"The bad news is, nobody will do anything about critical infrastructure protection until there's a global catastrophic failure. The good news is, there will be a global catastrophic failure." --- Mark Rasche, former head of the United States Department of Justice computer crime unit.
The article points out no specific flaws. It just says that HTML is growing, therefore the chance of a hole (the "attack surface") also is growing.
Choose your poison. The same can be said about writing an app for an operating system. "Windows/Mac OS/Linux has an enormous amount of functionality. Therefore I'm concerned that there could be a lot of vulnerabilities."
Yes.
But the growth of the browser will not simply add to the overall size of the computer. Because of a big browser, you may have a smaller operating system. This is the idea behind Chrome OS.
It is not a perfectly equal replacement. If the browser grows 15 MB, that does not mean the operating system will shrink 15 MB. But one thing that is better about putting a feature in the browser is that more eyes are on it. There will be a lot more users who try to write a program in JavaScript than against even the Windows, even the iPhone, API. HTML 5 will bring about a lot more software developers and a lot more software development.
1. Read its article on a subject to give you a jump start.
2. For fact-checking, further study, and making citations, go to the References section at the bottom of the article.
Wikipedia has a policy of No Original Research. That means everything you find in Wikipedia you should be able to find also in an authoritative reference. The policy is not strictly enforced, and you've probably seen those "citation needed" links pimpling some Wikipedia articles. But Wikipedia can be very useful for getting a jump start on the subject.
Whether it is "going away" is one thing (Answer: Not soon). Whether a developer must use it and a user must install it are all we really care about:
1. The iPhone and iPad notwithstanding, Flash is beginning to show up on other mobile device platforms.
Doesn't mean I have to use it.
2. Flash is used for more than just video delivery on the Web.
What animations can I do in Flash but not HTML5?
3. Adobe provides strong tools and support for designers and developers.
Okay, you got that one. I myself prefer not to use GUI tools but instead write by hand. So, it doesn't make me keep using Flash, but a less technical designer, sure.
4. Flash's content protection/DRM appeals to content producers.
This may come to HTML5 video. If it doesn't, many here may prefer it that way, on principle. Let a closed container hold the closed content.
5. Flash remains popular with online advertisers.
Great!
6. HTML 5 still has video codec patent issues to work out.
But even the article says that it appears those issues are getting worked out.
I also just read a very optimistic article on Google's html5rocks.com site about the video tag. You can do some things with the video tag that you can't in Flash, by the way.
As a programmer, if I were to pick someone to work with me, I would judge him by:
Code samples (60%)
Experience (30%)
Interview (10%)
Certifications (0%)
In an interview I would just look for bad hygiene or a really obnoxious laugh. I might be able to talk with them and get some impression of their working style (minimalist (like me), blustery formalist (bad), pragmatist (better), etc.). But I don't think I could decide just on an interview whether they're good, or if I myself could show in an interview that I was good.
But it is dead easy for me to judge a programmer if I saw a few functions, database queries, etc., that they've written. Such would show the answer many interview questions, including ones that would be hard to word and easy to lie about. If I had my druthers I would like to see a lot of code --- several files, maybe even a whole app. That would tell me more than any other what level they're at and also whether their taste clashes or matches mine (and so we would work peaceably together)
I read the article. The Pope said these risks are from the "new media," not transparency. The original text:
"The times in which we living knows a huge widening of the frontiers of communication," he said (according to our Italian fixer/producer) and the new media of this new age points to a more "egalitarian and pluralistic" forum. But, he went on to say, it also opens a new hole, the "digital divide" between haves and have-nots. Even more ominous, he said, it exacerbates tensions between nations and within nations themselves. And it increases the "dangers of... intellectual and moral relativism," which can lead to "multiple forms of degradation and humiliation" of the essence of a person, and to the "pollution of the spirit." All in all, it seemed a pretty grim view of the wide open communication parameters being demanded by the Internet age.
I agree with him that it poses greater risks, with its greater benefits. A super-high-speed, worldwide network is a double-edged sword. It can bring good and bad, just like older forms of communication, just more of it.
