Who uses caps lock apart from people who have remapped it to control?
Infidel! Barbarian! Control... sheesh. Everybody knows you remap Caps Lock to Escape. I though we did finish this holy war, but noooo, you had to bring it up again. Next you're going to tell me you use vi and kde, right? Basement cat will watch you closely from this day forward.:p
<nazism type="grammar"> The headline says "IT: Why One-time Passwords Suck For MITM Attacks", and the body says " This article walks you through how using certificates, instead of OTP tokens [...] can increase the security of your SSL VPN [...]."
I'm "huh?", right now. If use of OTPs is the MITM problem and certificates is the solution, then surely OTPs are good for MITM attacks, in that they make them easier to execute and are well-liked by the perpetrators, while certificates are bad for MITM attacks.
(Oh, and OTPs are bad because of the MITM they are good for). </nazism>
I saw those rocks at www.the-magic-box.com. Be warned that you lose the game if the tigers happen to be paper tigers. Other than that, they're perfect, and only $79.99 apiece.;)
TFA is a wholly remarkable book. It's already supplanted Operating Systems: Design and Implementation as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for two important reasons. First, it's slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PICNIC printed in large friendly letters on its cover.
I found some old army personnel files, containing references to a Sgt. Linux Coder. I think No Picnic is his new codename.
"No Picnic to Anthill. No Picnic to Anthill! Come in, Anthill! I've spotted several enemy pointers, sir! They're marching rank and file system straight to our intelligence page table. Shall I noexecute them, sir?"
[parent: mismatch between object on scales and displayed choices]
... Which highlights one of my first thoughts: when---not if but when---this fails, you will need a manual override or selection of some sort. How often does this happen? How much time is wasted (compared to ye olde one button per veggie type scale) when it happens? How will this affect consumer acceptance?
If we can't (or don't) write algorithms that deal intelligently with stuff already presented to the computer in an easy-to-digest way (see Silicon Slaves at Logically Critical), how well will we fare at connecting "round and red" with tomato and not strawberry nor cherry nor cherry tomato?
Okay, maybe I'm overestimating the difficulty of the image recognition problem (because it's outside my area of expertise), and maybe I'm blowing the usability problems out of proportion (because I've been bitten by incorrect computer "intelligence" too often), but I'm not the only one skeptical about the technical merits, am I?
(the business merits I leave to someone else; presumably the ones deploying this believe it will move more green paper in their direction).
Re:The main thing missing, is introspection
on
Boost 1.36 Released
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
What you want is metacode that can be embedded in your normal C++ code, read by the C++ compiler, and can run with access to the AST or some other high-level representation of what the compiler has parsed. It should be able to read, interpret and modify the declarations that have already been parsed--generating new methods or typedefs on the fly, for example. [...] it would be nice if the output of the metaprogram was source-code, too.
So what you're trying to say is (use 'lisp)? (and
(macros-run-on-ast-p 'lisp)
(reads-decls-p 'lisp)
(interprets-decls-p 'lisp)
(modifies-decls-p 'lisp)
(outputs-source-code-p 'lisp))
In case anybody isn't paying attention: Net neutrality is in Microsoft's best interests as an OS maker and as one of the Net's top three search engine providers. It is not in Comcast's best interests as they can make money from a lack of net neutrality.
I agree. I think the people who don't pay attention will also want to know why net neutrality is good for Microsoft and bad for Comcast. How about we shine that big flashlight on how the moneymaking goes:
- Comcast is in the business of providing internet connectivity. - Comcast is in the business of providing streaming video to your TV. - Comcast competes (for your eyeballs) with video delivered via the internet you buy from them.
Comcast has a clear interest in dropping, delaying and distorting packets from youtube, sweden (ahem) and other sources of video entertainment (say, ocw.mit.edu:D), because that allows to charge more for their video services.
- Microsoft is in the business of delivering software. - Microsoft is in the business of delivering internet services and web applications. - Microsoft is not in a business that relates to delivering their products and services (or that of their competitors) to the market. They just want a fair interweb enabling them to compete fairly (*).
