Changing time_t to an unsigned 32-bit int should work, unless there's any code in the system that implicitly assumes that it's signed, and e.g. does bitwise comparisons against other time values. Then all hell will break loose.
Maybe the software your financial corporation is running doesn't have any code like that in it. But are you sure? Hmm, looks like we'll have to hire some consultants at $200/hr to audit the system for us...
Justin Frankel's accomplishments are notable in of themselves, but even more so when you consider that they were all achieved by a boy who's just now turning 13 years old......what, he's a grown man? And he still gives his projects names like "CrucFX" and "Assniffer"? That's pretty sad, actually.
The office suite is the lynchpin of practically every single consumer computer setup
How do you figure?
That may have been the case five years ago, but not now -- the most important applications that runs on a consumer PC today are the web browser and the email client.
What I missed out on by not following through with a higher education still somewhat escapes me
What you've missed is the opporunity to demonstrate that you're capable of following through.
Getting a college degree requires intelligence, organizational skills, perseverance, and consistency over a period of four years or more -- all of them highly valued traits to employers. Sure, it's possible for someone without a degree to possess and demonstrate all these traits, but the degree is a way for employers to have evidence of all that in one neat little package.
If anything, Oracle wins a lot of business in the db world just like Microsoft wins a lot of business in the productivity suite world: most corporate customers think "Database" = "Oracle"
I think there's a lot of truth in this. To paraphrase an older motto, "No one ever got fired for choosing Oracle."
On the other hand, a CTO or VP of IT that decides to save a few $100,000 by choosing MySQL instead of Oracle could quickly find that the company will choose to save even more money by discontinuing his or her salary.
My digital camcorder is pretty good, and it will still exist when the world is DRM'd.
And how's your Bell & Howell 8mm film projector from 1974 holding up?
Older technology will, sooner or later, disappear through obsolescence and/or physical failure. I'm not worried that DRM laws will make it harder to work with non-DRM'ed materials in 2006 -- I'm worried that it will make it impossible to work with non-DRM'ed materials in 2036.
If the commercial says "Buy the movie now" but the packaging says you are only licensing the movie, isn't this called false advertising?
Do the commercials say "Buy the movie now", though? Offhand, it seems to me that home video commercials tend to use phrases like "Available now on DVD", or "Bring the movie home for Christmas", neatly avoiding the issue of ownership vs. licensing.
a lot of people associated with the games industry have this fascination with comparing themselves to the movie industry.
Very true, and it's been that way for a while.
I remember Nintendo bragging, circa 1990, that if their Super Mario Bros. 3 game had been a movie, it would have broken E.T.'s record for revenue! Duh, no shit. Movie tickets cost $5 back then and your game cartridge retaild for $44.95.
Apples and oranges are both fruits, but there's really no valid comparison between them. You don't even consume them the same way.
This new calendar is an amusing intellectual diversion, but far from practical, and in most cases less conveniant than our current calendar.
Not THAT much work is expended modifying calendars from year to year. I myself print out a month-by-month ASCII calendar each year, and the time it takes me to update it for the coming year is two hours at maximum, and that includes looking up what dates holidays like Easter are going to fall on. Most people don't even bother taking 2 hours per year to do this -- we just buy calendars from one of the several companies that do the work for us. The good professor has found a solution to something that's not a problem.
Don't even get me started on Newton Week, which is less predictable or accurate at following seasonal changes than the Leap Year method, or the "same clock time everywhere in the world simultaneously" concept that even Gene Ray has debunked...
if you do understand a little about security, you have the option of getting the (in this case win32) binary together with the.asc signature from ftp.mozilla.org, then get gpg, import the appropriate key from a public server, verify the signature and, if matching, run "Firefox Setup 1.0.exe"
Yeah, that sounds like a simple, straightforward process to me. No needless complication there, nope.
