MS sued Mike Rowe over a trademark issue. As I understand it, in (US) trademark law you are required to defend violations or risk losing the trademark.
Now, it's arguable whether anyone would really confuse mikerowesoft with microsoft, but they certainly *sound* identical (at least they do for how I pronounce "Mike Rowe"), and it's pretty damn hard to argue that the kid didn't choose the name because of Microsoft.
MS were essentially required to sue; if you have a problem with it, take it up with the law that made it that way.
That really depends on how popular the site is, of course. A heavily hit site like microsoft.com or google is going to have to invest a fair amount in hardware, network infrastructure, etc, in addition to any bandwidth charges they incur. I wouldn't be too quick to write off the potential cost of serving web pages (although admittedly, in the case of MS especially a fair chunk of their bandwidth bill is going to be due to file downloads rather than just straight serving of pages...)
Norton is a resource hog, but AVG's getting worse too. The latest version of the free one, for instance, is currently consuming a total of around 30meg of RAM. Add in the email scanner, though, and that'll go up to about 45meg.
In areas where there is a Hacker in charge, for example, sysadmins, developers, etc. a Unix like OS will most certainly be choosen
I guess that I and the other programmers I know that choose to use Windows just don't exist then, huh?
It really depends on what you use the machine for. There's nothing that I personally need to do under Linux that I can't do equally well under Windows, and to my mind XP is just plain easier on the eye. That may have changed recently, of course - the last Linux distro I tried was Mandrake 10. There was nothing really wrong with it, it just wasn't as aethestically pleasing. (That's an extremely subjective thing, of cousre)
Besides, GPUs are more powerful than CPUs at the task of rendering polygons.
Yes, that's the whole point - they're more powerful at that task because they're specifically designed to perform that task (amongst others). Similarly, a "network processing unit" would be specifically designed to support in hardware the operations required of it. Make that chip fast enough, and it'll be faster at doing it than a general-purpose CPU. The only question is how fast it has to be, and whether or not it's cost-effective.
You're forgetting that something like 90%* of people only started blocking popups when they installed XP SP 2. Until then, "so many people" was limited to users of browsers other than IE - not a huge market at all.
I agree that in general you shouldn't make your site rely on something that can be disabled or otherwise interfered with by the client. In the case of popups, though, it's really only recently that the average web user has had any way of blocking them.
there's plenty of places that can't install a satellite dish (or install cable), such as rental properties
That varies from property to property, of course. I own my house now (apart from the small matter of the mortgage, of course...) but at my last rented house we installed Sky. We had to get the landlord's permission, of course, but he gave it. That's not to say that all landlords would approve, but some definitely do. Some blocks of flats have a sort of communal cable/satellite service too.
Even of the small percentage of the population (about 15% I think) who can watch Sky
I'd be amazed if the percentage is that small; do you have a source for that figure? (I'm genuinely curious)
They've already recouped their production costs in broadcast advertising. If you think their manufacturing and distribution costs are $22 per box, you're truly clueless.
How about some figures/links to back that up? I'm not saying that it's not the case, just that as stated it's no more convincing than the OP.
Well, I don't know what sort of effort it takes to be a slashdot editor, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's not the sort of thing most people would really call "a proper job". There's no factual checking of stories, no proof-reading, nothing - all they do is sift through their inbox(es) and post whatever takes their fancy.
I'm sorry, I simply don't believe it takes much more effort than skimming the list of headlines and picking their quota's worth, and skimming the list of recently posted stories to (often ineffectively) try to identify dupes.
You're ignoring my first point though - how come the editors get to comment in the submission, where they're essentially untouchable? What are they, afraid people won't see their comment, or that they'll be modded down?
That really depends on how much of it you do, doesn't it?
If you spend a significant amount of time waiting for that sort of thing to complete then it could well be worth it, especially if you're rendering more complex models.
If you're just ripping the occasional CD to mp3/ogg for your media player, then what do you think?
