nothing can be proven. it can only be verified/strengthened or disproved by conducting (a series of) experiments that test the predictions made by the theory. if the experimental results were accurately predicted by the theory, then the theory gains some scientific weight. but you can't really ever "prove" a theory absolutely. you can only show that it's the best theoretical model currently available and gain the popular consensus of the scientific community. but at any given time a new experiment can be conducted which contradicts the accepted theory, refuting its validity and challenging the scientific community to reassess their current scientific models and come up with a better one.
right now there is a ton of evidence for biological evolution, and there isn't any convincing arguments/data against its basic ideas. beyond the scientific consensus, the spot-on predictions, and the mountains of data that support its verity from a variety of unrelated disciplines, we also have entirely new fields of science based on this single revolutionary idea producing all kinds of useful and innovative technologies that are producing tangible results.
if evolution were untrue, then it's achieved some pretty amazing scientific breakthroughs & technological advances for simple fluke. the entire field of biology has been revolutionized by evolutionary theory. heck, genetic research would not exist without evolutionary biology. so i don't see how genetic engineering could work if it's based on false theory. i mean, if the scientific establishment still believed in "cold fusion" or a universe filled with aether or the existence of "polywater"--do you think they would be able to build advanced technologies based on these fallacious theories? could universal aether lead to advances in space travel? would cold fusion lead to actual working cold fusion power plants being built? would research into polywater lead to useful industrial applications?
And if Slashdot is supposedly a techie site, why can't they fix the 1.5" wide comment box?
i think it's a test. if you're a real nerd, then you should be able to whip up a greasemonkey script to fix the idle section's fucked-up fucked-upped-ness.
that includes the iPhone-sized textarea, as well the annoying way that pressing the "Reply to This" button causes the "Parent" button and all of the content after it to shift down about 5 pixels.
well, it shouldn't be that hard to switch domestic voltages. Japan is always pushing infrastructure upgrades, like switching from 4:3 to 5:3 widescreen, or from analog TV broadcasts to digital, or being the first to adopt the 3G WCDMA standard.
by including a mix of 240V and 100V in new buildings, and gradually adding 240V outlets to existing buildings, a country that replaces their electronics and appliances so frequently should be able to switch to a new voltage in less than a decade.
i mean, buying a transformer and installing some new power sockets shouldn't be as expensive as buying a new digital HDTV set. the average Japanese consumer probably spends more money to just have the latest hi-tech gadget or cutting edge cellphone every couple of months.
i'm just curious. what are the advantages of using 220/240v? isn't japan only using 100v outlets? i would think that a country with as advanced a public infrastructure as Japan would have adopted the most efficient socket standards to power their electronics.
what kind of record are we talking about here? driving record? criminal record? academic record? or are you talking about the i've-never-been-to-a-bar/club/party record? if an employer will not hire someone just because they've smoked pot or gotten drunk in the past, then that tells me several things:
they are more concerned with hiring straight-edge individuals than individuals with skill or talent.
the employer/manager is too uptight and/or controlling.
the office is probably not a healthy work environment for most normal individuals.
all of which would imply that this company doesn't have much of a future. i mean, even the most straight-edge, over-achieving (and even religious) kids i knew in high school experimented with alcohol or pot at some point in college. and these are the kids who were valedictorians, scored 100% on the SATs, and are now in med school or leading very successful careers. studies have shown that young people who experiment with drugs (yes, alcohol is a drug) at some point are on average more emotionally and socially healthy than those who completely abstain from any kind of drug use.
so if you are turning down qualified applicants for being human and having a normal social life and only hiring socially-retarded religious freaks, then your competition is going to have an obvious leg up on you. not only that, but if a company tries to control their employees' private lives and enforce unrealistic subjective moral standards on them, then that will drive away the few talented individuals that do manage to slip through.
i mean, why would anyone want to work at a company that expects their employees to live like nuns? most healthy individuals do occasionally succumb to the intoxication instinct that is observed in most animals and periodically indulge in inebriating substances for social or recreational purposes. unless you're a company spokesperson, there's no reason why your employer should be bothered by what you do or don't do to unwind. if someone is a hard worker, produces good results, and behaves appropriately at work, then it shouldn't really matter if they like to cut-loose once in a while and take a bong hit or act silly.
people should choose a line of work and place of employment that fits their lifestyle/personality, not the other way around. yea, if you're a Mormon or simply believe in total abstinence for your own reasons, then it makes sense to apply for a job at a company that shares those views. but otherwise, people shouldn't have to hide their personal activities from potential employers. if you can't put your vacation photos up online or talk about your weekend on your blog because of potential negative reactions from your employer, then maybe you should find a better place to work.
same here. i'm sick of reading news or blog articles on sites like autoblog.com which refer to YouTube videos that have been removed.
it's especially stupid when Viacom has music videos taken down. the whole reason you make music videos is to promote an artist/song/album. if someone posts it online, they're just giving you more free publicity. you don't charge MTV for playing your music video on Headbangers Ball, so why would you complain about YouTube broadcasting a low-def version of your music video for millions of people to see?
