After all, a guy with a $2000 blazing gaming PC will probably hesitate to buy a $250 Vista license just to play an MS game.
Just to play one game, perhaps (although how many people bought new grpahics cards just to play Doom3 or HL2?), but if a guy's willing to spend $2000 to soup up his PC for gaming, what makes you think he'll baulk at another couple of hundred for a new OS? Especially since chances are he'll just buy an OEM copy next time he upgrades a component (it can be cheaper to buy a component and the OEM version and toss the component, than to buy the OS at full retail).
Other than that, I agree - it's far too early to be writing Vista-only software, unless it's intended for distribution only with new PCs.
It's time shifting. If you don't like this, then burn your VCR/PVR.
You are allowed to time shift broadcasts, in order to watch them at a time that's more convenient. You are not allowed to time shift rentals, other than by renting them or keeping them until you actually want to watch them.
Given that services like Netflix don't charge late fees and let you keep the disc for as long as you want (as long as you're a subscriber), there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for time shifting them.
The definition that doesn't include people willingly entering into contracts for personal gain (generally financial).
If you want to call this slavery, then you might as well call me a slave - I have a contract (of employment) with my employer which stipulates that should I wish to leave, I have to give them three months notice. Apart from the length of time involved, how is it any different?
No offence, but slashdot needs a "-1, Just Plain Wrong" moderation.
1) the equation for the kinetic energy of a body gives an answer in Joules, not Newtons - energy is measured in J, *force* in N.
2) on Earth, one metric ton has a weight of around 9800N, yes, but that has absolutely nothing to do with megatons as a measurement of energy! One "megaton" is the energy produced by the detonation of 1,000,000 tons of TNT. I don't have an energy of 0.000686 megaton just because I have a mass of around 70kg!
3) a space craft travelling near the speed of light impacting on a dust mote is not going to bring it to rest. That dust particle is going to pass straight through the craft, and as such is going to impart very little enrgy to it indeed.
4) the equation you used, 1/2mv^2, is valid only at non-relativistic speeds. By definition, an object travelling near the speed of light is relativistic; your estimate is far too low.
Between current software liability law (or rather, the lack thereof) and EULAs, Microsoft doesn't have any legal obligation to fix anything, let alone let you know that a fix might be available.
I'm not aware of a single software producer of any kind that admits liability for anything, other than by specially arranged contract. Even the GPL has the "no warranty" clause.
If Joe Blow chooses to purchase a computer and he chooses to buy a Dell specifically and he chooses not to read the list of software pre-installed on the machine and he chooses to leave the software on the machine after he receives it, how can he not be personally responsible for Google getting information about him.
Ah, personal responsibility. That works both ways, though. If the decision is taken to install the software by a person or persons who knows that Joe Blow most likely isn't very computer savvy, and most likely won't really know or understand what software is installed, or know how that software is configured or works, or understand the ramifications of those things, then I personally think they share responsibility for it. Sure, Joe could and should educate himself as to the exact nature of his new purchase. But doing something in the knowledge that most people won't notice is exactly the same as burying objectionable clauses deep in EULAs safe in the knowledge that most people won't notice. It's sneaky at best, and dishonest at worst.
How so? The GPL explicitly does not preclude the option of selling the software or of being paid to produce it. Not restricting redistribution is not the same as charging for initial production.
That said, I think this is pretty fucking cool. Apple didn't have to do this, but they chose to do so. Yes, I know it's in their best interests, but so what? A bunch of people got some cool stuff with no strings attached. Sounds pretty cool to me.
Assuming you mean the fact that they keep a history of what terms you search for on google.com, then can you please point out where I go to opt out? I've had a look in the preferences, and there's nothing there for it.
Also, defaulting to on but allowing you to opt out is not the same as opt-in.
The "ownership" model would support having to purchase new content when the format changes, but then I'd technically be able to put it on P2P or back it up to my HD, no?
Why the catch-22?
No catch 22; whether you own a copy of Movie A or just a licence to access it is irrelevant. Copyright law says that you're not allowed to make unauthorised copies of it; unless the copyright holder says otherwise, you're not allowed to upload it to a P2P network. Backing it up to your HD is arguably fair use (it's a copy, but it's purely for personal use and you're not distributing it), but come off it, p2p is right out and you know it. I'd also love to see someone try to make a legal case out of back ups to HD; I really can't see a court giving that sort of thing much time.
That said, any time any copyright holder starts to claim that you only have a licence for the content, then I think it's more than fair to make the "format shifts for the cost of the media only" argument. I've bought a lot of DVDs that I had on VHS; I'd like to not buy them all on the next format too... (although I don't see a compelling reason to to be honest, unlike the move to DVD)
Wow, paranoid much? You know, not everyone who says bad things about things you like are with Them; some of them just genuinely hold different opinions to you.
