In my example, I mentioned Habitat for Humanity, and a friend. She does not have the time to do Habitat for Humanity, but she cuts the time out of other things (usually sleep).
If you find it important enough, you make the time. That can go as much for OSS dev as for other things.
Even dropping the security blocks for a user doesn't neccessarily kill the security of the system.
I have a friend who isn't really a computer tech (he has me help him with a lot of stuff), but he is in a business where information and confidentiality are major.
Both of use have windows accounts where we are admin, for ease of use. Neither of use have had virus problems on our machines. The trick is, we are both very paranoid. We don't run every program we can download from the net, we don't go to sites that are likely to be dangerous, and if an email looks slightly suspicious, we view the source before reading it.
Conversely, I know plenty of tech savvy people, and not-so-tech savvy people who have had viruses on their windows machines, with or without admin, simply because they do whatever they please, without thinking of the danger. It's more or less the computer equivalent of crossing the street without looking both ways, or buying a house in the worst neightborhood in town, and thinking that the locks on the doors will be all that's needed to keep you safe.
That being said, I'm happy I switched to FreeBSD where I don't/have/ to log in as administrator to get most of my stuff done without difficulty.
Script kiddies can still get into bigger systems. I've seen/heard of plenty of UNIX systems getting hacked - here's a hint, not all of the databases that you hear are hacked and have a loss of data security, are Windows.
But most importantly, as the writer of the article said - it's the people who use the systems, who cause the security breaks. He suggested that everyone have a minimal amount of training, but the problem is, no amount of training will fix the inherant apathy to system security that a normal user has.
So maybe by limiting the access of the users, you could also help secure a popular system, but even them, there comes a point when you are not just limiting their access to be harmful, but also their access to do what they need to do as well.
It also involves wanting to help others out, or make something better for themselves.
Some similar things outside of computers:
1) (this is a bit in excess of what OSS typically has in terms of altruism) - I have friends who do Habitat For Humanity on Saturdays. One could say this is out of boredom, but it is also (and one case) more believably out of desire to help others.
2) I know a lot of people who do their own home maintenance and "upgrades". This is not only less financially burdensom, but they typically get things done somewhat faster and better than a contractor would.
All these mindsets mindsets (altruism, desire to have direct control of the quality, and greed) can also cause a person to develop OSS, with or without the presence of a "I have time and don't know what to do with it" state.
I thought neither was horribly exciting, but what irked me was on the first page of TFA.
I guess they were a pretty small company at the time.
SW: Yeah. They seemed huge to me, this was the center of arcade games, you know, video arcade games for the world. That was "the company." So it seemed large. I don't know how you judge what's large and what isn't.
Well I was mostly talking about the number of employees, I guess.
SW: Yeah. You've got the factory floor and you'd see one new game just lined up, cabinet after cabinet after cabinet, long lines of the same game. It was interesting to see.
In the second reply, after the guy mentioned that the people were his real interest, the the inanimate physical assets of the company, Woz just starts talking about the inanimate assets some more, as if the people weren't even important.
Until recently, the a US Naval Academy didn't put locks on the doorm doors because of the honor code. People were still expected to not steal from others or vandalize other's possesons.
They did not actively prevent this, but nonetheless the demanded that a person not do it, and they punished people who did.
Given your TV example, it'd be more along the lines of me don't watch channels 1 to 1,000, and you put an adaptor around the coax which shifts all the channels up by 1000, and then watch a channel between 1,001 and 2,000 - which is actually 1 and 1,000. You know the rules, but you break them anyway by finding a method around them, and pretending to be clever about it. Just like I can't predict where and when you'd place such an adaptor on the coax - there are a lot of proxys out there, and the switch regularly, so the place can't be expected to block all of them.
Laws and rules exist for a reason - people are always trying to bypass them and break them, the ability to do the latter does not give you such a right.
K-12 was originally developed in the US, not to educate, but actually to condition people to be good little peons and follow the rules.
The fact that I mentioned history and you talked about the whole slapping down, when there was talk of the past in your post suggests to me you are being deliberately obtuse here.
and if you don't understand why it's disrespectful - here's a simliar situation: I ask you if I can come over for a beer and chat later. You agree, but tell me not to turn the TV on, and have a piece of cardboard over the power button ("DON'T TURN ON" printed on it) to prevent it from being turned on. I go over to turn on the TV.
You probably had a good (or bad) reason for it.
This is the same thing. The students CHOSE to go to that school, they should be respectful and follow the rules.
If you think dead-tree press wasn't bought before, I have a nice bridge to sell you. It's at the foot of a huge mountain in Kansas with a great ocean view...
