Pangloss

Yah, I think if you were running the original version of XP then you'd be vulnerable, but most people run SP1 or SP2 which are protected (but don't quote me on that). But even without the Zotob thing, holding back to a prior version, even if you fully patch it, doesn't guarantee security. Microsoft rarely patches earlier operating systems, and declared recently that it was going to release no more patches for Windows 2000. The 9x and NT products haven't been patched in years. There are many vulnerabilities that exist today that affect those products that have never been patched, and of course many of those are based on IE. But I still think it's a valuable suggestion (that you made). It's not unusual at all for it to make a huge amount of sense to wait a bit when a new product comes out, to let the early adopters shake out all the issues. Just this past week there was a movement amongst .NET developers to try and convince Microsoft to hold up on the product launch of Visual Studio .NET 2005 due to bugs and issues. Microsoft has promised to address the issues, but they're going ahead with the launch anyway. To steal a headline from FARK earlier today, this one doesn't take four stoned kids and a dog in a van to solve.

It's also your decision whether you want to maintain blind, faith-based adherence to those points of view that happen to be identical to yours, without ever challenging or critiquing those assertions in any way (by, for example, asking them to back it up). One thing Thomas might agree with me on is that for some reason we seem to have developed (at least in my country) a sense of needing to belong to a specific socio-political group. Many people, once associated with that group, cannot find it within themselves to question any position of that group. Ironically, if you ask them specifics, they will often state positions that are in direct contradiction to the more common positions of their socio-political group, but the individual just wasn't aware of those positions. When the contradiction is pointed out, they are faced with a conundrum, and must either change their position to comply with the socio-political group, or re-think their decision about blindly identifying themselves with that group in the first place (and either way they have to face the fact that they made a major mistake). It's a shame, really. Such a waste of time and effort. But I see it all the time. It's just easier for people, I think. Besides, if they're confronted, they can always just toss their hands in the air and say "hey, politics ain't my thang", as if that were actually a logical, sensible position. This is just another one of the many good reasons why people should back up their assertions in debate. Otherwise you're just screaming ideologies at one another, and demanding to know why the other guy isn't adhering to "common sense". What's the point in that?

Generally speaking the don't-upgrade approach has not proven to be a very good way to avoid security issues. But I agree that there may be a relatively brief period where it may make more sense to wait a bit and see how things develop. I often recommend this to my business customers, but always with the stipulation that they keep patching and be mindful of the potential disadvantages. One of the things we saw last week was that most of the companies that got slammed by Zotob were companies that were running Windows 2000. It wasn't so much the fact that they were running 2k that got them into trouble, because that virus could also affect XP/2003 (in theory), but the fact that they weren't patching regularly and/or rapidly. I think Zotob was a huge wake-up call for NOCs all over the world.

Yeah that really bugs me. I'm a channel partner, a Microsoft Certified Trainer, a reseller action pack subscriber, an MCSE (twice over), and a former TechNet subscriber, and I can't even get a decent price on Visual Studio except via the Academic channel (which I can't use to make a program I can sell), or a decent price on MSDN. Most annoying. They're really stringent about free licensing these days, compared with the way it used to be. I used to go to conventions and come home with stacks of discs and licenses, and even betas, technets and MSDN discs. Those days, alas, are long gone.

Blind ideology is so much easier than having to prove what you state, isn't it? If nobody believes you, call them "idiots" and "conservatives", or tell them they're "full of shit" -- that's much easier than having to actually give examples, state objective sources, or stand behind your words. You know, there's another word for when you ask people to accept something. The word for that is "faith". I find it highly amusing that Thomas Kirby, the self-proclaimed champion of science over Intelligent Design, is so dependent upon faith to make his arguments. The ironic thing is, faith is the very thing that Thomas Kirby hates most. It's the purvue of "idiots" and "conservatives", right? And yet it's the very thing he is most dependent upon. Thomas Kirby makes arguments in exactly the same way that James Dobson (leader of Focus on the Family) makes arguments: Blind faith, repetition, and denial. Go figure.

Questions to ponder: - What is Israel's next move? Should they or will they pull out of the West Bank and/or Jerusalem? - Is a brokered peace possible that leaves some settlements in territory not part of Israel's original charter?