Now I also happen to think that the OP is wrong, but that doesn't make him an "M$" shill. It just makes him wrong.
The customer doesn't care how a solution is created. They care that it works and meets their requirements. Rarely have I seen requirements that read "... and it must all be done in the same language."
I have had a number of customers specify language (generally Java, once or twice.NET), platform (generally either Linux or Solaris), database to use (Oracle or MS SQL Server mostly), technology (one client insisted on the use of webservices for *internal* inter-platform communication, just in case they ever wanted to slap a new front end on it).
So no, I've never read a requirement that said "it must all be done in the same language", but I have read requirements along the lines of "it must all be done in Java on Linux with an Oracle database at the back end".
They advocate standardizing all code formatting into one standard (tabs v. spaces, how far to indent, where to put the curlys, etc.).
Coding standards matter, even to the level of where to put the braces. I don't even particularly care what the standard is (I have my personal preference of course, but that's not important), just so long as one exists.
Where standards don't exist and everyone just does their own thing, you'd not believe the amount of time that can be wasted by stupid little things - not realising where a block starts or ends, or that you've actually entered a new block, just because someone put a curly on the end of a line and everyone else puts them on a new line, and it went unnoticed as you scanned the code.
Now, I'm not necessarily advocating a company-wide policy, but I think department-wide it's a must. To not do so risks producing untidy, hard to read code.
there would have been no other reason to use Eclipse 1.0 over NetBeans or what have you
I used a fairly early release of Eclipse, and (on my machine at least) there were plenty of reasons not to use it - not least of which was that any time it redrew the interface you could practically see it doing so. (In fact you could, if you resized the window) In contrast, JBuilder was much, much faster and just downright more usable.
Now, time has passed, and I switched to Eclipse from JBuilder about a year ago, and Eclipse has improved a hell of a lot in that time. Back then though, I can't really see how anyone could be using it for serious work, except maybe on really beefy machines.
Genuine question - did Mozilla and Eclipse gain developers because they were "set free", or is that just coincidence? (Remember - just because B followed A, doesn't mean that A caused B)
If you had to choose between having a virus that both destroys your personal files and compromises your system or a virus that only destroys your personal files, which would you pick?
How do I know that the one that destroyed my personal files didn't use a local privilege escalation exploit to get its hooks into the rest of the system?
Bottom line is that if my machine gets infected, it's no longer trustworthy - it's going down for a complete format and reinstall. I'm not taking the chance that it hasn't been rootkitted and backdoored.
What's the value of Johnny's first day of school photos if you can't boot the damned computer?
I can always boot the damned computer from another harddrive, or the recovery console, or a floppy boot disk, Linux install disk, etc. Failing that, I can put the affected drive in a different PC as a slave and get at the files that way (although that's obviously risky).
I'm pretty techy; I've been using computers for the best part of 23 years and I work as a programmer. On a single user system, the only files I care about are the user files. The system files are all backed up on nice, shiny installation media, and as I tend towards laziness, that's more than can be said for my own files. (Note to self: back up files real soon)
Under UNIX/Linux, the default behavior is to run as a normal user without administrator privilege.
There is no "default behaviour", unless you're talking about the default behaviour of the people using the system. Most (all?) systems will prompt you to create a normal user account during install, and explain that running as root on a day to day basis is a bad idea, but they won't (and can't) stop you from doing so if you choose to.
Because an install of WinXP can be compromised before you finish the installation of Service Pack 2. You are required to connect to the net *before* you have secured your machine.
How so? You can order service pack 2 on CD free of charge (plus shipping) from MS, buy XP with SP2 "installed", download it on another machine and burn it to CD, slipstream SP2 into an XP install disc before begining the installation, etc. You are in no way *required* to connect to the net before your machine is secure.
Even if you *do* have to download SP2 on the machine that you're installing it on, just activate the built-in firewall or the third-party firewall of your choice first. That'll kill all remote exploits dead.
Failing all of that, do yourself a favour and spend the $30 or so on a router and sit your machine behind it. Personally, I wouldn't connect any machine running any OS directly to the open net, but that's just me.
Slashdot Mirror
After all, a guy with a $2000 blazing gaming PC will probably hesitate to buy a $250 Vista license just to play an MS game.
Just to play one game, perhaps (although how many people bought new grpahics cards just to play Doom3 or HL2?), but if a guy's willing to spend $2000 to soup up his PC for gaming, what makes you think he'll baulk at another couple of hundred for a new OS? Especially since chances are he'll just buy an OEM copy next time he upgrades a component (it can be cheaper to buy a component and the OEM version and toss the component, than to buy the OS at full retail).
Other than that, I agree - it's far too early to be writing Vista-only software, unless it's intended for distribution only with new PCs.
