Oh, I'd say that they conduct somewhere around "more than a million amperes of current in a one square centimeter area without any deterioration". Direct quote from the article...
Scariest statement of the article...
on
Legacy-Free PCs
·
· Score: 1
contrast, EFI is written in C, the world's most popular high-end programming language, and EFI isn't space-constrained because its data resides in a special reserved area of the hard drive. This means that far more engineers will be able to do more creative things with PC hardware than is now possible.
[sarcasm]Oh yeah, because magnetic storage is SO much more reliable than solid state EEPROMs and the thought of engineers getting "creative" with my system sounds SO safe.[/sarcasm]
Seriously folks, what happens the first time you want to put Linux on your box and you screw up repartitioning your drive. No more booting. Ever. The mechanism that controls basic bootup and hardware functions must be segregated from userland to the maximum extent possible. Even then it has to have some sort of hardware reset in case you screw up too bad. This EFI thing sounds like it's going to really screw up some people's machines.
I don't want people getting creative with some things on my PC, I just want them to work. If engineers want to be creative, they should go work for NASA... not mess with my BIOS!
Several years ago, a MS representative came to address the ACM chapter at my university. At the end of his presentation he raffled off a few copies of MS Visual Studio -- full, retail versions, no academic or "non-commercial" license. Afterwards, a few kids looked kinda disappointed they didn't win anything. The rep then pulled aside the kids who won and said "Please make sure that these CDs reproduce. No one at Microsoft is going to care." -- direct quote.
He then went on to explain that the whole point of the workshop was to "hook" college kids on MS software so when we go off to work or start our own businesses, we're Microsoft fanboys. I'm really glad someone is finally holding Microsoft to their own standards.
Anyone still have a _working_ mirror of the original Blue Flash coaster pics? All the mirrors listed are broken.
The pics of the Blue Flash are way more professional looking than this coaster. I'm working on convincing my S.O. to let me build one of these puppies with metal made from melted hard drive platters in my home made forge so I'm gonna need something better than 2x4's and PVC.
Subject, of course, to your notification to the changes on their privacy page which may or not be updated regularly.
This is exactly my problem with their TOS... they do not notify you of the changes. They simply state that they can change the TOS at their will and without notification. This makes the user blind to changes and can be easily used by MailBlocks to exploit their users.
* Change the terms and conditions of this Agreement;
* Change the Services, including eliminating or discontinuing any Services; or
* Change any fees or charges for use of the Services.
Any changes we make will be effective automatically immediately after posting such changes on the Site. Your continued use of the Services following such changes will be deemed acceptance of such changes. Be sure to review this Agreement periodically to ensure familiarity with the most current version. You can determine when this Agreement was last revised by checking the "Last revised" legend at the top of the Agreement.
Basically, they're saying that without notice, they can do whatever the hell they want with your information and it's up to you to go and find out. Even if you happen to check a few minutes after they change the TOS, they've probably already sold all your info to 3rd parties. Since this probably contains your home address and phone number, it could affect you even after you stop using the service.
If they wanted to be reasonable, they could change their policy to allow them to make changes only if they notify you one week in advance via a message to your mailblocks account.
The handle flips back to mount the MAX open across the wheel of an SUV for mobile use. There's even an add-on DVD drive for movies.
Driving to work in the morning is dangerous enough with people on talking on cell phones, putting on make up, shaving, reading the f*ing newspaper, or eating breakfast (cold cereal with milk...) all while driving. I don't need some soccer mom trying to watch a movie or write an e-mail to Johnny while driving her Ford Behemoth to work in the morning. For real people, the auto industry needs to work on some kind of heads up displaying, voice recognising, hands-free information system for vehicles if people are going to insist on doing things like this while driving their vehicles!
I hear that Trogdor was a close second. Personally, I think he would have been a much greater asset to Apple what with the success of his recent video game and his abilitiy to burninate the competition. He probably would have also allowed Apple to add his trademark "majesty" around their apple logo... and that would've just looked cool.
"As a former UTA student, I'm glad my SSN is no longer in danger!"
Depends on how long ago you attended. Most universities keep your record on file indefinitely right along with active students indefinitely. I have a friend who works in the student services division of my university. She tells me that she routinely has to perform maintenance on records of people who graduated 10 or more years ago. You may want to call your uni and tell them to remove you if they haven't done so already.
Ok, I'll bite. I made a lot of ASSumptions in my last post. I just did my homework at Mandrake's website and it looks like you've pretty much got it. The first bunch of CDs are pretty much the normal binary and source CDs and you can do whatever you want with them.