A tech recruiter friend gave me this advice. The best way to get a job is, find companies you would like to work for, and try to find someone on the inside. This has proved true, even before I met him and I wasn't trying to do it. Besides part-time jobs at restaurants, retail stores, etc., every single one of my jobs has been through knowing somebody. They were not the one hiring, but they introduced me to that person.
1. I got a job as a classroom speaker, even though I had no professional speaking experience, because a family member worked at the organization. Both the organization and I soon realized that I was an awful speaker. But they didn't fire me. They moved me into an office job, which I liked more anyway.
2. I then got a job as a graphic designer, through a friend of my roommates, even though I had zero portfolio samples. The boss and pay were awful, though, and I soon quit. But I learned (a) not to do art professionally because you will be told by unartistic people what fonts, colors, etc. to use, and (b) the importance of a good boss.
3. I then got a job as a technical writer for a major IT department, through a friend, even though it had never been my job title. I did have a few samples though from the last job.
4. In that same company, I became a web programmer, even though all I knew was HTML. That was four years ago. I still work there and now take care of several web apps on our intranet written in PHP, PostgreSQL, and JavaScript.
Yes, my work laptop, with Windows XP, is using just 12 GB. (But I don't have anything on it but Office and a few web browsers. But I'm a web programmer and do most of my work SSH'd into a Linux web server.)
My home computer with Ubuntu uses, like, 4GB.
I don't store pictures or music or movies on them, so I guess that's the difference.
as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7%, while his secretary is taxed at 30%.
So, Warrent Buffett paid about $30,000 in taxes while his secretary only paid about $15,000.
Icons are a waste of time. Instead, choose a specific, short word.
This is coming from someone who:
- drew since I was four, and was often called an "artist" in school
- majored in Communication
- makes web sites for a living
But:
- a short string of text effectively is a picture --- several studies have shown that readers just look at the shapes of words. For example, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas.
- Google doesn't use icons. And we know that Google makes most of its design decisions not from some personal taste but usability tests. The only place it uses icons is in that "Even More" list of all its services. Even then, beside the icon is a word. And I wonder if the icons aren't there just to add some visual interest to an otherwise dry-looking page. They certainly do not tell you everything you need to know about an application. That's why there are names and notes beside each one.
In fact if I see an embedded video, I will frequently go through the gyrations to extract the link and watch it in a separate window in YouTube.
I likewise. But the musician's main gripe is that blogs can't embed the videos. The advantage of an embed over a link, I think, the freeze frame it shows, drawing the reader in to more likely click. Solution: make a JPEG freeze frame of the video and link it to YouTube. You could make it open in a new, small window, too, to (kind of) keep the reader on the site.
This is probably beyond the bother of most bloggers, who aren't web developers. Still, YouTube could provide the code to copy and paste a picture-link, in lieu of the code to embed the video.
The actual link --- the actual href attribute of the HTML <a> tag --- ishttp://slashdot.org/. In Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, if you Copy shortcut, it copies as http://slashdot.org. But Firefox is sniffing a little further and sees that a JavaScript event handler is attached to each link that redirects them. I'm sure that this extra sniffing by Firefox is not what Google intended. I think Google wanted you get the actual link if needed, else they would not have gone through the trouble of doing the redirects in JavaScript. I also think that this further sniffing might be a new feature in Firefox, because Google has always done their links this way (HTML has real link, JavaScript adds the redirect).
A father used to rationalize why he was so mean to his son by saying, "I'm getting him ready for the world, because it is mean." By that rationale, the best thing would be to simply dump the child out on the streets.
If you see flawed code, submit a patch.
If you see flawed usage, educate users (documentation, blog article, forum posts).
Slashdot Mirror
Folks, most of the WebP images were compressed from JPEGs.
From the article:
We expect that developers will achieve in practice even better file size reduction with WebP when starting from an uncompressed image.
"The bad news is, nobody will do anything about critical infrastructure protection until there's a global catastrophic failure. The good news is, there will be a global catastrophic failure." --- Mark Rasche, former head of the United States Department of Justice computer crime unit.
