The problem is that not this particular patch to IE, but the fact that IE was updated at all. This changed the checksum/signature/whatever that the AV software was using to keep track of legitimate programs, which then caused it to have labeled IE as a rogue program. It then, doing the job that he asked it to, removed that program's access to the network.
It's a computer. It just runs programs. In this case, the user has instructed one program to be updated, after having previously instructed another program to ensure that such a thing should never be tolerated.
It's just doing exactly what he told it to do. Shifting blame away from the user and the third-party application(s) causing the problem and instead onto Windows might make folks feel better about themselves, but is both nonsensical and counterproductive, and clearly has done nothing to actually solve the problem in this case.
He mentions KB944533. Plugging KB944533 into Google returns, oddly enough, this page about KB944533 as the first hit. On this page, is the following:
Known issues
You may receive an error message that resembles the following when you try to visit a Web page in Windows Internet Explorer 7: Webpage cannot be displayed
It then links to another article describing the nature of this problem, which it turns out is caused by firewall/antivirus/antispyware/other deeply-infiltrated shit, which in turn blocks the freshly-updated IE from functioning.
It has little at all by Windows itself.
So, again: Luck is not a factor here. He's done this to himself, and hasn't even taken the most rudimentary steps toward actually solving it, other than trying to apply random patches in the vague hope that one of them might somehow fix a problem with his antivirus software.
What if I don't want to paint all my LED-bearing indicators with an ugly black stripe?
If black does not suit you, then perhaps you might try red, blue, green, yellow, silver, gold, purple, brown, orange, turquoise, or burgundy.
Go ahead and try one. If you don't like it, just erase it and try again.
Sharpie marker is, generally, very easily erased from plastic. All you need is a bit of relatively hard vinyl, or relatively soft PVC, such as you'll find at the IEC end of your computer's power cord. Just rub the corner of the connector against the ink as if it were an eraser on a pencil mark, and it will simply disappear. (The insulated handle of a pair of diagonal cutters also works well, as does the black rubber;handle of a Klein screw driver.)
And now, I see that the antenna is supposed to be of vertical orientation. Doh! So I'll ask the same question, modified by 90 degrees and an additional quandary:
Can I build this out of 12-guage Romex and hang it from an inside wall? Can I use that wall's screened metal lath as a reflector? (The other walls in line with the antenna's path are either wooden lath or gypsum -- thankfully, only 1/4 of the computer room serves as a Faraday shield.)
Last time I toyed with the idea of building an antenna, I was looking at constructing a Yagi (for one particular FM station about 95 miles away). All available information seemed to indicate that the diameter of the elements was not only important, but that different diameters required sometimes vast differences in the overall shape of the antenna.
Now, of course, this isn't a Yagi.
But what I really want to know is: Can I make this out of 12-gauge Romex and hang it from the ceiling? Because I'm cheap, and since it's going to be mounted indoors[1] it doesn't have to stand up to any ice and wind. It just needs to be kept straight, which I think I can do easily enough with string or fishing line or similar.
[1]: I'm moving soon to a different house, and I neither want to buy a tower nor move my existing one. The easiest part of the roof to reach is steel standing seam, and the other part is rubber, and I don't want to put holes in either one -- I don't have ladder that tall, anyway. Plus: The eaves are very wide, so mounting it to an outside wall, with enough mast pipe to reach over the steel roof, is probably not such an easy thing, either. And, also because of the steel roof, using the attic is obviously out.
But indoors on the ceiling of the the second floor gets it up pretty high, certainly higher than all of the neighboring houses, and my wife says I can do whatever I want with the computer room . . .
Honestly, if it were me and my billion dollars of worth and I expected the company to last about five years, I'd just write myself a nice retirement package and plan on doing another 3 or so years of good and solid work. Then, I'd find a moderately palatable CEO corporate-type to run things, and spend the rest of my life pretending that it's still 1999.
I think the stereotype has more to do with the quantity of a given type of vehicle, than the type of vehicle itself.
Around here, not many people own BMWs or Audis. Most of the drivers of these cars seem to behave as if they're headed to church on a Sunday morning. Slow isn't quite the word, but they're sure in no particular hurry to get anywhere, and they seem to tend to be more observant than most others.
A far bigger problem than assholes in BMWs (sure, there's some), here in NW Ohio, is wankers in trucks, SUVs, and minivans, which are easily the majority of vehicles on the road here.
The SUV wanker is typically distracted by a cell phone, and not paying much attention to anything but their own needs. They're not driving fast, usually, but they're not looking around at anything important either.
And the minivans wankers... Sheesh. I've got kids, but I'll be damned before I drive around in a minivan with multiple independant DVD players, a half-dozen kids to watch them, satellite radio, and about half as many cell phones (in use) as there are occupants. It's like driving a fucking 8-year-old's birthday party down the road. The drivers are so distracted with the commotion and trying to keep track of their multiple socialite conversations that driving effectively becomes a tertiary activity, at best.
