Linux Format forums

Re: How stupid can one person be?

jjmac — Wed Apr 02, 2008 9:33 am

Author: jjmac

Posted: Wed Apr 02, 2008 9:33 am

I've clicked on it a few times, it does what it's supposed to do ... i'll probably end up reading the accompanying text as well, eventually ... very good,

Little known, famous sayings:
------------------------------------

Code:

... If the system is the answer ...
then the question must have been bloo$y stupid ...

Re: How stupid can one person be?

wyliecoyoteuk — Tue Apr 01, 2008 7:43 pm

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 7:43 pm

How pointlesss is that? ...Oh,hang on a minute....

Re: How stupid can one person be?

Rhakios — Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:08 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Tue Apr 01, 2008 1:08 pm

Oh alright, I looked for myself...

http://www.pixelscapes.com/spatulacity/button.htm

Re: How stupid can one person be?

wyliecoyoteuk — Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:57 pm

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:57 pm

Rhakios wrote:

What does the big red button do then?

It just reminded me of the Douglas Addams quote something like:
"if you put a big red button in a cave up a mountain, with a sign in big red letters saying "do not press" some human would press it before the paint was dry"

Re: How stupid can one person be?

Rhakios — Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:30 pm

Author: Rhakios

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:30 pm

What does the big red button do then?

Re: How stupid can one person be?

nelz — Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:49 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:49 pm

ROTFLMAO

Re: How stupid can one person be?

wyliecoyoteuk — Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:45 pm

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 7:45 pm

Just to answer the original question:
Click hereor here (flash required)

Re: How stupid can one person be?

liegerm — Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:21 pm

Author: liegerm

Posted: Mon Mar 31, 2008 2:21 pm

My Dad moved in with me in February (temporarily, I hope) and had never used a PC before. I showed him how to log in to mine and other than a few minutes explaining what email is and how to use Gmail, he's been doing fine. He's been writing CVs, using Google Map and now is in to Doom 3... My PC runs Gnome on Ubuntu 7.04 and I do not think that he would have found it quite so easy with M$ Blingdoze.

Re: How stupid can one person be?

nelz — Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:33 am

Author: nelz

Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:33 am

It was inevitable that someone would mention fish in a thread about stupidity. The only suprise is that it happened on the second page rather than the second post

Re: How stupid can one person be?

jjmac — Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:15 am

Author: jjmac

Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 9:15 am

One can solve part of that by not eating over the box ... oops, was that a stage call for the 'fish'

It can be uncanny though, all a person has to do sometimes ... is clean a connection to muck it all up. It must be the water in isopro i think. It takes a little time to dry, or better, a few cotton buds.

But still ... the manual/tutorial will rearly mention this.

To divert:
------------
It never fails to amaze, and scare me, the kind of tools that are some times reported to have been left <cough> inside </cough> patients by surgeons, at times. Good grief, huge pliers ... saws ... lol. Shouldn't laugh, as it isn't funny really. roflo even louder.

jm

Re: How stupid can one person be?

nelz — Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:29 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:29 pm

jjmac wrote:

Is "spare parts" a euphemism for "the bits that are left over when you put it back together"?
>>

You got in one , washers and spaces, and various items. I think you must have some experiance in this regard too (grin),

Washers and spacers I can live with, chips and hard drives are a little more worrying

Re: How stupid can one person be?

jjmac — Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:44 am

Author: jjmac

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 11:44 am

nelz wrote:
>>
Is "spare parts" a euphemism for "the bits that are left over when you put it back together"?
>>

You got in one , washers and spaces, and various items. I think you must have some experiance in this regard too (grin),

nordle wrote:
>>
Both bridge and modem are always on ...
>>

I figured something like that was happening. A convieniance, maybe, ... but for who, is the question. I have never liked auto systems myself. They can and do cause bad injuries in industry at times, as well.

nordle wrote:
>>
I believe this exasperates the problem. People don't report it, therefore the "official stats" show its a much smaller issue than it really is.
>>

A good point ... I think it's going to be a long time before it all gets solved, if at all, though.

