I've been meaning to ask somebody this, but I don't know who. Maybe some of the space nerd junkies can chime in if they know...
What's to prevent the next president from rescinding the 2010 shuttle shutdown date? In preparation I know suppliers have been cut loose and long-range parts and spares capability has been shut down already. There are only so many external tanks on order and IIRC the production line has been shut down on a lot of the expendable pieces needed to fly the space shuttle. But is the 2010 drop-dead cutoff date cast in stone, or is there enough in the pipeline to run another couple of years' worth of shuttle missions? Inquiring minds want to know.
Regardless of your views on the wisdom and practicality of maintaining a national manned space flight program, one fact is indisputable. Bush decided that the shuttles should stop flying after 2010, and if Bush decided it you can bet your ass it was the wrong decision for any number of reasons.
Our government is severely broken. I tend to lean toward Democratic candidates the last decade or so, although my libertarian streak is strong. The corruption and ineptness of the current Republican generation has a lot to do with that. But having said that, this Congress, which I was happy to see elected in 2006, is racking up a grade of F. Is there a grade lower than F? They deserve it. For every 1 good thing they pass there are 2 odious pieces of legislation to go with it.
It sucks when the people's government - both parties - are whores to whoever forks over the bags of cash. It really sucks and something needs to be done about it. I think it will take something really big for people to wake up and demand change. Financial meltdown? Bring it on. Peak oil kicking off decades of 12% plus inflation? Make it so. Americans vote with their pocketbooks and wallets for the most part. That's what it's going to take IMO to rouse the voters from their 30-year stupor.
Why don't they prepare - and spen a ton of money - for alien invasions, too? This stuff is way overblown. The government can get the telcos to run their spying apparatus for them, but they would have us believe they are incapable of cutting off packets to and from certain countries. What's up with this? I want to know why anyone believes this is a real threat. Anyone outside of those with a vested interest in seeing that the "threat" is taken seriously.
I wish more "journalists" would investigate the cause of the things they "investigate". Look at what's behind Vista's stability problems and you'll find 3 letters staring at you: DRM. Nobody ever points this out. Mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) articles you read on Vista's problems seem to bend over backwards to avoid the elephant in the room:
The biggest new feature in Vista is one that was implemented for people other than those who buy and run it.
It's a big cause Vista's performance and stability problems. Yeah, hardware is cheap, but when a new Windows OS runs slower than the previous one on the same hardware and there are no real new must-have features, then to me it's a no-brainer. Vista will never, ever run on any hardware I control.
As for the title of this article, I rest my case. It restricts what I can do. It was not developed with me in mind (whether I'm an individual or a business). If it wasn't for Microsoft strong-arming developers and ISVs Vista would be dead and buried already.
My new startup will allow parents to sequence the genes of their male offspring to include a third testicle. What better way to increase the odds that your bloodline will survive the coming century of famine and war? And that's only the beginning. It is not government's role to interfere with progress or business, so nobody better try and stop me.
IIRC Windows ME was a bust right out of the gate. We have seen some grudging indications from MS that Vista (aka Windows ME II) isn;t meeting the expectations they had for it in terms of adoption and implementation. How long until people say, "Yep, Vista sure was a bust!"? Maybe MS will never say it, but what will it take to convince the popular press and cheerleader factions that Vista, in fact, was a horrible OS?
The cynic in me says it doesn't matter because the DRM core of the OS will never get the criticism it deserves and, thus, any follow-on OS will be just as bad. No OS that manages someone else's rights without giving a hoot for mine will ever run on my hardware.
I still can't scan a 50 page document and OCR it without spending hours to clean it up afterwards. Nor can voice recognition software really understand or interpret what I say and lay it out with correct punctuation on paper.
Those are 2 basic advanced tasks I would expect to be perfected at some point, and until they are I take all these great human-machine interface "breakthroughs" with huge grains of salt.
Lack of wireless chipset drivers is one of, if not the most, serious impediment to growing the Linux user base at this point in time. Broadcom is one of the most popular brands but by no means the only one without proper support under Linux.
