It's not bad form to compare Communist China with National Socialist Germany. Both are non free countries which engaged in systematic censorship and murder.
It is bad form to co-operate with either and Bill Gates should be ashamed. Richard Nixon's policy of engagement was more a case of Machiavelli's help the weaker of two enemies than co-operating with a murderer. With the stronger of the two gone, the remaining enemy should be shunned. Co-operation with China today is a classic example of selling the rope to your executioner. Bill Gates, by shutting down a US cite at China's request, is saying that he's willing to subject US citizens to Chinese publication law. That does not make Bill Gates a murderer, but it does make him someone who's willing to violate your rights to help a lawless regime.
I am sure George Orwell's '1984', Aldous Huxley's 'Brave New World', and even Bill Gate's 2005 article 'The New World of Work' would be banned as well.
If China asks, will Bill Gates remove all references to the above from MSN, hosted in the US, like he did this Blog?
"new software will learn from the way you work, understand your needs, and help you set priorities." (Bill Gates 5-19-05)", Unless you live in China.
China and the Xbox are where he's proving his censorship potential and his lack of trust in everyone.
It's almost as if this MSDN interview of an MS executive on future MS technology is somehow MS related.
No mystery there, but I doubt it's news for nerds or stuff that matters. What M$ has to say about their non free crap-olla is about as useful as a Communist tour of Tiennemen Square.
Regardless of your feeleings on television, it is important that everyone have free (or near free) access to news, state of the union addresses, etc.
Such access would be guaranteed if Uncle Sam would get out of the way. As has been shown again and again, there is no scarcity of broadcast bandwith if modern packet switching technology is used. The entire spectrum, with a few military exceptions, should be set free for all to use as they see fit. The whole DTV thing is intended to keep the incumbents in business at everyone else's expense. The only thing worse than giving the incumbents huge chunks of spectrum they have proved they do not deserve is selling them the rest of it too. The net benefit to giving away the spectrum would be the elimination of the last mile barrier, a huge win for everyone.
It's almost as if this MSDN interview of an MS executive on future MS technology is somehow MS related.
No mystery there, but I doubt it's news for nerds or stuff that matters. What M$ has to say about their non free crap-olla is about as useful as a Communist tour of Tiennemen Square.
thank the gods there are alternatives to Microsoft codecs... Chan9 logo blockiness in the video stream is über lame... long live Quicktime!
It's too bad they don't just publish their source code so someone can fix the problems. A Microsoft Christmas present: If you are very good, we will condescend to an interview. Whoot, I'm so enlightened by the chance to download some non free video codecs to watch someone talk about software. No thanks, all around.
There is _nothing_ to live up to when you produce a cheap copy of old technology because expectations have already moved way beyond your implemention.
Oh yeah, old technology like the video IPod, the closest non-free competitor. What exactly are you talking about? Can you point to a device that plays all the video and music formats this does AND does games and fits in your pocket? I don't think so.
I never installed XP at home, and don't miss it. I'm certainly not going to install Vista anywhere.
That sounds like a good idea but what it means is that you are freezing a computer at year 2000 software. You spent the time and money needed to make it do what you want and you can reproduce it until the machine breaks down. It's going to get harder to keep up though. If M$ has not already abandoned your OS, they will soon and their "support" did not keep people from rooting it anyway. At some point you will think connecting it to a network is too big a pain. In effect, what you have is a set top box that will lose functionality over time.
Your situation nicely illustrates the treachery of non free software. The first "offer" you could not refuse was not as onerous as the one you will be forced to migrate too. That's they way it usually goes. Once they have you, they abuse you.
Besides, the easy way to watch DVDs on crippled OS's like Windows is to rip it and re-record it without region codes, or no-skip flags.
Good luck ripping it when your OS refuses to recognize your drive.
Good luck replacing your drive with one that works too. Sooner or later drives won't come with drivers for your OS. That's the flip side of the non free upgrade train. New hardware does not work with old software and vice versa forcing you to buy a complete set of both for a single feature of one or the other.
To mirror your statement, I don't have any Windoze and I don't miss it. There are a few things I have not figures out yet, but that's only because you can't legally distribute code to work with non free formats like CSS. It sucks to not be able to put together and edit little home movies from my digital cameras, but one day I will be able to because the OS I'm using to preserve them won't make them all dissapeare one way or another. The trade off has been worth it and it won't last forever.
To see what I mean, compare the functionality of Windows 95 with Mepis. Mepis will see network hardware like wifi cards, does SSH, IMAP and other useful up to the minute stuff. Windows 95, well, good luck making it work with anything but the computer it came with.
