As a victim of many a DOS because of a particular few so-called "hackers" who thought it fun, I can definitely tell you a DOS is not the equivalent of a sit-in. It can cause permanent damage to a website, especially if it is not a large one, and to its owners and administrators.
Denial of service attacks are filthy and abusive and should be dealt with swiftly by justice. It is unfortunate that most attempts go unpunished. If you want to see how to protest, look back at wednesday's blackout.
One must always remember that the premise of the Internet was that of a trusted network. All foundational technologies and protocols were never designed to deal with nefarious intent.
This is why we're still finding fundamental flaws at all levels of the web's structure.
If they cared so much, they could start by targeting all those street vendors selling fake Prada stuff. Tourists seem to love these things even when they know they're being ripped off.
As a bonus, it'd clean up the vistas of some of the most beautiful cities in the world.
It might be moot (though the interesting thing about exobiology is finding intelligent life forms, not merely life), but mute? It'd be kinda hard to have a discussion this way:)
MSE doesn't waste resources trying to mask the perfectly fine Windows chrome. It also will never bother you about upgrading to the paid version, it gets updated by Windows Update and it's generally unobstrusive.
I used many free AVs in the past and MSE feels like a good balance.
I know my (generally restrictive, but big in Canada) 120gb cap forced me to stop buying games on Steam as I'm nearly through the cap and I still have a week to go. LA Noire just wouldn't have fit in what I had left.
I wouldn't take a stand on the taxes, but I'm fairly sure UK corporations are not special as far as schedules and costs go. If they are, then I'd be curious to know why exactly. I most certainly hope no other country ends up taxing locally manufactured products more than externally manufactured ones.
Reading the post (I really suggest everyone does so, it's an enlightening read), I have to say this sounds particularly worrying. The government and local manufacturers almost seemed intent on stopping them from doing the work locally. Does that even make sense?
I can understand higher costs; the West won't accept salaries below a certain threshold, there's unions, and I entirely respect that. However, the schedule problem is ridiculous. A plant thousands of kilometers away from your main sales point can be faster to ramp up production than the shop down the street? We're not speaking about a small-scale project, either! I find this utterly unbelieveable. No wonder so much of the manufacturing goes overseas.
And then the taxing part is plain and simply dumb. You can't control corporations, but that the government actively deters local production? That's like shooting yourself in the foot and wondering why it hurts.
The UK and the West as a whole (I'm entirely sure that the UK is not a special case here) should be ashamed.
Considering how unstable the industry is, I wouldn't try predicting anything personally. We could very well end up with desktops and laptops extremely rare, but so could we have desktops shift to the home cinema as HTPCs/consoles (with advances in voice commands like Kinect, which I've been very impressed by thus far, it's not as awkward as it might first seem) while laptops and tablets merge as one (think Transformer with more power and better integration, at that point what's the line between "laptop" and "tablet"?), and then have desktops and laptops truly "disappeared"?
Whatever happens, I have doubts the desktop market would shrink to the extent of the film market. Why? Because digital imaging is pretty much superior in every way. Some people will say chemical grain beats any digital noise, and they may be right in some cases (though this reminds me of CD vs vinyl), but for the most part digital is faster, more precise, cheaper, more convenient, pollutes less... It's an upgrade. In contrast, a tablet cannot replace a desktop, at least not in their current form. You cannot do any sort of serious work on them, and even if most people don't do work at home on their PCs, that still leaves millions of computers used strictly for business. I don't see myself doing spreadsheet work on my phone (or programming, or video editing, or graphics work...), as much as I like it, and neither would I on a tablet.
Again, though, I'm fairly sure the future is neither tablet nor desktop/laptop. There's a false dichotomy because currently you have companies either invested in one side or in the other (but rarely in both), but I wouldn't be surprised to see a hybrid or something entirely new take over. Just look at netbooks.
Scientists (you know, people who actually study these things) predict an ice age with an extremely wide variation. Some say 1500 years, others 50,000 years. Unless you can find data showing that the next ice age will start within the next century, I'd say global warming is the more pressing matter than a hypothetical ice age.
Only latency-sensitive games, actually. Anything that's either turn-based or not simultaneous would run fine (that includes a whole bunch of casual games, turn-based strategy games, etc.).
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm well aware the pressure doesn't strictly come from American companies. I'm merely pointing out that even with this in mind, there's nothing I, as a foreigner, can do, short of stopping to buy the concerned companies' products. That's not going to put much of a dent in their resolve, I can assure you.
ICS was released on Nov 17 with the arrival of the Galaxy Nexus; source code was released Nov 14. We're not even three months in since that point. Furthermore, Google obviously wanted the Galaxy Nexus to have some form of exclusivity with ICS so as to drive sales. Even then, the Nexus S got the ICS update roughly a month later (my phone was updated on Dec 16, if I recall correctly).