That's the why behind the fact. Not that it hasn't been said before or anything, just wanted fifteen seconds of fame;)
(*) I lost a bet with your keyboard and owed it some money; I decided to pay it in coffee.
Truth is, preferences are *not* stable; my tastes in music have changed over the last ten years. I recall answering a "what's your favorite band" question to get my password, and I had to think back and guess who I was a fanboy of at the time I decided what the answer should be.
Adding to that, preferences are not particularly secret. Here's the pepsi challenge: I'm male, I read slashdot. Use that to figure out which eight of these I like, and which eight I dislike:
Video games, Casino gambling, Fashion, Watching figure skating, Reality shows, Skating, Going to libraries, Playing golf, Heavy Metal music, Reading comics, Going to bookstores, Gaming, Cats, Documentaries, Watching golf, Watching bowling.
I haven't chosen any of them to be easy to guess, just some preferences I feel I could remember. Note also that there's [16 choose 8] possible answers, or 16!/8!/8! = 12870. That's less than 14 bits of randomness; choices are highly likely to be non-uniform and non-independent, so expect less than 14 bits.
Here's some of my likes that are "obvious" from my reading Slashdot: [Video games, Going to libraries, Reading comics, Going to bookstores, Gaming, Documentaries]. Now you only have to find the remaining two likes, among ten options. Note that 10 choose 2 is 10!/8!/2! = 45. Say after three wrongs you're locked out for an hour. Ooh, it's going to take a whole fiften hours to crack me and steal all my monies. (OMG monies).
Even if you disagree on what's obvious about my likes, it seems like you could order them from most to least likely and my fellow slashdotters would still be _roughly_ in agreement. Try all combinations of likes and dislikes from most to least likely; there's your cracking algorithm.
<parody> What do you mean? Italians have to obey the law, just as everyone else </parody>
I think the US is infamous for imposing its laws on other countries, in particular those relevant to the movie and music business, through sanctions of one form or another; ISTR a story about the US using the WTO for this purpose.
If he wants to give it away, fine. If he wants to restrict it a million different ways, fine. It's his work, so it's his choice. [...] Without a strong IP system, that choice will be taken away.
My answer to this is quite simple: So? So what if the author doesn't have that choice?
The purpose of copyright law is to benefit the public, by increasing the level of quality in writing, music, software and other items covered by it. The mechanism used is letting the authors apply restrictions to their customers, which will (according to the implicit assumption) make more people pay the authors, which will make being an writer (musician, coder, etc.) be a good enough way of making a living that enough people will do so; spending eight hours per day on your craft will make you better than one who spends only their spare time (assuming there's less of that). That's how copyright is thought to fulfill its purpose.
If we let the authors grant fewer restriction, it might mean that some fraction of them will choose to enter a different business, and the public loses some of their products (they may still perform music or write code in their spare time). In return, since the public is less restricted, it will be able to use all authors' works to a larger extent.
Whether the trade-off is beneficial to the public depends on the specifics; but what is certain is that as long as copyright has its stated purpose, one should choose the option that benefits the public the most. Whether the authors lose options they have previously had should not, per se, influence the decision; it could, however, influence which option is best for the public, but you haven't argued that it does (or will).
The restrictions and the choice of whether and how to employ them are a means, not an end. You can't defend any means other than by showing how well they serve the end.
(sorry for the missing car analogy)
(insert a similarly styled rant on patents, and a similarly styled rant on trademarks, here)
approach to making fun. I don't think it'll work. Here's why I think it won't work:
( ) You will piss people off by not mentioning $fancy_wrapper_around_lambda_calculus ( ) You will make people reminisce about the good old $formula_translating_language days. ( ) You fail to mention the important system (particularly in the banking world) written in $some_venerable_business_oriented_language; the people who liked it will scoff. ( ) Due to your being general, you fail to suggest any specific language (i.e. $python). (X) Your syntax makes it unclear what the value of $c++ is
Also, the following objections may apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have shown funny in the past.
I'm sure your parent said some ludicrous stuff. I'm sure you're justified in arguing against him or her. BUT:
How about this; people get paid for working
By whom?
