Exactly, other than adware or software that directly and immediately causes identity theft, most people don't care, after all computers are supposed to be slow after about a year because all the hardware goes obsolete right?
There are still limitations on what you can do with the information. Just like I can't write up a huge contract, get someone to sign it without reading it, then demand they give me a million dollars.
Oh, and the digital channels over the air in our area are great too. Waaay better than their analog counterparts. Good riddance!
Yah, good luck trying to find them in the middle of valleys that is isolated by most people (cable isn't an option) where even getting a single analog signal takes about 5 minutes of fiddling with the rabbit ears.
Well, thankfully my power rarely goes out and same with cable, but usually I rely on TV broadcasts during tornado season. The reason being that you get a much more clear picture of the storm and know if you really have to take cover or not. And even in generic areas "Southern X county" there can still be a huge difference between a town totally missing a tornado and one that is wiped off the maps. TV reporters are pretty good at telling you without alarming you where a tornado is likely to form unlike radio reporters. Then there is the fact that most TV meteorologists have first or second hand information and the equipment whereas a lot of times radio meteorologists just watch some local reporters and make information from there.
Exactly. Then there are some people who don't understand TVs and have never ending problems. For example, theres this elderly woman that constantly asks me for assistance with her DTV box, first are the terrible signals. Like you said, a bit of static is easy to deal with, but the constant glitching of many channels have made some channels completely unwatchable. Not to mention on some TVs particularly ones that are old enough not to have remotes, the elderly don't understand that even though they must use the dials to adjust volume and turn it on, they cannot use it to switch TV stations, it doesn't work.
The problem with this paranoia is where does it end. Compilers have known to have backdoors, you can code in assembly but you still need to compile it, what about a backdoor in the BIOS? Hidden microcode in the CPU?
Look, in a "cyber war" you don't fight with DoS attacks, you fight by simply severing the undersea cables. If we were really "attacked" by China this way (which, we won't be, it would end their economy and their leaders seem to be halfway sane unlike that of North Korea) we could simply sever the lines.
I don't know that much about VMS, but according to the Wikipedia page it uses Unix-y things such as X11, but its more separate than Unix being that it is little-used and totally proprietary to HP. Windows NT's kernel design was inspired by Unix, and it used (uses?) the BSD networking stack for TC/IP. If you look at NT you will notice a lot of similarities in the NT design that were first introduced in Unix. ReactOS uses a lot of source code from Unix programs in order to replicate the Windows functionality such as WINE. And are you kidding me about Plan9? That was inspired in the extreme by Unix and was meant to fix the flaws Unix had, if there was no Unix there would be no Plan 9. On the Wikipedia page for QNX at the top are
QNX (pronounced/kju n ks/ or/kju nks/) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market
I would call that Unix. I can't find much info on TRON but it seems to be a not very modern OS in terms of design. zOS works on one processor architecture that is proprietary to IBM to run on mainframes, as such it isn't exactly a general use OS and you could probably find some Unix in it if you looked hard enough.
Unix really was one of the few programs to determine the fate of an entire industry. Every modern OS can trace back to Unix in some way or form. Keeping the history of Unix especially the early releases and plans can help better document the historical software.
Not really, a lot of them have PC ports which diminish some of the exclusivity, now while you may argue that the ones for the 360 are exclusive (the 360 being nothing more than a computer and Windows being a MS product) but a few have Mac clients too. So out of all of them, Halo/Fable have a few installments that aren't exclusive, Gears of War has a Windows port as does Mass Effect and Forza seems to be a true Xbox exclusive. Most PS3 "exclusive" games truly are PS3 exclusive, but the games really don't make you want to go out and buy the systems the way the older systems did. There just seems to be little that is truly innovative enough other than the Wii to make you go out and buy a console like in the older days.
Just for future reference, the GameCube was more powerful than the PS2 and also had better graphics onboard too. Its a shame it wasn't that popular with developers though.
Marketshare and uniqueness. There aren't many RPGs out for the Wii so if you manage to make a "Meh" RPG it will sell like hotcakes because of the lack of RPGs out. Put the same thing on the 360 and PS3 and it will stagnate. And by not using the Wii controller extensively you have great controls. The three most least precise controls schemes are A) Motion B) Touch screens and C) Light (such as cameras and light guns).
Sure, but if its a really good game that is a Wii exclusive you can expect sales to rise hugely. After all if you can make a good Wii game you have a lot more marketshare, and face it, every hardcore gamer already owns a Wii, might not play it, but they own one.
