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User: 91degrees

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  1. Re:If it works with existing DVD players... on Studios OK Burning Movie Downloads · · Score: 2, Funny

    huh... Seems to me that any kiosks are going to have all the speed and quality of downloads combined with the convenience of going to a shop rather than buying over the internet.

  2. Re:So, for several months... on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 1

    I'm not sure... This doesn't seem like something the UK would do just to please the Republicans. There doesn't seem to be much direct political involvement, and in the UK we don't really like our government being too obvious about giving in to terror.

  3. Re:The great PC 'What if' on How the IBM PC Changed the World · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The thing is, POCs weren't successful because they were clones. They were successful because they were IBM clones. Apple had their own OS. So did Commodore, Sinclair and all the others. Even more recently, Sun, SGI and all the big non Wintel companies have used their own OS. Selling the OS as a separate item has always been atypical.

    So, Scenario 1: MS manage to convince HP and DEC to licence their OS. This makes two a big assumptions in the first place - That they wouldn't want to make their own systems, and that Microsoft would be the ones who manage to convince them. But even if they do go with Microsoft, why are people going to buy these machines? They're not IBM or Apple. They have no software library. We're also assuming that IBM would do everything in house, even though Apple became successful from third party software (i.e. visicalc). My view is that IBM would make their own system, and it would sell because it was an IBM. All businesses would buy one, and prices would remain high.

    It's possible that MS would get to the same position they're in right now by writing Windows, but they'd need some degree of success beforehand, and they would be competing directly with OS2

    Meanwhile, the rest of the market would create their own competing incompatible computers. Eventually, a few of these companies would work to come up with a standard. This may use a third party's software. However, even though IBM are keeping prices high, the cost of the home computer would fall - possibly even more - and we'd have a situation similar to the 8-bit era lasting until a standard is formed.

    As for Scenario 2 (and I can't imagine MS would object to exclusivity back then): Well, I think things would turn out just the same. IBM would be more likely to succeed. If MS created windows, it would be more likely to be licenced exclusively to IBM.

    The tech industry would always have evolved. If someone can make hardware for less, then they will do so.

  4. Re:I was always amused by this... on How the IBM PC Changed the World · · Score: 1

    But why did they choose int 2/9 for the daisy chaining? Why not int 7/15, or int 0/8? (And were they forced to use matched pins?)

  5. Re:So, for several months... on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 1

    But I'm not sure that explains anything. The security services are presumably reasonably sure they've arrested the right people. Even if there was never a plot, the security situation has, at worst, remained the same. Not gone up.

  6. Re:What's wrong with TiVo? on The FSF, GPLv3 and DRM · · Score: 1

    And I don't. Unless I misunderstand, you can recompile Tivo's Linux kernel and run it on different hardware, can't you? However you see it, you have to realise that a lot of can interpret things differently.

  7. Re:What's wrong with TiVo? on The FSF, GPLv3 and DRM · · Score: 1

    No you can't. And this is where the fundamental disagreement is. It all depends on what you think the spirit of the GPL is. The FSF want to expand the scope of the GPL to hardware. Linus feels that he has no right to demand what others do with their hardware, and believes that the GPL offers the appropriate protections.

    Tivo took a free kernel, modified it, and released their modified version. If their modifications are useful, then they go to the community. That was all that was asked of them. Nobody even suggested that they must allow other software to run on their machine. And why should they have to?

    And is it really breaking the spirit? I use gcc to write proprietry applications. They even have restrictive copy protection (blame the publishers). Am I breaking the spirit of the GPL by using gcc in that way?

  8. Re:The FSF, GPLv3 and DRM on The FSF, GPLv3 and DRM · · Score: 1

    Don't you mean "IAB, GUT, PMA, AO, TY"?

    Unfortunately, slashdot insists that I add some lower case letters, kinda ruining the joke.

  9. Always fighting the wrong battle on Next Generation Stack Computing · · Score: 1

    A 1K kernel will hardly make a lot of difference to anyone. I have a whole gigabyte of RAM in my machine. 1K? 100K? 1 Megabyte? 10 Megs? That's a pretty chunky kernel and we're still taking up a trivial chunk of our memory. Even the huge executables that we have these days aren't causing serious memory issues on modern PCs. Memory has outpaced executable size.

    What we do want is lower power, and smaller. We can always take advantage of small or low power devices. If you want to reduce executable size, write a simple stack machine and an interpreter.