Just wait until they integrate... Desktop settings!
This gets modded Insightful? Look, I'm a Java programmer, I've used AD exactly once, and even I know that AD and associated tools can be used to enforce desktop settings. Try reading up on "group policy" sometime, you may be surprised.
And car dealerships always love cash because that means all the money from the sale is going to them and not partly to a bank over a period of 5 years (or at least that's my theory, although I do know for a fact that they love cash.)
Well, I don't know for sure, but I'd imagine that when you buy something on credit the credit company gives the retailer the full amount as soon as the credit is processed and approved. That's the only sensible way for things to happen, and I certainly can't imagine credit cards working any other way, for example.
How does a browser exploit in OS X escalate into a rootkit? User visits a site, a properly crafted webpage causes the browser to download a rootkit... and then what? How does the rootkit get installed and set up?
That's what the exploit is for - the malicious page uses the exploit to cause code to be executed that downloads and installs the rootkit. Even failing that, you can *always* trick users into installing something nasty, even without an exploit.
I'm don't think I'm too much of a knee-jerk Windows basher, but purely as a matter of fact, Windows installs by default run as admin.
Yes they do, and it's inexcusable (well, there are reasons for it, but they're tangental to this debate). However, the op is right - when the unwashed computing masses come to Linux, so will trojans, viruses and other nasties.
I've not seen an OS yet that didn't require the use of a privilieged account for system administration tasks. Most modern OSes will prompt the user for the username and password of such an account when necessary (including Windows, when installing recent software at least). People are slowly going to get used to supplying these details, and so will happily supply them when installing commercial software from a CD, the latest and greatest open source software, and the spyware-riddled trojaned system tray applet or p2p app.
Linux is more secure (by default) than Windows, but nothing will save a machine from a foolish or incautious user with admin privs.
OS X has never required a format and total loss of user files and applications to reinstal the OS.
I remember a friend installing Win95 on a PC that already had it installed without reformatting it first. He ended up with two copies of it installed alongside one another.
Try it one day - boot off a Windows installation disk on a machine that already has it installed. Go through the process just far enough to see it tell you that it's detected an installation, and would you like to install over it or into a new directory?
I can't swear that that's the case for XP, but I'm pretty sure that was the case up to at least 2k.
Bottom line is that Windows hasn't needed a complete disk wipe to reinstall it either.
our so called liberal media legitimized it by not pointing out such fallacies.
Saying "Don't listen to the President, he's overreacting"
a) doesn't sell as many papers or ads as screaming "WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!! WHO WILL SAVE US?!?!?!"; and b) is unpatriotic, and as with being a communist, no-one wants to be accused of that
The media sensationalises, that's what it does. I'm not saying it's right, just that it shouldn't be a surprise. It doesn't help, of course, that this is a relatively technical matter, that the average journalist simply doesn't understand. Unless they're given enough time to actually research the story properly (in which case another paper/news show will beat them to it, and steal all the ratings and so advertising revenue) they'll just go with whatever makes the best headline.
The first time is always the hardest; now there are a number of people in the world who know *exactly* how to do it. Not just a fair idea (like every single physics graduate), but exactly.
I'm not saying that it's trivial, or even necessarily possible for any given group, but I don't think it's half as hard as you think it is
Slashdot Mirror
MS sued Mike Rowe over a trademark issue. As I understand it, in (US) trademark law you are required to defend violations or risk losing the trademark.
Now, it's arguable whether anyone would really confuse mikerowesoft with microsoft, but they certainly *sound* identical (at least they do for how I pronounce "Mike Rowe"), and it's pretty damn hard to argue that the kid didn't choose the name because of Microsoft.
MS were essentially required to sue; if you have a problem with it, take it up with the law that made it that way.
I didn't pay 8 dollars to see a movie and then get hit with the world's biggest coke can on screen.
I tend to notice that sort of thing too. I watched Panic Room recently, and was struck by the prominent placing of Sony, Nokia and Evian.
