Posts by a_yank_lurker 4138 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Nov 2013
The problems highlighted are differences between a true leader and a manager. Leaders know they need get the unfiltered information from the front lines. Also, they realize the information may contradict their assumptions so they go with the information. Manager do the opposite, they tell the front line troops what they should do based on faulty assumptions.
"The PC market is more or less at saturation" that is to anyone like yourself with a couple of functioning brain cells. All markets will reach a point where most of the sales is replacement sales whether its soap or computers. With computers, neither hardware nor software is likely to have a compelling new feature that all existing gear needs to be replaced asap. For example, I have an old (~20 years) CRT TV that was more than adequate for what I was using it for that was just replaced with a flat screen after it just recently croaked. With computers, much the same is occurring, it will be replaced when the user decides it is past useful repair/upgrade and that may be awhile.
My employers has a mix of partial teleworking (3 days a week for many), home-based, and office based. Which group you are in is based on your job and its requirements. In my group we are either partially teleworking or home-based. Other groups are office based but it is pretty obvious if you are in an office based position. Interestingly morale is rather high for all groups as people feel they are being treated like responsible adults. Also, my impression is productivity is higher as befits higher morale.
Itsy Bitsy Morons apparently has serious mismanagement issues beyond the typical PHB/MBA levels of incompetence. Organizations with high morale seem to be able to more with less and this is a leadership issue.
The US Constitution sets minimum requirements for being President, a Senator, and Congresscritter. The requirements include minimum age to hold the office, minimum residency time in the US, and in the case of President must be native born. Given most politicians in the US work they way up the party ranks locally (state and/or city) to become prominent enough to run for Congress or President in not to surprising that the average age of Congress critters is not exactly young.
The Nine Seniles tend to be elderly because they have a lifetime appointment as do all feral judges.
Social media sites have varying mixes of ages by their nature. This mix does shift with time and popularity also changes with time (MySpace anyone?). So either this type of law will be either be overly broad or excessively narrow. The first problem will result in challenges like this and probably declaration the law is unconstitutionally broad in scope. If the second problem, it will not have much effect even if its constitutionality is dubious.
The Nine Seniles have been fairly consistent about laws that might impact fundamental rights have to meet a very high standard of the narrowest possible scope and effect combined with a very compelling reason why the law should be allowed to stand. Often laws like this are struck down because the Seniles' opinion they fail one of the tests rather badly. Without knowing the precise wording the NC law my suspicion is the law as written will fail one or more of the requirements. Based mostly on the observation many of these laws are poorly thought and written and are often overreactions to the problem.
My preference is the way Arch handles unofficial applications with the AUR. It is a one stop shop for any unofficial application with a plethora of excellent choices both FOSS and commercial. Also, these applications are updated with the rest of the install.
The real problem I see with Slurp and a lesser extent Fruit is how easy is it to add an application to the walled garden. Given that both are commercial enterprises they are apt to make this harder than it should be. Also, what third party applications will be granted the status of officially supported by either.. Linux distros have a varying number of officially supported third party applications in the main repositories.
There seems to be a strong possibility of some very elementary design errors also. Depending who actually did the design and the paper trail the fickle finger of infamy will find a juicy target. I tend to think some outside insultant did an incompetent design so becomes who hired the insultant.
fscked by SHA-1 collision? Not so fast, says Linus Torvalds
As Lee D noted, today's best practice will be tomorrow's obsolete methodology. SHA-1 has been considered weak for sometime now. However, intentionally creating 2 documents with the hash is not trivial but obviously doable. The real question is how different are the two documents. If they are obviously different with a quick glance then it is not as disastrous as if it is a couple of very small edits (a scenario many have postulated) that are the difference. If the hash is being used for cryptographic security then there are problems. But if it is a quick check the downloaded file this is not a very serious concern.
@P. Lee - Bottom of the barrel case - you business grinds to a halt because the "update" is incompatible with some 3rd party program. Even the Slurp shill Ed Bott on Zdnet had a post that the frequent "upgrades" are likely to cause problems with businesses because they will always be behind the curve on testing.
While the extradition hearings are grinding forward there is one issue not being addressed: how did Dotcom violate US law when there was no US office, he and his co-defendants never step foot in the US, and had limited if any dealings with any US companies. Maybe some US shysters in the D of Injustice should watch the movie Boomerang which closely follows an actual case from 1924 in Bridgeport, CT. More to the point they should look Homer Cummings in Wikipedia for more details.
The problem is cancer is actually a group of unrelated diseases that have similar symptoms. They are unrelated as the causes for each is different so the prevent and cure for each is different. How skin cancer, lung cancer, etc. are caused varies so other than surgical removal the treatment will vary. Grasp this fact first.
