Lying to the police is illegal, too. You can plead the 5th here in the states and say nothing, but you can't lie to the cops. There are several laws covering this, from Making A False Report, to Obstruction of Justice. Ask Martha Stuart, its what she is about to be sentenced for.
Its not a bug, its a feature. Besides, its more FUD than fact. As long as the offending packet has the Evil Bit set, then there is no chance that any Microsoft software can be exploited. As for Linux, I am not aware of any kernel patches that can utilize filtering by Evil Bit, although I am sure the BSD crowd has already addressed this issue.
Thanks to SFU, I can finally deliver software with the Quality that Windows users Expect.
Sadly, you may be disappointed. According to MS, you can install SFU (which look all too close to STFU) on XP Pro, but makes no mention of XP Home. So you may have to wait a while until you can bring the convenience of being rooted, plus the power of Unix, to XP Home users.
Don't forget the "medical" exception. I remember when MTV showed the breast operation show, they would show the full breast while being operated on, but not when the doctor was feeling the breast during an exam. Talk about splitting hairs.
No, that would be a gynecological operation, not a breast implant operation. But I'm pretty sure the FCC would freak out about splitting the hairs, medical or not.;)
thank god for metamoderation. This is *EXACTLY* why I metamoderate. To mark most "Troll" and "Flamebait" as unfair, and to mark speling and grammar nazis as unfair when they are modded up. God dammit, I even hate wasting the room here, but I wont waste a Karma Bonus point.
For those who don't understand this reference, think back to the 286 days when it was originally known as 0-0-0-destruct-0
A quick googling of the term "0-0-0-destruct-0" only seems to show star trek references, primarily self destruct codes from Kirk. Combined with "286" bring up one star trek reference, but 286 is part of another number. You sure on your references boss?
I particularly liked how the author continually said how a more complete article would be better, for every topic, and how he had written such articles in the past, but provided no links. I just love articles that sum up other articles in vague terms, without any links. That was as informative as watching an Intel TV commercial.
I hate to break this to you, but technically, 33 bit is double 32 bits. Each bit you add doubles the amount of data, regardless of how many you start with. 8 bits has 256 possibilities, 9 has 512, 10 has 1024, 11 has 2048, etc. Thats kinda how binary works.
64 is rather larger than twice, which is both good and bad, depending on whether you need to drag around all those extra bits for nothing.
Since then, the progress has slowed down. I mean, Pentium3 -> Pentium4 was only a 33% improvement
For tasks other than multimedia, the P4 was actually SLOWER than the P3, per clock tick. The P3 design had hit the ceiling for speed, so the P4 was a redesign that was optimized for desktop stuff, like video, etc. But for most raw cranking tasks, it was slower than the P3, relatively. Oh yea, and you can run P3s in Dual CPU systems, another plus. The Centrino chip, on the other hand, is closer to the P3 in performance (work done) per clock tick.
Your natural compression is still distortion, and as I said, tube amps have value when distortion is required. Transistors are much cheaper and more reliable when accuracy is your priority (just buy a powerful enough amp that you don't need to overdrive it).
With tubes, natural compression is the reduction in the input voltage as a whole, without changing the tone (much). Transisitors simply can not do this, by design. Its not an opinion.
Roland spent a lot of money, and made a lot of money, by getting transistors to do something not as good, but very similar. Again, this is not my opinion, any oscilliscope will demonstrate this. It is a characteristic of analog tubes. The article covers this, if you have not read it yet.
Tubes do NOT distort when you push them to 105%-110%, not in the traditional way. They tend to push the input voltage down, which keeps the sound clean. To get desirable distortion, you have to push one hell of a lot more than a few percent. This is why some amps, like the original Fender Twin, CANT get desirable distortion. (new ones are very different). You crank all the knobs to 10 and its still pretty clean if you play soft to moderate. It breaks up a little if you attack the strings hard enough, but its not the same.
I DO have opinions, based upon a few decades of owning dozens of amps from Fender, Laney, Gibson/Lab Series, Legend, Peavey, Marshall, Crate, and many brands you probably have never heard, but what I am talking about, the charactaristics of tubes vs transisters are well documented. Go google it, or read the article.
"Uncolored sound" and "natural compression" are mutually exclusive. Tubes are only better when distortion is required (eg. guitar amps), for accurate sound reproduction transistors are much better.
Not exactly. Common misconception, however. Natural compression *IS* desirable when you are pushing the circuit passed its threshold. I don't mean as in distortion, I mean as in CLEAN sound, only with a major attack on the strings. The transister will create distortion, the tube will slightly compress instead. When you have the preamp set for clean tones and then push it this way, a transistor will give you unnatural harmonics and a biting THD. The tube will naturally compress, so the sound you get is still clean, and represents the sound you get without an amp better. The only transistor amp I have seen that approaches this is the Roland Blues Cube 50 (no longer made).
Part of the reason is NOT just the transistor or tube, but its the rectifier as well. When you push the preamp in a sudden attack, the power section has to deliver more power as well, and a tube rectifier tends to deliver cleaner power than a transistor based bridge rectifier. Lots of tube amps in the medium price range do NOT have tubes in the rectifier section, so you do not gain that advantage.
It also makes a difference if you are attempting to get a grey tone, the sound of a tube amp pushed too hard but still clean. This is where you are still clean at low attack, but it breaks up nicely as you attack harder. (think some blues, rockabilly, modern country). You get more control over the tone that you simply can't do with transistors.
