I still want to know why mechanical voting machines were phased out. Hell, in Australia, I hear they just use marks on a paper ballot, which are then counted several times by precinct captains. Why can't we just do it that way? I love computers, I love software, but as much as I know about their vulnerability to tampering and just random shit happening, I don't think I'd trust the leadership of my country to them.
God yes-- I can't wait for that to happen. The day I can do my entire job via SSH from my bathrobe will be happy indeed. However, haven't all the big PC makers basically sold their souls to Microsoft bundling agreements?
I agree. Learning BASIC was the technological equivalent of being in first grade writing, "Mi dae at the zoo!" -- Of course it's not Shakespeare, but it's the foundation of literacy. No one expects an 8 year old to whip out an office suite and more than we expect him to write a concerto, or recreate the works of Dostoyevsky. The key point is that, for some kids, it's *fun* to write silly little programs in BASIC. Hell, look at MySpace right now-- I'm seeing CSS that's definitely the modern day equivalent of:
10 print "Tits!"
20 goto 10.
Yes, we all know Myspace is annoying as all get-out, but at least there are kids who are learning some of the fundamentals of interacting with a computer at a more basic level. Writing annoying profile templates is what's 'cool' right now, and I'll bet that the people who are 12-16, 17, etc, doing so will eventually tire of their childish persuits, and perhaps eventually start programming for real.
The bit the FA doesn't quite get right is that even if Ubuntu is fantastic and easy and all those other good things for 'ole Joe Sixpack, the typical non-geek computer user is *never* going to independently install Linux him/herself. I'm a freelancer, and I've got clients who work in corporate environments who call me in a panic if they accidentally open a cmd.exe on Windows. That is, they interpret the mere presence of a command prompt, in a window, as a critical failure of their computer.
Now, we geeks might finally be able to begin offering Linux as an option for our friends, family, and customers, and not be met with "Huh?," but it'll still be a long time yet before Joe the drywaller, or Jim the doctor, or even Marge, the accountant, actually seeks out a Linux box for an objective, independent reason.
This is the best stand this dude has taken so far. Say what you will about Wikipedia (and almost anything you say will indeed be true), but at least they're not kowtowing to Beijing.
(Oh, and Beijing-- We still know what you did at Tiananmen Square. We'll always know. Fuck you guys.)
Heh, actually, I realized that's what you meant as I was thinking about this later in the day. Sorry, didn't mean to be flippant, just misunderstood your statement.
..but, think about the logistics of standing upright for 150 miles, at 12.5MPH. By my math, that'd be a twelve hour journey. Hope you're not trying to carry a heavy backpack the whole way.
I think that the ONLY copies were high-res jpgs on the web server. Once the scanning process was done, the originals and negatives were destroyed, since they were no longer needed (I imagine that part of the reason to put the archive online was to preserve decaying media, and another part of the reason could have been to reduce warehouse space). As for why there was no backup, it's possible that the people who did it were'nt as computer-savvy as they were photo-savvy.
Why were the photo-savvy people working out of their depth? I'm versed in building servers, among other things, and I don't have people asking me to do photography work-- because I don't know how!
It's like asking a plumber to wire your electrical, or having your mechanic watch your kids, or your accountant to design a rocket ship. The results will not be good, regardless of the intentions. Would museum curators hire restorationists who had no training or experience in their fields? The same goes for designing long term archives. It's not like the expertise isn't already available.
This is because banks have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and have developed such technologies and methodologies slowly over time. On the other hand, the technologies for creating online photo archives have only been around for around a decade or two, and there is no "universal common wisdom" for such online archives among museum maintainers, especially since many of them have little or no experience with the internet, so perhaps one can forgive them a bit of naivete in not believing that the "information superhighway" more closely resembles a scene from "Damnation Alley".
There might not be a universal common wisdom, but there is Murphy's Law. That's been around since the first time a hominid added insult to injury. I have a saying-- "If it's not the car, it's the dentist-- and it's always six hundred bucks." So, I approach a lot of situations with the thought in mind that if something can go wrong, it will eventually damn well go wrong. If these curators don't have any experience with the internet, why are they entrusting their irreplaceable collections to it? They *do* understand the brick-and-mortar concepts of conservation-- they should take a similar tact when dealing with computers. Murphy's Law.
