Buy two hammers separately. Make sure they are identical. Make sure you also have two receipts.
Next time someone misplaces your stuff, use one hammer to break their hand. If the skin breaks and blood gets on the hammer, throw it in your neighbor's yard and find a way to plant the receipt over there.
When the police come to find you, explain that you found your spouse, kid, dog, whatever in a crazed state with broken fingers. They must be hallucinating because they are blaming you. Hey, look at that! Maybe your neighbor just went inside, and, oh my god, there's a bloody hammer right next to his birdbath! Well, case closed, officer.
Worse than that, actually. If you try to delete qttray.exe, the quicklauncher app that sits in the task tray and eats up memory for no other reason than giving QT a minor boost on startup, the quicktime application will detect this on system reboot (because it is registered as a startup application) and recreate the qttray.exe executable file from a stored version somewhere in its own bowels.
That's right. If you delete qttray, Quicktime opens its maw and barfs up a new version of it. Then it turns it on and puts it back in the task tray.
To take that idea a step further, how should scripts that rely on a runtime be restricted? Let's say Perl is installed, and it requests full system access at installation. When you run a script that erases the hard drive, should it automatically run at the Perl permission level? Or should it run at the user level without automatically gaining Perl's permission level? Or should a text file be considered "executable" and require installation as well?
I agree that installed apps should not ever bring up the UAC. And that getting over the legacy app problem is a huge hurdle for MS.
This is key. Any OS which can run 3rd party code is vulnerable to malware. Whether the damage is restricted to the single running user or can damage anything the OS allows it to, software written for the express purpose of breaking something will work correctly given the right privileges.
So it doesn't matter if you're on Mac, Windows, or Unix, if you run code that is intent on deleting something and you give it the right permissions, it will do it.
There are various levels of protection you can offer here.
0. Let the malicious code run wild without any permission barriers 1. Run the malicious code as root 2. Run the malicious code as current user 3. Run the malicious code as special unprivileged user 4. Run the malicious code for privileged APIs and stop the malicious code on unprivileged APIs 5. Run the malicious code in a sandbox 6. Run only "signed" code 7. Do not run non-preinstalled software
As the levels go higher, the more hassle it is for users to install new software. Obviously we don't want to go back to DOS and level 0. And we've seen what happens when we run with level 1 restrictions. Running code at level 2 is a possibility, but it also leaves the user open to localized damage, specifically damage to their own accounts and data.
Microsoft decided that for their systems, a compromise between level 2 and level 1 was necessary. And in order to do anything to the system as a whole, UAC was implemented to request a means to elevate user privileges temporarily.
It's an ugly, annoying dialog, but what is the alternative? If you (the general 'you') think that another system does this better, in what ways specifically do you feel the system provides an adequate amount of protection and flexibility?
Of all the desktop OSes it's only the ones made by MicroSoft have this problem.
First, are we talking about *all* Microsoft operating systems? I'm not. I'm only talking about Vista because it is the only consumer desktop OS by Microsoft that has UAC.
Second, are you saying that OSX, "any Linux", and BSD distro will install anything, without warning, automatically, and without root privileges? If so, that sounds like exactly the problem that UAC was intended to stop. UAC exists to temporarily raise the current user's privilege level in such a way that at the very least the user is informed and prompted for confirmation. This is akin to sudo on Unix-like systems.
Are you seriously arguing that prompting the user is only something that happens on Windows?
The user would still be vulnerable to regular hosings due to malicious programs having full reign on all the user's stuff. Even if the damage is restricted to the one user, who wants to be that user?
It's definitely a good start, but local program installation without user notification still presents the same problems (though to a lesser degree of damage) as running as administrator or root all the time.
Let's say that the UAC is a mistake and users should be 1) prevented from installing programs blindly, 2) not informed when a program is attempting to run without authorization.
How would you design a system that fulfilled the two items above while still allowing the flexibility to actually install programs when desired?
Japanese engineers are pricing themselves out of work. The fact of the matter is that it is that the insular tendencies of Japanese companies is pretty much the only thing keeping Japanese engineers in Japan. Any and all the work can be shipped overseas, but due to the Japanese belief in the higher quality of nationally produced goods, there are still engineering jobs in Japan.
However, because the work is hard and the demand for quality is so high and international competitive pressure works to keep the prices low, engineers are forced to work long hours for relatively low pay. Worse, Japanese engineers are typically paid worse than foreign counterparts, especially those from overseas. The hierarchical structure of Japanese companies which puts engineers at the very bottom of the pile guarantees that any "company man" engineer will never rise very far in the company system.
