The next generation of IE flaws is born!
on
Build a Program Now
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· Score: 1
Microsoft Visual Basic 2005 Express Edition: Build a Program Now! doesn't attempt to teach you programming in general or Visual Basic in particular.
And so if you read this book you will get a microscopic and highly specialized view of programming in VB, minus all that unnecessary fluff like learning logic, pseudocoding, and documentation. Then you too can move to Redmond, get a good-paying job, and help create the newest set of flaws for IE, Office, Outlook and all other products in the ever-expanding Microsoft family of software!
All the discussion of the.xxx domain and UN governance of the Internet domains is a smokescreen for the real issue at the heart of all this: lack of true global consensus. Look at any issue affecting the planet - the spread of AIDS, global warming, terrorism, etc. On no issue can the governments of the world come to any understanding of the urgency of the problems laid before them. If it is not the industrialized world blocking things as being "too expensive" or "bad for the global economy" it's the poorer nations harping on "disenfranchisement" or "meddling in their affairs".
Let's be realistic: the industrialized nations of the world have the power to bring the Third World up to modern standards, provide food, clothing, education to all those who need it (including their own people), and create stability though enforcing freedoms. They don't. Why? Because of the constant denial that the problems of the world require immediate action. The UN spends an awful lot of time debating issues but creates little or no progress and meanwhile the problems continue to escalate. Then the rich members go home and complain to their countrymen about the relative ignorance of the poorer nations, while the poorer members go home and harp on how the richer nations are retarding their progress. The UN only servers as a generator of rhetoric. Nowhere was that more in evidence that the run-up to the secong Iraqi conflict.
As I see it, the Internet is the new battleground between the have and have-not nations. The haves do not wish to relinquish control of their cash cow and prefer to squabble over who runs it. The have-nots know they will continue to be have-nots as long as they are frozen out of control of their domains, retarding their ability to compete in the global marketplace, but cannot seem to come together to fight this battle on a united front. In the end we get endless squabbling, no consensus, and a hew and outcry that ICANN is a puppet front for the US. Until everyone can put aside their distrust and individual interests and see the mutually beneficial ways that the Internet can be put to good use, this can only lead a bitter road ahead.
What is it with blog pages that link to another blog, which links to another blog, and so on?
This is the principle of the "Möbius blog", whereby the information is wholly one-sided and is repeated so often that it is taken for fact by anoyone reading it. As they move from link to link, their indoctrination in the rhetoric increases, with the theoretical maximum value being reached when they return to the original "source" blog. Once a "Möbius blog" is entered, the ability of the reader to avoid reading the next blog in the series decreases proportionately.
The "Möbius blog" is also know as "Internet journalism".
The fact is, the Copyright Office is doling out exemptions so sparingly becuase they don't want to encourage a flood of people to sign up for them. You know just about everyone would like an exemption, to hack away at DRM and spyware, as well as trying to crack some commercial software to dig out secrets.
On the one hand you have to commend them for trying to keep a tight grip on this so it doesn't get out of hand. On the other, trying to enforce software patents is becoming more laughable all the time. Don't think for a second that any hacker or spammer is going to have any qualms about breaking copyrights. Let's face it, anyone who wants to crack your software to learn something is going to do it and there's precious little you can do to stop it. Except declare a police state. Gestapo anyone?
Because the dots allow for the delineation of the server(s) the content exists on. When you request a URL, you're not usually interacting with a lone server, but a server farm or some load-balanced server setup. The dot form of server name enables the routing of requests to the appropriate places more readily I think, since you can associate each variation (apache.slashdot.org, yro.slashdot.org, etc.) with a particular DNS entry, which can be altered as servers shift in and out due to conditions. I could see perhaps delineating thusly:
to provide a cleaner branch point for DNS lookups (go look on an 'org' DNS server for 'slashdot.yro'). Ultimately you don't want to make too radical a change because a lot of confusion will ensue. You also have to take into account the actual changes in infrastructure and code required to pull this off.
or something similarly inane, because ICANN can't seem to develop any self-control when it comes to TLDs. The whole idea behind DNS and TLDs was so people didn't have to remember to type in http://327.45.189.2/ all the time to get to their favorite web site. ICANN came along and took the original simple system and has been slowly obfuscating it to where pretty soon people will get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome just from typing in all these long names. Thank god for Google and bookmarks!