The last fortune 500 company I worked for told me their desktops cost them about four hundred bucks, five years ago. Big dumb companies avoid the retail rape, where prices are often jacked two or three times. You should be able to surmise as much by looking to discounters like WalMart, who have desktop machines under four hundred dollars.
The above price does not include software. Bill Gates got about as much as Michael Dell did. They sold them off to their employees for the same amount they bought them for, sans OS.
The same machines can now be found at used computer stores for $250 with or without an operating system. Mepis works better thn anything the corporate drones ever used.
If you wanted to blame someone other than spammers, try Microsoft. They have the history, motive, means and opportunity.
History. Can you find a dirtier bunch outside jail? Start with an OS made by people who consider your desktop something they can use to sell advertising space to the highest bidder. Couple that with M$'s notorious efforts to discredit previous competitors and penchant for lying about it with very expensive PR campaigns. From bogus error messages for competitor's programs to fake letters to lawmakers, M$ has done it all. There's no technically competent person who would put any dirty trick beyond M$.
Motive. They hate Google. Google is a double competitive threat to them. Google has, for a long time, been a better technical resource than Microsoft's or anyone else's manuals and resource pages. The is especially true for free software issues. Now they Google is moving into territory M$ thinks they own. The hatred is personal, with people like Steve Balmer throwing chairs and Bill Gates saying sour things when asked questions. It's weird but that's how control freaks act. This little trojan attacks Google's credibility and strikes at one of their funding mechanism.
Means. M$ has money and knowledge.
Opportunity. M$ has extensive computer networks. They can make these things themselves or pay other to do so anytime.
Now nuts. It's much easier to think that this is yet another spamming tool that seeks the weakest and most widely dispersed target, M$'s crappy OS. Yet successful another high profile attack is not what M$ wants. Nor can they really want to destroy the world of online advertising. M$ wants to sell server software themselves.
An advert is an advert, I block them all. I doesn't matter whether it's linking to some porn site or to some site selling digital cameras, it's all bollocks as far as I'm concerned.
Some quick differences between a Google and Porn Ad:
See the image in the linked article and compare that to carefully selected text from google.
Spam adverts fund spam and yet more trojans, Google ads fund content on small websites.
Following a spam link will almost certainly lead you to a malicious web site that will install yet more crap on your wimpy Windoze computer, speeding it's demise.
Perhaps Google just wants more premium subscribers
That kind of trick only works to force upgrades of monopoly business. Even then, it's questionable how many times you can do it. A bad reputation will eventually kill your business. Google is not so stupid.
All this will do for Google is tar their reputation as the clueless click through to porn and think Google sent it to them. Google's good reputation is what makes the trick work in the first place.
In the end, blame will go where blame belongs. It's more likely that this is just another crappy ad server from the usual suspects that replaces real ads with spam. You won't see it on other operating systems. Such replacements and poor performance are already well known to anyone who's used M$ for more than a year. The word gets out and blame goes where it should.
I don't believe you can use bacteria or viruses to modify a living organism and produce viable offspring either. It goes against the divine wisdom of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and is all double plus bad for the bottom line. Please piss off with your absurd notions that genes can be modified outside the magic of white lab coats and big dumb company research. Where do people get such ideas?
But does that mean the weed got the herbicide-resistant gene from the crops or did it evolve the gene on its own, the same way that bacteria that are exposed to low doses of antibiotics can develop resistance?
If people have been using this weed killer for years, it would be a strange co-incidence for the resistance gene to just show up three years after GM but not one or two. Transfer by cross fertilization looks like the most likely method, especially if the find the very same patented genes. Transfer to other people's crops has already happened, much to the dislike of those who wanted nothing to do with GM and considered it polution.
Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.
The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the government's three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.
A lengthy explanation follows of how the transfer and other mechanisms have worked.
The GM goal was to sell more a specific, and imaginably high profit, week killers instead of a spectrum. It had the potential to lower the overall amount of weed killers needed and be a win for all. If related weeds do have the resistance, the intended weed killer is useless and everone loses.
Without their lawyers, what do they have? Certainly not a good product.
Did I say they had good lawyers? No, I said they don't mind firing their lawyers anymore than they mind mistreating anyone else. When you are used to treating people that way, you always think you will find someone else to do your dirty work.