This is a big problem in the United States as well, though not necessarily in the computer industry. What is ironic is that the Japanese put their finger on the problem almost 10 years ago when they claimed that Americans are overpaid and lazy. Due to those two traits, countries that have been industrious and have low wages have been able to siphon most of the manufacturing jobs from the U.S. Now it is Japan who is fighting tooth and nail against the onslaught of Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Indian knowledge workers as well as factories across southeast Asia. These upstarts have low cost and reasonable quality. And to compete, Japanese engineers take the brunt.
Maybe I'm the only one missing the big picture, and in turn, the boat on web advertisements. I just don't get it anymore. It seems like such a waste of money to put up web ads when the average web user simply ignores them and the advanced users block them completely.
Media companies have grown huge on advertising, but they have also spent huge sums to produce and purchase programming that attracted viewers. Online content is nowhere nearly as expensive to produce, and the target web audience is much smaller than TV audiences. I just don't see how online advertising can carry a company much farther than they've already come.
I just don't get it. It seems like anyone trying to sell online advertising space is trying to squeeze pennies out of sheep. For all the effort going in to providing these online advertising spaces, I just can't imagine the payoff being that great.
From Wikipedia: The dark matter component has vastly more mass than the "visible" component of the universe
From the summary: there is about 20 percent more mass in stars than previously thought
Even if we assume that "vastly more mass" means 51% of all mass in the universe, we still have the problem of a lot of missing mass even with the increased estimations of stellar mass and interstellar dust.
This study may increase our precision in our calculations of universe mass, but it is by no means eliminating dark matter as a theory.
Dark matter is non-interacting. It only exerts a gravitational force. It would not obscure the light of galaxies (except to bend the light through gravitious pull).
When I's a kid growing up in Kansas, we used t' rent out the upper room to boarders at a reasonable price. This helpt us git our bills paid and gave us poor farmers some company on those long summer nights. Twasn't like we were usin' the upstairs room.
Except for hubris, I don't see the real benefit in holding on to all that real estate if all they are going to do is slowly bleed to death. If they put the land to work for them, by renting it out as office space, they could probably make enough to keep a smaller museum running.
But what do I know about those English? All I know is that when I go into the bathroom, I'm American. When I come out, I'm American again.
Would you consider the inclusion of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Road as static? Are you sure you aren't conflating Oprah's fanbase with her booklist choices?
The problem I have with all of this is that we simply don't have very much evidence to go on as spectators. If someone was being brought up on trumped up charges, it would make a difference to me whether he was Fred Phelps or Fre Rogers. Justice should be blind, but sometimes taking the blindfold off and snuffing out truly vile people for the sake of the rest of us.
There isn't enough information at all about Tariq that is easily available, so we don't know if he was just bad mouthing Assad or if he was organizing assassination attempts on the President. Without context, I guess we should just cry for Free (as in Speech) Speech.
I believe there is a huge undercurrent here which desires a more free exchange of ideas. It isn't the members of the Slashdot community that I think are at fault but the badly formulated rewards system that shapes the communication into a very specific pattern.
Posts like my original one are an anomaly and express what many people feel, so it gets modded up. But if you were watching my karma, you'd see that it dropped from Excellent to Positive due to the moderations on this post. What looks like positive (+4 Informative!) moderation is actually negatively affecting my karma, and thus my ability to post (when the moderations reach a certain threshold).
It's the attempt to shape the posts that I think really hurts the "Slashdot experience" and gives outsiders the not-so-incorrect stereotype of the angry Linux system administrator Slashbot. The stereotype's been around a long time, but it has really taken hold as reality (at least as posts go) since the introduction of the new moderation point rules.
Ah, but it isn't something that you are constantly focusing on. It is rather something that is filling in gaps in your concentration. It is not something that you are actively sitting and concentrating on (at least in the normal, everyday manner in which music is consumed*), so it is more like the color of paint on your walls. It may be worth something to change it, but in itself it is relatively worthless.
* excluding concerts and other activities that require significant concentration on the music itself. This is a relatively infrequent activity compared to the normal methods of listening to music.
I've wondered if music, despite our need for it, is just a passive enjoyment source. What I mean is that it takes no energy at all to simply have background music play while we are actively engaged in something else. Through this, the value of music is diminished to the point of zero because in the end anything will do.
Contrast this with TV or movies which require a much more concentrated effort to enjoy. While there are certainly some TV shows which you can tune out for half an hour and not miss anything, in general watching the boobtube means imposing a restriction on your activities for that time period. Because of this, the value of TV and visual media is perceived higher than music.
