"... they don't like..." "... doesn't meet needs..." Binary states? Black and white thinking is harmful. Though I realize you're being extreme for rhetorical effect. Anyway, no software is perfect.
When I chose to start using Firebird it wasn't a perfect browser. But it worked well, and I knew that small trade-off in function between Firebird and IE was an investment. And now it's paying off.
Your average person won't get this, I agree. But others see more clearly. And they'll invest some inconvenience now to get big rewards later. I'll guess you are smart enough to see the point behind choosing non-optimal software. And probably your friends, too. This is what I'm suggesting. When you see a good cause that can be supported with reasonable cost, do so and spread the word.
Always choosing software that works best for some application without regards to other important effects is like always choosing to eat donuts because they taste best. Juvenile and harmfully short-sighted.
Five years of rank stagnation of web technology thanks to IE's domination of the market, what I call the Great Languish.
Please do your part to remember the fiasco and to ward against it by discouraging monopolies both with your actions and your advice to others. If you're sticking with the dominant browser/platform because it's more comfortable than using the game-changing upstart, you're part of the problem.
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003 From: Concerned Netizen To: Friends Subject: browser war upset
I get the feeling that Microsoft is about to lose the browser war. Everyone thought it was over.
The business was built up on desktop and office app dominance. But now operatings systems are turning into commodities with the advent of virtualization/emulation/cross-platform frameworks and with widespread, sophisticated web standards. Applications are turning into commodities with the reverse engineering of formats and the advent of new standards.
Essentially, interoperability is bleeding the life out of Microsoft.
Microsoft's (current state of) livelihood is based on barriers; let them suffer. They won't die, not any time soon -- they make solid operating systems. They do make good products, despite all the security issues and bugs we've seen. But now that they've lost their stranglehold on the market they become just another player. They won't grow this big again based on being just another vendor.
This is what all those crazy advocates of "open standards" have been trying to achieve all this time. If all that griping about secret APIs and protocol pollution didn't make sense to you before, maybe it begins to make sense now.
Where Microsoft clamped down on diversity, it can no longer. And the gradual technological progress that Microsoft offered can now be replaced with the fertile offerings of a far wider sphere of operating systems and applications developers. Things like the Great Languish -- IE's stagnation for half a decade during what should have been a period of explosive growth for web technology -- are no longer possible.
I look forward to watching technology take huge strides, relative to what it had been doing under Microsoft's control.
New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test.
Sure, that makes sense. And they're partly a measure of how smart the child is. Probably something like a smart * motivated (with other factors thrown in) = IQ.
That "smart" is a particular kind of smart, too. Emotional intelligence is very important, but not covered by IQ tests.
We have 4M square km of arable land in North America (with 2.3M in use). The land requirement for algae:
The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (39,000 km2) which is only 0.42% of the U.S. map.
That would be 0.17% of our in-use crop land. No substantial displacement. And that's beside the fact that algae can make use of marginal land -- dry or salty, for example.
Okay, I looked at this a bit more and I see where we're missing each other.
We're looking at different problems. The topic at hand is the broken Certificate Authority model wherein a browser trusts a large list of CAs and is vulnerable to any single CA failing. It's as if you were hanging by a chain composed of all the CAs -- if just one fails you fall. Petname Tool doesn't address this scenario.
Cert Patrol lets you know when a cert is new to your browser. Surely that's of some value, is it not?
Perspectives lets you know if others aren't seeing the same cert you are. Surely that's of some value, is it not?
Neither of these is a 100% solution, but each helps. And together they make a huge difference.
I haven't investigated Petname Tool. Is it really a web of trust tool?
I looked at the add-ons page comments and saw the following. Do you know anything about this?
At first I thought this was adding additional security be checking that the thumbprint of the SSL certificate matches the one I originally said I trusted. This would be very valuable.
I just changed the SSL certificate on my site and I expected this tool to warn me that the site was unknown, but it just gave me the old name I entered before. This is bad. It means that if an attacker can get a valid certificate for your web address (easier these days than before) and spoof your site with DNS cache poisoning then this tool will not warn you, as it should.
Someone else's being a jerk doesn't force you to respond the same way. If you have self control, you have a choice about how you respond. If you're sophisticated, you'll think about what you want to achieve rather than think about whether being rude is justified. If you're mature, you'll be able to hear potential criticism without reflexive defensiveness.
Sounds like you haven't tried it. Give it a go, there's a free trial. It's easy to run. I'm curious to hear how you like it.
I've got a 20 Mbps connection and I'm probably close to one of their servers, so I haven't had network issues at all. You should only be running NTSC rates if you've got a 1.5 Mbps connection. That's well below average these days, isn't it?