Right, I believe the general consensus of observers is that Netanyahu (sp?) may try to take control of the party and become leader again, pushing Sharon out. Or at least there has been a lot of speculation in that direction over the past week or two, since he left Sharon's cabinet.

So what do you all think of the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip this week? I think it's quite a development myself. If you'd told me just a year or two ago that Ariel Sharon, of all people, would remove those settlements, I'd have said you were nuts. Will this further the road to peace in the region?

But the best thing about Clippy is that he lends himself so well to abuse in Photoshop contests.

Hey man, don't dis Clippy. Clippy RULZ U. You WISH you could be as cool as Clippy. ;-) Funny thing, I hadn't actually seen Clippy in years, but I was teaching a class on Microsoft Access yesterday and I noticed one of the students had called up Clippy and was messing around with him between lessons -- one of those students you get sometimes who finishes labs ahead of the other students and gets bored (usually they just pull up a web site or something; I just thought it was kinda funny that he pulled up Clippy instead).

The reality of your position, Thomas, is that you're just not going to be able to sell that to anybody based solely on the power of your flowery rhetoric. You can't back it up -- all you can seem to do is repeat yourself and stamp your feet until you get the last word. That's not debate, that's childish foot-stomping.

And apparently that's just going to be true no matter how much reality and hypocrisy you need to ignore in your position in order to make that work for you. So why do you bother to participate in debate?

Mokele, you're going to heck, Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-damn you!

Tabs?

Anybody who likes Penn & Teller is hoopy in my book.

Oddly enough, I actually like Thomas' dissertations. It's his short posts that are kinda annoying. The question is in Post #181 at the top of this page, Thomas.

I guess I should apologize for snapping at Bascule up there. I was rude in Post #2. Sorry about that.

No comment, Thomas?

Sure, that's ironic, just not why you think. It's always ironic when one extreme acts like the other extreme is both (a) the main view (instead of an extreme), and (b) always wrong. Blind ideology is always ironic, yes it is. Thanks for the reminder. I dunno, I guess I'm just disappointed. This is like something you find on DemocraticUnderground or RushLimbaugh, not ScienceForums. I like to think we set a higher standard here. But perhaps it's just me.

I think that statement insults both liberals and conservatives.

Well I don't agree with those who say "shoot the bastards" or whatnot. But I also think it goes too far in the other way to say that nothing can be done. How do you know? Have you tried everything there is to try? I know I haven't. There was a time in this country where nobody thought federal laws would ever work, either. Now we know how necessary they are, protecting us from when the law fails at the state level, and handling situations where crime extends beyond state boundaries. But plenty of ideologues refused to believe that it could ever work, and it took the deaths of half a million Americans to convince them. How many children have to die to convince you that there are other possibilities, Thomas? Or will you just continue to write off anybody who tries as a "conservative"?

As I understand it, system software is typically written in C or C++ using procedural methods (with some OOP mixed in whenever they can get away with it). Lower-level stuff is sometimes written in processor-specific Assembly-language packages which are incorporated into C++ wrappers, in a sense. So, for example, you can write an entire operating system in a C++ integrated development environment (such as Borland or MS Visual Studio). In terms of the industry at large, the question is a really interesting one, because virtually all programming language development over the last decade, and virtually all development looking forward, is based on what they call "managed code" -- i.e. either an interpreter or a just-in-time compiler or some sort of dynamic library-like infrastructure, as we see with Java or .NET. The point being that you can't write an operating system in something like that, because you need the infrastructure to be in place, and the infrastructure has to reside in an operating system. And so system software is kinda stuck in the dark ages of C and C++.

PBS is re-running the April 2005 episode of Frontline entitled "Israel's Next War" over the next week or so (check your local listings). This fascinating episode is also available entirely online, at this URL: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/ (RealPlayer is required.) This is, of course, appropriate right now, because of events in the Gaza Strip this week. The episode takes a look at how the settlers have become distanced from the Israeli political mainstream, and looks at some of the extreme measures that they're willing to go to in order to protect the settlements. Some of these people make the American "religious right" look like characters in a Disney movie. They're organized, some of them are violent, and they're not in the least bit interested in peace or compromise. Check it out, it's well worth a look.