"There is a labeling requiremnt (at least for HD DVD), so you'll be able to find out which titles do or don't have ICT before you buy."
Ah yes, like how certain copy-protected CDs that technically break the Red Book standard weren't supposed to have the Philips 'Compact Disc' logo on them? That's great for the one customer in a million that knows to look for it.
"When it's on, and there isn't a secure path to the player, output resolution is limited to 960x540 - still a good bunch better than DVD's 720x480. And since that 960x540 will be a nice downscale from the source resolution, every pixel should be just about perfect."
Which is the funniest part. Considering how many crappy rips and caps are on P2P systems, comic cons, and street corners today (HandyCam caps where the audience noise is louder than the soundtrack are my favorite) why does anyone think that "limiting" the analog, easily-capturable output of HD discs to "only" 50% better than DVDs reduce piracy?
Whether or not it functions as advertised is almost beside the point. The fact is, low-level features don't sell in the first place. No one cares. Every Solaris junkie loves dtrace but that isn't keeping SUNW from looking like SGI these days. Faster application launches? Great! That won't sell any copies. If security sold, then 1997 (bad Windows viruses start becoming common) through 2004 (the year prior to the introduction of XP SP2, which *finally* had most of Windows' security holes plugged by default) would have been the years of Linux on the Desktop. Windows Vista exists primarily so Microsoft has something new to sell, and it will primarily be sold to OEMs. Most people who possess Windows Vista will do so because it came on the computer they bought--same as was the case with WinME.
Since Win2K wasn't readily available as a home operating system, there were lots of people who went from Win98 or ME to XP. Going from 9x to the NT kernel really was a big jump in stability (definitely) and security (eventually). Even so, most people made the move to XP because some game or program they liked required it. But the move from XP to Vista is more like the move from 95 to 98--a few new features that eventually become compelling (like USB and wireless) and eventually make the upgrade worthwhile but really, most people with XP will not move to Vista until "Requires Windows Vista" starts appearing on game boxes.
The interesting thing to me will be economics. XP was released over 4 years ago but it only really became common in the last 2. In that time, computers went from a low of around $500 to less than $300. I wonder where computers will be when Vista is a) released and b) common?
> Great. Now when your parents get the popup that some > application wants to access the network, and are > presented with all these options for "finer granularity of > which applications can use network resources", they'll > just turn them all on and go instead of actually learning > the ins and outs of TCP security. That's much more secure.
Exactly. This will continue to be the single biggest problem. There are so many places where computers tell us messages which, in aggregate, are completely meaningless. If OWA insists on printing "Attachments may contain viruses that are harmful to your computer" next to each and every attachment, always then it becomes a meaningless message.
It's one thing if you're picking up a box full of glasses and someone says "be careful with that!" It's another if they follow you around and say "be careful with that!" every time you pick up a pen, a sheet of paper, or a phone. By the time it matters, it's ignored.
>> Users, by default, operate in a mode with fewer privileges >> than before, which means that "noobs" who don't know any >> better can't accidentally install software full of spyware.
> And "noobs" who do know just a little better will give themselves > administrator accounts so that they can install software whenever > they want without changing roles, completely mooting any "default > user level access" security changes being made.
Yup. Same as above. Any pestering that prevents a user from having fun will get turned off. Always. hasn't anyone at MS noticed this yet? Maybe they do know and are just ignoring this fact so they can say "we made a secure OS this time--it's the user's fault if things go wrong because they turned off the security features!"
For example (oh how I wish I could find the source for this--ars? anand? I forget. anyone?) Apple's 20" monitor and Dell's 20" widescreen offering (the 2005FP) use the same LCD panel from the same manufacturer--it even has the same part number. Apple: $699. Dell: $549, currently $439, and they add VGA, S-Video, and Composite connectors, plus a 3-year warranty instead of 1 year.
I'm saying this as someone who greatly enjoyed all of the BD books I've read: he's written the exact same thing four times: Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons, Deception Point, and The DaVinci Code all had more similarities than differences.
