Many people on Slashdot have been screaming for over a year that Vista doesn't offer anything new.
Yes, and it looks like you've just proven this point yourself. Thanks for pointing it out yourself, here goes:
"New" is relative. All of the "catch-up" features you laughed at are new to Microsoft (though ipv6 was available in XP, just not on by default). Since the point is whether or not it's worth the upgrade from 2k/XP to Vista, whether they're new to Linux isn't an issue--whether they're new to Windows is.
Aside from the larger address space (no need to NAT anymore), IPV6 has host autoconfiguration built-in. DHCP can still be used, if advanced features are necessary. Multicast is built-in (so as long as your network supports IPV6, you can have it).
In general, IPV6 should prove easier to manage. The routing is simpler, and it's easier to implement security in some cases.
That said, the end-user has never been the stopping block for adoption. The entire network infrastructure has to support IPV6, and right now it doesn't. Just because Microsoft will have lots of "ipv6-on-by-default" users in two years doesn't mean the rest of the industry has any incentive to upgrade their equipment.
This technology existed BEFORE Microsoft implemented it. As is often the case, they are late in the game, but if you're going to blast Microsoft for it, you're going to have to blast Linux, and BSD, too.
Anyway, this is more about prioritizing the host's traffic, not preventing the host from taking up too much network bandwidth. I do this with Linux, right now (prioritizing ssh and http). You obviously still want networking equipment that can slow down a host which is acting too aggressively.
These "new features" allow for tagging packets so that routers/switches don't have to guess by either reconstructing the layer-7 or by using dumb methods such as the port used. Vista can tag packets for importance based on some relatively arbitrary critera. This is new to Windows.
In XP, an application could tag packets itself, but there was no ability for the user or admin to otherwise tag packets. That is what is new here, and it's useful if your networking equipment supports QoS based on the tags.
As someone else pointed out, the game was designed for the 'cube. They tacked on the Wii controls when they decided to make this the flagship game for the new system.
My suspicion is that the GC controls will be every bit as good as OOT/Wind Waker.
As an owner of the Sprint version of this phone, I can't disagree more. The camera is probably the worst piece of crap I've seen in a long time.
The image lag you get is awful, the shutter speed (for stills) means that you pretty much have to set it on a stationary object, or it's going to be blurry. And don't even think about using it without plenty of light.
I haven't mess with video all that much, but it doesn't seem too much better. And you can't get more than 30 seconds out of it without registry hacks (and wave goodbye to your battery life!)
We the users, how dare we!, to demand formats that work in our favour and not in favour of our software providers.
That's a little extreme.
Remember, Microsoft is a publicly traded company. Money is basically everything to them. Right or wrong, is how almost every corporation in the US works. Given that, and that Microsoft owns virtually 100% of the PC word processing market, they have NO financial incentive to include interoperability with competing formats or standards. Word works with Word. Microsoft would gain no money by using the other format, and they actually stand to lose some.
Furthermore, I don't understand how the other document format works in Microsoft Word users' favour. It can't be for sharing documents with other users--Word can save in older document formats for this purpose. The only people I see it really benefiting are Open Office users, and these are not Microsoft customers. A non-Microsoft customer has no right to demand that Microsoft change some feature in their software. They can ask, and they can file anticompetition lawsuits, but don't act like Microsoft users stand to benefit from Word using this alternate format.
But at least you cleared things up. Most companies want to luck us in instead of providing a service worth its name.
Of course they do. Did you really not understand that concept before my post?
Who cares is MS document format is patented or not? The patent system is so utterly broken that they can patent a nuisance in how a document is handled and that would give them free reign to threaten competitors and users as they see fit.
Like I said, if it's patented, then we have bigger problems. Like the fact that it was patented and not laughed out of the USPTO.
What many people around here do not seem to get is that software patents are not used in good faith, and that they can't be, because software is speech, and climing innovation on a process of thought is the mos silly thing since, well, since we started thinking.
I don't know which "News For Nerds" site you've been reading, but most people who post on Slashdot seem to abhor the idea of software patents.
Depends. How many people accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake last year? How many people clicked on unsafe attachments and got pwned last year? How many people didn't die in car crashes last year because they were saved by air bags?