If you're a musician, who do you expect to get paid by? The people who are willing to pay you are the ones who want to listen to your music. If they legally can get your music for free (without the government granted monopoly on, among other things, distribution and public performance), why would they want to pay you? I think most wouldn't.
If you think creative work is [...] particularly valuable to society, perhaps [their creators] should get a lower retirement age? [...] fund it through ordinary state budgets [...].
If you want them to work as a musician, they need to be able to generate money during their career. Early retirement doesn't solve that, unless it's retirement at age 18. Also, who decides who gets early retirement? With one of my bands, we've recorded a CD of three songs, an intro and a remix. We performed some music in a corner of the city square and tried to sell our CD; mostly people who knew us personally bought it. Do we deserve early retirement? Some of my friends and other people I know (a little) personally have a band which played for Lunch Jazz at the same city square; also in the city Jazz Festival, and at other jobs. I don't know how well they're compensated for their time, but playing with that band is certainly not their day job even though they are more of a name that my band ever hoped to be. Do they deserve early retirement?
Here's what I think we can agree on: - Professional musicians make better music than amateurs, due to the larger amount of time spent. - There exists a large body of people who are willing to pay for music that's to their taste. - It would be a societal benefit if money could be moved from the buyers' hands to the sellers' hands in exchange for music made by a professional musician that is to the buyers' individual tastes. - An unregulated market doesn't facilitate these beneficial transactions very well. - Hence, the it's likely that government intervention is beneficial.
The big question is this: which form should the intervention take? One of the things a free market does well is enable people to vote with their wallet. By inflating the prices through copyright, you still let people vote with their wallet: if you don't like a particular piece of music, you're free to not pay for it, and if you like it you are free to pay for it at an affordable price.
Let's look at a few alternatives. One is that the government institutes a music tax; the collected money is distributed to musicians by the Federal Music Administration (or by the state, or some other governmental body). This body should determine which kind of music people are willing to pay for and how much they are willing to pay to each artist. Can this be done better than by the buyers themselves?
Another alternative is to fund musicians through private patronage. This has funded Bach, some of whose music I enjoy listening to. The common man can't afford to employ a musician, so the music that is made is dictated by the tastes of the wealthy. Do their tastes reflect that of the masses who are willing to pay?
A third alternative is for the government to not intervene (contradicting what I've said earlier), and instead rely on music that's made as a by-product; for instance, music from movies and games. I enjoy Imperial March (the Star Wars trilogy), Furious Angels (The Matrix), Cantina Band (Star Wars again), Gerudo Valley (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time), Korobeiniki (Tetris) and Ninja Monkey Attack (Sauerbraten), which spans a wide variety of genres, but is this sufficient? The music has to go well with the movie or game, which constrains the musician somewhat, so buyers interested in music that generally doesn't do well as a by-product will be left out. In particular, music that's heav
Thank you. Your post is of the (unfortunately rare) kind that rips one of my unfounded assumptions apart and broaden my understanding of reality in the process.
May you and your partners have plenty of happy and healthy sexual experiences, and none of the others.
Re:Head First seems too limited
on
Head First C#
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
it just doesn't make sense to invest in a primer that, after you finish with it, is a paperweight.
Except for K&RC2, which you can read for pure entertainment:)
You can already get the Linux flavor of your choice and install Wine on it.
Which is kind of like saying you can buy a Shelby Cobra kit and drop any engine you want in it. Sure you *can*, but when the competition is factory-built Ford that works out the door, who's going to do it outside of hardcore hobbyists who always had choices anyway?
How about large organizations who want to spend half the money saved from buying the Shelby Cobra Linux kit on one or more competent hardcore hobbyist sysadmins? That looks like a net gain to me...
Slashdot Mirror
Who uses caps lock apart from people who have remapped it to control?
Infidel! Barbarian! Control... sheesh. Everybody knows you remap Caps Lock to Escape. I though we did finish this holy war, but noooo, you had to bring it up again. Next you're going to tell me you use vi and kde, right? Basement cat will watch you closely from this day forward. :p
I could careless
waist of time
Mmm... ourglass...
<nazism type="grammar">
The headline says "IT: Why One-time Passwords Suck For MITM Attacks", and the body says "
This article walks you through how using certificates, instead of OTP tokens [...] can increase the security of your SSL VPN [...]."