The FCC regulates the Internet
At the very most it regulates the US portion of the Internet; it certainly has no say over the machine I'm typing on right now.
The spelling errors are due in part that I type at 89 wpm.
Hint: it should be "The spelling errors are due in part to the fact that I type at 89 wpm."
Keep it up, and we'll get your spelling and grammatical skills rivaling your typing speed in no time!
It's time shifting. If you don't like this, then burn your VCR/PVR.
You are allowed to time shift broadcasts, in order to watch them at a time that's more convenient. You are not allowed to time shift rentals, other than by renting them or keeping them until you actually want to watch them.
Given that services like Netflix don't charge late fees and let you keep the disc for as long as you want (as long as you're a subscriber), there is absolutely no reason whatsoever for time shifting them.
The definition that doesn't include people willingly entering into contracts for personal gain (generally financial).
If you want to call this slavery, then you might as well call me a slave - I have a contract (of employment) with my employer which stipulates that should I wish to leave, I have to give them three months notice. Apart from the length of time involved, how is it any different?
No offence, but slashdot needs a "-1, Just Plain Wrong" moderation.
1) the equation for the kinetic energy of a body gives an answer in Joules, not Newtons - energy is measured in J, *force* in N.
2) on Earth, one metric ton has a weight of around 9800N, yes, but that has absolutely nothing to do with megatons as a measurement of energy! One "megaton" is the energy produced by the detonation of 1,000,000 tons of TNT. I don't have an energy of 0.000686 megaton just because I have a mass of around 70kg!
3) a space craft travelling near the speed of light impacting on a dust mote is not going to bring it to rest. That dust particle is going to pass straight through the craft, and as such is going to impart very little enrgy to it indeed.
4) the equation you used, 1/2mv^2, is valid only at non-relativistic speeds. By definition, an object travelling near the speed of light is relativistic; your estimate is far too low.
Many of those manufacturers have willingly or unwittingly participated in things worse then censorship.
As have their customers, of course.
(Nothing personal, I know for a fact some of the stuff I own was made in China, so I'm in there too)
Between current software liability law (or rather, the lack thereof) and EULAs, Microsoft doesn't have any legal obligation to fix anything, let alone let you know that a fix might be available.
I'm not aware of a single software producer of any kind that admits liability for anything, other than by specially arranged contract. Even the GPL has the "no warranty" clause.
If Joe Blow chooses to purchase a computer and he chooses to buy a Dell specifically and he chooses not to read the list of software pre-installed on the machine and he chooses to leave the software on the machine after he receives it, how can he not be personally responsible for Google getting information about him.
Ah, personal responsibility. That works both ways, though. If the decision is taken to install the software by a person or persons who knows that Joe Blow most likely isn't very computer savvy, and most likely won't really know or understand what software is installed, or know how that software is configured or works, or understand the ramifications of those things, then I personally think they share responsibility for it. Sure, Joe could and should educate himself as to the exact nature of his new purchase. But doing something in the knowledge that most people won't notice is exactly the same as burying objectionable clauses deep in EULAs safe in the knowledge that most people won't notice. It's sneaky at best, and dishonest at worst.
Where's our fusion energy?
There are a lot of things holding up fusion being a viable energy source, but trust me, patents are not one of them.
I'm not arguing against your main argument, but if you truly think that we don't have working fusion because of patents you need to do more research.
which is more true to the spirit of the GPL
How so? The GPL explicitly does not preclude the option of selling the software or of being paid to produce it. Not restricting redistribution is not the same as charging for initial production.
That said, I think this is pretty fucking cool. Apple didn't have to do this, but they chose to do so. Yes, I know it's in their best interests, but so what? A bunch of people got some cool stuff with no strings attached. Sounds pretty cool to me.
the Google search history is opt-in
Assuming you mean the fact that they keep a history of what terms you search for on google.com, then can you please point out where I go to opt out? I've had a look in the preferences, and there's nothing there for it.
Also, defaulting to on but allowing you to opt out is not the same as opt-in.
The "ownership" model would support having to purchase new content when the format changes, but then I'd technically be able to put it on P2P or back it up to my HD, no?
Why the catch-22?
No catch 22; whether you own a copy of Movie A or just a licence to access it is irrelevant. Copyright law says that you're not allowed to make unauthorised copies of it; unless the copyright holder says otherwise, you're not allowed to upload it to a P2P network. Backing it up to your HD is arguably fair use (it's a copy, but it's purely for personal use and you're not distributing it), but come off it, p2p is right out and you know it. I'd also love to see someone try to make a legal case out of back ups to HD; I really can't see a court giving that sort of thing much time.