Of course, the worst I've ever seen is Inspector Gadget, with the huge Yahoo! billboard, complete with "Yahoooooo!" voice effect...
serving web pages is so darn cheap
That really depends on how popular the site is, of course. A heavily hit site like microsoft.com or google is going to have to invest a fair amount in hardware, network infrastructure, etc, in addition to any bandwidth charges they incur. I wouldn't be too quick to write off the potential cost of serving web pages (although admittedly, in the case of MS especially a fair chunk of their bandwidth bill is going to be due to file downloads rather than just straight serving of pages...)
Ah, you say stupid, I say no! Wrong! Totally wrong! ;-)
Well blow me - the old rule about posts correcting spelling or grammar always containing at least one error of their own is true!
Having read The Diamond Age, I've sworn off Stephenson. You call that an ending? Hey, Stephenson, what happened - get tired of writing or something?
Norton is a resource hog, but AVG's getting worse too. The latest version of the free one, for instance, is currently consuming a total of around 30meg of RAM. Add in the email scanner, though, and that'll go up to about 45meg.
Your misuse of apostrophes is making my eyes bleed... Not one of them was needed :-)
In areas where there is a Hacker in charge, for example, sysadmins, developers, etc. a Unix like OS will most certainly be choosen
I guess that I and the other programmers I know that choose to use Windows just don't exist then, huh?
It really depends on what you use the machine for. There's nothing that I personally need to do under Linux that I can't do equally well under Windows, and to my mind XP is just plain easier on the eye. That may have changed recently, of course - the last Linux distro I tried was Mandrake 10. There was nothing really wrong with it, it just wasn't as aethestically pleasing. (That's an extremely subjective thing, of cousre)
Besides, GPUs are more powerful than CPUs at the task of rendering polygons.
Yes, that's the whole point - they're more powerful at that task because they're specifically designed to perform that task (amongst others). Similarly, a "network processing unit" would be specifically designed to support in hardware the operations required of it. Make that chip fast enough, and it'll be faster at doing it than a general-purpose CPU. The only question is how fast it has to be, and whether or not it's cost-effective.
I'll cut you a deal - you pay for the use of my computing resources, and I'll let you open browser windows on my PC. Ok?
You expect me to click on a link to "gnaa.nimp.org"?
/. doesn't display it all for those of us who browse with the "display URLs" feature on.
Oh, nice idea on the subdomain though - I notice
You're forgetting that something like 90%* of people only started blocking popups when they installed XP SP 2. Until then, "so many people" was limited to users of browsers other than IE - not a huge market at all.
I agree that in general you shouldn't make your site rely on something that can be disabled or otherwise interfered with by the client. In the case of popups, though, it's really only recently that the average web user has had any way of blocking them.
(* figure pulled out of my arse)
there's plenty of places that can't install a satellite dish (or install cable), such as rental properties
That varies from property to property, of course. I own my house now (apart from the small matter of the mortgage, of course...) but at my last rented house we installed Sky. We had to get the landlord's permission, of course, but he gave it. That's not to say that all landlords would approve, but some definitely do. Some blocks of flats have a sort of communal cable/satellite service too.
Even of the small percentage of the population (about 15% I think) who can watch Sky
I'd be amazed if the percentage is that small; do you have a source for that figure? (I'm genuinely curious)
They've already recouped their production costs in broadcast advertising. If you think their manufacturing and distribution costs are $22 per box, you're truly clueless.
How about some figures/links to back that up? I'm not saying that it's not the case, just that as stated it's no more convincing than the OP.
Well, I don't know what sort of effort it takes to be a slashdot editor, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's not the sort of thing most people would really call "a proper job". There's no factual checking of stories, no proof-reading, nothing - all they do is sift through their inbox(es) and post whatever takes their fancy.