The only thing I saw that would be in question would be the fact that it comes with some third party commercial applications (such as StarOffice 6.0). I'm positive Sun has a 1 computer limit in the license. From the looks of it, Mandrake pretty much takes a hands off approach with third party applications in their license files (an example here) saying that users are held accountable by the author, not Mandrake.
I love to hear linux success stories -- especially ones about Mandrake, don't get me wrong. The article, however, mentions that this person paid $69 for a Mandrake powerpack and installed it on three machines. He claims that this made the cost $23 per machine. Don't the commecial pay-for-media distributions usually have a caveat that the license is for one machine only and that additional machines require separate licenses?
His claim is kind of like me going to BestBuy and buying one copy of XP, installing it on 165 machines and claiming I reduced our licensing fees to $1 per machine.
Trust me, I'm not a licensing nazi or anything like that but, being a software developer myself, I strongly believe that if you like a certain piece of software, you should pay for it. Even more so in this case because this is in a corporate environment and because Mandrake is having financial difficulties.
If everyone in the corporate world adopts this attitude that "just because it's linux, we don't need to pay our licensing fees", theres not going to be much commercial linux left after awhile.
If I were this guy, I'd run over to MandrakeStore.com and buy another two powerpack licenses just to help out the company that cut his costs so much.
Indeed, you are right. They once were in danger of becoming general use terms under trademark law but their respective companies saved them. A quick "googling";-) pointed out my error. Here's a link to the BitLaw.com article describing what I meant to say, look under "generic", the last section: http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/degrees.html.
More appropriate examples would have been aspirin and cellophane. Both were once trademarked names but fell into general usage... now anyone can make "aspirin" or "cellophane" and sell it under those names. Sorry about the error.
I'm with you up to the point that you think I'm being exclusive. I'm as tired as you are of the duplicity. As I stated elsewhere in this thread, I'm not against patents... no matter who is getting them. I'm against frivolous patents being granted in cases where there is obvious prior art. I agree that if Microsoft does something new and innovative, they too deserve patents for their work. Plain and simple.
I'm sorry I came off trollish but I just don't see why every patent is seen as evil on Slashdot. I agree wholeheartedly that the patent system has gotten out of control. I just don't agree that every patent is evil. In a lot of cases, businesses need patents to exist. For example, what would happen if Microsoft figured out how to implement Google's page rank system and implemented it on MSN? Google would have no recourse and Microsoft has approximately 80 bajillion times the resources of Google and could easily out market them.
And by the way... the difference between patents and RFCs is that with RFCs, there's no expectations of profit. They're made in cases where, as a previous poster pointed out, the greater societal benefit outweighs potential profits. Many RFCs and IEEE standards are based on corporate IP anyway, especially ones dealing with network protocols. Token Ring, FDDI, and Ethernet were all proprietary standards back in the day...
What's wrong with what Google is doing? They're simply trying to keep an "edge" on the market. The reason why they're the best search engine out there is because they figured out how to make a better way to rank pages. They deserve to reap the benefits of that invention without anyone else cutting in on their business.
As for the "googling" incident, I just think they're attempting to defend their trademark. If you don't do that kind of stuff, you lose your trademark. Kinda like how Kleenex and Xerox lost theirs (everyone says "may I have a kleenex?" or "could you xerox this?" and so it became colloquial and no longer a trademark).
All Google is trying to do is cover their ass. If they decide one day to try to patent the search engine, then there'll be reason to get up in arms.
They thought of a way to improve upon an existing invention. They were the first to do it. They want to make money from their idea. It's only logical for them to seek a patent. I guess congratulations are in order!
Ok... let's say I'm a reporter. I get a call from a Son-of-Sam-like serial killer or a drug kingpin. Since many serial killers do it to make headlines, he wants an interview. Being a reporter and also wanting to make headlines, I accept. The cops read the interview and want to know everything about the guy. I refuse to tell them.
Please explain to me how I am not both legally and morally responsible for my actions? These people will go off and kill in the future and I did nothing to stop them.
There's a difference between reporting something that's politically sensitive and being irresponsible. When Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson advocated strong freedom of the press over 200 years ago, they had the former in mind. Reporters are supposed to use the truth to enlighten and protect people. Unfortunately, many reporters aren't after the truth these days; they're after the big stories and the prestige they bring. This is absolutely NOT in the spirit of the law.
