People do still want movies, music, software, books. In the buggy whip analogy, people still want transport.
What's changed is their approach to meeting that desire.
So instead of legalised horse bondage people switched to automated mechanisms. Instead of physical media and distribution people switched to automated mechanisms.
In both situations, demand for the non-automated, slower and less convenient approach fell.
This is why the buggy whip meme occurred; it does reflect the change in situation for traditional media companies, with expensive and archaic distribution mechanisms, that haven't yet evolved to use the new technology, embrace it, and actually provide products to customers that reflect the genuine cost of production.
I thought the windmill metaphor was an excellent one.
I also disagree with your contention that pirates live off the rest of us. You don't pay any more as a result of someone else not paying. You already pay as much as the content producers think they can gouge out of you, and far more than the product is actually worth because its price is artificially inflated through corrupt legislation.
Or perhaps you think that someone should be earning millions a year for a piece of work they did 45 years ago, and that it's criminal to expect them to actually do some more work if they want to earn more money. Me, I find myself short on sympathy.
But if they're only harmlessly having sex with robots, what's so bad about that "unhealthy state of mind"?
There are those that would suggest that even inferring it's harmless to have sex with a robot is an unhealthy state of mind, which must be purged with a big stick.
(There are those that wouldn't mind skipping the robot sex bit and going straight to the stick.)
Irrespective of the importance of my company's data (and we think our customers' data is very important) we have to be able to demonstrate that we keep it secure.
If we don't, we get shut down. Completely. Unable to transact with any external party.
That comes under 'business critical' and justifies a surprising degree of security.
I shouldn't get surprised anymore by the number of suppliers that think a night out at a lapdance club will win them a contract, or indeed how often they are sadly right.
Then again, they probably don't need the website - some of them quite clearly have the place on speed-dial.
The trouble is it's easy to look busy in front of some outsider that doesn't understand the work.
I find the opposite is true.
At any moment in time, one of my team members will be telling a joke to another. A third will be browsing the web. A fourth will be on the phone asking a colleague on another floor where they're going for lunch. A fifth is arguing with a sixth and the boss is listening in without contributing.
It looks like we're a bunch of lazy slackers. Yet.. the joke is his way of saying 'hi' and making up for the fact he's stealing a couple of hours of the other guy's time to help with something. The web browsing is researching competitor information, the lunch date will lead to informal governance of a key project and the argument will force out and address issues that hadn't otherwise been thought through. Meanwhile the boss now knows two of his team better and collectively we've saved the company 100k in 20 minutes of what to an outsider looks like pissing about.
It's one reason I enjoy my job, but also makes it bloody difficult to look busy to outsiders. Sure, I do sit and actually write stuff, but that takes hours; it's the days of appearing to do fuck all that makes the write-up so worthwhile.
And everybody in my extended team have web browsers on the mobile phones anyway, so if we do want to look something up we don't even need to use company resources to do so.
Of course, it'll be quicker to use a proper browser on a proper monitor with a proper keyboard, but that just highlights the fallacy of locking things down to promote productivity.
There's a big difference between making it impossible to shift data outside the organisation, and making it so bloody difficult that most people just don't bother.
If someone's being malicious, you need other tools to stop them. What the lockdown reduces is data leakage through sheer bloody stupidity.
It's also a useful tool if you want to sack someone and can demonstrate that they've intentionally circumvented the security measures.
Incidentally, if preventing theft of the car is your primary objective, and you weren't going to drive it anywhere anyway, your solution isn't a bad one. Where your analogy fails is assuming that people might want to drive the car (i.e. move data outside the organisation). Even if individuals want to do that, the organisation doesn't want it to happen, except through the prescribed and managed mechanisms.
Nah, that's pretty mundane these days. What TheLink was talking about is intercepting and injecting packets into the http response message from the web server.
So you think you're reading CNN, your browser thinks it's getting packets from cnn.com but a server downstairs in a locked room is injecting a The Onion story as the main headline, backed up by images from a pornographic google image search for the story keywords.