The BSD people have a good policy along these lines. I can remember reading one of their pages that suggested that any box that is on line, if to be secure, shouldn't have any programs installed that are designed to create or run files. They were referring to such things as image viewers, compilers, and such ... any thing that could open a file and then execute it. Seemed a bit like over kill when i read it. But i think they just maybe right. At least personal details should be removed, or partitioned off to a none auto mount.

jm

Re: How stupid can one person be?

nordle — Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:11 am

Author: nordle

Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:11 am

jjmac wrote:

nordle wrote:
>>
Yet somehow a particularly nasty Trojan had installed itself
>>

Still not to clear on that. I take it wasn't directly traced. But was the box booting with in an 'always on line' state ?

Yes, machine in question was attached wirelessly, via a bridge, to the adsl modem. Both bridge and modem are always on, so if the PC is on its connected to the outside world.

It was AVG which first discovered the Trojan. Upon which, I got a call, and at this point we booted the machine fresh and checked out connections. One opened to an IP registered to a Spanish ISP.

Advising the Police and Banks about all the details meansyou have to stump up the cash as the bank would have reasonable grounds for saying the balance of responsibility to maintain secure equipment lies with the user, not the bank. Ultimately I believe this exasperates the problem. People don't report it, therefore the "official stats" show its a much smaller issue than it really is.

Re: How stupid can one person be?

nelz — Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:18 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 11:18 pm

jjmac wrote:

Also, unless a person is prepared to take something apart, how are they going to actually learn anything, not to mention being able to accumulate a store of good spare parts. That can be used if the reconstruction should fail.

Is "spare parts" a euphemism for "the bits that are left over when you put it back together"?

Re: How stupid can one person be?

jjmac — Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:49 pm

Author: jjmac

Posted: Tue Mar 25, 2008 10:49 pm

Also, unless a person is prepared to take something apart, how are they going to actually learn anything, not to mention being able to accumulate a store of good spare parts. That can be used if the reconstruction should fail.

Being as it may, the 'ol surgeons saying of 'when in doubt, cut it out', i don't think it suggests that things like 'exploratories' shouldn't be attempted at times.

After all, is not the antics of history really just a tale of human follies. But on a larger scale.

I don't think there is anything that has been described that really supports the thread title here. Unless the bios flashing (wiping) episode is considered. But ... consider ... .exe files aren't exactly known for having clear help facilities. Even 'man' pages could be accused of possessing a certain cryptic quality at times. But then again, if it hasn't got a '--dry-run | --no-act' etc switch, one shouldn't expect a program not to. A good unix program should always return with some 'help' info when run without parameters though. And so should .exe programs as well. Or am i being stupid there, or just daydreaming

The upside cpu fan could be thought of as an innovative experiment in cpu fan attachment, rather than anything else (grin).

If a manufacturer sells shonky chips, without telling anyone, how can that be the buyers fault. I would think that a lot of people would have been caught out there.

nordle wrote:
>>
It was then I suggested perhaps he would consider getting a new PC
>>

A person can't be expected to wear the result of someone elses lethargy/stubbornness.

ollie wrote:
>>
Although I did have one friend who, back in the Windows 95 days, deleted all of the useless .dll files to make room for more more applications and then found that Windows wouldn't start after the required reboot.
>>

I used to do that, but i was trying to figure out the significance of the files rather than trying to make room. The help/explanation system was very inhibited. It turned out there where quite a few significant files amongst those. user and system.dat being not the least (grin).

nordle wrote:
>>
Yet somehow a particularly nasty Trojan had installed itself
>>

Still not to clear on that. I take it wasn't directly traced. But was the box booting with in an 'always on line' state ?

What to be learn't:
-----------------------

When experimenting with dangerous explosive substances ... Always have a willing 'assistant' handy. ( actually, a few would probably be a better idea. )

jm