I find it disturbing that so many CS majors (both current, prospective, AND graduated) don't grok exactly WHAT CS is. Computer Science is NOT about developping software! Quoth Dijkstra, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." The same can be said about programming; it is simply a tool we use in our studies.
If you want to develop software for the sake of developing software, you can save yourself a lot of time, money, and coursework by attending a local community college and getting an associates degree. You'll learn more about current programming languages there and less about heavy mathematics.
If you want to do lots of theoretical stuff and think about math in ways that'll make your head hurt... but in the long run, contribute to the further development of the underlying theories of how things are computed, do CS.
I see lots of CS majors at my university that are unhappy precisely because they don't understand this distinction.
Oh, and one last Dijkstra quote pertaining to this issue... "Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code". As oft quoted as he is, I don't think anyone in the CS field has ever been more insightful.
from a state whose motto is "Live free or die". Seriously, there are some things you just have to love about New Hampshire's "go away and leave me the hell alone" attitude.
Back in the day when door-to-door salesmen were popular, I'm sure few courts up there would have convicted anyone if they shot them for tresspassing. I wonder if they could be convinced to adopt a similar attidude to electronic door-to-door salesmen (e.g. spammers);-)
An ELEVEN (yes, 11) year old boy was charged with a felony "hacking" charge today for accessing his teacher's computer during lunch and changing grades on a couple of his assignments. Theres's an article over at CNN. May as well get 'em while they're young...
The addresses look pretty long and unwieldy, but supposedly consumer devices will make it easier to use.
Have you seen an IPv6 address lately?
Seriously. I think 4.3.2.1.5.5.5.2.0.2.1.e164.arpa is a hell of a lot easier to remember than 23AF:4DE5:4AB5:23CE:CD2B:2FBB:AE4E:EB13 because it's made up of already-memorized numbers. Just my.02.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, I'd say that they conduct somewhere around "more than a million amperes of current in a one square centimeter area without any deterioration". Direct quote from the article...
contrast, EFI is written in C, the world's most popular high-end programming language, and EFI isn't space-constrained because its data resides in a special reserved area of the hard drive. This means that far more engineers will be able to do more creative things with PC hardware than is now possible.
[sarcasm]Oh yeah, because magnetic storage is SO much more reliable than solid state EEPROMs and the thought of engineers getting "creative" with my system sounds SO safe.[/sarcasm]
Seriously folks, what happens the first time you want to put Linux on your box and you screw up repartitioning your drive. No more booting. Ever. The mechanism that controls basic bootup and hardware functions must be segregated from userland to the maximum extent possible. Even then it has to have some sort of hardware reset in case you screw up too bad. This EFI thing sounds like it's going to really screw up some people's machines.
I don't want people getting creative with some things on my PC, I just want them to work. If engineers want to be creative, they should go work for NASA... not mess with my BIOS!
Several years ago, a MS representative came to address the ACM chapter at my university. At the end of his presentation he raffled off a few copies of MS Visual Studio -- full, retail versions, no academic or "non-commercial" license. Afterwards, a few kids looked kinda disappointed they didn't win anything. The rep then pulled aside the kids who won and said "Please make sure that these CDs reproduce. No one at Microsoft is going to care." -- direct quote.
He then went on to explain that the whole point of the workshop was to "hook" college kids on MS software so when we go off to work or start our own businesses, we're Microsoft fanboys. I'm really glad someone is finally holding Microsoft to their own standards.
Anyone still have a _working_ mirror of the original Blue Flash coaster pics? All the mirrors listed are broken.
The pics of the Blue Flash are way more professional looking than this coaster. I'm working on convincing my S.O. to let me build one of these puppies with metal made from melted hard drive platters in my home made forge so I'm gonna need something better than 2x4's and PVC.
Actually, "today" (1 April) is also the 13th anniversary of RFC1149.
Check out its majesty: ftp://ftp.rfc-editor.org/in-notes/rfc1149.txt
People were so much more creative back in 1990. ;-)
Subject, of course, to your notification to the changes on their privacy page which may or not be updated regularly.
This is exactly my problem with their TOS... they do not notify you of the changes. They simply state that they can change the TOS at their will and without notification. This makes the user blind to changes and can be easily used by MailBlocks to exploit their users.
Even more disturbing to me is the following:
WE RESERVE THE RIGHT AT ANY TIME TO:
* Change the terms and conditions of this Agreement;
* Change the Services, including eliminating or discontinuing any Services; or
* Change any fees or charges for use of the Services.