I totally agree. Unfortunately, in this world, there really IS no way to provide a REAL sense of security, since Windows is plagued with viruses and worms, and even though Macs and Linux malware are much more rare, they are NOT nonexistent. (Not to mention that social engineering attacks, such as identity theft, are cross-platform vulnerabilities).
We're right on the same page, really man. I'm not wanting to give you a hard time. The fact of the matter is that there are always going to be threats. The social engineering attack is nothing new-- con men have been around since ancient times. Malware, viruses, and worms are relatively new in the collective subconcious of course, but there are already methods of containing the damage they do.
In a world where the information superhighway does resemble Damnation Alley, I would much rather restrict travel to people who know how to drive without getting into a collision, how to fix a flat and replace a bulletproof glass windshield, and to be safe, just keep all the bicycles off the road entirely.
I really like your phrase, Damnation Alley. It's perfectly apropos, because it describes the internet in a nutshell. It's no Sunday Drive. Propelled by unrestricted access to information, its growth and diversity of content is staggering. From high res pictures of the works of renaissance masters to hardcore beastiality, the internet reflects all that's good and bad about humanity.
I'm opposed to internet licensing because I see people who are smart, with obviously the best intentions, proposing a kneejerk reaction that will have much broader consequences than they might imagin
For example, the I Love You virus irretrievabyy destroyed priceless collections of WW2 photo archives, which had recently been converted from film to online form).
Why was this archive even connected to the internet? Why weren't their backups? Were the *only* copies low-res jpgs on a webserver? What happened to the original negatives?
If banks just left their money sitting out on the sidewalk in large bags with dollar signs on them, it would be the bank that was blamed when it was stolen or destroyed.
Banks put their money in large steel vaults, in large brick and mortar buildings, with cameras, motion sensors, armed guards, and multiple, redundant locks.
It would be foolish to assume that 'licensing' internet access would prevent anything. In fact, it would probably have the opposite effect-- a large number of rooted boxes with paid up licenses. If you have something priceless or precious stored on computer, it's your own obligation to protect it, in the same way it's the obligation of the bank to protect the money stored within, or the way it's your own obligation to protect the valuables stored in your house.
Licensing internet access will have the sole effect of providing a false sense of security to the average user. Myself, I'd take a *real* sense of security over that any day.
What DOES need to be done is that companies have to instruct their employees on how to judge whether a person understands what they're signing, or is qualified to buy what they are buying, etc. They already do this for grociery cashiers and alcoholic beverages: if you look to be too young, you'll get carded, and you have to prove you qualify. Same should apply here: if you look like you don't understand the contract (if they ask you a basic question about it, you should be able to answer it), you don't allow you the service.
Except the company isn't in the business of deciding who's worthy or not, or even who understands the contract or not. The company is in the business of selling a contracted service. They can either sell to a customer who may have a shaky understanding of what they're buying, or they can alienate that customer, and end up losing the business to a competitor.
An example: If I were to go to a hardware store, and attempt to purchase a chainsaw, but had the store clerk decides that I don't 'look like I know what I'm doing' and refuses to sell it to me, the first action I would take is to loudly complain to management. If that didn't work, not only would I leave the store angry, I would never shop there again. I would also tell all my friends and family to not shop there, either. Finally, I would go to a competing store that *would* sell me the chainsaw.
Business used to revolve around the premise of 'buyer beware'-- and that's the way it should be. To limit one person's freedom in the name of 'protection' ends up taking all of our freedoms, and protecting no one.
I just read all the comments on this story. Even the reall stupid ones that people posted anonymously.
Here's a personal anecdote:
I was something like, maybe 16-17 when Frontpage came out. I tried it out, thought it was pretty cool.... except.. why doesn't that table justify properly? And, WTF is the deal with inconsistant fonts when I click the little button..?
So, fast forward five or six years, and now I'm a freelancer, doing all kinds of different stuff. About two years ago, I forgot to close my sunroof, and my carbon paper book that I'd used for invoicing basically melted into my passenger seat. Pretty, as you can imagine.
So, I said to myself, "I should really put together some kind of web-based thingamajig to take care of that shit for me."
Since I'm not a pro web guy, I muddled around with FP, Dreamweaver, Bluefish, etc. Fucking frustrating. Finally, I bit the bullet and spent about two months reading as much from w3schools.com and php.net as I could handle. For windows, I started using Crimson Editor (www.crimsoneditor.com) and Jed in Linux.