Pickup trucks are the worst, as their owners install straight dual exhausts and headers (there's no smog checks here), a set of knobby Mickey Thompson tires, and suddenly think that they're Formula 1 racers. They pull into traffic with wild disregard for the fact the there are, in fact, other cars on the road. Just the other day I was nearly hit by three of them, within 15 seconds (!), all of which were turning left onto the main road from different locations, as they attempted to maneuver their truck into the exact same spot already occupied by my car. This happens with nauseating regularity.
Finally, in the spirit of full disclosure, I drive a 1995 BMW 325i. It's far too old to be much of a fashion statement, but its every bit as much of a sports sedan as it was 13 years ago...which is to say, not very fast, but with superb handling, comfortable seats, and good mileage. I also tend to drive a bit faster than a lot of other people when there's room to do so. But: I'm extremely conservative when it comes to things like following distance, proper lane usage, staying out of the way of other vehicles, making room for pedestrians, avoiding cell phone use. I pay attention to my surroundings, and try to make room for other people if they give me a chance to. I drive on summer tires with outstanding wet traction in the summer, and snow tires with outstanding ice traction in the winter. This car's fancy suspension, good weight distribution, and season-specific tires sure helps me get where I'm going, but the primary benefit to me is that it lets me switch lanes extremely quickly (avoiding the blind left turners, as above), and that the brakes will stop with such ferocity that pain is involved. And when things turn bad, stability control takes care of modulating the throttle for me so that I can focus more on driving defensively and instead of keeping the car under control as I deal with the cell-phone equipped person in front of me who seems to think that it is their life's purpose to kill me.
Maybe the reason that nobody seems to see the BMW is that it's not a huge fucking truck or SUV, but I'm morally against owning a larger vehicle. And as long as I'm driving a relatively small car, I'll take one that lets me avoid all of the assholes in their pickup trucks, without wondering if their insurance is paid up.
Why is it that whenever I see a Slashdot article which includes the word "nano," or more specifically "nanotube," all I ever think is: Oh, look. Yet another technology article about a product that I'll never, ever see.
It is worth noting that with Vista's firm preference toward user-mode drivers, such problems as you experienced with your scanner should be eliminated.
Drivers under Vista can still certainly crash, but that crash should no longer be system-wide.
Isn't the trend in Linux-land to have drivers in user space? (See: fuse, X, etc.)
Obviously this is to promote DRM on Linux. Right?
Because, I mean, EVERY FUCKING CHANGE MICROSOFT EVER COMMITS IS FOR DRM. Everyone knows that.
And since everyone also knows that using user-space drivers instead of kernel-space is only to encourage DRM under Windows, then they should also know that the same applies to Linux.
That's right! Userland X is DRMing ur video!!!!! sshfs is restricting ur pr0n!!!!!!
[/sarcasm]
Except, of course, for the fact that it DOESN'T. Your logic is fucking flawed to the point of being meaningless. You, and at least 3 moderators are all total, brainwashed imbeciles.
Your comment carries as much weight as the following bullshit statement: "This apple is red. Therefore, it contains red paint."
So:
If you've got something to say, at least say it sensically, and try to back it up with fact. If facts are unavailable, at least try to make a persuasive and logical argument. And if even that's impossible, please at least try to be funny. You've done none of these things, which amounts to little more than a disservice to society.
Like it or not, most people do have a chimney attached to their motherboard; it is sometimes referred to as a "tower case," but that's just a name. It's still a chimney.
And: Unfortunately, this isn't a laptop part, you dolt.
I like your comparison, and would like to use it as a source of causation!
I really like my BMW. It turns 13 (and 160k) soon. We've only been together for about three short years -- far longer than a lot of tech companies ever last, but it's a very short time in BMW years. Since the acquisition, this car has taught me much, such as:
1. How to countersteer. I thought I'd already known how to countersteer from my years of driving a Firebird, which was loose like a two-dollar whore. I've since learned that all that an American car can teach is how to handle slight corrections at relatively low speeds, since they suffer from such comparatively lousy handling. By the time I get the rear end of the 325i to break loose, I find that the car is invariably either going sideways into oncoming traffic down a rain-slicked hill at 50MPH, or headed sideways toward a concrete wall at more than 80MPH. It is thus a far better teacher than the Firebird, and this makes me an even more attentive and alert student. (Though I swear that my beard grows another grey hair every time it decides that I've got something new to learn.)
2. Thou Shalt Not use Aftermarket Pads and Rotors, lest Thou shall Suffer Interminable Brake Squeal, and Lo, heads will Turn.