I'm sorry, I simply don't believe it takes much more effort than skimming the list of headlines and picking their quota's worth, and skimming the list of recently posted stories to (often ineffectively) try to identify dupes.
You're ignoring my first point though - how come the editors get to comment in the submission, where they're essentially untouchable? What are they, afraid people won't see their comment, or that they'll be modded down?
That really depends on how much of it you do, doesn't it?
If you spend a significant amount of time waiting for that sort of thing to complete then it could well be worth it, especially if you're rendering more complex models.
If you're just ripping the occasional CD to mp3/ogg for your media player, then what do you think?
How about making comments down here with the rest of us, where we can reply to them properly and even moderate them?
For that matter, how about checking for dupes before posting a story?
Just wait until they integrate... Desktop settings!
This gets modded Insightful? Look, I'm a Java programmer, I've used AD exactly once, and even I know that AD and associated tools can be used to enforce desktop settings. Try reading up on "group policy" sometime, you may be surprised.
And car dealerships always love cash because that means all the money from the sale is going to them and not partly to a bank over a period of 5 years (or at least that's my theory, although I do know for a fact that they love cash.)
Well, I don't know for sure, but I'd imagine that when you buy something on credit the credit company gives the retailer the full amount as soon as the credit is processed and approved. That's the only sensible way for things to happen, and I certainly can't imagine credit cards working any other way, for example.
How does a browser exploit in OS X escalate into a rootkit? User visits a site, a properly crafted webpage causes the browser to download a rootkit... and then what? How does the rootkit get installed and set up?
That's what the exploit is for - the malicious page uses the exploit to cause code to be executed that downloads and installs the rootkit. Even failing that, you can *always* trick users into installing something nasty, even without an exploit.
I'm don't think I'm too much of a knee-jerk Windows basher, but purely as a matter of fact, Windows installs by default run as admin.
Yes they do, and it's inexcusable (well, there are reasons for it, but they're tangental to this debate). However, the op is right - when the unwashed computing masses come to Linux, so will trojans, viruses and other nasties.
I've not seen an OS yet that didn't require the use of a privilieged account for system administration tasks. Most modern OSes will prompt the user for the username and password of such an account when necessary (including Windows, when installing recent software at least). People are slowly going to get used to supplying these details, and so will happily supply them when installing commercial software from a CD, the latest and greatest open source software, and the spyware-riddled trojaned system tray applet or p2p app.
Linux is more secure (by default) than Windows, but nothing will save a machine from a foolish or incautious user with admin privs.
OS X has never required a format and total loss of user files and applications to reinstal the OS.
I remember a friend installing Win95 on a PC that already had it installed without reformatting it first. He ended up with two copies of it installed alongside one another.
Try it one day - boot off a Windows installation disk on a machine that already has it installed. Go through the process just far enough to see it tell you that it's detected an installation, and would you like to install over it or into a new directory?
I can't swear that that's the case for XP, but I'm pretty sure that was the case up to at least 2k.
Bottom line is that Windows hasn't needed a complete disk wipe to reinstall it either.
our so called liberal media legitimized it by not pointing out such fallacies.
Saying "Don't listen to the President, he's overreacting"
a) doesn't sell as many papers or ads as screaming "WE'RE DOOOOOOMED!! WHO WILL SAVE US?!?!?!"; and
b) is unpatriotic, and as with being a communist, no-one wants to be accused of that
The media sensationalises, that's what it does. I'm not saying it's right, just that it shouldn't be a surprise. It doesn't help, of course, that this is a relatively technical matter, that the average journalist simply doesn't understand. Unless they're given enough time to actually research the story properly (in which case another paper/news show will beat them to it, and steal all the ratings and so advertising revenue) they'll just go with whatever makes the best headline.
The first time is always the hardest; now there are a number of people in the world who know *exactly* how to do it. Not just a fair idea (like every single physics graduate), but exactly.
I'm not saying that it's trivial, or even necessarily possible for any given group, but I don't think it's half as hard as you think it is