I'm "huh?", right now. If use of OTPs is the MITM problem and certificates is the solution, then surely OTPs are good for MITM attacks, in that they make them easier to execute and are well-liked by the perpetrators, while certificates are bad for MITM attacks.
(Oh, and OTPs are bad because of the MITM they are good for).
</nazism>
a rock that wards off tigers
I saw those rocks at www.the-magic-box.com. Be warned that you lose the game if the tigers happen to be paper tigers. Other than that, they're perfect, and only $79.99 apiece. ;)
That sentence kind of creates the assumption of "no, not really".
It has been said that:
TFA is a wholly remarkable book. It's already supplanted Operating Systems: Design and Implementation as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for two important reasons. First, it's slightly cheaper; and secondly it has the words DON'T PICNIC printed in large friendly letters on its cover.
;)
Who is this No Picnic fellow?
I found some old army personnel files, containing references to a Sgt. Linux Coder. I think No Picnic is his new codename.
"No Picnic to Anthill. No Picnic to Anthill! Come in, Anthill! I've spotted several enemy pointers, sir! They're marching rank and file system straight to our intelligence page table. Shall I noexecute them, sir?"
[parent: mismatch between object on scales and displayed choices]
... Which highlights one of my first thoughts: when---not if but when---this fails, you will need a manual override or selection of some sort. How often does this happen? How much time is wasted (compared to ye olde one button per veggie type scale) when it happens? How will this affect consumer acceptance?
If we can't (or don't) write algorithms that deal intelligently with stuff already presented to the computer in an easy-to-digest way (see Silicon Slaves at Logically Critical), how well will we fare at connecting "round and red" with tomato and not strawberry nor cherry nor cherry tomato?
Okay, maybe I'm overestimating the difficulty of the image recognition problem (because it's outside my area of expertise), and maybe I'm blowing the usability problems out of proportion (because I've been bitten by incorrect computer "intelligence" too often), but I'm not the only one skeptical about the technical merits, am I?
(the business merits I leave to someone else; presumably the ones deploying this believe it will move more green paper in their direction).
What you want is metacode that can be embedded in your normal C++ code, read by the C++ compiler, and can run with access to the AST or some other high-level representation of what the compiler has parsed. It should be able to read, interpret and modify the declarations that have already been parsed--generating new methods or typedefs on the fly, for example. [...] it would be nice if the output of the metaprogram was source-code, too.
So what you're trying to say is (use 'lisp)?
(and
(macros-run-on-ast-p 'lisp)
(reads-decls-p 'lisp)
(interprets-decls-p 'lisp)
(modifies-decls-p 'lisp)
(outputs-source-code-p 'lisp))
In case anybody isn't paying attention: Net neutrality is in Microsoft's best interests as an OS maker and as one of the Net's top three search engine providers. It is not in Comcast's best interests as they can make money from a lack of net neutrality.
I agree. I think the people who don't pay attention will also want to know why net neutrality is good for Microsoft and bad for Comcast. How about we shine that big flashlight on how the moneymaking goes:
- Comcast is in the business of providing internet connectivity.
- Comcast is in the business of providing streaming video to your TV.
- Comcast competes (for your eyeballs) with video delivered via the internet you buy from them.
Comcast has a clear interest in dropping, delaying and distorting packets from youtube, sweden (ahem) and other sources of video entertainment (say, ocw.mit.edu :D), because that allows to charge more for their video services.
(s/Comcast/AT&T/, s/video entertainment/telephony/, s/youtube/skype/)
- Microsoft is in the business of delivering software.
- Microsoft is in the business of delivering internet services and web applications.
- Microsoft is not in a business that relates to delivering their products and services (or that of their competitors) to the market. They just want a fair interweb enabling them to compete fairly (*).
That's the why behind the fact. Not that it hasn't been said before or anything, just wanted fifteen seconds of fame ;)
(*) I lost a bet with your keyboard and owed it some money; I decided to pay it in coffee.
It is as simple as installing Firefox, installing GNUPG, and installing that extension that lets you encrypt text fields when you are emailing...
Firefox, email? What do they have to do with one another?