The problem is a gigantic lack of first or second party games (or locked-in third parties). The Genesis (Mega Drive) and SNES both had about the same specs but the games were what defined them. The problem is, the PS3 and 360 really lack in that area. If you liked Sonic and Sega's games (Shining Force, Golden Axe, Phantasy Star, etc) you got a Genesis. If you liked Mario, Metroid, Zelda, or Donkey Kong you got a SNES. Today other than the Wii, theres not much difference between the PS3 and 360. Square Enix which (especially in Japan) propelled the PS1 and PS2 forward is now making games for all platforms. Halo is good but its still just another FPS, theres not much that can't be emulated with another FPS with shinier graphics, and despite how developed the Halo universe is, theres not that much there that sets it apart from the rest.
And still the Wii can handle hardcore games. Just look at Brawl. The problem is the publishers whine and complain whenever they have to do something thats different. There is no reason that the Wii can't do 360 games. And there is a market for hardcore games on the Wii.
Hahah, yah because a product that only recently managed to stay in stock at most retailers, still makes a profit for their company and is really the most "value" for the money (yes, the 360 arcade is cheaper, but when you add in the $99 wireless adapter the Wii has built in, its $300). Why would Nintendo lower its price?
But protest votes are to make the main parties take a stance on issues. For example, few parties would say if they were anti-copyright or pro-copyright. It wasn't a discussed issue with the main parties saying that it wasn't a topic that deserved to be touched upon, yet people elected a party with only 2 things on their platform, copyright reform and more privacy. Eventually these topics will make it to the main political parties, the pirate party will get reform and slowly fade.
There are a few ways any country can "win" in a cyber-war. For one the wires can be cut, I remember a year or two ago a lot of undersea cables were cut by anchors leaving people with no internet. If you really want to get a country off of the internet, theres a lot more ways of doing it than with DoS attacks. What we really need is a totally global net. One where you can't tell which country the IP is from, one without government control. Its too hard to do this with the current net, but a second internet could easily be born with all these things in place.
not as an excuse to defame a government for trying to give parents more tools to protect their children.
"protect" them from what? From the evils of porn? This isn't 1995 here people, and its pretty hard to not know your going to a porn site today especially if you use a search engine to find sites. If your kid is searching for porn then obviously they aren't as "innocent" as you think they are. And whenever their censorship is under the guise of "protecting" the people from such evil ideas as human rights and alternate ideologies, it gets quite suspicious whenever they try to mandate more controls.
Again, if you do not wish to use this software, please feel free to uninstall it -- it's only there for those who want to use it.
Thats nice, but why install it in the first place? There are loads of internet "protection" filters out there, mandating the installation of one, especially from a government that constantly abuses its citizens should be cause of concern or alarm. Don't you think?
First of all, I don't think that China could convince Red Hat, or any other commercial vendor to poison their own products to add things like this in
Well, not Red Hat but what about Red Flag which is widely used in China and is mandated in some places for internet cafes. If they can convince the OEMs, convincing Chinese OS makers would be the next logical step, Linux is open and Red Flag already has a large userbase in China.
Even if they were able to do that, there are dozens, if not hundreds of Linux distros out there. They cannot convince all, or even most of them to make these changes, so there will still be plenty of ways that Chinese people can get a hold of "un-tainted" Linux distributions.
Censorship can never convince 100% of the population, but if you can get 95% and the 5% either are ordinary people who are scared to protest, high-ranking people who if they tell they loose their money, or unaccepted "radicals" who even though they have no fear of the government, the government or media makes it seem like their ideas are unworkable or destructive.
But similarly, you have to take that too as a sign. There are a large amount of people who are anti-immigration and anti-Islam, especially in areas like the UK and USA where people have been attacked by Islamic radicals with governments which increasingly stress the "war on terror". Also with the UK becoming more and more like the two-parties that both are the same like in the USA so the BNP was sort of a protest vote. But when you put it into perspective they got 8% of the popular vote, in operating systems that is higher than Linux, OS X and Windows 2000 put together(!) and if you don't appeal to the wants of these parties they will keep getting more representation.
No, not a good thing. You see in the authoritarian/communist society which is China, the government owns or has major influence in everything. So even with OSS projects that have a commercial vendor (like Red Hat) the government could convince the company to poison the source repos and the binary repos with modified versions. So in the end you have an authoritarian Linux system that even pirated Windows would be looked at by dissenters as "more free" because it doesn't run into the poisoning of OSS.
