The exploit involves both Java and Javascript. It seems to involve having the user execute a Javascript program, which downloads a non-sandbox Java class file.
I use Bluetooth to connect my PDA to my GSM phone. Now I have access to Internet about everywhere through GPRS. I can do it at the restaurant table while dining with friends or while walking on the street when coming back from work.
OK, I demand to know your service provider. And how much do you end up spending on bandwidth? On the one hand GPRS doesn't cost for connect time (which is what I hate about my CDMA service), but on the other, bandwidth charges seem pretty high.
The reason Bluetooth doesn't take off is it is poorly marketed. It is waaay overpriced to get any widspread adoption.
I don't see that. I could get a Bluetooth phone for free with the usual 1-year commitment. And Bluetooth devices are relatively expensive (as new technology always is) but not that expensive.
What really hurt Bluetooth was they way it was overhyped a couple years ago, long before any product was actually available. Then when they actually started selling Bluetooth, nobody noticed. Especially since they managed to time things for the post-dotcom era, when nobody's buying new gadgets.
How far do you need to get from your cell phone? It's a portable device fer crisakes. Anyway, if you did your math, you'd find that 10 meters is a little less than 33 feet. So you're getting almost 50% of the spec. Perhaps you're batteries were low?
I don't want a PDA/phone. That means I can't use the PDA and talk on the phone at the same time. And devices that try to comprimise between PDA and phone functions are generally not that good at either.
What I do want is a phone headset that I can use without risk of garroting myself. And I want to browse the web using a portable device I already own and am familiar with: a Palm m515.
If the restriction to Bluetooth applications is, "The phone must be in your pocket, not on your desk," I think I can live with that!
Great, you've got 1700 people to sign your petition. And some of them are famous! That proves that your information is correct? No, it just proves that it's very easy to get a lot of names on a petition.
You seem to be saying that somebody is tweaking the German internet, and nobody's raising any fuss about it because it's anti-Nazi censorship? You're going to have to offer a lot more than a few ambiguous DNS listings to make that convincing!
Ever work in a tech support org? They have to deal with thousands of emails a day, most of them lame RTFM questions. So they tend to send out a lot of boilerplate, which is what this obviously is.
From what I know about Linksys products, there's no reason they shouldn't work fine with any web browser that supports Java and the usual W3C security protocols. (And in fact, there seems to be a fairly active Linksys/Mac user community.) But if they say, "We only support Windows and IE" they drastically narrow the skill set they have to hire/train their support people for. Costs them a little in non-Windows sales and maybe Mozilla diehards, but not enough to justify doubling or tripling their training budget!
Even though you got modded "Funny" I think you're serious. Consider the cost of licensing a proprietary OS and porting all your code to it. Weigh that against the cost of putting all the source code on the web.
My guess is that nobody at Linksys thought about their obligation to provide source code, or if they did, the process fell through the usual corporate cracks.
Well, you can deal with the Slashdot Effect by throwing hardware at the problem. But that's expensive! I don't know how well of RPI is, but surely Prof. K would consider such a solution to be, well, uncool.
I know about censorship in Germany. I've even ranted about it. My puzzlement comes from this notion that there's some dark conspiracy to censor the German internet, and all we have to prove it are some strange DNS logs.
OK, fair enough. But if you jump into a thread where some controversial topic is being debated, people are going to make assumptions about your belonging to one side or the other. If you want to make your loyalties clear, you need to be explicit abou tthem.
In other words, you think I'm naive. Hey, I'm not saying that politics or corruption can't touch the federal court system. I'm simply attacking the assumption that Microsoft must have won through corruption. Which is a dangerous cop-out.
What eventually saved the day for MS was George W. Bush the election. Which put a Microsoft-friendly guy in charge of anti-trust prosecutions, effectively ending the case. Now who elected this guy? You did. That's true even if you assume the Florida vote was rigged. That sort of BS is something you can do something about -- demand closer scrutiny of federal elections, or reform the electoral college. (Does it really make sense to elect almost all electors in statewide winner-take-alls?) But changes like that only come through hard work by the citizenry. Easier to say, "Oh, federal judges are corrupt. Nothing I can do!"
This whole discussion has me scratching my head. I can't find any reference to this alleged DNS-censorship that isn't online gossip. Nothing on an actual news site.
I've found reports that German companies want to implement this kind of censorship and of course all these claims that they've already done it. But I just don't see it. Why isn't the German equivalent of the ACLU raising a stink? Why is there no actual news?
Perhaps somebody who actually understands how DNS works could convince me this isn't just a black-helicopter urban legend. Until then, I'm inclined to put this with that guy that "proved" that whitehouse.gov was registered in the U.K.!
I basically agree with you. This is something I've been seeing for years: you take a fancy TV set, add some DVI and/or SVGA inputs, and try to sell it as a "monitor". Lots of people who don't know any better will buy it without thinking to look at the specs, particularly the resolution.
This is standard practice -- basically dishonest, but too comon to get your blood pressure up over. What does bother me is that Robb Malda, of all people, was lazy/sloppy enough to post this story without running it through his BS/Lameness filter. I mean, come on, Robb, not only are you helping hype a worthless product, you're linking a lame "review" that consists mainly of reguritating the installation manual!