3. Driving and working on the BMW is a lot like operating a UNIX box in that the car, like UNIX, is perfect. If something isn't going right, it's obviously because I've done something wrong. It might seem to the lay person that the rear shock mounts, which were plainly designed to rip themselves apart, and the alarmingly-expensive-to-fix/astoundingly-expensive-to-prevent way in which the differential may exit vehicle (!) while ripping a huge hole in the sheet metal that it bolts to, but make no mistake. These seemingly faulty items do not detract from the pure and honest perfection in which it was created. And, much like ksh, more, yacc, and dd's stupidly unique command line syntax, these characteristics do defy any clear explanation as to why they exist. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, as they say, and I think it's just God's will that one become proficient at fixing the rear end of an E36 BMW, just as one should spend some months trapped in ksh (instead of bash) while using more (instead of less) in order to fully appreciate all the simple beauty that life offers every day.
Based on this, I'd like to conclude, based on my experience as a BMW owner, that a Microsoft buyout of Yahoo would entail the following:
1. Microsoft will learn from its younger acquisition how to start with a simple and universally popular resource, and then turn it busy and hideous, only to simplify it again, before finally letting just some of the bloat back in, just like yahoo.com. This plainly suggests that, with Yahoo's teachings, whatever follows Vista is sure to be an improvement. Unless they manage to turn themselves into a sausage creature first.
2. Clearly, this means that Yahoo will continue to run FreeBSD (however dead it may be) instead of some incarnation of Windows, lest the noise of grinding metal deafen all who bear witness.
3. Since BMWs are like UNIX, and UNIX is like FreeBSD, then all of these are perfect. However, if Microsoft is to Windows as Yahoo is to FreeBSD, then Windows must also be perfect. This part obviously should NOT be permitted to transpire; A perfect incarnation of Windows would create a time rift with a strong likelihood of sending us all back to the stone age. It's shameful that the EU seems to be rather impotent against Microsoft, because the US sure isn't going to do anything even AFTER Diebold gives the next election to McCain.
Which means, in conclusion, that we're fucked. In the event of a Microsoft-Yahoo buyout, please collect your cyanide tablet by the door on your way out. Thank you.
(Aren't you glad you used a car analogy on Slashdot?)
You can easily get four 6-foot tall adults in a current-generation Golf/Rabbit. Try that in a Polo, I dare you.
You can't even get four 6-foot tall American adults to fit into a full-size van without at least one of them complaining about being cramped, let alone anything sold by Volkswagen.
I mean, really: 4 adults in a Golf? It's just not how we do things in the land of the free, and the home of the big, shiny, extended cab, 8' bed, 4x4, dually pickup truck, powered by an 8-liter V10, moving at 80MPH down the interstate, with no cargo and no passengers and nothing in tow, operated by an obese white man with a scrawny goatee and a Bluetooth headset riveted to his ear, its bright blue LED flashing in warning to anyone unfortunate enough to see it coming...
My 1995 BMW 325i, which has so much electronic buggery going on that there's a bundle of wires that runs along the firewall which is as big as my forearm, hasn't had any real electrical problems to speak of. Just small stuff, like a constant battle between Myself and the Tail Light Socket That Shall Not Stay Consistently Connected, and the fact that the trunk keyswitch no longer unlocks the doors. (I used to think that it had a problem with the windshield washer level sensor, since it would alert within minutes of having filled it up with washer fluid, but it turns out that the reservoir just leaks a lot and that it's perfectly normal to lose 70% of the washer fluid within a few miles of driving.)
I've long been thinking about adding a GTI, VR6, or some manner of TDI to the fleet at some point, any of which should offer some manner of fun or economy or both, but I think you guys have talked me out of it.
We're talking about 911 pranks here, aren't we? If so, this doesn't have anything to do with Caller ID.
E911 uses a system based on ANI, not CID. The two have nothing in common.
Spoofing Caller ID is, as you say, easy. I did it ten years ago with ISDN, and it's even easier today with VOIP. But, ANI spoofing is a much more difficult task.
This is by design. Caller ID was designed to be flexible and easy to manipulate, while ANI was designed by AT&T as part of their internal billing system.
That Slashdot doesn't know this (or, perhaps, has forgotten) is frankly disappointing.
Which is really a huge, gaping fucking hole in the Linux desktop security model.
Just because I wanted to do $random_administrative_task 2 minutes ago, and entered my password into the prompt provided, does NOT mean that I STILL want some random rogue program clever enough[1] to run gksudo to be able to gain root without prompting.
[1]: Yeah, right. As if it's really that clever of an attack. Wait patiently for the user to run gksudo, which shouldn't take more than a few days, look for the process to escalate, and then run gksudo again == p0wn'd.
[2]: This unreferenced footnote is meant to convey that the author is, in fact, shouting. Loudly. Emphasis strongly intentional.
I only have one machine that gets used on a regular basis - a Dell laptop of a couple of years of age. I use it at home as my primary machine, and it's also the main desktop machine I use at work. I ordered it with XP Pro, and moved it over to Vista Business a few weeks after it was released.