With the advent of on-demand television/movies, the value of TV and movies drops considerably lower. While still higher than zero due to the inability to produce shows of any quality immediately (as would be possible with music throughhumming to yourself or singing in the shower), the value is lower due to the loss of time restriction. Whereas you would have to assign a timeslot to watch TV, now you can pick it up any time, even to the extent that video playback was just background noise.
What's more, once viewers stop paying attention to anything they aren't really interested in, advertisers are going to start clamoring for both more technical restrictions built into the device and more in-line advertising (through advertisement bars and in-show placements).
Okay, this is the third thread in a row on the front page that has been nothing more than an overblown opinion piece or random uninteresting conference coverage. I don't think anyone is really going to be disenfranchised if I take a detour from our regularly scheduled wankfest and open up the floor to Slashdot gripes.
Slashdot has changed a lot since I first logged on here so many years ago. And while I don't expect a site to be static, I do expect that it evolve to preserve the good features and remove the bad features. Slashdot has, in my opinion, done a relatively good job of retaining its "flavor", but it has done a terrible job in preserving the "Slashdot Community". I am interested in your opinion of this, as well as concrete examples of either ways Slashdot has done a good job, in your opinion, or has hurt the community through their bad decisions.
One of the biggest regressive changes was the decision to make Funny moderations worthless, thereby turning funny posts and comments into karma sinks. This has fundamentally shaped the tone of Slashdot comments into a much less humorous form. Slashdot has evolved, through this one action, into a community of sour-faced monks. Such a community makes me wonder why I want to still be a part of it.
Many other changes here at Slashdot have resulted these types of feelings, and if you have an opinion, please feel free to post it in this thread. Be aware, though, that this thread (at least this post) will be modded to -1, so if you can't spare the karma, you may want to move on quietly.
What changes have you seen to Slashdot that have diminished your enjoyment of this site?
Slashdot Mirror
Buy two hammers separately. Make sure they are identical. Make sure you also have two receipts.
Next time someone misplaces your stuff, use one hammer to break their hand. If the skin breaks and blood gets on the hammer, throw it in your neighbor's yard and find a way to plant the receipt over there.
When the police come to find you, explain that you found your spouse, kid, dog, whatever in a crazed state with broken fingers. They must be hallucinating because they are blaming you. Hey, look at that! Maybe your neighbor just went inside, and, oh my god, there's a bloody hammer right next to his birdbath! Well, case closed, officer.
You'll never have anything misplaced again.
Why should I change my usage? They're the ones that suck.
Worse than that, actually. If you try to delete qttray.exe, the quicklauncher app that sits in the task tray and eats up memory for no other reason than giving QT a minor boost on startup, the quicktime application will detect this on system reboot (because it is registered as a startup application) and recreate the qttray.exe executable file from a stored version somewhere in its own bowels.
That's right. If you delete qttray, Quicktime opens its maw and barfs up a new version of it. Then it turns it on and puts it back in the task tray.
To take that idea a step further, how should scripts that rely on a runtime be restricted? Let's say Perl is installed, and it requests full system access at installation. When you run a script that erases the hard drive, should it automatically run at the Perl permission level? Or should it run at the user level without automatically gaining Perl's permission level? Or should a text file be considered "executable" and require installation as well?
I agree that installed apps should not ever bring up the UAC. And that getting over the legacy app problem is a huge hurdle for MS.
it is immune from malware
This is key. Any OS which can run 3rd party code is vulnerable to malware. Whether the damage is restricted to the single running user or can damage anything the OS allows it to, software written for the express purpose of breaking something will work correctly given the right privileges.
So it doesn't matter if you're on Mac, Windows, or Unix, if you run code that is intent on deleting something and you give it the right permissions, it will do it.
There are various levels of protection you can offer here.
0. Let the malicious code run wild without any permission barriers
1. Run the malicious code as root
2. Run the malicious code as current user
3. Run the malicious code as special unprivileged user
4. Run the malicious code for privileged APIs and stop the malicious code on unprivileged APIs
5. Run the malicious code in a sandbox
6. Run only "signed" code
7. Do not run non-preinstalled software
As the levels go higher, the more hassle it is for users to install new software. Obviously we don't want to go back to DOS and level 0. And we've seen what happens when we run with level 1 restrictions. Running code at level 2 is a possibility, but it also leaves the user open to localized damage, specifically damage to their own accounts and data.
Microsoft decided that for their systems, a compromise between level 2 and level 1 was necessary. And in order to do anything to the system as a whole, UAC was implemented to request a means to elevate user privileges temporarily.