Third-parties are slower, yes, but even then Samsung should be rolling out the update early 2012. I'm guessing a lot of the delay comes from porting all of their UI stuff (whether you like it is another question entirely).
You don't even need to go so far. My high school had a special program where students would purchase and own a laptop and use it in class. It was required for the program and the laptop truly was YOURS. They had extensive warranty programs and tech support for the students, but you still owned the laptop and would do so even if you were to leave the school at any point.
What I discovered mere months after getting the laptop was that the school's tech support had created a hidden Windows account (named "backdoor", how original) which had administrative rights and the same password for every laptop in the entire school. Five minutes of L0pht (not even illegal since I was applying it on my own property) gave me administrative access to hundreds of laptops.
I never actually spoke about it a whole lot outside of a few friends, but I think this highlights how people who have no clue about security can cause possible trainwrecks. Imagine if a malicious person had access to such information? That's hundreds of laptops used daily by minors that could be spied on.
The one thing I hate most about these, though, is that the Americans basically think themselves as above everybody else. What can I do, as a Canadian citizen, to stop this bill? Nothing. But if it passes, I will have to live with the consequences.
If it were just the Americans that would be affected, I'd just let them hang themselves. They seem very capable in doing so. However, when their laws start trespassing borders to affect the entire PLANET, I think something is clearly wrong.
The BSA is unsurprising actually. Many of their members (including Microsoft) have online services with user-generated content which could be targeted by the bill.
You've listed a bunch of Internet corporations. While they've become large and powerful, they're blimps on the radar compared to the deeply rooted lobbies of Hollywood and the likes. Those guys have been doing this for decades and they've become extremely good at it.
Plus, the vast majority of legislators can relate to record companies or Hollywood productions. They know what it's about. The Internet, however, is still a bit like a magical black box.
Similarly expensive for similar quality, obviously. Nobody's going to compare the most expensive body Nikon or Canon has to offer to consumer-level mirrorless cameras.
I think we often forget that Microsoft has a lot of very competent engineers, developers and programmers. It's just that they're almost always impeded by tremendous amounts of corporate bullshit.
Slashdot Mirror
As a victim of many a DOS because of a particular few so-called "hackers" who thought it fun, I can definitely tell you a DOS is not the equivalent of a sit-in. It can cause permanent damage to a website, especially if it is not a large one, and to its owners and administrators.
Denial of service attacks are filthy and abusive and should be dealt with swiftly by justice. It is unfortunate that most attempts go unpunished. If you want to see how to protest, look back at wednesday's blackout.
One must always remember that the premise of the Internet was that of a trusted network. All foundational technologies and protocols were never designed to deal with nefarious intent.
This is why we're still finding fundamental flaws at all levels of the web's structure.
If they cared so much, they could start by targeting all those street vendors selling fake Prada stuff. Tourists seem to love these things even when they know they're being ripped off.
As a bonus, it'd clean up the vistas of some of the most beautiful cities in the world.
It might be moot (though the interesting thing about exobiology is finding intelligent life forms, not merely life), but mute? It'd be kinda hard to have a discussion this way :)
MSE doesn't waste resources trying to mask the perfectly fine Windows chrome. It also will never bother you about upgrading to the paid version, it gets updated by Windows Update and it's generally unobstrusive.
I used many free AVs in the past and MSE feels like a good balance.
I know my (generally restrictive, but big in Canada) 120gb cap forced me to stop buying games on Steam as I'm nearly through the cap and I still have a week to go. LA Noire just wouldn't have fit in what I had left.
I wouldn't take a stand on the taxes, but I'm fairly sure UK corporations are not special as far as schedules and costs go. If they are, then I'd be curious to know why exactly. I most certainly hope no other country ends up taxing locally manufactured products more than externally manufactured ones.
Reading the post (I really suggest everyone does so, it's an enlightening read), I have to say this sounds particularly worrying. The government and local manufacturers almost seemed intent on stopping them from doing the work locally. Does that even make sense?
I can understand higher costs; the West won't accept salaries below a certain threshold, there's unions, and I entirely respect that. However, the schedule problem is ridiculous. A plant thousands of kilometers away from your main sales point can be faster to ramp up production than the shop down the street? We're not speaking about a small-scale project, either! I find this utterly unbelieveable. No wonder so much of the manufacturing goes overseas.
And then the taxing part is plain and simply dumb. You can't control corporations, but that the government actively deters local production? That's like shooting yourself in the foot and wondering why it hurts.
The UK and the West as a whole (I'm entirely sure that the UK is not a special case here) should be ashamed.
It is for a limited time, but just for a limited time.