We're not talking about deaths, though. We're talking about liability. If you slam on the accelerator instead of the brake, and you hit something, you are liable for it.
If you click on an attachment, get a virus, become a zombie, and start sending spam, you should be liable. In this case, not 100% liable (because some portion of the responsibility must be assigned to the virus writer) but they do share in the liability.
Right. But in my hypothetical story, who was that?
The user. If we want to classify the Internet and networks as tools, then the tool's maintainers should not be liable for what the users do unless, again, the maintainer screwed up. In your example, I don't believe that the administrator made an error.
Other industries have learned that "blame the user" is, under some circumstances, a misguided strategy. Humans are imperfect, and if there's a class of mistakes they're guaranteed to make with regularity, systems must be designed (or redesigned) to protect against those mistakes, or minimize their impact.
In the case of a poorly designed system, sure. Most e-mail programs I've looked at lately ask you to confirm opening unsafe (or sometimes all) attachments. This should eliminate the fallout from most of the accidental clicks. At this point in time, most software does a reasonable job of protecting you from accidents--infections from this vector are now, 99% of the time, directly the fault of the user. Training and a real threat of damage to the user (in the form of fines or loss of license) would probably do a decent job of deterring bad behavior.
You don't blame the automobile manufacturer for your accidents, unless there was a defect in the product which caused it. If the attachment you're worried about contains an exploit, you blame Microsoft. If it's a trojan, you are to blame. You clicked it. It happens, but it's your fault, just like accidentally hitting the accelerator instead of the brake is your fault.
The sysadmin certainly is a twist on the whole thing, and it doesn't fit well into the analogy. Should the sysadmin be liable for your mistakes, though? I don't particularly think so. We are responsible for our own actions, and so the blame lies with the person who follows unsafe computing practices.
This is a problem less solvable than my own. In the whole of human history, we haven't been able to stop humans from doing bad things. What makes you think we can stop them this time?
The real problem (that e-mail is an inherently insecure system that requires completel replacement rather than patches to try to maintain the existing infrastructure) will never be solved.
Actually, the biggest reason that it would not work is that most spam comes from zombies. Spammers wouldn't have to pay, innocent people would. Then, when the next big security hole from Microsoft hits, and a worm comes along to take advantage of it, we get a whole new round of bots.
People would get hit with fines, contest them (because they didn't actually send the e-mails), and get them waived.
The only real solution is licensing Internet usage.
There have been some test cases done where removing traffic lights reduced accidents in the area because, overall, people were more cautious. The question is whether this caution would hold up over time.
Same with seat belts. People drove more carefully when they were more scared for their lives.
Ultimately, though, the ubiquity of the computer is what has lead to the current virus/spam/zombie infestation. While a person should certainly learn how to use and maintain their computers, the fact that they're cheap enough for even lower-class families to own (in the US, at least, where lots of spam originates) means that they're everywhere! The fact that Microsoft's OS has a history of gaping security holes (that go beyond trojans/proper maintenance) is another piece of the problem. Factor in user stupidity (since there are still people who run those red lights, even though it's dangerous, against the law, and could lead to serious consequences) and we've got an equation for a serious problem.
I maintain that you should have to have a license to use the Internet, and that you should have that license revoked for unsafe use.
But seriously, Network Neutrality is a slightly different beast from blocking ports. Net neutrality has to do with the underlying structure of the Internet, whereas blocking ports is on the fringes.
That said, I'm for Net Neutrality. I'm also for blocking port 25 BY DEFAULT, and having a webpage somewhere where the user can request to have it unblocked. Few enough users would want 25 anyway, that they'll never notice the loss. Those who do want 25 are probably competent enough not to have a spam zombie.
The chipsets appear to be backwards compatible with 802.11g. Apple's been shipping draft-n equipment for awhile now, though only marketing it as 802.11g. Seems to work fine on my network.
Why is it that whenever some talks "interoperability" it is always the Open Standards following people that have to bow to proprietary ones? ODF is an open standard that Microsoft can (and should) implement easily and freely but they choose to close it up. Novell is OK with that according to their agreement. Why should proponents of open standards be forced, yes I said forced, to bow to a company that only wants to lock people into one product be it Novell's or Microsoft's?
Because the "Open Standards following people" are the ones who want interoperability. The people with the proprietary solution want people to use their own solution.