Meanwhile your boss is walking past going, "What's up?" Are you both in for a surprise..
Which particular specific moral code are Christians tied to?
Because as far as I can tell there isn't one. For around two thousand years they've been pretty much all cunts. They're venal, murderous, selfish, ignorant and self-righteous.
Not exactly what I'd describe as ethical.
Beliefs in deities and ethical codes are closer to mutual incompatibility than exclusivity.
My organisation has USB drives disabled on every desktop and laptop, unless you have written permission from a board member. (In context, there are thousands of employees and only a handful of board members).
This is an absolute pain, but is quite simply by far the easiest way to prevent accidental loss of data.
When that data can include our customers' financial information (which it easily can) it's hard to argue with taking extreme measures to protect it.
We also disable wireless network adaptors in the laptops, which is a far more contentious cost/benefit trade-off.
My team doesn't do development and doesn't do system admin. We also happen to have the skills in the team to build and replace any system in the company, from the tin to the UI, including the storage, networks and telephony.
We demand local admin access and get it, because frankly we're good as a team to do any job in IT (and between the team have done every job in IT, below IT director - but we're already operating at that level compared with smaller organisations).
Sometimes our kit goes wrong. Occasionally (but rarely) it's our own fault. Unless we need new parts or access to production settings we don't have, we fix it ourselves. When the issue needs access to (e.g.) a domain controller, we log the helpdesk call and give step by step instructions on how to fix it.
Should we have admin access? Probably not. Are we more effective as a team by having it? Definitely. Is it better for the company for us to have this access? The CIO (that signed it off for us) agreed.
Would a VM work? Frankly, no. Especially as a developer, but even in my current role. The whole benefit of modern software systems is their integration, and isolating half your tools in a VM breaks that.
Development should be done using dedicated development systems that replicate the production environment. I have seen way to many problems and delays arise because the developer's setup on his personal laptops didn't exactly replicate the productions deployment environment.
Forgive me if I choose not to spend £18m giving the developers systems that replicate the production environment. They can get by on around £200k of kit and any good software engineer knows how to develop on one environment and deploy to another.
Shit, these days it's all automated with hooks for the necessary config settings.
Production is fucking expensive. Windows desktops are cheap. Software doesn't have unlimited budget.
That's a very cynical view, and the bank I work for does not do that.
(and yes, I know the people that wrote the 40yo mainframe banking system)
If your bank does, switch banks.
Hell, the bank I use (one of the biggest in the UK, which is different to the one I work for) lets me go £1000 overdrawn for a week with no charges. I don't make use of that facility, but it's there. If you need that much that quickly then you need to go and talk to your bank anyway..
Come back when you have even remotely the population density of the UK, and we'll show you how easily a roundabout can be put into even a small town.
Yeah, we also have a lot of crossroads; often roundabouts aren't the best answer. But size of town? Not a factor.
Of course, what we don't have are four way stop signs. In fact, it's very rare to see any stop signs. We use 'give way' signs instead; one road has priority, the other gives way to traffic on it. If you're the only car in sight, no need to stop. If you're on the priority road, no need to stop.
Slashdot Mirror
And yet.. I'll be genuinely stunned and impressed when a computer can recreate the scene between Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper in True Romance.
Even with the original as a guide.
I'd go 'eek' if I had to live in Manchester.
You're misunderstanding his buggy whip analogy.
People do still want movies, music, software, books. In the buggy whip analogy, people still want transport.
What's changed is their approach to meeting that desire.
So instead of legalised horse bondage people switched to automated mechanisms.
Instead of physical media and distribution people switched to automated mechanisms.
In both situations, demand for the non-automated, slower and less convenient approach fell.
This is why the buggy whip meme occurred; it does reflect the change in situation for traditional media companies, with expensive and archaic distribution mechanisms, that haven't yet evolved to use the new technology, embrace it, and actually provide products to customers that reflect the genuine cost of production.
