As of yesterday, that page did not include a "purchase" button for Episode 2. I looked at it again before I made my post. It only listed the purchase options for the packages. I spent a couple of hours researching this issue when the Orange Box became available for preorder because I wanted to preorder Episode 2. I could not find any information on it being available stand alone. Everything I found talked only about the various packages. I'll retract and apologize for my rant but I did not "jump on the bandwagon" and I certainly did attempt to check for myself.
Valve is doing us a favor? They're forcing us to buy software that we already own in order to get access to Episode 2, and then they're doing us a favor by letting us give one copy of the software we've paid for twice to someone else? How bloody friggin' generous of them.
The whole promise of "episodic content" was smaller, quicker, cheaper. Now suddenly we have to pay the price of a full game if we want to get the next episode. And don't tell me that I'm getting my money's worth by getting all the other "bundled" software. I either already have or don't want and will not play any of the other games. It's useless and therefore worthless to me. I either pay just shy of $50 bucks for a piece of a game, or I don't get to play the game. Or I say "Screw you, Valve!" and grab it off bittorrent for free. I've paid for around 20 games on my Steam account, including every Half Life title out there and now they want to screw me over like this? Spit. Time to fire up Azureus.
Really? You must have read a different article than I did. The one I read said that "I hired one of the best Rails programmers in the world..." and that they were trying to "...make [Rails] do things it was never intended to do." It likened the task to "..trying to turn a train into a boat..." and said it was "... do-able with a lot of glue. But it's damn hard..."
That doesn't at all sound like an issue of coding skill or preference in method of coding. It sounds like the author is claiming a mismatch between the task and the tool being used to perform the task. Rails may very well not be intended to handle every contingency that a web designer may need. It may very well be that the particular tasks the author needed just happened to be tasks for which Rails was poorly suited. And if that's the case, it's not a significant knock on Rails. It just means that Rails isn't a great choice for some limited subset of web coding problems. But if that's the case and you're going to post about it on a blog, then the responsible course of action is to also post about exactly which tasks gave Rails problems and why PHP was better suited for those particular tasks. Such a blog, assuming it was accurate, would be an intelligent and informative post for those interested in the field. That isn't what we got.
Please explain the difference in a "limitation of Rails" and "something Rails wasn't meant to do." If Rails wasn't meant to do task A, whatever A happens to be, how is it incorrect to say that doing A is a limitation of Rails?
I don't see anything in the article that actually states why he chose Rails in the first place.
Even worse, there's absolutely nothing there about why Rails didn't work. Exactly what was it that was so hard to do in Rails that was easy to do in PHP? The article provides nothing useful to anyone looking to build a web site. How do I know if PHP is superior to Rails for my particular application? There's little there to help. This is nothing but a senseless rant.
You are wrong. The copyright holder himself relicensed the work under the GPL while stripping the BSD. He alone is free to do so.
Huh? If that's indeed the case, then Theo definitely has no legitimate beef. I haven't seen this claim anywhere. In fact, I haven't heard the author of the driver code weigh in at all. Do you have a pointer?
You are free to continue using code derived from the original BSD licensed works under the terms of the BSD license, but the newly released work, from the original author, both has no dependence on the BSD and grants none of the rights available under the BSD.
Double huh? You can use newly derived code under whatever license it's released under. The license of the parent code may or may not restrict the choice of license available for the release of the derived code. If the derived code is not released under the BSD license, you're certainly not free to use it under a BSD license.
Instead, GPLers strip the license and replace it with a license that they feel is 'better', but incompatible with the BSD.
Not really true. The issue is with software that is dual licensed - released under both BSD and GPL. The included license file says that the software may be distributed under either license at the users choice. The Linux developers chose to release it under the GPL, as they had every right to do. The problem is that they did not include the BSD license with their released code. Theo says that's a violation - they can not change the license in any way but must retain it exactly as the author released it. This leads to an absurd situation - both license, which are incompatible with one another, are simultaneously in effect. Note that the question of legality is orthogonal to the issue of the absurdity. Theo may very well be right, but so far I've seen no legal experts make the claim, nor have I seen Theo cite anything other than his own interpretation of the law to back up his claim.