And get offa my lawn! ;)
Truth is, preferences are *not* stable; my tastes in music have changed over the last ten years. I recall answering a "what's your favorite band" question to get my password, and I had to think back and guess who I was a fanboy of at the time I decided what the answer should be.
Adding to that, preferences are not particularly secret. Here's the pepsi challenge: I'm male, I read slashdot. Use that to figure out which eight of these I like, and which eight I dislike:
Video games, Casino gambling, Fashion, Watching figure skating, Reality shows, Skating, Going to libraries, Playing golf, Heavy Metal music, Reading comics, Going to bookstores, Gaming, Cats, Documentaries, Watching golf, Watching bowling.
I haven't chosen any of them to be easy to guess, just some preferences I feel I could remember. Note also that there's [16 choose 8] possible answers, or 16!/8!/8! = 12870. That's less than 14 bits of randomness; choices are highly likely to be non-uniform and non-independent, so expect less than 14 bits.
Here's some of my likes that are "obvious" from my reading Slashdot: [Video games, Going to libraries, Reading comics, Going to bookstores, Gaming, Documentaries]. Now you only have to find the remaining two likes, among ten options. Note that 10 choose 2 is 10!/8!/2! = 45. Say after three wrongs you're locked out for an hour. Ooh, it's going to take a whole fiften hours to crack me and steal all my monies. (OMG monies).
Even if you disagree on what's obvious about my likes, it seems like you could order them from most to least likely and my fellow slashdotters would still be _roughly_ in agreement. Try all combinations of likes and dislikes from most to least likely; there's your cracking algorithm.
(the remaining ones are cats and heavy metal)
<parody>
What do you mean? Italians have to obey the law, just as everyone else
</parody>
I think the US is infamous for imposing its laws on other countries, in particular those relevant to the movie and music business, through sanctions of one form or another; ISTR a story about the US using the WTO for this purpose.
If he wants to give it away, fine. If he wants to restrict it a million different ways, fine. It's his work, so it's his choice. [...] Without a strong IP system, that choice will be taken away.
My answer to this is quite simple: So? So what if the author doesn't have that choice?
The purpose of copyright law is to benefit the public, by increasing the level of quality in writing, music, software and other items covered by it. The mechanism used is letting the authors apply restrictions to their customers, which will (according to the implicit assumption) make more people pay the authors, which will make being an writer (musician, coder, etc.) be a good enough way of making a living that enough people will do so; spending eight hours per day on your craft will make you better than one who spends only their spare time (assuming there's less of that). That's how copyright is thought to fulfill its purpose.
If we let the authors grant fewer restriction, it might mean that some fraction of them will choose to enter a different business, and the public loses some of their products (they may still perform music or write code in their spare time). In return, since the public is less restricted, it will be able to use all authors' works to a larger extent.
Whether the trade-off is beneficial to the public depends on the specifics; but what is certain is that as long as copyright has its stated purpose, one should choose the option that benefits the public the most. Whether the authors lose options they have previously had should not, per se, influence the decision; it could, however, influence which option is best for the public, but you haven't argued that it does (or will).
The restrictions and the choice of whether and how to employ them are a means, not an end. You can't defend any means other than by showing how well they serve the end.
(sorry for the missing car analogy)
(insert a similarly styled rant on patents, and a similarly styled rant on trademarks, here)
no two decatalons would be the same.
So what you're trying to say is that in ten years, the nerd decathlon will be able to say "I'm not dead yet"?
Looking at the LHC, I would say that it looks like a series of tubes...
So, what you're saying is that the tubes are clogging the tubes? *Head asplodes*
gawdaful movies
OMG, look! They're full of dutch Gawda cheese!
Hey now! Tubgirl isn't illegal.
Your post advocates a
( ) Perl-based
( ) PHP-based
(X) Shell-based
approach to making fun. I don't think it'll work. Here's why I think it won't work:
( ) You will piss people off by not mentioning $fancy_wrapper_around_lambda_calculus
( ) You will make people reminisce about the good old $formula_translating_language days.
( ) You fail to mention the important system (particularly in the banking world) written in $some_venerable_business_oriented_language; the people who liked it will scoff.