Why? Because it does all of the simple stuff just fine, without me spending my time goofing around with it. On a normal day, I really don't run many programs but Firefox, Thunderbird, putty, and the occasional game. But sometimes I copy a video DVD, and that gets handled nicely by anydvd+dvd shrink. Sometimes I need to dupe a CD for someone, or transcode some video, which Nero does a fine job of. Every now and then, I have the need to edit a PDF file in Acrobat, or work with pictures in Photoshop, both of which just sort of work. And when I get a new bit of network-oriented hardware handed to me which only has a braindead Windows setup program, it just works, too. Windows handles the hardware pretty well, as well: Between RMClock's CPU undervolting and i8kfangui's fan speed controls, the laptop always runs cool and quiet, and the battery seems to last ages longer than when the machine has Ubuntu running on it.
And that's just it. Some of these simple things are hard to handle with Linux, but they're still things I want to be doing with a computer. And so, running Windows saves me time by making some of these things easier. I get to spend that time doing things that I find more enjoyable than configuring an application-rich Linux desktop, and compiling strange kernel modules and writing perl scripts to accomplish the same level of fan (read: noise) control.
But I'm not exactly afraid of Linux.
At home, I've also got a reasonably nice dual-head Ubuntu desktop machine. It mostly gets used as a second and third head on the Vista laptop (courtesy of Synergy), for things which are easier to do on a Bash command line, and for mucking with hardware using tools like dd_rescue. It also runs MediaTomb to feed media files into the PS3, which if I were feeling masochistic I could probably do with cygwin. I wouldn't want another Windows box as a secondary box, however - one instance of each OS is plenty.
At work, I keep a Gentoo desktop-ish box running, mostly as a test environment for the Gentoo mail server, but also for poking at the network in ways that Windows makes difficult. That mail-serving box is up to 592 days of uptime, and was last down due to a tornado in the neighborhood. (Need to reboot it soon to eliminate that fucking local root kernel exploit announced recently. There aren't any local shell users to speak of, but we all know how little difference that makes.)
And if that's not enough for what I'm after, I keep a copy of VMWare Player installed with a snapshot of Knoppix. I use this in case I'm in the field away from my Linux boxes and need to cook up a quick DHCP server, spoof a DNS address, build a temporary router, or whatever.
But by not having to fuck with desktop applications in Linux in any meaningful way, I have a lot more free time and brain power to, say, do interesting server-side work with the Gentoo boxen, or play with Asterisk, or whatever.
Desktop applications are positively boring to me, and I find little joy in compiling or downloading or even keeping track of things like KDE, so why should I bother?
I use the best tool for the job, and I don't particularly care if others find those same tools suitable for their jobs or not. Do you think that I should conduct myself differently?
[Oddly enough, as I wrote this, X just went to lunch on the plain-jane Ubuntu desktop machine, running a screen saver. Though the box itself keeps working fine, I'm looking at two frozen pictures of xspirograph which ctrl-alt-backspace will not eliminate. It did this yesterday, too. Oh, no, wait - it finally caught up after about three minutes of sitting there unresponsive. X just kicked itself over like I had instructed three minutes prior.
I am so fucking looking forward to troubleshooting whatever it is that causes this to happen. I really, really am. Really.]
Thunderbird has no revenue source. Without help from the profit generated by Firefox (primarily from Google), Thunderbird is doomed, at least in terms of centrally paying people to develop it.
It's been cast off to fend for itself. I'd expected a more altruistic attitude from an organization calling itself "The Mozilla Foundation," and am rather disappointed by this change.
I've got a 32" Sony CRT with an HDCP-supported DVI input, and the model was already six months or so old when I bought it almost exactly 3 years ago.
Which makes it closer to 3.5 years old, by my reckoning.
It works just fine with both of my upscaling players ($45 cheap-shit RCA DVD and a PS3) at 1080i, using a ~$4.00 DVI-HDMI cable from these guys.
And even 3 years ago, I was somewhat early to the HD game - back then, we had CRTs, projectors (ugh), and plasma (ouch). The rush to buy large-format HD sets (if there has ever been one) didn't happen until some time after this, when big LCD panels became available and cheap. By that point, HDCP was fully entrenched.
Therefore, I really don't think there's very any HDCP-related drama to be seen here.
Slashdot Mirror
No. He's done it to himself.
The problem is that not this particular patch to IE, but the fact that IE was updated at all. This changed the checksum/signature/whatever that the AV software was using to keep track of legitimate programs, which then caused it to have labeled IE as a rogue program. It then, doing the job that he asked it to, removed that program's access to the network.
It's a computer. It just runs programs. In this case, the user has instructed one program to be updated, after having previously instructed another program to ensure that such a thing should never be tolerated.