YouTube's quickly turning into another Photobucket. cheap throwaway image hosts have long been contributing to the sea of dead images polluting online forums and message board archives. likewise, tons of dead YouTube videos can be found embedded in blog posts and even news articles these days because media corporations like Viacom are taking down YouTube uploads of news reports, music videos, TV clips, and even TV commercials.
i wouldn't even mind if such content were never posted to YouTube in the first place. at least then we wouldn't run into dead YouTube videos left and right. i just wish internet news sites and news blogs would learn to just avoid Viacom/NBC/Fox/etc.'s content. if those companies don't want the free publicity or promotion for their shows/artists, then just ignore them in your online reporting. cover indie bands or indie filmmakers. there's plenty of better quality free content out there that you know won't get taken down by the copyright holders.
hrmm... i've never tried using Alt-Tab during a drag-and-drop before. that actually works quite well. still, i think the document-centric model of OS X is slightly more efficient. but you're right, using Alt-Tab does allow you to drag-and-drop across overlapping applications. this should save me some time in the future. =]
you do realize that both of those Wikipedia links point to the same page, right?
AutoRun and AutoPlay have always been pretty much synonymous, though Microsoft now uses AutoPlay specifically to refer to the menu that pops up when autorun.inf is parsed. but there are no distinct settings for enabling/disabling AutoPlay versus AutoRun. the registry settings that enable or disable AutoPlay on specific drives are in fact the AutoRun settings.
that works if you have the windows side-by-side--at least in CS2 it does, which is what i have at home. but i'm talking about having the windows maximized on top of one another. that obviously doesn't work in CS2 as the MDI window is not transparent, so you can't see what's beneath it. but in CS3 (which i use at work), all Adobe programs have transparent MDI windows. so while you can still see the documents from other applications underneath the currently active application, you won't be able to drag and drop into them--at least not in XP.
having the applications understand each other's data structures is not the problem. you can easily copy-and-paste text between most Windows applications. likewise, you can copy-and-paste vector paths/shapes, raster images, text paths, smart objects, etc. between Illustrator and Photoshop--which is what i usually have to do to transfer the content between applications.
the reason you can't drag-and-drop content between Illustrator and Photoshop is strictly due to the documents being located in 2 distinct and separate workspaces. usually when you drag an object from one document to another, in either Photoshop or Illustrator, the target document that your cursor is over will be highlighted (an inverted border will appear around the document). but when you try to drag content from one program to the other it simply won't register the document from the background application as a drop zone.
hrmmm... the Ars article gave me the impression that one of the benefits of OS X (and shortcomings of Windows' MDI model) is that you can overlap "documents" from different applications. so, for instance, i should be able to easily drag-and-drop a vector shape from an Adobe Illustrator document into an already open Photoshop document. likewise, i should be able to have multiple Word documents, Firefox windows, and Photoshop documents all on my desktop at the same time (and in any layer order i want). are you saying that this isn't correct, that in OS X i would only be able to view the workspace of a single application at any given time? if so, then i don't see much of an advantage to having windows represent documents.
part of what i don't like about windows representing applications is that there's no easy way to drag-and-drop objects/text from one application to another. so if i have multiple programs running with multiple documents open in each, i have to switch applications, switch documents, copy the object/text, switch applications again, and then paste into the correct document.
it's even more frustrating with Adobe CS3 as all the applications are basically transparent MDI windows like you describe. so i'll have an Illustrator document open with a Photoshop document visible in the background. yet i won't be able to drag-and-drop objects from the Illustrator document to the Photoshop document like i would be between 2 Illustrator documents or 2 Photoshop documents.
that doesn't really provide true protection against all AutoRun attacks.