It's interesting to note that domains are starting to take on the character of USENET newsgroups as far as their length and complexity. Why not change the way domains are set up? Move the suffixes to prefixes:
I like the flow, as it's basically a tree, saying the site belongs to an organization, it's name (on the web anyway) is slashdot, and you're in the section marked 'yro', subsection 'articles'. Like the Dewey Decimal System for web sites. Make it part of one big Net-wide reorg, along with IPv6.
From InfoWorld: The opt-in technology will let TiVo subscribers use keyword searches to look for information on specific products or services.
This is a useful way of doing it. No more being bombarded by hundreds ads for things you don't want or need. Now you can search for the things you're looking for and avoid having to sit through the same repititious crap. This might even get advertisers to put as little more content in their commercials, rather than always going for the cheap laugh or worse, for these esoteric, avant-garde commercials where you're not sure what the product is, let alone why you should care. Mind you there a lot of really funny commercials out there and I'd hate to see that kind of creativity disappear, but when I'm looking specifically for a product, I need information more than laughs.
Why? Because bullies always pick on the little guy. Sure, they'll take on a divorced mom of 5! It beats admitting that their whole system is based on flawed logic, bad technology, and an outmoded system of copyrighting. Of course, now they'll be forced to admit most of this in open court, on the record. It should be interesting to see how their paid legal hacks try and discredit her.
As long as ISPs get penalized for every piece of SPAM they allow to float around, for every SPAMmer they allow to operate unhindered using their services, for every shady business or phishing site they allow to run unabated, and when Satan can skate on his swimming pool.
I read/send email to friends, family, and colleagues.
I buy items online.
My job includes web development, so I am constantly looking up information and building web pages and CGIs.
I find activities and events in my area using local search services.
I catch up on all my sports via sports websites.
Well, that's it... I'm an addict!
How do they control for the fact that more and more people are getting Internet access every day and those that have it are using it in more new and varied ways? Do they even really know how much time a person spends in "addictive" web use? Sure, if a guy is spending 16 hours a day downloading pr0n, then perhaps he has a problem. Same with the dude spending 45 hours straight playing World of Warcraft.
Addicition though is a heavy-handed designation. It means you're sick somehow. And frankly I see the Internet as a facilitator of current addicitions, not as an addiction in itself. If you're a gambler with a computer, you'll probably gravitate toward online casions, if you like titty bars then you'll probably like pr0n sites, etc.
As usual, people are ready to jump to conclusions without careful study. One study does not make a case. A lot more research needs to be done before anyone can make such an all-encompassing claim.
An army of programmers? I doubt they could beat the Swiss Army in a fair fight. But let's face it -- we all work with colleagues who are not too swift or aren't the world's brightest bulbs. So you take the numbers you find in a typical shop, maybe 15-20% hacks, and multiply that by the number of MS progs and you figure they have so many goobers on the payroll that they'll never get out from under their bugs!
There's really no way, once a program reaches a certain size, for bugs to be easily eliminated. The deeper and more complex the code gets, the smaller the margin of error. Add to that the intricacy of some code and occasionally fixing a bug is going to either take forever or worse, spawn more bugs.
That Microsoft can stay on top of what they have is remarkable; that their software doesn't burst into flames the first time you try to run it is astounding. Eventually the bug count is going to reach critical mass for IE and at that point they may just give up on it and start over. We hope.
I don't personally let myself be swayed by advertising. It only exists because they want you to buy their stuff but in most cases they can't explain too well what their stuff is or why I should actually care. I have not run out and bought an iPod just because of their slick commercials, no popup ever convinced me to buy an X10 camera, and I don't even pay attention to ads on web pages because the ones I have seen are mostly for crap no one wants.