That said, I enjoyed every minute of all four of them. Except for (SPOILER ALERT) Angels and Demons--overall, good, but the whole idea that "ambigrams" we some mystical, almost impossible-to-create thing lost me right away, since I'd been making them myself for 20 years (after reading Scott Kim's book "Inversions" in high school. Threw a wrench into the work every time they were brought up. Otherwise, fun.
3. Virtual cable to simulate line delay and perhaps errors between hosts
On a related (but OT) note, I wish there were an extension to Firefox that would let me load pages that are local (or on a fast connection) but draw them slowly to simulate a slow connection. Something that would say "OK, I've already got this 50kB image in memory, but let me take 10 seconds to draw it anyway to simulate 56k dialup." I'm visualizing a little dropdown in the web devloper toolbar, like the one for styles, that lets you choose the speed (28.8/33.6/56/128/256/384/512/768/1M/off.) Anyone know of anything that works like this? Searching for "firefox bandwidth extension" just gives me a zillion pages with bandwidth testers.
I love Minis (I own 2) but Ars' $525 price includes a 15" Acer LCD ($178) and $16 for keyboard & mouse. (Also, $81 of that is for XP Home.) And Dell has boxes for $249. ($349 minus $50 MIR minus $50 for no monitor.) Improving its specs (512 MB RAM, DVD burner, 1 year warranty) still brings it in at $408. I won't split hairs about FireWire, modem, keyboard, OS, etc. if you won't.:-)
Apple sells shows now. They advertise the iPod as holding 150 hours of video, so that's 204 shows @ 44 minutes each, which would only cost $405.96. Duh.:-)
> As opposed to anything where you need to know the color you're using.
You are so stuck in hyperbole it's not even funny. Yeah, you're right--it is *physically impossible* to teach ART without a calibrated display. That's why art didn't even exist until the mid-1990s.
> Art is largely done with eyeball comparison...
And this requires a calibrated display how? I think you're confusing "art" with "absolutely perfect representational photography." Luckily, most objects in the real world fit neatly into the gamut of colors that exists in AdobeRGB. Oh, wait...
> Ah yes, the fine art of getting a book to press. Like I said before, print shop monkey vs. artist.
Yeah, 'cause every artist I know walks around with a desktop computer and calibrated CRT to show their work on. *None* of them ever print anything for exhibitions or anything.
> Classic false dichotomy.
Well, sorry, I ran out of the ad hominem attacks you seem to favor.
> Trying to teach artistry and instructing students to bring their own > laptops (and I guarantee they won't spec Powerbooks with good displays, > it'll be typical wintel crap for the baseline) is like telling painters to prop > their canvases up under fluorescent light in order to paint a scene lit by > sunlight. It's bad education.
Wow. You are so far out there it's not even funny. Call me when you get back to Planet Earth, where people have to learn to live and work in conditions that are not 100% ideal every second of the day. You maintain that art just CAN NOT BE TAUGHT under anything less than optimum conditions? Wow, you must have some really weak students. In your view NOTHING would EVER be taught--I mean, you can't possibly learn music without a $30,000 set of studio monitors and instruments created from 99.999% pure brass, fitted with reeds grown in a swamp that is exactly biseced by the equator, picked under the light of a full moon by vestal virgins wearing silk gloves...
We see these stories all the time, I'm just wondering how often these predictions come true. One thing we know for sure is the iPod has survived many attempts on its life.
I can't believe this crap still gets modded up. Just goes to show how mods only know what they hear on Slashdot. LCDs are *just fucking fine* for what most people, including professionals, do with Photoshop. There is *so* much to Photoshop that *doesn't* require accurate color. Design, layout, compositing--so little requires knowing *exactly* how it the colors will look when printed. When I started using Photoshop here ten years ago, it was on a 256-color Mac driving a 3-year-old (at the time) uncalibrated monitor. Yet somehow, the results were fine. When needed, you look at the CMYK values. And it's worth mentioning that even calibrated displays are physically incapable of exactly matching printed output, anyway.
I work in a publishing company with hundreds of people using *gasp!* UNCALIBRATED LCDs. I know many artists and photographers in the area and NO ONE uses CRTs any more. All the work is being produced on LCD screens. We do have some press people here with calibrated displays, but do you think we EVER let ANYTHING out the door without seeing test prints? No.
