warnings and they are doing something like banking or buying something online.
The real limiter for your average user is the requirement for man in the middle position.
Even without this flaw, most users will just click through any warning that comes up during a man in the middle attack.
It's still a bad thing that the mechanism designed to protect us from man in the middle is broken, but for the average user, the mechanism is already broken via apathy.
- kickstarter and their team of lawyers don't understand the law as well as you do? - kickstarter is pushing some kind of agenda, not just against guns, but against medicine, GMOs, alcohol, tobacco, porn, etc. And this is more important to them than money?
Someone still needs to look at every potentially vaguely weapon related thing and make that determination, and that someone is probably going to need to have a law degree. "Some guy on a forum said it was cool" isn't enough for a large business with resources to lose in a lawsuit. Untangling the laws surrounding complex, heavily related areas like weapons and medicine (also prohibited, I imagine for the same reason) is expensive.
And then you get into the stuff that's borderline, and you inevitably have people angry because you allowed one thing and didn't allow another.
It all just turns into a big mess, and for the profit they might get out of it, they've obviously decided it's not worth it.
The time and resources spent deciding what is legally dubious and what isn't plus the risk of getting it wrong probably exceeds the cost of just saying "if it's vaguely related to guns, it's not allowed".
Or try to actually build a community / base of regular customers.
It sounds like they relied on people regularly stumbling onto their site by accident while searching for other things, most of whom probably closed the page and went about their business.
When I look at sites I frequent: slashdot, cracked, newegg... I don't remember the last time any of these showed up in a google search. At some point I stumbled into them or was told about them by someone else, and keep coming back on my own volition.
Just like many of the current rube goldberg-ish "less-lethal weapons", the tech to make a "smart gun" just isn't there yet. Every entry in this field has it's list of failures and impracticalities.
That's not to say we shouldn't stop trying. We'll probably get there eventually. It's just not something we can do right now. At the very least progress has clearly been made. I remember years ago they'd talk about "smart guns" and they'd involve special clips or holsters which would have been absolutely ridiculous in the kind of scenarios where you'd want a gun. At least now the ideal case seems practical and we are arguing about reliability.
I'll admit I have not looked at the code, but the problem I would anticipate is needing both as a dependency at compile time, unless it can be dynamically loaded or is all done via external calls.
PolicyKit specifically can be compiled to use consolekit instead of systemd for session tracking (this is actually the default, you have to explicitly compile policykit with systemd support).
Unfortunately this is kind of the downside to binary based package management. Either PolicyKit has to be modified to support both as configurable options, probably involving a maze of symlinks and wrapper scripts, or separate policykit-systemd and policykit-consolekit packages have to be provided.
If Debian has decided to to go with systemd, this is probably going to be a common issue on that distro, as when given the option of compiling something with it, they probably will.
Aside from joining us over on the gentoo side (open-rc is life but using something else is easier as it's just a use flag for most packages), or maintaining your own sizable collection of custom-built packages, don't know what to tell you!
A few of the early reality shows on Discovery were ok initially, as they bordered more on documentary, but it didn't take them long to figure out that it's drama and conflict that bring the demographic their advertisers want.
The first season or so of deadliest catch was pretty good because it focused on the realities of doing an insanely dangerous job. Then they started focusing mainly on interpersonal conflicts. When I stopped watching, the fact that they are on a boat is barely relevant anymore.
They still do occasionally run watchable shows like mayday and modern marvels, but their main show seems to be that cash cab garbage, how it's made (which I find kinda boring now), and mythbusters (which is still ok).
Maybe he's pulling a really good con, but from what I can tell the dude legitimately tried, failed hard, then had a complete and total mental breakdown. His final rantings seem those of a man who finally snapped under stress and created a fantasy world in his head to cope with it.
If they can even find the guy, he's probably flat broke anyway.
The thing about crowd funding as an alternative to traditional funding is that banks and investors are very good at recognizing that a product is going to fail. The crowd funding community is very early in developing that same sense, but I think it will come.
