You have fallen into the common trap of assuming infinite resources. The planet we are on is finite. The resources on it are finite. The amount of resources we can mine from our planet in a given time is finite. This is the reason for the theory of opportunity cost, one of the fundamentals of economics. Simply, everytime you do something you are denying yourself the resources to do something else.
I agree with you on the military budget there. I am totally anti-war and generally anti-military (although I believe most countries need some defensive forces).
Let us not forget though that some people still believe that the entire justification for travelling to the moon was an extension of the cold war.
As I said in another comment, there is no way that more is achieved as a side effect of research than could be achieved by researching these things directly. The "NASA Spinoff" stuff is self-justifying propaganda. If 18billion dollars (or whatever the budget is currently) was spent on medical research, for example, that science would get all the benefits not just a side-effect.
so, you are honestly trying to tell me that more can be achieved in "minicomputers, miniaturized long-life power sources, highly reliable microswitches, remotely-controlled manipulators, image enhancers, small and sophisticated robotics or cybernetics" as a side effect of space travel than could be achieved if these things are reseached independently with the same money?
Isn't it interesting that "space exploration is great" believers are as vocal and nasty as OS bigots.
I am merely doing what we should all be doing and provoking debate. It is my opinion that a program that eats so much of a country's research budget for so little immediate benefit should be examined. I am merely questioning why the US is willing to spend so much getting to the moon yet is unwilling to devote money and effort to reducing their contribution to the greenhouse effect.
I know my opinion will never be popular here, it is a place for nerds and all. However, I don't think we should go to the moon at all. I think we should get our house in order first. We are poluting ourselves out of house and home, we are running out of viable resources and we are constantly killing each other. There are far more useful ways to use our scientific resources. In this time of global warming and pollution I don't like the idea of rockets on useless missions wasting our resources and polluting our atmosphere.
Maybe instead of a space program what we need is to spend some resources trying to find viable alternative sources of energy. Maybe instead of NASA the US government could spend all that money on a sustainability research agency. I am a scientist and a geek but I will never understand why going to the moon is so important.
Oh, and before you say "there are resources on the moon we can use to alleviate our resource lack", there is no fuel on the moon for cars... there is nothing on the moon that we can't get here. Additionally, with our current technology, it would use more resources to get stuff here from the moon than it is worth.
I do not say we should never go to the moon, or further, but clean up our mess first. Who goes on holiday when their house is a mess eh?
the same trick was done in Superman 2 or course. By that trained-on-the-job programmer played by Richard Prior (I think). I am still amazed that a programmer trained on the job would think of that!
I was confused trying to find the news story in this, and now I have it! The news is not the word list itself. The news is that someone cares enough to post it on/.!
My least favorite "feature" of the registry is the tendency it has (sometimes) to have the entries for software that has been uninstalled. I assume the problem is with the uninstall routines of the software not the registry itself but if configuration files were used instead it would be childs-play to remove the configuration of old versions.
One example where this irritated me was in Java programming years ago. I needed to use the newest version of the Java API so I installed it. However, the IDE I was using (I think it was Forte) kept saying there were 2 versions of Java installed and insisted on using the older one. Additionally the old version of the compiler kept running instead of the new one. I uninstalled the old version of Java and thought things would get better, however, things got worse. Now it said that there was no compiler available and that it was still using the older version of the API that I deleted. After some investigation I found that the old version was gone but was still in the registry.
I can't remember the solution to the problem I eventually devised, but I must have solved it. However, if there was no registry one would assume that removing a software package completely would be a LOT easier.
I would suggest that the easiest way to go without the registry is to store all data in the "Documents and Settings" directory. Then if it all goes pear-shaped it would be easily fixed.
I guess since I am _that_ stupid I should tell all the students I was teaching compiler theory and systems programming to last year they should ask for a refund.
You can place executable code in any file. The problem is executing it. That is, operating systems don't "execute" text files. If you place a text file into memory the program that reads text files reads it and assumes it's all text. I am perfectly aware that the CPU and the OS it's all the same thing, but the operating system keeps track of the memory locations of running processes. It is impossible for a data file to run executable code because it is not a process. To run the executable code in a data file something has to either tell the scheduler to run it or copy the code over a process that is already on the list.