That said, any time any copyright holder starts to claim that you only have a licence for the content, then I think it's more than fair to make the "format shifts for the cost of the media only" argument. I've bought a lot of DVDs that I had on VHS; I'd like to not buy them all on the next format too... (although I don't see a compelling reason to to be honest, unlike the move to DVD)
Wow, paranoid much? You know, not everyone who says bad things about things you like are with Them; some of them just genuinely hold different opinions to you.
Now I also happen to think that the OP is wrong, but that doesn't make him an "M$" shill. It just makes him wrong.
The customer doesn't care how a solution is created. They care that it works and meets their requirements. Rarely have I seen requirements that read "... and it must all be done in the same language."
.NET), platform (generally either Linux or Solaris), database to use (Oracle or MS SQL Server mostly), technology (one client insisted on the use of webservices for *internal* inter-platform communication, just in case they ever wanted to slap a new front end on it).
I have had a number of customers specify language (generally Java, once or twice
So no, I've never read a requirement that said "it must all be done in the same language", but I have read requirements along the lines of "it must all be done in Java on Linux with an Oracle database at the back end".
They advocate standardizing all code formatting into one standard (tabs v. spaces, how far to indent, where to put the curlys, etc.).
Coding standards matter, even to the level of where to put the braces. I don't even particularly care what the standard is (I have my personal preference of course, but that's not important), just so long as one exists.
Where standards don't exist and everyone just does their own thing, you'd not believe the amount of time that can be wasted by stupid little things - not realising where a block starts or ends, or that you've actually entered a new block, just because someone put a curly on the end of a line and everyone else puts them on a new line, and it went unnoticed as you scanned the code.
Now, I'm not necessarily advocating a company-wide policy, but I think department-wide it's a must. To not do so risks producing untidy, hard to read code.
Plus, with a giant RAM footprint comes giant amounts of swapping.
That also depends; if you have a large amount of physical RAM, you'll swap a lot less than if you have just enough for the OS.
there would have been no other reason to use Eclipse 1.0 over NetBeans or what have you
I used a fairly early release of Eclipse, and (on my machine at least) there were plenty of reasons not to use it - not least of which was that any time it redrew the interface you could practically see it doing so. (In fact you could, if you resized the window) In contrast, JBuilder was much, much faster and just downright more usable.
Now, time has passed, and I switched to Eclipse from JBuilder about a year ago, and Eclipse has improved a hell of a lot in that time. Back then though, I can't really see how anyone could be using it for serious work, except maybe on really beefy machines.
Genuine question - did Mozilla and Eclipse gain developers because they were "set free", or is that just coincidence? (Remember - just because B followed A, doesn't mean that A caused B)
Ebola kills its victims pretty quickly, yet we've heard of that.
By way of comparison, I get my ADSL service in the UK from eclipse, and I'm 12 hops from google.com and 7 from google.co.uk.
Copyright laws were introduced shortly after the invention of the printing press; but thanks for proving his point for him.
If you had to choose between having a virus that both destroys your personal files and compromises your system or a virus that only destroys your personal files, which would you pick?
How do I know that the one that destroyed my personal files didn't use a local privilege escalation exploit to get its hooks into the rest of the system?
Bottom line is that if my machine gets infected, it's no longer trustworthy - it's going down for a complete format and reinstall. I'm not taking the chance that it hasn't been rootkitted and backdoored.
What's the value of Johnny's first day of school photos if you can't boot the damned computer?
I can always boot the damned computer from another harddrive, or the recovery console, or a floppy boot disk, Linux install disk, etc. Failing that, I can put the affected drive in a different PC as a slave and get at the files that way (although that's obviously risky).
I'm pretty techy; I've been using computers for the best part of 23 years and I work as a programmer. On a single user system, the only files I care about are the user files. The system files are all backed up on nice, shiny installation media, and as I tend towards laziness, that's more than can be said for my own files. (Note to self: back up files real soon)
Under UNIX/Linux, the default behavior is to run as a normal user without administrator privilege.
There is no "default behaviour", unless you're talking about the default behaviour of the people using the system. Most (all?) systems will prompt you to create a normal user account during install, and explain that running as root on a day to day basis is a bad idea, but they won't (and can't) stop you from doing so if you choose to.
Because an install of WinXP can be compromised before you finish the installation of Service Pack 2. You are required to connect to the net *before* you have secured your machine.
How so? You can order service pack 2 on CD free of charge (plus shipping) from MS, buy XP with SP2 "installed", download it on another machine and burn it to CD, slipstream SP2 into an XP install disc before begining the installation, etc. You are in no way *required* to connect to the net before your machine is secure.
Even if you *do* have to download SP2 on the machine that you're installing it on, just activate the built-in firewall or the third-party firewall of your choice first. That'll kill all remote exploits dead.
Failing all of that, do yourself a favour and spend the $30 or so on a router and sit your machine behind it. Personally, I wouldn't connect any machine running any OS directly to the open net, but that's just me.