Guess you missed part of the news a ways back. "It's a Wonderful Life" is effectively back under copyright by a corporation (not the original authors, composers, etc.) because they realized that copyright on the music or at least the sound track hadn't lapsed, and they renewed it.
My understanding was that in theory you could have copied the film, done derivative works, etc. ad nauseum -- but to sell your copy you'd have to totally replace the musical track -- which is not so easy because you have to totally cut the voices, etc. out of the musical background.
So in essence, the copyright extension pulls this back into private hands for what, another 40 years or so?
Good points. However, with tools such as BrowserHawk that can detect not only the agent but many of the agent settings, many of your objections are lesser obstacles than they might seem at first glance, do they not? I have not and don't intend to start coding to one specific browser or version if I avoid it within the scope of the contracts I am working on, but I find it fairly easy to code templates and small scriptlets that build the master pages based on levels of W3C compliance in the various browsers, etc.
Of course, it all depends on your target audience: the world that is happy using software within the dictates and confines of the M$ & AOL majorities, or an audience that includes the rest of the world as well.
If we could only get corporate America to see that there is more to Linux culture than the dangers and or merits of the GPL [start obligatory flame war here...] in reference to their legacy code.
OS zealotry aside, we're not just a "give it to us free, give us the source, build it and we will come" community.
Without reference to the benefits of the open source licenses which I heartily believe in, I for one would gladly put a rather large number of programming hours into a closed source project free of charge, even if I had to sign an NDA non-compete and everything, just to see the tools I would like to use on a non-MS box.
Say for example, a Linux version of a home-design product. Or the Lotus SmartSuite. Or a MIDI sequencer/music stenography program suite that integrates well. Or a voice control module, just to name a few.
My point, challenge, and question is, what do we have to do to get the 'zuits to listen when we say "let us help you succeed in a market unfettered by Microsoft?"
Let me start by qualifying my post with the acknowledgement that my web programming skills are not cutting edge any more (too little time, too many other things to do). And admit that I don't have any current sites available right now outside my personal firewalls to demonstrate the coding techniques I am about to describe.
That said, I can tell you from several years experience in high end web development that it just isn't that difficult to write a web server piece in any number of back end languages (CGI, Perl, PHP, Python, JSP, Server Side Java Script, ASP, to name the main ones...) that first checks the incoming http request and then responds with content tuned to match the rendering abilities of 90-95% of the user agent variations out there. It's even easier and bandwidth saving than using "graceful degradation techniques", because it relies on template programming to "pick" the right page to be returned. For example, if the "user agent sniffer" detects a Browser supports CSS? the back end program should use page X built from the CSS template... Alternatively, if the user agent only supports , use the font only template... Etc. Etc. Etc. and this can be taken to ridiculous extremes.
However, most variations of this technique which I have seen essentially require the page author to make numerous versions of the same page, which is also a waste of time and data space. Fortunately, there is a middle road, which is to design a site so that the content is author driven, but the formatting is programmatically driven. [If this sounds like I am describing something alot like the/. code then you're catching on...]
So I have no mercy in my analysis for large companies who don't do this on their content driven sites, nor patience for authors who seem to think that the latest greatest US-centric browsers are what we should all be writing to.
Done to death but still can be funny to a support person.
My personal best (where I was the tech support person on the call) is the stock broker on a legacy system that I told to "shift page down" to highlight some info on the screen: Here's the gist of the call:
He replied "I don't have a page button down on my mouse."
"Sir, are you using the mouse right handed or Left Handed" "Right" "Take your hand off the mouse, move it over the keyboard. Past the numbers. Look Down." "Oh. Page Down. Never saw that there before...what does that key do?"
Good thing he isn't something important, like, say, an airline pilot or doctor, ya'think?
Lessee. I go to the Linux or BSD Distro of choice (insert your favorite here) site on the wb, or a bookstore which has books on Linux, or a ShareWare CD-ROM site, etc. And I get one CD from which I can create as many servers/workstations/etc. as I like. Then I get my patches and OS updates from the web, usually without any real expense. In other words, not much revenue got produced by the sale of the OS, but I may have support contracts worth much much more to vendors supporting Linux, Linux apps & services etc.
