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My Feeds: Select: All 95 subscriptions, None, Unassigned A to Z Kids Stuff children http://www.atozkidsstuff.com/atoz.xml ABC News: Top Stories news http://my.abcnews.go.com/rsspublic/fp_rss20.xml About Computing Center technology http://z.about.com/6/g/pcworld/b/rss2.xml About.com Archaeology Archaeology http://z.about.com/6/g/archaeology/b/rss2.xml All Things Digital technology http://feeds.allthingsd.com/atd-feed/ Archaeology News Archaeology news http://www.topix.net/rss/science/archaeology.xml Ars Technica tech news http://feeds.arstechnica.com/arstechnica/BAaf ArsTechnica: Security Content Security technology http://feeds.feedburner.com/arstechnica/security BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition U.K. http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/front_page/rss.xml BBC News | Science/Nature | World Edition Science/Nature http://newsrss.bbc.co.uk/rss/newsonline_world_edition/science/nature/rss.xml Boing Boing odd http://feeds.boingboing.net/boingboing/iBag Breaking News: CBSNews.com news http://www.cbsnews.com/feeds/rss/main.rss Breitbart.tv varied news topics http://www.breitbart.com/xml/recentvideo.xml ChannelWeb Complete Feed Computer news http://www.crn.com/cwb/globalcontent/cweball/index.xml;jsessionid=L0I1HBDQISHBCQSNDLQSKH0CJUNN2JVN Christian Science Monitor | Top Stories news http://www.csmonitor.com/rss/top.rss CNN.com - Offbeat odd http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_offbeat.rss CNN.com - Politics politics http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_allpolitics.rss CNN.com - U.S. U.S. news http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_us.rss Computerworld Breaking News technology http://feeds.computerworld.com/Computerworld/News Cool Tools technology http://feeds.feedburner.com/CoolTools Courant.com - Connecticut News Ct. news http://feeds.courant.com/Courant/ConnecticutNews Defense Tech U.S. defense news http://www.defensetech.org/index.rdf Discovery News - Technology technology http://dsc.discovery.com/news/subjects/technology/xdb/topstories.xml Drudge Report news http://feeds.feedburner.com/FeedPalooza/lwDu Dvorak Uncensored news http://www.dvorak.org/blog/?feed=rss2 Engadget robots & gadgets http://www.engadget.com/rss.xml Extremetech technology http://rssnewsapps.ziffdavis.com/extreme.xml Fark.com news http://www.pluck.com/rss/fark.rss FileForum software http://fileforum.b

http://www.betanews.com/article/Next_Office_2007_service_pack_will_include_ODF_PDF_support_options/1211343807

There will be an option in both the installer and options menu to choose ODF as the default format, if you want.

Too late, I already did that a long time ago: http://www.betanews.com/article/Be_Files_Suit_Against_Microsoft_for_Destroying_Business/1014176548

I'd post it here, but /.'s rejecting it because there's "too few words per line" nonsense.

1. As a Database.
2. As an Statistical Analysis tool.
3. A complex programming tool.

Please stop manipulating words. Firefox 2 is mostly standards compliant, Firefox 3 Beta passes the Acid2 Test. This makes it at least on a par with WebKit (never used it) or better.

Creative MP3 players ship with virus
Apple Ships iPods with Windows Virus
Seagate Storage Units Ship with Virus
Sega Dreamcast console game spreads virus
Maxtor USB Hard Drives Ship Virus Infected
Digital photo frames ship with computer virus
Sony Ships Rootkit

I challenge you to find even the slightest bit of evidence to demonstrate otherwise.

Microsoft is blaming its disappointing third quarter client software sales on factors that exclude Vista. Meanwhile, though, a variety of evidence indicates that many Windows XP users aren't upgrading, but switching to Mac or Linux.

from here: http://www.betanews.com/article/Why_are_Vista_sales_tapering_off/1209414077

These definitions haven't been 'standard' in this industry for over half a century now. Just because some storage company's marketing departments have now decided otherwise, does not mean this is legal. Every piece of software including the OS (not to mention all software system requirements, oops!) measures in base 2.

