No, PC browsers (with the possible exception of Safari?) don't do anything nearly so braindead, nor do any of the other kinds of PC software that use a JIT (a few examples: Java, .NET, Flash). You allocate the memory, with pages mapped R/W. You emit JIT-compiled code into a page. You re-map the page to R/X! Repeat as more pages are needed. You never, even have a R/W/X page.

In fact, browsers (IE and Chrome at a minimum, probably others) and Flashplayer take things a step further. Since you can generate a huge number of almost-entirely-attacker-controlled instructions by doing operation that will compile down as arithmetic on immediate values (constants), and since x86 (and, to a lesser extent, many ARM systems courtesy of THUMB-2 mode) allows code to be interpreted as a completely different instruction sequence if you enter the binary stream in the middle of an instruction, one technique for getting executable-mapped shellcode into a browser is to have a script that does a ton of arithmetic on carefully chosen constants. Therefore, the above-mentioned JITs (IE, Chrome, Flashplayer, maybe others) use a technique called "constant blinding" where every constant operation is actually emitted as two instructions: a masked constant getting XORed with its mask value to produce the expected constant (in a register), and then an operation on that value. No long sequence of known instructions with attacker-controlled immediates means no way to predict the result of entering an instruction stream at an offset.

If Safari on iOS really is so stupid as to have R/W/X pages just because of its JIT, Apple has fucked up colossally.

On the one hand, that shows off an impressive level of detail, with the eyeballs (not just the very fronts of the eyes) as their own models, for example.
On the other hand, WTF? I mean, I've seen games with graphics glitches like that before, usually when there's a video driver issue, so maybe it's just that... but I would expect they could afford to test on the current swath of video cards and at least the most *common* driver selections...

Microsoft also just (today) announced a new edition of VS 2013, called "Community", that is free (like the old Express editions) but is "full-featured" and supports both extensions and multiple languages. In fact, it comes with support for building iOS and Android apps built in, which kind of astonished me.

As far as I can tell, the only difference between Community and Professional, aside from the present of a purchase price, is that Comm is "for non-enterprise application development". I'm not sure where something crosses the line into being an "enterprise", but I think it's quite fair to say you can write and publish mobile apps (including iOS or Android mobile apps) with this as a hobby or independent developer.

http://www.visualstudio.com/en...

Run Linux the same way (far too) many people run Windows, and you'll find it's not that much better, security-wise. Sure, Linux doesn't make downloaded files executable by default... which is why we have http://curlpipesh.tumblr.com/ (or rather, the examples it provides). Linux doesn't run everything as root (unless you run as root, which 10 years ago was "WTF?!? Nobody would do that" and today is becoming more and more common just as it is on Windows) but then, neither does Windows... unless you do something about as intelligent as logging into your Linux system as root (and people do it all the time nonetheless). Besides, not being root isn't a guarantee of any safety; you can do a lot of damage as a normal user. Package managers should, in theory, keep people from falling for "your Flash player is out of date, you need to install this update to view the video" malware, but people who are using Linux the same way they use Windows will install third-party software from outside the repos often enough; most of the commercial Linux games I've seen, for example, require doing this.

Linux is definitely less *targeted* by run-of-the-mill malware, especially the stuff that looks to exploit the day-to-day user, but that doesn't make it more secure. Most of the Flashplayer and Adobe Reader and Java exploits out there can be exploited on Linux just as well as on Windows, but nobody bothers to do so because there isn't any return on the investment (malware is about making money, in nearly every case relevant to a home user). The recent slew of decades-old security vulns in such core packages as bash and X11 (to say nothing of OpenSSL) show that the whole "many eyes" theory doesn't actually mean that open source software is inherently well security-reviewed.

Not sure if you're joking or not... that's literally the plan of the Mars One people (the reality show, not necessarily the death pool). That's how they plan to fund the colony.

So, what prevents this hypothetical 17-year-old from presenting a forged stripping license? I mean, they could check with the licensing agency to see if a given license is valid... but hey, you can do that with a driver's license (or non-driver ID, or passport, or military ID, or whatever other form of government-issued photo ID you care to mention). Why do you need a *different* state-issued piece of paper to provide the same information?

Your scenario describes a situation where the club owners have reason to be concerned about the "legitimacy" of their dancers. Fine, let them submit the paperwork and review the information verifying the valid state-issued ID themselves. YOU DON'T NEED A NEW FORM OF STATE-ISSUED LICENSE FOR THIS! Seriously, it's not that hard to understand. These licenses provide *no* benefit. A concerned business owner could (easily) verify age without it, and an unconcerned one wouldn't give a fuck about the stripping license anyhow.

