I worked with a guy who pronounced it like "Ess Quell". My brain twitched every time I heard him say it. // mght ToDo:
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Or "ze rok" as ze Germans might say. If you cooled a ball to absolute zero, it would be ze rok and roll. // mght ToDo:
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Socialcast? www.socialcast.com Not free, but it is designed to be a collaboration platform for business.

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I hate it when people sign their name and then their email signature provides their name again. This is redundant, anachronistic, and pointless. This "double signing" is annoyingly grating to me, and I'm not sure why as it seems like only a minor issue. For example,

Regards,
Bob Smith

Bob Smith
Big Company Ltd.
33 Big Street
phone 3141592653589

Please don't do this!

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Everyone likes to hate on Enterprise, but I thought it was excellent and one of my favorite shows at the time. Here I am off in the corner by myself, the only person who loved Enterprise even more than DS9 and Voyager.

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Excellent examples Ron, thanks for that. In my mind, there are really 3 different types of responsibility for security issues: Ethical Responsibility - Software vendors have an ethical responsibility to fix their code when they know of a security hole being actively exploited. Whether there is an ethical responsibility to fix security holes that have been discovered but not yet been exploited is really dependent on the risk to their customers. A banking app provider has high ethical responsibility because of the financial risk, while a photo editing app is less essential. I agree that the vendor's ethical responsibility is for their software and stored data only - they are not responsible for repairing users computers. Contractual Responsibility - Some vendors have a contract or license with their users laying out the vendor's responsibility and remedies for security issues. In the case of most shrink-wrap agreements, this should be renamed Contractual Non-Responsibility. Legal Responsibility - In some US states, data breach laws create a legal responsibility to notify users when their information is released. The laws may provide other remedies such as fines and credit monitoring. Sometimes a civil class-action lawsuit can find the software vendor negligent. However, in most cases there is no legal responsibility to take any action. The paper you linked to goes into more detail.

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Ron Beyer wrote:

If I leave a loaded gun on the table, its not my fault you shoot somebody with it. [edit] Yes I would be negligent for leaving it there, but you would be guilty of the crime[/edit]

But if you knowingly leave the loaded gun on a table in front of a small child, you are guilty of even greater crime (negligence, child endangerment, possibly even 2nd degree or accessory to murder in the US). Basically, the level of criminality depends on your foreknowledge of the situation. Going back to software, if you know of an exploit in your software that leads to your users getting pwned, you are responsible for fixing it. In response, some software companies intentionally ignore security issues so they can claim innocence. And, some pointy-haired managers actually believe ignoring security will save money and time. As most of us know, a security hole can be a HUGE money and time-suck, not to mention the loss of reputation. Many bean-counters only realize how expensive it is after they have already been burned. Security is a priority only after it is already too late. :((

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Dan Sutton wrote:

I love it! That happens to me with C++ -- not to mention...

I read that as "That happens to me with C plus plus minus minus". I had a brief near heart attack wondering what horrible new extension the C++ committee was foisting on us this time... :doh:

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_beauw_ wrote:

On a PC, the brain looks like a big red "X" with "Quit" and "Continue" buttons.

And on a Mac, the brain appears to have a large bite taken out of it.

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That sounds just like some people I (sadly) know - XAML is the answer to every data storage problem that ever existed. Databases? nah, too complex.

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Back in the day when I was doing more network administration than actual coding, I received a user request that nearly made me fall off my chair. User: "I'm traveling to a business conference next week, and I don't know if the hotel has internet access. Can you burn the internet to a CD for me?" :wtf: After contemplating the chain of ignorance that could lead to such a request, I replied as straight-faced as I could manage: "Sorry, we don't have enough blank CDs in the office." He slowly walked away, sad that IT was unable to complete his simple request. A few minutes later, he returned to my office and offered up a spindle of 10 or so blank CDRs that he had in his desk. I had to send him away again, this time with the knowledge that if I did burn the internet to CDs, the combined weight of the discs would put him over the weight limit for airline baggage. I didn't tell him that at the speed of my CD burner and the growth rate of the internet, we would reach the heat death of the universe before I finished creating the CDs. What other crazy stories of user requests do you have?

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Chris Meech wrote:

Isn't

rand(42);

random enough for you. :cool:

No.

rand(rand(42));

Now with twice the randomness!

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aspdotnetdev wrote:

Nonsense! IDE's are too fancy as it is. Let's all program in assembly language and pass it off to a compiler using the command line punch cards! Productivity is WAY overrated.

FTFY

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viaducting wrote:

Why are there rhetorical questions?

Why not?

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Dan Neely wrote:

That would allow a more accurate measurement; but the lack of a scale to weight it is still a showstopper. D'Oh!

Oh, I see. When you said "Scale" I first thought you were referring to a point of reference to determine the volume to weight, like a chart. I guess you are actually referring to a physical device to perform said weighing. ;P

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Dan Neely wrote:

.... I have a good estimate of volume, but not a scale suitable for measuring the weight of a small sample; which unfortunately varies widely.

What you need is a long tube to take a top-to-bottom core sample. This will let you average out the density differences between the compressed snow at the bottom and the lighter fluffy stuff on top. With a known volume of varying density, you can take a pretty reasonable crack at calculating the average weight.

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You use #include "person@company.com" in an email instead of CCing them Just last week, I woke up in a stupor trying to figure out how to set a breakpoint on my noisy alarm clock. I have a stack of papers on my desk that needed to be sorted by date, and I spent more time trying to figure out the most efficient sort algorithm than I actually spent sorting them.