Companies are unsurprisingly getting sued, and equally unsurprising, are settling these suits as quickly as they can because they know they will lose.

http://www.betanews.com/article/Seagate_Settles_Suit_Over_Gigabyte_Definition/1194025700
http://www.harddrive-settlement.com/notice.htm

You mean like this?

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Novell_OpenOffice_OpenXML_Translator_for_Linux/1173116568/2

Intel's already been working on this for a few years. For Sun's sake, they better hope that Intel didn't file for a patent on this already, otherwise this could get messy.

Another thing that could effect the adoption rate (but perhaps not for business buyers) is the price cuts for some retail versions of Vista with SP1. In the U.S., the Home Premium Upgrade version with SP1 will be $95 on Amazon.com and the Ultimate Upgrade version will be $195. Price cuts haven't been announced for any OEM versions (which I assume many Slashdot users buy).

http://www.betanews.com/article/Defendant_in_RIAA_suit_files_amended_complaint/1205509900

If you want to sign up to your own ID card system, fine, I have no problem with that whatsoever.

The problem is, if I don't want to sign up with your system, you get to put me in jail.
This is downright wrong and against the basic right that all human beings have to stay silent about their personal information.

Not to mention, any time in human history where ID schemes and mandatory databases have been misused they used exactly the same "what could go wrong/what have you got to hide" reasoning as they are using now.

Godwin's law be damned, how do you think the Nazi government knew where all the jews lived when they started handing out arm bands and shipping them to concentration camps?

The point isn't what today's government in today's climate will do with it. The point is that no organization should be given that much unchecked power to mandate citizens to give up their private information when it has never been proven that a government is immune to corruption and incompetence.

Governments have proven themselves untrustworthy with this level of information on the general public.

The UK government lost 28 million peoples private information LAST YEAR alone.

But the government has proven itself competent and reliable in every other aspect of its business so I guess we should trust it on this one.....

yeesh

Sources :

http://www.betanews.com/article/UK_government_loses_data_on_as_many_as_25_million_people/1195687877
http://www.news.com/U.K.-government-loses-data-on-driving-test-candidates/2100-1029_3-6223292.html
http://www.news.com/U.K.-government-loses-pensioner-data/2100-1029_3-6223493.html

If you are going to talk financial, then please talk about valuation and not share price. The reality is that the valuation of Yahoo has gone down because the earnings has gone down.

If you're going to talk then talk about what stockholders want, Yahoo!'s largest stockholder say Yahoo! must accept the offer "if Microsoft raises the price". The fact that management rejected the first offer is good, if MS is serious about acquiring Yahoo! then they will offer more.

I'm a little bitter, partially because I had an HD DVD drive for the 360, but really more because they really thought about what they were doing when coming up with the standards for the HD DVD format.

Here's some highlights of both formats and their functionality (aside from playing movies):

HD DVD 1.0
a) dual decoders for PIP commentaries
b) interactive menus THAT ACTUALLY WORK
c) ethernet connection mandatory

Blu-ray 1.0
a) MORE CAPACITY THAN HD DVD!!!!! BIGGER IS BETTER!!!!!
b) 2 LAYERS OF ENCRYPTION!!!!! NOBODY WILL EVER CRACK THAT!!!!!

Blu-ray 1.1
a) MORE CAPACITY THAN HD DVD!!!!! BIGGER IS BETTER!!!!!
b) 2 LAYERS OF ENCRYPTION!!!!! NOBODY WILL EVER CRACK THAT!!!!!

