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The main obstacle to mass encryption these days is Microsoft. I expect to be skating over Hell's frozen wasteland before Microsoft adopts encryption in Outlook/Hotmail.

I've been encrypting and signing mail in Outlook Express and Outlook for years. The certificates are installed via XENROLL.DLL or CERTENROLL.DLL. Windows actually has a really good encrytion API.

If you go here you can get a free e-mail certificate. Once you install it to the cryptography store you can sign and encrypt mail in any Microsoft email program. If you use the Windows Live Mail application you can encrypt messages in Hotmail too.

Microsoft has just bid 1.2 billion dollars for FAST (Fast Search And Transfer

You mean, like the way MS uses Linux on servers, and how a lot of its staff use Firefox? ;)

Microsoft is 70,000 employees in God-knows-how-many product groups. Dig enough, and you'll find that Microsoft writes software that runs in Firefox: http://gallery.live.com/liveItemDetail.aspx?li=8eb2551a-49c1-45f9-b291-9b75241793a6

I wouldn't be surprised if they wrote software for Linux, either. Except I can't find any links from a quick Googling.

I think you need to read more carefully.

Quoth Jobs:

When we first went to talk to these record companies -- you know, it was a while ago. It took us 18 months. And at first we said: None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content.

...

What's new is this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet -- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that.

...

We said: These [music subscription] services that are out there now are going to fail. Music Net's gonna fail, Press Play's gonna fail. Here's why: People don't want to buy their music as a subscription. They bought 45's; then they bought LP's; then they bought cassettes; then they bought 8-tracks; then they bought CD's. They're going to want to buy downloads. People want to own their music.

He didn't actually use the words "Digital Rights Management", but I think his position in 2003 was crystal clear. DRM is not going to work in the long term. I'll say one thing for Jobs: his view of the near future is extremely good, and unlike most corporate types, he has no mental investment in his point of view. He understands the difference between sunk cost and new costs, and he watches technology evolution constantly then branches in new direction like a speed skater picking a line. He doesn't keep throwing money at bad ideas.

Slashdotters are largely clueless regarding Microsoft, and willfully so.

First, Office *does* have lots of innovations, particularly Office 97 and Office 2007.
Clippy *was* innovative. Yeah, it failed, but a lot of research went into it.

LINQ *does* rock.
Which reminds me that Microsoft just recently released a CTP of the .NET Parallel Extensions, allowing easy use of multiple cores in .NET code, including PLINQ (Parallel LINQ).

VC-1 *is* the most efficient hidef video codec.

XNA *is* an innovative product.
See the 2006 DEMMX Awards and see that Microsoft won Best of Show - Innovator of the Year (beating out the likes of Apple, who won a lesser award for video iPod) and Game Innovation of the Year, both for XNA.

Microsoft *has* been commissioned by the JPEG working group to develop JPEG XR (aka HD Photo aka Windows Media Photo) as the next-gen photo image standard (where JPEG2000 failed).
Industry Standardization for HD Photo

Check out this article on SIGGRAPH 2007 and learn that Microsoft is leading the way regarding graphics technology.
Siggraph: Microsoft the new research powerhouse in graphics?

F# *is* being "productized" and is already used in Xbox Live.

Vista *does* have excellent speech recognition (despite a failed demo of a beta), even admitted to by Mac fanboy David Pogue.
Telling Your Computer What to Do
Windows 2 Apples

TabletPC'S *do* have the best handwriting recognition in the biz.

It goes on and on.

Microsoft Research is this era's "Bell Labs" and "Xerox PARC", but much of Microsoft Research's stuff does wind up in products. Microsoft Live Labs is also doing interesting stuff like Volta (which is being productized), Photosynth, etc.

Just because slashdotters don't are totally ignorant of Microsoft tech doesn't mean that such tech doesn't exist.