I think the solution for coders who wish to release their code under both license is to provide two separate downloads - one with the BSD license, one with the GPL license - but that doesn't help here.
I believe that there was an issue with some code that was only BSD licensed being released under the GPL, and the kernel developers quickly acknowledged and corrected their error. What's left is the issue of dual licensed code, and this is a matter of legal interpretation, not disrespect of an author's intentions or intended copyright violation. The code being released under the GPL is modified code that was previously released under the GPL, so it's difficult to claim that the developers are violating the author's wishes by releasing their modifications of the original under the GPL.
That's a fine setting for a home system. It's asking for trouble in a corporate environment, particularly one where you run custom applications or services. If this happens on your home computer, it's largely an issue of annoyance and inconvenience. If it happens to large numbers of computers in an enterprise, it may mean losses of millions of dollars. Most enterprises test patches on lab machines to identify issues before they deploy them. MS (or Ubuntu or Apple or whomever) has no business patching anyone's machine without permission. Period.
Also, I don't think it's news that Michael Stonebraker (a great name, by the way), co-founder and CEO of a company that (surprise!) happens to develop column store database software, thinks that column store databases are going to be the Next Big Thing. Right or wrong, his opinion can't exactly be considered unbiased...
It's actually worse than that. From the linked article:
NDOVER, Mass., Sept. 5, 2007 - Vertica Systems today launched a unique, multi-author blog that offers database architects and administrators, CIOs and other IT professionals expert insight and opinion about database evolution and emerging technologies. The Database Column (www.databasecolumn.com) features weekly contributions from six well-known database visionaries discussing enhancements that improve database performance and scalability, decrease database administration overhead and system costs, and help organizations make more informed decisions.
The entire blog on which it appeared is a corporate shill for Vertica, the makers of a column store database. Which isn't to say that what's said there is incorrect. It may not be. But there should be absolutely no expectation of lack of bias.
Actually, we don't know that, as we've been unable to remove all the other mass in the universe in order to test [it].
Depending on precisely what you mean by "know," there's a great many things we don't know. And you're certainly correct that new theories or evidence could arise at any time and cause a reinterpretation of what we believe. That beings said, Relativity says that the apparent force is caused by the external mass, and that's just as correct to view the top as sitting still while the universe spins around it and tries to drag you along with it. Relativity has produced a number of predictions that have been tested, and they've all been quite accurate. So yes, it's possible that the prevailing consensus is incorrect but I'll stick with it until I see some evidence indicating otherwise.
Your first thought was correct. You'd feel centrifugal force (actually centripetal force - centrifugal force is actually a convenient fiction) only because of the mass outside the top which you're spinning in relation to. Unless there's a metauniverse outside the universe which influences this one in some fashion, and this universe is spinning relative to that one, then talking about the angular momentum of the universe seems as though it should be nonsensical.
Essentially, you have a GPL3 and a non-GPL3 working hand in hand, passing data back and forth. The GPL3 software (say Linux, if and when it moves from v2 to v3 of the GPL) handles all of the network code, user interface, etc. However, over the network, it receives encrypted data. It passes that data, still encrypted, to the non-GPL OS. The non-GPL software decrypts it and sends it via a DRM'd, trusted interface to the video display, which displays the data. At no point does Linux ever see the unencrypted data, the key to unencrypt the data, the algorithm to do so, etc. You can hack the Linux code all you want but it won't assist you in any way in cracking the encoded data stream.
You get to use Linux for all of the boring, mundane parts like network stacks and user interface, and use your own proprietary lock-down methods to secure the data.