No, the "opportunity" Novell missed here was to take a stand AGAINST software patents. Instead, they chose to perpetuate the fraud known as "method patents" and worse, made a deal with a company known for back stabbing their "partners".
There are basically two choices: be capable of opening Microsoft Office documents, or give up. The business world works on Microsoft, and until that changes, Open Office can either work with Microsoft's formats or effectively lose the game.
I'm not saying Novell's developers would purposely inject bad code, but unless you are willing to get your employer to implement a verifiable "clean-room" implementation for code you are submitting, I for one would err on the side of caution. The cost of defending against patent infringement are too high not to.
Clean room RE would be better, no doubt. But is Microsoft's document format actually patented? If so, we have more problems than just worrying about interoperability, in my opinion.
The load and access times may differ, and as the grandparent said, smaller livecds can fit completely into RAM so that you can actually pop in another disc. The larger the CD, the less likely that is to be the case--you can't count on everyone you help having 1G of RAM.
"negative reinforcement" is often used by laymen to sound smarter when they mean "punishment." In fact, in Psychology, "negative reinforcement" is something of an oxymoron.
In vector physics, "acceleration" has a very different meaning from the general use of the word.
Specialized mathematicians have different meanings for various words like "product" (because you can be talking about several different types of arguments, such as scalar, vector, matrix, etc).
Generally, when you're talking to a specialist, they will understand the terms as they apply to their field, but they probably also understand the lay definition. When you're talking to some random person on the street, they probably only understand the lay definition. What's of most interest (to me, anyway) is how these changes get started.
But this can stifle innovation even more! With contracts preventing the images from being displayed to any public which could copy them, we wouldn't have Google Maps at all.
Slashdot Mirror
Many people on Slashdot have been screaming for over a year that Vista doesn't offer anything new.
Yes, and it looks like you've just proven this point yourself. Thanks for pointing it out yourself, here goes:
"New" is relative. All of the "catch-up" features you laughed at are new to Microsoft (though ipv6 was available in XP, just not on by default). Since the point is whether or not it's worth the upgrade from 2k/XP to Vista, whether they're new to Linux isn't an issue--whether they're new to Windows is.
Aside from the larger address space (no need to NAT anymore), IPV6 has host autoconfiguration built-in. DHCP can still be used, if advanced features are necessary. Multicast is built-in (so as long as your network supports IPV6, you can have it).
In general, IPV6 should prove easier to manage. The routing is simpler, and it's easier to implement security in some cases.
That said, the end-user has never been the stopping block for adoption. The entire network infrastructure has to support IPV6, and right now it doesn't. Just because Microsoft will have lots of "ipv6-on-by-default" users in two years doesn't mean the rest of the industry has any incentive to upgrade their equipment.
This technology existed BEFORE Microsoft implemented it. As is often the case, they are late in the game, but if you're going to blast Microsoft for it, you're going to have to blast Linux, and BSD, too.
Anyway, this is more about prioritizing the host's traffic, not preventing the host from taking up too much network bandwidth. I do this with Linux, right now (prioritizing ssh and http). You obviously still want networking equipment that can slow down a host which is acting too aggressively.
These "new features" allow for tagging packets so that routers/switches don't have to guess by either reconstructing the layer-7 or by using dumb methods such as the port used. Vista can tag packets for importance based on some relatively arbitrary critera. This is new to Windows.
In XP, an application could tag packets itself, but there was no ability for the user or admin to otherwise tag packets. That is what is new here, and it's useful if your networking equipment supports QoS based on the tags.
As someone else pointed out, the game was designed for the 'cube. They tacked on the Wii controls when they decided to make this the flagship game for the new system.
My suspicion is that the GC controls will be every bit as good as OOT/Wind Waker.
As an owner of the Sprint version of this phone, I can't disagree more. The camera is probably the worst piece of crap I've seen in a long time.
The image lag you get is awful, the shutter speed (for stills) means that you pretty much have to set it on a stationary object, or it's going to be blurry. And don't even think about using it without plenty of light.
I haven't mess with video all that much, but it doesn't seem too much better. And you can't get more than 30 seconds out of it without registry hacks (and wave goodbye to your battery life!)
The scripture is unclear. There was livestock in the temple, and the easiest way to get them out is with a whip.