Being platform agnostic is easy when you're a website.

http://www.virdeal.com.com/ http://www.allgamegold.com/ http://runescapeblogmaster.blogspot.com/ http://funingame-runescape.blogspot.com/ http://runescape-video-top10.blogspot.com/ http://runescapevideo.wordpress.com/ http://buyrunescapegold.wordpress.com/ http://virdeal-runescape-99.spaces.live.com/default.aspx http://www.bloglines.com/blog/virdeal-runescape http://runescapediscussion.blogspot.com/ http://runescapegold4realmoney.wordpress.com/ http://www.allgamegold.com/index.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape-gold.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape-guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape_skill_guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape_city_guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape_guild_guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/free_runescape_quest_guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/p2p_runescape_quest_guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape_mini_game_guides.html http://www.allgamegold.com/runescape_miscellaneous_guides.html

"So to sum up your entire post for those that come after me, you are saying "electric universe rules"." -Kagura

No, I think that what he's saying is something to the effect that this shouldn't be news to anybody, but the fact that it is happens to be disheartening.

Specifically, Kristian Birkeland predicted this in his book Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition (section 2, I believe).

Specifically, if one references the images contained in the book, things become clear quite quickly:
Chapter VI: On Possible Electric Phenomena in Solar Systems and Nebulae

Take, for instance, an extreme case of his terella in operation:
Figure 259

How do you like them "flux ropes?"

This image hows the terella operating in a mode that exposes the electrical currents for what they are. In this shot, the currents are in "arc mode" (akin to sparks or lightning). Whereas the auroras around Earth are akin to a "glow mode" discharge. Birkeland currents in interplanetary space are a "dark mode" discharge (IE, not glowing, but still slowly transferring electric charges in a "dark" current, much like an electrical wire, but in this case a plasma filament). Look it up. Standard plasma physics.

In essence, the solar system can be likened to a virtual "plasma globe." In the "plasma globe" model of the solar system, the sun is the central electrode. The planets are akin to people pressing their fingers to the outer glass because it's cool to watch the filaments connect to the spot you touch. The "magnetic flux ropes" are akin to the plasma filaments connecting the central electrode to the outer glass where fingers touch. The "magnetic flux ropes" are a byproduct of the electrical current (flow of charged particles) connecting the sun to the Earth.

Here's a colorized version of a plasma globe I made for reference:
Plasma globe "sun"

So, yeah, it's something like that.

I really wish it would let me put images in this thing. Ohh well, I said it better over on BAUT anyway (assuming they don't immediately MOD it out of existence, for being presumptuous enough to mention astronomers' apparent blindspot regarding electricity in space).

Did I forget to mention NASA's own rather candid admission that there's an electrical link between the sun and the Earth? "Flux rope" pumps 650,000 Amp current into the arctic! (30 kV battery in space) (Noted on this page: Multimedia for the Press Event for THEMIS.)

In all, what Pln2bz says is quite sage, and I suggest that we listen to him... Rather carefully. He may not be quite as "insane" as some think. It's quite necessary to review the argument based on its merits, and see where it leads. Might just turn science on its ear.

After all, we've just re-learned that Birkeland currents power the magnetosphere. This was confirmed in t he 60s / 70s when we started shooting satellites into space, and it was predicted in the 1900s (appx 1902-1903 was when Birkeland went north; 1908 was when he published Norewgian Aurora Polaris Expedition, to great acclaim pretty much everywhere, except England and America, where an electrically neutral/sterile cosmology had already taken hold, unfortunately, setting us back a

http://tiy85423.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!70996FBA0EB5F202!573.entry If you know the content and context, you will feel very funny.

skydrive works pretty well. supports drag and drop in IE (active x, no go for mozilla). http://skydrive.live.com/

AS for the address you can get to Hotmail by typing http://www.hotmail.com/ or http://mail.live.com/.

I don't even have to do that. I just click that mail button on MSN Live Messenger and it opens directly to my inbox. I can also select recipient from Messenger, click send email and it opens to new email page. When I come to think of it I've never typed those addresses by hand in my life :)

Windows Live Mail has a very clean interface. After you log in it shows you the news highlights for the day and how much of you 5GB of storage that you are using. Once you click on Inbox the only ad that you see, note I said ad, is the banner ad at the top of the page. Unlike Gmail where there are ads down the side and the top of my messages. AS for the address you can get to Hotmail by typing http://www.hotmail.com/ or http://mail.live.com/. While it may redirect to http://by108w.bay108.mail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx you certainly do not need to type that whole address.

As for logging in and having to use the @hotmail.com, that allows them to have more addresses than Google could ever hope to. They can use addresses for any of their sites: @msn.com, @uk.msn.com or any other site.