And, you know what? The *learning* was the real prize of that project-- and the top-notch custom built invoicing system was just icing. Yes, it took a long time, and yes, I did some dumb stuff (like the thousand-line nested if statement that a buddy rewrote to five lines). Yes, it's tedious to look up code examples and documentation. But, I know for a fact that had I been using tools like Dreamweaver, Frontpage, and whatever else you might throw at something like this, it would never have gotten done, I'd still be using that damn carbon book, and I wouldn't have learned an entirely new set of skills to aid my business.
(Though, for the record, I wouldn't be a professional web designer if my life depended on it. I've had so many customers try to get those guys to do P = NP problems that it's lost its hilarity.)
Good troll, d00d. I must've wasted at least five to eight minutes on you.
Re:Maybe Joe Schmoe shouldn't be using a computer.
on
AOL 9.0 Called Badware
·
· Score: 1
I'm not sure who said it, but there's a sig floating around here in which someone says, "Contrary to popular opinion, ad hominem isn't Latin for 'That's mean.'"
Thank you for your brilliant insight, professor, but you're still a moron, and apparently a second-rate admin, to boot.
Since I actually know what "ad hominem" means, let's discuss that for a second. You argue that I lack experience, and am therefore unaware of the considerations of network administration. You say that I'm a young teen, and therefore intone that I am unethical with friends and relatives. You further attack my character (and not my argument) by saying you hope I have the analytical abilities to understand your message.
Allow me to retort:
If your mail server has no message throttling, you're asking for a hurt. If you have hundreds of thousands of messages coming from cable and DSL dynamic IP ranges, you've obviously not been paranoid enough in your antispam controls. Likewise, if you're trying to run a business without any protection against DDOS attacks, you've obviously not kept up with the industry. I see no point in discussing these technologies in detail, as it's already been demonstrated you are unaware of them.
Since you've obviously been accepted to some MBA program somewhere, here's a bit of advice that you should listen to, though I fear you may not: Don't be an asshole. You're not always right, you're not always the best, you're not always the smartest or the fastest. Your self righteous, sanctimonious tone will make you enemies.
Finally, by posting anonymously, you rob yourself of any credibility. I was not attempting to have a debate with you, I was not attempting to discuss anything with you. I was raising the red flag of bullshit over your ill-concieved, wrongminded, unfeasable, unrealistic assertion, in hopes of preventing your bad ideas from infecting susceptible minds. That I even typed out this response is quite literally beneath me.
Re:I believe you're quite mistaken, sir.
on
AOL 9.0 Called Badware
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
You know, a more cynical person, after reading about how our esteemed legislature is just *drooling* all over the idea of heavily regulating the internet, and after reading several stories about how politically-backed PR firms have been increasingly 'astroturfing*' internet forums and other community based sites, might start to think that all these nearly identical messages from ACs advocating a "driver's license for the internet" are some form of covert propaganda.
A more cynical person, someone experienced with both politics and the internet, might think that messages like this, posted with such similar wording, with such a similar idea being conveyed, could be 'testing the waters,' to see how the techies might respond to such a proposal.
A more cynical person might think that some senator or congressman, perhaps something involving Ted Stevens, is feeling out the idea of floating a bill, maybe something called "The Internet Security Act," or "The National Data Protection Act," or even the "Save the Children from Internet Pedophiles Act," where compulsory licensing is hidden away within.
A more cynical person would probably realize that all those license fees would simply disappear into heavily pork-filled projects, the main beneficiaries of which would be gigantic corporations, probably technology based, but equally likely to be ConAgra, Exxon, United Defense, or Halliburton. Even a simpleton would know the license fees do nothing to benefit them.
A cynical person might already know that as soon as a license becomes madatory, a huge revenue stream is created by fining those individuals who are unlicensed. Just like parking tickets, tax penalties, and code violations, this money will go to supporting even more regulations.
A cynical person would suspect that an unlicensed computer would become basis for sneak-and-peeks, no-knock-raids, and unwarrented wiretapping. A cynical person knows that countries like Cuba, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia already have laws regarding licensing of internet access. Sure has helped them, hasn't it?
A more cynical person might think that kind of thing, indeed.
*Astroturfing: In American politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behavior. The goal is the appearance of independent public reaction to a politician, political group, product, service, event, or similar entities by centrally orchestrating the behavior of many diverse and geographically distributed individuals.
