Slashdot Mirror

"Mozilla is exceptionally bad."

Is Microsoft intentionally destroying Firefox? Mozilla Foundation is practically owned by Microsoft, through Yahoo:

When Google stopped paying Mozilla Foundation $300,000,000 each year (Dec. 22, 2011), Mozilla Foundation took money from Yahoo to sneakily "update" Firefox so that it uses "Yahoo search". Yahoo search is actually Microsoft's Bing search. A quote from Marissa:

"I'm thrilled to announce that we've entered into a five-year partnership with Mozilla to make Yahoo the default search experience on Firefox across mobile and desktop," Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said in a blog post Wednesday. "This is the most significant partnership for Yahoo in five years."

Now, somehow, the Firefox and Thunderbird user interfaces have been degraded. Firefox no longer allows making a duplicate tab from a tab; it is necessary to right-click on a web page to make a duplicate; that doesn't work well because it is necessary to find a place on the web page that is not a link.

Thunderbird and SeaMonkey composer now have the Save-As bug.

Microsoft paid Yahoo. Yahoo paid Mozilla Foundation to trick users into using Microsoft's Bing search engine. And now Mozilla Foundation is apparently allowing the degradation of its products. Apparently Microsoft wants Firefox and Thunderbird to be degraded that so there will be more users of Microsoft's browser and email software.

The sneaky tactic is not working: American Firefox users dump Yahoo and go back to Google. (January 13, 2015)

Then: Yahoo's Incredible Shrinking Profitability In Its Core Business (Forbes, March 1, 2015).

Yahoo has been EXTREMELY badly managed:

After Terry Semel, and before Marissa Meyer, there were 5 Yahoo CEOs who stayed less than 2 years each.

Nothing has changed, apparently. Marissa Mayer's second-in-command 'leaves with $109m' on being fired from Yahoo after just 15 months. (January 16, 2014) The rapid changes in management continue, that time with a $109,000,000 loss for Yahoo. (What management arrangement allowed a poor manager, someone who was so bad he was fired, to make $7,266,666 per month?)

Maybe that explains the bad management of Mozilla Foundation. It is possible the story needs updating.

It probably has a shitty DRM track to prevent your PC from "seeing" the music tracks. If you see a data track, look carefully at the disc under various lights and if you can identify the data track, black it out with a permanent marker (if clone cd, etc. fail) and then try ripping it. See: http://club.myce.com/f3/anothe...

It goes back even farther than that!

Here's an article from 2010 reporting Seagate promising 100TB HAMR hard drives:
http://www.myce.com/news/seaga...

Here's an article from 2006 reporting Seagate promising HAMR hard drives in "a few years":
http://webcache.googleusercont...

Also I'm puzzled by the claims about hundred layer 3D NAND chips. I can see how a hundred-layer chip would increase density and therefore could reduce access latency, but I don't see how it could significantly reduce cost-per-bit. Sure, there will be a hundred times as many bits per square cm, but a hundred times as many manufacturing processing steps should be required to make it, thereby increasing manufacturing cost a hundred-fold. Also, with all those manufacturing steps, the chance of defects also goes up, thereby reducing yields and increasing costs even more. Reduced latency would be cool, but I don't see it reducing cost-per-bit by much, if at all.

Also, Intel seems to be peculiarly self-contradicting when discussing their 3D XPoint technology. In 2015 they claimed that 3D XPoint was NOT phase-change technology and that it was already in volume production to prepare for sale in early 2016. In 2016 they're claiming that 3D XPoint IS phase-change technology and will not enter volume production until 2017.

I've become very cynical about all this. Frankly, I'll believe these things when I can see them with my own eyes.

It seemed to me that "Yahoo was stagnating for years" not because of employees working from home, but, overall, because of poor and insufficient management.

After Terry Semel, and before Marissa Meyer, there were 5 Yahoo CEOs who stayed less than 2 years each.

Nothing has changed, apparently. Marissa Mayer's second-in-command 'leaves with $109m' on being fired from Yahoo after just 15 months. The rapid changes in management continue, that time with a $109,000,000 loss for Yahoo. (What management arrangement allowed a poor manager, someone who was so bad he was fired, to make $7,266,666 per month?)