It would nice to see an RIAA lawyer disbarred and jailed. I seriously doubt it would happen
Why not? Do you think an industry that screws it's clients and treats it's customers like criminals would care about their lawyers? If one of them gets caught, the people who ordered, "win any way you can," will be the first to repudiate them, "Bad buzz Bob. You know how it goes, you're fired."
I'm not sure I buy an industry lawyer telling a 15 year old girl he wouldn't have a case unless she lied.
Why not? They don't have any evidence to begin with, what makes you think they won't create the details by threats? The fine article said he threatened the witness with all the costs of the case and that the costs would get greater unless she burnt her friend and capped the friends losses at $4,000. If you can believe a 15 year old girl was talking to the RIAA thug without a lawyer, you had better believe the thug had his way with her.
The results are what you see, the case is shit and has blown up in their face. Obviously, the thug has screwed up.
For those in a hurry, go here. If you have a little more time, try this or this or even this.
No, really that's the answer. Those of you with roll your own Windoze software will probably be able to run them under Wine or crossover office without fuss. Most of your users won't even know the difference and that will be that. Just remember the above next week when 100% of your users are down due to a combination of IM and email worms slamming your network, you have to disconnect and can't get anything done.
As someone who does not use M$ junk, but does have to put up with network congestion, I thank each and every one of you who will liberate their users.
One, the security hole has not "widened" - the scope of exposure is exactly what we read about Wednesday.
More dirt bags are using the exploit, so your risk has increased. It's kind of like more people are ready to put ice where Bill Gates left a hole in your pants. When your computer goes poof, you will feel pretty naked.
the web sites are not infected, they are malicious.
A web site may serve such images without knowing it through their ad server or through vandalism. The user's perspective of those events would be that the site was "infected" with a disease that wiped them out.
For other editorial problems, send a letter to the Washington Post and other industry experts who use the same kind of language.
To save your ass, heed their warning: a big fat worm is coming that will exploit this. I'd convert my users to Mepis if I were you.
I mean, seriously, avoid visiting unfamiliar web sites? That's like saying "There's been lots of credit card scams recently, you shouldn't go into any store you haven't been to before."
The stores you have already been to can now get you, if they have not already exploited one of the other 1,001 holes you don't know about. With companies like American Express and Home Depot paying people to infect M$ encumbered computers with advert servers, the internet is anything but a trusted network to begin with.
The advice is not being given to help the user, it's being given to BLAME the user. When something goes wrong, clueless administrators everywhere will now blame their users for all the late hours they will spend cleaning up after Bill Gates.
Yea, never mind things like the Tsunami or Katrina or in the U.S. all of the controversies in government... I'm sure when I'm 85 years old this is exactly what I'll remember about 2005.
Freedom of speech is important. I'm from New Orleans and still live in Louisiana. That ICANN is handing portions of the Internet over to government censors bothers me, and I consider it a large problem. Is my perspective warped? No. Without free speech, everyday can be like Katrina because your government can do whatever it wants to you. Just ask people from the former Soviet states what government housing and shopping are like.
Other disturbing US trends include re-centralization of telco into less than friendly hands. The destruction of smaller ISP continues. Blatant anti-competitive behavior by the remainder is tollerated and even encouraged. 2005 was another bad year for the world of ends.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not bad form to compare Communist China with National Socialist Germany. Both are non free countries which engaged in systematic censorship and murder.
It is bad form to co-operate with either and Bill Gates should be ashamed. Richard Nixon's policy of engagement was more a case of Machiavelli's help the weaker of two enemies than co-operating with a murderer. With the stronger of the two gone, the remaining enemy should be shunned. Co-operation with China today is a classic example of selling the rope to your executioner. Bill Gates, by shutting down a US cite at China's request, is saying that he's willing to subject US citizens to Chinese publication law. That does not make Bill Gates a murderer, but it does make him someone who's willing to violate your rights to help a lawless regime.
If China asks, will Bill Gates remove all references to the above from MSN, hosted in the US, like he did this Blog?
"new software will learn from the way you work, understand your needs, and help you set priorities." (Bill Gates 5-19-05)", Unless you live in China.
China and the Xbox are where he's proving his censorship potential and his lack of trust in everyone.
No mystery there, but I doubt it's news for nerds or stuff that matters. What M$ has to say about their non free crap-olla is about as useful as a Communist tour of Tiennemen Square.
Such access would be guaranteed if Uncle Sam would get out of the way. As has been shown again and again, there is no scarcity of broadcast bandwith if modern packet switching technology is used. The entire spectrum, with a few military exceptions, should be set free for all to use as they see fit. The whole DTV thing is intended to keep the incumbents in business at everyone else's expense. The only thing worse than giving the incumbents huge chunks of spectrum they have proved they do not deserve is selling them the rest of it too. The net benefit to giving away the spectrum would be the elimination of the last mile barrier, a huge win for everyone.