Blu-ray 2.0
a) MORE CAPACITY THAN HD DVD!!!!! BIGGER IS BETTER!!!!!
b) 2 LAYERS OF ENCRYPTION!!!!! NOBODY WILL EVER CRACK THAT!!!!!
c) dual decoders for PIP commentaries (AND NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD IDEA WHEN HD DVD DID IT FIRST!!!!)
d) interactive menus THAT ACTUALLY WORK (AND NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD IDEA WHEN HD DVD DID IT FIRST!!!!)
e) ethernet connection mandatory (AND NOT BECAUSE IT WAS A GOOD IDEA WHEN HD DVD DID IT FIRST!!!!)

in soviet russia, the dating chat bot wants 96% of you (but will settle for your bank details)

for those who have not been following this story, look here..
http://www.betanews.com/article/Seductive_Russian_chat_bot_tries_to_steal_your_private_data/1197588297

sounds like this idea would make the malicious cyber bot more effective and being your perfect match.

According to this article:

http://www.betanews.com/article/1079773789

Microsoft bought Webcorp in 1993, Windows for Workgroups was first released in October of 1992 according to this document http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126746 from MS. WfWG was in development for more than a year before they bought Webcorp and was released at least several months before.

What's more, WfWG was not just an add-on for Windows. It was really the entire basis of Windows 95. It introduced the VMM model that Windows 95 was basically entirely based on. Also, the networking stack of WfWG was the same stack that was built into NT, which they had licensed from Spider Software and was based on a licensed version of the BSD stack (predating the first open source release of BSD) and STREAMS technology.

Never seen a company that charges monthly rates go DOWN when introducing change.

It happens... just rarely. Netflix did it a while back (twice, according to the article). It was rare enough that I remembered it ;o)

I can't see how bandwidth caps would be a good idea for the cable companies, especially when there are competitors out there that don't need to worry about capping their customer's usage. I also want to know how this would play out if other cable companies followed suit, considering that they're promising much faster speeds. I would think that at 160Mbps you could hit your cap pretty quickly (depending of course on what the cap is set at, and your actual usage).

I'm a Time Warner customer, and as far as I'm concerned I'm paying for unlimited usage, and unlimited usage is what I should be getting.

Owners of Blu-ray DVD players may find themselves frozen out of future developments in the technology because their machines are not upgradeable.The Blu-ray camp has recently rolled out new features for players, which include picture in picture options. But the majority of Blu-ray players sold to date do not have the necessary hardware to offer the features.

This is even better!



Blu-ray: Early adopters knew what they were getting into

http://www.betanews.com/article/Bluray_Early_adopters_knew_what_they_were_getting_into/1199841379

FTA:

Blu-ray may have taken a commanding lead in the next-generation format war, but the group has a big problem looming: early supporters of the format will be left out in the cold when the Blu-ray Disc Association introduces BD Profile 2.0

Unlike HD DVD, which mandated features such as local storage, a second video and audio decoder for picture-in-picture, and a network connection from the very beginning, the companies behind Blu-ray took a different approach. Initial hardware players lacked these capabilities in order to keep costs down.

In addition, the BD-J interactivity layer, based on Java, has continued to evolve since the introduction of Blu-ray Profile 1.0. This means that early players may have a buggy implementation and perhaps more importantly, they are not powerful enough to play the latest films properly.

When BetaNews asked developers of BD Live whether they were concerned about a backlash from early adopters who supported the format from the beginning, we were told: "They knew what they were getting into."

When BetaNews asked why these manufacturers rushed out players that were not fully capable and potentially buggy due to their BD-J implementation, the Blu-ray partner pointed blame across the room to HD DVD. "We should have waited another year to

Read this from the Firehose the other day. Seems that the BlueRay format was not and is not finalized yet. All 1st gen players aren't going to support the final format (which sounds an awful lot like HDDVD with internet connectivity) and they won't be able to be upgraded. The only player that will continue to work is the PS3. Talk about alienating customers. This makes me think that the war is far from over.

