finally, they've found out what was missing from the promise of a low-energy, low-heat, ultra-fast future in optical computing: Moving parts!
The security lie
on
R.I.P. FTP
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Once you have discovered you are infected, the ONLY way to be safe is to assume that you have also been infected in at least 100 other, undiscovered, ways. Security companies like to sell the lie of "buy our product! Be safe! And if something slips through, just hit "delete" and be safe again!" but it really doesn't work like that: If there's one, there's three, and those three turn into a hundred very easily.
The only way to be safe is not "buy some guy's security software" (you're machine's been compromised, how the hell is running something else on the same machine supposed to help??), it's "reformat, treat every backed-up file as compromised". Sad, annoying, true.
In summary: when you found out you were infected, you did the equivalent of nothing at all, then were surprised when a password was stolen several months later.
People die. That's a fact you need to work into any business decisions that have impact for more than 10 years.
To replace people, you need new people. And new people like to work with new technology. Mainframes (the hardware) do their job damn well, but mainframes (the software) are stuck so far in the past you can't even see it. A memory that will always stick with me is seeing a nervous girl fresh out of college (maybe even in college) trying to explain to a room full of 60-year-olds an exciting new feature of the next release of COBOL- which I'm almost entirely sure was: A "FOR" LOOP (it may have even been a "for each" loop)
the software doesn't work because the software is good. It's not. The software works because so much is riding on it working- it's tested a LOT more than anything released on the web. A website has an error, the people viewing that page are inconvenienced for five minutes while someone responds to an e-mail and removes a stray semicolon. A ten-thousand-transactions-per-second program has an error, and you've got problems.
I assume I couldn't stand to work on a large COBOL project, but this is because every large COBOL project I've seen has been managed the same way it would be 35 years ago. Just because the language needs to be backwards-compatible doesn't mean the way you write and manage it needs to be, but "old talent" means "old mindsets" and "old mindsets" means "very resistant to change".
Yes, software can be modeled mathematically. You can write good software by using strict mathematical reasoning. But not all software is mathematical. A lot of it is procedural./most/ of it is procedural, really. You can re-write any computer program to fit an ideal mathematical model, but that doesn't make the method by which I chose to sort (that is, all the things that went into generating the number that eventually goes into sort()) returned prices this morning any more a derivable and beautiful fundamental truth of the universe than creating a mathematical model of an airplane wing makes that non-patentable. (And you'll be hard pressed to create a patent-worthy airplane wing design nowadays without doing so, for that matter).
Because in order for the Client-Server architecture to be useful, a user expects the X App to be a constantly-running server, to which a Display client can connect in order to view it. Display disconnections should be everyday events, not errors, and multiple display connections should be possible without ugly workarounds.
Think about it: The client (XApp) initiates the conversation with the server (Interface, including the Monitor, Mouse, and Keyboard). The server tells the client what to do, and the client sends replies (what to draw) back to the server. That's backwards.
COBOL is still here, so I can't depend on that argument too well.
As for "as standard as HTML", there's a simple test to see if that's true. It's completely anecdotal, but "in my experience:"
In every company I've worked in, whenever we were writing queries (queries that had to run on multiple systems), we ALWAYS looked at each DB's documentation individually, and ALMOST ALWAYS needed to add at least a switch() for what the database we were talking to was. (I can't actually think off-hand of any query which didn't have such a thing, but I'm assuming one probably existed)
In every company I've worked in, whenever we were writing HTML (HTML that needed to render correctly on multiple systems, hell, even some that technically didn't) we ALWAYS looked at general information online and ALMOST ALWAYS didn't need to worry about what browser the page was written about. (Note that this is talking about HTML, not CSS or Javascript, which IE shits all over. Even for those, we can rely on standards for day-to-day things at least 98% of the time, without looking anything up.)
Look up any "help me with this query!" whine on a forum, it will almost ALWAYS be for a specific database. Look for the same for HTML, and it will almost ALWAYS be talking about general information.