Linux Device Driver Dev: "Hey, I need something to work on." Me: "Wifi drivers for 802.11n, WPA2 and Broadcom chipsets." LDDD: "Something besides those." Me: "Get lost and stop wasting my time."
Then screw them. That's a seriously lame excuse. They ask for suggestions and then we find out they have conditions attached to what they will and will not work on? Wireless chipset support is one of the areas sorely in need of better Linux drivers and Broadcom isn't the only offender.
The real reason is probably that the hardware vendors won't cough up the specs. Why can't these developers come out and admit that? Their stated excuse is bogus.
Does anyone expect this trend to get better? Ever? MS continues to wrest control of machines running Windows away from their owners, period. And, as usual, those who run a pirated version will be unaffected by this and the only people who will endure the hassle will be those with legit licenses who play by the rules. Another couple of generations of PC hardware and Trusted Computing modules will shut down most pirates for good, leaving no choice but to run something like Linux in order to retain full control over their machines.
A sidearm is a weapon, usually a pistol. This "cyber sidearm" sounds like a warning device or danger detector. Calling it a "sidearm" is a misnomer, at best. It's troubling to see all this tech being deployed by the armed forces and law enforcement. Not because they don't have a use for it, but because more and more the details are secret. We'll eventually arrive at a place where bad decisions are going to be made on what's necessary and what's not without any way for the non-elites (like us) to know whether or not those decisions are sound because the entire decision making process is secret. Ripe for corruption and snake oil, all at great expense to us and great profit to those with an "in". Crony capitalism at its finest. Oh, and Eisenhower was right.
They recently teamed up with DoubleClick, which is still evil and I don't care who owns it. They also made significant changes to their privacy policy which I don't like. Don't think it was ever covered here at/. which is not surprising given the ownership situation.
Getting a computer to read and understand text or understand speech is still aways off, never mind mind reading. I have no doubt it will happen some day, but things on the interpretation and understanding front have a long, long way to go. Speech recognition has been stagnant for 10 years. OCR still requires many hours of human cleanup and tweaking. Natural language translation is a field that seems to be advancing faster than the others, but it, too, has a long way to go.
The inputs to all of the above are well known. Reading signals from implanted sensors, and interpreting their meaning is above and beyond the call of hype.
The best developer in the world working at 10x his normal pace can't do much at all if the hardware vendors don't pony up their specs. Wireless chipset vendors, for instance, generally refuse to release enough detail to write drivers. Having the backing of a company like Novell behind you may help.
If a device is designed to work under the umbrella of Microsoft DRM, however, you can count on the fact that detailed hardware specs will never be released to anyone who doesn't sign an NDA.
If you're a sole inventor or small business, that is. Even though the Constitution starts with "We, the people", you can bet your last dollar this Supreme Court will rule in a way that is favorable for big business, and not "the people" at all. My prediction: if you're a big business and your patents get infringed upon, you will have every legal recourse available to you including jail time for the offender. If you're a little guy and big business infringes your patents, they will get their wrists slapped at best. At worst, they will be able to use the "we didn't mean to do it" defense. Either way you'll pay through the nose to even get that far.
With a capital C. MS has firmly taken control of device drivers on Vista. You can't get a driver to install unless it's submitted to MS for DRM compliance.... er, I mean "Quality Assurance"... and get them to sign it. (Actually you can get an unsigned driver to load but the average user isn't going to go through the procedure every time they boot their PC.)
As new hardware comes along they will do their damndest to make sure it's supported on Vista while downplaying and actively discouraging the development of XP drivers for said hardware.
It might start with USB 3.0, which I saw mentioned for the first time last week in the mainstream press. If Vista fully supports new and cool hardware that use the new standard while XP seriously lags behind, that could be the first Big Hammer they bash everyone over the head with in their quest for more Control. With a capital C.
By the US government. Why don't the advertisers just pay for the privilege of riding along? The government could take that money and use it to pay the telecom companies and data-mining companies to collect and analyze the phone conversations. Even though there's no accountability or legality to it, the government can then claim with a straight face that "we don't monitor domestic phone calls". Of course not. They pay others to do it for them!