No. The distinction is WHO's doing the hiding. If a user on the computer intentionally hides files or directories from other possible users on the computers, it's not malware. It may or may not be ethical, depending on who's doing the hiding and why. Presumably, it's the owner of the computer and they have a right to hid info from prying eyes. If not, the issue is with the user's actions and not with the software. If, however, a program creates files or directories and hides them (by means other than simply using the H attribute, at least) from the owner/user of the computer, it's malware. It's understandable for a content owner to wish to protect their content, but that doesn't justify them altering the behavior of a computer without the owner's express understanding and permission for what they're doing.
I can't tell you why the driver did what it did. However, from what I've read, the driver actually moves binaries to new locations and replaces them with a startup script which is set to run suid. That's way, way, way over the line. It breaks lots of stuff, like updates and patches. Someone doesn't deserver to be fired. Someone deserves to be tarred and feathered and banned from ever touching a computer again.
$12,000,000 is peanuts to Sony, perhaps, but it isn't necessarily peanuts to the other players involved. Personally, regardless of how I feel about Sony, I think this is a wonderful development. I suspect that a lot of DRM technology companies will reconsider how they do business based on this. Anything which might give them pause is a Good Thing in my book.
Are you trolling or completely misunderstanding? I think it's extremely unlikely that MS pays Dell to load Vista on the machine. I think it quite likely, however, that loading Vista on the machine affects their revenue stream in other ways.
At the very least, if you price two machines with identical hardware specs, and you don't come out at least a little cheaper without Vista, you are getting RIPPED OFF, plain and simple.
Speaking purely from a business stand-point and ignoring all philosophical issues, this is not definitively true. That is, it may be true that you're being overcharged but it isn't necessarily so. You're looking at one particular cost - the cost of purchasing the operating system - and assuming that every other cost is the same. It may very well not be, even on identical hardware. It's been well documented that Dell gets paid to load crapware on the system. That's revenue that they do not or may not get on the Linux machine, which means they must increase the price to reach the same margin. Its also quite possible that other cost, such as support cost, are increased for Linux machines. This could be due to a number of reasons, such as people using Linux calling in more because they're less familiar with the OS, or help desk people requiring additional training or being harder to find. The bottom line is that computer sellers operate on razor thin margins, and there's a lot more that goes into price calculations than what Microsoft charges for their OS. That doesn't mean that we should set back and pay unwarranted mark-ups without questioning them, but it does mean that simplistic statements such as the one you made above don't tell the whole story.
Can it be done? Of course. The question isn't if it can be done. It's how difficult it will be to do it. I suspect that trying to do it on the machine running Vista would be quite difficult (without access to the OS source code, that is.) A Man-In-The-Middle type attack, however, should be quite possible. You'd need a capable router. A linux box with dual nics could do it, as could something like a Linksys WRT-54 running the DD-WRT firmware. You'd need to capture the outgoing packets, modify them and then send them on their way. Not easy but not particularly difficult either if you're familiar with network traffic at the packet level.
Re:Egomanical monitoring of the populace?
on
Vista is Watching You
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's some sort of attempt but, to the best of my knowledge, there's no way for Microsoft to bypass the access list on a router or firewall sitting between the machine and the Internet. But I also wouldn't be surprised if, if one IP can't get through, the machine will try several others, including ones that aren't assigned to the microsoft.com domain. Thus my asking if anyone had done any network captures to see where the packets are actually going. I'm not running Vista, so I can't do it myself.
Re:Egomanical monitoring of the populace?
on
Vista is Watching You
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
it damn well better be able to function on a firewall that blocks access to MS servers.
Has anyone done any network captures to see what sites are being contacted? Is blocking *.microsoft.com sufficient? Is there a list of IPs that can be blocked?
I may be dense but I really don't see the difference between a driver talking on a hands-free cell phone and the same driver having a conversation with a passenger.