IMHO, all that advertising money should be put back into products to make them longer-lasting, more efficient, durable, and above all, cheaper. Build a product I want that does what I want and I'll go buy it. Other than that, leave me alone.
I'm beginning to suspect that all these IE vulnerabilities are a marketing ploy. Let's face it, there's got to be 100 articles a week on IE vulnerabilities, keeping IE in front of everybody, while Firefox & Opera get so little coverage (except for maybe on/.). Of course if this is true, then it just goes to prove how genuinely stupid and useless marketing people really are...
Anyone who has hung out in NYC knows that electronics stores are a dime-a-dozen and anyone who is not a tourist who has had occasion to enter one of these stores knows that they suck you in with low prices displayed in the window and then try to pressure you into buying overpriced accessories. Oldest trick in the book. The tourists go in because they need something and wind up with several hundred dollars worth of crap they didn't need because hey, it ain't like this in Pocatello, Idaho!
So now these guys have moved into cyberspace and gee whiz, they're still doing it! Only now they're smarter, because they have your credit card info and they can just ring things up and leave you to do all the legwork to fight the bill. And they win, because not everyone has the guts to stick with it and nail their hide to the wall. In the end, enough people play sucker to make it profitable.
Simple rule: buy your electronics at a name-brand store. Don't buy it over the Internet unless you know the retailer (they have a website and you've shopped in their store before) or have researched them. Always contact the Better Business Bureau to see if their are complaints. Google them. Do a little work before you buy and you won't have this problem.
Is the phone company held liable if you threaten someone's life over the phone?
Does the company that actually printed a scandalous, tell-all book (not the publisher) have liability for its contents?
Let's face it, despite their best efforts, the anti-gun forces in this country are having a heck of a time getting lawsuits to stick trying to hold gun manufacturers liable for gun deaths. Should they be?
There comes a point where the system cannot be held responsible for the actions of the individual. If I decide to run over someone I hate with my car, should somebody be suing Saturn?
Wikipedia is a free medium and as such, while much of the content is probably clear and accurate, occassionally it is not. Mind you, there's no real way to tell from a Wikipedia article which case applies. Still, like they taught us in high school, when writing a report you need more than one source. Anyone who relies solely on information found on the Internet is just asking for trouble.
On the one hand, I sympathize with Mr. Seigenthaler, because if someone were using the Internet to spread bald-faced lies about me, I'd be pretty pissed. Mind you, I don't know if these are lies, as I'm taking his word for it, but that's where further research would come in. On the other hand, it's not like he has no recourse as several people have already pointed out. If he's got a web browser and some time he could edit the article and save some money on legal fees in the process.
Did this really need to be done? I already feel stupid enough with my Bluetooth wireless headset hanging off one ear, do I need to combine that with a Cyclops-inspired visor ("Optic blasts... FIRE!!!")? Why not just go the route of building a computer system in a motorcycle helmet with a head's-up display, powering it with the heat generated by the brain, and call it done?
Personally, I would suggest watching the news. And a cell phone. Much more useful than relying on the government considering their recent track record dealing with a certain storm.....
Yes, of course, the news! That fountain of unbiased and accurate information that would never blow a small thing out of proportion or perhaps rush to judgement based on a couple of "eyewitness reports" or "trusted sources".
Yes, maybe the government muffed Katrina, but that was a localized disaster. We're talking about something global in scope and the government is supposed to handle these things for us. The CDC happens to be one of the brighter spots in the goverment, but even they are occasionally hampered by bureaucracy. Still, they're better equipped to handle a disaster; I don't happen to have access to billions of dollars and warehouses of relief supplies or I'd do it myself.
All the government is likely to do is pick up the pieces. And probably make it worse by quarantining people...
Yes, and if we're having a global pandemic, the last thing we want to be doing is quarantining people. So inconvenient! If there's a pandemic on, I don't want anyone going anywhere unless we damned well know they're not going to spread something they have or pick up something they shouldn't have. The reason pandemics are as bad as they are is no one recognizes until much too late what's going and by then people are merrily spreading pathogens wherever they go.
