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8451

Living Room / A Funnier IE6 Story

« Last post by Renegade on February 02, 2011, 01:50 AM »

FAIR WARNING:

If you are prone to wetting your pant laughing, don't read on... Unless you're browsing on your mobile phone in the toilet, in which case you should be safe.

http://www.independe...-the-uk-2200172.html

Anonymous, the mercurial “hactivist” collective behind a series of pro-WikiLeaks cyber protests, has declared war on the British Government following the arrest of five people in the UK.

Blah blah blah...

The threat has been judged serious enough for GovCertUK, the information security agency, to issue an advisory urging government websites to take precautions against DDoS attacks. “In light of this threat we would advise you to be vigilant against any new signs of DDoS activity you may encounter, and to notify us if such activity occurs,” the advisory warns.

In recent months the Government’s cyber security has been criticised in some quarters for being ill-prepared to deal with both hacking and mass cyber protests like DDoS.

In November a lone hacker from Romania successfully broke into the Royal Navy’s recruitment website and published details of current and former defence staff, including a former Royal Navy head.

Last year the Coalition also declined requests to upgrade government computers from using Internet Explorer 6, a decade old internet browser that has been abandoned by the French and German governments because of concerns over patches in its security.

BWAHAHAHAHAHA~!

Sorry... But if the UK government is that stupid, they deserve to get hacked~!

8452

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by Renegade on February 02, 2011, 01:44 AM »

we can help you build your own custom cms from scratch depending on how complex you want it to be. could you please show some live example of similar sites or describe its structure briefly?

-adi_barb (February 02, 2011, 01:12 AM)

That's actually one of the things that I want to avoid. I want a more or less out-of-the-box CMS that I can upgrade in line with the CMS's development. I don't want to have to do development for things I don't need to. Why reinvent the wheel?

The site is small -- a dozen pages or so. I basically just need a CMS to do all the heavy lifting for me. At the moment I'm playing with WordPress. But I'm borderline ditching it because it's simply not working properly and I'm having to go in and start messing with the internals. (At the moment I'm screaming inside about some database issues.)

Anyways, the site so far is http://supersimple.me/.

I think I'm going to go back and rip it out though.

8453

Developer's Corner / Re: "competitive upgrade" - is it ethical?

« Last post by Renegade on February 02, 2011, 12:22 AM »

...
Just like corporations. 

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 10:46 PM)

I'm not buying it. 

The capacity for "naughtiness" isn't comparable. A single person has virtually no power, and the "evil" ones are exceedingly rare given the number of humans.

Corporations on the other hand have the capacity to grow their sizes far beyond the capabilities of any human. This is their core purpose. However, with that immense power, also comes a level of capability that easily eclipses the greatest men in history.

It's like comparing luminance in Bic lighters and suns.

8454

Living Room / Re: I'm Confused

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 11:57 PM »

Imagine a Microsoft car! Takes 15 minutes to start 

Then again, I'd rather have that than the Apple car, where you can only fill up at Apple gas stations...

-timns (February 01, 2011, 09:14 PM)

Hahahah~!

I suppose gas for Linux cars is free, but you need to refine it yourself...

-Renegade (February 01, 2011, 10:21 PM)

And allow anybody else who wanted to use it to do so. 

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 10:26 PM)

No, anyone who wanted to clone it to do so , you get to keep your copy. And if you come up with a wicked new navigation or nitro system, you have to share its specs so others can clone it

-vixay (February 01, 2011, 11:14 PM)

So far the "refine your own gas" stuff sucks, but the rest of it sounds super-awesome~!

8455

Living Room / Re: IE6 Effects

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 10:23 PM »

Be sure to advise people that you DID NOT crash their system. My father, and another person who shall remain nameless, were upset that I made them "lose their work by restarting their browser".

-Josh (February 01, 2011, 09:27 PM)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!

8456

Living Room / Re: MOBILE VS. PC -- Please Chime In!

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 10:22 PM »

But I suppose I'm getting off topic since this isn't about gaming consoles.