Network speeds keep improving (google "bandwidth over time"). This stuff will only keep getting better. "... makes no sense" is like saying the Web makes no sense because you don't like what you're seeing with this new-fangled Mosaic thingy.
A tool alone is useless; but the knowledge of how to use that tool is invaluable.
Happy?
"A tool alone is useless; but the knowledge of how to use that tool is... um, also useless without the tool itself. So what I'm saying is that together the tool and the knowledge of how to use the tool are... great. Doesn't really make a pithy quote, though."
Okay, how about:
A tool alone is useless; you must know how to wield it.
Is this an actual example of a good usage of the term "cloud"? In the sense of some computers out there somewhere doing stuff for you and you getting the results? Not long ago I heard about the company OnLive and their cloud-based gaming, where all the computing and rendering is done on their servers, you send your control inputs across the net to them and they send you back sound and video.
Played it not long ago myself and expected the lag to be bad, but it turned out it wasn't bad after all. You can sense it, especially doing certain things, but it doesn't get in the way. And I hear they have more latency cutting measures in store. Pretty neat stuff.
Cloud gaming opens up the possibility of leveraging more computing power per player, so I can see fancy effects like ray tracing being incorporated into cloud games.
Slashdot Mirror
That's news right there if it's true.
What evidence do you have that someone else got into your Gmail account?
Anyone else have evidence someone else has just started getting into their Gmail account with authorization?
"... they don't like ..." "... doesn't meet needs ..." Binary states? Black and white thinking is harmful. Though I realize you're being extreme for rhetorical effect. Anyway, no software is perfect.
When I chose to start using Firebird it wasn't a perfect browser. But it worked well, and I knew that small trade-off in function between Firebird and IE was an investment. And now it's paying off.
Your average person won't get this, I agree. But others see more clearly. And they'll invest some inconvenience now to get big rewards later. I'll guess you are smart enough to see the point behind choosing non-optimal software. And probably your friends, too. This is what I'm suggesting. When you see a good cause that can be supported with reasonable cost, do so and spread the word.
Always choosing software that works best for some application without regards to other important effects is like always choosing to eat donuts because they taste best. Juvenile and harmfully short-sighted.
The recent /. article on what ails Microsoft is relevant here. They can no longer sustain their numbers as a regular, non-dominating competitor.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Internet-explorer-usage-data.svg
Five years of rank stagnation of web technology thanks to IE's domination of the market, what I call the Great Languish.
Please do your part to remember the fiasco and to ward against it by discouraging monopolies both with your actions and your advice to others. If you're sticking with the dominant browser/platform because it's more comfortable than using the game-changing upstart, you're part of the problem.
Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2003
From: Concerned Netizen
To: Friends
Subject: browser war upset
I get the feeling that Microsoft is about to lose the browser war.
Everyone thought it was over.
http://mozilla.org/products/firebird/why/
Try it out:
http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firebird/releases/0.6.1/MozillaFirebird-0.6.1-win32.zip
Commoditize the platform. It's good for us all.
The business was built up on desktop and office app dominance. But now operatings systems are turning into commodities with the advent of virtualization/emulation/cross-platform frameworks and with widespread, sophisticated web standards. Applications are turning into commodities with the reverse engineering of formats and the advent of new standards.
Essentially, interoperability is bleeding the life out of Microsoft.
Microsoft's (current state of) livelihood is based on barriers; let them suffer. They won't die, not any time soon -- they make solid operating systems. They do make good products, despite all the security issues and bugs we've seen. But now that they've lost their stranglehold on the market they become just another player. They won't grow this big again based on being just another vendor.
This is what all those crazy advocates of "open standards" have been trying to achieve all this time. If all that griping about secret APIs and protocol pollution didn't make sense to you before, maybe it begins to make sense now.
Where Microsoft clamped down on diversity, it can no longer. And the gradual technological progress that Microsoft offered can now be replaced with the fertile offerings of a far wider sphere of operating systems and applications developers. Things like the Great Languish -- IE's stagnation for half a decade during what should have been a period of explosive growth for web technology -- are no longer possible.
I look forward to watching technology take huge strides, relative to what it had been doing under Microsoft's control.
Boiling frogs: "Down with nuclear! Burn more coal!"
[Note: Frogs don't actually let themselves get boiled slowly.]
Ah, pardon me.
Yes, the construction is novel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathyscaphe_Trieste
I think that's right. We're talking about software designed to help with business resource management.
Wish TFA or TFS had expanded the acronym.
New research concludes that IQ scores are partly a measure of how motivated a child is to do well on the test.
Sure, that makes sense. And they're partly a measure of how smart the child is. Probably something like a smart * motivated (with other factors thrown in) = IQ.