I thought the windmill metaphor was an excellent one.
I also disagree with your contention that pirates live off the rest of us. You don't pay any more as a result of someone else not paying. You already pay as much as the content producers think they can gouge out of you, and far more than the product is actually worth because its price is artificially inflated through corrupt legislation.
Or perhaps you think that someone should be earning millions a year for a piece of work they did 45 years ago, and that it's criminal to expect them to actually do some more work if they want to earn more money. Me, I find myself short on sympathy.
But if they're only harmlessly having sex with robots, what's so bad about that "unhealthy state of mind"?
There are those that would suggest that even inferring it's harmless to have sex with a robot is an unhealthy state of mind, which must be purged with a big stick.
(There are those that wouldn't mind skipping the robot sex bit and going straight to the stick.)
Mine did. Right now I have five devices connected to it.
Life is much simpler not having to remember/enter WEP/WPA keys...
I got cash.
All stories should end like this.
Irrespective of the importance of my company's data (and we think our customers' data is very important) we have to be able to demonstrate that we keep it secure.
If we don't, we get shut down. Completely. Unable to transact with any external party.
That comes under 'business critical' and justifies a surprising degree of security.
No, but they may ask for a lapdance bar to be.
I shouldn't get surprised anymore by the number of suppliers that think a night out at a lapdance club will win them a contract, or indeed how often they are sadly right.
Then again, they probably don't need the website - some of them quite clearly have the place on speed-dial.
The call from the Bishop.
Bishops aren't interested in your child porn. They have the real thing. :(
The trouble is it's easy to look busy in front of some outsider that doesn't understand the work.
I find the opposite is true.
At any moment in time, one of my team members will be telling a joke to another. A third will be browsing the web. A fourth will be on the phone asking a colleague on another floor where they're going for lunch. A fifth is arguing with a sixth and the boss is listening in without contributing.
It looks like we're a bunch of lazy slackers. Yet.. the joke is his way of saying 'hi' and making up for the fact he's stealing a couple of hours of the other guy's time to help with something. The web browsing is researching competitor information, the lunch date will lead to informal governance of a key project and the argument will force out and address issues that hadn't otherwise been thought through. Meanwhile the boss now knows two of his team better and collectively we've saved the company 100k in 20 minutes of what to an outsider looks like pissing about.
It's one reason I enjoy my job, but also makes it bloody difficult to look busy to outsiders. Sure, I do sit and actually write stuff, but that takes hours; it's the days of appearing to do fuck all that makes the write-up so worthwhile.
And everybody in my extended team have web browsers on the mobile phones anyway, so if we do want to look something up we don't even need to use company resources to do so.
Of course, it'll be quicker to use a proper browser on a proper monitor with a proper keyboard, but that just highlights the fallacy of locking things down to promote productivity.
There's a big difference between making it impossible to shift data outside the organisation, and making it so bloody difficult that most people just don't bother.
If someone's being malicious, you need other tools to stop them. What the lockdown reduces is data leakage through sheer bloody stupidity.
It's also a useful tool if you want to sack someone and can demonstrate that they've intentionally circumvented the security measures.
Incidentally, if preventing theft of the car is your primary objective, and you weren't going to drive it anywhere anyway, your solution isn't a bad one. Where your analogy fails is assuming that people might want to drive the car (i.e. move data outside the organisation). Even if individuals want to do that, the organisation doesn't want it to happen, except through the prescribed and managed mechanisms.
Nah, that's pretty mundane these days. What TheLink was talking about is intercepting and injecting packets into the http response message from the web server.
So you think you're reading CNN, your browser thinks it's getting packets from cnn.com but a server downstairs in a locked room is injecting a The Onion story as the main headline, backed up by images from a pornographic google image search for the story keywords.
Meanwhile your boss is walking past going, "What's up?" Are you both in for a surprise..
Which particular specific moral code are Christians tied to?
Because as far as I can tell there isn't one. For around two thousand years they've been pretty much all cunts. They're venal, murderous, selfish, ignorant and self-righteous.