The interesting thing is that one of the big appeals to crowd funding is it allows ideas to become a reality that would never have passed through the risk-averse traditional funding routes.
Eventually I hope a middle ground will form, comprised of a more savvy average backer, a little more diligence on the part of kickstarter (maybe via some kind of rating/analysis done on projects over a certain size?), but still with some of the same spirit of throwing money at stuff because it sounds cool and you really want it to happen vice because you've got some pretty charts and a pile of math showing it'll be profitable.
It's more about encapsulation. The given example is too trivial to really demonstrate this, but it comes into play when you've got a thread with many states/queues/etc that you don't want to just give direct access to (maybe to enforce specific usage, maybe for internal thread safety, whatever) or multiple instances of a thread. Obviously both approaches can work just fine and be designed around, but I've always found the java way felt more object oriented (and not just because it involves defining more classes).
Personally I wrote a very trivial wrapper around pthreads that emulates the "java way" of doing threads and have been using it happily for years. I was kinda disappointed c++11 didn't at least provide the option of doing it java style, but at most it's an extremely slight inconvenience.
Speaking of blocking queues though, std::condition_variable and friends... yikes!
Does it say on the package that the product becomes unfit for use at time X?
Like just about everything else sold these days, it comes with the classic "we don't guarantee shit" clause:
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. The Limited Warranty that appears above is the only express warranty made to you and is provided in lieu of any other express warranties (if any) created by any documentation, packaging, or other communications. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Product and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, either express, implied or statutory, including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Product, and the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content through the Product or otherwise arising out of the use of the Product. ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE PRODUCT.
- Talking to hardware via serial - Using some 3'rd party communication library/API which doesn't provide it's own binding (which itself would usually be JNI) or native implementation
I'll agree with C++11 in particular added a lot of stuff that I've been whining about for a long time. It's certainly moved forward and not backwards, and as you said, has managed not to rustle too many jimmies along the way.
That said, with improvements in hardware and languages like Java becoming way more practical, I just find it hard to justify using c++ for anything that doesn't absolutely need to be in c++, and JNI has made "so just write that one part in c++" a common option as well.
Not saying the useful space for c++ is gone, just that it's shrinking, and in the area I work, it's practically gone.
AOL is kinda weird. They own a bunch of fairly big things, but their brand means nothing any more and they don't really throw it around (who wants to read "The AOL Huffington Post"). They pretty much exist as an invisible parent company.
Thinking about the "printability" of something has to go. Temporary dissolving materials offer a promising solution to this problem, but at the moment they are expensive, slow, and messy.
I think we'll see them become a hobbyist and do-it-yourself-er fixture in my lifetime, but as ubiquitous as microwaves or a major retail game changer, I'm a little more skeptical there.
Slashdot Mirror
That is actually an impressive level of bad grammar.
I mean I pride myself on subtle things, like never under any circumstances using "it's" without the apostrophe and even dragging out "irregardless" from time to time, but this is just brilliant.
I think what you've said kind of mirrors why "the humanities" might be exploding.
There is no industry for them to branch into. They are all cramming into one funnel, and the proposed solution seems to be to toss more in. If the only viable career path for a CS student was to become a CS prof, we'd be having the same problem.
Oh I totally agree with this. Relying on the user to "make the decision" is (or should be) the last resort when a programmer can't figure out how to deal with a situation.
In the specific area of certificate verification on web browsers, the problem has been too many false positives. Lots of people are sloppy with their certificates, and users have gotten used to the idea that any error mentioning a certificate is probably no big deal (because the other 100 times they clicked the ok button the world didn't end). This then served only to encourage people to be even more sloppy (the user will just click the warning that comes up, no big deal).
Things are moving in a good direction now, with most of the major browsers making the dialog more menacing and (in the case of firefox at least) requiring several not-so-intuitive steps, and this having the effect of making letting your certificates expire/using incorrect certificates more of a big deal because you will lose traffic. I think we are at least at a point where most users will stop when they get one of these more complicated warnings and they are doing something like banking or buying something online.