The fact is, most of the Photoshop work happening on this planet happens on uncalibrated displays, and yet somehow the books make it to press, customers are happy, and the world keeps spinning. I personally know several award-winning designers and photographers and NONE of them own calibrated displays. Which would you rather have: a talented designer on a crappy computer, or a crappy designer on a great computer? That last theoretical 1% does not matter in the real world.
Anyone who says "You can't use Photoshop on an LCD" ranks right down there with audiophiles going on about their $300 cables and how CDs, let along MP3s, cannot be listened to.
It's 2006! Being dead should not prevent Graham Chapman from being in the new shows. Someone get the makers of Forest Gump on the line and either use bits of old footage or create a CG Graham Chapman and insert him into sketches! Or better yet, George Lucas!
Hell, as long as Lucas is at the helm, put in Jar-Jar--"Meesa think thissa dead parrot!" OMGLOLZ!!!!!11one
Of course, I can always stay late, take the PC apart, remove the hard drive, take it home and copy it, come in early the next day and re-install it. But that's just naughty.
A few years ago, Slashdot did a couplestories on Largo, Florida's use of Linux for municipal systems. Anyone heard from them recently? Are they still using it? Does anyone know of any other cities that have followed suit?
I ripped my whole collection (~300 discs) over the course of a week at work with a second computer in my cube. Wasn't that big of a deal, I just turned around whenever I felt like it. Even if you only get to them every 10 minutes, that's 6 an hour or about 50 in an eight-hour day. Unless you need them so soon that you feel compelled to run back and forth between an array of machines to knock it out in a couple hours, just do it at your leisure. The task will melt away before you know it.
Wow, the guys in MS's code-naming division must've been putting in nights and weekends to come up with that.
From True Romance, re: the sequel to "Coming Home in a Bodybag": Clarence: What's this one called anyway? Producer: We don't have a title yet. What does Joe like? PA: Uh, Bodybags II. Producer: Ooh, that's imaginative. I've got more taste in my penis.
>>You know it's GPL right? >>It's not like the open source MySQL is going to go away if they buy MySQL AB.
> No, but it gives Oracle and excellent barganing position. They > can effectively kill the upgrades to MySQL that would turn it > into a real database.
Um, no, they can't. IT'S GPL. Or am I missing something? Unless I've been misled for the last 8 years, GPL products cannot die, period. At worst, they fork (with the lead devs gone, which is of course bad) but AFAIK, this DOES NOT, and CAN NOT, mean the end of MySQL.
If Oracle were to kill MySQL AB and MySQL AB quit making upgrades, the rest of the world could still carry on. And even if they did somehow kill MySQL, 1) this would not affect current installations, and 2) there are many other OSS databases to choose from; among them Postgres (my favorite), Firebird, and Apache Derby.
Besides, Oracle isn't SCO--they aren't dying yet, and don't need to sue their customers.:-) (And in that vein, whether or not your interpretation of MySQL's licensing terms is correct is an issue I'll leave to other posters, but it doesn't sound right to me.)
I would like to see this trojan myself. Pasting an icon is trivial, and the fact that it can do things to other users (via sudo or something similar) when run as an admin user *without* prompting for an admin password is surprising--everything I've seen, if you're going to do an installation, requires an admin's password, even if you're logged in as an admin at the time. Also, doesn't 10.4 pop up that little "you're running this application for the first time" window? I'd like to see this myself.
In any case, this is why I say SCREW PRETTINESS. If a file's ability is going to be determined by its name, make entensions mandatory and un-hideable. For anything to respond in the GUI, that is. Apps and scripts called from a CLI don't need extensions, but clicking on a file with no extension should not do anything, ever, except prompt the user "what do you want to do?" with the only option being to try to VIEW the file (based on the first few bits)--"go ahead and try to execute whatever this is" should *not* be an option. Legacy OS 7-9 files present an issue but I'm sure it's nothing the collective minds in Cupertino can't figure out. App bundles would always show.app? Too fucking bad. Computers are too important not to know what's going on with them.