It's just doing exactly what he told it to do. Shifting blame away from the user and the third-party application(s) causing the problem and instead onto Windows might make folks feel better about themselves, but is both nonsensical and counterproductive, and clearly has done nothing to actually solve the problem in this case.
He's on Slashdot, isn't he?
It's not luck.
He mentions KB944533. Plugging KB944533 into Google returns, oddly enough, this page about KB944533 as the first hit. On this page, is the following:
Known issues
You may receive an error message that resembles the following when you try to visit a Web page in Windows Internet Explorer 7:
Webpage cannot be displayed
It then links to another article describing the nature of this problem, which it turns out is caused by firewall/antivirus/antispyware/other deeply-infiltrated shit, which in turn blocks the freshly-updated IE from functioning.
It has little at all by Windows itself.
So, again: Luck is not a factor here. He's done this to himself, and hasn't even taken the most rudimentary steps toward actually solving it, other than trying to apply random patches in the vague hope that one of them might somehow fix a problem with his antivirus software.
I feel no pity.
What if I don't want to paint all my LED-bearing indicators with an ugly black stripe?
;handle of a Klein screw driver.)
If black does not suit you, then perhaps you might try red, blue, green, yellow, silver, gold, purple, brown, orange, turquoise, or burgundy.
Go ahead and try one. If you don't like it, just erase it and try again.
Sharpie marker is, generally, very easily erased from plastic. All you need is a bit of relatively hard vinyl, or relatively soft PVC, such as you'll find at the IEC end of your computer's power cord. Just rub the corner of the connector against the ink as if it were an eraser on a pencil mark, and it will simply disappear. (The insulated handle of a pair of diagonal cutters also works well, as does the black rubber
And now, I see that the antenna is supposed to be of vertical orientation. Doh! So I'll ask the same question, modified by 90 degrees and an additional quandary:
Can I build this out of 12-guage Romex and hang it from an inside wall? Can I use that wall's screened metal lath as a reflector? (The other walls in line with the antenna's path are either wooden lath or gypsum -- thankfully, only 1/4 of the computer room serves as a Faraday shield.)
Are you sure?
Last time I toyed with the idea of building an antenna, I was looking at constructing a Yagi (for one particular FM station about 95 miles away). All available information seemed to indicate that the diameter of the elements was not only important, but that different diameters required sometimes vast differences in the overall shape of the antenna.
Now, of course, this isn't a Yagi.
But what I really want to know is: Can I make this out of 12-gauge Romex and hang it from the ceiling? Because I'm cheap, and since it's going to be mounted indoors[1] it doesn't have to stand up to any ice and wind. It just needs to be kept straight, which I think I can do easily enough with string or fishing line or similar.
[1]: I'm moving soon to a different house, and I neither want to buy a tower nor move my existing one. The easiest part of the roof to reach is steel standing seam, and the other part is rubber, and I don't want to put holes in either one -- I don't have ladder that tall, anyway. Plus: The eaves are very wide, so mounting it to an outside wall, with enough mast pipe to reach over the steel roof, is probably not such an easy thing, either. And, also because of the steel roof, using the attic is obviously out.
But indoors on the ceiling of the the second floor gets it up pretty high, certainly higher than all of the neighboring houses, and my wife says I can do whatever I want with the computer room . . .
Who cares?
Honestly, if it were me and my billion dollars of worth and I expected the company to last about five years, I'd just write myself a nice retirement package and plan on doing another 3 or so years of good and solid work. Then, I'd find a moderately palatable CEO corporate-type to run things, and spend the rest of my life pretending that it's still 1999.
I think the stereotype has more to do with the quantity of a given type of vehicle, than the type of vehicle itself.
Around here, not many people own BMWs or Audis. Most of the drivers of these cars seem to behave as if they're headed to church on a Sunday morning. Slow isn't quite the word, but they're sure in no particular hurry to get anywhere, and they seem to tend to be more observant than most others.
A far bigger problem than assholes in BMWs (sure, there's some), here in NW Ohio, is wankers in trucks, SUVs, and minivans, which are easily the majority of vehicles on the road here.
The SUV wanker is typically distracted by a cell phone, and not paying much attention to anything but their own needs. They're not driving fast, usually, but they're not looking around at anything important either.
And the minivans wankers... Sheesh. I've got kids, but I'll be damned before I drive around in a minivan with multiple independant DVD players, a half-dozen kids to watch them, satellite radio, and about half as many cell phones (in use) as there are occupants. It's like driving a fucking 8-year-old's birthday party down the road. The drivers are so distracted with the commotion and trying to keep track of their multiple socialite conversations that driving effectively becomes a tertiary activity, at best.