You should write comments because some day you're not going to be doing your job anymore, perhaps because you started your own rock band, or won the lottery, or the company decided they could get someone cheaper to do your work. In any case, some unfortunate soul (and I've been this person more than once) has to come in and maintain and expand your code. And in most cases we're bright and we know our languages pretty well, but we can be a little slow on the uptake. In the end, we stare at your code and ask, simply: What the freak is going on here?!?!? Because we are not mind readers, and if we were, we probably wouldn't want to touch your mind because... ewwwwwwwww!
Does this mean you have to do this?:
my $i = 0; # initialize variable $i
No! We're not retarded... we think. But if it's not trivially obvious what you're doing somewhere in your code, please feel free to let us in on it. We would appreciate it.
In case anyone does not understand this, pandemics happen a lot more often than we realize. And with the world having shrunk significantly due to air travel, an unknown infectious disease can be everywhere in the world in 24-48 hours. This is especially frightening when you think there are actually drug-resistant strains of some diseases already out there.
So what's it going to be? I'm as paranoid as the next person, and I don't even give out information to cashiers at department stores, but I for one would welcome this kind of information being given to the CDC, especially if it could help me avoid getting into the middle of a pandemic, but more importantly giving my family a contact point if I'm actually in one. Given the virulence of some diseases nowadays, you could be dead within 72 hours and how would anyone know where you were or more importanly, how to get in touch with your relatives?
At some point we have to bite the bullet. Assuming it is organized and run by the CDC, the data kept securely, and the federal government can keep their hands off it, this will become an invaluable tool in preventing a world-wide health crisis. Let's just hope we don't get caught before anything can be implemented.
Congratulations, guys! I don't know whether you're spammers or not, but it takes talent to sound like a filthier bunch of domain-hijacking cockgobblers than the entire marketing department of Verisign.
From wadnd.com, the partial list of participants:
JEFF REYNOLDS (AmericanFlags.com) - American Flag vendor
RON SHERIDAN (Revenue.net) - Internet Marketer
BRIAN NULL (GolfCourses.com) - Golf course information
RON JACKSON (DNJoural.com) - Domain Name Journal
MARC OSTROFSKY (iREIT.com) - Internet Marketer
MARCIA LYNN WALKER (MyrtleBeachInc.com) - Internet Marketer
MONTE CAHN (Moniker.com) - Domain Name Registrar
Ok, maybe not household names, but all apparently have a beef with ICANN and VeriSign. And they have a point; there's a monopoly on the.com names on the Net, and those are the players. Maybe you don't like their business practices or their suits, but they've got just as much right to bitch about this as anyone. Of course they're deluded if they think they're going to win. From the look of their websites, they don't have enough cash between them to fight the good fight.
The equipment and software are bought and paid for; why would a compnay lay out good money for new, when the old is up, running, working, and allowing people to be productive? It's inconvenient when you come to work one day and they've decided to replace your desktop box or upgrade the software and you spend the better part of your work week reconfiguring your system to do everything your old system did, only to discover you can't go back. Then more time is wasted learning how to do things on the new system, setting configurations, reapplying you preferences, trnasferring files, and uploading software which you had but mysteriously was not placed on the new machine.
The bottom line: a company needs to be productive and constantly switching to newer and better systems/equipment is not cost effective in the long run, unless you can get 5-10 years out of it.
From Business Week: That's when F-Secure got into the act. Guarino sent an e-mail to the Finnish company, since it makes the rootkit-detector software that he used to investigate. F-Secure did its own investigation and notified Sony DADC, which manufactures Sony BMG CDs, on Oct. 4. Sony BMG says the e-mail, which was forwarded to it on Oct. 7, didn't signal a serious security issue.
Let's see: someone tells you that the software you are blithely putting on other people's computers has a security flaw, one that potentially leaves millions of machines vulnerable to attack, and that's not considered "serious"? I think we should all be grateful that the Sony's executives are not running the country... but then again, maybe they are?