That seems to talk about the reverse of what you're saying. That is, not the opposite, but saying "shooting people in the face tends to make people not perform in major league sporting events" does NOT imply "not shooting people in the face tends to make people perform in major league sporting events"
interesting theory you have there. So, all people who engage in any activities which have risk associated with them only do so because they are unaware of the risks, therefor all risk-based activities are scams and should be illegal?
SQL syntax sucks, is inconsistent, and just non-standard enough at its corners that it's completely annoying to write anything for more than one DB. Also lacks various features which logically _should_ be there, because of the relational back-end. SQL is a toy, and though I'm the guy everyone in the office turns to if they want to write a query that does more than SELECT * FROM sometable, that doesn't mean I have to like it.
But that's not the fault of relational databases. The relational logic makes sense, and we'll be seeing it referenced in countless "new ideas" that come along for years, just as ideas which Lisp already had in 1970 will be touted a new features on for the next millennium (you hear? PHP can do Lambda functions as of yesterday!)
SQL sucks, but SQL is NOT what makes something relational.
Anyway, the only reason you don't kill an infant is that he/she will grow up?
Yes, this is why our society has established a taboo around killing infants. Are you seriously arguing that there is any other reason for not killing infants? I'm not trying to downplay the important of that reason, but yeah, it's the reason we don't kill babies. It's the reason we consider them people instead of property: they have the potential to turn into people.
I'm too much of an optimist to go slaughtering babies with potentially curable problems just because they're inconvenient, but to deny "we don't kill babies because babies turn into people" as an absolute fact (which stands completely by itself without the support of any other reasons) is beyond stupid.
the open-source solutions to anti-virus:
solution 1) bury head in sand, pretend viruses don't exist and will never attack your systems
solution 2) stand naked directly in the path of oncoming viruses, with the attitude that no virus could possibly harm you.
I would much rather they just not have released it until it could do more than "a button push, but you flail instead of tap a button". Yeah, we'd have waited even longer for project Natal, but I really don't think we would have missed vague family flailing for three years while the kinks got worked out.
This will become more and more common, and then eventually the whole concept of "here's a random image of an unrelated happy family! BUY OUR PRODUCT!" will fall out of favor.
When it's just a random image, sure, it's stupid but apparently gets the message across. When it's just a truly random image from the internet... would you buy from/b/? I mean, for reasons other than lulz?
I've had a cough for about eight years now. Is there a secret code word I can use to say "No, really, I _have_ looked into this before, several doctors have, and it's probably not horses because they've given me medication for horses and it doesn't work. Maybe it's zebras? I'm not supposed to be the one coming up with ideas, here. No, I don't want zebra medication, I'm just saying I want you to actually look into this, take some blood or ask a couple or non-basic questions. Can I please actually be diagnosed instead of given whatever samples of allergy medication [with the same active ingredient and a newer more-relaxing name!] got dropped off by a salesperson last week and that I really don't need?"
See, It's fine if 10% of people get screwed over the first time, but if 10% of people get screwed over the first time and have no way of saying "that didn't work, I'd like the non-statistical one now, please", that doesn't work.
Minority Report, well known as a huge SciFi future-wank that did pretty much nothing but act as an excuse to show off random imaginings of what the neato future might hold, had Tom Cruise using a stupid awkward light-up glove when using a motion-tracking input device. Natal can easily do the same thing simply by looking at you, today
The expectation was for it to be at least as funny as the least-funny Futurama episode. Name one thing in any previous Futurama episode which is less-funny than Nudar.
Slashdot Mirror
finally, they've found out what was missing from the promise of a low-energy, low-heat, ultra-fast future in optical computing: Moving parts!
Once you have discovered you are infected, the ONLY way to be safe is to assume that you have also been infected in at least 100 other, undiscovered, ways.
Security companies like to sell the lie of "buy our product! Be safe! And if something slips through, just hit "delete" and be safe again!" but it really doesn't work like that: If there's one, there's three, and those three turn into a hundred very easily.