It doesn't say that he whipped the moneychangers.
What kind of setup did you have on your truck? I've been thinking about doing this for awhile, and you could help me jump-start my research :)
We the users, how dare we!, to demand formats that work in our favour and not in favour of our software providers.
That's a little extreme.
Remember, Microsoft is a publicly traded company. Money is basically everything to them. Right or wrong, is how almost every corporation in the US works.
Given that, and that Microsoft owns virtually 100% of the PC word processing market, they have NO financial incentive to include interoperability with competing formats or standards. Word works with Word. Microsoft would gain no money by using the other format, and they actually stand to lose some.
Furthermore, I don't understand how the other document format works in Microsoft Word users' favour. It can't be for sharing documents with other users--Word can save in older document formats for this purpose. The only people I see it really benefiting are Open Office users, and these are not Microsoft customers. A non-Microsoft customer has no right to demand that Microsoft change some feature in their software. They can ask, and they can file anticompetition lawsuits, but don't act like Microsoft users stand to benefit from Word using this alternate format.
But at least you cleared things up. Most companies want to luck us in instead of providing a service worth its name.
Of course they do. Did you really not understand that concept before my post?
Who cares is MS document format is patented or not? The patent system is so utterly broken that they can patent a nuisance in how a document is handled and that would give them free reign to threaten competitors and users as they see fit.
Like I said, if it's patented, then we have bigger problems. Like the fact that it was patented and not laughed out of the USPTO.
What many people around here do not seem to get is that software patents are not used in good faith, and that they can't be, because software is speech, and climing innovation on a process of thought is the mos silly thing since, well, since we started thinking.
I don't know which "News For Nerds" site you've been reading, but most people who post on Slashdot seem to abhor the idea of software patents.
Depends. How many people accidentally hit the accelerator instead of the brake last year?
How many people clicked on unsafe attachments and got pwned last year?
How many people didn't die in car crashes last year because they were saved by air bags?
We're not talking about deaths, though. We're talking about liability. If you slam on the accelerator instead of the brake, and you hit something, you are liable for it.
If you click on an attachment, get a virus, become a zombie, and start sending spam, you should be liable. In this case, not 100% liable (because some portion of the responsibility must be assigned to the virus writer) but they do share in the liability.
Right. But in my hypothetical story, who was that?
The user. If we want to classify the Internet and networks as tools, then the tool's maintainers should not be liable for what the users do unless, again, the maintainer screwed up. In your example, I don't believe that the administrator made an error.
Other industries have learned that "blame the user" is, under some circumstances, a misguided strategy. Humans are imperfect, and if there's a class of mistakes they're guaranteed to make with regularity, systems must be designed (or redesigned) to protect against those mistakes, or minimize their impact.
In the case of a poorly designed system, sure. Most e-mail programs I've looked at lately ask you to confirm opening unsafe (or sometimes all) attachments. This should eliminate the fallout from most of the accidental clicks. At this point in time, most software does a reasonable job of protecting you from accidents--infections from this vector are now, 99% of the time, directly the fault of the user. Training and a real threat of damage to the user (in the form of fines or loss of license) would probably do a decent job of deterring bad behavior.
You don't blame the automobile manufacturer for your accidents, unless there was a defect in the product which caused it. If the attachment you're worried about contains an exploit, you blame Microsoft. If it's a trojan, you are to blame. You clicked it. It happens, but it's your fault, just like accidentally hitting the accelerator instead of the brake is your fault.
The sysadmin certainly is a twist on the whole thing, and it doesn't fit well into the analogy. Should the sysadmin be liable for your mistakes, though? I don't particularly think so. We are responsible for our own actions, and so the blame lies with the person who follows unsafe computing practices.
This is a problem less solvable than my own. In the whole of human history, we haven't been able to stop humans from doing bad things. What makes you think we can stop them this time?
The real problem (that e-mail is an inherently insecure system that requires completel replacement rather than patches to try to maintain the existing infrastructure) will never be solved.
Actually, the biggest reason that it would not work is that most spam comes from zombies. Spammers wouldn't have to pay, innocent people would. Then, when the next big security hole from Microsoft hits, and a worm comes along to take advantage of it, we get a whole new round of bots.
