1) Any system simple enough that anyone can use it, is either a toaster, or won't be useful in any customized way.

2) Coding doesn't need to be "shoddy" to be a security risk. It just simply needs to fail to realize the edge cases nobody thought of when writing the code. If you make the code complicated enough and run enough checks, it becomes complicated mess that nobody wants to use.

The problem with security is one of optimizing the risk to the amount of protections built into the system. Back in DOS days, I'm sure that DOS was insecure from many many levels, however because it was standalone, the security of "networking" wasn't even considered.

However the #1 security risk with computers isn't "code" or "Programs" or Hackers or whatever; the BIGGEST problem is Social Engineering, of which there is no fix other than "Stupid should hurt".

When a web dialog box can mimic a system dialog box saying "Your Computer is Infected CLICK HERE to fix it", which downloads and installs Antivirus 2010 crapware, the problem isn't Firefox, Windows or anything any programmer can fix. PEBAC, PICNIC and 1D10T errors aren't fixable by programmers.

And if you had to fix these problems you'd realize that Hackers and such are spending more time on social engineering attacks to get their viruses, trojans, and other malware onto computers than traditional methods.

It does if you revert the VM after you are done. Nothing gets saved unless the infectious agent can break out of the VM. At worst, it'll send some spam if you allow the document reader VM net access.

Call me a spoilsport, but on /. we should still remember that a banana peel can indeed spin the car out if you manage to run a loaded wheel over it when your traction is already on the limit. Same as if putting a tyre on a wet patch of road or anything else with less traction - happens in racing all the time.

By "real computer" I mean "a machine capable of arbitrary information processing limited only by engineering capability". Y'know, kind of what Turing had in mind. The computer I'm typing on and the eeepc in the other room are Real Computers. I can make them compute pi to a thousand digits, play Tetris, compute Fourier transforms of fart recordings, or troll Slashdot.

The iPhone and iPad and iWhateverElse can't do these things. Or, rather, it can, but Apple won't let you. It's not a general-purpose computer as far as the user is concerned. Neither are your TV or car.

Not all Sysadmins. But many for sure. But Crack smoking is for the weekend,since you'll be really tripping balls. The week is coke time!

My record of coke-induced unix-fixing rampage was 3 years ago, when a 12-machine asterisk system failed spectacularly after some douchebag that was administrating that system screwed up the mysql circular replication and ended up with 12 corrupt copies of a 2TB database, and a backup that didn't work (They had hired me a year and a half prior to that incident to setup that system as an external contractor, and they were going to administrate the system themselves). 106 Hours and 25 grams later, they had a working system again :)

Speaking about coveyor belts and work, that reminds me of Donald Duck's Playground (1984). You have to work and make money in a collection of minigames to buy toys for your nephews. Was pretty nifty game for its time.

Except your labor is a ONE TIME THING.

It is not something that should grant you payments in perpetuity.

In actual practice, it rarely does.

Some "captain of industry" scoops it up, throws a few pennies at you and reaps all of those perpetual benefits himself.

So you are the ABSOLUTE LAST person that should be calling anyone else a "wannabe".

Aside from being convention it's predictable and convenient since its order never changes depending on if the window can be minimized and / or maximized. If there is a risk in closing a window (e.g. unsaved work), then the app can simply override the default close behaviour to allow the user the chance to cancel. This would have to happen regardless of where the close button is.