... If it had been started by the "Free Market"...
Shady government-sanctioned telecom monopoly certainly does not qualify as a free market. Demublican-supported big-corp hookups are not at all what free market advocates have in mind.
Oh, get off your high horse. In this case the government is just doing its job - controlling the natural monopoly up to a reasonable limit, without "hooking up" politicians' buddies. As a result, telecoms are still "profiteering" off that community-built base infrastructure, but in a proper unbiased market. Presto, lower consumer prices.
This calls for a (+6, Lone Voice of Reason) moderation in a thread dominated by cynical US-ians fed up with their un-free-market. What the Swedish did is much closer to libertarian-style hardcore free market than any sort of "socialism". Allowing companies to actually compete? Holy shit, what a concept!
Re:I am afraid, there is lack of direction for Rub
on
Ruby 1.9.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
Because I've used C and C++ every day for the past 8 years But you'll never solve a problem quicker by using a language you aren't as familiar with
I think the GP is trying to tell you that you need to get familiar with that other language. It takes more time, and for a good reason. You won't just be learning a new API, you'll be getting used to a new way of thinking. And programming is all about knowing the different ways of thinking.
I think that the parent was referring to the fact that:
* C, Perl and Ruby are mostly used to write standalone utilities and apps
* Javascript is used to script the high-level functionality of a browser (albeit to produce more apps too, sometimes)
So it's not about compiled vs interpreted, or memory management models. It's about actual practical usage scenarios. And lumping Ruby and Javascript is indeed silly in that sense.
Your first sentence is bang-on about the effects of first-past-the-post. But I think that it is a good idea to let one party actually have full swing in its decisions from time to time.
As geeks, we always complain about "design-by-committee" situations. I think that a bickering and fragmented parliament falls right under the same label. Another phrase that comes to mind is "analysis paralysis", except as applied to government decisions.
In general, politics are notorious for being populist and catering to the superficial wants of voters. An "imbalance" of representation that first-past-the-post allows may actually work against that populism and let gov't pass unpopular measures that actually do the job better. And I think that far too many good ideas are not even considered due to not being "sexy" enough to sell to an average voter who may not know what "fiduciary" means.
you are talking about people who do not know how to enjoy the gaming experience
Save your holier-than-thou philosophy for someone else. For anybody, there is no enjoyable gaming experience in farming the 100th critter for that 0.02% chance drop. No skill, no exploration, nothing. Chinese farmers do it for money. Western players pay them money to avoid same drudgery themselves.
Blizzard should stop wasting time on anti-bot and anti-farming measures and instead put more effort into making the game not turn into a second job. When I used to play, being a level 60 was much less exciting than being a level 20. Too bad... It's a beautiful universe.
There is one big thing that these physical password devices solve for Blizzard - people selling off accounts. It is no longer as simple as emailing someone your name/pass string. Now you have to ship the password dongle, too.
Small nitpick - about individual cellphones not needing public IP addresses. What about VoiP? Cellphones, too, already rely on public address entries - plain old phone numbers. One way or another, there are billions of existing uses of public addresses, except that they are all kludged into separate custom namespaces. And it is already necessary to bridge them in expensive and complicated ways.
What if a few private companies pitch in together? Becomes same thing as before, except now without legislative burden around it. Of course, oligopoly is not much better than monopoly...
That's the hilarity of it all. The net neutrality law passes. Our ISP rates shoot up. Everyone complains. That's the problem with shotgun egalitarianism - it costs money.
How the hell does 90% of the country end up being so far in debt and vulnerable to being jobless even for a few months?
Legislation aside, the fact that we are afraid to come to terms with our debt only means that the debt is too high! The painful sensitivity to even minute ebbs in cash flow is a symptom that goes deeper than TFA itself. Instead of complaining about employees being treated like sheep, realize that all of us have already been raised and entrenched as "interest cattle" living on money we don't have. It seems as though everyone went ahead and moved into the houses they cannot actually pay for, and had kids that they cannot afford to raise.
I think that most people being able to fuck off for a few months and still not starve would scare any employer out of pushing big-brother tactics much better than legislation.
The GGP post was citing the scanner situation as evidence for the "flaw of the superuser". The GP post explained why that evidence is not applicable, as it is solvable with standard practices of any well-managed distro. There is little point in saying that "groups don't fix the flaw of a superuser", since the GP explained exactly how groups *do* fix at least part of that "flaw".