Pickup trucks are the worst, as their owners install straight dual exhausts and headers (there's no smog checks here), a set of knobby Mickey Thompson tires, and suddenly think that they're Formula 1 racers. They pull into traffic with wild disregard for the fact the there are, in fact, other cars on the road. Just the other day I was nearly hit by three of them, within 15 seconds (!), all of which were turning left onto the main road from different locations, as they attempted to maneuver their truck into the exact same spot already occupied by my car. This happens with nauseating regularity.
Finally, in the spirit of full disclosure, I drive a 1995 BMW 325i. It's far too old to be much of a fashion statement, but its every bit as much of a sports sedan as it was 13 years ago...which is to say, not very fast, but with superb handling, comfortable seats, and good mileage. I also tend to drive a bit faster than a lot of other people when there's room to do so. But: I'm extremely conservative when it comes to things like following distance, proper lane usage, staying out of the way of other vehicles, making room for pedestrians, avoiding cell phone use. I pay attention to my surroundings, and try to make room for other people if they give me a chance to. I drive on summer tires with outstanding wet traction in the summer, and snow tires with outstanding ice traction in the winter. This car's fancy suspension, good weight distribution, and season-specific tires sure helps me get where I'm going, but the primary benefit to me is that it lets me switch lanes extremely quickly (avoiding the blind left turners, as above), and that the brakes will stop with such ferocity that pain is involved. And when things turn bad, stability control takes care of modulating the throttle for me so that I can focus more on driving defensively and instead of keeping the car under control as I deal with the cell-phone equipped person in front of me who seems to think that it is their life's purpose to kill me.
Maybe the reason that nobody seems to see the BMW is that it's not a huge fucking truck or SUV, but I'm morally against owning a larger vehicle. And as long as I'm driving a relatively small car, I'll take one that lets me avoid all of the assholes in their pickup trucks, without wondering if their insurance is paid up.
Why is it that whenever I see a Slashdot article which includes the word "nano," or more specifically "nanotube," all I ever think is: Oh, look. Yet another technology article about a product that I'll never, ever see.
Wake me up when any of this turns practical.
The torrent is currently showing more than 5,500 seeds. If it is data that he wants, I think BitTorrent has it. ;)
It is worth noting that with Vista's firm preference toward user-mode drivers, such problems as you experienced with your scanner should be eliminated.
Drivers under Vista can still certainly crash, but that crash should no longer be system-wide.
Isn't the trend in Linux-land to have drivers in user space? (See: fuse, X, etc.)
Obviously this is to promote DRM on Linux. Right?
Because, I mean, EVERY FUCKING CHANGE MICROSOFT EVER COMMITS IS FOR DRM. Everyone knows that.
And since everyone also knows that using user-space drivers instead of kernel-space is only to encourage DRM under Windows, then they should also know that the same applies to Linux.
That's right! Userland X is DRMing ur video!!!!! sshfs is restricting ur pr0n!!!!!!
[/sarcasm]
Except, of course, for the fact that it DOESN'T. Your logic is fucking flawed to the point of being meaningless. You, and at least 3 moderators are all total, brainwashed imbeciles.
Your comment carries as much weight as the following bullshit statement: "This apple is red. Therefore, it contains red paint."
So:
If you've got something to say, at least say it sensically, and try to back it up with fact. If facts are unavailable, at least try to make a persuasive and logical argument. And if even that's impossible, please at least try to be funny. You've done none of these things, which amounts to little more than a disservice to society.
Please stop.
Thank you.
As long as we're being snarky:
Like it or not, most people do have a chimney attached to their motherboard; it is sometimes referred to as a "tower case," but that's just a name. It's still a chimney.
And: Unfortunately, this isn't a laptop part, you dolt.
Why? Does the waste heat of the Stirling engine hate CPUs and automatically flow back to the chip?
Of course not. It's dissipated by the Stirling engine.
It could be 1% efficient, as long as the engine has enough cooling capacity to handle its own waste heat.
I like your comparison, and would like to use it as a source of causation!
I really like my BMW. It turns 13 (and 160k) soon. We've only been together for about three short years -- far longer than a lot of tech companies ever last, but it's a very short time in BMW years. Since the acquisition, this car has taught me much, such as:
1. How to countersteer. I thought I'd already known how to countersteer from my years of driving a Firebird, which was loose like a two-dollar whore. I've since learned that all that an American car can teach is how to handle slight corrections at relatively low speeds, since they suffer from such comparatively lousy handling. By the time I get the rear end of the 325i to break loose, I find that the car is invariably either going sideways into oncoming traffic down a rain-slicked hill at 50MPH, or headed sideways toward a concrete wall at more than 80MPH. It is thus a far better teacher than the Firebird, and this makes me an even more attentive and alert student. (Though I swear that my beard grows another grey hair every time it decides that I've got something new to learn.)
2. Thou Shalt Not use Aftermarket Pads and Rotors, lest Thou shall Suffer Interminable Brake Squeal, and Lo, heads will Turn.