Windows has a unique problem in that it has data formats that are runnable as scripts. That is bad engineering. It was also done intentionally. That was bad.
Natural gas is natural, in that it comes straight from the ground. They called it that to distinguish it from LPG (liquid petroleum gas) that is made from oil.
I am aware of that type of exploit, but that's not what I was talking about. For an exploit like the one we are facing to work the metafile holding the image would have to actually run a program, because if the image is placed into memory by another program it wouldn't be able to overwrite any addresses (because the program storing the image in the stack chooses it's address.
If I read the article properly it is saying that windows has metafiles that can contain code, but can be used as images. That is bad engineering.
Of course they don't know what a DLL is. Windows has been marketed as a consumer OS, it was designed to be used by people without a clue. By default you can't even see the DLLs. People shouldn't need to have IT qualifications to use a computer, it should be secure enough for them to use it. What you are suggesting (to use a car metaphor and probably get flamed for it) is that people should need to strip and reassemble an engine to get a drivers liscence.
Windows have produced a datatype that allows people to place executable code into image files? How can they call themselves programmers. Seriously whoever engineered the WMF format should be ashamed.
"Only practical alternative"? I think it can be established that there are plenty of practical renewable sources of power. Nuclear is not all that clean really, that waste has to go somewhere. And it's not sustainable or renewable. There is a finite quantity of uranium in the planet. You're not getting ours in Australia either. Our biggest mine was endangering a national park, so we closed it down. Yay us.
Slashdot Mirror
You have fallen into the common trap of assuming infinite resources. The planet we are on is finite. The resources on it are finite. The amount of resources we can mine from our planet in a given time is finite. This is the reason for the theory of opportunity cost, one of the fundamentals of economics. Simply, everytime you do something you are denying yourself the resources to do something else.
Launch something to where?
Nowhere is particularly exciting
I agree with you on the military budget there. I am totally anti-war and generally anti-military (although I believe most countries need some defensive forces).
Let us not forget though that some people still believe that the entire justification for travelling to the moon was an extension of the cold war.
As I said in another comment, there is no way that more is achieved as a side effect of research than could be achieved by researching these things directly. The "NASA Spinoff" stuff is self-justifying propaganda. If 18billion dollars (or whatever the budget is currently) was spent on medical research, for example, that science would get all the benefits not just a side-effect.
Besides, I said "direct benefit".
so, you are honestly trying to tell me that more can be achieved in "minicomputers, miniaturized long-life power sources, highly reliable microswitches, remotely-controlled manipulators, image enhancers, small and sophisticated robotics or cybernetics" as a side effect of space travel than could be achieved if these things are reseached independently with the same money?
Yeah Helium-3, we can use it to run our fusion reactors
Oh that's right, we don't have any or even any real idea how to build them... I forgot.
Isn't it interesting that "space exploration is great" believers are as vocal and nasty as OS bigots.
I am merely doing what we should all be doing and provoking debate. It is my opinion that a program that eats so much of a country's research budget for so little immediate benefit should be examined. I am merely questioning why the US is willing to spend so much getting to the moon yet is unwilling to devote money and effort to reducing their contribution to the greenhouse effect.
I know my opinion will never be popular here, it is a place for nerds and all. However, I don't think we should go to the moon at all. I think we should get our house in order first. We are poluting ourselves out of house and home, we are running out of viable resources and we are constantly killing each other. There are far more useful ways to use our scientific resources. In this time of global warming and pollution I don't like the idea of rockets on useless missions wasting our resources and polluting our atmosphere. Maybe instead of a space program what we need is to spend some resources trying to find viable alternative sources of energy. Maybe instead of NASA the US government could spend all that money on a sustainability research agency. I am a scientist and a geek but I will never understand why going to the moon is so important. Oh, and before you say "there are resources on the moon we can use to alleviate our resource lack", there is no fuel on the moon for cars... there is nothing on the moon that we can't get here. Additionally, with our current technology, it would use more resources to get stuff here from the moon than it is worth. I do not say we should never go to the moon, or further, but clean up our mess first. Who goes on holiday when their house is a mess eh?