Come back when you have a non-bullshit excuse.

Leaving aside the issue of whether (voluntary) prostitution ought to be the government's concern at all, I still don't see why this requires public records. Want to know the person's age? Ask to see their government-issued photo ID. Driver's licenses, non-driver ID, passports, and so forth all already exist for (among others) that exact purpose. Yes, they can be forged, but what about a driver's license is more forgeable than a nude dancing license? As for criminal background checks, those are a standard part of many hiring processes.

There's no need to license and track this particular form of occupation specifically. None at all.

While I agree in general, just wondering: why concealed carry permits? Just because it's a subset of gun ownership records, or some more specific reason?

The only place I've been matching those conditions (though not the only place to have them, by any means) is Finland.

I don't know how far they were going - the town I was in wasn't 20km on a side, I think - but I definitely saw people on bicycles. It was almost surreal. They're bundled up around the head so much you can barely see their eyes (mouths are just fog-emitting slits), they have thick winter gloves and boots on, and long-sleeved but light shirts and pants. Riding on thick mountain bike tires (excuse me, tyres) across snow that never goes away or even turns to ice in midwinter even if it doesn't snow for two weeks. This is a part of the world where they don't even bother icing the roads because it's so cold that icewater still freezes, and the only traction benefit you'd get from ice would be from its solid crystalline form (for which gravel works better). It did occasionally get above -25C at midday, not that the day as a whole was more than about five-six hours long (which doesn't leave a lot of time for biking). This was in January.

I have definitely tweaked Powerpoint slides and Excel spreadsheets on my phone. That was one of the key features of Windows phones.

Of course, they haven't sold too well so far, so maybe more people think like you than think like me. It was definitely useful, though.

It's a pretty easy way to do something like tweak a Powerpoint slide (maybe there was a typo, or you want to alter your notes for the slide?) on the bus to work, or to add a line in an Excel-based expense report while heading home from lunch. You aren't expected to write long documents on your phone, but being able to make edits is a nice feature.

As for tablets, lots of people have a keyboard (usually Bluetooth) for their tablet. Combined with the often very high resolution of modern tablets (I think iPads run at 2048x1536 or something these days?) and the fact that you're looking at it from much closer than you look at your 20+" monitor (not that 20" is big; I've had laptops nearly that big), there's no reason you couldn't be productive on such a device if you had the right software.

The difference, of course, being that Surfaces and such support keyboards and mice (well, trackpads on the keyboard covers, but you can also use a Bluetooth or USB mouse). Nonetheless, you're right that *for touchscreen use specifically* desktop Office is pretty bad. It's not unusable - I don't have super-tiny fingers yet I don't find the buttons on the ribbon very hard to hit - but it's a definitely inferior experience. Of course, since Office for RT is just an ARM recompile of their x86 code, and runs in the desktop mode on all Win8 systems be they RT or not, this shouldn't come as any surprise.

There is a touchscreen-focused version of OneNote for Win8 / Windows RT "Metro" mode, though.

Yep. As a friend of mine pointed out, if you see somebody on the road driving slow as fuck at 2AM, they're probably high as a kite... and while that's illegal here (I live in Washington, where smoking it is legal but driving afterward is DUI) I'm not terribly worried by it. The people going 70 in a 50 zone and continuously crossing the lane markers are way, way scarier; those are the drunks.

My maps were printed on origami, you insensitive clod!

*Which* "core product" are you talking about? Productivity software? Desktop OSes? Server OSes? Web servers? Database servers? Content management software (SharePoint)? Email and "groupware" servers? Software development tools? Encarta, until the Internet made it obsolete? Strategy games? Flight simulators? Any of the other games they've produced?

Or are you just classing all of those under "software"? Maybe "x86 software" so you can exclude Windows RT and Windows Phone? How about Windows Mobile, which was pretty successful in the pre-iPhone smartphone market? Windows CE, which is still embedded in a bunch of tiny systems that need an OS but don't have the hardware for a PC-grade one or the development expertise for a custom one (and which was the core of WinMo)? The Xbox 360 OS, which ran on PowerPC?

Also, citation needed for the claim that Azure is a failure. It has a number of big clients and as far as I know it makes money. It's not number one in the market, but that doesn't mean it's not successful. Similarly, their mice and keyboards still make money, and frankly some of their mice are (still) quite nice.

Courier never even launched. I'm not even sure what market "Foo" you'd have said it to be in.

Surface RT was a flop, but that's largely due to the crippled-by-design OS, but the Surface Pro line has been pretty popular and now makes money, though it hasn't yet paid off the cost to develop it.