-Deozaan (February 01, 2011, 09:00 PM)

Well-l-l ... it kinda is not off topic.  Games need the same kind of input that's been discussed if they're to have any real value/impact on the various portable devices available today.  (Or does anyone think that games won't be an issue?  Hey, check the various markets.)  iOS hasn't done it, Android hasn't done it ... actually, gaming performance could be a real measure in this arena.  Only, for once, the performance wouldn't be hardware based  .

OK, anybody up for creating a voice-controlled interface to World of Warcraft ... or is that a stretch too far  ?

-barney (February 01, 2011, 09:18 PM)

There is one... Mother screaming, "GET DOWN HERE FOR DINNER~!!!"

8457

Living Room / Re: I'm Confused

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 10:21 PM »

Imagine a Microsoft car! Takes 15 minutes to start 

Then again, I'd rather have that than the Apple car, where you can only fill up at Apple gas stations...

-timns (February 01, 2011, 09:14 PM)

Hahahah~!

I suppose gas for Linux cars is free, but you need to refine it yourself...

8458

Developer's Corner / Re: "competitive upgrade" - is it ethical?

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 08:37 PM »

Regarding corporations as evil:

CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. (Devil's Dictionary)

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Corporation[/url]^w => http://www.youtube.c...t=PLFA50FBC214A6CE87

http://www.thecorpor...index.cfm?page_id=47

   * Corporations are required by law to elevate their own interests above those of others, making them prone to prey upon and exploit others without regard for legal rules or moral limits.
    * Corporate social responsibility, though sometimes yielding positive results, most often serves to mask the corporation's true character, not to change it.
    * The corporation's unbridled self interest victimizes individuals, the environment, and even shareholders, and can cause corporations to self-destruct, as recent Wall Street scandals reveal.
    * Despite its flawed character, governments have freed the corporation from legal constraints through deregulation, and granted it ever greater power over society through privatization.

Monsanto. Dow. BP. Shell...


The (general) perception of corporations as evil has significant cause for it.


 

8459

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 08:13 PM »

Another thought -- it would explain the spelling errors with correct result(s). For tough words that people misspell, when Google serves up the right results for what they want and they clicked on the most relevant, it would explain why they're getting proper results for misspelled words. i.e. Google is training people and Bing at the same time.

8460

Living Room / IE6 Effects

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 07:35 PM »

Somebody posted a screenshot of this (and I can't find where), but here's the original:

http://mrdoob.com/la...ascript/effects/ie6/

Just move your mouse around the page.

FUN FUN FUN~!

8461

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 06:22 PM »

If MS is monitoring the results that people actually click on in order to improve their Bing results, I certainly couldn't blame them for that. It sounds reasonable and I wouldn't call that slimy. After all, who uses the results, what do they want, and what are they doing? Using information that people supply would only make sense. That the information is the same as Google's wouldn't be surprising as they have the bulk of the market. While it still would essentially be copying Google's results, it would only be doing so indirectly.

But that's all just speculation.

8462

Living Room / Re: New PS3 Firmware contains Sony Backdoor (Rootkit), allegedly

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 06:18 PM »

Sigh... But no surprise. Sony like their rootkits.

8463

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 06:12 PM »

Actually, thinking again, it would make sense to simply monitor the search term and the page clicked to. That's the easiest way to do it, and would be entirely search engine agnostic. However, with Google being the dominant player, the majority of data collected would be from Google essentially.

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Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 06:07 PM »

I just had an important revelation regarding all this and I may have to retract some of what I said. It seems *I* missed a key point in the original article, and that is that the people who were testing this at Google (from their home computers) were told to click on the top result in the bogus searches. So if you think about it, it could have nothing to do with the results being Google's necessarily, and everything to do with Bing simply tracking what sites their toolbar users click on from a search. Ah hah!

Now the question is whether the same thing would work on a different search engine, say DuckDuckGo or Yippy. If so it simply means Bing's toolbar is "learning" from user behavior and is quite frankly badly tuned and not rejecting clearly insane feedback (i.e. it puts too much trust in user's self-selection of relevant results). That just speaks to flaws in Bing's algorithm (surprise!). If however it's *just* watching what people click on in Google, then it's still kind of slimy.

I'd like to think Microsoft is only favoring links people click on - regardless of source - as that takes it well out of the range of slimy and makes for a much more sensible (if properly weighted) approach.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (February 01, 2011, 05:58 PM)

Sounds reasonable to me.

