C++0x

There is massive confusion about C++0x. I've heard the name made fun of no less than five times in the last couple days, most recently in a blog post that spends a good half page mocking the possible pronunciations. On a side note, I recommend not reading that blog post, it's rather impressively packed full of ignorance. I made a joke about the name on Reddit and realized from the subsequent comments that people seriously think the standards' name is going to be C++0x. "0x" is supposed to be the ratification year -- "x" is not going to stay there. If it gets ratified in 2009 like they expect, the standard will be called C++09. This is not in any way new. C had C89 and C99, released in 1989 and 1999, and they're working on C1x (OMG AN X; how will we pronounce it?). C++ had C++98 and C++03, released in 1998 and 2003, and they're working on C++0x. Just like how we don't clarify C89 or C99 unless it's necessary (we just say "C"), we're not going to be saying "C++09"; we'll be saying "C++". C++0x is not a "new language", it's a new standard for the existing C++ language.

Linux isn't for everyone

I've wanted to write this entry for ages, but I keep forgetting. Fortunately, there's plenty of people on the Internet that helpfully remind me. There's a massive misconception about why people should adopt Linux, and I see it over and over again (because I still read Digg comments; the drama is just too enticing). Quotes like this pretty much sum up the problem:

people want an OS that works OUT OF THE BOX - they don't want to tweak with the kernel ... and no flavor of Linux is getting that done properly.

NO. "they don't want to tweak with the kernel" is 100% wrong, and that is the issue. The inevitable banal response to this is somebody saying "Ubuntu means you don't have to mess with the kernel", which is completely the wrong tack to take. The right answer is "If you want things to work out of the box and you don't like fiddling, Linux is not for you". "I just want it to work" is not the attitude of somebody that should be using Linux, that's not what it's for. Yes, it is entirely possible for things to work out of the box on Linux, and Ubuntu is very good at that, but what's the point? You might as well use Windows, you're not getting the main benefit of Linux: infinite flexibility. You can make arguments for security and reliability, but obviously Windows users (or at least the 87 that dugg up that comment anyway) don't particularly care, or have no issue with Windows in those areas.

I understand the Linux community's desire to convert people to Linux: the more people that use Linux, the more supported it has to be by hardware and software companies. But harrassing every Windows user you find and telling them they should be using Linux if they know what's good for them is nonsense. Linux is not for everyone; it really isn't for most people, since most people are fine with the default configuration of everything and don't particularly need it to change. Leave those people alone and stop getting in arguments with them; if at any point in a Windows/Linux argument the Windows person says "I just want it to work", just let it go -- they'll be happier with Windows

Reddit power

Apparently I should get reddited more:





Sadly, that now makes the handful of visits I had before look like 0 on the graph, but oh well. I actually posted that entry on a comment to another post, but apparently somebody reposted it as a story. A surprising number of people agreed with me considering I think it's a minority opinion, but there were plenty that disagreed too. And my anti-Windows thing at the end got interpreted backwards, which lead to confusion: I was saying that Pidgin, as an open source project, should be avoiding the very things that tend to drive people away from Windows. The main reason I love Linux is I can customize whatever I want, effortlessly; Windows is far less flexible. Trillian is an example of an unusually flexible Windows program, which is the very reason I used it, but with Linux it's no longer the exception to find a program that lets me configure it the way I want

EDIT: Apparently I should've waited before taking that screenshot:

DNS flaw released without warning

I think the Kaminsky DNS vulnerability news was big enough that non-tech people heard about it, so hopefully everyone here knows what I'm talking about; if not, it doesn't really matter. There was a serious DNS vulnerability that Dan Kaminsky discovered this year. Ignoring the temptation to hack the entire Internet, he worked with DNS vendors to patch their nameservers; there's a fairly cool video that shows a map of the world over time colored to show if servers are patched or not:



The details of how the exploit worked weren't actually supposed to come out until his black hat presentation a few days ago, but they leaked a week or so early. Nonetheless, watch the clip above and look at how many servers were patched by the time the details came out in late July

Then some Russian guy discovered that the fix isn't completely effective, although it does make poisoning take way longer. Did he quietly share the news with DNS vendors and try to work out a fix? Hell no, not only did he post the story on his blog, he helpfully included exploit code with it, because having to write your own might slow down attackers for a few hours

I understand the desire to release the news as soon as possible; Kaminsky is pretty much the most famous security researcher in the world at the moment, but what the hell? Now the New York Times has picked it up, so anybody with a couple good computers and a few hours on their hands can try poisoning a nameserver just for fun.

Now I Can Manipulate Pictures in 3D

So I'm told there's this new interface that resembles the thing from Minority Report. For those too terribly sheltered to have seen Minority Report:




That part isn't particularly good, but I can't find the clip I like. You get the idea anyway. I don't expect the example for the real interface to be Tom Cruise solving future crimes, but I really hoped it would be something, anything, besides this:



Why?! Why is it always the freaking picture twiddling? It was the same thing with the damn giant table, is that all multitouch interfaces are good for?

Firefox Password Fail

What happened with Firefox remembering passwords? Around the middle of July I suddenly noticed Firefox wasn't remembering passwords anymore. It still had them all in the saved passwords list (I think -- it doesn't anymore), and I still had it set to remember them, but it wouldn't auto-fill forms anymore and it didn't offer to remember new passwords. Oddly, this happened to both my home and work machines. My work machine runs Windows XP and Firefox 3, while my home machine runs Gentoo and Firefox 2, so it's fairly odd that both broke at the same time. I finally got around to searching for a fix today, and found a bunch of posts with the same problem:

• http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=762045


• http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=nl&forumId=1&comments_parentId=108743


• http://wccftech.com/forum/my-firefox-doesnt-remember-passwords-anymore-19358.html


• http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080524124947AADpbyu

All these people posted right around the same time, the middle of July. It seems Firefox simultaneously broke for a whole bunch of different people, and as far as I can tell nobody knows why; I'm not even sure if people have noticed the connection or not. The fix seems to be deleting the password cache so it can start over, but I haven't heard any explanation for what actually happened

McCain lies? No!

So this might seem to be somewhat at odds with my last post, but I just couldn't resist posting it. I'm not actually surprised by any of this, but maybe Republicans will be, since every time Obama varies his position in the slightest they go nuts. This guy took the time to make a massive list of all the lies McCain has told. And not small stuff like Obama's generally are, these are complete reversals on virtually every position he's ever had, including the same things Republicans attack Obama about. Technically these aren't "lies", they're more like flip-flops, but I'm more than willing to adopt Republican rhetoric in this case. Next time a Republican whines that Obama changed his position on something, direct them to this list