People would get hit with fines, contest them (because they didn't actually send the e-mails), and get them waived.
The only real solution is licensing Internet usage.
Some locales are finding this to be true.
There have been some test cases done where removing traffic lights reduced accidents in the area because, overall, people were more cautious. The question is whether this caution would hold up over time.
Same with seat belts. People drove more carefully when they were more scared for their lives.
Ultimately, though, the ubiquity of the computer is what has lead to the current virus/spam/zombie infestation. While a person should certainly learn how to use and maintain their computers, the fact that they're cheap enough for even lower-class families to own (in the US, at least, where lots of spam originates) means that they're everywhere! The fact that Microsoft's OS has a history of gaping security holes (that go beyond trojans/proper maintenance) is another piece of the problem. Factor in user stupidity (since there are still people who run those red lights, even though it's dangerous, against the law, and could lead to serious consequences) and we've got an equation for a serious problem.
I maintain that you should have to have a license to use the Internet, and that you should have that license revoked for unsafe use.
[Pedantic] Not everybody [/Pedantic]
But seriously, Network Neutrality is a slightly different beast from blocking ports. Net neutrality has to do with the underlying structure of the Internet, whereas blocking ports is on the fringes.
That said, I'm for Net Neutrality. I'm also for blocking port 25 BY DEFAULT, and having a webpage somewhere where the user can request to have it unblocked. Few enough users would want 25 anyway, that they'll never notice the loss. Those who do want 25 are probably competent enough not to have a spam zombie.
But we can easily deal with text-only spam. The problem is that filters don't know how to read the image to detect whether or not it is spam.
The chipsets appear to be backwards compatible with 802.11g. Apple's been shipping draft-n equipment for awhile now, though only marketing it as 802.11g. Seems to work fine on my network.
But he was talking about artifacts in low resolution PC games, not complaining about the resolution in general.
Until now, console games were designed for SD, so textures and images wouldn't have those artifacts unless you had a bad artist.
Why is it that whenever some talks "interoperability" it is always the Open Standards following people that have to bow to proprietary ones? ODF is an open standard that Microsoft can (and should) implement easily and freely but they choose to close it up. Novell is OK with that according to their agreement. Why should proponents of open standards be forced, yes I said forced, to bow to a company that only wants to lock people into one product be it Novell's or Microsoft's?
Because the "Open Standards following people" are the ones who want interoperability. The people with the proprietary solution want people to use their own solution.
No, the "opportunity" Novell missed here was to take a stand AGAINST software patents. Instead, they chose to perpetuate the fraud known as "method patents" and worse, made a deal with a company known for back stabbing their "partners".
There are basically two choices: be capable of opening Microsoft Office documents, or give up. The business world works on Microsoft, and until that changes, Open Office can either work with Microsoft's formats or effectively lose the game.
I'm not saying Novell's developers would purposely inject bad code, but unless you are willing to get your employer to implement a verifiable "clean-room" implementation for code you are submitting, I for one would err on the side of caution. The cost of defending against patent infringement are too high not to.
Clean room RE would be better, no doubt. But is Microsoft's document format actually patented? If so, we have more problems than just worrying about interoperability, in my opinion.
The load and access times may differ, and as the grandparent said, smaller livecds can fit completely into RAM so that you can actually pop in another disc. The larger the CD, the less likely that is to be the case--you can't count on everyone you help having 1G of RAM.
"negative reinforcement" is often used by laymen to sound smarter when they mean "punishment." In fact, in Psychology, "negative reinforcement" is something of an oxymoron.
In vector physics, "acceleration" has a very different meaning from the general use of the word.
Specialized mathematicians have different meanings for various words like "product" (because you can be talking about several different types of arguments, such as scalar, vector, matrix, etc).
Generally, when you're talking to a specialist, they will understand the terms as they apply to their field, but they probably also understand the lay definition. When you're talking to some random person on the street, they probably only understand the lay definition. What's of most interest (to me, anyway) is how these changes get started.
Will you read a few comments before posting next time so you don't look so gullible? :)
A bigger list is more secure. The fewer people you allow to talk to your machine, the less likely one of them will do something bad to it.
But this can stifle innovation even more! With contracts preventing the images from being displayed to any public which could copy them, we wouldn't have Google Maps at all.