Any changes we make will be effective automatically immediately after posting such changes on the Site. Your continued use of the Services following such changes will be deemed acceptance of such changes. Be sure to review this Agreement periodically to ensure familiarity with the most current version. You can determine when this Agreement was last revised by checking the "Last revised" legend at the top of the Agreement.
Basically, they're saying that without notice, they can do whatever the hell they want with your information and it's up to you to go and find out. Even if you happen to check a few minutes after they change the TOS, they've probably already sold all your info to 3rd parties. Since this probably contains your home address and phone number, it could affect you even after you stop using the service.
If they wanted to be reasonable, they could change their policy to allow them to make changes only if they notify you one week in advance via a message to your mailblocks account.
From the article:
The handle flips back to mount the MAX open across the wheel of an SUV for mobile use. There's even an add-on DVD drive for movies.
Driving to work in the morning is dangerous enough with people on talking on cell phones, putting on make up, shaving, reading the f*ing newspaper, or eating breakfast (cold cereal with milk...) all while driving. I don't need some soccer mom trying to watch a movie or write an e-mail to Johnny while driving her Ford Behemoth to work in the morning. For real people, the auto industry needs to work on some kind of heads up displaying, voice recognising, hands-free information system for vehicles if people are going to insist on doing things like this while driving their vehicles!
I hear that Trogdor was a close second. Personally, I think he would have been a much greater asset to Apple what with the success of his recent video game and his abilitiy to burninate the competition. He probably would have also allowed Apple to add his trademark "majesty" around their apple logo... and that would've just looked cool.
"As a former UTA student, I'm glad my SSN is no longer in danger!"
Depends on how long ago you attended. Most universities keep your record on file indefinitely right along with active students indefinitely. I have a friend who works in the student services division of my university. She tells me that she routinely has to perform maintenance on records of people who graduated 10 or more years ago. You may want to call your uni and tell them to remove you if they haven't done so already.
Just look at fusion power. How many billions upon billions of dollars have been poured into such projects with absolutely no practical results.
That's not true! Practical fusion reactors are just 10 years away... just like they were in 1980... and 1970... and 1960... oh wait... :-/
Ok, I'll bite. I made a lot of ASSumptions in my last post. I just did my homework at Mandrake's website and it looks like you've pretty much got it. The first bunch of CDs are pretty much the normal binary and source CDs and you can do whatever you want with them.
The only thing I saw that would be in question would be the fact that it comes with some third party commercial applications (such as StarOffice 6.0). I'm positive Sun has a 1 computer limit in the license. From the looks of it, Mandrake pretty much takes a hands off approach with third party applications in their license files (an example here) saying that users are held accountable by the author, not Mandrake.
Thanks for keeping me honest. :-)
I love to hear linux success stories -- especially ones about Mandrake, don't get me wrong. The article, however, mentions that this person paid $69 for a Mandrake powerpack and installed it on three machines. He claims that this made the cost $23 per machine. Don't the commecial pay-for-media distributions usually have a caveat that the license is for one machine only and that additional machines require separate licenses?
His claim is kind of like me going to BestBuy and buying one copy of XP, installing it on 165 machines and claiming I reduced our licensing fees to $1 per machine.
Trust me, I'm not a licensing nazi or anything like that but, being a software developer myself, I strongly believe that if you like a certain piece of software, you should pay for it. Even more so in this case because this is in a corporate environment and because Mandrake is having financial difficulties.
If everyone in the corporate world adopts this attitude that "just because it's linux, we don't need to pay our licensing fees", theres not going to be much commercial linux left after awhile.
If I were this guy, I'd run over to MandrakeStore.com and buy another two powerpack licenses just to help out the company that cut his costs so much.
All hail Bill Gates, chairman of Strongbindia. Check out his majesty! I wonder if the next version of windows will come with a dragon named Trogdor.
Indeed, you are right. They once were in danger of becoming general use terms under trademark law but their respective companies saved them. A quick "googling" ;-) pointed out my error. Here's a link to the BitLaw.com article describing what I meant to say, look under "generic", the last section: http://www.bitlaw.com/trademark/degrees.html.
More appropriate examples would have been aspirin and cellophane. Both were once trademarked names but fell into general usage... now anyone can make "aspirin" or "cellophane" and sell it under those names. Sorry about the error.
I'm with you up to the point that you think I'm being exclusive. I'm as tired as you are of the duplicity. As I stated elsewhere in this thread, I'm not against patents... no matter who is getting them. I'm against frivolous patents being granted in cases where there is obvious prior art. I agree that if Microsoft does something new and innovative, they too deserve patents for their work. Plain and simple.