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Exactly, other than adware or software that directly and immediately causes identity theft, most people don't care, after all computers are supposed to be slow after about a year because all the hardware goes obsolete right?
There are still limitations on what you can do with the information. Just like I can't write up a huge contract, get someone to sign it without reading it, then demand they give me a million dollars.
Oh, and the digital channels over the air in our area are great too. Waaay better than their analog counterparts. Good riddance!
Yah, good luck trying to find them in the middle of valleys that is isolated by most people (cable isn't an option) where even getting a single analog signal takes about 5 minutes of fiddling with the rabbit ears.
Well, thankfully my power rarely goes out and same with cable, but usually I rely on TV broadcasts during tornado season. The reason being that you get a much more clear picture of the storm and know if you really have to take cover or not. And even in generic areas "Southern X county" there can still be a huge difference between a town totally missing a tornado and one that is wiped off the maps. TV reporters are pretty good at telling you without alarming you where a tornado is likely to form unlike radio reporters. Then there is the fact that most TV meteorologists have first or second hand information and the equipment whereas a lot of times radio meteorologists just watch some local reporters and make information from there.
Exactly. Then there are some people who don't understand TVs and have never ending problems. For example, theres this elderly woman that constantly asks me for assistance with her DTV box, first are the terrible signals. Like you said, a bit of static is easy to deal with, but the constant glitching of many channels have made some channels completely unwatchable. Not to mention on some TVs particularly ones that are old enough not to have remotes, the elderly don't understand that even though they must use the dials to adjust volume and turn it on, they cannot use it to switch TV stations, it doesn't work.
The problem with this paranoia is where does it end. Compilers have known to have backdoors, you can code in assembly but you still need to compile it, what about a backdoor in the BIOS? Hidden microcode in the CPU?
Look, in a "cyber war" you don't fight with DoS attacks, you fight by simply severing the undersea cables. If we were really "attacked" by China this way (which, we won't be, it would end their economy and their leaders seem to be halfway sane unlike that of North Korea) we could simply sever the lines.
Why move to Canada whenever Sweden is going to have some pirates in office soon and has a public generally anti-copyright.
QNX (pronounced /kju n ks/ or /kju nks/) is a commercial Unix-like real-time operating system, aimed primarily at the embedded systems market
I would call that Unix. I can't find much info on TRON but it seems to be a not very modern OS in terms of design. zOS works on one processor architecture that is proprietary to IBM to run on mainframes, as such it isn't exactly a general use OS and you could probably find some Unix in it if you looked hard enough.
Unix really was one of the few programs to determine the fate of an entire industry. Every modern OS can trace back to Unix in some way or form. Keeping the history of Unix especially the early releases and plans can help better document the historical software.
Not really, a lot of them have PC ports which diminish some of the exclusivity, now while you may argue that the ones for the 360 are exclusive (the 360 being nothing more than a computer and Windows being a MS product) but a few have Mac clients too. So out of all of them, Halo/Fable have a few installments that aren't exclusive, Gears of War has a Windows port as does Mass Effect and Forza seems to be a true Xbox exclusive. Most PS3 "exclusive" games truly are PS3 exclusive, but the games really don't make you want to go out and buy the systems the way the older systems did. There just seems to be little that is truly innovative enough other than the Wii to make you go out and buy a console like in the older days.
Just for future reference, the GameCube was more powerful than the PS2 and also had better graphics onboard too. Its a shame it wasn't that popular with developers though.
Marketshare and uniqueness. There aren't many RPGs out for the Wii so if you manage to make a "Meh" RPG it will sell like hotcakes because of the lack of RPGs out. Put the same thing on the 360 and PS3 and it will stagnate. And by not using the Wii controller extensively you have great controls. The three most least precise controls schemes are A) Motion B) Touch screens and C) Light (such as cameras and light guns).
Sure, but if its a really good game that is a Wii exclusive you can expect sales to rise hugely. After all if you can make a good Wii game you have a lot more marketshare, and face it, every hardcore gamer already owns a Wii, might not play it, but they own one.