There's likely some truth to the claim that the passenger is also aware of the situation around you while the person on the other end of the phone isn't. However, most studies which claim ridiculous increases in the chances of an accident are severely flawed. Among other things, they usually compare someone talking on a phone to someone concentrating exclusively on driving. The problem is that people generally don't concentrate exclusively on driving, even if they're not using a cell phone. Doing most tasks while driving distracts you and increases your chance of having an accident. But using a cell phone isn't any worse than many other things people routinely do. Using an iPod is worse. (Link is to a PDF.) Eating is just as bad but you don't see people screaming to make drive up windows at fast food restaurants illegal. If there was any truth to the claim that "...Statistics show that driving while talking on the cell phone increases the chance of an accident by 400 %..." (Quote taken from the article, for those who didn't read it) then there would have been a significant increase in the rate of traffic accidents as cell phone use became more common. No such increase is to be found. Accidents are flat or decreasing per mile traveled in recent years.
However, it is not sensible to worry about bacteria. There are bacteria everywhere, all the time. Whether there are 100,000 bacteria on every key or 1,000,000 makes little difference.
Fully agree. Additionally, the "more bacteria on your keyboard then on a toilet" is particularly inane. A toilet is a smooth surface that's regularly doused with bleach or other bacteria killing compounds. A keyboard is full of nooks and crannies that get packed with Doritos crumbs and little bits of Taco Bell meat and sprayed with drops of Mountain Dew. Which one do you think is going to have more bacteria?
In at least one school, there are more germs on a water fountain than on a toilet.
Nope, not the first by a long shot. I had mine on my belt and was wearing a jacket. I was standing there, finished my business, and hit the flush lever. Then I pulled up the waistband of my jacket to zip up. When I lifted the jacket, it pulled the phone up with it and off the belt. It fell into the toilet as it was flushing. Without thinking, I reached down and grabbed for the phone. I managed to get it with my thumb and index finger but it was almost completely out of sight. I held on for the next few seconds until it quit flushing, then it took me two or three minutes to drag it back out of the hole into which it was rather tightly wedged. I took it home, opened it up and doused it with hand sanitizer, then let it dry for a couple of days and tried it. The phone worked but the display was a mad wash of colors, rather like when you press down on an LCD. I turned it back off and waited a couple more days to try again. This time, the display was fine. That was over two years ago and the phone is still in use today. Even the battery.
This doesn't only apply to keyboards, but to all electronics, you can wash them if you remember to rinse them, and give them time to dry.
This is largely true. I'm a retired US Navy Electronic Technician and we used to have a dishwasher in the shop solely for washing electronic circuit boards taken from electronic test equipment. Most equipment is not harmed by exposure to water IF there's no electricity applied. That being said, take care and use common sense, especially if you're dealing with an entire piece of gear and not just a circuit board that's been removed from the equipment. In addition to batteries (and that includes small one's like computer CMOS batteries, which are sometimes soldered to the circuit board), be aware of speakers and other components which can be damaged by water. Some equipment may contain ferrous materials, which will rust or corrode. If you're comfortable with disassembling the equipment, it'll sometimes help both the cleaning and the drying. Even if you don't want to disassemble it completely, it might be advantageous to take the outer casing or shell off the gear after washing to aide in drying. (Be careful not to partially disassemble before washing if there are small or loosely installed parts that can be dislodged by the spraying water.) A heat lamp or bright sunshine will also speed drying, as will a fan. You can even place some boards in an oven at low temperatures. Again, use common sense! A strong heat lamp placed too close to the item or a hot oven can melt or deform some plastics. A couple of hours in the sun doesn't guarantee that all the water is evaporated from all the little nooks and crannies.
Telemarketers call you on cell phones, and I would assume that they pay a phone bill.
Uh, no, they don't. I've never received a telemarketer call on my cell phone and if I were receiving the calls, I'd add the number to the "Do Not Call" registry.
You aren't going to prevent e-mail spam by even charging a nominal amount for e-mailing, you are just going to maybe lose the less profitable spammers.
Not true. Spammers operate because of the enormous economies of scale that exist with email. You can send out literally millions of emails for practically nothing. A tiny return rate - say.001% is profitable. If it costs even a little bit to send spam, then such minute return rates will no longer be profitable. Mind you, I'm not in favor of charging for email. I agree with the thrust of your post that this is a bad idea.