Personally, I think that standard Unix security model is complicated enough as it is without using ACLs. Not to say that ACLs aren't elegant and neat sometimes, but in *real world use* the problems they are supposed to fix are handled in a fuller and more comprehensive way by running an insulating control daemon, virtualization, etc. If you want a secure, locked-down box, you don't allow direct unprivileged user access to it anyway, running public-facing daemons in chroot. If you want a multi-tenant general-purpose server, there are plenty of options for light, fast virtualization and process containment (same old chroot, even) - otherwise users can muck up enough things even with strict ACLs through DDOS, etc. If you are running a personal computer, the standard "god mode versus user mode" security model is more than enough - it is simply easier to be prepared for a wipe and reinstall, which ends up being necessary even with ACLs due to general ways how our desktop computers accumulate cruft.
ACLs are an attempt to tack on semantics onto files - which is better handled in application code, instead of complicating general-purpose code. Simply a university-borne solution to a problem that should be obviated with other tools in the first place.
the PDFs they send out don't render with xpdf, gs, or evince
Perhaps xpdf, gs, or evince are not up-to-spec? I am actually trying not to be presumptuous, but I've implemented a PDF writer before, and the format spec was anything but ambiguous. Very often I see the standard Gnome PDF viewer screw up - it works "well enough", but not with pixel-perfect fidelity that PDF is supposed to have.
Not sure if anyone else posted this, but I think there is a much more beautiful and elegant solution. Blizzard - listen up.
Simply have an option of sending all the chat logs produced by a particular account to a "parent/guardian contact" for that account. Kids swear online because they think that there is no repercussion for it, no oversight. This would introduce that oversight back. Just like consoles and satellite boxes have a "parental password", this would be also set up similarly - it is the parent that ultimately has to pay for the account anyway.
Of course, the kid would have to be aware that the chats are logged and "audited" - that's really the point of it anyway. It's just introducing the *awareness* of adult supervision - noone would actively scour through thousands of lines of "roflmao's" anyway. Also, only the public channel messages from the account should be monitored; let private messages be private, still. After all, the nuisance only comes when kids are unsupervised in "common areas"; leaving an avenue for private communication would certainly let the young'un feel some respect and responsibility.
That's oversimplifying things a bit. It is learned behaviour, but not because "mommy and daddy" told us to dislike those words (nice patronizing there, dude). Those words happen to be associated with anger, malice, frustration, simply because that's what *everyone* intends them to mean. Due to that, there is a knee-jerk apprehensive reaction even just from hearing that same word. Nothing wrong with that, just how we all (even you) work. And I, personally, would rather not have that reaction invoked unless it is actually necessary. I appreciate swearing when I am upset, because it relieves the tension; but abusing foul language is simply annoying and devaluing its "proper" use.
Not a perfect comparison, but imagine if everyone kept saying "murder, rape, murder" in casual conversation online?
Anyway, kids swear exactly because their mommy and daddy told them not to. But that's just how kids work anyway. There should be just a "skill testing question" or a 18+ age requirement for the game, that's it. Not that the real solution would be that simple either.
Meh. Even if there is an improper cast from a List to List, the JVM still won't break; it will just throw an error at access time instead of original cast time. Muddling up Java's clear and simple type system isn't worth it here.
"Would you feel it justified if you had to go through a psych eval, background check, and 3 week waiting period every time you bought a motherboard?"
Not to take a side on the overall issue, but committing a computer crime is not nearly as simple as loading a gun and pulling a trigger. It takes some fairly specialized knowledge and time even to get at the simplest of the script kiddie tools. Thusly, there is a qualitative difference that you seem to not mention.
Yeah but it's ultimately all about where the money comes from. If the government pays a private "enforcement" firm to be a Gestapo, it is still breaking the constitution.
Ah, history is full of examples how making something illegal completely eliminates it. *rolls eyes* More laws make more criminals, and if Blizzard came down on this, they would only drive this arms-race to higher levels. *OR* they could cash in on this (first and foremost), and also improve the game so that IT ISN'T A FRICKEN SECOND JOB!
See, this is why I quit WoW - the fact that 90% of the time one has to "farm" or wait for a raid to assemble, or dully point their running character along some path across the map. I paid them money to escape the daily grind, and look what happened - I got into an even more boring grind. And, of course, there is no way to escape that grind either, because that's the only way to even get to the "fun" 10% of the game.
If Blizzard made the game actually *fun* to play almost all the time, then noone would see the incentive to pay someone else to get through the boring stuff! And voila, no gold-farmers, no hacking accounts, no Slashdot story.
Slashdot Mirror
... If it had been started by the "Free Market" ...