3. Driving and working on the BMW is a lot like operating a UNIX box in that the car, like UNIX, is perfect. If something isn't going right, it's obviously because I've done something wrong. It might seem to the lay person that the rear shock mounts, which were plainly designed to rip themselves apart, and the alarmingly-expensive-to-fix/astoundingly-expensive-to-prevent way in which the differential may exit vehicle (!) while ripping a huge hole in the sheet metal that it bolts to, but make no mistake. These seemingly faulty items do not detract from the pure and honest perfection in which it was created. And, much like ksh, more, yacc, and dd's stupidly unique command line syntax, these characteristics do defy any clear explanation as to why they exist. But the Lord works in mysterious ways, as they say, and I think it's just God's will that one become proficient at fixing the rear end of an E36 BMW, just as one should spend some months trapped in ksh (instead of bash) while using more (instead of less) in order to fully appreciate all the simple beauty that life offers every day.
Based on this, I'd like to conclude, based on my experience as a BMW owner, that a Microsoft buyout of Yahoo would entail the following:
1. Microsoft will learn from its younger acquisition how to start with a simple and universally popular resource, and then turn it busy and hideous, only to simplify it again, before finally letting just some of the bloat back in, just like yahoo.com. This plainly suggests that, with Yahoo's teachings, whatever follows Vista is sure to be an improvement. Unless they manage to turn themselves into a sausage creature first.
2. Clearly, this means that Yahoo will continue to run FreeBSD (however dead it may be) instead of some incarnation of Windows, lest the noise of grinding metal deafen all who bear witness.
3. Since BMWs are like UNIX, and UNIX is like FreeBSD, then all of these are perfect. However, if Microsoft is to Windows as Yahoo is to FreeBSD, then Windows must also be perfect. This part obviously should NOT be permitted to transpire; A perfect incarnation of Windows would create a time rift with a strong likelihood of sending us all back to the stone age. It's shameful that the EU seems to be rather impotent against Microsoft, because the US sure isn't going to do anything even AFTER Diebold gives the next election to McCain.
Which means, in conclusion, that we're fucked. In the event of a Microsoft-Yahoo buyout, please collect your cyanide tablet by the door on your way out. Thank you.
(Aren't you glad you used a car analogy on Slashdot?)
You must not be from around here.
You can easily get four 6-foot tall adults in a current-generation Golf/Rabbit. Try that in a Polo, I dare you.
You can't even get four 6-foot tall American adults to fit into a full-size van without at least one of them complaining about being cramped, let alone anything sold by Volkswagen.
I mean, really: 4 adults in a Golf? It's just not how we do things in the land of the free, and the home of the big, shiny, extended cab, 8' bed, 4x4, dually pickup truck, powered by an 8-liter V10, moving at 80MPH down the interstate, with no cargo and no passengers and nothing in tow, operated by an obese white man with a scrawny goatee and a Bluetooth headset riveted to his ear, its bright blue LED flashing in warning to anyone unfortunate enough to see it coming...
My 1995 BMW 325i, which has so much electronic buggery going on that there's a bundle of wires that runs along the firewall which is as big as my forearm, hasn't had any real electrical problems to speak of. Just small stuff, like a constant battle between Myself and the Tail Light Socket That Shall Not Stay Consistently Connected, and the fact that the trunk keyswitch no longer unlocks the doors. (I used to think that it had a problem with the windshield washer level sensor, since it would alert within minutes of having filled it up with washer fluid, but it turns out that the reservoir just leaks a lot and that it's perfectly normal to lose 70% of the washer fluid within a few miles of driving.)
I've long been thinking about adding a GTI, VR6, or some manner of TDI to the fleet at some point, any of which should offer some manner of fun or economy or both, but I think you guys have talked me out of it.
Thanks, I guess, for ruining that small dream.
If that is the case, then we are all truly doomed.
Are you high?
Why on Earth would you want to cram more (logical) pixels into an LCD than it can physically display, with Windows, X, or anything else?
We're talking about 911 pranks here, aren't we? If so, this doesn't have anything to do with Caller ID.
E911 uses a system based on ANI, not CID. The two have nothing in common.
Spoofing Caller ID is, as you say, easy. I did it ten years ago with ISDN, and it's even easier today with VOIP. But, ANI spoofing is a much more difficult task.
This is by design. Caller ID was designed to be flexible and easy to manipulate, while ANI was designed by AT&T as part of their internal billing system.
That Slashdot doesn't know this (or, perhaps, has forgotten) is frankly disappointing.
TSIA. HTH. HAND.
Which is really a huge, gaping fucking hole in the Linux desktop security model.
Just because I wanted to do $random_administrative_task 2 minutes ago, and entered my password into the prompt provided, does NOT mean that I STILL want some random rogue program clever enough[1] to run gksudo to be able to gain root without prompting.