A signed binary installer would go a long way towards easing the concerns of users who are just like the author of the article -- those who tend to stick with what they know even if it isn't the best product, and those who know just enough about software security to be dangerous. If the Firefox team chooses to dismiss the concerns of these users rather than addressing them, they will be limiting their potential userbase.
It's a Nintendo portable gaming system, and it plays all Game Boy Advance software. I don't see why you're so irked about someone considering the DS to be part of the Game Boy product line.
Exactly. And there's no LAW against movie theaters allowing unaccompanied children into R-rated theaters. If theater operators thought they could improve revenue and not run afoul of the MPAA, they'd gladly open the theater doors to any child with the requisite nine bucks.
The videogame industry has already adopted a voluntary rating system for games, started a decade a gi, and almost all game companies now participate in the program. In many ways, these ratings are even MORE effective than movie ratings, since they distinguish between various types of content (violent, sexual, criminal behavior etc...)
There's NO reason why the government needs to get involved here. The industry's already been responsible and responsive enough on its own, just like the movie and TV and music and comic book industries were before them when people tried to blame THEM for all of society's ills.
What do you mean our enemies? I dont have any enemies.
Open your eyes. You may not hate anybody, but you are almost certainly hated by someone, on the basis of your skin color or your religious beliefs or the country you call home.
They would love to see you dead, even though they don't know you from Adam. Sounds like an enemy to me. Should you spend all your time worrying about them? No, you're just trying to get by, like everyone else. But it doesn't help to put your head in the sand and pretend enemies aren't out there.
The conductor seemed like she was intrigued, but I assume that was just her being polite.
Perhaps not. Orchestral music in North America is struggling, and many in the community are very concerned with finding ways to bring new ears to the concert hall. Performing music that is familiar to non-patrons is always a good way to do this -- sometimes this means falling back on well-known, standard repertoire like the Mozart Requiem or Carmina Burana instead of more challenging and obscure works, sometimes this means playing backup band to a mainstream act like Yes or Metallica. Sometimes this means staging performances of soundtracks from other genres.
True, the logistics of getting videogame music on the program may be preventative (need to buy performance rights from the game publisher, commission an orchestration, etc.) but I have no doubt that the conductor's intriguement was genuine. If she can't bring people like you to the concerts on a regular basis, the symphony could have to close down. Do you know how hard it is for a professional conductor to find a good job in today's market?
He's right though -- michael's comments are apropos of nothing.
If he had posted them as a comment rather than using his privilege to editorialize, he surely would have been modded down as Offtopic, and probably mis-modded down as Redundant as well.
How come I never find anything to complain about in the way other Slashdot admins post story submissions? It's always michael.
So let's say I use an algorithm that some other company developed. Do I have to pay them?
Only one? Probably not. But software consists of thousands of algorithms working in concert.
Just as complex machines are patentable even though they derive from combinations of the classic Simple Machines, so should complex systems of algorithms be patentable even of their component algorithms cannot, no?
Isn't buying a 1st gen. protable electronics device just begging for this kind of trouble?
Silly me, I kind of assumed that electronics companies would do some sort of QA testing before releasing the product to the public and ramping up the factories to full capacity.
Of COURSE they allow users to admin their own machines at Microsoft. Half of their software won't run correctly in XP unless the user has Administrator privileges.
Fantastic! Another market where Microsoft is slapping the ".NET" branding on everything, even though it has nothing to do with the top-level domain of the same name, nor even with networks in general!
This is the worst marketing idea MS has had since they renamed their eHome concept to the generic sounding "Windows Media Center", without changing the names of any of the binaries.
Slashdot Mirror
Many of us are tired about hearing about the latest entry in so-and-so's online diary, and wish they'd just go away.
Why do you hate Wil Wheaton so much?
I mean, hating Wesley Crusher is understandable. But can't you separate that from the actor who played him...?
Changing time_t to an unsigned 32-bit int should work, unless there's any code in the system that implicitly assumes that it's signed, and e.g. does bitwise comparisons against other time values. Then all hell will break loose.