It's no different than having a teacher slap you down in class for a correct answer that isn't the answer out of the book. The point of schools should be to help you grow, not to force you into a mold so you can graduate and do some meaningless work that could be done better by a machine.
If you studied your histor, you'd know that, at least for K-12, the exact opposite is true, at least for the earlier US Schools.
That being said, while the intelligence of the student should be nutured, the willfull disobedience and diregard to the rules, and the inability to provide a certain amount of respect to the property of others/does/ deserve punishment.
Top of the line has never had the best price/performance ratio on PC components, to my knowledge, which means spending 33% more for a 10% improvement is very in-line with the way things work.
Not saying it's reasonable or rational, but when you deal with the crowds that have to have the best, and have plenty of disposable income, you can get away with it.
agreed, and while Microsoft's implementation may not be free or portable, I've yet to see a good reason why Mono doesn't make.NET portable. Admittedly, Mono isn't completely finished, but any.NET applicatino that runs in Mono (and it's not unheard of) is an example of portable.NET
I'd have to agree with you. Within a generation or two of an Intel CPU model being released, AMD is typically completely instruction set compatable with the Intel CPUs. Ex, the original Athlons didn't have SSE at all if I remember correctly, the later 32bit athlons had SSE and I think SSE2.
So, instruction set wise, they'd be golden. Add to that the addition of the 3DNow instruction sets, and the fact that they could assume they were present on newer Macs, the switch shouldn't be hard for Apple. As you said, EFI would cost money though.
That being said, as someone else put it, the performace of current generation AMD chips (and even the projected next gen performaces for AMD and Intel), does not provide a compelling case for a switch. Then again, the performance generation of Intel chips vs. PPC chips when Apple was official about the switch, did not make a compelling case either.
I was giving my anecdotal evdence, because contrary to what the GPs uninformed oppinion stated, my use of windows did not harm others.
That being said - as long as a user has the ability to install software on a computer, there is a huge security hole that cannot be fixed. And with all the psychological tricks used by people these days to get into a person computers, the bigger concern is how popular a system is rather than how many holes it has - because the biggest one can't be patched except by education. Most of the people don't want to be educated.
I used windows for well over 10 years before switching to FreeBSD. I've/usually/ had antiviruses and antispyware, and I've/usually/ had firewalls. I've never had a problem with viruses, hackers, identity theft or spyware. Even using a sniffer and portscanner, there has been no evidence of a hack on any of my machines.
The problem with security, is not the OS. It's the sack of water, carbon, and other trace elements and molecules between the keyboard and the chair, and that is where the biggest security hole will always be.
I've known plenty of people with this same setup.
The reason that the OSes you've mentioned as more secure are that way is because the people who use them tend to think differently about their computers (Linux/FreeBSD), and are not nearly as lucrative of a target due to smaller market share. No more.
How long is the cycle on the card? And how do they keep it from going out of sync? My watch loses about a second every day (ok, it's a cheap watch), but nonetheless, the only way it and the server can work is if the key is based on time. If that is the case, then they card's clock has to stay sync'd with the server's clock... Wouldn't that be a problem?
I'm quite serious and I'm really not trying to be snooty (and I know how this sounds and that it could be mistaken for flamebait) - simply not everyone can do that (they can look at something hideous and think it looks 'fine', they can eat terrible food and notice it's awful, can write terrible documentation and think it's "really clear" (or for that matter, write terrible code and have no idea how hideous and nasty it is).
Sorry, but it's hard to see that as anything but snooty. To be honest, you are looking at something subjective and treating it as objective, and all the varying bright colors in semi-random places are garish. Personally, I think the MacOS looks hideous myself - most of the colored parts design looks like it's from the type of plastic used in childrens toys. That being said, I think the default Windows XP looks even worse, the default classic Windows, KDE and Gnome are droll.
All three of IE7, FireFox and Safari have their share of problems, it's really 'pick your bugs'.
Comparing MacOS 6 and 7 to Windows 3.1... All of those options are from the last century. I am talking about Windows 2000/XP vs. MacOs 9 and X. X is much better than 9, but I still found, for most tasks, I prefered Windows 2000 or XP. It's all a mater of taste, and natural tendancies.
Artistically, I prefer Windows over MacOS, because while both suck out of the box (IMO) for appearance, it doesn't take much, or 3rd party utils for me to make Windows acceptable for me(toned down GUI that does it's job and doesn't grab attention - either good or bad, the eyes just glide over it). As far as usability goes - MacOS is the only one that I find has severly hindered usability in the UI, and that is simply because I'm nearsighted (I can seem ore detail easily than most people, but if I have to move my focus around the screen, I have to actually move my head - the one-menu-for-all of a Mac makes that difficult).