USB/flash drive-based attacks typically work by creating an autorun.inf file that replaces the default action for that device. by default, XP would simply prompt the user with a list of AutoPlay actions to take (with the AutoRun-specified action selected) when the drive is plugged in. if you "disable" AutoRun, then that menu won't pop-up, but that is arguably more dangerous; the reason being that when the AutoPlay menu pops up the user has a chance to see that an unfamiliar action has been added/selected.
if a computer-savvy user plugs in their iPod/PSP/thumbdrive and the AutoPlay menu shows some strange new action and program icon, they are going to be suspicious. they will likely select the "Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer" action to browse the volume and probably detect the malware and autorun.inf file.
now, a typical scenario when AutoPlay is disabled is that a user will plug in an infected flash drive, open up My Computer, and proceed to double-click on the removable volume to open it for browsing. however, whether or not AutoPlay/AutoRun is enabled, an autorun.inf file can replace the default action for that volume. and this time the user has absolutely no warning (unless the malware author is dumb enough to replace the volume's icon and advertise the presence of the virus). i mean, how often do you actually right-click on a volume to select "Open" from the context menu or to check its default action? most people are in the habit of simply double-clicking on a drive icon to browse its contents.
then there's the matter of dual-filesystem flash drives. because Microsoft places the interests of the RIAA ahead of the interests of their customers, they've used AutoRun to implement a rather dangerous DRM mechanism. if CDFS is detected on any removable volume, Windows automatically assumes that it is a protected CD and will launch any program specified by autorun.inf. this functionality will work whether or not you have configured Windows to allow AutoRun or not, and you cannot bypass it by holding down the "shift" key. but that can only be expected when you have DRM that's designed to "protect" the system from its user/owner.
um, what are you talking about? if there is a worm going around that exploits the AutoRun, then naturally the thing to do would be to disable AutoRun. so why is it bad on the researchers for advising people to disable a feature that makes their system more vulnerable to an ongoing security threat. and how is US-CERT or ComputerWorld "trolling" by pointing out that Microsoft's instructions for "disabling AutoRun" doesn't actually disable AutoRun?
Microsoft is the one who created a feature that is now an active malware infection vector. they are the ones who set this feature to be enabled by default. and they are the ones who made it near impossible to turn off (without downloading additional software). and to make things worse, they release inaccurate advice on how to "disable" this feature, which could potentially lull users into a false sense of security.
just because this is where they chose to test their air side economizers does not mean that the data center requires no cooling. air cooling is still cooling, and the use of a test site where no cooling is needed to test alternative cooling solutions would be pointless. and the testing was done in a temperate desert climate in New Mexico (with the average temperature in July being 92 degrees Fahrenheit). it wasn't done in Alaska or the Arctic.
in fact, if you actually read the article on Intel's air economization tests, you'd know that the data center was testing 3 cooling solutions side-by-side: 1 air economizer, 1 traditional AC system, and 1 DX cooling system. and in fact, 'Intel made the conditions in the "free cooling" section unusually harsh.'
besides, you can run any data center anywhere without cooling. it's just a matter of what kind of failure rates you're willing to accept. in this case Intel was trying to test the ruggedness of their servers against outside air, which naturally doubled their failure rate compared to the DX cooling system.
the military has pretty sophisticated IR/night vision systems. i'd imagine that many sniper missions are carried out at night as it provides better cover for the sniper, gives night-vision-equipped snipers a significant advantage over non-night-vision-equipped enemy forces, and is more likely to catch the enemy off guard or with their guard lowered.
there are many other advantages to using carrying out missions at night using night vision gear. for instance, warm bodies are illuminated and easily distinguishable from the background. and IR radiation allows one to see through smoke, vegetation, and even thin walls. you can also learn a lot about an environment by residual heat signatures--for instance, a car engine that's just been shut off, or a heat "shadow" left on an airstrip by a plane that recently took off.
IR can also allow one to see farther through water vapor, dust, and pollution than visible light does. this along with pseudo-color can help the sniper to see in greater detail and more easily identify targets.
that's a pretty clever ploy when you think about it. Vista is way too bloated for current machines, which has been a major hindrance to widespread adoption. but by waiting for consumer desktops to catch up to Vista's hardware requirements, they can appear to have developed a faster OS simply be re-releasing Vista under a different name with some slight UI modifications. and by the time Windows 7 is released it'll be as stable as an OS that's been out for 4-5 years.
that would be a good idea if they could get them down to a reasonable size. i mean, a 90 lbs girl girl/woman isn't going to be able to change a 77 lbs battery (that's just a single cell--most cars would require at least 10 of these) on her own.
but i agree with you, battery modules should definitely be standardized, and swapping out dead batteries for charged ones would be a good way to get around long charge times. but right now weight makes that a little impractical. and if we can just make charging outlets (even just 5~7kW ones) available at most parking spots, then there wouldn't really be any waiting. as long as people get into the habit of plugging their vehicle in whenever they park, they should never need to go to an actual charging station or wait for their car to charge.