Maybe the software your financial corporation is running doesn't have any code like that in it. But are you sure? Hmm, looks like we'll have to hire some consultants at $200/hr to audit the system for us...
Justin Frankel's accomplishments are notable in of themselves, but even more so when you consider that they were all achieved by a boy who's just now turning 13 years old... ...what, he's a grown man? And he still gives his projects names like "CrucFX" and "Assniffer"? That's pretty sad, actually.
The office suite is the lynchpin of practically every single consumer computer setup
How do you figure?
That may have been the case five years ago, but not now -- the most important applications that runs on a consumer PC today are the web browser and the email client.
What I missed out on by not following through with a higher education still somewhat escapes me
What you've missed is the opporunity to demonstrate that you're capable of following through.
Getting a college degree requires intelligence, organizational skills, perseverance, and consistency over a period of four years or more -- all of them highly valued traits to employers. Sure, it's possible for someone without a degree to possess and demonstrate all these traits, but the degree is a way for employers to have evidence of all that in one neat little package.
If anything, Oracle wins a lot of business in the db world just like Microsoft wins a lot of business in the productivity suite world: most corporate customers think "Database" = "Oracle"
I think there's a lot of truth in this. To paraphrase an older motto, "No one ever got fired for choosing Oracle."
On the other hand, a CTO or VP of IT that decides to save a few $100,000 by choosing MySQL instead of Oracle could quickly find that the company will choose to save even more money by discontinuing his or her salary.
My digital camcorder is pretty good, and it will still exist when the world is DRM'd.
And how's your Bell & Howell 8mm film projector from 1974 holding up?
Older technology will, sooner or later, disappear through obsolescence and/or physical failure. I'm not worried that DRM laws will make it harder to work with non-DRM'ed materials in 2006 -- I'm worried that it will make it impossible to work with non-DRM'ed materials in 2036.
If the commercial says "Buy the movie now" but the packaging says you are only licensing the movie, isn't this called false advertising?
Do the commercials say "Buy the movie now", though? Offhand, it seems to me that home video commercials tend to use phrases like "Available now on DVD", or "Bring the movie home for Christmas", neatly avoiding the issue of ownership vs. licensing.
a lot of people associated with the games industry have this fascination with comparing themselves to the movie industry.
Very true, and it's been that way for a while.
I remember Nintendo bragging, circa 1990, that if their Super Mario Bros. 3 game had been a movie, it would have broken E.T.'s record for revenue! Duh, no shit. Movie tickets cost $5 back then and your game cartridge retaild for $44.95.
Apples and oranges are both fruits, but there's really no valid comparison between them. You don't even consume them the same way.
It's a valid point to make: the entertainment industry is larger than just the box office receipts.
It's no more valid than making the point that more apples are sold than seedless oranges.
This new calendar is an amusing intellectual diversion, but far from practical, and in most cases less conveniant than our current calendar.
Not THAT much work is expended modifying calendars from year to year. I myself print out a month-by-month ASCII calendar each year, and the time it takes me to update it for the coming year is two hours at maximum, and that includes looking up what dates holidays like Easter are going to fall on. Most people don't even bother taking 2 hours per year to do this -- we just buy calendars from one of the several companies that do the work for us. The good professor has found a solution to something that's not a problem.
Don't even get me started on Newton Week, which is less predictable or accurate at following seasonal changes than the Leap Year method, or the "same clock time everywhere in the world simultaneously" concept that even Gene Ray has debunked...
if you do understand a little about security, you have the option of getting the (in this case win32) binary together with the .asc signature from ftp.mozilla.org, then get gpg, import the appropriate key from a public server, verify the signature and, if matching, run "Firefox Setup 1.0.exe"
Yeah, that sounds like a simple, straightforward process to me. No needless complication there, nope.
A signed binary installer would go a long way towards easing the concerns of users who are just like the author of the article -- those who tend to stick with what they know even if it isn't the best product, and those who know just enough about software security to be dangerous. If the Firefox team chooses to dismiss the concerns of these users rather than addressing them, they will be limiting their potential userbase.