I would have to say that Windows Live Mail currently kicks the crap out of Gmail.

Windows Live Mail has a very clean interface. After you log in it shows you the news highlights for the day and how much of you 5GB of storage that you are using. Once you click on Inbox the only ad that you see, note I said ad, is the banner ad at the top of the page. Unlike Gmail where there are ads down the side and the top of my messages. AS for the address you can get to Hotmail by typing http://www.hotmail.com/ or http://mail.live.com/. While it may redirect to http://by108w.bay108.mail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx you certainly do not need to type that whole address.

As for logging in and having to use the @hotmail.com, that allows them to have more addresses than Google could ever hope to. They can use addresses for any of their sites: @msn.com, @uk.msn.com or any other site.

I would have to say that Windows Live Mail currently kicks the crap out of Gmail.

99% percent of the users of hotmail.com will use hotmail.

Hotmail has 380 million users. 1% of that is still 3.8 million people. Also remember that in addition to hotmail.com, Hotmail supports 28 other domains such as live.dk and live.jp. And users can use Live Admin Center (can the name get any more generic?) to use their own domains with Hotmail, which effectively gives Hotmail an infinite number of domains to support. I actually use this. Given all that, I think it's easier to require that users type in the domain to avoid problems where the non-hotmail.com people forget and try to login to someone else's account.

I agree. This story smells extremely fishy indeed, and not just because the "news source" reporting this has only been around for a week or so. Read here for another possible angle about what's going on here. http://kschofield.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!4C58DDFAA6673C69!1362.entry The fourth comment down is the most pertinent information about what this may be about.

I can't imagine China would subvert such a large percentage of searches - that would be *really bad* for business (and public) relations with the west - also there would be a lot more information out there if this was actually happening on such a large scale.

Why do all game reviews seem like they were churned out of some politically correct primeval ooze?

I know I'm probably just tooting my own horn, but I really like my own COD4 review a lot better than this one.

http://sysadminstuff.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!61994A013C42F480!117.entry

Microsoft sits on this rather impressive technology called Photosynth. I'm sure most of you have seen/tried the demo. If not, go there now (sorry guys, Windows only). MS has now optimized the algorithms sufficiently to allow home users to generate synths at their own machine. A "no comments" comment also hinted that MS is working on a video version of PhotoSynth. If they integrate PhotoSynth into a Flickr competitor they will have a *huge* appeal. It is all about appearance. This way you can allow guests to take virtual tours of your house, car, neighbourhood.

Don't write off MS on this one just yet. There are some very talented people at MS Research who have been working on some really cool algorithms for photo manipulation: Phototours, Groupshot, Photosynth. If they manage to string it all together in a decent UI, it might be MS's best and most successful effort at something cool and useful.

Why wait for it to be built into Google Earth when it is already built into Live Maps?

Neil

To me, that rather misses the point. There is existing technology (photosynth) that can construct highly accurate models of specific monuments given photos with location information. This is something new and different: it can be used to construct a model of any widely photographed site or monument at short notice from existing photo collections available for free on the web, with no need to gather or commission additional data. Even if the results are not picture-perfect, to me, this is much more exciting.

Yep, it was Photosynth, a cool looking project from a company bought by microsoft.

No. Photosynth is a collaboration between the University of Washington and Microsoft Research. See here.

Mod parent up. I thought MS had bought both, but Photosynth is collaborative research by Noah Snavely (undergrad at UW), Steve Seitz (also UW), and Richard Szeliski (from Microsoft Research). Maybe in six months time I'll be retroactively correct when they do buy it...

(from http://labs.live.com/photosynth/ and http://labs.live.com/photosynth/aboutus.html)

Mod parent up. I thought MS had bought both, but Photosynth is collaborative research by Noah Snavely (undergrad at UW), Steve Seitz (also UW), and Richard Szeliski (from Microsoft Research). Maybe in six months time I'll be retroactively correct when they do buy it...

(from http://labs.live.com/photosynth/ and http://labs.live.com/photosynth/aboutus.html)

This story is a bit old (well, it's from Roland after all). There was a demo of this tech by Blaise Aguera y Arcas at TED earlier this year. the two underlying components are Seadragon and Photosynth, both of which are mighty impressive. Also, despite the Mozilla-esque name 'Seadragon', both of these technologies are actually owned by Microsoft. There is a tech preview of Photosynth up for download, but I don't think Seadragon is available yet.