i mean, why would you hire someone who puts their own self-interests ahead of the good of the company? if the guy had sabotaged a competitor in order to land a large order or contract for the company, then maybe you could justify hiring them on the basis that their ruthless actions actually served the organization. but this guy sabotaged a co-worker to make him miss an important meeting with a customer. he has basically just hurt the company to make himself look good. how would such an employee benefit the company other than to undermine the company's meritocracy and drive away other honest & hard-working employees.
being a douchebag or a sociopath is hardly a virtue. usually such scumbags sleaze their way to the top of an organization by way of deception & manipulation. but only a really incompetent manager would deliberately seek out employees with such qualities. generally, people who actually have talent & ability don't need to stab their co-workers in the back or be manipulative to secure their own position or rise through the ranks in a healthy organization.
when attackers use "rubber-hose cryptanalysis" to coerce an authorized individual to give up the encryption key. (deniable encryption is a possible countermeasure, depending on the intelligence the attacker is in possession of)
the point is, encryption doesn't provide guaranteed protection against all attacks. the encryption algorithm you're using could be broken in the future, or computational power increased to an extent that makes bruteforcing viable, or someone could simply discover your encryption key by other means (trojan, keylogger, bugging your room, wiretapping your phone, looking over your shoulder as you're typing it in, etc.).
the only way to ensure that information you do not want others to know about does not get out is to destroy that information. granted, that's not always an option, but sometimes such action is appropriate.
poorly (stupidly) optimized is not the same as unoptimized, and being unoptimized for English does not mean it automatically allows for easier typing in other languages--just as being optimized for English does not necessarily make it harder to type in non-English languages.
QWERTY was designed based on English, that's why there are no diacritic marks or non-English characters on a QWERTY keyboard. and if you want to type in Chinese, you need a whole new set of key mappings. and rather than being completely random and unoptimized (which i don't understand how you would construe as an advantage), the keyboard was simply poorly optimized:
Sholes began to redesign his keyboard by commissioning a study to determine the most common letters or letter combinations in English texts, then he scattered those common letters as widely as possible over the keyboard. For example, the three most common letters (E, T, O) were placed in the top row, the next two most common (A, H) in the home row, and the next most common (N) on the bottom row, causing the common digraph on to require a hurdle from top row to bottom. Remington engineers slightly modified Sholes's almost-QWERTY design by transferring the common consonant R to the upper row, thereby enabling typewriter salesmen to show off their machine to prospective buyers by typing the word typewriter very quickly (all the letters were now in the same row). That final resulting keyboard still betrays its origin as an alphabetical arrangement of piano keys, by the nearly alphabetical sequence fghjkl in the home row, with de just to the left and I just to the right of that sequence.
your last statement also makes no sense. ofcourse you can switch from one QWERTY keyboard to another and type without relearning a new keyboard mapping--just as you can switch from one Dvorak keyboard to another with relative ease. how is that an argument for using an unoptimized keyboard layout?
since QWERTY isn't optimized for non-English languages either, it would not be any better for non-English typists. at least Dvorak is better optimized for English, which is the international language of business/science/aviation/radio/diplomacy/programming.
5 minutes is probably a bit unrealistic at the moment, but with an electric-based transportation system, we wouldn't have to adhere to current "refueling" patterns. with gasoline/diesel, you need expensive fuel storage & distribution facilities like gas stations, because gasoline has to be shipped by trucks and is somewhat dangerous to store.
electricity is much cheaper to transport (just send it across electric lines, which are already in place and relatively cheap to build/maintain), does not need to be stored at refueling stations, and requires minimal equipment to distribute. so charging stations could be set up anywhere where there is electricity (which is pretty much everywhere)--you just need to install a socket that the vehicle can be plugged into.
so whereas people currently have to drive to a gas station to refuel, electric vehicles could be charged wherever & whenever they're parked. there could be a handful of quick-charging stations around town where you go if you need your car charged immediately. but otherwise, people could simply charge their batteries while their car is parked at work, at home, or even at the mall or the grocery store.
i mean, how many hours a day are you actually driving your car? i'd guess that most people have their cars parked close to 80-90% of the time on most days. that's 19-21 hours a day that your car would spend charging. if at home you only have access to a 7kW power supply, and at work you have a 15kW power supply, you should never have to spend any time actually waiting for your batteries to charge.
if i ever get injured while out of town, i want the hospital that i'm admitted to to have my medical records immediately. they need to know my medical history, my allergies, and what medication(s) i take. medical records are something that most people recognize the need to share with their physicians.
this isn't the sanctioning of warrantless wiretapping, a national ID card system, the monitoring of travel activity, or the handing over of library records to law enforcement. the proposed database is strictly for healthcare professionals who are trying to treat patients and save lives.
i'm more concerned with the information collected on me by private data mining & database marketing companies who are free to sell my personal information to the highest bidder. they are not governed by rules that are in place in the medical industry to protect personal privacy. and these companies have more information on American citizens than even the dossiers kept by the Stasi on East German citizens.