The only way to be safe is not "buy some guy's security software" (you're machine's been compromised, how the hell is running something else on the same machine supposed to help??), it's "reformat, treat every backed-up file as compromised". Sad, annoying, true.
In summary: when you found out you were infected, you did the equivalent of nothing at all, then were surprised when a password was stolen several months later.
I just rezzed an exploding dildo! Wooo!
People die. That's a fact you need to work into any business decisions that have impact for more than 10 years.
To replace people, you need new people. And new people like to work with new technology. Mainframes (the hardware) do their job damn well, but mainframes (the software) are stuck so far in the past you can't even see it. A memory that will always stick with me is seeing a nervous girl fresh out of college (maybe even in college) trying to explain to a room full of 60-year-olds an exciting new feature of the next release of COBOL- which I'm almost entirely sure was: A "FOR" LOOP (it may have even been a "for each" loop)
the software doesn't work because the software is good. It's not. The software works because so much is riding on it working- it's tested a LOT more than anything released on the web.
A website has an error, the people viewing that page are inconvenienced for five minutes while someone responds to an e-mail and removes a stray semicolon. A ten-thousand-transactions-per-second program has an error, and you've got problems.
I assume I couldn't stand to work on a large COBOL project, but this is because every large COBOL project I've seen has been managed the same way it would be 35 years ago. Just because the language needs to be backwards-compatible doesn't mean the way you write and manage it needs to be, but "old talent" means "old mindsets" and "old mindsets" means "very resistant to change".
anything not written in LISP. And then some.
Yes, software can be modeled mathematically. You can write good software by using strict mathematical reasoning. /most/ of it is procedural, really. You can re-write any computer program to fit an ideal mathematical model, but that doesn't make the method by which I chose to sort (that is, all the things that went into generating the number that eventually goes into sort()) returned prices this morning any more a derivable and beautiful fundamental truth of the universe than creating a mathematical model of an airplane wing makes that non-patentable. (And you'll be hard pressed to create a patent-worthy airplane wing design nowadays without doing so, for that matter).
But not all software is mathematical. A lot of it is procedural.
Because in order for the Client-Server architecture to be useful, a user expects the X App to be a constantly-running server, to which a Display client can connect in order to view it. Display disconnections should be everyday events, not errors, and multiple display connections should be possible without ugly workarounds.
Think about it: The client (XApp) initiates the conversation with the server (Interface, including the Monitor, Mouse, and Keyboard). The server tells the client what to do, and the client sends replies (what to draw) back to the server. That's backwards.
COBOL is still here, so I can't depend on that argument too well.
As for "as standard as HTML", there's a simple test to see if that's true. It's completely anecdotal, but "in my experience:"
In every company I've worked in, whenever we were writing queries (queries that had to run on multiple systems), we ALWAYS looked at each DB's documentation individually, and ALMOST ALWAYS needed to add at least a switch() for what the database we were talking to was. (I can't actually think off-hand of any query which didn't have such a thing, but I'm assuming one probably existed)
In every company I've worked in, whenever we were writing HTML (HTML that needed to render correctly on multiple systems, hell, even some that technically didn't) we ALWAYS looked at general information online and ALMOST ALWAYS didn't need to worry about what browser the page was written about. (Note that this is talking about HTML, not CSS or Javascript, which IE shits all over. Even for those, we can rely on standards for day-to-day things at least 98% of the time, without looking anything up.)
Look up any "help me with this query!" whine on a forum, it will almost ALWAYS be for a specific database. Look for the same for HTML, and it will almost ALWAYS be talking about general information.
That seems to talk about the reverse of what you're saying. That is, not the opposite, but saying "shooting people in the face tends to make people not perform in major league sporting events" does NOT imply "not shooting people in the face tends to make people perform in major league sporting events"
By the standard reasoning for that, it's more like Chrome/Linux
interesting theory you have there. So, all people who engage in any activities which have risk associated with them only do so because they are unaware of the risks, therefor all risk-based activities are scams and should be illegal?