It's an ugly, annoying dialog, but what is the alternative? If you (the general 'you') think that another system does this better, in what ways specifically do you feel the system provides an adequate amount of protection and flexibility?
Of all the desktop OSes it's only the ones made by MicroSoft have this problem.
First, are we talking about *all* Microsoft operating systems? I'm not. I'm only talking about Vista because it is the only consumer desktop OS by Microsoft that has UAC.
Second, are you saying that OSX, "any Linux", and BSD distro will install anything, without warning, automatically, and without root privileges? If so, that sounds like exactly the problem that UAC was intended to stop. UAC exists to temporarily raise the current user's privilege level in such a way that at the very least the user is informed and prompted for confirmation. This is akin to sudo on Unix-like systems.
Are you seriously arguing that prompting the user is only something that happens on Windows?
The user would still be vulnerable to regular hosings due to malicious programs having full reign on all the user's stuff. Even if the damage is restricted to the one user, who wants to be that user?
It's definitely a good start, but local program installation without user notification still presents the same problems (though to a lesser degree of damage) as running as administrator or root all the time.
Let's say that the UAC is a mistake and users should be 1) prevented from installing programs blindly, 2) not informed when a program is attempting to run without authorization.
How would you design a system that fulfilled the two items above while still allowing the flexibility to actually install programs when desired?
called "freeters," for some reason
Short for "free timers".
Japanese engineers are pricing themselves out of work. The fact of the matter is that it is that the insular tendencies of Japanese companies is pretty much the only thing keeping Japanese engineers in Japan. Any and all the work can be shipped overseas, but due to the Japanese belief in the higher quality of nationally produced goods, there are still engineering jobs in Japan.
However, because the work is hard and the demand for quality is so high and international competitive pressure works to keep the prices low, engineers are forced to work long hours for relatively low pay. Worse, Japanese engineers are typically paid worse than foreign counterparts, especially those from overseas. The hierarchical structure of Japanese companies which puts engineers at the very bottom of the pile guarantees that any "company man" engineer will never rise very far in the company system.
This is a big problem in the United States as well, though not necessarily in the computer industry. What is ironic is that the Japanese put their finger on the problem almost 10 years ago when they claimed that Americans are overpaid and lazy. Due to those two traits, countries that have been industrious and have low wages have been able to siphon most of the manufacturing jobs from the U.S. Now it is Japan who is fighting tooth and nail against the onslaught of Chinese, Korean, Taiwanese, and Indian knowledge workers as well as factories across southeast Asia. These upstarts have low cost and reasonable quality. And to compete, Japanese engineers take the brunt.
Maybe I'm the only one missing the big picture, and in turn, the boat on web advertisements. I just don't get it anymore. It seems like such a waste of money to put up web ads when the average web user simply ignores them and the advanced users block them completely.
Media companies have grown huge on advertising, but they have also spent huge sums to produce and purchase programming that attracted viewers. Online content is nowhere nearly as expensive to produce, and the target web audience is much smaller than TV audiences. I just don't see how online advertising can carry a company much farther than they've already come.
I just don't get it. It seems like anyone trying to sell online advertising space is trying to squeeze pennies out of sheep. For all the effort going in to providing these online advertising spaces, I just can't imagine the payoff being that great.
From Wikipedia: The dark matter component has vastly more mass than the "visible" component of the universe
From the summary: there is about 20 percent more mass in stars than previously thought
Even if we assume that "vastly more mass" means 51% of all mass in the universe, we still have the problem of a lot of missing mass even with the increased estimations of stellar mass and interstellar dust.
This study may increase our precision in our calculations of universe mass, but it is by no means eliminating dark matter as a theory.
Dark matter is non-interacting. It only exerts a gravitational force. It would not obscure the light of galaxies (except to bend the light through gravitious pull).
Terrible!
a pet idea
Oh man, that gives me a great product idea. Thanks!
When I's a kid growing up in Kansas, we used t' rent out the upper room to boarders at a reasonable price. This helpt us git our bills paid and gave us poor farmers some company on those long summer nights. Twasn't like we were usin' the upstairs room.
Except for hubris, I don't see the real benefit in holding on to all that real estate if all they are going to do is slowly bleed to death. If they put the land to work for them, by renting it out as office space, they could probably make enough to keep a smaller museum running.
But what do I know about those English? All I know is that when I go into the bathroom, I'm American. When I come out, I'm American again.
Where do you find good sci-fi that's also a good book?