Though... If you were to do it, wouldn't you aim at the top players in search first? I certainly wouldn't waste my time on JoesAwesomeSearch.com.

I'd bet that they're primarily looking at Google, and if not, then only the top few like Yahoo, Baidu, Naver, etc.

8465

Living Room / Re: HTTPS on facebook, FINALLY here

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 06:03 PM »

I kind of wonder about the wisdom in releasing code like that. It's not like I'm going to scream "foul" or anything, but it does seem to be somewhat reckless. A screencast really is sufficient. If a company/website does nothing about it, then sure -- I can see releasing the code eventually. It just seems that it's becoming rather common for people to release software that is way too open to abuse.

8466

N.A.N.Y. 2011 / Re: NANY MUGs

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 05:48 PM »

Thank you, mouser, et.al.

I finally ordered my mug too!  I was in a quandary about which one to get and the laser tower was quite provoking.  In the end, I chose the "exhausted Cody" because I thought it represented the true NANY participation experience!   

-CodeTRUCKER (February 01, 2011, 03:28 PM)

Hahaha~!

The laser tower one was very enticing. It was a hard decision.

It's only been a few days, but it feels like it's taking an eternity to get here!

8467

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 05:45 PM »

And it doesn't matter that most of these lawsuits have absolutely no legal merit. In a civil suit, those with the deepest pockets usually win.

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 05:41 PM)

Sigh... And that's the sad thing... It's got nothing to do with legality, or right or wrong. So much for justice...

8468

Post New Requests Here / Re: IDEA: Block/Unblock all network traffic button (one-click)

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 05:26 PM »

No worries! Just 2 bottles of Samuel Adams Double Bock  (yummy!) twice a day, combined with very little exercise, and you'll soon have one too! Just ask my nephew. (Who is reading this and is not amused.)
 (see attachment in previous post)
If the gods of brewing make anything better, they're keeping it for themselves AFAICT.

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 05:16 PM)

Is that a real bock? If it is... Jeez... You don't need 2 a day to get fat! Bocks are the heaviest things out there. I usually split a bottle with someone if there's anyone willing.

8469

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 05:14 PM »

Your examples of "copying" are simply not the same thing. Google can't patent their search *results* (nor can they copyright them as far as I can imagine). In the case of Xerox, Apple, and others, all involve patented or copyrighted systems/concepts, so any "copying" must have been done in such a way that it avoided the existing patents (or there was licensing involved). If Google *could* copyright their search results, Bing would be in clear violation. That's the difference. In other words there is a difference between being inspired by and learning something, or even "copying" it by implementing your own very similar but *different* (in construction, implementation, method, etc.) system. Generally speaking if you're improving on an existing idea, that's reasonable and permissible, provided the resulting idea is sufficiently different/improved. Here the copying is much more literal. I'm honestly surprised Bing was this blatant about it.

- Oshyan

-JavaJones (February 01, 2011, 04:57 PM)

I'm not so sure they aren't basically the same. i.e. The more complex the idea, the greater the differences when they are copied.

Mouse. A pointing device. Fairly simple idea with a fairly complex implementation that can't help but be somewhat different, but not by much. (Xerox then Apple.)

Software download repository. Simple idea. Complex to implement. Can't help but be different in a lot of ways. (In Linux in 1998 and OS X in 2011.)

Displaying a website at the top of a list. Simple idea. Simple implementation. Can't help but be the same. (Google then Bing.)

It's just such a stupidly simple thing that it can't help but be identical.


I am curious as to how much Bing has copied though. THAT seems to me like the greater question.

8470

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 04:48 PM »

Here's the issue: Bing is not just learning from Google, they're *directly copying*; not only that but they're doing so without *reasonable further analysis*.

-JavaJones (February 01, 2011, 04:31 PM)

You're right.

I just don't care about copying like that.

Apple copied Xerox. Microsoft copied Apple. Apple copied Linux stuff. etc. etc.

Sure it's lame. Cheating? Sure.

When has anyone ever accused business of being honest?

Kidding aside...

Johnny: Who's the hottest girl in class? I think Suzie is.
Freddie: I think Suzie is the hottest too.
Johnny: Oh shut up! You can't think Suzie is the hottest girl in class because I though she was first!