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As of yesterday, that page did not include a "purchase" button for Episode 2. I looked at it again before I made my post. It only listed the purchase options for the packages. I spent a couple of hours researching this issue when the Orange Box became available for preorder because I wanted to preorder Episode 2. I could not find any information on it being available stand alone. Everything I found talked only about the various packages. I'll retract and apologize for my rant but I did not "jump on the bandwagon" and I certainly did attempt to check for myself.
Valve is doing us a favor? They're forcing us to buy software that we already own in order to get access to Episode 2, and then they're doing us a favor by letting us give one copy of the software we've paid for twice to someone else? How bloody friggin' generous of them.
The whole promise of "episodic content" was smaller, quicker, cheaper. Now suddenly we have to pay the price of a full game if we want to get the next episode. And don't tell me that I'm getting my money's worth by getting all the other "bundled" software. I either already have or don't want and will not play any of the other games. It's useless and therefore worthless to me. I either pay just shy of $50 bucks for a piece of a game, or I don't get to play the game. Or I say "Screw you, Valve!" and grab it off bittorrent for free. I've paid for around 20 games on my Steam account, including every Half Life title out there and now they want to screw me over like this? Spit. Time to fire up Azureus.
Really? You must have read a different article than I did. The one I read said that "I hired one of the best Rails programmers in the world..." and that they were trying to "...make [Rails] do things it was never intended to do." It likened the task to "..trying to turn a train into a boat..." and said it was "... do-able with a lot of glue. But it's damn hard..."
That doesn't at all sound like an issue of coding skill or preference in method of coding. It sounds like the author is claiming a mismatch between the task and the tool being used to perform the task. Rails may very well not be intended to handle every contingency that a web designer may need. It may very well be that the particular tasks the author needed just happened to be tasks for which Rails was poorly suited. And if that's the case, it's not a significant knock on Rails. It just means that Rails isn't a great choice for some limited subset of web coding problems. But if that's the case and you're going to post about it on a blog, then the responsible course of action is to also post about exactly which tasks gave Rails problems and why PHP was better suited for those particular tasks. Such a blog, assuming it was accurate, would be an intelligent and informative post for those interested in the field. That isn't what we got.
Please explain the difference in a "limitation of Rails" and "something Rails wasn't meant to do." If Rails wasn't meant to do task A, whatever A happens to be, how is it incorrect to say that doing A is a limitation of Rails?
I don't see anything in the article that actually states why he chose Rails in the first place.
Even worse, there's absolutely nothing there about why Rails didn't work. Exactly what was it that was so hard to do in Rails that was easy to do in PHP? The article provides nothing useful to anyone looking to build a web site. How do I know if PHP is superior to Rails for my particular application? There's little there to help. This is nothing but a senseless rant.
You are wrong. The copyright holder himself relicensed the work under the GPL while stripping the BSD. He alone is free to do so.
Huh? If that's indeed the case, then Theo definitely has no legitimate beef. I haven't seen this claim anywhere. In fact, I haven't heard the author of the driver code weigh in at all. Do you have a pointer?
You are free to continue using code derived from the original BSD licensed works under the terms of the BSD license, but the newly released work, from the original author, both has no dependence on the BSD and grants none of the rights available under the BSD.
Double huh? You can use newly derived code under whatever license it's released under. The license of the parent code may or may not restrict the choice of license available for the release of the derived code. If the derived code is not released under the BSD license, you're certainly not free to use it under a BSD license.
Instead, GPLers strip the license and replace it with a license that they feel is 'better', but incompatible with the BSD.
Not really true. The issue is with software that is dual licensed - released under both BSD and GPL. The included license file says that the software may be distributed under either license at the users choice. The Linux developers chose to release it under the GPL, as they had every right to do. The problem is that they did not include the BSD license with their released code. Theo says that's a violation - they can not change the license in any way but must retain it exactly as the author released it. This leads to an absurd situation - both license, which are incompatible with one another, are simultaneously in effect. Note that the question of legality is orthogonal to the issue of the absurdity. Theo may very well be right, but so far I've seen no legal experts make the claim, nor have I seen Theo cite anything other than his own interpretation of the law to back up his claim.