Every frustrated, talentless, guitarist-wanna-be can now boot up and fill the air with cacophonic emanations that sound nothing like their axe-grinding heroes.
Slashdot Mirror
And so if you read this book you will get a microscopic and highly specialized view of programming in VB, minus all that unnecessary fluff like learning logic, pseudocoding, and documentation. Then you too can move to Redmond, get a good-paying job, and help create the newest set of flaws for IE, Office, Outlook and all other products in the ever-expanding Microsoft family of software!
All the discussion of the .xxx domain and UN governance of the Internet domains is a smokescreen for the real issue at the heart of all this: lack of true global consensus. Look at any issue affecting the planet - the spread of AIDS, global warming, terrorism, etc. On no issue can the governments of the world come to any understanding of the urgency of the problems laid before them. If it is not the industrialized world blocking things as being "too expensive" or "bad for the global economy" it's the poorer nations harping on "disenfranchisement" or "meddling in their affairs".
Let's be realistic: the industrialized nations of the world have the power to bring the Third World up to modern standards, provide food, clothing, education to all those who need it (including their own people), and create stability though enforcing freedoms. They don't. Why? Because of the constant denial that the problems of the world require immediate action. The UN spends an awful lot of time debating issues but creates little or no progress and meanwhile the problems continue to escalate. Then the rich members go home and complain to their countrymen about the relative ignorance of the poorer nations, while the poorer members go home and harp on how the richer nations are retarding their progress. The UN only servers as a generator of rhetoric. Nowhere was that more in evidence that the run-up to the secong Iraqi conflict.
As I see it, the Internet is the new battleground between the have and have-not nations. The haves do not wish to relinquish control of their cash cow and prefer to squabble over who runs it. The have-nots know they will continue to be have-nots as long as they are frozen out of control of their domains, retarding their ability to compete in the global marketplace, but cannot seem to come together to fight this battle on a united front. In the end we get endless squabbling, no consensus, and a hew and outcry that ICANN is a puppet front for the US. Until everyone can put aside their distrust and individual interests and see the mutually beneficial ways that the Internet can be put to good use, this can only lead a bitter road ahead.
This is the principle of the "Möbius blog", whereby the information is wholly one-sided and is repeated so often that it is taken for fact by anoyone reading it. As they move from link to link, their indoctrination in the rhetoric increases, with the theoretical maximum value being reached when they return to the original "source" blog. Once a "Möbius blog" is entered, the ability of the reader to avoid reading the next blog in the series decreases proportionately.
The "Möbius blog" is also know as "Internet journalism".
The fact is, the Copyright Office is doling out exemptions so sparingly becuase they don't want to encourage a flood of people to sign up for them. You know just about everyone would like an exemption, to hack away at DRM and spyware, as well as trying to crack some commercial software to dig out secrets.
On the one hand you have to commend them for trying to keep a tight grip on this so it doesn't get out of hand. On the other, trying to enforce software patents is becoming more laughable all the time. Don't think for a second that any hacker or spammer is going to have any qualms about breaking copyrights. Let's face it, anyone who wants to crack your software to learn something is going to do it and there's precious little you can do to stop it. Except declare a police state. Gestapo anyone?
Because the dots allow for the delineation of the server(s) the content exists on. When you request a URL, you're not usually interacting with a lone server, but a server farm or some load-balanced server setup. The dot form of server name enables the routing of requests to the appropriate places more readily I think, since you can associate each variation (apache.slashdot.org, yro.slashdot.org, etc.) with a particular DNS entry, which can be altered as servers shift in and out due to conditions. I could see perhaps delineating thusly:
http://org/slashdot.yro/directories/
to provide a cleaner branch point for DNS lookups (go look on an 'org' DNS server for 'slashdot.yro'). Ultimately you don't want to make too radical a change because a lot of confusion will ensue. You also have to take into account the actual changes in infrastructure and code required to pull this off.