Heh, yeah. Totally forgot about the PSU. I guess it's stuff like that which has always rubbed me the wrong way about Dell-- I mean, the industry standard ATX power supplies work just fine. Why would they want to change that, if not to just be annoying about people using competing parts in their machines? (Of course, Gateway, HP, et al, do the same thing, so I guess I shouldn't just single out Dell.)
Everything you say is valid, up until you want to replace the mobo in the Dell as an upgrade. At that point, you'll find that Dell has moved all the chassis screw holes about a half inch to the right. Then, you're looking at buying a new case, too. Just saying.
Re:Maybe Joe Schmoe shouldn't be using a computer.
on
AOL 9.0 Called Badware
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
My god, you're a moron.
First of all, people *do* operate cars without a thought to safety. Have you ever driven on a major highway in a large city? How about the number of people who destroy thousand-dollar engines for want of two bucks of motor oil?
If Joe Schmoe decides he wants to click "Yes" when AnnoyingAdBar, LLC tells him to, than doesn't he pretty much get what he deserves?
(And, more importantly, when he pays me to fix it, don't I get what *I* deserve?)
There are many times a year that the deals Dell has come out to be FAR cheaper then buying the parts alone, let alone the assembly time. And the brand matters because you know parts are going to be the same throughout the entire brand (for example ALL Dell desktops use non-standard motherboards and power supplies, and their power supplies are rated different). Yes it is what is inside that matters, but it is a lot easier to find out what is inside a Dell then what is inside many other brands.
Assuming that quality doesn't mean anything to the buyer. Yes, yes, I'm sure there will be plenty of people to defend Dell's quality to me; but the fact of the matter is that I still trust my own eyes when I look at the inside of a Dell. Trust me: Spend the extra couple hundred, get something good, and it'll save you money in the long run.
Because driver's licenses have been so effective in not allowing stupid people to injure others using their cars? And, because federal regulations *always* fix problems?;-)
Heavens forbid that a corporation might put ethics ahead of profit. If I offered Cisco a hundred bucks to kill my neighbor, would the defense argument be that if they didn't do it, someone else would've?
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I still want to know why mechanical voting machines were phased out. Hell, in Australia, I hear they just use marks on a paper ballot, which are then counted several times by precinct captains. Why can't we just do it that way? I love computers, I love software, but as much as I know about their vulnerability to tampering and just random shit happening, I don't think I'd trust the leadership of my country to them.
God yes-- I can't wait for that to happen. The day I can do my entire job via SSH from my bathrobe will be happy indeed. However, haven't all the big PC makers basically sold their souls to Microsoft bundling agreements?
I agree. Learning BASIC was the technological equivalent of being in first grade writing, "Mi dae at the zoo!" -- Of course it's not Shakespeare, but it's the foundation of literacy. No one expects an 8 year old to whip out an office suite and more than we expect him to write a concerto, or recreate the works of Dostoyevsky. The key point is that, for some kids, it's *fun* to write silly little programs in BASIC. Hell, look at MySpace right now-- I'm seeing CSS that's definitely the modern day equivalent of:
10 print "Tits!"
20 goto 10.
Yes, we all know Myspace is annoying as all get-out, but at least there are kids who are learning some of the fundamentals of interacting with a computer at a more basic level. Writing annoying profile templates is what's 'cool' right now, and I'll bet that the people who are 12-16, 17, etc, doing so will eventually tire of their childish persuits, and perhaps eventually start programming for real.
Linux. ;-)
The bit the FA doesn't quite get right is that even if Ubuntu is fantastic and easy and all those other good things for 'ole Joe Sixpack, the typical non-geek computer user is *never* going to independently install Linux him/herself. I'm a freelancer, and I've got clients who work in corporate environments who call me in a panic if they accidentally open a cmd.exe on Windows. That is, they interpret the mere presence of a command prompt, in a window, as a critical failure of their computer.
Now, we geeks might finally be able to begin offering Linux as an option for our friends, family, and customers, and not be met with "Huh?," but it'll still be a long time yet before Joe the drywaller, or Jim the doctor, or even Marge, the accountant, actually seeks out a Linux box for an objective, independent reason.
STEERING has committed an ILLEGAL OPERATION.
(R)etry, (F)ail, (E)scape to another jurisdiction?
And we're also predisposed to buy frivolous, expensive, things. Case in point: Any motorcycle ever built.