Shady government-sanctioned telecom monopoly certainly does not qualify as a free market. Demublican-supported big-corp hookups are not at all what free market advocates have in mind.
Oh, get off your high horse. In this case the government is just doing its job - controlling the natural monopoly up to a reasonable limit, without "hooking up" politicians' buddies. As a result, telecoms are still "profiteering" off that community-built base infrastructure, but in a proper unbiased market. Presto, lower consumer prices.
This calls for a (+6, Lone Voice of Reason) moderation in a thread dominated by cynical US-ians fed up with their un-free-market. What the Swedish did is much closer to libertarian-style hardcore free market than any sort of "socialism". Allowing companies to actually compete? Holy shit, what a concept!
But you'll never solve a problem quicker by using a language you aren't as familiar with
I think the GP is trying to tell you that you need to get familiar with that other language. It takes more time, and for a good reason. You won't just be learning a new API, you'll be getting used to a new way of thinking. And programming is all about knowing the different ways of thinking.
I think that the parent was referring to the fact that:
* C, Perl and Ruby are mostly used to write standalone utilities and apps
* Javascript is used to script the high-level functionality of a browser (albeit to produce more apps too, sometimes)
So it's not about compiled vs interpreted, or memory management models. It's about actual practical usage scenarios. And lumping Ruby and Javascript is indeed silly in that sense.
Your first sentence is bang-on about the effects of first-past-the-post. But I think that it is a good idea to let one party actually have full swing in its decisions from time to time.
As geeks, we always complain about "design-by-committee" situations. I think that a bickering and fragmented parliament falls right under the same label. Another phrase that comes to mind is "analysis paralysis", except as applied to government decisions.
In general, politics are notorious for being populist and catering to the superficial wants of voters. An "imbalance" of representation that first-past-the-post allows may actually work against that populism and let gov't pass unpopular measures that actually do the job better. And I think that far too many good ideas are not even considered due to not being "sexy" enough to sell to an average voter who may not know what "fiduciary" means.
Mod parent up. Just because you don't understand what those millenia of philosophy came up with, doesn't mean that they are a crock.
Justice and morality as direct products of enlightened self-interest rely on zero faith and one hundred percent of simple pragmatic observation.
Save your holier-than-thou philosophy for someone else. For anybody, there is no enjoyable gaming experience in farming the 100th critter for that 0.02% chance drop. No skill, no exploration, nothing. Chinese farmers do it for money. Western players pay them money to avoid same drudgery themselves.
Mod parent up.
Blizzard should stop wasting time on anti-bot and anti-farming measures and instead put more effort into making the game not turn into a second job. When I used to play, being a level 60 was much less exciting than being a level 20. Too bad... It's a beautiful universe.
I think it's the Beeb that made the mistake (TFA also uses the word "patent").
There is one big thing that these physical password devices solve for Blizzard - people selling off accounts. It is no longer as simple as emailing someone your name/pass string. Now you have to ship the password dongle, too.
Small nitpick - about individual cellphones not needing public IP addresses. What about VoiP? Cellphones, too, already rely on public address entries - plain old phone numbers. One way or another, there are billions of existing uses of public addresses, except that they are all kludged into separate custom namespaces. And it is already necessary to bridge them in expensive and complicated ways.
What if a few private companies pitch in together? Becomes same thing as before, except now without legislative burden around it. Of course, oligopoly is not much better than monopoly...
Ugh, where are my mod points.
That's the hilarity of it all. The net neutrality law passes. Our ISP rates shoot up. Everyone complains. That's the problem with shotgun egalitarianism - it costs money.
How the hell does 90% of the country end up being so far in debt and vulnerable to being jobless even for a few months?
Legislation aside, the fact that we are afraid to come to terms with our debt only means that the debt is too high! The painful sensitivity to even minute ebbs in cash flow is a symptom that goes deeper than TFA itself. Instead of complaining about employees being treated like sheep, realize that all of us have already been raised and entrenched as "interest cattle" living on money we don't have. It seems as though everyone went ahead and moved into the houses they cannot actually pay for, and had kids that they cannot afford to raise.
I think that most people being able to fuck off for a few months and still not starve would scare any employer out of pushing big-brother tactics much better than legislation.
Whoosh? Or troll?
I dunno, body builders with their crazy diets and protein concoctions don't impress me as having the healthiest lifestyle.
The GGP post was citing the scanner situation as evidence for the "flaw of the superuser". The GP post explained why that evidence is not applicable, as it is solvable with standard practices of any well-managed distro. There is little point in saying that "groups don't fix the flaw of a superuser", since the GP explained exactly how groups *do* fix at least part of that "flaw".