The real limiter for your average user is the requirement for man in the middle position.
Even without this flaw, most users will just click through any warning that comes up during a man in the middle attack.
It's still a bad thing that the mechanism designed to protect us from man in the middle is broken, but for the average user, the mechanism is already broken via apathy.
But if you have a man in the middle position, most of those same users would have just clicked "ignore" or typed yes to the "connect anyway" prompt.
So your belief would be:
- kickstarter and their team of lawyers don't understand the law as well as you do?
- kickstarter is pushing some kind of agenda, not just against guns, but against medicine, GMOs, alcohol, tobacco, porn, etc. And this is more important to them than money?
or something else entirely?
There is no legal liability issue in play.
Someone still needs to look at every potentially vaguely weapon related thing and make that determination, and that someone is probably going to need to have a law degree. "Some guy on a forum said it was cool" isn't enough for a large business with resources to lose in a lawsuit. Untangling the laws surrounding complex, heavily related areas like weapons and medicine (also prohibited, I imagine for the same reason) is expensive.
And then you get into the stuff that's borderline, and you inevitably have people angry because you allowed one thing and didn't allow another.
It all just turns into a big mess, and for the profit they might get out of it, they've obviously decided it's not worth it.
The time and resources spent deciding what is legally dubious and what isn't plus the risk of getting it wrong probably exceeds the cost of just saying "if it's vaguely related to guns, it's not allowed".
Nothing, but it's kind of the gold standard for tame media.
For some things that's fine, but other things, like this, it just doesn't work.
* Linus
That was painfully tame. Like, PBS levels of tame.
Linux has provided some epic rants... this is just pathetic.
Or try to actually build a community / base of regular customers.
It sounds like they relied on people regularly stumbling onto their site by accident while searching for other things, most of whom probably closed the page and went about their business.
When I look at sites I frequent: slashdot, cracked, newegg... I don't remember the last time any of these showed up in a google search. At some point I stumbled into them or was told about them by someone else, and keep coming back on my own volition.
It's probably opposite.
That is, they wern't a target until they paired up with a company that could pay out massive damages should they win.
Just like many of the current rube goldberg-ish "less-lethal weapons", the tech to make a "smart gun" just isn't there yet. Every entry in this field has it's list of failures and impracticalities.
That's not to say we shouldn't stop trying. We'll probably get there eventually. It's just not something we can do right now. At the very least progress has clearly been made. I remember years ago they'd talk about "smart guns" and they'd involve special clips or holsters which would have been absolutely ridiculous in the kind of scenarios where you'd want a gun. At least now the ideal case seems practical and we are arguing about reliability.
I'll admit I have not looked at the code, but the problem I would anticipate is needing both as a dependency at compile time, unless it can be dynamically loaded or is all done via external calls.
PolicyKit specifically can be compiled to use consolekit instead of systemd for session tracking (this is actually the default, you have to explicitly compile policykit with systemd support).
Unfortunately this is kind of the downside to binary based package management. Either PolicyKit has to be modified to support both as configurable options, probably involving a maze of symlinks and wrapper scripts, or separate policykit-systemd and policykit-consolekit packages have to be provided.
If Debian has decided to to go with systemd, this is probably going to be a common issue on that distro, as when given the option of compiling something with it, they probably will.
Aside from joining us over on the gentoo side (open-rc is life but using something else is easier as it's just a use flag for most packages), or maintaining your own sizable collection of custom-built packages, don't know what to tell you!
A few of the early reality shows on Discovery were ok initially, as they bordered more on documentary, but it didn't take them long to figure out that it's drama and conflict that bring the demographic their advertisers want.
The first season or so of deadliest catch was pretty good because it focused on the realities of doing an insanely dangerous job. Then they started focusing mainly on interpersonal conflicts. When I stopped watching, the fact that they are on a boat is barely relevant anymore.