This is the best stand this dude has taken so far. Say what you will about Wikipedia (and almost anything you say will indeed be true), but at least they're not kowtowing to Beijing.
(Oh, and Beijing-- We still know what you did at Tiananmen Square. We'll always know. Fuck you guys.)
Heh, actually, I realized that's what you meant as I was thinking about this later in the day. Sorry, didn't mean to be flippant, just misunderstood your statement.
..but, think about the logistics of standing upright for 150 miles, at 12.5MPH. By my math, that'd be a twelve hour journey. Hope you're not trying to carry a heavy backpack the whole way.
I think that the ONLY copies were high-res jpgs on the web server. Once the scanning process was done, the originals and negatives were destroyed, since they were no longer needed (I imagine that part of the reason to put the archive online was to preserve decaying media, and another part of the reason could have been to reduce warehouse space). As for why there was no backup, it's possible that the people who did it were'nt as computer-savvy as they were photo-savvy.
Why were the photo-savvy people working out of their depth? I'm versed in building servers, among other things, and I don't have people asking me to do photography work-- because I don't know how!
It's like asking a plumber to wire your electrical, or having your mechanic watch your kids, or your accountant to design a rocket ship. The results will not be good, regardless of the intentions. Would museum curators hire restorationists who had no training or experience in their fields? The same goes for designing long term archives. It's not like the expertise isn't already available.
This is because banks have been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, and have developed such technologies and methodologies slowly over time. On the other hand, the technologies for creating online photo archives have only been around for around a decade or two, and there is no "universal common wisdom" for such online archives among museum maintainers, especially since many of them have little or no experience with the internet, so perhaps one can forgive them a bit of naivete in not believing that the "information superhighway" more closely resembles a scene from "Damnation Alley".
There might not be a universal common wisdom, but there is Murphy's Law. That's been around since the first time a hominid added insult to injury. I have a saying-- "If it's not the car, it's the dentist-- and it's always six hundred bucks." So, I approach a lot of situations with the thought in mind that if something can go wrong, it will eventually damn well go wrong. If these curators don't have any experience with the internet, why are they entrusting their irreplaceable collections to it? They *do* understand the brick-and-mortar concepts of conservation-- they should take a similar tact when dealing with computers. Murphy's Law.
I totally agree. Unfortunately, in this world, there really IS no way to provide a REAL sense of security, since Windows is plagued with viruses and worms, and even though Macs and Linux malware are much more rare, they are NOT nonexistent. (Not to mention that social engineering attacks, such as identity theft, are cross-platform vulnerabilities).
We're right on the same page, really man. I'm not wanting to give you a hard time. The fact of the matter is that there are always going to be threats. The social engineering attack is nothing new-- con men have been around since ancient times. Malware, viruses, and worms are relatively new in the collective subconcious of course, but there are already methods of containing the damage they do.
In a world where the information superhighway does resemble Damnation Alley, I would much rather restrict travel to people who know how to drive without getting into a collision, how to fix a flat and replace a bulletproof glass windshield, and to be safe, just keep all the bicycles off the road entirely.
I really like your phrase, Damnation Alley. It's perfectly apropos, because it describes the internet in a nutshell. It's no Sunday Drive. Propelled by unrestricted access to information, its growth and diversity of content is staggering. From high res pictures of the works of renaissance masters to hardcore beastiality, the internet reflects all that's good and bad about humanity.
I'm opposed to internet licensing because I see people who are smart, with obviously the best intentions, proposing a kneejerk reaction that will have much broader consequences than they might imagin
And, in the history of motor vehicals, no one has *ever* been killed by a licensed driver, have they? ;-)
For example, the I Love You virus irretrievabyy destroyed priceless collections of WW2 photo archives, which had recently been converted from film to online form).
Why was this archive even connected to the internet? Why weren't their backups? Were the *only* copies low-res jpgs on a webserver? What happened to the original negatives?
If banks just left their money sitting out on the sidewalk in large bags with dollar signs on them, it would be the bank that was blamed when it was stolen or destroyed.
Banks put their money in large steel vaults, in large brick and mortar buildings, with cameras, motion sensors, armed guards, and multiple, redundant locks.
It would be foolish to assume that 'licensing' internet access would prevent anything. In fact, it would probably have the opposite effect-- a large number of rooted boxes with paid up licenses. If you have something priceless or precious stored on computer, it's your own obligation to protect it, in the same way it's the obligation of the bank to protect the money stored within, or the way it's your own obligation to protect the valuables stored in your house.