Personally, I think that standard Unix security model is complicated enough as it is without using ACLs. Not to say that ACLs aren't elegant and neat sometimes, but in *real world use* the problems they are supposed to fix are handled in a fuller and more comprehensive way by running an insulating control daemon, virtualization, etc. If you want a secure, locked-down box, you don't allow direct unprivileged user access to it anyway, running public-facing daemons in chroot. If you want a multi-tenant general-purpose server, there are plenty of options for light, fast virtualization and process containment (same old chroot, even) - otherwise users can muck up enough things even with strict ACLs through DDOS, etc. If you are running a personal computer, the standard "god mode versus user mode" security model is more than enough - it is simply easier to be prepared for a wipe and reinstall, which ends up being necessary even with ACLs due to general ways how our desktop computers accumulate cruft.
ACLs are an attempt to tack on semantics onto files - which is better handled in application code, instead of complicating general-purpose code. Simply a university-borne solution to a problem that should be obviated with other tools in the first place.
Perhaps xpdf, gs, or evince are not up-to-spec? I am actually trying not to be presumptuous, but I've implemented a PDF writer before, and the format spec was anything but ambiguous. Very often I see the standard Gnome PDF viewer screw up - it works "well enough", but not with pixel-perfect fidelity that PDF is supposed to have.
Not sure if anyone else posted this, but I think there is a much more beautiful and elegant solution. Blizzard - listen up.
Simply have an option of sending all the chat logs produced by a particular account to a "parent/guardian contact" for that account. Kids swear online because they think that there is no repercussion for it, no oversight. This would introduce that oversight back. Just like consoles and satellite boxes have a "parental password", this would be also set up similarly - it is the parent that ultimately has to pay for the account anyway.
Of course, the kid would have to be aware that the chats are logged and "audited" - that's really the point of it anyway. It's just introducing the *awareness* of adult supervision - noone would actively scour through thousands of lines of "roflmao's" anyway. Also, only the public channel messages from the account should be monitored; let private messages be private, still. After all, the nuisance only comes when kids are unsupervised in "common areas"; leaving an avenue for private communication would certainly let the young'un feel some respect and responsibility.
That's oversimplifying things a bit. It is learned behaviour, but not because "mommy and daddy" told us to dislike those words (nice patronizing there, dude). Those words happen to be associated with anger, malice, frustration, simply because that's what *everyone* intends them to mean. Due to that, there is a knee-jerk apprehensive reaction even just from hearing that same word. Nothing wrong with that, just how we all (even you) work. And I, personally, would rather not have that reaction invoked unless it is actually necessary. I appreciate swearing when I am upset, because it relieves the tension; but abusing foul language is simply annoying and devaluing its "proper" use.
Not a perfect comparison, but imagine if everyone kept saying "murder, rape, murder" in casual conversation online?
Anyway, kids swear exactly because their mommy and daddy told them not to. But that's just how kids work anyway. There should be just a "skill testing question" or a 18+ age requirement for the game, that's it. Not that the real solution would be that simple either.
Meh. Even if there is an improper cast from a List to List, the JVM still won't break; it will just throw an error at access time instead of original cast time. Muddling up Java's clear and simple type system isn't worth it here.
"Would you feel it justified if you had to go through a psych eval, background check, and 3 week waiting period every time you bought a motherboard?"
Not to take a side on the overall issue, but committing a computer crime is not nearly as simple as loading a gun and pulling a trigger. It takes some fairly specialized knowledge and time even to get at the simplest of the script kiddie tools. Thusly, there is a qualitative difference that you seem to not mention.
Yeah but it's ultimately all about where the money comes from. If the government pays a private "enforcement" firm to be a Gestapo, it is still breaking the constitution.
Ah, history is full of examples how making something illegal completely eliminates it. *rolls eyes* More laws make more criminals, and if Blizzard came down on this, they would only drive this arms-race to higher levels. *OR* they could cash in on this (first and foremost), and also improve the game so that IT ISN'T A FRICKEN SECOND JOB!
See, this is why I quit WoW - the fact that 90% of the time one has to "farm" or wait for a raid to assemble, or dully point their running character along some path across the map. I paid them money to escape the daily grind, and look what happened - I got into an even more boring grind. And, of course, there is no way to escape that grind either, because that's the only way to even get to the "fun" 10% of the game.
If Blizzard made the game actually *fun* to play almost all the time, then noone would see the incentive to pay someone else to get through the boring stuff! And voila, no gold-farmers, no hacking accounts, no Slashdot story.