I think the solution for coders who wish to release their code under both license is to provide two separate downloads - one with the BSD license, one with the GPL license - but that doesn't help here.
I believe that there was an issue with some code that was only BSD licensed being released under the GPL, and the kernel developers quickly acknowledged and corrected their error. What's left is the issue of dual licensed code, and this is a matter of legal interpretation, not disrespect of an author's intentions or intended copyright violation. The code being released under the GPL is modified code that was previously released under the GPL, so it's difficult to claim that the developers are violating the author's wishes by releasing their modifications of the original under the GPL.
That's a fine setting for a home system. It's asking for trouble in a corporate environment, particularly one where you run custom applications or services. If this happens on your home computer, it's largely an issue of annoyance and inconvenience. If it happens to large numbers of computers in an enterprise, it may mean losses of millions of dollars. Most enterprises test patches on lab machines to identify issues before they deploy them. MS (or Ubuntu or Apple or whomever) has no business patching anyone's machine without permission. Period.
Also, I don't think it's news that Michael Stonebraker (a great name, by the way), co-founder and CEO of a company that (surprise!) happens to develop column store database software, thinks that column store databases are going to be the Next Big Thing. Right or wrong, his opinion can't exactly be considered unbiased...
It's actually worse than that. From the linked article:
NDOVER, Mass., Sept. 5, 2007 - Vertica Systems today launched a unique, multi-author blog that offers database architects and administrators, CIOs and other IT professionals expert insight and opinion about database evolution and emerging technologies. The Database Column (www.databasecolumn.com) features weekly contributions from six well-known database visionaries discussing enhancements that improve database performance and scalability, decrease database administration overhead and system costs, and help organizations make more informed decisions.
The entire blog on which it appeared is a corporate shill for Vertica, the makers of a column store database. Which isn't to say that what's said there is incorrect. It may not be. But there should be absolutely no expectation of lack of bias.
Actually, we don't know that, as we've been unable to remove all the other mass in the universe in order to test [it].
Depending on precisely what you mean by "know," there's a great many things we don't know. And you're certainly correct that new theories or evidence could arise at any time and cause a reinterpretation of what we believe. That beings said, Relativity says that the apparent force is caused by the external mass, and that's just as correct to view the top as sitting still while the universe spins around it and tries to drag you along with it. Relativity has produced a number of predictions that have been tested, and they've all been quite accurate. So yes, it's possible that the prevailing consensus is incorrect but I'll stick with it until I see some evidence indicating otherwise.
Your first thought was correct. You'd feel centrifugal force (actually centripetal force - centrifugal force is actually a convenient fiction) only because of the mass outside the top which you're spinning in relation to. Unless there's a metauniverse outside the universe which influences this one in some fashion, and this universe is spinning relative to that one, then talking about the angular momentum of the universe seems as though it should be nonsensical.
Essentially, you have a GPL3 and a non-GPL3 working hand in hand, passing data back and forth. The GPL3 software (say Linux, if and when it moves from v2 to v3 of the GPL) handles all of the network code, user interface, etc. However, over the network, it receives encrypted data. It passes that data, still encrypted, to the non-GPL OS. The non-GPL software decrypts it and sends it via a DRM'd, trusted interface to the video display, which displays the data. At no point does Linux ever see the unencrypted data, the key to unencrypt the data, the algorithm to do so, etc. You can hack the Linux code all you want but it won't assist you in any way in cracking the encoded data stream.
You get to use Linux for all of the boring, mundane parts like network stacks and user interface, and use your own proprietary lock-down methods to secure the data.