There is a video of the TED demo, which shows off some of the things Seadragon and Photosynth can do, the including Notre Dame example mentioned in T(second)FA. The talk is also on YouTube.

This story is a bit old (well, it's from Roland after all). There was a demo of this tech by Blaise Aguera y Arcas at TED earlier this year. the two underlying components are Seadragon and Photosynth, both of which are mighty impressive. Also, despite the Mozilla-esque name 'Seadragon', both of these technologies are actually owned by Microsoft. There is a tech preview of Photosynth up for download, but I don't think Seadragon is available yet.

There is a video of the TED demo, which shows off some of the things Seadragon and Photosynth can do, the including Notre Dame example mentioned in T(second)FA. The talk is also on YouTube.

Yep, it was Photosynth, a cool looking project from a company bought by microsoft. It's site is: http://labs.live.com/Photosynth.aspx

Here?

• As another user has already pointed out, the NT kernel's driver loading scheme (which was being used by Symantec et al.) really did need to be fixed, since the same mechanism was being used to install all kinds of malware with absolute permissions.
• Back around Vista beta 2, Live OneCare was in beta on XP, and didn't even work on Vista or on x64. It was ages before it did work on Vista, in fact. Hardly seems like MS was streamlining their own antivirus program for their own OS using some mysterious unpublished APIs or something.
• MS had already announced that old mechanisms for hooking antivirus software into the kernel wouldn't work, and that they were publishing an API designed to allow an antivirus app to hook filesystem access as needed. Sure, it required changing some code, but it would allow for the increased security and at the same time should prevent a crashed AV app from causing a kernel panic (Norton in particular was an infamous cause of BSODs on XP, although I hear their stability is better now). The API was published long before Vista was released.
• However, the real proof that what you imply is incorrect is that back in those days of Vista beta 2, Live OneCare version 1.0 was nearing readiness for XP x86 but still wouldn't even install on Vista, Trend Micro's PC-Cillin 2007 was in open beta, and worked perfectly on Vista (I actually discovered it because MS's own site recommended it). While I no longer run PC-Cillin, I tested it for months and had no problems.
• Many months after PC-Cillin 2007 was working perfectly on Vista (even x64), MS gave in to the demands of Symantec and McAfee and reduced the security on x64 Vista to make it easier for the other vendors to get their software working. OneCare might have been in beta on Vista x86 by this point, but still wouldn't run on x64.
• As of this point, Live OneCare still doesn't run on x64 XP or Vista (see the bottom of http://onecare.live.com/standard/en-us/purchase/sysreq.htm.

http://postmaster.live.com/ oh what an unprofessional service. For example, if you fill the form to take part in the JMRP, you will get an email from some external person who works for Microsoft, whose mail address is something like "Microsoft Customer Support" and he tells you to ANSWER to this message, but the sender addres DOESN'T EXIST!! It gets bounced This is an automatically generated Delivery Status Notification. Delivery to the following recipients failed. SENDS.JMRP.WW.00.EN.SYK.MNL.TS.T01.SPT.00.EM@css.one.microsoft.com So, how is supposed I can answer the questions he's making me??

also, if you're careful enough, Outlook and Outlook Express are perfectly usable on Windows, especially the newer versions

Outlook has been pretty safe since the XP release (Outlook 2002), and even the 2000 release with a patch. That's when they stopped allowing you to open executable attachments. There was still a minor risk of javascript nastiness, but they fixed that as well. The 2003 (11) and 2007 (12) releases of Outlook have been stable and safe. (Outlook 2007 doesn't use the controversial Ribbon toolbar like the rest of the Office 12 suite)

Outlook Express is dead, though if you're still using XP you have it. Outlook Express has also been the Microsoft mail client with the most issues, mostly because it's free and more or less neglected. The problem is that "Outlook Express" and "Outlook" actually share nothing in common except for the name and the fact that they both do email. Beyond that they're two separate codebases, managed by two separate teams. It's unfortunate that they're named similarly, since Outlook Express' issues have tarnished the fact that Outlook proper is actually a very good, secure, and competent email client.