The most secretive agency in the United States government is getting involved in law enforcement and the nature of their involvement is highly classified. Nope, nothing to worry about there.
How is it in the public interest for this agreement to be sealed? Any suit that goes on, using public resources along the way, should not be eligible for this "feature" of settlement, i.e. "sealing" the settlement agreement. The public has the right to know the details.
There have been stories lately about how the IT structure in the US is vulnerable to disruption. While I think that danger is overstated to some degree, there is no doubt some critical infrastructure that is connected to the internet and subject to breakdown.
We each have our own personal infrastructure in our homes. If Windows is part of it, then you're subject to breakdowns in other parts of the system, i.e. Microsoft WGA.
Last week I returned one of those fancy Harmony remote controls because programming it requires contact over the internet with Logitech's servers. I refuse to subject myself to that nonsense, especially when a standalone piece of software would not be difficult to write and distribute.
If there was a way to divorce my personal Windows-based IT infrastructure from the online whims of Microsoft I'd jump on it. Too bad the monopolistic behavior of MS makes this impossible for the moment.
When they end-of-life XP they had better issue a patch to remove the activation component from it.
I'm not surprised. Some of the well-known awards aren't worth anything, either. Kind of like the televised award ceremonies of the entertainment industry. 15 years ago PC Magazine would give awards to just about anyone who cared to buy enough advertising in its pages. There's a lot of hype out there and people looking to do nothing but draw attention to themselves in their quest to sell advertising space.
Worthless no-name awards are to quality software as karaoke is to the entertainment industry.
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I've been meaning to ask somebody this, but I don't know who. Maybe some of the space nerd junkies can chime in if they know...
What's to prevent the next president from rescinding the 2010 shuttle shutdown date? In preparation I know suppliers have been cut loose and long-range parts and spares capability has been shut down already. There are only so many external tanks on order and IIRC the production line has been shut down on a lot of the expendable pieces needed to fly the space shuttle. But is the 2010 drop-dead cutoff date cast in stone, or is there enough in the pipeline to run another couple of years' worth of shuttle missions? Inquiring minds want to know.
Regardless of your views on the wisdom and practicality of maintaining a national manned space flight program, one fact is indisputable. Bush decided that the shuttles should stop flying after 2010, and if Bush decided it you can bet your ass it was the wrong decision for any number of reasons.
Our government is severely broken. I tend to lean toward Democratic candidates the last decade or so, although my libertarian streak is strong. The corruption and ineptness of the current Republican generation has a lot to do with that. But having said that, this Congress, which I was happy to see elected in 2006, is racking up a grade of F. Is there a grade lower than F? They deserve it. For every 1 good thing they pass there are 2 odious pieces of legislation to go with it.
It sucks when the people's government - both parties - are whores to whoever forks over the bags of cash. It really sucks and something needs to be done about it. I think it will take something really big for people to wake up and demand change. Financial meltdown? Bring it on. Peak oil kicking off decades of 12% plus inflation? Make it so. Americans vote with their pocketbooks and wallets for the most part. That's what it's going to take IMO to rouse the voters from their 30-year stupor.
Why don't they prepare - and spen a ton of money - for alien invasions, too? This stuff is way overblown. The government can get the telcos to run their spying apparatus for them, but they would have us believe they are incapable of cutting off packets to and from certain countries. What's up with this? I want to know why anyone believes this is a real threat. Anyone outside of those with a vested interest in seeing that the "threat" is taken seriously.
I wish more "journalists" would investigate the cause of the things they "investigate". Look at what's behind Vista's stability problems and you'll find 3 letters staring at you: DRM. Nobody ever points this out. Mainstream (and not-so-mainstream) articles you read on Vista's problems seem to bend over backwards to avoid the elephant in the room:
The biggest new feature in Vista is one that was implemented for people other than those who buy and run it.