No. The distinction is WHO's doing the hiding. If a user on the computer intentionally hides files or directories from other possible users on the computers, it's not malware. It may or may not be ethical, depending on who's doing the hiding and why. Presumably, it's the owner of the computer and they have a right to hid info from prying eyes. If not, the issue is with the user's actions and not with the software. If, however, a program creates files or directories and hides them (by means other than simply using the H attribute, at least) from the owner/user of the computer, it's malware. It's understandable for a content owner to wish to protect their content, but that doesn't justify them altering the behavior of a computer without the owner's express understanding and permission for what they're doing.
I can't tell you why the driver did what it did. However, from what I've read, the driver actually moves binaries to new locations and replaces them with a startup script which is set to run suid. That's way, way, way over the line. It breaks lots of stuff, like updates and patches. Someone doesn't deserver to be fired. Someone deserves to be tarred and feathered and banned from ever touching a computer again.
$12,000,000 is peanuts to Sony, perhaps, but it isn't necessarily peanuts to the other players involved. Personally, regardless of how I feel about Sony, I think this is a wonderful development. I suspect that a lot of DRM technology companies will reconsider how they do business based on this. Anything which might give them pause is a Good Thing in my book.
Are you trolling or completely misunderstanding? I think it's extremely unlikely that MS pays Dell to load Vista on the machine. I think it quite likely, however, that loading Vista on the machine affects their revenue stream in other ways.
At the very least, if you price two machines with identical hardware specs, and you don't come out at least a little cheaper without Vista, you are getting RIPPED OFF, plain and simple.
Speaking purely from a business stand-point and ignoring all philosophical issues, this is not definitively true. That is, it may be true that you're being overcharged but it isn't necessarily so. You're looking at one particular cost - the cost of purchasing the operating system - and assuming that every other cost is the same. It may very well not be, even on identical hardware. It's been well documented that Dell gets paid to load crapware on the system. That's revenue that they do not or may not get on the Linux machine, which means they must increase the price to reach the same margin. Its also quite possible that other cost, such as support cost, are increased for Linux machines. This could be due to a number of reasons, such as people using Linux calling in more because they're less familiar with the OS, or help desk people requiring additional training or being harder to find. The bottom line is that computer sellers operate on razor thin margins, and there's a lot more that goes into price calculations than what Microsoft charges for their OS. That doesn't mean that we should set back and pay unwarranted mark-ups without questioning them, but it does mean that simplistic statements such as the one you made above don't tell the whole story.
Can it be done? Of course. The question isn't if it can be done. It's how difficult it will be to do it. I suspect that trying to do it on the machine running Vista would be quite difficult (without access to the OS source code, that is.) A Man-In-The-Middle type attack, however, should be quite possible. You'd need a capable router. A linux box with dual nics could do it, as could something like a Linksys WRT-54 running the DD-WRT firmware. You'd need to capture the outgoing packets, modify them and then send them on their way. Not easy but not particularly difficult either if you're familiar with network traffic at the packet level.
I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's some sort of attempt but, to the best of my knowledge, there's no way for Microsoft to bypass the access list on a router or firewall sitting between the machine and the Internet. But I also wouldn't be surprised if, if one IP can't get through, the machine will try several others, including ones that aren't assigned to the microsoft.com domain. Thus my asking if anyone had done any network captures to see where the packets are actually going. I'm not running Vista, so I can't do it myself.
it damn well better be able to function on a firewall that blocks access to MS servers.
Has anyone done any network captures to see what sites are being contacted? Is blocking *.microsoft.com sufficient? Is there a list of IPs that can be blocked?
I may be dense but I really don't see the difference between a driver talking on a hands-free cell phone and the same driver having a conversation with a passenger.