Slashdot Mirror
actually, from TFS, not just TFA, the higher prices will also come with higher quality audio.
No DRM + higher quality audio = possibly worth a 30% increase in price
You can do stuff without having the time.
In my example, I mentioned Habitat for Humanity, and a friend. She does not have the time to do Habitat for Humanity, but she cuts the time out of other things (usually sleep).
If you find it important enough, you make the time. That can go as much for OSS dev as for other things.
Even dropping the security blocks for a user doesn't neccessarily kill the security of the system.
/have/ to log in as administrator to get most of my stuff done without difficulty.
I have a friend who isn't really a computer tech (he has me help him with a lot of stuff), but he is in a business where information and confidentiality are major.
Both of use have windows accounts where we are admin, for ease of use. Neither of use have had virus problems on our machines. The trick is, we are both very paranoid. We don't run every program we can download from the net, we don't go to sites that are likely to be dangerous, and if an email looks slightly suspicious, we view the source before reading it.
Conversely, I know plenty of tech savvy people, and not-so-tech savvy people who have had viruses on their windows machines, with or without admin, simply because they do whatever they please, without thinking of the danger. It's more or less the computer equivalent of crossing the street without looking both ways, or buying a house in the worst neightborhood in town, and thinking that the locks on the doors will be all that's needed to keep you safe.
That being said, I'm happy I switched to FreeBSD where I don't
Script kiddies can still get into bigger systems. I've seen/heard of plenty of UNIX systems getting hacked - here's a hint, not all of the databases that you hear are hacked and have a loss of data security, are Windows.
But most importantly, as the writer of the article said - it's the people who use the systems, who cause the security breaks. He suggested that everyone have a minimal amount of training, but the problem is, no amount of training will fix the inherant apathy to system security that a normal user has.
So maybe by limiting the access of the users, you could also help secure a popular system, but even them, there comes a point when you are not just limiting their access to be harmful, but also their access to do what they need to do as well.
Maybe it's the quality of the cycles?
hehe, this coming from me. Eye kant spel eyether.
It also involves wanting to help others out, or make something better for themselves.
Some similar things outside of computers:
1) (this is a bit in excess of what OSS typically has in terms of altruism) - I have friends who do Habitat For Humanity on Saturdays. One could say this is out of boredom, but it is also (and one case) more believably out of desire to help others.
2) I know a lot of people who do their own home maintenance and "upgrades". This is not only less financially burdensom, but they typically get things done somewhat faster and better than a contractor would.
All these mindsets mindsets (altruism, desire to have direct control of the quality, and greed) can also cause a person to develop OSS, with or without the presence of a "I have time and don't know what to do with it" state.
In the second reply, after the guy mentioned that the people were his real interest, the the inanimate physical assets of the company, Woz just starts talking about the inanimate assets some more, as if the people weren't even important.
OK, here's one you *might* understand...
Until recently, the a US Naval Academy didn't put locks on the doorm doors because of the honor code. People were still expected to not steal from others or vandalize other's possesons.
They did not actively prevent this, but nonetheless the demanded that a person not do it, and they punished people who did.
Given your TV example, it'd be more along the lines of me don't watch channels 1 to 1,000, and you put an adaptor around the coax which shifts all the channels up by 1000, and then watch a channel between 1,001 and 2,000 - which is actually 1 and 1,000. You know the rules, but you break them anyway by finding a method around them, and pretending to be clever about it. Just like I can't predict where and when you'd place such an adaptor on the coax - there are a lot of proxys out there, and the switch regularly, so the place can't be expected to block all of them.
Laws and rules exist for a reason - people are always trying to bypass them and break them, the ability to do the latter does not give you such a right.
you would think so, but initially it will probably be like some earlier bluetooth stuff (especially keyboards and mice)...
Namely, it's nice, but each device works with the adaptor that came with it and nothing else, so you still need one wire per device...
K-12 was originally developed in the US, not to educate, but actually to condition people to be good little peons and follow the rules.
The fact that I mentioned history and you talked about the whole slapping down, when there was talk of the past in your post suggests to me you are being deliberately obtuse here.
and if you don't understand why it's disrespectful - here's a simliar situation:
I ask you if I can come over for a beer and chat later. You agree, but tell me not to turn the TV on, and have a piece of cardboard over the power button ("DON'T TURN ON" printed on it) to prevent it from being turned on. I go over to turn on the TV.
You probably had a good (or bad) reason for it.
This is the same thing. The students CHOSE to go to that school, they should be respectful and follow the rules.
If you think dead-tree press wasn't bought before, I have a nice bridge to sell you. It's at the foot of a huge mountain in Kansas with a great ocean view...