Compare that to Microsoft which gets revenue for every Intel box built by most of the major PC OEMS, plus every seat in a site licensed business, etc. etc. ad nauseum. In other words, Operating System Sales revenues are irrelevant as a measure of Linux success in the real world. The real question is: what percentages of new installs in the various business sectors (consumer, small business, enterprise) and segments (server, workstation, PDA, embedded) are more important and interesting statistics, are they not?
I for one would rather plan pinball than nearly any video game in the past few years, because the shoot-em-ups and mortal combats are mostly just variations on a common theme involving spending the cash to figure out the "fast twitch muscle" timing to shoot, kick, etc. While to some degree the same is true for pinball, I find it more fun to have to control a real world object (the ball, of course), and account for game variations based on belt tightness, bumper conditions (how long since the last repair, etc.).
That said, I hardly ever play pinball any more, even though there are a number of machines within easy travel distances. Why? Most arcades I see ratchet up the "score required for replay" so high as to be nearly unattainable, set the tilt detection so that it darn near responds to vibrations of passing trucks and jets, and set the down angle of the machines toward the drains at unreasonable angles, presumably with the goal of making more money by forcing the player to pay more often.
Instead they make nothing, because I won't play a game that is rigged too heavily against me. (Same reason I don't do casino gambling, BTW)
So what about the few arcades which set the machines more fairly? Instead of being near empty, I notice that folks gather to the pinball, and while waiting for a chance to play, patrons play the other games. I would venture a guess the increased business in the other machines would probably more than pay for any more frequent repairs if that statistic is true.
The best arcade I knew of limited how long one player could stay on the pinball instead of rigging the game, and were ALWAYS busy.
As already noted, the speed of sound decreases as altitude decreases but becomes steady at around 36000 ft. Which is why the top listed speed for the SR-71 Blackbird is around Mach 3.2, (2112 mph) even though where at sea level this would only be around Mach 2.78.
So the maximum speed (1.68*561 knots (mach above 36000 ft) * 1.151 (miles per hour per know), they are saying he would reach is around 1100 mph.
I suppose someone with more interest could do the math and figure out the acceleration, etc. and determine how long it would take to reach this top speed and how long he would maintain it before the thicker warmer air below 36,000 ft would slow him back down.
Heck, I'd give him a gold star if even if it wasn't near the equator -- but only if he'd plotted a course that in avoiding China, Libya, etc. still covered the full circumnavigation distance of about 25K miles (40,000 KM)
That's sort of what made Voyager's flight so neat -- they not only did the non-stop around the world flight, they also covered the equatorial distance in the process.
Analagously: imagine you are in an open road car race and your car is 20% faster than the opponent. You should always win, right?
With your car being so fast, however, you have to make decisions about which turns to take quite a bit before actually making the turn. Which in turn means that you have to predict which turn to take ahead of time. When you are correct, you will maintain the 20% speed advantage. However, when your prediction is not correct and your slower opponents is , he/she/it gets to proceed down the road, where you have to dump your current roadmap, reload at the point where the prediction missed, then start racing in the right direction again.Let's say the open road race is from LA to Detroit, your car at 240 mph, the opponent's at 200 mph. But you have to take 400 exits because you missed a turn, and the opponent only has to exit 200 times. Obviously if the cumulative effect of your "wrong" predictions is too high, then the slower car will win.
In the case of the AI chess programs, they are obviously going to have a high number of "if" type machine code branches, because the program is doing alot of comparisons to find the "best" move. So like the car analogy: during the "move calculation" phase, if processor "A" pre-loads the wrong set of machine codes to execute based on it's internal branch prediction logic, then the execution of the code to find the right move will take longer than the same program for the "slower but more accurate predictor" processor B.
In theory then, for two equally matched chess programs (or the same chess program on two different processor based machines), the more accurate prediction would result in that computer being able to look further out in the move tree and possibly come up with a better move than it's opponent-- which may calculate moves faster but has to deal with a much higher machine code instruction count (because of the wrong prediction in the machine code) in order to come up with the best answer. Get it?
If I am understanding your response correctly, you missed partof my point about branch prediction. All of the newer x86 processors pre-queue a number of machine language instructions into the processor core. The more often the branch prediction is correct, the less often this instruction pipeline has to be flushed and reloaded. The effect of this is that while processor "A" which made a correct prediction is going on and executing the code in the pipeline, processor "B" which made an incorrect prediction must reload new machine code for the correct branch, then execute it.