If you're running Vista, Outlook Express is gone. It was replaced by Windows Mail, a more bare-bones mail and news reader that finally divorces the "Outlook" name from the free mail client. Alternatively, you can use the Windows Live Mail Beta software (different from Hotmail/Windows Live Mail web interface, as it's client software that can be used for other mail accounts besides just Hotmail). Windows Live Mail integrates with Live services (Messenger, Spaces), where Outlook Express and Windows Mail don't.

I seriously doubt that a single individual has the ability to make a change on production boxes

for ip in $((for url in `lynx -dump "http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=Bayesian+networks+and+decision+graphs+Finn+rapidshare&count=1000" | grep -Eo '[[:alnum:].]*\.cn$'`; do ping -c 1 $url; done) | grep -Po '\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}\.\d{1,3}' | sort -u); do echo $ip : ; whois $ip | grep netname; done

It is not too good with Firefox under OS X or Linux. The 3D view doesn't work. You cannot reroute your directions like you can with Google. Under Safari it takes you to this basic page. I couldn't get any search results in MS Live Search in Safari.

Maps are all about accuracy. Microsoft has more coverage with high res imagery (I can see my house from here!) but some of their street data is several years out of date.

For example, when I-74 was built, McKinney Road was re-routed to Hwy 601. The map has the correct positioning for I-74, but it still shows the old path of McKinney Road, even though the new path is visible in the image.

On the other hand, Google shows the roads correctly, but you can't zoom in the imagery nearly as close.

So its a matter of priorities. Do you want accurate or pretty?

Maybe if Microsoft spent more time on stuff (that people actually _use_ you know), instead of fluff, maybe Vista would actually be half decent.

I agree; although Vista is not without faults, many of the points you mentioned are addressed or improved in Vista.

- A way to customize the File Open dialog box, with the folders you constantly use, gasp!?

In the File Open dialog box, in "Favorite Links", right click on the small area below the list of folders, and click "Open Favorites Links" -- you can easily add or remove folders or links that are shown in that list. You can also get there by clicking on Start -> [username] (which will bring up your home directory) and open "Links".

- Expose. Enough said.

A good point; Flip3d is useful and pretty, but it leaves some things desired. Happily, a third party has come up with a competent free-ware alternative which beats Expose and Flip 3d in a number of ways. Switcher (I recommend the 2.0 beta) is built on Aero so it supports all the neat live-window-preview features. It has some unique features, like alternative layouts (Tile, Dock, and Grid), and it has a very cool ability to find a window as you type it's title. Also, it has great multi-monitor support.

- A built in spell checker / Dictionary / Thesaurus, with quick access to wikipedia

That is indeed missing!

- A search that isn't broken (Thx WinXP!)

I've found Vista's search to be pretty handy. For example, if I want to launch Winamp, I can just press my WinKey, and type "winamp" and press enter because it searches programs and the start menu. The few times I've needed search to locate a document, it's been useful. For real, non-indexed, text-based searches, the command line is much better. Windows Vista (and previous versions) comes with the findstr command. Example: to search for "resume" recursively: findstr /s resume * findstr supports regular expressions with the "/r" parameter.

- The ability to re-locate, (or hide) the dam 'close' button - Title bars that stop sucking up valuable screen space, instead of being small movable tabs like in BeOS - Virtual Desktops

Nope, doesn't do that, sadly. However, Switcher (mentioned above) makes the lack of Virtual Desktops less painful.

- An OS that gets FASTER from version to version (again BeOS)

Having only used BeOS 5, I don't know whether or not it got faster from version to version, but it was fast. Vista is faster than XP in certain areas due to optimization (it starts up faster and is more responsive after logging in and application launching is faster, for example). It is more resource intensive (read, slower) in other areas due to desktop composition and neat Aero effects, and possibly online indexing at times (although it's pretty good at throttling for idleness)

- A proper KILL command -- I'm admin on the dam box, let me kill that process.

If you don't find Task Manager convenient, you can easily use the command line. Example of Taskkill (available in previous versions of Windows too):Taskkill /im notepad.exe You may find Tasklist useful too. Assuming you have UAC turned on, you'll probably want an elevated prompt which is Vista's answer to "su". You can find an way to get to a quick elevated prompt using the keyboard

Switcher is an Expose clone for Windows Vista/Aero; it beats Expose in many ways -- type to find a Window, more layout options, lots of settings.