When Google stopped paying Mozilla Foundation $300,000,000 each year, Mozilla Foundation took money from Yahoo to sneakily "update" Firefox so that it uses "Yahoo search". Yahoo search is actually Microsoft's Bing search. A quote from Marissa:

"I'm thrilled to announce that we've entered into a five-year partnership with Mozilla to make Yahoo the default search experience on Firefox across mobile and desktop," Yahoo Chief Executive Marissa Mayer said in a blog post Wednesday. "This is the most significant partnership for Yahoo in five years."

Now, somehow, the Firefox and Thunderbird user interfaces have been degraded. Firefox no longer allows making a duplicate tab from a tab; it is necessary to right-click on a web page to make a duplicate; that doesn't work well because it is necessary to find a place on the web page that is not a link.

Thunderbird and SeaMonkey composer now have the Save-As bug.

So, Microsoft paid Yahoo. Yahoo paid Mozilla Foundation to trick users into using Microsoft's Bing search engine. And now Mozilla Foundation is apparently allowing the degradation of its products. Apparently Microsoft wants Firefox and Thunderbird to be degraded that so there will be more users of Microsoft's browser and email software.

The sneaky tactic is not working: American Firefox users dump Yahoo and go back to Google.

Now: Yahoo's Incredible Shrinking Profitability In Its Core Business (Forbes, March 1, 2015).

And then all that money that would be used to pay salaries that would be used on expenses locally, making the local economy work, will be redirected to Bill Gate's pockets.

The chief idea behind this was to save money yet it resulted in a poor user experience with many complaints. Saving money by paying salaries to people to produce a product that results in many user complaints is not a good economic choice.

Agreed. But exporting jobs to an already incredibly rich country is even worser.

Tough decision.

when all our documents will be locked in a proprietary cloud

No, you have stored them on a server, in fact any sane organization already stores all their documents on a server. They are not "locked" there, you could equally store them locally if you want. Did you not know that?

Nice. Stop paying Office 365 and try to get your documents. :-)

Storing your documents in the cloud, the way we're doing now (granted, it's not the only way), is like storing private data on Facebook. You can't expect integrity in the former in the same way you can't expect privacy in the latter.

You didn't knew that, right?

that anyone with the right influence will have access

So now it is a conspiracy? The defeatist has not heard of encryption? Or not storing sensitive data on a server you do not control? Anyone with the right influence could put a backdoor in the open source software too and they wouldnt have to go through Microsoft to get one put in Windows.

Microsoft software may not be a good choice but dont be so dimwitted as to think open source is some silver bullet that solves all the problems you pointed out.

You take it on the wrong side. =]

WHen you store your documents in the cloud, the software is irrelevant. Doesn't matter if you're using open ou closed source software, the server's owner can do whatever he wants and you'll never know.

Now... About that encryption thing....

http://www.myce.com/news/break...

AmiMoJo: Source

alen: Source

I wouldn't put it last the RIAA to sue a 7 year old.
Their cronies try to do it in other countries

If you can wait awhile longer before buying, Intel's upcoming Haswell processor is reported to have significantly improvied graphics performance, and Intel GPUs are well-supported with free drivers in Linux and Xorg. They're less-powerful than NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, but should be fine unless you need to play high-end games on high quality settings.

Yes, and than wait another year or so until they get the drivers to work properly, which they still didn't with Sandy Bridge.

If you can wait awhile longer before buying, Intel's upcoming Haswell processor is reported to have significantly improvied graphics performance, and Intel GPUs are well-supported with free drivers in Linux and Xorg. They're less-powerful than NVIDIA and AMD GPUs, but should be fine unless you need to play high-end games on high quality settings.

http://www.cdrinfo.com/Sections/Reviews/Home.aspx
http://www.myce.com/review/
I have an ihas 324, performs well with EAC. See reviews at above sites.

It gets even better when you read about stories like this one, where RIAA member owned VEVO was busted illegally streaming a football game at an event at Sundance a couple years ago.

And let's not even get into Hollywood Accounting...

You know why the MAFIAA is so pissed off about getting ripped off? Because it's cutting into the profits they make ripping other people off. Poor babies...