No mystery there, but I doubt it's news for nerds or stuff that matters. What M$ has to say about their non free crap-olla is about as useful as a Communist tour of Tiennemen Square.
It's too bad they don't just publish their source code so someone can fix the problems. A Microsoft Christmas present: If you are very good, we will condescend to an interview. Whoot, I'm so enlightened by the chance to download some non free video codecs to watch someone talk about software. No thanks, all around.
Yes, I've seen a few.
$200+freeOS=$200
$200+WindozeTax>=$250
Netcraft says they don't touch that M$ stuff, and it looks fine from here. Talk to your network administrator or ISP about what you see.
Oh yeah, old technology like the video IPod, the closest non-free competitor. What exactly are you talking about? Can you point to a device that plays all the video and music formats this does AND does games and fits in your pocket? I don't think so.
Happy New Year to you too!
That sounds like a good idea but what it means is that you are freezing a computer at year 2000 software. You spent the time and money needed to make it do what you want and you can reproduce it until the machine breaks down. It's going to get harder to keep up though. If M$ has not already abandoned your OS, they will soon and their "support" did not keep people from rooting it anyway. At some point you will think connecting it to a network is too big a pain. In effect, what you have is a set top box that will lose functionality over time.
Your situation nicely illustrates the treachery of non free software. The first "offer" you could not refuse was not as onerous as the one you will be forced to migrate too. That's they way it usually goes. Once they have you, they abuse you.
Besides, the easy way to watch DVDs on crippled OS's like Windows is to rip it and re-record it without region codes, or no-skip flags.
Good luck ripping it when your OS refuses to recognize your drive.
Good luck replacing your drive with one that works too. Sooner or later drives won't come with drivers for your OS. That's the flip side of the non free upgrade train. New hardware does not work with old software and vice versa forcing you to buy a complete set of both for a single feature of one or the other.
To mirror your statement, I don't have any Windoze and I don't miss it. There are a few things I have not figures out yet, but that's only because you can't legally distribute code to work with non free formats like CSS. It sucks to not be able to put together and edit little home movies from my digital cameras, but one day I will be able to because the OS I'm using to preserve them won't make them all dissapeare one way or another. The trade off has been worth it and it won't last forever.
To see what I mean, compare the functionality of Windows 95 with Mepis. Mepis will see network hardware like wifi cards, does SSH, IMAP and other useful up to the minute stuff. Windows 95, well, good luck making it work with anything but the computer it came with.
The last fortune 500 company I worked for told me their desktops cost them about four hundred bucks, five years ago. Big dumb companies avoid the retail rape, where prices are often jacked two or three times. You should be able to surmise as much by looking to discounters like WalMart, who have desktop machines under four hundred dollars.
The above price does not include software. Bill Gates got about as much as Michael Dell did. They sold them off to their employees for the same amount they bought them for, sans OS.
The same machines can now be found at used computer stores for $250 with or without an operating system. Mepis works better thn anything the corporate drones ever used.
Obviously. Had she ever used his software, she would have cut off his head.
History. Can you find a dirtier bunch outside jail? Start with an OS made by people who consider your desktop something they can use to sell advertising space to the highest bidder. Couple that with M$'s notorious efforts to discredit previous competitors and penchant for lying about it with very expensive PR campaigns. From bogus error messages for competitor's programs to fake letters to lawmakers, M$ has done it all. There's no technically competent person who would put any dirty trick beyond M$.
Motive. They hate Google. Google is a double competitive threat to them. Google has, for a long time, been a better technical resource than Microsoft's or anyone else's manuals and resource pages. The is especially true for free software issues. Now they Google is moving into territory M$ thinks they own. The hatred is personal, with people like Steve Balmer throwing chairs and Bill Gates saying sour things when asked questions. It's weird but that's how control freaks act. This little trojan attacks Google's credibility and strikes at one of their funding mechanism.
Means. M$ has money and knowledge.
Opportunity. M$ has extensive computer networks. They can make these things themselves or pay other to do so anytime.
Now nuts. It's much easier to think that this is yet another spamming tool that seeks the weakest and most widely dispersed target, M$'s crappy OS. Yet successful another high profile attack is not what M$ wants. Nor can they really want to destroy the world of online advertising. M$ wants to sell server software themselves.