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nothing can be proven. it can only be verified/strengthened or disproved by conducting (a series of) experiments that test the predictions made by the theory. if the experimental results were accurately predicted by the theory, then the theory gains some scientific weight. but you can't really ever "prove" a theory absolutely. you can only show that it's the best theoretical model currently available and gain the popular consensus of the scientific community. but at any given time a new experiment can be conducted which contradicts the accepted theory, refuting its validity and challenging the scientific community to reassess their current scientific models and come up with a better one.
right now there is a ton of evidence for biological evolution, and there isn't any convincing arguments/data against its basic ideas. beyond the scientific consensus, the spot-on predictions, and the mountains of data that support its verity from a variety of unrelated disciplines, we also have entirely new fields of science based on this single revolutionary idea producing all kinds of useful and innovative technologies that are producing tangible results.
if evolution were untrue, then it's achieved some pretty amazing scientific breakthroughs & technological advances for simple fluke. the entire field of biology has been revolutionized by evolutionary theory. heck, genetic research would not exist without evolutionary biology. so i don't see how genetic engineering could work if it's based on false theory. i mean, if the scientific establishment still believed in "cold fusion" or a universe filled with aether or the existence of "polywater"--do you think they would be able to build advanced technologies based on these fallacious theories? could universal aether lead to advances in space travel? would cold fusion lead to actual working cold fusion power plants being built? would research into polywater lead to useful industrial applications?
i think it's a test. if you're a real nerd, then you should be able to whip up a greasemonkey script to fix the idle section's fucked-up fucked-upped-ness.
that includes the iPhone-sized textarea, as well the annoying way that pressing the "Reply to This" button causes the "Parent" button and all of the content after it to shift down about 5 pixels.
well, it shouldn't be that hard to switch domestic voltages. Japan is always pushing infrastructure upgrades, like switching from 4:3 to 5:3 widescreen, or from analog TV broadcasts to digital, or being the first to adopt the 3G WCDMA standard.
by including a mix of 240V and 100V in new buildings, and gradually adding 240V outlets to existing buildings, a country that replaces their electronics and appliances so frequently should be able to switch to a new voltage in less than a decade.
i mean, buying a transformer and installing some new power sockets shouldn't be as expensive as buying a new digital HDTV set. the average Japanese consumer probably spends more money to just have the latest hi-tech gadget or cutting edge cellphone every couple of months.
i'm just curious. what are the advantages of using 220/240v? isn't japan only using 100v outlets? i would think that a country with as advanced a public infrastructure as Japan would have adopted the most efficient socket standards to power their electronics.
what kind of record are we talking about here? driving record? criminal record? academic record? or are you talking about the i've-never-been-to-a-bar/club/party record? if an employer will not hire someone just because they've smoked pot or gotten drunk in the past, then that tells me several things:
all of which would imply that this company doesn't have much of a future. i mean, even the most straight-edge, over-achieving (and even religious) kids i knew in high school experimented with alcohol or pot at some point in college. and these are the kids who were valedictorians, scored 100% on the SATs, and are now in med school or leading very successful careers. studies have shown that young people who experiment with drugs (yes, alcohol is a drug) at some point are on average more emotionally and socially healthy than those who completely abstain from any kind of drug use.
so if you are turning down qualified applicants for being human and having a normal social life and only hiring socially-retarded religious freaks, then your competition is going to have an obvious leg up on you. not only that, but if a company tries to control their employees' private lives and enforce unrealistic subjective moral standards on them, then that will drive away the few talented individuals that do manage to slip through.
i mean, why would anyone want to work at a company that expects their employees to live like nuns? most healthy individuals do occasionally succumb to the intoxication instinct that is observed in most animals and periodically indulge in inebriating substances for social or recreational purposes. unless you're a company spokesperson, there's no reason why your employer should be bothered by what you do or don't do to unwind. if someone is a hard worker, produces good results, and behaves appropriately at work, then it shouldn't really matter if they like to cut-loose once in a while and take a bong hit or act silly.
people should choose a line of work and place of employment that fits their lifestyle/personality, not the other way around. yea, if you're a Mormon or simply believe in total abstinence for your own reasons, then it makes sense to apply for a job at a company that shares those views. but otherwise, people shouldn't have to hide their personal activities from potential employers. if you can't put your vacation photos up online or talk about your weekend on your blog because of potential negative reactions from your employer, then maybe you should find a better place to work.
same here. i'm sick of reading news or blog articles on sites like autoblog.com which refer to YouTube videos that have been removed.
it's especially stupid when Viacom has music videos taken down. the whole reason you make music videos is to promote an artist/song/album. if someone posts it online, they're just giving you more free publicity. you don't charge MTV for playing your music video on Headbangers Ball, so why would you complain about YouTube broadcasting a low-def version of your music video for millions of people to see?