SQL syntax sucks, is inconsistent, and just non-standard enough at its corners that it's completely annoying to write anything for more than one DB. Also lacks various features which logically _should_ be there, because of the relational back-end. SQL is a toy, and though I'm the guy everyone in the office turns to if they want to write a query that does more than SELECT * FROM sometable, that doesn't mean I have to like it.
But that's not the fault of relational databases. The relational logic makes sense, and we'll be seeing it referenced in countless "new ideas" that come along for years, just as ideas which Lisp already had in 1970 will be touted a new features on for the next millennium (you hear? PHP can do Lambda functions as of yesterday!)
SQL sucks, but SQL is NOT what makes something relational.
How about "it completely mangles my text when I use formatting as exotic as a bullet-point"?
I'd rather write my resume in HTML than OpenOffice
Can we just define the term "normal weight" to mean "the one where you live the longest"?
Anyway, the only reason you don't kill an infant is that he/she will grow up?
Yes, this is why our society has established a taboo around killing infants. Are you seriously arguing that there is any other reason for not killing infants?
I'm not trying to downplay the important of that reason, but yeah, it's the reason we don't kill babies. It's the reason we consider them people instead of property: they have the potential to turn into people.
I'm too much of an optimist to go slaughtering babies with potentially curable problems just because they're inconvenient, but to deny "we don't kill babies because babies turn into people" as an absolute fact (which stands completely by itself without the support of any other reasons) is beyond stupid.
I really like how there are stages in raising a child that, if followed honestly, usually lead to children becoming very capable, healthy adults.
citation needed
the open-source solutions to anti-virus:
solution 1) bury head in sand, pretend viruses don't exist and will never attack your systems
solution 2) stand naked directly in the path of oncoming viruses, with the attitude that no virus could possibly harm you.
Microsoft takes down those patches? I thought they just released advisories on unrelated pages.
I would much rather they just not have released it until it could do more than "a button push, but you flail instead of tap a button". Yeah, we'd have waited even longer for project Natal, but I really don't think we would have missed vague family flailing for three years while the kinks got worked out.
This will become more and more common, and then eventually the whole concept of "here's a random image of an unrelated happy family! BUY OUR PRODUCT!" will fall out of favor.
When it's just a random image, sure, it's stupid but apparently gets the message across. /b/? I mean, for reasons other than lulz?
When it's just a truly random image from the internet... would you buy from
I've had a cough for about eight years now. Is there a secret code word I can use to say "No, really, I _have_ looked into this before, several doctors have, and it's probably not horses because they've given me medication for horses and it doesn't work. Maybe it's zebras? I'm not supposed to be the one coming up with ideas, here. No, I don't want zebra medication, I'm just saying I want you to actually look into this, take some blood or ask a couple or non-basic questions. Can I please actually be diagnosed instead of given whatever samples of allergy medication [with the same active ingredient and a newer more-relaxing name!] got dropped off by a salesperson last week and that I really don't need?"
See, It's fine if 10% of people get screwed over the first time, but if 10% of people get screwed over the first time and have no way of saying "that didn't work, I'd like the non-statistical one now, please", that doesn't work.
Milo can use the camera to maintain eye-contact with the player. It's a nice use of the technology, but that's the most revolutionary thing about it.
Minority Report, well known as a huge SciFi future-wank that did pretty much nothing but act as an excuse to show off random imaginings of what the neato future might hold, had Tom Cruise using a stupid awkward light-up glove when using a motion-tracking input device. Natal can easily do the same thing simply by looking at you, today
A Wii costs £150, a PS3 costs £64378. I do not own a PS3.
However, I do own an XBox360, which I play Xbox360 games on. I use the Wii to play Gamecube games and watch youtube. oops.
The expectation was for it to be at least as funny as the least-funny Futurama episode. Name one thing in any previous Futurama episode which is less-funny than Nudar.