It's a big cause Vista's performance and stability problems. Yeah, hardware is cheap, but when a new Windows OS runs slower than the previous one on the same hardware and there are no real new must-have features, then to me it's a no-brainer. Vista will never, ever run on any hardware I control.
As for the title of this article, I rest my case. It restricts what I can do. It was not developed with me in mind (whether I'm an individual or a business). If it wasn't for Microsoft strong-arming developers and ISVs Vista would be dead and buried already.
My new startup will allow parents to sequence the genes of their male offspring to include a third testicle. What better way to increase the odds that your bloodline will survive the coming century of famine and war? And that's only the beginning. It is not government's role to interfere with progress or business, so nobody better try and stop me.
IIRC Windows ME was a bust right out of the gate. We have seen some grudging indications from MS that Vista (aka Windows ME II) isn;t meeting the expectations they had for it in terms of adoption and implementation. How long until people say, "Yep, Vista sure was a bust!"? Maybe MS will never say it, but what will it take to convince the popular press and cheerleader factions that Vista, in fact, was a horrible OS?
The cynic in me says it doesn't matter because the DRM core of the OS will never get the criticism it deserves and, thus, any follow-on OS will be just as bad. No OS that manages someone else's rights without giving a hoot for mine will ever run on my hardware.
I still can't scan a 50 page document and OCR it without spending hours to clean it up afterwards. Nor can voice recognition software really understand or interpret what I say and lay it out with correct punctuation on paper.
Those are 2 basic advanced tasks I would expect to be perfected at some point, and until they are I take all these great human-machine interface "breakthroughs" with huge grains of salt.
This is garbage. Any military system that needs to be secure isn't going to use Windows anything without some special aftermarket crypto added on.
You provide nothing to back up any of your assertions that the Crypto API was analyzed and updated to address issues that were uncovered.
CryptGenRandom is the EXACT random number generator call that TFA calls into question.
I think it was written with bitter sarcasm in mind, not necessarily humor. I would rate it insightful, too (no mod pts today).
Lack of wireless chipset drivers is one of, if not the most, serious impediment to growing the Linux user base at this point in time. Broadcom is one of the most popular brands but by no means the only one without proper support under Linux.
Linux Device Driver Dev: "Hey, I need something to work on."
Me: "Wifi drivers for 802.11n, WPA2 and Broadcom chipsets."
LDDD: "Something besides those."
Me: "Get lost and stop wasting my time."
Then screw them. That's a seriously lame excuse. They ask for suggestions and then we find out they have conditions attached to what they will and will not work on? Wireless chipset support is one of the areas sorely in need of better Linux drivers and Broadcom isn't the only offender.
The real reason is probably that the hardware vendors won't cough up the specs. Why can't these developers come out and admit that? Their stated excuse is bogus.
Does anyone expect this trend to get better? Ever? MS continues to wrest control of machines running Windows away from their owners, period. And, as usual, those who run a pirated version will be unaffected by this and the only people who will endure the hassle will be those with legit licenses who play by the rules. Another couple of generations of PC hardware and Trusted Computing modules will shut down most pirates for good, leaving no choice but to run something like Linux in order to retain full control over their machines.
A sidearm is a weapon, usually a pistol. This "cyber sidearm" sounds like a warning device or danger detector. Calling it a "sidearm" is a misnomer, at best. It's troubling to see all this tech being deployed by the armed forces and law enforcement. Not because they don't have a use for it, but because more and more the details are secret. We'll eventually arrive at a place where bad decisions are going to be made on what's necessary and what's not without any way for the non-elites (like us) to know whether or not those decisions are sound because the entire decision making process is secret. Ripe for corruption and snake oil, all at great expense to us and great profit to those with an "in". Crony capitalism at its finest. Oh, and Eisenhower was right.
They recently teamed up with DoubleClick, which is still evil and I don't care who owns it. They also made significant changes to their privacy policy which I don't like. Don't think it was ever covered here at /. which is not surprising given the ownership situation.