Hahahah~!

More kidding~!

And I still don't care which search engines copy who or what. I only care about the results. Google still has the best results, so I'll keep using them until someone else has better.

8471

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 04:14 PM »

Still... It seems a bit lame on MS's part, whether or not it's a "clever idea" or not.

8472

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 04:13 PM »

Take a look at the article on TechDirt for another perspective on this.  It seems like the pot calling the kettle black in an attempt to prove their relevance.

-wraith808 (February 01, 2011, 04:08 PM)

For Google to attack a competitor for using open information on the web -- the same way it does -- seems like the height of hypocrisy. It's fine for Google to crawl and index whatever sites it wants in order to set up its ranking algorithms, but the second someone looks at Google's own rankings as part of their own determination, suddenly its "cheating"?

It seems to me that he's got a point there. It sounds like Google's position is that the game should be played by the rules that they want it to be played by (i.e. the way they do things) and anything outside of that is "wrong".

Google has established it's entire business off of copying data from other people. (How else could they index?) So...

8473

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 04:08 PM »

What are you talking about? Did you read the article? Google setup a test explicitly to see if Bing was doing this and got pretty conclusive evidence they were. Now if Google was doing the same thing, why would they call out Bing on it? They'd have a huge risk of having it fly back in their faces if Bing could prove the same thing in reverse. "Watching" is another matter; of course Google and Microsoft watch what each other are doing, but there's a big difference between that and outright copying *results* without actually figuring out algorithmically how to generate the correct (or similar) results.

-JavaJones (February 01, 2011, 03:35 PM)

I think that's what I said.

The copying part is another question --- and I wouldn't expect Google to admit that they did it if they did. No reason to suspect them either though. It does seem lame on MS's part.

I think "I wouldn't expect Google to admit that they did it if they did." was confusing -- I didn't intend to suggest that they were.

Google would have to have been watching Bing to notice it before they setup a honeypot to test for it. So they are watching each other.

8474

Developer's Corner / Re: Choosing a CMS

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 04:03 PM »

AFAIK it is ok. The rules don't apply upstream. Nor has anyone in FSF ever tried to argue it overrides any licenses in the tool chain developers use. GPL conditions only apply to the GPLed code itself and downstream code that incorporates it's source. The FSF has stated numerous times that the GPL does not (and legally cannot) override any existing software licenses.

If Joomla is insisting anything that attaches to Joomla must also be GPL purely because of GPL, I think they're misinterpreting the rules. Commercial add-ons get developed for GPL products all the time. If they're saying an add-on which incorporates actual Joomla code must also be distributed to the public under GPL, then they are correct.

Note: GPL only applies to code. Nothing else  It does not recognize the notion of IP. If you make a functional lookalike of a GPL product, call it something else, and release it under a commercial license, that's your business and it's ok by them. It's only when you incorporate GPL code into something that the rules go into effect.

Try doing that to a commercially licensed piece of software.

-40hz (February 01, 2011, 03:42 PM)

This is what I don't get about the Joomla/SMF issue. Sure, the bridge would need to be GPL, but... Why would that stop things there unless the SMF guys didn't want to release the bridge under the GPL. I can't see why not. If it only works with SMF, I can't see how it would matter. The SMF license wouldn't be affected.

But you can do it for commercial software -- create functional copies -- it happens all the time. I've seen it several times in the JoS forums and ASP newsgroups.

8475

Living Room / Re: Google sets up a sting against Bing

« Last post by Renegade on February 01, 2011, 03:33 PM »

Wow, that's *really* interesting. Not exactly sportsmanlike of Microsoft, but somehow I doubt that's outright illegal. The info is out there in public view. On the other hand didn't the guy who data mined public Facebook info face some kind of legal repercussions? That too is public data...

-JavaJones (February 01, 2011, 03:29 PM)

One of the funny things I find is that if Google is accusing MS of this... How do they know? Hmmm... They're both playing the same game. They're both watching each other. So it's like the pot calling the kettle black.

The copying part is another question --- and I wouldn't expect Google to admit that they did it if they did. No reason to suspect them either though. It does seem lame on MS's part.

I've had competitors copy me, but I never cried about it.