Clever as the author was, if he was *really* smart, he would have, in addition to copying everything else he does to/tmp/ as described on the Ambrosia site, unpacked one screenshot and opened it with Preview. If users saw what they were expecting, they'd be that much less suspicious.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but OS X, like RedHat Linux has for quite a while, uses single-user groups--that is, each user is the only member of a group which has the same name as the user's name. So the group bits are not entirely meaningful. Easy enough to test: can you touch/Users/<someone else>/Library/test ? I can't. If you can't you shouldn't need to go from 775 to 755.
Each OS X system I have (10.3) shows the following ownerships in/Users/: 'Shared' owned by root:wheel 'admin' (first user created) owned by admin:staff all other users--admins and non-admins: 'whatever' owned by whatever:whatever 10.0-10.2 made bigger use of the Staff and Wheel groups, IIRC, but since 10.3, it's been one user per group for all but the first user created. (And that's why the first account I create is a generic admin account named admin--because early versions of OS X went batshit if you deleted the first user ever created, and I've kept the habit ever since. And it's always nice to have a clean account to switch into for testing.)
At least we can thank them for introducing a 42" Plasma for $3000 when they were $6-7000 everywhere else. Brought the price of all plasmas down almost overnight. Yes, they were only EDTV, and might not have been good at all, but all that mattered was the fact that consumers could say "Why should I buy your 42" for that much when they have one over here for 3 grand?" and everyone else had no choice but to follow suit.
Slashdot Mirror
But this is also the case for your TV and other equipment and in no way impairs other functionality of Vista.
I can't tell if you were being sarcastic or not when you wrote that.
"There is a labeling requiremnt (at least for HD DVD), so you'll be able to find out which titles do or don't have ICT before you buy."
Ah yes, like how certain copy-protected CDs that technically break the Red Book standard weren't supposed to have the Philips 'Compact Disc' logo on them? That's great for the one customer in a million that knows to look for it.
"When it's on, and there isn't a secure path to the player, output resolution is limited to 960x540 - still a good bunch better than DVD's 720x480. And since that 960x540 will be a nice downscale from the source resolution, every pixel should be just about perfect."
Which is the funniest part. Considering how many crappy rips and caps are on P2P systems, comic cons, and street corners today (HandyCam caps where the audience noise is louder than the soundtrack are my favorite) why does anyone think that "limiting" the analog, easily-capturable output of HD discs to "only" 50% better than DVDs reduce piracy?
Whether or not it functions as advertised is almost beside the point. The fact is, low-level features don't sell in the first place. No one cares. Every Solaris junkie loves dtrace but that isn't keeping SUNW from looking like SGI these days. Faster application launches? Great! That won't sell any copies. If security sold, then 1997 (bad Windows viruses start becoming common) through 2004 (the year prior to the introduction of XP SP2, which *finally* had most of Windows' security holes plugged by default) would have been the years of Linux on the Desktop. Windows Vista exists primarily so Microsoft has something new to sell, and it will primarily be sold to OEMs. Most people who possess Windows Vista will do so because it came on the computer they bought--same as was the case with WinME.
Since Win2K wasn't readily available as a home operating system, there were lots of people who went from Win98 or ME to XP. Going from 9x to the NT kernel really was a big jump in stability (definitely) and security (eventually). Even so, most people made the move to XP because some game or program they liked required it. But the move from XP to Vista is more like the move from 95 to 98--a few new features that eventually become compelling (like USB and wireless) and eventually make the upgrade worthwhile but really, most people with XP will not move to Vista until "Requires Windows Vista" starts appearing on game boxes.
The interesting thing to me will be economics. XP was released over 4 years ago but it only really became common in the last 2. In that time, computers went from a low of around $500 to less than $300. I wonder where computers will be when Vista is a) released and b) common?
> Great. Now when your parents get the popup that some
> application wants to access the network, and are
> presented with all these options for "finer granularity of
> which applications can use network resources", they'll
> just turn them all on and go instead of actually learning
> the ins and outs of TCP security. That's much more secure.