Well, the RIAA and sound exchange are busily taking out satellite radio by claiming that it's just another form of digital streaming and that the fees owed to the RIAA are significantly higher than terrestrial radio.

So, expect XM and other digital streaming formats to suffer in the next year or so.

They'll never be happy:
http://www.betanews.com/article/SoundExchange_says_new_satellite_royalties_arent_enough/1196870662

Well Joe, anti-piracy lawsuits, and the fear that goes with them, are actually a healthy part of the Media Ecosystem. You see, there exists a test bed for new shows, where they are usually created, and then individual market players can get all sue-happy, or whatever they like, confined in the test-bed known as the 'united states of america'.

Because you see, my dear Joe Pirate, nobody of consequence (eg. me, in calm Canada) gets sued. It's all these imaginary "americans", who as you know from watching television, are a make-believe people that couldn't possibly exist in real life. I mean, just imagine some of the whacky hijinks these "americans" get up to every week. They're ridiculous, really only a Corporate-Media creation for our entertainment.

This allows the consumers, you and me, to download all the shows we like in peace, secure in the knowledge that immoral copyright lawsuits and whatnot will only happen in fictional programming, where it belongs.

AnandTech says an RC of XP SP3 is also released. http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=9987 Although I don't understand why "download directly from microsoft" on that page links to http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Microsoft_Windows_XP_Service_Pack_3/1197391546/1

AT&T plans to help find alternative payphone operators for people who need them. The AT&T decision only applies to 13 states serviced by AT&T (SBC) payphones. AT&T only operates about 65,000 of the 1 million payphones in the US, while Verizon operates about 225,000. AT&T plans to sell as many of the phones and lines to independent operators as they can. They expect the majority of the phones to be bought by someone. They even expect to continue selling wholesale payphone service to payphone owners.

It sounds to me they just decided to let someone else field the equipment. There's a lot of exaggeration around this story, but the facts are all over the web. Death of the payphone, indeed. This reaction is kind of like saying IBM getting out of the consumer laptop and desktop PC market was the end of the Windows computer.

The mechanism that makes cell phones harmful is that they inject comparatively high amounts of RF energy into cells, which damages the DNA.

Ionizing radiation damages DNA. Non-ionizing radiation (which is what cell phones and wifi networks use) can only damage cells by adding heat. Cell phones don't put out enough energy to raise the temperature by even 1o C.

It's possible that a yet-unknown mechanism exists for non-ionizing radiation to cause cancer. However, we've been dealing with energy in these frequencies for a long time, many of them in far more powerful amounts than cell phones (radar, microwave communication towers, etc.). Additionally, many of those sources are staffed by union workers, which are notorious for looking for any minor safety factor to justify a wage increase. If you want to prove a new mechanism in a mature area of physics, you're going to need very good proof.

Anecdotal evidence of "many brain tumors on that side of the head" is no replacement for a good scientific study; after all, 50% of brain tumors would happen on that side of the head, anyway. Actual studies on this matter have more than adaquately disproven. Studies in support of a link are often shown to have problems.

If it's based on the deployment of Cell towers, it's not exactly a *Global* Positioning System. I think GPSs are more useful in remote areas than urban ones and probably less dangerous there too.

I think this product might lead people into a false sense of security:

"Hey, I think were lost out here in the middle of the Oregon woods in a blizzard. Better check the GPS on my iPhone.

"WTF?

"We're doomed!"

They gave numbers. Though its meaningless to compare the month of october to the month of november when it comes to product sales. People xmas shop in november, hell ps 2 sales tripled this month.

This is precisely what is happening now in St. Louis, MO. The mayor had colluded with AT&T (behind closed doors, no competing bids) to roll out city-wide wifi starting a few months ago. AT&T would get free electricity and free access to regularly maintained street lights in compensation for the cost they incur deploying equipment, along with $10Million from the city over the next few years. The remainder of AT&T's compensation would come from their exclusive privilege to advertise advertise advertise to a very captive market (eg. with heavily adware-laden copies of Internet Explorer). Problem is, AT&T is a still private concern whose #1 priority is AT&T. So even despite all these concessions from the city, AT&T ultimately decided (although has not publicly stated) there is simply no market for it in minicipal wifi, and it is doing whatever it can to back out of its contract entirely.