That "smart" is a particular kind of smart, too. Emotional intelligence is very important, but not covered by IQ tests.
A single eye does register depth: via focal distance. And this registers in the brain at some level.
Bogus focal depth is part of what feels off about objects being presented as 3D when on a plane.
You can increase your SSL security today by using Perspectives.
It tells you if others are seeing the same cert you're getting from a website. So it protects against MITM attacks.
We need a mantra to inextricably link restoration testing with "backing up".
However much you decide to trust the CAs your browser comes with, you can add some checks to the SSL validation process.
1. Check that others are seeing the same cert that you are.
2. Check that the cert for a site has been consistently what you're getting now.
Tools for this: Perspectives and Certificate Patrol.
Example details from Perspectives check of an HTTPS site
Brief blog entry on Certificate Patrol
Specifically:
We have 4M square km of arable land in North America (with 2.3M in use). The land requirement for algae:
The United States Department of Energy estimates that if algae fuel replaced all the petroleum fuel in the United States, it would require 15,000 square miles (39,000 km2) which is only 0.42% of the U.S. map.
That would be 0.17% of our in-use crop land. No substantial displacement. And that's beside the fact that algae can make use of marginal land -- dry or salty, for example.
Okay, I looked at this a bit more and I see where we're missing each other.
We're looking at different problems. The topic at hand is the broken Certificate Authority model wherein a browser trusts a large list of CAs and is vulnerable to any single CA failing. It's as if you were hanging by a chain composed of all the CAs -- if just one fails you fall. Petname Tool doesn't address this scenario.
Cert Patrol lets you know when a cert is new to your browser. Surely that's of some value, is it not?
Perspectives lets you know if others aren't seeing the same cert you are. Surely that's of some value, is it not?
Neither of these is a 100% solution, but each helps. And together they make a huge difference.
I haven't investigated Petname Tool. Is it really a web of trust tool?
I looked at the add-ons page comments and saw the following. Do you know anything about this?
At first I thought this was adding additional security be checking that the thumbprint of the SSL certificate matches the one I originally said I trusted. This would be very valuable.
I just changed the SSL certificate on my site and I expected this tool to warn me that the site was unknown, but it just gave me the old name I entered before. This is bad. It means that if an attacker can get a valid certificate for your web address (easier these days than before) and spoof your site with DNS cache poisoning then this tool will not warn you, as it should.
Have your browser monitor for when certs are updated. And use public notaries to tell you whether others are seeing the same certs for the site.
Certificate Patrol
Perspectives
An example of who else is seeing the addons.mozilla.org cert you're seeing.
Here are a couple Firefox addons that can help you avoid compromised certificates/CAs:
What's up with Alfred, NY?
I wasn't the one who started...
Someone else's being a jerk doesn't force you to respond the same way. If you have self control, you have a choice about how you respond. If you're sophisticated, you'll think about what you want to achieve rather than think about whether being rude is justified. If you're mature, you'll be able to hear potential criticism without reflexive defensiveness.
I don't appreciate other people telling me my legitimate use is not valid.
And other folks don't appreciate rudeness.
Be the change.
Samsungs have worked really well for me, too.
NTSC? Those players are using thin pipes, huh?
Sounds like you haven't tried it. Give it a go, there's a free trial. It's easy to run. I'm curious to hear how you like it.
I've got a 20 Mbps connection and I'm probably close to one of their servers, so I haven't had network issues at all. You should only be running NTSC rates if you've got a 1.5 Mbps connection. That's well below average these days, isn't it?
Network speeds keep improving (google "bandwidth over time"). This stuff will only keep getting better. "... makes no sense" is like saying the Web makes no sense because you don't like what you're seeing with this new-fangled Mosaic thingy.
A tool alone is useless; but the knowledge of how to use that tool is invaluable.
Happy?
"A tool alone is useless; but the knowledge of how to use that tool is ... um, also useless without the tool itself. So what I'm saying is that together the tool and the knowledge of how to use the tool are ... great. Doesn't really make a pithy quote, though."
Okay, how about:
A tool alone is useless; you must know how to wield it.
Is this an actual example of a good usage of the term "cloud"? In the sense of some computers out there somewhere doing stuff for you and you getting the results? Not long ago I heard about the company OnLive and their cloud-based gaming, where all the computing and rendering is done on their servers, you send your control inputs across the net to them and they send you back sound and video.
Played it not long ago myself and expected the lag to be bad, but it turned out it wasn't bad after all. You can sense it, especially doing certain things, but it doesn't get in the way. And I hear they have more latency cutting measures in store. Pretty neat stuff.
Cloud gaming opens up the possibility of leveraging more computing power per player, so I can see fancy effects like ray tracing being incorporated into cloud games.