The end result being something like:
http://www.rush.group.eighties.progrock.band/
or something similarly inane, because ICANN can't seem to develop any self-control when it comes to TLDs. The whole idea behind DNS and TLDs was so people didn't have to remember to type in http://327.45.189.2/ all the time to get to their favorite web site. ICANN came along and took the original simple system and has been slowly obfuscating it to where pretty soon people will get Carpal Tunnel Syndrome just from typing in all these long names. Thank god for Google and bookmarks!
It's interesting to note that domains are starting to take on the character of USENET newsgroups as far as their length and complexity. Why not change the way domains are set up? Move the suffixes to prefixes:
http://org.slashdot.yro/articles/...
I like the flow, as it's basically a tree, saying the site belongs to an organization, it's name (on the web anyway) is slashdot, and you're in the section marked 'yro', subsection 'articles'. Like the Dewey Decimal System for web sites. Make it part of one big Net-wide reorg, along with IPv6.
From InfoWorld: The opt-in technology will let TiVo subscribers use keyword searches to look for information on specific products or services.
This is a useful way of doing it. No more being bombarded by hundreds ads for things you don't want or need. Now you can search for the things you're looking for and avoid having to sit through the same repititious crap. This might even get advertisers to put as little more content in their commercials, rather than always going for the cheap laugh or worse, for these esoteric, avant-garde commercials where you're not sure what the product is, let alone why you should care. Mind you there a lot of really funny commercials out there and I'd hate to see that kind of creativity disappear, but when I'm looking specifically for a product, I need information more than laughs.
Sorry, but that URL is already in use by Google for their new pr0n site: Cockle.
Why? Because bullies always pick on the little guy. Sure, they'll take on a divorced mom of 5! It beats admitting that their whole system is based on flawed logic, bad technology, and an outmoded system of copyrighting. Of course, now they'll be forced to admit most of this in open court, on the record. It should be interesting to see how their paid legal hacks try and discredit her.
As long as ISPs get penalized for every piece of SPAM they allow to float around, for every SPAMmer they allow to operate unhindered using their services, for every shady business or phishing site they allow to run unabated, and when Satan can skate on his swimming pool.
Of course, so they can add it to their book-scanning repository
2) Scanning for pornography?Next up: Porngle or maybe Google PornBase
3) Scanning for insider trading information?Well how else do you think they make money? It's not like their shares are worth $400 or something!
4) Scanning for links to Google competitors?The search engine has eyes!
5) Reading your email to display relevant advertisements? (oh crap...)That's right, no more messy popups or banner ads... advertising content direct to you... GoogleSpam!
I use my computer for online banking.
I read/send email to friends, family, and colleagues.
I buy items online.
My job includes web development, so I am constantly looking up information and building web pages and CGIs.
I find activities and events in my area using local search services.
I catch up on all my sports via sports websites.
Well, that's it... I'm an addict!
How do they control for the fact that more and more people are getting Internet access every day and those that have it are using it in more new and varied ways? Do they even really know how much time a person spends in "addictive" web use? Sure, if a guy is spending 16 hours a day downloading pr0n, then perhaps he has a problem. Same with the dude spending 45 hours straight playing World of Warcraft.
Addicition though is a heavy-handed designation. It means you're sick somehow. And frankly I see the Internet as a facilitator of current addicitions, not as an addiction in itself. If you're a gambler with a computer, you'll probably gravitate toward online casions, if you like titty bars then you'll probably like pr0n sites, etc.
As usual, people are ready to jump to conclusions without careful study. One study does not make a case. A lot more research needs to be done before anyone can make such an all-encompassing claim.
An army of programmers? I doubt they could beat the Swiss Army in a fair fight. But let's face it -- we all work with colleagues who are not too swift or aren't the world's brightest bulbs. So you take the numbers you find in a typical shop, maybe 15-20% hacks, and multiply that by the number of MS progs and you figure they have so many goobers on the payroll that they'll never get out from under their bugs!
There's really no way, once a program reaches a certain size, for bugs to be easily eliminated. The deeper and more complex the code gets, the smaller the margin of error. Add to that the intricacy of some code and occasionally fixing a bug is going to either take forever or worse, spawn more bugs.