In the meantime, nothing has been built, and the press was even fed silly stories about how the deployment got delayed because AT&T technicians neglect to account for the fact that street lights are only powered at night. Evidently no one involved in covering this story has a capable BS detector.

Since the mayor neglected to solicit any competing bids on this project, there is no plan B.

BetaNews say this is not high definition/HD.

It's my understanding that TiVo HD and Series 3 have the ability to decode and record encrypted programs via CableCARD. True that you would have to use a company box for satellite, but at least there have been rumors that DirecTV will probably start offering TiVo DVRs again soon. It's still unlikely that those boxes will include support for TivoToGo by default—but people were able to load the standard TiVo software onto the old DirecTiVo, so who knows?

Yeah, it's not like popular software does this (bundles toolbars) already. Give the guys a break, they're trying to make a little bit of money and you're not going to get much sympathy from anyone for blazing through an install process with "NEXT NEXT NEXT damn the text!" as the only thing running through your mind. They're providing you with a full free game, who are you to get pissy when they ask if you'd like to install this program alongside? Be thankful it's not the forced bundling that was all the craze not too long ago.

I'm a prince fan, but he recently did The Wrong Thing.

So much for so-called heroes against the evil empire.

It's a just a question of time before key producers decide it makes sufficient financial sense to bypass them completely.

...that MS Office supports ODF just fine. You'll probably find some of the docs on-line even came from Office.

• Affected OS: Windows
• Affected Browser(s): IE 7 + Firefox (together)
• Cert advisory: https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/403150
• Secwatch advisory: http://secwatch.org/advisories/1018594/

Internet Explorer 7 has changed how Microsoft Windows parses URIs. This has introduced a flaw that can cause Windows to incorrectly determine the appropriate handler for the protocol specified in a URI. This flaw appears to rely on having a "%" character in the URI.

Publicly available exploit code uses Mozilla Firefox as an attack vector for this vulnerability. For more information, including workarounds, please see VU#783400

It seems that the injection mechanism is to use Firefox, but the exploit requires IE 7 to be installed on the victim's computer.

Interesting excerpts from the secwatch advisory:

The vulnerability is due to an input validation error handling system default URIs with registered URI handlers such as "mailto", "news", "nntp", "snews" and "telnet". This can be exploited to execute arbitrary commands when a user e.g. using Firefox visits a malicious website with a specially crafted "mailto" URI containing a "%" character and ends in a certain extension (e.g. ".bat", ".cmd")

Confirmed on a fully patched Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 SP2 system using Firefox version 2.0.0.5 and Netscape Navigator version 9.0b2. Other versions and browsers may also be affected.

This is utter rubbish. ShellExecuteEx wasn't updated with IE 7.0. It is a core OS feature - on Windows XP SP2 systems the most recent update was in the MS07-006 security update.

All this function does is look up the URL protocol handler in the registry - for example, http: is at HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\http - and look for the shell\open key. If a ddeexec key is found under that key, it uses DDE to send the URL to the registered program. If not, it runs the command under the command key, replacing the %1 in the command line with the URL to be processed.

IE uses ShellExecuteEx whenever it encounters a URL protocol it does not handle internally - basically only http:, https: and ftp:. The Windows Explorer 'Run' dialog calls ShellExecuteEx when you enter a URL into the dialog (in fact, when you enter *anything* into the dialog). It's how Explorer locates a program when you double-click a document file.

The question here is a difference of opinion over whether certain characters should be escaped in the command line or not. The behaviour of ShellExecute[Ex] has not changed. Microsoft are simply saying that Firefox has to cope with whatever it's presented with; Mozilla are saying it would be nice if certain characters were escaped.