( ) Due to your being general, you fail to suggest any specific language (i.e. $python).
(X) Your syntax makes it unclear what the value of $c++ is
Also, the following objections may apply:
( ) Ideas similar to yours are easy to come up with, yet none have shown funny in the past.
I'm sure your parent said some ludicrous stuff. I'm sure you're justified in arguing against him or her. BUT:
How about this; people get paid for working
By whom?
If you're a musician, who do you expect to get paid by? The people who are willing to pay you are the ones who want to listen to your music. If they legally can get your music for free (without the government granted monopoly on, among other things, distribution and public performance), why would they want to pay you? I think most wouldn't.
If you think creative work is [...] particularly valuable to society, perhaps [their creators] should get a lower retirement age? [...] fund it through ordinary state budgets [...].
If you want them to work as a musician, they need to be able to generate money during their career. Early retirement doesn't solve that, unless it's retirement at age 18. Also, who decides who gets early retirement? With one of my bands, we've recorded a CD of three songs, an intro and a remix. We performed some music in a corner of the city square and tried to sell our CD; mostly people who knew us personally bought it. Do we deserve early retirement? Some of my friends and other people I know (a little) personally have a band which played for Lunch Jazz at the same city square; also in the city Jazz Festival, and at other jobs. I don't know how well they're compensated for their time, but playing with that band is certainly not their day job even though they are more of a name that my band ever hoped to be. Do they deserve early retirement?
Here's what I think we can agree on:
- Professional musicians make better music than amateurs, due to the larger amount of time spent.
- There exists a large body of people who are willing to pay for music that's to their taste.
- It would be a societal benefit if money could be moved from the buyers' hands to the sellers' hands in exchange for music made by a professional musician that is to the buyers' individual tastes.
- An unregulated market doesn't facilitate these beneficial transactions very well.
- Hence, the it's likely that government intervention is beneficial.
The big question is this: which form should the intervention take? One of the things a free market does well is enable people to vote with their wallet. By inflating the prices through copyright, you still let people vote with their wallet: if you don't like a particular piece of music, you're free to not pay for it, and if you like it you are free to pay for it at an affordable price.
Let's look at a few alternatives. One is that the government institutes a music tax; the collected money is distributed to musicians by the Federal Music Administration (or by the state, or some other governmental body). This body should determine which kind of music people are willing to pay for and how much they are willing to pay to each artist. Can this be done better than by the buyers themselves?
Another alternative is to fund musicians through private patronage. This has funded Bach, some of whose music I enjoy listening to. The common man can't afford to employ a musician, so the music that is made is dictated by the tastes of the wealthy. Do their tastes reflect that of the masses who are willing to pay?
A third alternative is for the government to not intervene (contradicting what I've said earlier), and instead rely on music that's made as a by-product; for instance, music from movies and games. I enjoy Imperial March (the Star Wars trilogy), Furious Angels (The Matrix), Cantina Band (Star Wars again), Gerudo Valley (Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time), Korobeiniki (Tetris) and Ninja Monkey Attack (Sauerbraten), which spans a wide variety of genres, but is this sufficient? The music has to go well with the movie or game, which constrains the musician somewhat, so buyers interested in music that generally doesn't do well as a by-product will be left out. In particular, music that's heav
Thank you. Your post is of the (unfortunately rare) kind that rips one of my unfounded assumptions apart and broaden my understanding of reality in the process.
May you and your partners have plenty of happy and healthy sexual experiences, and none of the others.
it just doesn't make sense to invest in a primer that, after you finish with it, is a paperweight.
Except for K&RC2, which you can read for pure entertainment :)
You is masterful student of language of english. Can I be teach from you-sensei?
You can already get the Linux flavor of your choice and install Wine on it.
Which is kind of like saying you can buy a Shelby Cobra kit and drop any engine you want in it. Sure you *can*, but when the competition is factory-built Ford that works out the door, who's going to do it outside of hardcore hobbyists who always had choices anyway?
How about large organizations who want to spend half the money saved from buying the Shelby Cobra Linux kit on one or more competent hardcore hobbyist sysadmins? That looks like a net gain to me...