The US government announces the launch of Operation Screaming Fist.
...they should be able to sell it to virtually every MMG player in the world. Good marketing idea.
the same trick was done in Superman 2 or course. By that trained-on-the-job programmer played by Richard Prior (I think). I am still amazed that a programmer trained on the job would think of that!
I'm being followed by a moon shadow Moon shadow moon shadow...
I was confused trying to find the news story in this, and now I have it! The news is not the word list itself. The news is that someone cares enough to post it on /.!
My least favorite "feature" of the registry is the tendency it has (sometimes) to have the entries for software that has been uninstalled. I assume the problem is with the uninstall routines of the software not the registry itself but if configuration files were used instead it would be childs-play to remove the configuration of old versions.
One example where this irritated me was in Java programming years ago. I needed to use the newest version of the Java API so I installed it. However, the IDE I was using (I think it was Forte) kept saying there were 2 versions of Java installed and insisted on using the older one. Additionally the old version of the compiler kept running instead of the new one. I uninstalled the old version of Java and thought things would get better, however, things got worse. Now it said that there was no compiler available and that it was still using the older version of the API that I deleted. After some investigation I found that the old version was gone but was still in the registry.
I can't remember the solution to the problem I eventually devised, but I must have solved it. However, if there was no registry one would assume that removing a software package completely would be a LOT easier.
I would suggest that the easiest way to go without the registry is to store all data in the "Documents and Settings" directory. Then if it all goes pear-shaped it would be easily fixed.
I think we know the answer to this one but to say it out loud will start one of THOSE flame wars.
they should call it ++C, so then the "shouldn't you iterate the language BEFORE you use it" jokes can go away.
MMMMMMMMMMMmm giant lake of soda water. Throw in some cola flavour and sugar and the geeks of the world will jump straight in.
I'm with you on that one. I have no idea what this article is about.
I guess since I am _that_ stupid I should tell all the students I was teaching compiler theory and systems programming to last year they should ask for a refund.
Google is NOT an academic reference.
You can place executable code in any file. The problem is executing it. That is, operating systems don't "execute" text files. If you place a text file into memory the program that reads text files reads it and assumes it's all text. I am perfectly aware that the CPU and the OS it's all the same thing, but the operating system keeps track of the memory locations of running processes. It is impossible for a data file to run executable code because it is not a process. To run the executable code in a data file something has to either tell the scheduler to run it or copy the code over a process that is already on the list.
Windows has a unique problem in that it has data formats that are runnable as scripts. That is bad engineering. It was also done intentionally. That was bad.
Natural gas is natural, in that it comes straight from the ground. They called it that to distinguish it from LPG (liquid petroleum gas) that is made from oil.
I am aware of that type of exploit, but that's not what I was talking about. For an exploit like the one we are facing to work the metafile holding the image would have to actually run a program, because if the image is placed into memory by another program it wouldn't be able to overwrite any addresses (because the program storing the image in the stack chooses it's address.
If I read the article properly it is saying that windows has metafiles that can contain code, but can be used as images. That is bad engineering.
Of course they don't know what a DLL is. Windows has been marketed as a consumer OS, it was designed to be used by people without a clue. By default you can't even see the DLLs. People shouldn't need to have IT qualifications to use a computer, it should be secure enough for them to use it. What you are suggesting (to use a car metaphor and probably get flamed for it) is that people should need to strip and reassemble an engine to get a drivers liscence.
Windows have produced a datatype that allows people to place executable code into image files? How can they call themselves programmers. Seriously whoever engineered the WMF format should be ashamed.
"Only practical alternative"? I think it can be established that there are plenty of practical renewable sources of power. Nuclear is not all that clean really, that waste has to go somewhere. And it's not sustainable or renewable. There is a finite quantity of uranium in the planet. You're not getting ours in Australia either. Our biggest mine was endangering a national park, so we closed it down. Yay us.