Exactly. This will continue to be the single biggest problem. There are so many places where computers tell us messages which, in aggregate, are completely meaningless. If OWA insists on printing "Attachments may contain viruses that are harmful to your computer" next to each and every attachment, always then it becomes a meaningless message.
It's one thing if you're picking up a box full of glasses and someone says "be careful with that!" It's another if they follow you around and say "be careful with that!" every time you pick up a pen, a sheet of paper, or a phone. By the time it matters, it's ignored.
>> Users, by default, operate in a mode with fewer privileges
>> than before, which means that "noobs" who don't know any
>> better can't accidentally install software full of spyware.
> And "noobs" who do know just a little better will give themselves
> administrator accounts so that they can install software whenever
> they want without changing roles, completely mooting any "default
> user level access" security changes being made.
Yup. Same as above. Any pestering that prevents a user from having fun will get turned off. Always. hasn't anyone at MS noticed this yet? Maybe they do know and are just ignoring this fact so they can say "we made a secure OS this time--it's the user's fault if things go wrong because they turned off the security features!"
For example (oh how I wish I could find the source for this--ars? anand? I forget. anyone?) Apple's 20" monitor and Dell's 20" widescreen offering (the 2005FP) use the same LCD panel from the same manufacturer--it even has the same part number. Apple: $699. Dell: $549, currently $439, and they add VGA, S-Video, and Composite connectors, plus a 3-year warranty instead of 1 year.
I'm saying this as someone who greatly enjoyed all of the BD books I've read: he's written the exact same thing four times: Digital Fortress, Angels and Demons, Deception Point, and The DaVinci Code all had more similarities than differences.
That said, I enjoyed every minute of all four of them. Except for (SPOILER ALERT) Angels and Demons--overall, good, but the whole idea that "ambigrams" we some mystical, almost impossible-to-create thing lost me right away, since I'd been making them myself for 20 years (after reading Scott Kim's book "Inversions" in high school. Threw a wrench into the work every time they were brought up. Otherwise, fun.
3. Virtual cable to simulate line delay and perhaps errors between hosts
On a related (but OT) note, I wish there were an extension to Firefox that would let me load pages that are local (or on a fast connection) but draw them slowly to simulate a slow connection. Something that would say "OK, I've already got this 50kB image in memory, but let me take 10 seconds to draw it anyway to simulate 56k dialup." I'm visualizing a little dropdown in the web devloper toolbar, like the one for styles, that lets you choose the speed (28.8/33.6/56/128/256/384/512/768/1M/off.) Anyone know of anything that works like this? Searching for "firefox bandwidth extension" just gives me a zillion pages with bandwidth testers.
I love Minis (I own 2) but Ars' $525 price includes a 15" Acer LCD ($178) and $16 for keyboard & mouse. (Also, $81 of that is for XP Home.) And Dell has boxes for $249. ($349 minus $50 MIR minus $50 for no monitor.) Improving its specs (512 MB RAM, DVD burner, 1 year warranty) still brings it in at $408. I won't split hairs about FireWire, modem, keyboard, OS, etc. if you won't. :-)
Apple sells shows now. They advertise the iPod as holding 150 hours of video, so that's 204 shows @ 44 minutes each, which would only cost $405.96. Duh. :-)
> As opposed to anything where you need to know the color you're using.
You are so stuck in hyperbole it's not even funny. Yeah, you're right--it is *physically impossible* to teach ART without a calibrated display. That's why art didn't even exist until the mid-1990s.
> Art is largely done with eyeball comparison...
And this requires a calibrated display how? I think you're confusing "art" with "absolutely perfect representational photography." Luckily, most objects in the real world fit neatly into the gamut of colors that exists in AdobeRGB. Oh, wait...
> Ah yes, the fine art of getting a book to press. Like I said before, print shop monkey vs. artist.
Yeah, 'cause every artist I know walks around with a desktop computer and calibrated CRT to show their work on. *None* of them ever print anything for exhibitions or anything.
> Classic false dichotomy.
Well, sorry, I ran out of the ad hominem attacks you seem to favor.