Let's say for the sake of argument that processor "A" is 20% slower than "B", but makes a better prediction 30% of the time. Depending on how many times the branch prediction logic is called into play in these chess programs, processor A may in fact have an advantage over processor B. Which is what this interesting chess contest may tend to reveal.
Because they are switching the programs between the machines, etc., it comes down to a CPU vs. CPU, higher GHz vs. better processor logic.
The point which hasn't been emphasized much is that the AMD processor is purported to have better branch prediction logic, which if true, would mean that even though the processor may not be running as fast, it predicts which code is going to execute more accurately, thus spending less time on the wrong decision path.
By switching systems and resetting the learning engines in between test runs, in theory you eliminate the advantage of one chess program over the other. If Shredder wins more often, for example, than Fritz 7, then it can be assumed to be the better program, or visa versa. But if the specific results show which processor wins more often with which program, and it always favors one CPU, then you could conclude that either higher speed is more important or better branch prediction is more important.
Re:Linux/Windows Texas Cage Match
on
Draw!
·
· Score: 1
Which would guarantee a loss for Winblows. Last I checked Mr. Gates was a master of many things (namely a whole lot of money and the things it can buy), but Chess isn't one of them.
This seems pretty obvious to me, and it depends on whether one of three conditions exists: a) the IP is protected by patent, b) any of the code is protected by copyright and exists in a form available to your employee/co-workerfrom the prior assignment , c) the code is covered by a signed trade secret or non-disclosure non-compete agreement which says in fairly specific terms that he can't develop something similar for another company.
The basic rule is sort of a balance between preventing a previous employer can't keep an employee from making a living and preventing an employee from taking intellectual property which he has legally agreed not to disclose outside the bounds of the agreement, i.e. "stealing the technology" from the owner of the IP.
As a programmer for hire/consultant on WinXX boxes, I have often implemented the same exact solutions for a subsequent customer, but not once have I used code from a previous project, because my particular agreements state that any code I wrote belonged to the company paying for my services.
On the other hand, all of my Linux code is inherently reuseable (none of it currently in the wild, by the way -- too limited in scope for wide use) because of the GPL, which implies that I can use the exact code in a later assignment, and anybody who uses my code can do the same thing -- so long as it remains GPL.
The final rule I use to protect myself is, "when in doubt, ask." Ask the former employer, or the current company's legal counsel, etc. The ass-u-me principle, ya'know.
Everybody who has seen the documentary movie "The Abyss" knows why Scotland has so many sightings. *cough*
However, the all powerful cabal of movie studio profit minders made the editor snip the scene showing the Scotland re-entry nexus under pressure from vast right wing conspiracy.
Otherwise people would realize that the reason they can't find Nessie is that she's out cruizing the solar system part of the time. And that the re-entry tail is only visible when viewed through the rose colored haze local to the Scotch (sic) er... I mean Scots.;-)
Otherwise all of these Walmart/Mandrake PC's can be classified as illegal devices designed to circumvent digital copyright mechanisms, which IIRC is a felony crime in the US now, right?
Of course, most tech-savvy users will simply go out on the non-US net to get and compile a deCSS's codec onto their machines. Unless I missed something along the way in terms of a licensed DVD codec for Linux.
Tell me about it. I have a titanium & gold wedding ring, which I nowwear on a pendant around my neck now.
It took an injury to my left hand with a circular saw -- and a nurse who pulled the ring off while I was unconscious -- so that they could put about 10 stitches in that finger (not counting the 70 or so inside and out on my index and middle fingers) to convince me that Ti Wedding rings are *NOT* a good idea.
Then build and learn the rest. You can't divorce yourself from a particular computer if you are using a Microsoft Windows operating system later than 3.11, which in essence means no Windows OS at all is worth keeping. Reason? you can't depend on being machine independent because Microsoft seems to think that they can do whatever they want in the background of the apps without informing you of the details.
Start by getting a new one or converting your current machine to a *nix, i.e., one of the BSDs or Linux.
Second, the latest build of Mozilla for your platform, including updated JRE and JVMs.
Not 100% necessary, but you probably want a web domain / server separate from your workstation, with the appropriate security settings to make sure that what's yours stays yours, i.e., you don't get hacked. (separates the data from the programs which use it).
Once you have clean setups for all of the above, the last remaining tasks are basically developing user smarts that you will use for the life of your system: only install programs, etc. that you trust and that have a good reputation for interoperability. Maintain a good backup strategy. Keep up with security patches. All of which you should be doing anyway.