Google is "finally succumbing to the power of the almighty dollar"

The dollar is quite the temptress and very deceitful. Following the money has led many to the path of destruction. The record companies have tried to collude and through artificial scarcity kept CD prices way above reasonable. Sales have fallen as a result of completion even though i Pod sales skyrocket.

Google has command of the advertising market. If they follow the temptress and try to follow the money, then Google will become just another search engine.

It would be sad to see Google become another ad-laden site with no special attraction to the users. Is Google stupid enough to ditch tons of eyeballs to get a slightly higher price per ad?

Others are ditching the overburdening pages and imitating Google's success. Most of these pages now don't load their page with banner advertisements anymore and for good reason. They lost major market share to Google because of it. They have modeled Google.

http://www.altavista.com/
http://www.dogpile.com/
http://www.live.com/?searchonly=true&mkt=en-US
http://search.yahoo.com/
http://www.hotbot.com/

If Google gets tempted by the money, they may find themselves quickly in the company of almost dead search engines that they stomped. They know how the other search engines dropped to obscurity. Why are they even interested in putting on that well known way to the bottom of the search engines.

Okay - so I'll comment as a ten year Navy veteran (with Sub time) and as an MS Virtual Earth employee.

On the actual propeller, some of the comments above are accurate with respect to design, power, speed and cavitation issues. If it's covered by Wikipedia, then it must be true! There has always been a policy to cover the propeller whenever the boat was pulled out of the water - it's part of the secret sauce behind our submarine stealth. Not showing it in public only makes sense, but this picture from the air could have been taken by anyone flying a private plane. Shame on the Navy for not covering it, but then again, there's more to the engineering behind it than a picture could ever show.

Talk of satellite imagery and Government intervention is an interesting topic of the day, however. For one thing, the image was not taken by satellite, but rather by airplane using a unique capability for oblique imagery. In Virtual Earth, you can view the same area at 2 zoom levels and 4 compass points. The imagery comes from Pictometry, and MS uses the term "Bird's Eye" to depict areas in which it is available. It's pretty incredible imagery, truly raising the quality bar over systems using only satellite imagery.

Note that Microsoft does not manage satellite or aerial providers - we only take the imagery in, enhance it, tile it and then provide it to our customers in the form of an API. The organizations that provide the imagery have been in business for years capturing images of the earth and selling them to commercial and government organizations. If anyone should be on point to discuss the appropriate image capture time and location, these would be the organizations to do so. Since I do not work for one of these organizations, I will abstain from commenting on their data capture policies. Perhaps they have a Slashdot reader who would like to comment!

So what is Microsoft's position on this issue? A quick search (http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=justin+osme r+submarine+propeller) yields the following statement on Navy Times from Justin Osmer of the MS Virtual Earth product team:

"Our mapping products fully comply with U.S. laws governing the acquisition and publishing of aerial imagery," according to the statement. "The clarity of the images is impressive, but beyond a certain zoom level the images become 'pixilated' and blur. In addition some Virtual Earth imagery can only be viewed from certain distances. "Additionally, there are other instances where images have been intentionally blurred for security purposes. We review requests to do so on a case-by-case basis. In addition, we do not provide real-time data or live satellite images. All the imagery has been collected at a fixed point in time over a period of the last few years."

At the end of the day, several commenters here and elsewhere have used the term "get used to it", referring to the fact that we're losing our privacy and anonymity every day via cameras in the sky and search engines on earth... Perhaps this is true, but then again, maybe it's exactly what we need at this point in our civilization.

Eclipse 3.3 (Europa) really sped up the autocomplete features... Here's a little review of it. http://rf2-dev.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!33114F6710 97246!136.entry and the europa site: http://www.eclipse.org/europa/

Coordinates are +47 43' 39.58", -122 42' 55.83" for the base (this can be plugged into Google Earth.)

The location of the snapshot is of the dry-dock at 4744'36.08"N, 12243'48.51"W.