Licensing internet access will have the sole effect of providing a false sense of security to the average user. Myself, I'd take a *real* sense of security over that any day.
God, if I had modpoints, I'd waste them all on this thread. +1 funny & insightful, dude.
What DOES need to be done is that companies have to instruct their employees on how to judge whether a person understands what they're signing, or is qualified to buy what they are buying, etc. They already do this for grociery cashiers and alcoholic beverages: if you look to be too young, you'll get carded, and you have to prove you qualify. Same should apply here: if you look like you don't understand the contract (if they ask you a basic question about it, you should be able to answer it), you don't allow you the service.
Except the company isn't in the business of deciding who's worthy or not, or even who understands the contract or not. The company is in the business of selling a contracted service. They can either sell to a customer who may have a shaky understanding of what they're buying, or they can alienate that customer, and end up losing the business to a competitor.
An example: If I were to go to a hardware store, and attempt to purchase a chainsaw, but had the store clerk decides that I don't 'look like I know what I'm doing' and refuses to sell it to me, the first action I would take is to loudly complain to management. If that didn't work, not only would I leave the store angry, I would never shop there again. I would also tell all my friends and family to not shop there, either. Finally, I would go to a competing store that *would* sell me the chainsaw.
Business used to revolve around the premise of 'buyer beware'-- and that's the way it should be. To limit one person's freedom in the name of 'protection' ends up taking all of our freedoms, and protecting no one.
I just read all the comments on this story. Even the reall stupid ones that people posted anonymously.
Here's a personal anecdote:
I was something like, maybe 16-17 when Frontpage came out. I tried it out, thought it was pretty cool.... except.. why doesn't that table justify properly? And, WTF is the deal with inconsistant fonts when I click the little button..?
So, fast forward five or six years, and now I'm a freelancer, doing all kinds of different stuff. About two years ago, I forgot to close my sunroof, and my carbon paper book that I'd used for invoicing basically melted into my passenger seat. Pretty, as you can imagine.
So, I said to myself, "I should really put together some kind of web-based thingamajig to take care of that shit for me."
Since I'm not a pro web guy, I muddled around with FP, Dreamweaver, Bluefish, etc. Fucking frustrating. Finally, I bit the bullet and spent about two months reading as much from w3schools.com and php.net as I could handle. For windows, I started using Crimson Editor (www.crimsoneditor.com) and Jed in Linux.
And, you know what? The *learning* was the real prize of that project-- and the top-notch custom built invoicing system was just icing. Yes, it took a long time, and yes, I did some dumb stuff (like the thousand-line nested if statement that a buddy rewrote to five lines). Yes, it's tedious to look up code examples and documentation. But, I know for a fact that had I been using tools like Dreamweaver, Frontpage, and whatever else you might throw at something like this, it would never have gotten done, I'd still be using that damn carbon book, and I wouldn't have learned an entirely new set of skills to aid my business.
(Though, for the record, I wouldn't be a professional web designer if my life depended on it. I've had so many customers try to get those guys to do P = NP problems that it's lost its hilarity.)
Good troll, d00d. I must've wasted at least five to eight minutes on you.
I'm not sure who said it, but there's a sig floating around here in which someone says, "Contrary to popular opinion, ad hominem isn't Latin for 'That's mean.'"
Thank you for your brilliant insight, professor, but you're still a moron, and apparently a second-rate admin, to boot.
Since I actually know what "ad hominem" means, let's discuss that for a second. You argue that I lack experience, and am therefore unaware of the considerations of network administration. You say that I'm a young teen, and therefore intone that I am unethical with friends and relatives. You further attack my character (and not my argument) by saying you hope I have the analytical abilities to understand your message.
Allow me to retort:
If your mail server has no message throttling, you're asking for a hurt. If you have hundreds of thousands of messages coming from cable and DSL dynamic IP ranges, you've obviously not been paranoid enough in your antispam controls. Likewise, if you're trying to run a business without any protection against DDOS attacks, you've obviously not kept up with the industry. I see no point in discussing these technologies in detail, as it's already been demonstrated you are unaware of them.
Since you've obviously been accepted to some MBA program somewhere, here's a bit of advice that you should listen to, though I fear you may not: Don't be an asshole. You're not always right, you're not always the best, you're not always the smartest or the fastest. Your self righteous, sanctimonious tone will make you enemies.