The difference is, on the *nix side, you will end up knowing how things can get mucked and prevent it or at least know how to recover.
Missing form the dialog so far but something I remember clearly is the unwilling testimony given in the DOJ trial where a Microsoft executive in charge of writing the licensing agreements for Microsoft admitted that the contracts were designed so that installing more than one OS on a machine constituted a breach, so M$ could then in one instant stop the big OEMs from installing dual boots.
IIRC part of this was ruled illegal, M$ changed the OEM license agreements so that they had to pay for a license for every machine produced by the OEM, whether or not an M$ operating system was even installed, and possibly (don't remember clearly) raising the OEM per-license cost when other OS's were offered. Meaning that the OEM paid for windows per machine in the overall contract even if another OS such as Linux, BSD, etc. is the only install.
So installing the alternate OS incurs an additional cost to the OEM which they are in practical terms not able to pass on in the purchase price of the machine because of M$'s tactics. Otherwise Dell, etc. could potentially use one Linux distro, or BSD disk, BEOS, etc. and not pay M$ a dime. This would make these systems quite a bit cheaper than the M$ equipped versions, and in one move have a chance to break the M$ monopoly for commodity systms, yes?
So I agree with the previous poster. Microsoft should be punished, and harshly.
No one owns Linux. The closest you can come is that Linus (Torvalds, of course), owns the copyright ergo he has come control over what you can call Linux.
Now then, would it make sense for Oracle to buy Red Hat, and thereby acquire their own in-house distro, and possibly even the expertise of Alan Cox, et. al who are currently on the RH payroll? Perhaps... if those intellectual assets would stay with RH.
What an Oracle acquisition of a major Linux distro company would get would be an in-house way of telling a particular OS company to take the no-good at security OS and shove it up their collective company *cough* (the smelly and putrid north end of a south bound donkey...)...
I'd have to double check that. But we ran a code stripper (which removes all code which is uncallable) to pull out the bloat... and the app dropped to 763K. Still leaked like a sieve, but this was admittedly a wizard app. My point is that the problems with memory leaks, etc. were in the MFC, not in the linked in code.
I am not sure if this can be done at an OS level or if this is something that is much more easily done as much as at an application level. We wrote some telco (telecommunications) software that essentially went through progressing failure scenarios and restarts and essentially came up with "software phases" that could be restarted following nearly every type of failure. Similarly, Oracle, etc. have recovery modes where a person installs the last backup and then re-applies all of the delta log files, resulting in an up to the point of failure restore (though it can take a few hours -- but my experience on this is with a 100 Gig plus database).
So it seems to me that if this were going to be done at an OS level, the OS would need some kind of integration with a data base and apps needing to "freeze: would need a standard method of saving the last completed intermediate phase and deltas into the OS database for later re-activation.
I don't personally know of any software/OS combination that does this well, but am admittedly not an OS know-it-all, and look forward to responses from the rest of the/. community.
Having done an amount of C++ coding back in the early years of Win9x, I have extreme doubts that M$ has the commitment or the ability to do anything more than "patch the leaky tires". Here's why: IMO the code structure upon which most MS apps are built (MFC classes) has some deep down design flaws which can't be rectified without introducing serious compatibility issues with any other MFC apps already out there.
As an example, we wrote a test app with a different foundation class library that was bug- and memory-leak free in all of the major WinXX OS's up through 98 and NT 4), and even compilable and bug free back into Win 3.XX. The whole app was a total of 123K: the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) [version 3.2, IIRC] test app as created by the wizard came in at just over 1 Meg, riddled with memory leaks, logical errors, etc. Our determination was that it wasn't just a bad wizard -- the MFC itself was causing many of the leaks and problems.
Now then, if you look at the Win API set now (Y2002), it is just that much more massive than when I last actively coded to it -- but the underlying code classes look much the same. [I haven't done a diff, so I can't prove it.]
So accurate or inaccurate, I don't think Microsoft has the corporate will to change from a company built on FUD (fear uncertainty doubt) to a company whose software is something I can trust because it doesn't even look to me like they have fixed all of their original problems in the foundational code classes from the early days of Windows 95.