The problem is a gigantic lack of first or second party games (or locked-in third parties). The Genesis (Mega Drive) and SNES both had about the same specs but the games were what defined them. The problem is, the PS3 and 360 really lack in that area. If you liked Sonic and Sega's games (Shining Force, Golden Axe, Phantasy Star, etc) you got a Genesis. If you liked Mario, Metroid, Zelda, or Donkey Kong you got a SNES. Today other than the Wii, theres not much difference between the PS3 and 360. Square Enix which (especially in Japan) propelled the PS1 and PS2 forward is now making games for all platforms. Halo is good but its still just another FPS, theres not much that can't be emulated with another FPS with shinier graphics, and despite how developed the Halo universe is, theres not that much there that sets it apart from the rest.
And still the Wii can handle hardcore games. Just look at Brawl. The problem is the publishers whine and complain whenever they have to do something thats different. There is no reason that the Wii can't do 360 games. And there is a market for hardcore games on the Wii.
Hahah, yah because a product that only recently managed to stay in stock at most retailers, still makes a profit for their company and is really the most "value" for the money (yes, the 360 arcade is cheaper, but when you add in the $99 wireless adapter the Wii has built in, its $300). Why would Nintendo lower its price?
But protest votes are to make the main parties take a stance on issues. For example, few parties would say if they were anti-copyright or pro-copyright. It wasn't a discussed issue with the main parties saying that it wasn't a topic that deserved to be touched upon, yet people elected a party with only 2 things on their platform, copyright reform and more privacy. Eventually these topics will make it to the main political parties, the pirate party will get reform and slowly fade.
I think Princess Peach might have a conflict of interest, you know being the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom and all....
There are a few ways any country can "win" in a cyber-war. For one the wires can be cut, I remember a year or two ago a lot of undersea cables were cut by anchors leaving people with no internet. If you really want to get a country off of the internet, theres a lot more ways of doing it than with DoS attacks. What we really need is a totally global net. One where you can't tell which country the IP is from, one without government control. Its too hard to do this with the current net, but a second internet could easily be born with all these things in place.
not as an excuse to defame a government for trying to give parents more tools to protect their children.
"protect" them from what? From the evils of porn? This isn't 1995 here people, and its pretty hard to not know your going to a porn site today especially if you use a search engine to find sites. If your kid is searching for porn then obviously they aren't as "innocent" as you think they are. And whenever their censorship is under the guise of "protecting" the people from such evil ideas as human rights and alternate ideologies, it gets quite suspicious whenever they try to mandate more controls.
Again, if you do not wish to use this software, please feel free to uninstall it -- it's only there for those who want to use it.
Thats nice, but why install it in the first place? There are loads of internet "protection" filters out there, mandating the installation of one, especially from a government that constantly abuses its citizens should be cause of concern or alarm. Don't you think?
First of all, I don't think that China could convince Red Hat, or any other commercial vendor to poison their own products to add things like this in
Well, not Red Hat but what about Red Flag which is widely used in China and is mandated in some places for internet cafes. If they can convince the OEMs, convincing Chinese OS makers would be the next logical step, Linux is open and Red Flag already has a large userbase in China.
Even if they were able to do that, there are dozens, if not hundreds of Linux distros out there. They cannot convince all, or even most of them to make these changes, so there will still be plenty of ways that Chinese people can get a hold of "un-tainted" Linux distributions.
Censorship can never convince 100% of the population, but if you can get 95% and the 5% either are ordinary people who are scared to protest, high-ranking people who if they tell they loose their money, or unaccepted "radicals" who even though they have no fear of the government, the government or media makes it seem like their ideas are unworkable or destructive.
But similarly, you have to take that too as a sign. There are a large amount of people who are anti-immigration and anti-Islam, especially in areas like the UK and USA where people have been attacked by Islamic radicals with governments which increasingly stress the "war on terror". Also with the UK becoming more and more like the two-parties that both are the same like in the USA so the BNP was sort of a protest vote. But when you put it into perspective they got 8% of the popular vote, in operating systems that is higher than Linux, OS X and Windows 2000 put together(!) and if you don't appeal to the wants of these parties they will keep getting more representation.
The thing about the V-Chip is, its sorta open, there is no "reporting", and it can't be hijacked.
No, not a good thing. You see in the authoritarian/communist society which is China, the government owns or has major influence in everything. So even with OSS projects that have a commercial vendor (like Red Hat) the government could convince the company to poison the source repos and the binary repos with modified versions. So in the end you have an authoritarian Linux system that even pirated Windows would be looked at by dissenters as "more free" because it doesn't run into the poisoning of OSS.