The convoluted nature of commercial software licenses makes this type of extortion legal. While an open source application would keep one out this racket it takes more understanding of the real financial risks than a PHB or MBA is capable of. The technical risk is about the same: a system that does not work well and is despised by the users. With open source code this can be mitigated because you can modify the code. The financial risk is bit trickier. Initially open source may be slightly more risky because company money is being directly spent on development. But the long term risk is less, no audits and full control of the project with the support costs being much more predictable (x staff at y salary per year vs the audit found you owned not just a but b, c, and d also)
While 90 days may be a bit arbitrary, it is more important to hold the vendor (Slurp in this case) accountable. If the vendor wants to navel gaze they earned the abuse they will get when the clock runs out. It is a matter of how willing the vendor is to fix problems than anything else. Also Slurp has a history of ignoring reports and then complaining when the clock runs out and they get called out.
There is also a major difference in expectation. While I despise Bloat 10's Spyware-as-a-Service model it is an OS for computers. One would reasonably expect the computer to connect to the Internet and that would some communication back to the mothership even if only to get updates and patches. Cayla is a doll marketed at children who should not be expected to understand privacy implications of the device when most adults have problems understanding these issues.
The problem is not taking security seriously enough to properly design and implement your system. MongoDB's defaults do not help but they are easily reconfigured if you bother to learn what you are doing. This is not different for any other db system; learn how to secure it and learn how properly sanitize data and most of the problems disappear.
Also, remember it is Slurp making the pitch who is a notorious data guzzler and also prone to security theater.
@Bloodbeatsterror - Narcissistic sociopaths have one major flaw - they believe they are always right even if the evidence says they are a complete idiot. Couple this with a refusal to actually learn anything from those whose lives they plan to screw up with imbecilic ideas and plans you have a recipe for disaster roaring through the affected lives. This extreme arrogance causes more harm especially when it is coupled with virtue signalling.
Part of the problem is the staff is incompetent and highly politicized. Fixing this will be difficult.
As far as other agencies some are useless and others are necessary. The real problem has been the tendency to see new agency or program as the solution to all problems when many of the problems are much more nuanced and require a solution that no bureaucratic agency can accomplish. So what one ends up with is programs and agencies that cost a lot of money but are failures by any objective standard. Government money has legal restrictions on how it can be spent but private money does not have to have these restrictions.
Having dealt with the incompetents at the EPA for various issues over many I found them to both technically incompetent and religious fanatics for lack of a better description. Asking them for clarification and guidance was a pointless exercise as they would normally refuse to give any clarifications or correct their stupidities. As far as agencies I found they are probably worse to deal than the IRS, an agency with a well earned dismal reputation. And if there is a minor error on the EPA forms that could be 5 years in Club Fed even if the error was an honest mistake.
Having worked closely with sales and marketing people, the good ones are worth their weight in good with a hefty multiplier. They get new business but more importantly they keep existing customers. Smart CEOs know this and try to keep them happy. Screwing your sales force is setting yourself up for failure about 3 - 5 years as the good ones leave and are not replaced. Another point about keeping existing customers, a customer may be more loyal to your ex-sales person than to your company. The relationship was often with a small group of people within your company.
These well-known and aggravating issues coupled with Slurp's "Who me?" attitude should make any competent or semi-competent company avoid it forever. Companies and professionals depend on their computers to work reliably every day and for vendors to actually take care of their customers. Slurp does not seem to care about any customer's needs.
@Mage - "Agile promotes bad practices." I would partially disagree. The key concept behind agile development is all the important groups are kept in the loop as the project develops. One idea is to have regular meetings with everyone with relatively short deadlines for completion of project segments. The other concept was flexibility coupled with each problem requires a somewhat different approach. Manage the project appropriately and include all the necessary documentation, testing, etc. So far nothing wrong with the concept. But what has happened is Agile has become ossified by PHBs, PMs, MBAs and assorted other "paint by the numbers" imbeciles. Now you have "scrums" and 2 week sprints, etc. instead of what might be required. Also, the imbeciles tend to be enamored with playing buzzword bingo without ever bothering to understand what they are babbling about.
An example is the belief that Agile eliminates the need for proper documentation and testing. It does not. Both are necessary for one to produce a quality product. However, the one agile idea is the documentation will probably be revised as the project evolves is valid. This is different from having little or no documentation. Testing is critical because a good test program uses people separate from the developers and programmers. Often the worst person to test code is the original programmer because they are too familiar with it.
Part of the problem is the antics of companies like Slurp and Chocolate Factory. The amount of information they either have or are trying to get makes them a rather obvious target for governments. They are constantly under the thumb of the local FISA court.
There is an old rule in security: what you never knew you can never tell. They need to learn this and minimize the information they are collecting and retaining.
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