Not exactly what I'd describe as ethical.
Beliefs in deities and ethical codes are closer to mutual incompatibility than exclusivity.
Efficient code is fine, but what's the efficiency you're measuring?
Efficient code writing? Efficient code maintenance? Efficient compilation times? Efficient code execution?
Three of those cost a lot of money, yet many programmers focus on the fourth (and still cock it up).
Of course, it's pretty easy to write the 4 line script you provided in a single line by explicitly stating the variables, but that's less re-usable :)
My organisation has USB drives disabled on every desktop and laptop, unless you have written permission from a board member. (In context, there are thousands of employees and only a handful of board members).
This is an absolute pain, but is quite simply by far the easiest way to prevent accidental loss of data.
When that data can include our customers' financial information (which it easily can) it's hard to argue with taking extreme measures to protect it.
We also disable wireless network adaptors in the laptops, which is a far more contentious cost/benefit trade-off.
My team doesn't do development and doesn't do system admin. We also happen to have the skills in the team to build and replace any system in the company, from the tin to the UI, including the storage, networks and telephony.
We demand local admin access and get it, because frankly we're good as a team to do any job in IT (and between the team have done every job in IT, below IT director - but we're already operating at that level compared with smaller organisations).
Sometimes our kit goes wrong. Occasionally (but rarely) it's our own fault. Unless we need new parts or access to production settings we don't have, we fix it ourselves. When the issue needs access to (e.g.) a domain controller, we log the helpdesk call and give step by step instructions on how to fix it.
Should we have admin access? Probably not. Are we more effective as a team by having it? Definitely. Is it better for the company for us to have this access? The CIO (that signed it off for us) agreed.
Would a VM work? Frankly, no. Especially as a developer, but even in my current role. The whole benefit of modern software systems is their integration, and isolating half your tools in a VM breaks that.
I'd back that up completely. Nothing kills a dev box quite as thoroughly as active AV. Shit, viruses do less harm.
the virus goes on a deleting rampage, wiping out the source code?
Ooh, I hadn't realised virus writers were specifically targeting source code repositories these days. That's pretty sophisticated (and quite a specialised attack).
Development should be done using dedicated development systems that replicate the production environment. I have seen way to many problems and delays arise because the developer's setup on his personal laptops didn't exactly replicate the productions deployment environment.
Forgive me if I choose not to spend £18m giving the developers systems that replicate the production environment. They can get by on around £200k of kit and any good software engineer knows how to develop on one environment and deploy to another.
Shit, these days it's all automated with hooks for the necessary config settings.
Production is fucking expensive. Windows desktops are cheap. Software doesn't have unlimited budget.
That's a very cynical view, and the bank I work for does not do that.
(and yes, I know the people that wrote the 40yo mainframe banking system)
If your bank does, switch banks.
Hell, the bank I use (one of the biggest in the UK, which is different to the one I work for) lets me go £1000 overdrawn for a week with no charges. I don't make use of that facility, but it's there. If you need that much that quickly then you need to go and talk to your bank anyway..
I'm a child of the Quattro era, so give me a nice Audi.
Yes, I was assuming SUVs were 4WD. If they're not, they're death traps. No, 4WD SUVs aren't as good on ice as 4WD saloon cars.
Of course, go off road and you need a proper off-roader. Although I do all my dirt track driving in a 2WD saloon, so what do I know..
Sadly no reply at all.
especially aren't possible in smaller towns
Come back when you have even remotely the population density of the UK, and we'll show you how easily a roundabout can be put into even a small town.
Yeah, we also have a lot of crossroads; often roundabouts aren't the best answer. But size of town? Not a factor.
Of course, what we don't have are four way stop signs. In fact, it's very rare to see any stop signs. We use 'give way' signs instead; one road has priority, the other gives way to traffic on it. If you're the only car in sight, no need to stop. If you're on the priority road, no need to stop.
Works quite well.