That Microsoft can stay on top of what they have is remarkable; that their software doesn't burst into flames the first time you try to run it is astounding. Eventually the bug count is going to reach critical mass for IE and at that point they may just give up on it and start over. We hope.
I don't personally let myself be swayed by advertising. It only exists because they want you to buy their stuff but in most cases they can't explain too well what their stuff is or why I should actually care. I have not run out and bought an iPod just because of their slick commercials, no popup ever convinced me to buy an X10 camera, and I don't even pay attention to ads on web pages because the ones I have seen are mostly for crap no one wants.
IMHO, all that advertising money should be put back into products to make them longer-lasting, more efficient, durable, and above all, cheaper. Build a product I want that does what I want and I'll go buy it. Other than that, leave me alone.
I'm beginning to suspect that all these IE vulnerabilities are a marketing ploy. Let's face it, there's got to be 100 articles a week on IE vulnerabilities, keeping IE in front of everybody, while Firefox & Opera get so little coverage (except for maybe on /.). Of course if this is true, then it just goes to prove how genuinely stupid and useless marketing people really are...
Anyone who has hung out in NYC knows that electronics stores are a dime-a-dozen and anyone who is not a tourist who has had occasion to enter one of these stores knows that they suck you in with low prices displayed in the window and then try to pressure you into buying overpriced accessories. Oldest trick in the book. The tourists go in because they need something and wind up with several hundred dollars worth of crap they didn't need because hey, it ain't like this in Pocatello, Idaho!
So now these guys have moved into cyberspace and gee whiz, they're still doing it! Only now they're smarter, because they have your credit card info and they can just ring things up and leave you to do all the legwork to fight the bill. And they win, because not everyone has the guts to stick with it and nail their hide to the wall. In the end, enough people play sucker to make it profitable.
Simple rule: buy your electronics at a name-brand store. Don't buy it over the Internet unless you know the retailer (they have a website and you've shopped in their store before) or have researched them. Always contact the Better Business Bureau to see if their are complaints. Google them. Do a little work before you buy and you won't have this problem.
Is the phone company held liable if you threaten someone's life over the phone?
Does the company that actually printed a scandalous, tell-all book (not the publisher) have liability for its contents?
Let's face it, despite their best efforts, the anti-gun forces in this country are having a heck of a time getting lawsuits to stick trying to hold gun manufacturers liable for gun deaths. Should they be?
There comes a point where the system cannot be held responsible for the actions of the individual. If I decide to run over someone I hate with my car, should somebody be suing Saturn?
Wikipedia is a free medium and as such, while much of the content is probably clear and accurate, occassionally it is not. Mind you, there's no real way to tell from a Wikipedia article which case applies. Still, like they taught us in high school, when writing a report you need more than one source. Anyone who relies solely on information found on the Internet is just asking for trouble.
On the one hand, I sympathize with Mr. Seigenthaler, because if someone were using the Internet to spread bald-faced lies about me, I'd be pretty pissed. Mind you, I don't know if these are lies, as I'm taking his word for it, but that's where further research would come in. On the other hand, it's not like he has no recourse as several people have already pointed out. If he's got a web browser and some time he could edit the article and save some money on legal fees in the process.
Did this really need to be done? I already feel stupid enough with my Bluetooth wireless headset hanging off one ear, do I need to combine that with a Cyclops-inspired visor ("Optic blasts... FIRE!!!")? Why not just go the route of building a computer system in a motorcycle helmet with a head's-up display, powering it with the heat generated by the brain, and call it done?
Are we all going to end up looking like the Borg?
Yes, of course, the news! That fountain of unbiased and accurate information that would never blow a small thing out of proportion or perhaps rush to judgement based on a couple of "eyewitness reports" or "trusted sources".
Yes, maybe the government muffed Katrina, but that was a localized disaster. We're talking about something global in scope and the government is supposed to handle these things for us. The CDC happens to be one of the brighter spots in the goverment, but even they are occasionally hampered by bureaucracy. Still, they're better equipped to handle a disaster; I don't happen to have access to billions of dollars and warehouses of relief supplies or I'd do it myself.