Considering how unstable the industry is, I wouldn't try predicting anything personally. We could very well end up with desktops and laptops extremely rare, but so could we have desktops shift to the home cinema as HTPCs/consoles (with advances in voice commands like Kinect, which I've been very impressed by thus far, it's not as awkward as it might first seem) while laptops and tablets merge as one (think Transformer with more power and better integration, at that point what's the line between "laptop" and "tablet"?), and then have desktops and laptops truly "disappeared"?
Whatever happens, I have doubts the desktop market would shrink to the extent of the film market. Why? Because digital imaging is pretty much superior in every way. Some people will say chemical grain beats any digital noise, and they may be right in some cases (though this reminds me of CD vs vinyl), but for the most part digital is faster, more precise, cheaper, more convenient, pollutes less... It's an upgrade. In contrast, a tablet cannot replace a desktop, at least not in their current form. You cannot do any sort of serious work on them, and even if most people don't do work at home on their PCs, that still leaves millions of computers used strictly for business. I don't see myself doing spreadsheet work on my phone (or programming, or video editing, or graphics work...), as much as I like it, and neither would I on a tablet.
Again, though, I'm fairly sure the future is neither tablet nor desktop/laptop. There's a false dichotomy because currently you have companies either invested in one side or in the other (but rarely in both), but I wouldn't be surprised to see a hybrid or something entirely new take over. Just look at netbooks.
I'm sure the US will happily welcome Mexico and Iran will be happy to help Israel when the time comes.
Scientists (you know, people who actually study these things) predict an ice age with an extremely wide variation. Some say 1500 years, others 50,000 years. Unless you can find data showing that the next ice age will start within the next century, I'd say global warming is the more pressing matter than a hypothetical ice age.
Huh. I'd never heard of this dialect before.
Corners should have spikes on them... You know, just so you can run them through particularly annoying fanboys.
Only latency-sensitive games, actually. Anything that's either turn-based or not simultaneous would run fine (that includes a whole bunch of casual games, turn-based strategy games, etc.).
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm well aware the pressure doesn't strictly come from American companies. I'm merely pointing out that even with this in mind, there's nothing I, as a foreigner, can do, short of stopping to buy the concerned companies' products. That's not going to put much of a dent in their resolve, I can assure you.
ICS was released on Nov 17 with the arrival of the Galaxy Nexus; source code was released Nov 14. We're not even three months in since that point. Furthermore, Google obviously wanted the Galaxy Nexus to have some form of exclusivity with ICS so as to drive sales. Even then, the Nexus S got the ICS update roughly a month later (my phone was updated on Dec 16, if I recall correctly).
Third-parties are slower, yes, but even then Samsung should be rolling out the update early 2012. I'm guessing a lot of the delay comes from porting all of their UI stuff (whether you like it is another question entirely).
You don't even need to go so far. My high school had a special program where students would purchase and own a laptop and use it in class. It was required for the program and the laptop truly was YOURS. They had extensive warranty programs and tech support for the students, but you still owned the laptop and would do so even if you were to leave the school at any point.
What I discovered mere months after getting the laptop was that the school's tech support had created a hidden Windows account (named "backdoor", how original) which had administrative rights and the same password for every laptop in the entire school. Five minutes of L0pht (not even illegal since I was applying it on my own property) gave me administrative access to hundreds of laptops.
I never actually spoke about it a whole lot outside of a few friends, but I think this highlights how people who have no clue about security can cause possible trainwrecks. Imagine if a malicious person had access to such information? That's hundreds of laptops used daily by minors that could be spied on.
Obviously you need to carry your own portable Enigma machine and pass text through that first before typing it in your mobile phone.
The one thing I hate most about these, though, is that the Americans basically think themselves as above everybody else. What can I do, as a Canadian citizen, to stop this bill? Nothing. But if it passes, I will have to live with the consequences.
If it were just the Americans that would be affected, I'd just let them hang themselves. They seem very capable in doing so. However, when their laws start trespassing borders to affect the entire PLANET, I think something is clearly wrong.
The BSA is unsurprising actually. Many of their members (including Microsoft) have online services with user-generated content which could be targeted by the bill.
These infographics might be the most succint and direct explanations of why SOPA is bad.
You've listed a bunch of Internet corporations. While they've become large and powerful, they're blimps on the radar compared to the deeply rooted lobbies of Hollywood and the likes. Those guys have been doing this for decades and they've become extremely good at it.
Plus, the vast majority of legislators can relate to record companies or Hollywood productions. They know what it's about. The Internet, however, is still a bit like a magical black box.
Similarly expensive for similar quality, obviously. Nobody's going to compare the most expensive body Nikon or Canon has to offer to consumer-level mirrorless cameras.
I think we often forget that Microsoft has a lot of very competent engineers, developers and programmers. It's just that they're almost always impeded by tremendous amounts of corporate bullshit.