[Mon Mar 31 16:44:30 CEST 2008]

Computer World published a story titled Mac easiest to hack, says $10,000 winner that is sort of interesting for a couple of reasons. First of all, it's interesting because it is true that it's not always Windows that's the easiest to hack into. We all know that, although there are times when we let ourselves be carried away by anti-Microsoft prejudice. The reality is that any OS can be hacked into. Nobody can truly say that a particular piece of software is "secure", and this affects Windows, MacOS, Linux, MSIE, Firefox and anything else. Said that though, I find it peculiar that the title, as usual, is quite sensationalist. Notice, for isntance, how at the end of the article the security expert who led the team clearly says:

"[Mac OS X] security is better than it was three or four months ago", said Miller when asked to characterize Apple's current security status. "We were equally capable of finding [a vulnerability] in Windows if we had to", he said.

Obviously, the titled chosen to publish the story doesn't translate that view to the readers. {link to this story}

[Fri Mar 28 14:42:54 CET 2008]

A co-worker who was recently accused of sending a message that lacked tact to an internal mailing list replied with an apology and a link to a piece posted on the MIT website about "tact filters" that I found quite interesting:

All people have a "tact filter", which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it. Most "normal people" have the tact filter positioned to apply tact in the outgoing direction. Thus whatever normal people say gets the appropriate amount of tact applied to it before they say it. This is because when they were growing up, their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all!"

"Nerds", on the other hand, have their tact filter positioned to apply tact in the incoming direction. Thus, whatever anyone says to them gets the appropriate amount of tact added when they hear it. This is because when nerds were growing up, they continually got picked on, and their parents continually drilled into their heads statements like, "They're just saying those mean things because they're jealous. They don't really mean it".

When normal people talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they say, and no one's feelings get hurt. When nerds talk to each other, both people usually apply the appropriate amount of tact to everything they hear, and no one's feelings get hurt. However, when normal people talk to nerds, the nerds often get frustrated because the normal people seem to be dodging the real issues and not saying what they really mean. Worse yet, when nerds talk to normal people, the normal people's feelings often get hurt because the nerds don't apply tact, assuming the normal person will take their blunt statements and apply whatever tact is necessary.

So, nerds need to understand that normal people have to apply tact to everything they say; they become really uncomfortable if they can't do this. Normal people need to understand that despite the fact that nerds are usually tactless, things they say are almost never meant personally and shouldn't be taken that way. Both types of people need to be extra patient when dealing with someone whose tact filter is backwards relative to their own.

To be honest, I'm not sure I completely share this point of view. It sounds too simplistic to me. And yet, generalistic as it is, I do believe it contains a small grain of truth. There is a "tact problem" between "normal people" and "nerds". {link to this story}

[Fri Mar 7 10:09:33 CET 2008]

I read in Information Week that Microsoft is working on a new OS called Singularity that includes quite a few new innovative coding techniques and practices and must say that, for the first time in quite a few years, I must recognize that it finally sounds as if these guys are truly doing something new. According to the news piece:

The company is developing an OS for research and academic environments called Singularity that's built using a number of inovative coding techniques and practices.

For instance, Singularity uses an abstraction instruction set to enable what Microsoft calls Software Isolated Processes (SIPs) to increase reliability. SIPs compartmentalize components of the OS so that an error in one area does not crash the entire program.

Singularity —in development for the past three years— runs each application, device driver, or system extension within its own SIP. "As a result, we can make stronger guaranteees about the code running in a SIP", said Microsoft, in a blog post Wednesday.

So, it sounds like an operating system still in development —actually, it sounds more like a research project— but a step in the right direction nonetheless. {link to this story}