No, you loan your car to someone. Therefore you are responsible. If someone steals your car and crashes into a bus full of nuns, you aren't.

If they crash into a bus full of nuns because you neglegently failed to have the brakes regularly inspected and they catastrophically failed, you are liable then. The argument can be made that failing to secure your networks is an act of gross negligence, especially considering Windows warns you before connecting to such a network (as do most operating systems) that it is not secure, that it says in the owner's manual of every wifi router words to the effect of "We strongly recommend you put a password on this", along with a long list of articles in just about every local and national newspaper and news website out there indicating the same thing.

Its an analogy fail. Get over yourself.

Tell that to this guy. It's not just some armchair lawyer talk here, this is real: It's in the courts right now, and you shouldn't be so dismissive.

Actually, it is flawed, because automobiles are just about the only things for which the courts have upheld this idea...

Oil tanker owner held liable for captain being negligent and crashing. Owner of a building complex that caught fire held liable, even though he wasn't the one who started the fire. Hotel owner held liable for meth lab being setup in room. Owners of male cattle not held responsible for bull killing someone. By the way, that's a biblical reference; I just wanted to demonstrate it's not a new concept. I can provide many, many more examples. It's not just cars. If you own something, you can be held responsible if you're neglegent in the maintenance of it.
Your failure to secure your wifi connection and then having it used in the commission of a crime makes you liable for damages. This has already happened in the UK and Germany. It's currently being looked into in several jurisdictions in the United States. Bottom line here, there is plenty of legal precident here and globally to create, enforce, and have upheld, a law that makes the owners of an unsecured network legally liable for illegal activity which occurs on it.

No, there isn't. I know for an absolute fact that my state laws contradict every single thing you have stated here, the sole exception being the part about automobile liability. And I am pretty sure that most other states are similar.

I have provided several links indicating that at the state and national level, this is something that is being considered, has legal merit, and may be enforceable. Your turn.

The MPAA Lawyers have never played this nice..

Indeed, I am quite confused too.

They didn't mind the bad press over suing a 12 year old child OR a 80 year old grandfather for only 'several' movies, so we know it's not the age part that did it.
(source)

They also don't mind sending threatening letters to the military asking them to crack down on their own troops for them, so it isn't the American troops away from home part that did it either.
(source)

They didn't mind suing people for downloading movies for personal use and no profits involved, so we know that isn't what did it either.
(source)

This is a complete reversal of past policy on all counts!

My personal guess is that the lawsuit is already in the works, and they requested the court seal the details so the press doesn't get word of it. Then they release this announcement to try and look like they are being good guys. There can't be any other possibility. The Grinchs heart growing 3 sizes only happens in the movies.

That link only deals with daily numbers. If you attempted to use that you would actually come up with a figure of 52 hours/average a week, but the data is so non-specific for anything other than a daily basis that its total guesswork to get there.

" As previously mentioned, Americans work approximately 47.1 hours each week; "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work%E2%80%93life_balance

I did a tiny bit of math on this second one, quickly and in my head, so I could be off +/- an hour or so, I aimed low and put a + sign after it.

"151 hours of TV content per month"

http://www.myce.com/news/TV-consumption-at-all-time-high-15573/

No, I am not going further than wikipedia/google for a slashdot post. Admittedly that statistic once I look at it again is 151 hours average based on all cable subscribers, there is a full 20%+ of the population that drags the stats for the BLS figure down a fair chunk since these are effectively zero numbers added into the other equation.

However from your own source, since it just helps to prove my statement:

On an average day, nearly everyone age 15 and over engaged in some sort of leisure activity, such as watching TV, socializing, or exercising. Of those who engaged in leisure activities, men spent more time in these activities (5.8 hours) than did women (5.1 hours). (See table 1.)

We'll say 5.4 hours on average for everyone that matters then, or 45 hours a week. Of that time about 4.5+ hours daily is spent on recreation or TV. The rest is divided between computer time, only some of which is relevant to helping your situation, probably in about the same proportion as people spend watching CNN or NPR out of their 45 hours a week.

Yes, I understand people do what they enjoy, I also understand that when so much of your life is taken up for pure enjoyment, almost NONE of it is spent actually giving a shit about how you're governed, or what you should do about it.