Maybe you're just intimidated by the feature bloat. I agree that WinZip is pretty awful, but the most basic features. But the really basic features take no studying to figure out. You just try to drag an icon from here to there -- either it does the obvious thing or it doesn't. This is less a matter of good GUI design than of simply making use of standard APIs.
I've never used RISC OS, but I have used ZipFolders. Any klunkiness should be blamed on Windows Explorer, which is not an example of good GUI design. Anyway, I used to think that making a Zip file look like part of the file system was way kewl. But after using ZipFolders for a while, I decided it added too many complications. (Like all those archives that come with the JDK having all their contents lying around!!) Better to use a well-integrated archive program.
Zip and unzip are command-line utilities. There's a GUI "wizard" wrapper, but it hasn't been updated in 3 years, and lacks basic Windows shell integration. So (for example), you can't drag a file from an archive window to a folder window in order to extract a single file into a directory.
Yeah, I know, GUIs are for lazy people. The world is full of lazy people. Deal with it!
I don't think this behavior is at all rational; in that sense it's much like gambling. Show other people that you think the item isn't worth x, but rather x+y, and they suddenly decide that they too think the item is worth x+y...and +z as well, to top your bid.
Well, there you seem to have a point. Your theory explains both pointless last-minute bidding and the absurd high prices people are willing to pay.
Perhaps your theory sort of overlaps my theory, that people bid not for an item, but for some weird intangible reward. Just like a casino game.
I wish I could make it go away. It's very irritating. You bid on a used left-handed blivet for $25. You think you're all set, but when the auction's almost over, somebody "grabs" it for $30 dollars. After this happens a couple times, you get tired of fucking around and buy one new for $40.
Naturally EBay doesn't discourage this nonsense, since it's the main source of their profit. Oh well.
Perhaps you're confusing Tablet PCs with the web tablets that were such a bomb a couple years ago. Tablet PCs are as fully functional as a laptop.
I suspect that most of the people who might use tablets are already happy with their laptops. If my own laptop hadn't been stolen, I'd be looking at the tablets and shrugging. And I won't get one until I have a job again.
The big hope for tablets is vertical applications, like doctors carrying them instead of paper charts. Except people aren't investing a lot in new technology right now.
I've never understood the *nix reaction (although it has spread to windows/regular PC users) that escalates any difference in opinion to a religious war...
All online discussions have a weird tendency to to escalate into religious wars. Surely you've noticed?
I dunno. Game manuals are collectable. Collectibles have a value that has nothing to do with their utility.
I don't think you really played any role in bidding up these prices. Last minute bids are pretty much the norm on EBay. People seem to think that it gives them an edge. Nobody seems to understand the difference between submitting a bid in a live auction (which is how traditional auctions work) and specifying a maximum bid in a proxy auction (which is how EBay auctions work). If nobody knows what your maximum bid is, it doesn't matter when you specify it! But specifying it at the last minute lets people think they're being clever.
The big problem being finding places where the used items aren't going for more than a new _retail_ item (stupid people)..
I guess that's the main reason I don't care too much about the patentability of online auctions...
Then again... EBay prices are inflated because of all those compulsive bidders. Which EBay encourages with "auction notifications" and other stuff that's really redundant in the proxy auctions they conduct. In other words, it's very much like gambling -- people throw away absurd amounts of money for a puny reward that's randomly delievered. So maybe we can cite Las Vegas as "prior art"!
Buying a federal judge is hard. Not impossible. But be very careful when you hand that envelope over. Always some silly FBI guy trying to make a name for himself.
Buying a President is easier, I admit. Just give him a "campaign contribution". But so you get your favorite judge on the bench. So what? One they have that lifetime tenure, federal judges tend to quickly develop a nasty sense of independence.
Slashdot Mirror
Surely you jest. What about all those "Ask Slashdot: What's a computer" stories? Not to mention Aimee Deep!
The exploit involves both Java and Javascript. It seems to involve having the user execute a Javascript program, which downloads a non-sandbox Java class file.
What really hurt Bluetooth was they way it was overhyped a couple years ago, long before any product was actually available. Then when they actually started selling Bluetooth, nobody noticed. Especially since they managed to time things for the post-dotcom era, when nobody's buying new gadgets.
I don't want a PDA/phone. That means I can't use the PDA and talk on the phone at the same time. And devices that try to comprimise between PDA and phone functions are generally not that good at either.
What I do want is a phone headset that I can use without risk of garroting myself. And I want to browse the web using a portable device I already own and am familiar with: a Palm m515.
If the restriction to Bluetooth applications is, "The phone must be in your pocket, not on your desk," I think I can live with that!
So no license fees. Fine. There's still the cost of porting the software to a new api. That's expensive.
You seem to be saying that somebody is tweaking the German internet, and nobody's raising any fuss about it because it's anti-Nazi censorship? You're going to have to offer a lot more than a few ambiguous DNS listings to make that convincing!