Microsoft, meanwhile, is languishing in the shadows like Cinderella on the night of the ball.
Are you kidding me? Microsoft is like a wicked stepsister!
Wells Fargo lets you download up to 1.5 years as a CSV (also Quicken and Microsoft Money formats, for what they're worth).
It lets you download PDFs of statements for the past 7 years.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!
The article points out no specific flaws. It just says that HTML is growing, therefore the chance of a hole (the "attack surface") also is growing.
Choose your poison. The same can be said about writing an app for an operating system. "Windows/Mac OS/Linux has an enormous amount of functionality. Therefore I'm concerned that there could be a lot of vulnerabilities."
Yes.
But the growth of the browser will not simply add to the overall size of the computer. Because of a big browser, you may have a smaller operating system. This is the idea behind Chrome OS.
It is not a perfectly equal replacement. If the browser grows 15 MB, that does not mean the operating system will shrink 15 MB. But one thing that is better about putting a feature in the browser is that more eyes are on it. There will be a lot more users who try to write a program in JavaScript than against even the Windows, even the iPhone, API. HTML 5 will bring about a lot more software developers and a lot more software development.
But as is often the case, truth is less interesting than reality.
What's the difference between truth and reality?
How to use Wikipedia:
1. Read its article on a subject to give you a jump start.
2. For fact-checking, further study, and making citations, go to the References section at the bottom of the article.
Wikipedia has a policy of No Original Research. That means everything you find in Wikipedia you should be able to find also in an authoritative reference. The policy is not strictly enforced, and you've probably seen those "citation needed" links pimpling some Wikipedia articles. But Wikipedia can be very useful for getting a jump start on the subject.
That sounded odd. I meant "until sometime in his adulthood."
I suggest C. S. Lewis's book The Problem of Pain. He addresses a lot of your arguments. He was an atheist until he became an adult.
Being limited to the C or CS lenses seems like a pretty big thing
But they're not. There are adaptors for just every other lens mount. The video clip at the bottom of the article uses an adaptor for SLR lenses.
Whether it is "going away" is one thing (Answer: Not soon). Whether a developer must use it and a user must install it are all we really care about:
1. The iPhone and iPad notwithstanding, Flash is beginning to show up on other mobile device platforms.
Doesn't mean I have to use it.
2. Flash is used for more than just video delivery on the Web.
What animations can I do in Flash but not HTML5?
3. Adobe provides strong tools and support for designers and developers.
Okay, you got that one. I myself prefer not to use GUI tools but instead write by hand. So, it doesn't make me keep using Flash, but a less technical designer, sure.
4. Flash's content protection/DRM appeals to content producers.
This may come to HTML5 video. If it doesn't, many here may prefer it that way, on principle. Let a closed container hold the closed content.
5. Flash remains popular with online advertisers.
Great!
6. HTML 5 still has video codec patent issues to work out.
But even the article says that it appears those issues are getting worked out.
I also just read a very optimistic article on Google's html5rocks.com site about the video tag. You can do some things with the video tag that you can't in Flash, by the way.
The Web ought to be enough for anybody.
Which can be fixed with this CSS:
p + p { margin-top: -1em; text-indent: 1em; }
Forget not that Hollywood tried 3D in the 50s. For the same reasons cited today, the fad came and went.
As a programmer, if I were to pick someone to work with me, I would judge him by:
In an interview I would just look for bad hygiene or a really obnoxious laugh. I might be able to talk with them and get some impression of their working style (minimalist (like me), blustery formalist (bad), pragmatist (better), etc.). But I don't think I could decide just on an interview whether they're good, or if I myself could show in an interview that I was good.
But it is dead easy for me to judge a programmer if I saw a few functions, database queries, etc., that they've written. Such would show the answer many interview questions, including ones that would be hard to word and easy to lie about. If I had my druthers I would like to see a lot of code --- several files, maybe even a whole app. That would tell me more than any other what level they're at and also whether their taste clashes or matches mine (and so we would work peaceably together)
I read the article. The Pope said these risks are from the "new media," not transparency. The original text:
I agree with him that it poses greater risks, with its greater benefits. A super-high-speed, worldwide network is a double-edged sword. It can bring good and bad, just like older forms of communication, just more of it.