[UPDATE:] I have since discovered that Internet Explorer decodes URL-encoded (%-encoded) characters and passes the decoded version to ShellExecuteEx. This allows an attacker to inject " characters into the command line, terminating the URL argument, and allowing further command line options to be specified.

The simplest workaround is to place a special command line option in first position (included in the command line in the registry, before "%1") that indicates that the rest of the command line came from a URL protocol handler and should be treated with caution.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/08/11/novell_get s_unix_from_sco/
http://www.betanews.com/article/Judge_Novell_Not_S CO_Owns_UNIX_Copyrights/1186786426

Yes, but at least I know that Azureus isn't reporting what I'm downloading back to the mothership. You know, the same mothership that has signed deals with members of the MPAA.

Anybody using a closed source bittorrent client to do anything more aggressive then download a Linux distribution is insane, IMHO.

Actually, MS Office 2007 has Save as PDF functionality as well, although it's somewhat caught up a lawsuit with Adobe right now. The reason a lot of users probably love the feature is that a) it's easy to use (just click the button) and b) unless they're doing something complicated they don't need to buy Acrobat from Adobe.

XP sales will thrive until businesses switch over, which will take some time. And the more saavy businesses will wait for service pack one before switching. This is not surprising - we saw a similar phenomena back when XP came out. Here is an article from as recent as 2005 talking about the slow switchover from 98/2000 to XP http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_XP_Adoptio n_Rates_Slow/1118943913

XP sales will thrive until businesses switch over, which will take some time. And the more saavy businesses will wait for service pack one before switching. This is not surprising - we saw a similar phenomena back when XP came out. Here is an article from as recent as 2005 talking about the slow switchover from 98/2000 to XP http://www.betanews.com/article/Windows_XP_Adoptio n_Rates_Slow/1118943913

I am in the process of learning Vista right now. My first impressions are that there are some things to like (lots of problem diagnosis tools, configuration history tracking, network mapping, etc) and some things that make you scratch your head (I have yet to figure out how to coerce Vista to allow my backup service to start each time I boot - I always have to "give permission". I know I can turn off User Access Control entirely, but that seems a bit draconian and not really "in the spirit" of Vista).

"open source ODF format as perhaps trying to monopolize the standards process"

translation: An open format that anyone can write to without conceding licensing restrictions to a single commercial company is in actuallity a monopoly.

"Certainly there's a place for ODF in the world, the interoperability team continues, and users are free to make that choice for whatever reasons they'd want to do so"

translation: We want to own the standard.

"We ensure our ability to add value by ensuring that we are masters of the schema"

"Microsoft perceives the standards process as one of four "toolsets" .. to achieve interoperability .. when the standards process fails, he said, the other three "toolsets" could be relied upon as a backup plan"

translation: We'll pretend to support open standards while covertly working to push our own non-standard standard.

'Standards, Robertson told BetaNews, "are a very important tool to use to address interoperability .. cycle of innovation that's more rapid than the cycle of standardization .. and shouldn't you look to some of the other tools that you have available to you, to address interoperability?'

translation: We'll continue to play hunt the piñata with the formats as it's worked very well up to now in maintaining our monopoly on the desktop.

How about publishing an RFC the next time you 'innovate'?

What good points? It has a resource intensive "shiny" interface. It has levels of DRM heretofore unseen in an operating system. It is claimed that it is secure, yet still has gaping security holes. It is claimed that it is safe, yet has to be made un-safe for users to be able to do anything with it. It is expensive, clunky, space consuming, privacy invading, insecure, unsafe, and is more interested in protecting the interests of major Hollywood distributors than its users.

Care to highlight why I'd want to use Vista?