YouTube's quickly turning into another Photobucket. cheap throwaway image hosts have long been contributing to the sea of dead images polluting online forums and message board archives. likewise, tons of dead YouTube videos can be found embedded in blog posts and even news articles these days because media corporations like Viacom are taking down YouTube uploads of news reports, music videos, TV clips, and even TV commercials.
i wouldn't even mind if such content were never posted to YouTube in the first place. at least then we wouldn't run into dead YouTube videos left and right. i just wish internet news sites and news blogs would learn to just avoid Viacom/NBC/Fox/etc.'s content. if those companies don't want the free publicity or promotion for their shows/artists, then just ignore them in your online reporting. cover indie bands or indie filmmakers. there's plenty of better quality free content out there that you know won't get taken down by the copyright holders.
hrmm... i've never tried using Alt-Tab during a drag-and-drop before. that actually works quite well. still, i think the document-centric model of OS X is slightly more efficient. but you're right, using Alt-Tab does allow you to drag-and-drop across overlapping applications. this should save me some time in the future. =]
you do realize that both of those Wikipedia links point to the same page, right?
AutoRun and AutoPlay have always been pretty much synonymous, though Microsoft now uses AutoPlay specifically to refer to the menu that pops up when autorun.inf is parsed. but there are no distinct settings for enabling/disabling AutoPlay versus AutoRun. the registry settings that enable or disable AutoPlay on specific drives are in fact the AutoRun settings.
that works if you have the windows side-by-side--at least in CS2 it does, which is what i have at home. but i'm talking about having the windows maximized on top of one another. that obviously doesn't work in CS2 as the MDI window is not transparent, so you can't see what's beneath it. but in CS3 (which i use at work), all Adobe programs have transparent MDI windows. so while you can still see the documents from other applications underneath the currently active application, you won't be able to drag and drop into them--at least not in XP.
having the applications understand each other's data structures is not the problem. you can easily copy-and-paste text between most Windows applications. likewise, you can copy-and-paste vector paths/shapes, raster images, text paths, smart objects, etc. between Illustrator and Photoshop--which is what i usually have to do to transfer the content between applications.
the reason you can't drag-and-drop content between Illustrator and Photoshop is strictly due to the documents being located in 2 distinct and separate workspaces. usually when you drag an object from one document to another, in either Photoshop or Illustrator, the target document that your cursor is over will be highlighted (an inverted border will appear around the document). but when you try to drag content from one program to the other it simply won't register the document from the background application as a drop zone.
hrmmm... the Ars article gave me the impression that one of the benefits of OS X (and shortcomings of Windows' MDI model) is that you can overlap "documents" from different applications. so, for instance, i should be able to easily drag-and-drop a vector shape from an Adobe Illustrator document into an already open Photoshop document. likewise, i should be able to have multiple Word documents, Firefox windows, and Photoshop documents all on my desktop at the same time (and in any layer order i want). are you saying that this isn't correct, that in OS X i would only be able to view the workspace of a single application at any given time? if so, then i don't see much of an advantage to having windows represent documents.
part of what i don't like about windows representing applications is that there's no easy way to drag-and-drop objects/text from one application to another. so if i have multiple programs running with multiple documents open in each, i have to switch applications, switch documents, copy the object/text, switch applications again, and then paste into the correct document.
it's even more frustrating with Adobe CS3 as all the applications are basically transparent MDI windows like you describe. so i'll have an Illustrator document open with a Photoshop document visible in the background. yet i won't be able to drag-and-drop objects from the Illustrator document to the Photoshop document like i would be between 2 Illustrator documents or 2 Photoshop documents.
that doesn't really provide true protection against all AutoRun attacks.