Kurt Vonnegut. *
Would you consider the inclusion of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book The Road as static? Are you sure you aren't conflating Oprah's fanbase with her booklist choices?
Better story about Tariq Bayassi here:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.almarfaa.net%2F%3Fp%3D117
His "Free Tariq" site:
http://209.85.171.104/translate_c?hl=en&u=http://ahmadblogs.net/freetariq
The problem I have with all of this is that we simply don't have very much evidence to go on as spectators. If someone was being brought up on trumped up charges, it would make a difference to me whether he was Fred Phelps or Fre Rogers. Justice should be blind, but sometimes taking the blindfold off and snuffing out truly vile people for the sake of the rest of us.
There isn't enough information at all about Tariq that is easily available, so we don't know if he was just bad mouthing Assad or if he was organizing assassination attempts on the President. Without context, I guess we should just cry for Free (as in Speech) Speech.
I believe there is a huge undercurrent here which desires a more free exchange of ideas. It isn't the members of the Slashdot community that I think are at fault but the badly formulated rewards system that shapes the communication into a very specific pattern.
Posts like my original one are an anomaly and express what many people feel, so it gets modded up. But if you were watching my karma, you'd see that it dropped from Excellent to Positive due to the moderations on this post. What looks like positive (+4 Informative!) moderation is actually negatively affecting my karma, and thus my ability to post (when the moderations reach a certain threshold).
It's the attempt to shape the posts that I think really hurts the "Slashdot experience" and gives outsiders the not-so-incorrect stereotype of the angry Linux system administrator Slashbot. The stereotype's been around a long time, but it has really taken hold as reality (at least as posts go) since the introduction of the new moderation point rules.
Ah, but it isn't something that you are constantly focusing on. It is rather something that is filling in gaps in your concentration. It is not something that you are actively sitting and concentrating on (at least in the normal, everyday manner in which music is consumed*), so it is more like the color of paint on your walls. It may be worth something to change it, but in itself it is relatively worthless.
* excluding concerts and other activities that require significant concentration on the music itself. This is a relatively infrequent activity compared to the normal methods of listening to music.
I've wondered if music, despite our need for it, is just a passive enjoyment source. What I mean is that it takes no energy at all to simply have background music play while we are actively engaged in something else. Through this, the value of music is diminished to the point of zero because in the end anything will do.
Contrast this with TV or movies which require a much more concentrated effort to enjoy. While there are certainly some TV shows which you can tune out for half an hour and not miss anything, in general watching the boobtube means imposing a restriction on your activities for that time period. Because of this, the value of TV and visual media is perceived higher than music.
With the advent of on-demand television/movies, the value of TV and movies drops considerably lower. While still higher than zero due to the inability to produce shows of any quality immediately (as would be possible with music throughhumming to yourself or singing in the shower), the value is lower due to the loss of time restriction. Whereas you would have to assign a timeslot to watch TV, now you can pick it up any time, even to the extent that video playback was just background noise.
What's more, once viewers stop paying attention to anything they aren't really interested in, advertisers are going to start clamoring for both more technical restrictions built into the device and more in-line advertising (through advertisement bars and in-show placements).
The future is going to suck for TV.
I'm just a guy pissing on the lawn in the rain.
Okay, this is the third thread in a row on the front page that has been nothing more than an overblown opinion piece or random uninteresting conference coverage. I don't think anyone is really going to be disenfranchised if I take a detour from our regularly scheduled wankfest and open up the floor to Slashdot gripes.
Slashdot has changed a lot since I first logged on here so many years ago. And while I don't expect a site to be static, I do expect that it evolve to preserve the good features and remove the bad features. Slashdot has, in my opinion, done a relatively good job of retaining its "flavor", but it has done a terrible job in preserving the "Slashdot Community". I am interested in your opinion of this, as well as concrete examples of either ways Slashdot has done a good job, in your opinion, or has hurt the community through their bad decisions.
One of the biggest regressive changes was the decision to make Funny moderations worthless, thereby turning funny posts and comments into karma sinks. This has fundamentally shaped the tone of Slashdot comments into a much less humorous form. Slashdot has evolved, through this one action, into a community of sour-faced monks. Such a community makes me wonder why I want to still be a part of it.
Many other changes here at Slashdot have resulted these types of feelings, and if you have an opinion, please feel free to post it in this thread. Be aware, though, that this thread (at least this post) will be modded to -1, so if you can't spare the karma, you may want to move on quietly.
What changes have you seen to Slashdot that have diminished your enjoyment of this site?
"help! I'm stuck! Someone open the case!"