From what I know about Linksys products, there's no reason they shouldn't work fine with any web browser that supports Java and the usual W3C security protocols. (And in fact, there seems to be a fairly active Linksys/Mac user community.) But if they say, "We only support Windows and IE" they drastically narrow the skill set they have to hire/train their support people for. Costs them a little in non-Windows sales and maybe Mozilla diehards, but not enough to justify doubling or tripling their training budget!
My guess is that nobody at Linksys thought about their obligation to provide source code, or if they did, the process fell through the usual corporate cracks.
Well, you can deal with the Slashdot Effect by throwing hardware at the problem. But that's expensive! I don't know how well of RPI is, but surely Prof. K would consider such a solution to be, well, uncool.
On the other hand, if there's no slashdot effect, we might infer that the sysadmin is one of Prof. K's students, and that it's a really good class!
I know about censorship in Germany. I've even ranted about it. My puzzlement comes from this notion that there's some dark conspiracy to censor the German internet, and all we have to prove it are some strange DNS logs.
OK, fair enough. But if you jump into a thread where some controversial topic is being debated, people are going to make assumptions about your belonging to one side or the other. If you want to make your loyalties clear, you need to be explicit abou tthem.
What eventually saved the day for MS was George W. Bush the election. Which put a Microsoft-friendly guy in charge of anti-trust prosecutions, effectively ending the case. Now who elected this guy? You did. That's true even if you assume the Florida vote was rigged. That sort of BS is something you can do something about -- demand closer scrutiny of federal elections, or reform the electoral college. (Does it really make sense to elect almost all electors in statewide winner-take-alls?) But changes like that only come through hard work by the citizenry. Easier to say, "Oh, federal judges are corrupt. Nothing I can do!"
Perhaps somebody who actually understands how DNS works could convince me this isn't just a black-helicopter urban legend. Until then, I'm inclined to put this with that guy that "proved" that whitehouse.gov was registered in the U.K.!
Jeez, RTFA. Or Google "LTM295W". It's a fucking TV, the kind with a TV tuner.
I basically agree with you. This is something I've been seeing for years: you take a fancy TV set, add some DVI and/or SVGA inputs, and try to sell it as a "monitor". Lots of people who don't know any better will buy it without thinking to look at the specs, particularly the resolution.
This is standard practice -- basically dishonest, but too comon to get your blood pressure up over. What does bother me is that Robb Malda, of all people, was lazy/sloppy enough to post this story without running it through his BS/Lameness filter. I mean, come on, Robb, not only are you helping hype a worthless product, you're linking a lame "review" that consists mainly of reguritating the installation manual!
I've never used RISC OS, but I have used ZipFolders. Any klunkiness should be blamed on Windows Explorer, which is not an example of good GUI design. Anyway, I used to think that making a Zip file look like part of the file system was way kewl. But after using ZipFolders for a while, I decided it added too many complications. (Like all those archives that come with the JDK having all their contents lying around!!) Better to use a well-integrated archive program.
Yeah, I know, GUIs are for lazy people. The world is full of lazy people. Deal with it!
Perhaps your theory sort of overlaps my theory, that people bid not for an item, but for some weird intangible reward. Just like a casino game.
I wish I could make it go away. It's very irritating. You bid on a used left-handed blivet for $25. You think you're all set, but when the auction's almost over, somebody "grabs" it for $30 dollars. After this happens a couple times, you get tired of fucking around and buy one new for $40.
Naturally EBay doesn't discourage this nonsense, since it's the main source of their profit. Oh well.
I suspect that most of the people who might use tablets are already happy with their laptops. If my own laptop hadn't been stolen, I'd be looking at the tablets and shrugging. And I won't get one until I have a job again.
The big hope for tablets is vertical applications, like doctors carrying them instead of paper charts. Except people aren't investing a lot in new technology right now.
Bah! I hate that soapy taste!
I don't think you really played any role in bidding up these prices. Last minute bids are pretty much the norm on EBay. People seem to think that it gives them an edge. Nobody seems to understand the difference between submitting a bid in a live auction (which is how traditional auctions work) and specifying a maximum bid in a proxy auction (which is how EBay auctions work). If nobody knows what your maximum bid is, it doesn't matter when you specify it! But specifying it at the last minute lets people think they're being clever.
Then again... EBay prices are inflated because of all those compulsive bidders. Which EBay encourages with "auction notifications" and other stuff that's really redundant in the proxy auctions they conduct. In other words, it's very much like gambling -- people throw away absurd amounts of money for a puny reward that's randomly delievered. So maybe we can cite Las Vegas as "prior art"!
Buying a President is easier, I admit. Just give him a "campaign contribution". But so you get your favorite judge on the bench. So what? One they have that lifetime tenure, federal judges tend to quickly develop a nasty sense of independence.
Consider Richard Nixon. He managed to appoint no less than 4 justices to the U.S. Supreme Court. Not one of those justices voted in his favor when his most important case came in front of them.
If you have any actual evidence that Microsoft fixed any of its cases, let's see it. Otherwise, spare us your glib ignorance.