> Trying to teach artistry and instructing students to bring their own
> laptops (and I guarantee they won't spec Powerbooks with good displays,
> it'll be typical wintel crap for the baseline) is like telling painters to prop
> their canvases up under fluorescent light in order to paint a scene lit by
> sunlight. It's bad education.
Wow. You are so far out there it's not even funny. Call me when you get back to Planet Earth, where people have to learn to live and work in conditions that are not 100% ideal every second of the day. You maintain that art just CAN NOT BE TAUGHT under anything less than optimum conditions? Wow, you must have some really weak students. In your view NOTHING would EVER be taught--I mean, you can't possibly learn music without a $30,000 set of studio monitors and instruments created from 99.999% pure brass, fitted with reeds grown in a swamp that is exactly biseced by the equator, picked under the light of a full moon by vestal virgins wearing silk gloves...
What... the fuck... ever.
...I've got the software end covered.
We see these stories all the time, I'm just wondering how often these predictions come true. One thing we know for sure is the iPod has survived many attempts on its life.
I can't believe this crap still gets modded up. Just goes to show how mods only know what they hear on Slashdot. LCDs are *just fucking fine* for what most people, including professionals, do with Photoshop. There is *so* much to Photoshop that *doesn't* require accurate color. Design, layout, compositing--so little requires knowing *exactly* how it the colors will look when printed. When I started using Photoshop here ten years ago, it was on a 256-color Mac driving a 3-year-old (at the time) uncalibrated monitor. Yet somehow, the results were fine. When needed, you look at the CMYK values. And it's worth mentioning that even calibrated displays are physically incapable of exactly matching printed output, anyway.
I work in a publishing company with hundreds of people using *gasp!* UNCALIBRATED LCDs. I know many artists and photographers in the area and NO ONE uses CRTs any more. All the work is being produced on LCD screens. We do have some press people here with calibrated displays, but do you think we EVER let ANYTHING out the door without seeing test prints? No.
The fact is, most of the Photoshop work happening on this planet happens on uncalibrated displays, and yet somehow the books make it to press, customers are happy, and the world keeps spinning. I personally know several award-winning designers and photographers and NONE of them own calibrated displays. Which would you rather have: a talented designer on a crappy computer, or a crappy designer on a great computer? That last theoretical 1% does not matter in the real world.
Anyone who says "You can't use Photoshop on an LCD" ranks right down there with audiophiles going on about their $300 cables and how CDs, let along MP3s, cannot be listened to.
One more possibility:
+ Unix servers last longer than Windows servers, so more Windows servers get bought more often
Of course, businesses don't care about this. Fact is, the *last* thing they want to do is sell you a box that lasts 5+ years.
It's 2006! Being dead should not prevent Graham Chapman from being in the new shows. Someone get the makers of Forest Gump on the line and either use bits of old footage or create a CG Graham Chapman and insert him into sketches! Or better yet, George Lucas!
Hell, as long as Lucas is at the helm, put in Jar-Jar--"Meesa think thissa dead parrot!" OMGLOLZ!!!!!11one
Of course, I can always stay late, take the PC apart, remove the hard drive, take it home and copy it, come in early the next day and re-install it. But that's just naughty.
:-)
Plus, a company like yours is probably using the chassis intrusion detection system that comes with most corporate PCs. Oops.
Except that turning on sharing doesn't work well across teh intarnets.
"I worry a little about pollution issues, as you likely get a lot of particulates in the air."
I do too, but a guy who cam make a self-stabilizing two-wheeled vehicle* can probably do some kind of filtering.
* not just the Segway, have you seen his wheelchair? I've seen it at Epcot in their home-of-the-future thingie and it's really cool.
A few years ago, Slashdot did a couple stories on Largo, Florida's use of Linux for municipal systems. Anyone heard from them recently? Are they still using it? Does anyone know of any other cities that have followed suit?
I ripped my whole collection (~300 discs) over the course of a week at work with a second computer in my cube. Wasn't that big of a deal, I just turned around whenever I felt like it. Even if you only get to them every 10 minutes, that's 6 an hour or about 50 in an eight-hour day. Unless you need them so soon that you feel compelled to run back and forth between an array of machines to knock it out in a couple hours, just do it at your leisure. The task will melt away before you know it.