Slashdot Mirror
Guess you missed part of the news a ways back. "It's a Wonderful Life" is effectively back under copyright by a corporation (not the original authors, composers, etc.) because they realized that copyright on the music or at least the sound track hadn't lapsed, and they renewed it.
My understanding was that in theory you could have copied the film, done derivative works, etc. ad nauseum -- but to sell your copy you'd have to totally replace the musical track -- which is not so easy because you have to totally cut the voices, etc. out of the musical background.
So in essence, the copyright extension pulls this back into private hands for what, another 40 years or so?
Of course, it all depends on your target audience: the world that is happy using software within the dictates and confines of the M$ & AOL majorities, or an audience that includes the rest of the world as well.
If we could only get corporate America to see that there is more to Linux culture than the dangers and or merits of the GPL [start obligatory flame war here...] in reference to their legacy code.
OS zealotry aside, we're not just a "give it to us free, give us the source, build it and we will come" community.
Without reference to the benefits of the open source licenses which I heartily believe in, I for one would gladly put a rather large number of programming hours into a closed source project free of charge, even if I had to sign an NDA non-compete and everything, just to see the tools I would like to use on a non-MS box.
Say for example, a Linux version of a home-design product. Or the Lotus SmartSuite. Or a MIDI sequencer/music stenography program suite that integrates well. Or a voice control module, just to name a few.
My point, challenge, and question is, what do we have to do to get the 'zuits to listen when we say "let us help you succeed in a market unfettered by Microsoft?"
That said, I can tell you from several years experience in high end web development that it just isn't that difficult to write a web server piece in any number of back end languages (CGI, Perl, PHP, Python, JSP, Server Side Java Script, ASP, to name the main ones...) that first checks the incoming http request and then responds with content tuned to match the rendering abilities of 90-95% of the user agent variations out there. It's even easier and bandwidth saving than using "graceful degradation techniques", because it relies on template programming to "pick" the right page to be returned. For example, if the "user agent sniffer" detects a Browser supports CSS? the back end program should use page X built from the CSS template... Alternatively, if the user agent only supports , use the font only template... Etc. Etc. Etc. and this can be taken to ridiculous extremes.
However, most variations of this technique which I have seen essentially require the page author to make numerous versions of the same page, which is also a waste of time and data space. Fortunately, there is a middle road, which is to design a site so that the content is author driven, but the formatting is programmatically driven. [If this sounds like I am describing something alot like the /. code then you're catching on...]
So I have no mercy in my analysis for large companies who don't do this on their content driven sites, nor patience for authors who seem to think that the latest greatest US-centric browsers are what we should all be writing to.
My personal best (where I was the tech support person on the call) is the stock broker on a legacy system that I told to "shift page down" to highlight some info on the screen: Here's the gist of the call:
He replied "I don't have a page button down on my mouse."
"Sir, are you using the mouse right handed or Left Handed"
"Right"
"Take your hand off the mouse, move it over the keyboard. Past the numbers. Look Down."
"Oh. Page Down. Never saw that there before...what does that key do?"
Good thing he isn't something important, like, say, an airline pilot or doctor, ya'think?
Compare that to Microsoft which gets revenue for every Intel box built by most of the major PC OEMS, plus every seat in a site licensed business, etc. etc. ad nauseum. In other words, Operating System Sales revenues are irrelevant as a measure of Linux success in the real world. The real question is: what percentages of new installs in the various business sectors (consumer, small business, enterprise) and segments (server, workstation, PDA, embedded) are more important and interesting statistics, are they not?
Isn't that the point of the "free OS" anyway?
That said, I hardly ever play pinball any more, even though there are a number of machines within easy travel distances. Why? Most arcades I see ratchet up the "score required for replay" so high as to be nearly unattainable, set the tilt detection so that it darn near responds to vibrations of passing trucks and jets, and set the down angle of the machines toward the drains at unreasonable angles, presumably with the goal of making more money by forcing the player to pay more often.
Instead they make nothing, because I won't play a game that is rigged too heavily against me. (Same reason I don't do casino gambling, BTW)
So what about the few arcades which set the machines more fairly? Instead of being near empty, I notice that folks gather to the pinball, and while waiting for a chance to play, patrons play the other games. I would venture a guess the increased business in the other machines would probably more than pay for any more frequent repairs if that statistic is true.
The best arcade I knew of limited how long one player could stay on the pinball instead of rigging the game, and were ALWAYS busy.