I'm sorry I came off trollish but I just don't see why every patent is seen as evil on Slashdot. I agree wholeheartedly that the patent system has gotten out of control. I just don't agree that every patent is evil. In a lot of cases, businesses need patents to exist. For example, what would happen if Microsoft figured out how to implement Google's page rank system and implemented it on MSN? Google would have no recourse and Microsoft has approximately 80 bajillion times the resources of Google and could easily out market them.
And by the way... the difference between patents and RFCs is that with RFCs, there's no expectations of profit. They're made in cases where, as a previous poster pointed out, the greater societal benefit outweighs potential profits. Many RFCs and IEEE standards are based on corporate IP anyway, especially ones dealing with network protocols. Token Ring, FDDI, and Ethernet were all proprietary standards back in the day...
What's wrong with what Google is doing? They're simply trying to keep an "edge" on the market. The reason why they're the best search engine out there is because they figured out how to make a better way to rank pages. They deserve to reap the benefits of that invention without anyone else cutting in on their business.
As for the "googling" incident, I just think they're attempting to defend their trademark. If you don't do that kind of stuff, you lose your trademark. Kinda like how Kleenex and Xerox lost theirs (everyone says "may I have a kleenex?" or "could you xerox this?" and so it became colloquial and no longer a trademark).
All Google is trying to do is cover their ass. If they decide one day to try to patent the search engine, then there'll be reason to get up in arms.
They thought of a way to improve upon an existing invention. They were the first to do it. They want to make money from their idea. It's only logical for them to seek a patent. I guess congratulations are in order!
Ok... let's say I'm a reporter. I get a call from a Son-of-Sam-like serial killer or a drug kingpin. Since many serial killers do it to make headlines, he wants an interview. Being a reporter and also wanting to make headlines, I accept. The cops read the interview and want to know everything about the guy. I refuse to tell them.
Please explain to me how I am not both legally and morally responsible for my actions? These people will go off and kill in the future and I did nothing to stop them.
There's a difference between reporting something that's politically sensitive and being irresponsible. When Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson advocated strong freedom of the press over 200 years ago, they had the former in mind. Reporters are supposed to use the truth to enlighten and protect people. Unfortunately, many reporters aren't after the truth these days; they're after the big stories and the prestige they bring. This is absolutely NOT in the spirit of the law.
Can I pay less if I don't want the gaping security holes?
I find it disturbing that so many CS majors (both current, prospective, AND graduated) don't grok exactly WHAT CS is. Computer Science is NOT about developping software! Quoth Dijkstra, "Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes." The same can be said about programming; it is simply a tool we use in our studies.
If you want to develop software for the sake of developing software, you can save yourself a lot of time, money, and coursework by attending a local community college and getting an associates degree. You'll learn more about current programming languages there and less about heavy mathematics.
If you want to do lots of theoretical stuff and think about math in ways that'll make your head hurt... but in the long run, contribute to the further development of the underlying theories of how things are computed, do CS.
I see lots of CS majors at my university that are unhappy precisely because they don't understand this distinction.
Oh, and one last Dijkstra quote pertaining to this issue... "Progress is possible only if we train ourselves to think about programs without thinking of them as pieces of executable code". As oft quoted as he is, I don't think anyone in the CS field has ever been more insightful.
from a state whose motto is "Live free or die". Seriously, there are some things you just have to love about New Hampshire's "go away and leave me the hell alone" attitude.
;-)
Back in the day when door-to-door salesmen were popular, I'm sure few courts up there would have convicted anyone if they shot them for tresspassing. I wonder if they could be convinced to adopt a similar attidude to electronic door-to-door salesmen (e.g. spammers)
Disclaimer: Yes, I AM from New Hampshire.
An ELEVEN (yes, 11) year old boy was charged with a felony "hacking" charge today for accessing his teacher's computer during lunch and changing grades on a couple of his assignments. Theres's an article over at CNN. May as well get 'em while they're young...
The addresses look pretty long and unwieldy, but supposedly consumer devices will make it easier to use.
Have you seen an IPv6 address lately?
Seriously. I think 4.3.2.1.5.5.5.2.0.2.1.e164.arpa is a hell of a lot easier to remember than 23AF:4DE5:4AB5:23CE:CD2B:2FBB:AE4E:EB13 because it's made up of already-memorized numbers. Just my .02.