Getting a computer to read and understand text or understand speech is still aways off, never mind mind reading. I have no doubt it will happen some day, but things on the interpretation and understanding front have a long, long way to go. Speech recognition has been stagnant for 10 years. OCR still requires many hours of human cleanup and tweaking. Natural language translation is a field that seems to be advancing faster than the others, but it, too, has a long way to go.
The inputs to all of the above are well known. Reading signals from implanted sensors, and interpreting their meaning is above and beyond the call of hype.
The best developer in the world working at 10x his normal pace can't do much at all if the hardware vendors don't pony up their specs. Wireless chipset vendors, for instance, generally refuse to release enough detail to write drivers. Having the backing of a company like Novell behind you may help.
If a device is designed to work under the umbrella of Microsoft DRM, however, you can count on the fact that detailed hardware specs will never be released to anyone who doesn't sign an NDA.
2nd time in the comments for this story I was pissed I didn't have any mod points.
If you're a sole inventor or small business, that is. Even though the Constitution starts with "We, the people", you can bet your last dollar this Supreme Court will rule in a way that is favorable for big business, and not "the people" at all. My prediction: if you're a big business and your patents get infringed upon, you will have every legal recourse available to you including jail time for the offender. If you're a little guy and big business infringes your patents, they will get their wrists slapped at best. At worst, they will be able to use the "we didn't mean to do it" defense. Either way you'll pay through the nose to even get that far.
Exactly. Without the bits that disable the device from playing premium content those drivers would have never been approved.
And to whoever modded my original comment "troll", go fuck yourself. I hope you get meta-modded into oblivion.
With a capital C. MS has firmly taken control of device drivers on Vista. You can't get a driver to install unless it's submitted to MS for DRM compliance.... er, I mean "Quality Assurance"... and get them to sign it. (Actually you can get an unsigned driver to load but the average user isn't going to go through the procedure every time they boot their PC.)
As new hardware comes along they will do their damndest to make sure it's supported on Vista while downplaying and actively discouraging the development of XP drivers for said hardware.
It might start with USB 3.0, which I saw mentioned for the first time last week in the mainstream press. If Vista fully supports new and cool hardware that use the new standard while XP seriously lags behind, that could be the first Big Hammer they bash everyone over the head with in their quest for more Control. With a capital C.
By the US government. Why don't the advertisers just pay for the privilege of riding along? The government could take that money and use it to pay the telecom companies and data-mining companies to collect and analyze the phone conversations. Even though there's no accountability or legality to it, the government can then claim with a straight face that "we don't monitor domestic phone calls". Of course not. They pay others to do it for them!
The most secretive agency in the United States government is getting involved in law enforcement and the nature of their involvement is highly classified. Nope, nothing to worry about there.
How is it in the public interest for this agreement to be sealed? Any suit that goes on, using public resources along the way, should not be eligible for this "feature" of settlement, i.e. "sealing" the settlement agreement. The public has the right to know the details.
There have been stories lately about how the IT structure in the US is vulnerable to disruption. While I think that danger is overstated to some degree, there is no doubt some critical infrastructure that is connected to the internet and subject to breakdown.
We each have our own personal infrastructure in our homes. If Windows is part of it, then you're subject to breakdowns in other parts of the system, i.e. Microsoft WGA.
Last week I returned one of those fancy Harmony remote controls because programming it requires contact over the internet with Logitech's servers. I refuse to subject myself to that nonsense, especially when a standalone piece of software would not be difficult to write and distribute.
If there was a way to divorce my personal Windows-based IT infrastructure from the online whims of Microsoft I'd jump on it. Too bad the monopolistic behavior of MS makes this impossible for the moment.
When they end-of-life XP they had better issue a patch to remove the activation component from it.
I'm not surprised. Some of the well-known awards aren't worth anything, either. Kind of like the televised award ceremonies of the entertainment industry. 15 years ago PC Magazine would give awards to just about anyone who cared to buy enough advertising in its pages. There's a lot of hype out there and people looking to do nothing but draw attention to themselves in their quest to sell advertising space.
Worthless no-name awards are to quality software as karaoke is to the entertainment industry.