"Osama bin Laden was a prolific writer who put together a painstaking email system that thwarted the US government's best eavesdroppers despite having no Internet access in his hideout" ..

Then why does the Gov need to spy on us all in order to protect us from the terrorists ?

  New US bill would require ISPs to retain user info to aid police

They would not have put ICT into the Blu-Ray spec unless they intended to use it. HDCP was approved by the FCC in August 2004, (it was part of the DVI spec in 1999) anybody paying attention would not have bought a device without HDMI (or DVI) since then. ICT is not new, here is a discussion on the same issue five years ago http://www.myce.com/news/Most-major-studios-back-off-ICT-downscaling-on-next-gen-DVDs-11677/. At the time no Blu-Ray media had the flag turned on although some HD-DVD media did. The article speculates that the ICT flag would be turned on "several years later" ..."to get those with incompliant TVs to think of buying a new set ... " Several years has arrived, and it is no surprise to many of us.

Even easier with the democrat:
obama appoints riaa lawyer as solicitor general
Obama Picks New FTC Boss Former MPAA Lobbyist
Obama Taps 5th RIAA Lawyer to Justice Dept.
Obama Appoints RIAA Defense Lawyer to Key DOJ Position

Actually - bluray patent licensing costs Stick 100% on top of that for the retail mark-up, now how much of that $50 is licensing? AKA bluray driver would cost nearly half as much without the royalties. See also this.

The OCZ drive has a max response time of 1.2 seconds under load according to these testes, that's just not acceptable for my application.

Rather buy more DRM Free games to support the Indie devs in this market, even if they're small puzzle games. This way we can support and grow a market that one day will provide an alternative to DRM locked games.

And apparently DRM Free games aren't any worse off than locked down games, so we might as well support them and they can use that extra time and resources to add great game features, instead of useless DRM!

Try here --> http://2dboy.com/games.php

The average resolution of the household TV didn't increase for over 50 years until now. And even that is too much for many people to notice, as many people are running SD content on their HDTVs.

A 2TB spec is plenty for the next 10-15 years. If you need more, you're not talking about a consumer-level spec, and you may as well develop your own system.

1) http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/08/unpatched_vulnerability_in_all.php
2) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/security/microsoft-warns-of-serious-unpatched-windows-7-flaw/6474
3) http://blogs.pcmag.com/securitywatch/2010/08/unpatched_vulnerability_in_all.php
4) http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9176944/Microsoft_warns_of_bug_in_64_bit_Windows_7?source=rss_security
5) http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=8023
6) http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10170962-83.html
7) http://www.geek.com/articles/chips/17-year-old-unpatched-windows-vulnerability-discovered-20100120/
8) http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/03/exploits-of-unpatched-ie6-ie7-flaw-on-the-rise.ars
9) http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/Several-known-vulnerabilities-to-remain-unpatched-on-forthcoming-Microsoft-patch-day-947191.html
10) http://www.myce.com/news/microsoft-confirms-windows-shortcut-zero-day-exploit-32107/?utm_source=myce&utm_medium=frontpage&utm_campaign=related_posts

There, 10 vulnerabilities, which either took Microsoft months after visibility to patch, or still aren't patched.

Now, STFU.

No-one gives a shit but the Taiyo-Yudens was in some cases unbranded / Verbatim branded it seems.

Anyway, seems like I had a solution even back then:
http://club.myce.com/f33/fast-would-good-mixed-bag-discs-should-i-change-anything-219598/#post1793301

If the weird brand ones suck they are still just around 2 sek each so not much of an issue =P

I can throw them at kids from my balcony :D

That's the spirit! :D

To reiterate, just as blackberry users feel inclined to ditch their gadgets for an iPhone or an Android phone, there are people that will ditch their netbooks for one of these iPad thingie machingies. And this will be independent of whether their netbooks are sufficient in terms of technical capabilities or cost. Whether that number of people will be massive or just sufficiently large to be economically viable is besides the point. The very fact that such an artifact has been so much widely spoken is revolutionary in itself, independently of whether it is technically innovative or superior. It has an appeal that is undeniable, and that's part of good engineering. There is good engineering behind it, it is packaged in a revolutionary way, and none of that can be denied.