USB/flash drive-based attacks typically work by creating an autorun.inf file that replaces the default action for that device. by default, XP would simply prompt the user with a list of AutoPlay actions to take (with the AutoRun-specified action selected) when the drive is plugged in. if you "disable" AutoRun, then that menu won't pop-up, but that is arguably more dangerous; the reason being that when the AutoPlay menu pops up the user has a chance to see that an unfamiliar action has been added/selected.
if a computer-savvy user plugs in their iPod/PSP/thumbdrive and the AutoPlay menu shows some strange new action and program icon, they are going to be suspicious. they will likely select the "Open folder to view files using Windows Explorer" action to browse the volume and probably detect the malware and autorun.inf file.
now, a typical scenario when AutoPlay is disabled is that a user will plug in an infected flash drive, open up My Computer, and proceed to double-click on the removable volume to open it for browsing. however, whether or not AutoPlay/AutoRun is enabled, an autorun.inf file can replace the default action for that volume. and this time the user has absolutely no warning (unless the malware author is dumb enough to replace the volume's icon and advertise the presence of the virus). i mean, how often do you actually right-click on a volume to select "Open" from the context menu or to check its default action? most people are in the habit of simply double-clicking on a drive icon to browse its contents.
then there's the matter of dual-filesystem flash drives. because Microsoft places the interests of the RIAA ahead of the interests of their customers, they've used AutoRun to implement a rather dangerous DRM mechanism. if CDFS is detected on any removable volume, Windows automatically assumes that it is a protected CD and will launch any program specified by autorun.inf. this functionality will work whether or not you have configured Windows to allow AutoRun or not, and you cannot bypass it by holding down the "shift" key. but that can only be expected when you have DRM that's designed to "protect" the system from its user/owner.
um, what are you talking about? if there is a worm going around that exploits the AutoRun, then naturally the thing to do would be to disable AutoRun. so why is it bad on the researchers for advising people to disable a feature that makes their system more vulnerable to an ongoing security threat. and how is US-CERT or ComputerWorld "trolling" by pointing out that Microsoft's instructions for "disabling AutoRun" doesn't actually disable AutoRun?
Microsoft is the one who created a feature that is now an active malware infection vector. they are the ones who set this feature to be enabled by default. and they are the ones who made it near impossible to turn off (without downloading additional software). and to make things worse, they release inaccurate advice on how to "disable" this feature, which could potentially lull users into a false sense of security.
just because this is where they chose to test their air side economizers does not mean that the data center requires no cooling. air cooling is still cooling, and the use of a test site where no cooling is needed to test alternative cooling solutions would be pointless. and the testing was done in a temperate desert climate in New Mexico (with the average temperature in July being 92 degrees Fahrenheit). it wasn't done in Alaska or the Arctic.
in fact, if you actually read the article on Intel's air economization tests, you'd know that the data center was testing 3 cooling solutions side-by-side: 1 air economizer, 1 traditional AC system, and 1 DX cooling system. and in fact, 'Intel made the conditions in the "free cooling" section unusually harsh.'
besides, you can run any data center anywhere without cooling. it's just a matter of what kind of failure rates you're willing to accept. in this case Intel was trying to test the ruggedness of their servers against outside air, which naturally doubled their failure rate compared to the DX cooling system.
the military has pretty sophisticated IR/night vision systems. i'd imagine that many sniper missions are carried out at night as it provides better cover for the sniper, gives night-vision-equipped snipers a significant advantage over non-night-vision-equipped enemy forces, and is more likely to catch the enemy off guard or with their guard lowered.
there are many other advantages to using carrying out missions at night using night vision gear. for instance, warm bodies are illuminated and easily distinguishable from the background. and IR radiation allows one to see through smoke, vegetation, and even thin walls. you can also learn a lot about an environment by residual heat signatures--for instance, a car engine that's just been shut off, or a heat "shadow" left on an airstrip by a plane that recently took off.
IR can also allow one to see farther through water vapor, dust, and pollution than visible light does. this along with pseudo-color can help the sniper to see in greater detail and more easily identify targets.
that's a pretty clever ploy when you think about it. Vista is way too bloated for current machines, which has been a major hindrance to widespread adoption. but by waiting for consumer desktops to catch up to Vista's hardware requirements, they can appear to have developed a faster OS simply be re-releasing Vista under a different name with some slight UI modifications. and by the time Windows 7 is released it'll be as stable as an OS that's been out for 4-5 years.
that would be a good idea if they could get them down to a reasonable size. i mean, a 90 lbs girl girl/woman isn't going to be able to change a 77 lbs battery (that's just a single cell--most cars would require at least 10 of these) on her own.
but i agree with you, battery modules should definitely be standardized, and swapping out dead batteries for charged ones would be a good way to get around long charge times. but right now weight makes that a little impractical. and if we can just make charging outlets (even just 5~7kW ones) available at most parking spots, then there wouldn't really be any waiting. as long as people get into the habit of plugging their vehicle in whenever they park, they should never need to go to an actual charging station or wait for their car to charge.