  10. Re:How to trick key loggers on HSBC Online Banking Security Flaw Analyzed · · Score: 1

    Or why not open notepad. Type a letter. Every so often you click onto the browser to add a couple of letters of username and password. Should be difficult to get your username or password using a keyogger.

  11. Re:Free Power? on The Technology of Drug Prohibition · · Score: 1

    An electricity meter is essentially a revolution counter put in series with the supply. Connecting the power ot the other side of the meter will bypass it.

    I'd recommend getting your own power supply though - a diesel generaotr or something. Bypassing the supply is illegal, and while not a concern in itself for drug growers, one does not want to draw unnecessary attention to oneself by committing more crimes than needed.

  12. Re:Good work on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 1

    They aren't being personal about it. If you claim to have stopped some arbitrary party's baby molestation, and quite pointedly did not mention names, then you also deserve congratulations. Are you claiming this?

  13. Re:More questions on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 1

    Because they may not be Arabs.

  14. Re:Good work on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 1

    If you want.

    Me, I'm quite happy to speculate, since that isn't going to result in a severe penalty for anyone.

  15. Re:It was sure this would happen on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 1

    The problem with a view of an evil government, is that it's grossly oversimplified. You can't assume an evil cabinet, evil MPs, evil police, evil local government and evil beurocracies. Some of these people are going to be at worst misguided.

  16. So, for several months... on BBC Reports UK-U.S. Terror Plot Foiled · · Score: 4, Interesting

    We've known about a likely plot to blow up several planes.

    Now, the perpetrators have been arrested, and anyone else who may have been involved is potentially compromised, so will probsbly not risk carrying it out. As a result, an attack is less likely. So the alert level has gone up.

  17. Re:They have it backwards on Transgaming Technologies and Mac Developers · · Score: 2, Funny

    Hey, don't knock niche markets.

    If you wrote a game for the mac, then there would be no competition at all. Every single Mac gamer in the world would buy it. You'd sell dozens!

  18. Re:Spammers are stupid on New Kind of Spam 'Un-Training' Filters? · · Score: 1

    Ooops. Must learn to preview.

  19. Spammers are stupid on New Kind of Spam 'Un-Training' Filters? · · Score: 1

    We go out of our way to block spam. We install baysean filters. Automate blocking as much as possible. Delete anything with a subject line that looks remotely like spam. We're clearly not remotely interested in anything advertised by unsolicted email.
    And then they try to circumvent this. Why? Do they think that if we actually read the text of the spam, we'll suddenly decide we want some "male enhancement pills"? I can sort of understand it with cold calling. At least you can engage the victim in a dialogue and try to peruade them that they do want whatever you're selling.

  20. Re:TurboC on Borland Announces the Return of the Turbo Products, with Video · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, but didn't it require a 386 or better to run the IDE, or was that a different version? Always struck me as odd that it had a 32 bit processor requirement but no 32 bit compiler.

    It was nice that you could write a simple single file C application, and compile and run it without any concern over projects and solutions or makefiles. Also nice that it gave a lot of screen real estate to the editor.

  21. Re:Why is software always licenced!? on Hoboken, NJ vs. Giant Parking Robot · · Score: 1

    All kinds of things go wrong. That's why you have a maintenence contract. The net result is similar, except that if you decide you don't need it anymore, everything still works.

  22. Re:DRM? on Windows Vista and the Future of Hardware · · Score: 2, Informative

    Why can't Microsoft use its position in the software industry to leverage content providers away from DRM.

    Because they want to control the DRM. They want to do what Apple did with iTunes and the iPod. If all downlaodable media is designed for Windows, then they when downloadable content becomes mainstream, people will want PVRs with download capability running Windows CE because that will be the OS that's most compatible with the exisitng downloadable contnet.

  23. Why is software always licenced!? on Hoboken, NJ vs. Giant Parking Robot · · Score: 1

    It seems perfectly reasonable, and logical that a copy of the software should have been sold along with the parking garage. There's no legal reason not to do this. There's only the cultural reason that people believe that software needs a licence. The bricks don't neeed to be licenced. The motors don't need to be licenced. Software is just another component and should be treated as such.

  24. I work for a games company on Piracy Killing PC Gaming? · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't actually give a dman about piracy. People were copying games when they came on tape, and they're still doing it.

  25. If you've got nothing to hide... on The UK's Total Surveillance · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    Why not post your full contact details here, you self righteous twats.

    (Just thught I'd pre-empt them).