This link may or may not work: http://maps.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=ryqjnb4s5 7d5&style=o&lvl=2&tilt=-90&dir=0&alt=-1000&scene=1 0352732&encType=1

There's no propeller visible in the Google Earth imagery. All you can see is that there's what might be a sub; it's quite blurry. The Windows Live imagery shows a blurry whirly instrument of death; looks like a bunch of boomerangs.

Honestly, it's stupid. Half the shit that's classified, is just classified to impress. For example, the top speed of various US air craft carriers. Like that can't be figured out by a foreign government...? Like our *propeller technology* is that much more advanced, and other nation's subs haven't figured out what it sounds like? C'mon.

Apparently, someone else did it for them with an addon called TileProxy...I have not tried it, but there's a video here.

I'm not sure that math scans... Taking ER as an example from your chart, a 30 second spot is $400,000. Assume 20 minutes of ads (an overestimate, given that show run about 42-43 minutes and some of the ads are for other shows on the same channel), that works out to revenue of $16 million. The same season they got about http://loneswordsman.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!D545 4D646CBAAB6B!198.entry12.3 million viewers or about $1.30 per viewer. I believe that the wholesale rate for TV shows http://www.engadget.com/2006/06/19/steve-jobs-figh ting-for-9-99-itunes-movie-downloads/is 70%, so if the TV show costs 1.99 to download, 1.393 will go to the studio. Therefore, the studio is making about the same amount of money, possibly a bit more from each viewer who downloads a TV show from iTunes as they make per viewer from advertisers. I'm sure this is not a coincidence. Ad rates are set by number of viewers, so, although I didn't check, I'd expect this to scale to shows with higher or lower viewership, maintaining about the same revenue per viewer. Furthermore, if more and more viewers switch from watching on the buying from iTunes, the decrease in the amount they make from ads will be balanced by more revenue fro downloads. This isn't about maintaining the amount of money they make off of broadcast, it's about increasing it, and, more importantly, increasing their control.

It's also a far cry from MS's (paraphrased) "However you post it, wherever you post it, on any of our services (public or private) we have the right to use it, sell it, license it to our partners" clauses.

FUD, pure and simple; here's the relevant part of the Live license, from MS's web site here.


8. Your Materials.

You may be able to submit materials for use in connection with the service. Except for material that we license to you, we do not claim ownership of the materials you post or otherwise provide to us related to the service (called a "submission"). However, by posting or otherwise providing your submission, you are granting to the public free permission to:

use, copy, distribute, display, publish and modify your submission, each in connection with the service;
publish your name in connection with your submission; and grant these permissions to other persons.
This section only applies to legally permissible content and only to the extent that use and publishing of the legally permissible content does not breach the law. We will not pay you for your submission. We may refuse to publish, and may remove your submission from the service at any time. For every submission you make, you must have all rights necessary for you to grant the permissions in this section.

Please point out where exactly it says MS has the right to sell your content.

If you have a DynDNS account, chances are good that you don't forward all your e-mail to a HotMail account. In fact, you might run your own mailserver; in that case, you can make sure that your own server returns whatever bounce messages you feel are appropriate. Even the forwarding service will normally be pointed at RFC-compliant servers, which may choose to generate bounce messages in some cases.

In other words, if someone misdirects e-mail to my.handle@my.vanity.domain instead of my.h4ndle@my.vanity.domain, it might get lost with no error-message... but since it's your domain, you can define as many e-mail addresses as you want within it. On the other hand, if someone starts sending a lot of mail to bogus addresses at your domain with forged return addresses, they gain no information and DynDNS doesn't generate annoying misdirected bounces to a lot of third parties.

I am a happy DynDNS customer, but I don't use any of their mail services at the moment.

Windows Live is not affiliated with localhost and will share with it only an anonymous ID. Learn more. For additional protection, you may use an Information Card.

you may not: use the service in a way that harms us or our affiliates, resellers, distributors, and/or vendors (collectively, the "Microsoft parties"), or any customer of a Microsoft party ...

We may choose in the future to charge for use of the service. If we choose to establish fees and payment terms for such use, Microsoft will provide at least one (1) month advance notice of such terms as provided in section 18 below, and you may elect to stop using the service rather than incurring fees.

The ToU is on the downloads page: https://msm.live.com/app/tou.aspx

Here is another for comparison.

boadilla del monte, spain

calle manuel caldeiro, madrid, spain