That's the first thing that came to my mind--it's ridiculous for Sony to claim that they had no idea what it was going to do or that they actually thought nobody would care. Remember what Sony president Tony Hesse said about it back in late 2005?

http://www.betanews.com/article/Sony_President_Roo tkit_of_No_Concern/1131475197

Suuuuuure, Tony. That kind of flip attitude about it will not be exactly convincing.

"Microsoft: Vista Most Secure OS Ever"

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=bob+muglia+vi sta+most+secure

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/06/15/173 223

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Vista_Mo st_Secure_OS_Ever/1150366131

Based on the highly publicized claim by Bob Muglia at TechEd.

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/bobmuglia/ default.mspx

This isn't hyperbole?

Security is proven, never claimed. The only answers to the question of security are "no" and "maybe."

In terms of units, IDC predict the growth of Windows Server installations to outpace the growth of Linux server installations, and to reach a level nearly three times as high by 2010: http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft_Windows_ Server_to_Outpace_Linux_31_by_2010/1179330859

If there's a shift involving Windows and Linux going on in the server market, it appears to be a shift from Linux to Windows, and not vice-versa. What unquestionably has happened is that Unix has been displaced by both Windows and Linux.

One thing that seriously blows about nVidia is their (closed-source) drivers are buggy. e.g. the nv4_disp infinite loop bug. This is year sold, affects many generations of cards, and nVidia *still* haven't fixed it. Fixed it? You can't even talk to them about it. They don't answer any tech support questions: Their forums are user-to-user. If this driver was open source, someone would have fixed it by now. It'd be quicker than the black-box game people have played to fix it.

Read it and weep:
http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=4432& st=80
http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/nvidia-nv 4disp-problem/
http://fileforum.betanews.com/review/950852325/1/v iew
http://forums.2cpu.com/archive/index.php/t-10410.h tml
http://www.tech-forums.net/pc/f77/3d-games-kill-my -pc-need-advice-111501/

I'll share my fix for the nVidia nv4_disp infinite loop bug.

1. Shut down windows.
2. Power off PC.
3. Remove nVidia card.
4. Throw in trash.
5. Install ATI card.

At least in France, many of the problems were solved by local loop unbundling. I imagine the same would work here.

We had local loop unbundling here in the U.S., but then the FCC took it away. Now if you want DSL, it's back to the local phone company -- except for the places where they still have outstanding contracts with independent ISPs (like Speakeasy, etc.), there's no choice.

The FCC's rationale for reneging on the LLU decision was that consumers now had "choice" without it -- between the cable company, and the phone company. The nature of the decision had something to do with classing DSL as a 'data service' as opposed to a 'communications service' or something similarly pedantic, but the upshot was that it didn't require wholesale line leases to competitors, or let them charge more for it, or something.

I can't find a source on it right now, but I distinctly remember reading about it (maybe about a year ago, maybe a bit more).

Finally found some reference to it:
FCC Could Rule on DSL Line Sharing
FCC Halts DSL-Sharing by Telcos
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040303-3487 .html

(Reason I wasn't finding anything is that "LLU" or "Local Loop Unbundling" only seems to be used in the press in the U.K. and Europe; in the 'States they seem to call it 'Line Sharing,' probably to maintain their mandatory 6th-grade reading level.)

http://www.betanews.com/article/US_Music_Publisher s_Sue_AllofMP3_for_165_Trillion_USD/1166739613

The RIAA claims $150K in damages and penalties with each copy downloaded. The website allofmp3 was sued for $1.65 TRILLION by multiplying the number of downloads (11 million tracks) by $150K each. It's not conjecture, it's in the court documents, it's the number the RIAA uses to beat down defendants and make the settle for smaller amounts, it's the number they take to Congress to push for more laws to protect them. Multiplied across every download on every networks, the RIAA lawsuits will exceed the world's money supply. (And obviously your sarcasm meter has failed utterly.)

(Troll? Cool. One of my better works, I must say. To all those people who read this as a serious note, get a life.)