So the maximum speed (1.68*561 knots (mach above 36000 ft) * 1.151 (miles per hour per know), they are saying he would reach is around 1100 mph.
I suppose someone with more interest could do the math and figure out the acceleration, etc. and determine how long it would take to reach this top speed and how long he would maintain it before the thicker warmer air below 36,000 ft would slow him back down.
That's sort of what made Voyager's flight so neat -- they not only did the non-stop around the world flight, they also covered the equatorial distance in the process.
With your car being so fast, however, you have to make decisions about which turns to take quite a bit before actually making the turn. Which in turn means that you have to predict which turn to take ahead of time. When you are correct, you will maintain the 20% speed advantage. However, when your prediction is not correct and your slower opponents is , he/she/it gets to proceed down the road, where you have to dump your current roadmap, reload at the point where the prediction missed, then start racing in the right direction again.Let's say the open road race is from LA to Detroit, your car at 240 mph, the opponent's at 200 mph. But you have to take 400 exits because you missed a turn, and the opponent only has to exit 200 times. Obviously if the cumulative effect of your "wrong" predictions is too high, then the slower car will win.
In the case of the AI chess programs, they are obviously going to have a high number of "if" type machine code branches, because the program is doing alot of comparisons to find the "best" move. So like the car analogy: during the "move calculation" phase, if processor "A" pre-loads the wrong set of machine codes to execute based on it's internal branch prediction logic, then the execution of the code to find the right move will take longer than the same program for the "slower but more accurate predictor" processor B.
In theory then, for two equally matched chess programs (or the same chess program on two different processor based machines), the more accurate prediction would result in that computer being able to look further out in the move tree and possibly come up with a better move than it's opponent-- which may calculate moves faster but has to deal with a much higher machine code instruction count (because of the wrong prediction in the machine code) in order to come up with the best answer. Get it?
Let's say for the sake of argument that processor "A" is 20% slower than "B", but makes a better prediction 30% of the time. Depending on how many times the branch prediction logic is called into play in these chess programs, processor A may in fact have an advantage over processor B. Which is what this interesting chess contest may tend to reveal.
The point which hasn't been emphasized much is that the AMD processor is purported to have better branch prediction logic, which if true, would mean that even though the processor may not be running as fast, it predicts which code is going to execute more accurately, thus spending less time on the wrong decision path.
By switching systems and resetting the learning engines in between test runs, in theory you eliminate the advantage of one chess program over the other. If Shredder wins more often, for example, than Fritz 7, then it can be assumed to be the better program, or visa versa. But if the specific results show which processor wins more often with which program, and it always favors one CPU, then you could conclude that either higher speed is more important or better branch prediction is more important.
Which would guarantee a loss for Winblows. Last I checked Mr. Gates was a master of many things (namely a whole lot of money and the things it can buy), but Chess isn't one of them.
The basic rule is sort of a balance between preventing a previous employer can't keep an employee from making a living and preventing an employee from taking intellectual property which he has legally agreed not to disclose outside the bounds of the agreement, i.e. "stealing the technology" from the owner of the IP.
As a programmer for hire/consultant on WinXX boxes, I have often implemented the same exact solutions for a subsequent customer, but not once have I used code from a previous project, because my particular agreements state that any code I wrote belonged to the company paying for my services.
On the other hand, all of my Linux code is inherently reuseable (none of it currently in the wild, by the way -- too limited in scope for wide use) because of the GPL, which implies that I can use the exact code in a later assignment, and anybody who uses my code can do the same thing -- so long as it remains GPL.
The final rule I use to protect myself is, "when in doubt, ask." Ask the former employer, or the current company's legal counsel, etc. The ass-u-me principle, ya'know.
However, the all powerful cabal of movie studio profit minders made the editor snip the scene showing the Scotland re-entry nexus under pressure from vast right wing conspiracy.
Otherwise people would realize that the reason they can't find Nessie is that she's out cruizing the solar system part of the time. And that the re-entry tail is only visible when viewed through the rose colored haze local to the Scotch (sic) er... I mean Scots. ;-)
Otherwise all of these Walmart/Mandrake PC's can be classified as illegal devices designed to circumvent digital copyright mechanisms, which IIRC is a felony crime in the US now, right?
Of course, most tech-savvy users will simply go out on the non-US net to get and compile a deCSS's codec onto their machines. Unless I missed something along the way in terms of a licensed DVD codec for Linux.