All the government is likely to do is pick up the pieces. And probably make it worse by quarantining people...Yes, and if we're having a global pandemic, the last thing we want to be doing is quarantining people. So inconvenient! If there's a pandemic on, I don't want anyone going anywhere unless we damned well know they're not going to spread something they have or pick up something they shouldn't have. The reason pandemics are as bad as they are is no one recognizes until much too late what's going and by then people are merrily spreading pathogens wherever they go.
You should write comments because some day you're not going to be doing your job anymore, perhaps because you started your own rock band, or won the lottery, or the company decided they could get someone cheaper to do your work. In any case, some unfortunate soul (and I've been this person more than once) has to come in and maintain and expand your code. And in most cases we're bright and we know our languages pretty well, but we can be a little slow on the uptake. In the end, we stare at your code and ask, simply: What the freak is going on here?!?!? Because we are not mind readers, and if we were, we probably wouldn't want to touch your mind because... ewwwwwwwww!
Does this mean you have to do this?:
my $i = 0; # initialize variable $i
No! We're not retarded... we think. But if it's not trivially obvious what you're doing somewhere in your code, please feel free to let us in on it. We would appreciate it.
In case anyone does not understand this, pandemics happen a lot more often than we realize. And with the world having shrunk significantly due to air travel, an unknown infectious disease can be everywhere in the world in 24-48 hours. This is especially frightening when you think there are actually drug-resistant strains of some diseases already out there.
So what's it going to be? I'm as paranoid as the next person, and I don't even give out information to cashiers at department stores, but I for one would welcome this kind of information being given to the CDC, especially if it could help me avoid getting into the middle of a pandemic, but more importantly giving my family a contact point if I'm actually in one. Given the virulence of some diseases nowadays, you could be dead within 72 hours and how would anyone know where you were or more importanly, how to get in touch with your relatives?
At some point we have to bite the bullet. Assuming it is organized and run by the CDC, the data kept securely, and the federal government can keep their hands off it, this will become an invaluable tool in preventing a world-wide health crisis. Let's just hope we don't get caught before anything can be implemented.
From wadnd.com, the partial list of participants:
Ok, maybe not household names, but all apparently have a beef with ICANN and VeriSign. And they have a point; there's a monopoly on the .com names on the Net, and those are the players. Maybe you don't like their business practices or their suits, but they've got just as much right to bitch about this as anyone. Of course they're deluded if they think they're going to win. From the look of their websites, they don't have enough cash between them to fight the good fight.
The equipment and software are bought and paid for; why would a compnay lay out good money for new, when the old is up, running, working, and allowing people to be productive? It's inconvenient when you come to work one day and they've decided to replace your desktop box or upgrade the software and you spend the better part of your work week reconfiguring your system to do everything your old system did, only to discover you can't go back. Then more time is wasted learning how to do things on the new system, setting configurations, reapplying you preferences, trnasferring files, and uploading software which you had but mysteriously was not placed on the new machine.
The bottom line: a company needs to be productive and constantly switching to newer and better systems/equipment is not cost effective in the long run, unless you can get 5-10 years out of it.
From Business Week: That's when F-Secure got into the act. Guarino sent an e-mail to the Finnish company, since it makes the rootkit-detector software that he used to investigate. F-Secure did its own investigation and notified Sony DADC, which manufactures Sony BMG CDs, on Oct. 4. Sony BMG says the e-mail, which was forwarded to it on Oct. 7, didn't signal a serious security issue.
Let's see: someone tells you that the software you are blithely putting on other people's computers has a security flaw, one that potentially leaves millions of machines vulnerable to attack, and that's not considered "serious"? I think we should all be grateful that the Sony's executives are not running the country... but then again, maybe they are?
Every frustrated, talentless, guitarist-wanna-be can now boot up and fill the air with cacophonic emanations that sound nothing like their axe-grinding heroes.
Where do I get one?