There's likely some truth to the claim that the passenger is also aware of the situation around you while the person on the other end of the phone isn't. However, most studies which claim ridiculous increases in the chances of an accident are severely flawed. Among other things, they usually compare someone talking on a phone to someone concentrating exclusively on driving. The problem is that people generally don't concentrate exclusively on driving, even if they're not using a cell phone. Doing most tasks while driving distracts you and increases your chance of having an accident. But using a cell phone isn't any worse than many other things people routinely do. Using an iPod is worse. (Link is to a PDF.) Eating is just as bad but you don't see people screaming to make drive up windows at fast food restaurants illegal. If there was any truth to the claim that "...Statistics show that driving while talking on the cell phone increases the chance of an accident by 400 %..." (Quote taken from the article, for those who didn't read it) then there would have been a significant increase in the rate of traffic accidents as cell phone use became more common. No such increase is to be found. Accidents are flat or decreasing per mile traveled in recent years.
However, it is not sensible to worry about bacteria. There are bacteria everywhere, all the time. Whether there are 100,000 bacteria on every key or 1,000,000 makes little difference.
Fully agree. Additionally, the "more bacteria on your keyboard then on a toilet" is particularly inane. A toilet is a smooth surface that's regularly doused with bleach or other bacteria killing compounds. A keyboard is full of nooks and crannies that get packed with Doritos crumbs and little bits of Taco Bell meat and sprayed with drops of Mountain Dew. Which one do you think is going to have more bacteria?
In at least one school, there are more germs on a water fountain than on a toilet.
Nope, not the first by a long shot. I had mine on my belt and was wearing a jacket. I was standing there, finished my business, and hit the flush lever. Then I pulled up the waistband of my jacket to zip up. When I lifted the jacket, it pulled the phone up with it and off the belt. It fell into the toilet as it was flushing. Without thinking, I reached down and grabbed for the phone. I managed to get it with my thumb and index finger but it was almost completely out of sight. I held on for the next few seconds until it quit flushing, then it took me two or three minutes to drag it back out of the hole into which it was rather tightly wedged. I took it home, opened it up and doused it with hand sanitizer, then let it dry for a couple of days and tried it. The phone worked but the display was a mad wash of colors, rather like when you press down on an LCD. I turned it back off and waited a couple more days to try again. This time, the display was fine. That was over two years ago and the phone is still in use today. Even the battery.
This doesn't only apply to keyboards, but to all electronics, you can wash them if you remember to rinse them, and give them time to dry.
This is largely true. I'm a retired US Navy Electronic Technician and we used to have a dishwasher in the shop solely for washing electronic circuit boards taken from electronic test equipment. Most equipment is not harmed by exposure to water IF there's no electricity applied. That being said, take care and use common sense, especially if you're dealing with an entire piece of gear and not just a circuit board that's been removed from the equipment. In addition to batteries (and that includes small one's like computer CMOS batteries, which are sometimes soldered to the circuit board), be aware of speakers and other components which can be damaged by water. Some equipment may contain ferrous materials, which will rust or corrode. If you're comfortable with disassembling the equipment, it'll sometimes help both the cleaning and the drying. Even if you don't want to disassemble it completely, it might be advantageous to take the outer casing or shell off the gear after washing to aide in drying. (Be careful not to partially disassemble before washing if there are small or loosely installed parts that can be dislodged by the spraying water.) A heat lamp or bright sunshine will also speed drying, as will a fan. You can even place some boards in an oven at low temperatures. Again, use common sense! A strong heat lamp placed too close to the item or a hot oven can melt or deform some plastics. A couple of hours in the sun doesn't guarantee that all the water is evaporated from all the little nooks and crannies.
Telemarketers call you on cell phones, and I would assume that they pay a phone bill.
.001% is profitable. If it costs even a little bit to send spam, then such minute return rates will no longer be profitable. Mind you, I'm not in favor of charging for email. I agree with the thrust of your post that this is a bad idea.
Uh, no, they don't. I've never received a telemarketer call on my cell phone and if I were receiving the calls, I'd add the number to the "Do Not Call" registry.
You aren't going to prevent e-mail spam by even charging a nominal amount for e-mailing, you are just going to maybe lose the less profitable spammers.
Not true. Spammers operate because of the enormous economies of scale that exist with email. You can send out literally millions of emails for practically nothing. A tiny return rate - say