Office 2007 (previously code-named Office 12)...
Wow, the guys in MS's code-naming division must've been putting in nights and weekends to come up with that.
From True Romance, re: the sequel to "Coming Home in a Bodybag":
Clarence: What's this one called anyway?
Producer: We don't have a title yet. What does Joe like?
PA: Uh, Bodybags II.
Producer: Ooh, that's imaginative. I've got more taste in my penis.
>>You know it's GPL right?
:-) (And in that vein, whether or not your interpretation of MySQL's licensing terms is correct is an issue I'll leave to other posters, but it doesn't sound right to me.)
>>It's not like the open source MySQL is going to go away if they buy MySQL AB.
> No, but it gives Oracle and excellent barganing position. They
> can effectively kill the upgrades to MySQL that would turn it
> into a real database.
Um, no, they can't. IT'S GPL. Or am I missing something? Unless I've been misled for the last 8 years, GPL products cannot die, period. At worst, they fork (with the lead devs gone, which is of course bad) but AFAIK, this DOES NOT, and CAN NOT, mean the end of MySQL.
If Oracle were to kill MySQL AB and MySQL AB quit making upgrades, the rest of the world could still carry on. And even if they did somehow kill MySQL, 1) this would not affect current installations, and 2) there are many other OSS databases to choose from; among them Postgres (my favorite), Firebird, and Apache Derby.
Besides, Oracle isn't SCO--they aren't dying yet, and don't need to sue their customers.
I would like to see this trojan myself. Pasting an icon is trivial, and the fact that it can do things to other users (via sudo or something similar) when run as an admin user *without* prompting for an admin password is surprising--everything I've seen, if you're going to do an installation, requires an admin's password, even if you're logged in as an admin at the time. Also, doesn't 10.4 pop up that little "you're running this application for the first time" window? I'd like to see this myself.
.app? Too fucking bad. Computers are too important not to know what's going on with them.
/tmp/ as described on the Ambrosia site, unpacked one screenshot and opened it with Preview. If users saw what they were expecting, they'd be that much less suspicious.
In any case, this is why I say SCREW PRETTINESS. If a file's ability is going to be determined by its name, make entensions mandatory and un-hideable. For anything to respond in the GUI, that is. Apps and scripts called from a CLI don't need extensions, but clicking on a file with no extension should not do anything, ever, except prompt the user "what do you want to do?" with the only option being to try to VIEW the file (based on the first few bits)--"go ahead and try to execute whatever this is" should *not* be an option. Legacy OS 7-9 files present an issue but I'm sure it's nothing the collective minds in Cupertino can't figure out. App bundles would always show
Clever as the author was, if he was *really* smart, he would have, in addition to copying everything else he does to
Correct me if I'm wrong, but OS X, like RedHat Linux has for quite a while, uses single-user groups--that is, each user is the only member of a group which has the same name as the user's name. So the group bits are not entirely meaningful. Easy enough to test: can you /Users/<someone else>/Library/test
/Users/:
touch
? I can't. If you can't you shouldn't need to go from 775 to 755.
Each OS X system I have (10.3) shows the following ownerships in
'Shared' owned by root:wheel
'admin' (first user created) owned by admin:staff
all other users--admins and non-admins:
'whatever' owned by whatever:whatever
10.0-10.2 made bigger use of the Staff and Wheel groups, IIRC, but since 10.3, it's been one user per group for all but the first user created. (And that's why the first account I create is a generic admin account named admin--because early versions of OS X went batshit if you deleted the first user ever created, and I've kept the habit ever since. And it's always nice to have a clean account to switch into for testing.)
At least we can thank them for introducing a 42" Plasma for $3000 when they were $6-7000 everywhere else. Brought the price of all plasmas down almost overnight. Yes, they were only EDTV, and might not have been good at all, but all that mattered was the fact that consumers could say "Why should I buy your 42" for that much when they have one over here for 3 grand?" and everyone else had no choice but to follow suit.