Geo, was GM rebrand of cars made by Toyota I beleive
Toyota and Suzuki, actually. But I'm offtopic.
I don't see where the "Game Boy" words came from
It's a Nintendo portable gaming system, and it plays all Game Boy Advance software. I don't see why you're so irked about someone considering the DS to be part of the Game Boy product line.
Yeah, but you'd have to use a hole puncher to make a notch in the DVD to get it to fit into the drive.
It's just like the R rating at theaters
Exactly. And there's no LAW against movie theaters allowing unaccompanied children into R-rated theaters. If theater operators thought they could improve revenue and not run afoul of the MPAA, they'd gladly open the theater doors to any child with the requisite nine bucks.
The videogame industry has already adopted a voluntary rating system for games, started a decade a gi, and almost all game companies now participate in the program. In many ways, these ratings are even MORE effective than movie ratings, since they distinguish between various types of content (violent, sexual, criminal behavior etc...)
There's NO reason why the government needs to get involved here. The industry's already been responsible and responsive enough on its own, just like the movie and TV and music and comic book industries were before them when people tried to blame THEM for all of society's ills.
What do you mean our enemies? I dont have any enemies.
Open your eyes. You may not hate anybody, but you are almost certainly hated by someone, on the basis of your skin color or your religious beliefs or the country you call home.
They would love to see you dead, even though they don't know you from Adam. Sounds like an enemy to me. Should you spend all your time worrying about them? No, you're just trying to get by, like everyone else. But it doesn't help to put your head in the sand and pretend enemies aren't out there.
The conductor seemed like she was intrigued, but I assume that was just her being polite.
Perhaps not. Orchestral music in North America is struggling, and many in the community are very
concerned with finding ways to bring new ears to the concert hall. Performing music that is familiar to non-patrons is always a good way to do this -- sometimes this means falling back on well-known, standard repertoire like the Mozart Requiem or Carmina Burana instead of more challenging and obscure works, sometimes this means playing backup band to a mainstream act like Yes or Metallica. Sometimes this means staging performances of soundtracks from other genres.
True, the logistics of getting videogame music on the program may be preventative (need to buy performance rights from the game publisher, commission an orchestration, etc.) but I have no doubt that the conductor's intriguement was genuine. If she can't bring people like you to the concerts on a regular basis, the symphony could have to close down. Do you know how hard it is for a professional conductor to find a good job in today's market?
He's right though -- michael's comments are apropos of nothing.
If he had posted them as a comment rather than using his privilege to editorialize, he surely would have been modded down as Offtopic, and probably mis-modded down as Redundant as well.
How come I never find anything to complain about in the way other Slashdot admins post story submissions? It's always michael.
So let's say I use an algorithm that some other company developed. Do I have to pay them?
Only one? Probably not. But software consists of thousands of algorithms working in concert.
Just as complex machines are patentable even though they derive from combinations of the classic Simple Machines, so should complex systems of algorithms be patentable even of their component algorithms cannot, no?
Oh no! The screenshots must have gotten blown up by those two TIE Fighters!
Isn't buying a 1st gen. protable electronics device just begging for this kind of trouble?
Silly me, I kind of assumed that electronics companies would do some sort of QA testing before releasing the product to the public and ramping up the factories to full capacity.
Of COURSE they allow users to admin their own machines at Microsoft. Half of their software won't run correctly in XP unless the user has Administrator privileges.
[COBOL] was supposed to turn ordinary business users into programmers thanks to its easy, English-like syntax. We're still waiting.
Yes, we're still waiting for the first ordinary business user who can understand easy, English-like syntax to come along.
Fantastic! Another market where Microsoft is slapping the ".NET" branding on everything, even though it has nothing to do with the top-level domain of the same name, nor even with networks in general!
This is the worst marketing idea MS has had since they renamed their eHome concept to the generic sounding "Windows Media Center", without changing the names of any of the binaries.