[1]: Yeah, right. As if it's really that clever of an attack. Wait patiently for the user to run gksudo, which shouldn't take more than a few days, look for the process to escalate, and then run gksudo again == p0wn'd.
[2]: This unreferenced footnote is meant to convey that the author is, in fact, shouting. Loudly. Emphasis strongly intentional.
My turn.
I only have one machine that gets used on a regular basis - a Dell laptop of a couple of years of age. I use it at home as my primary machine, and it's also the main desktop machine I use at work. I ordered it with XP Pro, and moved it over to Vista Business a few weeks after it was released.
Why? Because it does all of the simple stuff just fine, without me spending my time goofing around with it. On a normal day, I really don't run many programs but Firefox, Thunderbird, putty, and the occasional game. But sometimes I copy a video DVD, and that gets handled nicely by anydvd+dvd shrink. Sometimes I need to dupe a CD for someone, or transcode some video, which Nero does a fine job of. Every now and then, I have the need to edit a PDF file in Acrobat, or work with pictures in Photoshop, both of which just sort of work. And when I get a new bit of network-oriented hardware handed to me which only has a braindead Windows setup program, it just works, too. Windows handles the hardware pretty well, as well: Between RMClock's CPU undervolting and i8kfangui's fan speed controls, the laptop always runs cool and quiet, and the battery seems to last ages longer than when the machine has Ubuntu running on it.
And that's just it. Some of these simple things are hard to handle with Linux, but they're still things I want to be doing with a computer. And so, running Windows saves me time by making some of these things easier. I get to spend that time doing things that I find more enjoyable than configuring an application-rich Linux desktop, and compiling strange kernel modules and writing perl scripts to accomplish the same level of fan (read: noise) control.
But I'm not exactly afraid of Linux.
At home, I've also got a reasonably nice dual-head Ubuntu desktop machine. It mostly gets used as a second and third head on the Vista laptop (courtesy of Synergy), for things which are easier to do on a Bash command line, and for mucking with hardware using tools like dd_rescue. It also runs MediaTomb to feed media files into the PS3, which if I were feeling masochistic I could probably do with cygwin. I wouldn't want another Windows box as a secondary box, however - one instance of each OS is plenty.
At work, I keep a Gentoo desktop-ish box running, mostly as a test environment for the Gentoo mail server, but also for poking at the network in ways that Windows makes difficult. That mail-serving box is up to 592 days of uptime, and was last down due to a tornado in the neighborhood. (Need to reboot it soon to eliminate that fucking local root kernel exploit announced recently. There aren't any local shell users to speak of, but we all know how little difference that makes.)
And if that's not enough for what I'm after, I keep a copy of VMWare Player installed with a snapshot of Knoppix. I use this in case I'm in the field away from my Linux boxes and need to cook up a quick DHCP server, spoof a DNS address, build a temporary router, or whatever.
But by not having to fuck with desktop applications in Linux in any meaningful way, I have a lot more free time and brain power to, say, do interesting server-side work with the Gentoo boxen, or play with Asterisk, or whatever.
Desktop applications are positively boring to me, and I find little joy in compiling or downloading or even keeping track of things like KDE, so why should I bother?
I use the best tool for the job, and I don't particularly care if others find those same tools suitable for their jobs or not. Do you think that I should conduct myself differently?
[Oddly enough, as I wrote this, X just went to lunch on the plain-jane Ubuntu desktop machine, running a screen saver. Though the box itself keeps working fine, I'm looking at two frozen pictures of xspirograph which ctrl-alt-backspace will not eliminate. It did this yesterday, too. Oh, no, wait - it finally caught up after about three minutes of sitting there unresponsive. X just kicked itself over like I had instructed three minutes prior.
I am so fucking looking forward to troubleshooting whatever it is that causes this to happen. I really, really am. Really.]
Thunderbird has no revenue source. Without help from the profit generated by Firefox (primarily from Google), Thunderbird is doomed, at least in terms of centrally paying people to develop it.
It's been cast off to fend for itself. I'd expected a more altruistic attitude from an organization calling itself "The Mozilla Foundation," and am rather disappointed by this change.
2.5 years, you say?
Strange.
I've got a 32" Sony CRT with an HDCP-supported DVI input, and the model was already six months or so old when I bought it almost exactly 3 years ago.
Which makes it closer to 3.5 years old, by my reckoning.
It works just fine with both of my upscaling players ($45 cheap-shit RCA DVD and a PS3) at 1080i, using a ~$4.00 DVI-HDMI cable from these guys.
And even 3 years ago, I was somewhat early to the HD game - back then, we had CRTs, projectors (ugh), and plasma (ouch). The rush to buy large-format HD sets (if there has ever been one) didn't happen until some time after this, when big LCD panels became available and cheap. By that point, HDCP was fully entrenched.
Therefore, I really don't think there's very any HDCP-related drama to be seen here.