If you studied your histor, you'd know that, at least for K-12, the exact opposite is true, at least for the earlier US Schools.
That being said, while the intelligence of the student should be nutured, the willfull disobedience and diregard to the rules, and the inability to provide a certain amount of respect to the property of others
ok, if you do that, can I patent a system whereby human-readable text is converted into machine instructions?
actually, it wasn't PySH, it was:
http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/
Which is IPython (not to be mistaken for iPython, Steve Job's variant of Python!)
I tried to link to a python shell web page, but for some reason the link didn't stick...
but there are python based shells and perl based shells.
Any other requests?
Actually, I think you can do that with plain old python also, it's just not as "friendly"
Top of the line has never had the best price/performance ratio on PC components, to my knowledge, which means spending 33% more for a 10% improvement is very in-line with the way things work.
Not saying it's reasonable or rational, but when you deal with the crowds that have to have the best, and have plenty of disposable income, you can get away with it.
agreed, and while Microsoft's implementation may not be free or portable, I've yet to see a good reason why Mono doesn't make .NET portable. Admittedly, Mono isn't completely finished, but any .NET applicatino that runs in Mono (and it's not unheard of) is an example of portable .NET
I'd have to agree with you. Within a generation or two of an Intel CPU model being released, AMD is typically completely instruction set compatable with the Intel CPUs. Ex, the original Athlons didn't have SSE at all if I remember correctly, the later 32bit athlons had SSE and I think SSE2.
So, instruction set wise, they'd be golden. Add to that the addition of the 3DNow instruction sets, and the fact that they could assume they were present on newer Macs, the switch shouldn't be hard for Apple. As you said, EFI would cost money though.
That being said, as someone else put it, the performace of current generation AMD chips (and even the projected next gen performaces for AMD and Intel), does not provide a compelling case for a switch. Then again, the performance generation of Intel chips vs. PPC chips when Apple was official about the switch, did not make a compelling case either.
(1) Birth control required
(2) What happens in space... stays in space.
I was giving my anecdotal evdence, because contrary to what the GPs uninformed oppinion stated, my use of windows did not harm others.
That being said - as long as a user has the ability to install software on a computer, there is a huge security hole that cannot be fixed. And with all the psychological tricks used by people these days to get into a person computers, the bigger concern is how popular a system is rather than how many holes it has - because the biggest one can't be patched except by education. Most of the people don't want to be educated.
I used windows for well over 10 years before switching to FreeBSD. I've /usually/ had antiviruses and antispyware, and I've /usually/ had firewalls. I've never had a problem with viruses, hackers, identity theft or spyware. Even using a sniffer and portscanner, there has been no evidence of a hack on any of my machines.
The problem with security, is not the OS. It's the sack of water, carbon, and other trace elements and molecules between the keyboard and the chair, and that is where the biggest security hole will always be.
I've known plenty of people with this same setup.
The reason that the OSes you've mentioned as more secure are that way is because the people who use them tend to think differently about their computers (Linux/FreeBSD), and are not nearly as lucrative of a target due to smaller market share. No more.
I guess that's true, it's just a large scale rollout has me worried.
btw: like the sig.
How long is the cycle on the card? And how do they keep it from going out of sync? My watch loses about a second every day (ok, it's a cheap watch), but nonetheless, the only way it and the server can work is if the key is based on time. If that is the case, then they card's clock has to stay sync'd with the server's clock... Wouldn't that be a problem?
Sorry, but it's hard to see that as anything but snooty. To be honest, you are looking at something subjective and treating it as objective, and all the varying bright colors in semi-random places are garish. Personally, I think the MacOS looks hideous myself - most of the colored parts design looks like it's from the type of plastic used in childrens toys. That being said, I think the default Windows XP looks even worse, the default classic Windows, KDE and Gnome are droll.
All three of IE7, FireFox and Safari have their share of problems, it's really 'pick your bugs'.
Comparing MacOS 6 and 7 to Windows 3.1... All of those options are from the last century. I am talking about Windows 2000/XP vs. MacOs 9 and X. X is much better than 9, but I still found, for most tasks, I prefered Windows 2000 or XP. It's all a mater of taste, and natural tendancies.
Artistically, I prefer Windows over MacOS, because while both suck out of the box (IMO) for appearance, it doesn't take much, or 3rd party utils for me to make Windows acceptable for me(toned down GUI that does it's job and doesn't grab attention - either good or bad, the eyes just glide over it). As far as usability goes - MacOS is the only one that I find has severly hindered usability in the UI, and that is simply because I'm nearsighted (I can seem ore detail easily than most people, but if I have to move my focus around the screen, I have to actually move my head - the one-menu-for-all of a Mac makes that difficult).