Finally, by posting anonymously, you rob yourself of any credibility. I was not attempting to have a debate with you, I was not attempting to discuss anything with you. I was raising the red flag of bullshit over your ill-concieved, wrongminded, unfeasable, unrealistic assertion, in hopes of preventing your bad ideas from infecting susceptible minds. That I even typed out this response is quite literally beneath me.
You know, a more cynical person, after reading about how our esteemed legislature is just *drooling* all over the idea of heavily regulating the internet, and after reading several stories about how politically-backed PR firms have been increasingly 'astroturfing*' internet forums and other community based sites, might start to think that all these nearly identical messages from ACs advocating a "driver's license for the internet" are some form of covert propaganda.
A more cynical person, someone experienced with both politics and the internet, might think that messages like this, posted with such similar wording, with such a similar idea being conveyed, could be 'testing the waters,' to see how the techies might respond to such a proposal.
A more cynical person might think that some senator or congressman, perhaps something involving Ted Stevens, is feeling out the idea of floating a bill, maybe something called "The Internet Security Act," or "The National Data Protection Act," or even the "Save the Children from Internet Pedophiles Act," where compulsory licensing is hidden away within.
A more cynical person would probably realize that all those license fees would simply disappear into heavily pork-filled projects, the main beneficiaries of which would be gigantic corporations, probably technology based, but equally likely to be ConAgra, Exxon, United Defense, or Halliburton. Even a simpleton would know the license fees do nothing to benefit them.
A cynical person might already know that as soon as a license becomes madatory, a huge revenue stream is created by fining those individuals who are unlicensed. Just like parking tickets, tax penalties, and code violations, this money will go to supporting even more regulations.
A cynical person would suspect that an unlicensed computer would become basis for sneak-and-peeks, no-knock-raids, and unwarrented wiretapping. A cynical person knows that countries like Cuba, China, Iran, and Saudi Arabia already have laws regarding licensing of internet access. Sure has helped them, hasn't it?
A more cynical person might think that kind of thing, indeed.
*Astroturfing: In American politics and advertising, the term astroturfing describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behavior. The goal is the appearance of independent public reaction to a politician, political group, product, service, event, or similar entities by centrally orchestrating the behavior of many diverse and geographically distributed individuals.
Heh, yeah. Totally forgot about the PSU. I guess it's stuff like that which has always rubbed me the wrong way about Dell-- I mean, the industry standard ATX power supplies work just fine. Why would they want to change that, if not to just be annoying about people using competing parts in their machines? (Of course, Gateway, HP, et al, do the same thing, so I guess I shouldn't just single out Dell.)
Everything you say is valid, up until you want to replace the mobo in the Dell as an upgrade. At that point, you'll find that Dell has moved all the chassis screw holes about a half inch to the right. Then, you're looking at buying a new case, too. Just saying.
My god, you're a moron.
First of all, people *do* operate cars without a thought to safety. Have you ever driven on a major highway in a large city?
How about the number of people who destroy thousand-dollar engines for want of two bucks of motor oil?
If Joe Schmoe decides he wants to click "Yes" when AnnoyingAdBar, LLC tells him to, than doesn't he pretty much get what he deserves?
(And, more importantly, when he pays me to fix it, don't I get what *I* deserve?)
Support freelancers, encourage stupidity!
There are many times a year that the deals Dell has come out to be FAR cheaper then buying the parts alone, let alone the assembly time. And the brand matters because you know parts are going to be the same throughout the entire brand (for example ALL Dell desktops use non-standard motherboards and power supplies, and their power supplies are rated different). Yes it is what is inside that matters, but it is a lot easier to find out what is inside a Dell then what is inside many other brands.
Assuming that quality doesn't mean anything to the buyer. Yes, yes, I'm sure there will be plenty of people to defend Dell's quality to me; but the fact of the matter is that I still trust my own eyes when I look at the inside of a Dell. Trust me: Spend the extra couple hundred, get something good, and it'll save you money in the long run.
Because driver's licenses have been so effective in not allowing stupid people to injure others using their cars? And, because federal regulations *always* fix problems? ;-)
Heavens forbid that a corporation might put ethics ahead of profit. If I offered Cisco a hundred bucks to kill my neighbor, would the defense argument be that if they didn't do it, someone else would've?
I can't use my tape recorder to make a backup of a CD?