They still do occasionally run watchable shows like mayday and modern marvels, but their main show seems to be that cash cab garbage, how it's made (which I find kinda boring now), and mythbusters (which is still ok).
Maybe he's pulling a really good con, but from what I can tell the dude legitimately tried, failed hard, then had a complete and total mental breakdown. His final rantings seem those of a man who finally snapped under stress and created a fantasy world in his head to cope with it.
If they can even find the guy, he's probably flat broke anyway.
The thing about crowd funding as an alternative to traditional funding is that banks and investors are very good at recognizing that a product is going to fail. The crowd funding community is very early in developing that same sense, but I think it will come.
The interesting thing is that one of the big appeals to crowd funding is it allows ideas to become a reality that would never have passed through the risk-averse traditional funding routes.
Eventually I hope a middle ground will form, comprised of a more savvy average backer, a little more diligence on the part of kickstarter (maybe via some kind of rating/analysis done on projects over a certain size?), but still with some of the same spirit of throwing money at stuff because it sounds cool and you really want it to happen vice because you've got some pretty charts and a pile of math showing it'll be profitable.
It's more about encapsulation. The given example is too trivial to really demonstrate this, but it comes into play when you've got a thread with many states/queues/etc that you don't want to just give direct access to (maybe to enforce specific usage, maybe for internal thread safety, whatever) or multiple instances of a thread. Obviously both approaches can work just fine and be designed around, but I've always found the java way felt more object oriented (and not just because it involves defining more classes).
Personally I wrote a very trivial wrapper around pthreads that emulates the "java way" of doing threads and have been using it happily for years. I was kinda disappointed c++11 didn't at least provide the option of doing it java style, but at most it's an extremely slight inconvenience.
Speaking of blocking queues though, std::condition_variable and friends ... yikes!
Does it say on the package that the product becomes unfit for use at time X?
Like just about everything else sold these days, it comes with the classic "we don't guarantee shit" clause:
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES. The Limited Warranty that appears above is the only express warranty made
to you and is provided in lieu of any other express warranties (if any) created by any documentation, packaging,
or other communications. Except for the Limited Warranty and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable
law, Microsoft and its suppliers provide the Product and support services (if any) AS IS AND WITH ALL
FAULTS, and hereby disclaim all other warranties and conditions, either express, implied or statutory,
including, but not limited to, any (if any) implied warranties, duties or conditions of merchantability, of
fitness for a particular purpose, of reliability or availability, of accuracy or completeness of responses, of
results, of workmanlike effort, of lack of viruses, and of lack of negligence, all with regard to the Product, and
the provision of or failure to provide support or other services, information, software, and related content
through the Product or otherwise arising out of the use of the Product. ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY
OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO
DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE PRODUCT.
Two common ones I've seen:
- Talking to hardware via serial
- Using some 3'rd party communication library/API which doesn't provide it's own binding (which itself would usually be JNI) or native implementation
I'll agree with C++11 in particular added a lot of stuff that I've been whining about for a long time. It's certainly moved forward and not backwards, and as you said, has managed not to rustle too many jimmies along the way.
That said, with improvements in hardware and languages like Java becoming way more practical, I just find it hard to justify using c++ for anything that doesn't absolutely need to be in c++, and JNI has made "so just write that one part in c++" a common option as well.
Not saying the useful space for c++ is gone, just that it's shrinking, and in the area I work, it's practically gone.
AOL is kinda weird. They own a bunch of fairly big things, but their brand means nothing any more and they don't really throw it around (who wants to read "The AOL Huffington Post"). They pretty much exist as an invisible parent company.
I would add gravity to the list.
Thinking about the "printability" of something has to go. Temporary dissolving materials offer a promising solution to this problem, but at the moment they are expensive, slow, and messy.
I think we'll see them become a hobbyist and do-it-yourself-er fixture in my lifetime, but as ubiquitous as microwaves or a major retail game changer, I'm a little more skeptical there.