Some quick differences between a Google and Porn Ad:
Those are a few of the differences.
That kind of trick only works to force upgrades of monopoly business. Even then, it's questionable how many times you can do it. A bad reputation will eventually kill your business. Google is not so stupid.
All this will do for Google is tar their reputation as the clueless click through to porn and think Google sent it to them. Google's good reputation is what makes the trick work in the first place.
In the end, blame will go where blame belongs. It's more likely that this is just another crappy ad server from the usual suspects that replaces real ads with spam. You won't see it on other operating systems. Such replacements and poor performance are already well known to anyone who's used M$ for more than a year. The word gets out and blame goes where it should.
If people have been using this weed killer for years, it would be a strange co-incidence for the resistance gene to just show up three years after GM but not one or two. Transfer by cross fertilization looks like the most likely method, especially if the find the very same patented genes. Transfer to other people's crops has already happened, much to the dislike of those who wanted nothing to do with GM and considered it polution.
Modified genes from crops in a GM crop trial have transferred into local wild plants, creating a form of herbicide-resistant "superweed", the Guardian can reveal.
The cross-fertilisation between GM oilseed rape, a brassica, and a distantly related plant, charlock, had been discounted as virtually impossible by scientists with the environment department. It was found during a follow up to the government's three-year trials of GM crops which ended two years ago.
A lengthy explanation follows of how the transfer and other mechanisms have worked.
The GM goal was to sell more a specific, and imaginably high profit, week killers instead of a spectrum. It had the potential to lower the overall amount of weed killers needed and be a win for all. If related weeds do have the resistance, the intended weed killer is useless and everone loses.
Did I say they had good lawyers? No, I said they don't mind firing their lawyers anymore than they mind mistreating anyone else. When you are used to treating people that way, you always think you will find someone else to do your dirty work.
Why not? Do you think an industry that screws it's clients and treats it's customers like criminals would care about their lawyers? If one of them gets caught, the people who ordered, "win any way you can," will be the first to repudiate them, "Bad buzz Bob. You know how it goes, you're fired."
I'm not sure I buy an industry lawyer telling a 15 year old girl he wouldn't have a case unless she lied.
Why not? They don't have any evidence to begin with, what makes you think they won't create the details by threats? The fine article said he threatened the witness with all the costs of the case and that the costs would get greater unless she burnt her friend and capped the friends losses at $4,000. If you can believe a 15 year old girl was talking to the RIAA thug without a lawyer, you had better believe the thug had his way with her.
The results are what you see, the case is shit and has blown up in their face. Obviously, the thug has screwed up.
No, really that's the answer. Those of you with roll your own Windoze software will probably be able to run them under Wine or crossover office without fuss. Most of your users won't even know the difference and that will be that. Just remember the above next week when 100% of your users are down due to a combination of IM and email worms slamming your network, you have to disconnect and can't get anything done.
As someone who does not use M$ junk, but does have to put up with network congestion, I thank each and every one of you who will liberate their users.
More dirt bags are using the exploit, so your risk has increased. It's kind of like more people are ready to put ice where Bill Gates left a hole in your pants. When your computer goes poof, you will feel pretty naked.
the web sites are not infected, they are malicious.
A web site may serve such images without knowing it through their ad server or through vandalism. The user's perspective of those events would be that the site was "infected" with a disease that wiped them out.
For other editorial problems, send a letter to the Washington Post and other industry experts who use the same kind of language.
To save your ass, heed their warning: a big fat worm is coming that will exploit this. I'd convert my users to Mepis if I were you.
The stores you have already been to can now get you, if they have not already exploited one of the other 1,001 holes you don't know about. With companies like American Express and Home Depot paying people to infect M$ encumbered computers with advert servers, the internet is anything but a trusted network to begin with.
The advice is not being given to help the user, it's being given to BLAME the user. When something goes wrong, clueless administrators everywhere will now blame their users for all the late hours they will spend cleaning up after Bill Gates.
Freedom of speech is important. I'm from New Orleans and still live in Louisiana. That ICANN is handing portions of the Internet over to government censors bothers me, and I consider it a large problem. Is my perspective warped? No. Without free speech, everyday can be like Katrina because your government can do whatever it wants to you. Just ask people from the former Soviet states what government housing and shopping are like.
Other disturbing US trends include re-centralization of telco into less than friendly hands. The destruction of smaller ISP continues. Blatant anti-competitive behavior by the remainder is tollerated and even encouraged. 2005 was another bad year for the world of ends.