perhaps you should read the post i was responding to.
that doesn't seem very wise.
i mean, why would you hire someone who puts their own self-interests ahead of the good of the company? if the guy had sabotaged a competitor in order to land a large order or contract for the company, then maybe you could justify hiring them on the basis that their ruthless actions actually served the organization. but this guy sabotaged a co-worker to make him miss an important meeting with a customer. he has basically just hurt the company to make himself look good. how would such an employee benefit the company other than to undermine the company's meritocracy and drive away other honest & hard-working employees.
being a douchebag or a sociopath is hardly a virtue. usually such scumbags sleaze their way to the top of an organization by way of deception & manipulation. but only a really incompetent manager would deliberately seek out employees with such qualities. generally, people who actually have talent & ability don't need to stab their co-workers in the back or be manipulative to secure their own position or rise through the ranks in a healthy organization.
sometimes that's not enough. for instance:
the point is, encryption doesn't provide guaranteed protection against all attacks. the encryption algorithm you're using could be broken in the future, or computational power increased to an extent that makes bruteforcing viable, or someone could simply discover your encryption key by other means (trojan, keylogger, bugging your room, wiretapping your phone, looking over your shoulder as you're typing it in, etc.).
the only way to ensure that information you do not want others to know about does not get out is to destroy that information. granted, that's not always an option, but sometimes such action is appropriate.
i thought CPU caches were mostly implemented through SRAM, which does possess a certain level of data remanence.
otherwise, there's always rubber-hose cryptanalysis.
poorly (stupidly) optimized is not the same as unoptimized, and being unoptimized for English does not mean it automatically allows for easier typing in other languages--just as being optimized for English does not necessarily make it harder to type in non-English languages.
QWERTY was designed based on English, that's why there are no diacritic marks or non-English characters on a QWERTY keyboard. and if you want to type in Chinese, you need a whole new set of key mappings. and rather than being completely random and unoptimized (which i don't understand how you would construe as an advantage), the keyboard was simply poorly optimized:
--The Curse of QWERTY
your last statement also makes no sense. ofcourse you can switch from one QWERTY keyboard to another and type without relearning a new keyboard mapping--just as you can switch from one Dvorak keyboard to another with relative ease. how is that an argument for using an unoptimized keyboard layout?
but, hey, at least you can peck out "TYPE WRITER" with just the top row of keys. clearly this is the most rational layout of an English-language keyboard.
your common sense appears lacking...
since QWERTY isn't optimized for non-English languages either, it would not be any better for non-English typists. at least Dvorak is better optimized for English, which is the international language of business/science/aviation/radio/diplomacy/programming.
5 minutes is probably a bit unrealistic at the moment, but with an electric-based transportation system, we wouldn't have to adhere to current "refueling" patterns. with gasoline/diesel, you need expensive fuel storage & distribution facilities like gas stations, because gasoline has to be shipped by trucks and is somewhat dangerous to store.
electricity is much cheaper to transport (just send it across electric lines, which are already in place and relatively cheap to build/maintain), does not need to be stored at refueling stations, and requires minimal equipment to distribute. so charging stations could be set up anywhere where there is electricity (which is pretty much everywhere)--you just need to install a socket that the vehicle can be plugged into.
so whereas people currently have to drive to a gas station to refuel, electric vehicles could be charged wherever & whenever they're parked. there could be a handful of quick-charging stations around town where you go if you need your car charged immediately. but otherwise, people could simply charge their batteries while their car is parked at work, at home, or even at the mall or the grocery store.
i mean, how many hours a day are you actually driving your car? i'd guess that most people have their cars parked close to 80-90% of the time on most days. that's 19-21 hours a day that your car would spend charging. if at home you only have access to a 7kW power supply, and at work you have a 15kW power supply, you should never have to spend any time actually waiting for your batteries to charge.
because they're not stupid.
if i ever get injured while out of town, i want the hospital that i'm admitted to to have my medical records immediately. they need to know my medical history, my allergies, and what medication(s) i take. medical records are something that most people recognize the need to share with their physicians.
this isn't the sanctioning of warrantless wiretapping, a national ID card system, the monitoring of travel activity, or the handing over of library records to law enforcement. the proposed database is strictly for healthcare professionals who are trying to treat patients and save lives.
i'm more concerned with the information collected on me by private data mining & database marketing companies who are free to sell my personal information to the highest bidder. they are not governed by rules that are in place in the medical industry to protect personal privacy. and these companies have more information on American citizens than even the dossiers kept by the Stasi on East German citizens.