Yes, I RTFM. Got complacent, and was lucky the blade didn't hit the ring. Otherwise I might have been looking for a finger out in the llawn somewhere.
Brain was saying "push the saw to the side after the buck" Spinal cord was saying "protect the head, protect the head!!"
Guess which one was quicker and you get how the injury occured.
It took an injury to my left hand with a circular saw -- and a nurse who pulled the ring off while I was unconscious -- so that they could put about 10 stitches in that finger (not counting the 70 or so inside and out on my index and middle fingers) to convince me that Ti Wedding rings are *NOT* a good idea.
Start by getting a new one or converting your current machine to a *nix, i.e., one of the BSDs or Linux.
Second, the latest build of Mozilla for your platform, including updated JRE and JVMs.
Not 100% necessary, but you probably want a web domain / server separate from your workstation, with the appropriate security settings to make sure that what's yours stays yours, i.e., you don't get hacked. (separates the data from the programs which use it).
Once you have clean setups for all of the above, the last remaining tasks are basically developing user smarts that you will use for the life of your system: only install programs, etc. that you trust and that have a good reputation for interoperability. Maintain a good backup strategy. Keep up with security patches. All of which you should be doing anyway.
The difference is, on the *nix side, you will end up knowing how things can get mucked and prevent it or at least know how to recover.
IIRC part of this was ruled illegal, M$ changed the OEM license agreements so that they had to pay for a license for every machine produced by the OEM, whether or not an M$ operating system was even installed, and possibly (don't remember clearly) raising the OEM per-license cost when other OS's were offered. Meaning that the OEM paid for windows per machine in the overall contract even if another OS such as Linux, BSD, etc. is the only install.
So installing the alternate OS incurs an additional cost to the OEM which they are in practical terms not able to pass on in the purchase price of the machine because of M$'s tactics. Otherwise Dell, etc. could potentially use one Linux distro, or BSD disk, BEOS, etc. and not pay M$ a dime. This would make these systems quite a bit cheaper than the M$ equipped versions, and in one move have a chance to break the M$ monopoly for commodity systms, yes?
So I agree with the previous poster. Microsoft should be punished, and harshly.
No one owns Linux. The closest you can come is that Linus (Torvalds, of course), owns the copyright ergo he has come control over what you can call Linux.
Now then, would it make sense for Oracle to buy Red Hat, and thereby acquire their own in-house distro, and possibly even the expertise of Alan Cox, et. al who are currently on the RH payroll? Perhaps... if those intellectual assets would stay with RH.
What an Oracle acquisition of a major Linux distro company would get would be an in-house way of telling a particular OS company to take the no-good at security OS and shove it up their collective company *cough* (the smelly and putrid north end of a south bound donkey...)...
I'd have to double check that. But we ran a code stripper (which removes all code which is uncallable) to pull out the bloat ... and the app dropped to 763K. Still leaked like a sieve, but this was admittedly a wizard app. My point is that the problems with memory leaks, etc. were in the MFC, not in the linked in code.
So it seems to me that if this were going to be done at an OS level, the OS would need some kind of integration with a data base and apps needing to "freeze: would need a standard method of saving the last completed intermediate phase and deltas into the OS database for later re-activation.
I don't personally know of any software/OS combination that does this well, but am admittedly not an OS know-it-all, and look forward to responses from the rest of the /. community.
As an example, we wrote a test app with a different foundation class library that was bug- and memory-leak free in all of the major WinXX OS's up through 98 and NT 4), and even compilable and bug free back into Win 3.XX. The whole app was a total of 123K: the Microsoft Foundation Class (MFC) [version 3.2, IIRC] test app as created by the wizard came in at just over 1 Meg, riddled with memory leaks, logical errors, etc. Our determination was that it wasn't just a bad wizard -- the MFC itself was causing many of the leaks and problems.
Now then, if you look at the Win API set now (Y2002), it is just that much more massive than when I last actively coded to it -- but the underlying code classes look much the same. [I haven't done a diff, so I can't prove it.]
So accurate or inaccurate, I don't think Microsoft has the corporate will to change from a company built on FUD (fear uncertainty doubt) to a company whose software is something I can trust because it doesn't even look to me like they have fixed all of their original problems in the foundational code classes from the early days of Windows 95.