A tech recruiter friend gave me this advice. The best way to get a job is, find companies you would like to work for, and try to find someone on the inside. This has proved true, even before I met him and I wasn't trying to do it. Besides part-time jobs at restaurants, retail stores, etc., every single one of my jobs has been through knowing somebody. They were not the one hiring, but they introduced me to that person.
1. I got a job as a classroom speaker, even though I had no professional speaking experience, because a family member worked at the organization. Both the organization and I soon realized that I was an awful speaker. But they didn't fire me. They moved me into an office job, which I liked more anyway.
2. I then got a job as a graphic designer, through a friend of my roommates, even though I had zero portfolio samples. The boss and pay were awful, though, and I soon quit. But I learned (a) not to do art professionally because you will be told by unartistic people what fonts, colors, etc. to use, and (b) the importance of a good boss.
3. I then got a job as a technical writer for a major IT department, through a friend, even though it had never been my job title. I did have a few samples though from the last job.
4. In that same company, I became a web programmer, even though all I knew was HTML. That was four years ago. I still work there and now take care of several web apps on our intranet written in PHP, PostgreSQL, and JavaScript.
Yes, my work laptop, with Windows XP, is using just 12 GB. (But I don't have anything on it but Office and a few web browsers. But I'm a web programmer and do most of my work SSH'd into a Linux web server.) My home computer with Ubuntu uses, like, 4GB. I don't store pictures or music or movies on them, so I guess that's the difference.
as Warren Buffet has pointed out, our tax system is skewed so that wealthy folks like himself pay an effective tax rate of 17.7%, while his secretary is taxed at 30%.
So, Warrent Buffett paid about $30,000 in taxes while his secretary only paid about $15,000.
Icons are a waste of time. Instead, choose a specific, short word.
This is coming from someone who:
- drew since I was four, and was often called an "artist" in school
- majored in Communication
- makes web sites for a living
But:
- a short string of text effectively is a picture --- several studies have shown that readers just look at the shapes of words. For example, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas.
- Google doesn't use icons. And we know that Google makes most of its design decisions not from some personal taste but usability tests. The only place it uses icons is in that "Even More" list of all its services. Even then, beside the icon is a word. And I wonder if the icons aren't there just to add some visual interest to an otherwise dry-looking page. They certainly do not tell you everything you need to know about an application. That's why there are names and notes beside each one.
In fact if I see an embedded video, I will frequently go through the gyrations to extract the link and watch it in a separate window in YouTube.
I likewise. But the musician's main gripe is that blogs can't embed the videos. The advantage of an embed over a link, I think, the freeze frame it shows, drawing the reader in to more likely click. Solution: make a JPEG freeze frame of the video and link it to YouTube. You could make it open in a new, small window, too, to (kind of) keep the reader on the site.
This is probably beyond the bother of most bloggers, who aren't web developers. Still, YouTube could provide the code to copy and paste a picture-link, in lieu of the code to embed the video.
The actual link --- the actual href attribute of the HTML <a> tag --- is http://slashdot.org/. In Internet Explorer and Google Chrome, if you Copy shortcut, it copies as http://slashdot.org. But Firefox is sniffing a little further and sees that a JavaScript event handler is attached to each link that redirects them. I'm sure that this extra sniffing by Firefox is not what Google intended. I think Google wanted you get the actual link if needed, else they would not have gone through the trouble of doing the redirects in JavaScript. I also think that this further sniffing might be a new feature in Firefox, because Google has always done their links this way (HTML has real link, JavaScript adds the redirect).
Debugging JS with an alert window is a horrible experience.
http://getfirebug.com/. Then don't do it.
A father used to rationalize why he was so mean to his son by saying, "I'm getting him ready for the world, because it is mean." By that rationale, the best thing would be to simply dump the child out on the streets.
If you see flawed code, submit a patch.
If you see flawed usage, educate users (documentation, blog article, forum posts).