Transistors ARE preferable (to me) if you are playing back preprocessed music, like your home stereo, but live you want a larger dynamic range and the ability to push the preamp into clip while it is still clean (think 2-3 on the preamp, 7 on the postamp). Go grab an old twin or deluxe, or a new deluxe, jr or bassman and set it up clean but loud and see. This is also the reason why many musicians (myself included) prefer tube amps in the 20 to 40 watt range, so you can get it clean, but at 70% of rated power for the tone and characteristics of the tube if you want to push them a bit.
another method is to alias the site to the fake name. so im my case, "freshmeat@[mydomain].com" would go to the throwaway account. The only bad thing about both methods is that if you don't cull the mail box every now and then, its gets pretty large so that the easiest way to clear it is to "rm -f/var/spool/mail/myname; touch/var/spool/mail/myname; chown me:me...etc"
You like hwo your tube amp sounds with your guitar. It has *nothing* to do with accuracy, or accuracy at high volume, or anything like that; it just makes a better sounding tone.
Im not talking about distortion, I am talking about clean tones, no effects (except some reverb in small halls). Tubes have a fuller sound, without harsh harmonics. They have a broader range of tone and harmonics. Its not about "sounding cool", its about getting the true tone of the instrument without coloring it. Properly tuned, tubes transmit the tone of the instrument better than solid state, at any volume level. Its not exactly revolutionary, its why almost every country, blues, rock, jazz, etc. guitarist uses tubes.
The amp is NOT part of the instrument. It is part of the sound (good or bad) but so is the PA system, the acoustics of the building, etc. It is a tool. It *IS* about accuracy. When you hit the strings hard, transisters create bad harmonics that are NOT coming out of the guitar, but are instead created inside the electronics. Tubes are more forgiving and will slightly compress. This allows me to get the sound of the string being played hard, instead of the sound of the transister being pushed hard.
For the average wanker banging out "Smoke on the Water", it would not matter, but for a musician it does. Not all transistors are bad (Roland makes a great transistor amp, for instance) but for true tone, across a wider dynamic range, tubes simply work better for guitar. Its not exactly a singular opinion, since tube amps generally cost twice the price of transistor amps, have 10 x the maintenance, but are used by the vast majority of touring musicians and club musicians.
Only if you have an exceedingly narrow-minded definition of musician. Most of the musicians that I know use acoustic instruments. No tubes or transistors involved.
Even all accoustic musicians go to the studio every now and then. You know, they do make tube mics and pre amps...
I just use "throwaway@[myrealdomain].com" and don't monitor it. When I DO forget a password, etc. I first log into the account, delete all mail, then do a "Forgot your password?" which sends it to the newly clean inbox of that user. Then I reclaim my password, and ignore that email address until I forget my password for some other site.
Of course, it helps if you have your own mail server and you ONLY use that address for that purpose.
Digging up an ancient speech which probably SPARKED the religious war in the first place is idiotic, in my opinion.
Maybe its a war for audiophiles, but for musicians, there is no dispute. The vast majority of professional musicians use tubes for the reasons stated in the article and others. Transisitors are used for different things, such as when size and heat are a consideration, like in a practice amp.
I never understood why there was a debate anyway. Tubes sound better, transistors are much easier to work with. They each have their place. You can make each sound good or bad by design, but when all is equal, tubes sound more pleasant to the ear, while transisitors look better on paper. I tend to believe my ear rather than a piece of paper. My home stereo is transistor, my guitar amps are tube. This is because I want good sound at moderate levels and excellent reliability from my home stereo. For my guitar amp, I am willing to put up with lower reliability and higher maintenance to get the dynamic range, uncolored sound, natural compression and punch that only tubes can bring.
The flame wars are pretty silly, its like arguing "horse vs. car". Obviously the car is better in most cirumstances but the horse is handier if you are where there are no roads.
Oh, the relevence today is that the quality of transistors today are not as good as they were years ago in some respects (as you state, they have changed) yet my guitar amps still use the same tubes other amps used 50 years ago: 6V6, 6L6, 5880, EL34, EL84, 12AX7, etc.
So maybe, once products reach a certain maturity level and sales have dropped off to the point that support costs outweigh sales, they should be open sourced.
Forteinc.com makes Agent newsreader, the best USENET tool around (IMHO). They spend 10 years on the 1.x branch. I purchased around 94, while it was in beta (like.91). I was able to enjoy every upgrade until they released 2.0 less than a year ago. I went ahead and paid for an upgrade, even though I still like 1.93 better, just because I WANT them to succeed. I could have continued to use version 1.93+ (in 16 or 32 bit versions) without paying anything.
Not every product needs major updates every year or two. Forte did it right the first time, and used minor updates for new features (yENC, etc) and bug fixes and not just to try to pump more revenue out of their customers. They let you use a limited, but powerful version of the software for FREE, forever. I have had to email them twice for support, years after I paid for the product, and they have always been professional, courtious, responsive and willing to go the extra mile. THIS is why I am happy to give them my money, even if I don't have to.
Can you imagine someone paying for an upgrade to XP, but continuing to use 2K, only because they respect the company and want them to do well?
Try again, slashbot. XP is demonstrably more stable than Win2K. But hey, your version of the story nets you more Karma points, right?
Lighten up, cowboy, Funny doensn't get you karma, and I pegged out years ago anyway. I just can't resist the easy joke, and I am willing to risk karma to make it. Hell, Im on my XP laptop now, so I know that XP doesn't freeze up all the
Odds are, MS is, as the article mentions, just going through a "mid-life crisis". They'll either recoup, tighten down, and keep chugging along - or just proceed with "business as usual" for all their talk, then wonder 5 years from now why all of the business are running Slinux (simple Linux - easy enough for Grandma to figure out how to change the screen resolution) or Apple OS X instead of Windows.
I am still betting that Microsoft will release a version of Linux in a few years, that has a proprietary GUI on top of a Linux kernel. Closed source, still has registration, but just Linux on the bottom end (or maybe BSD). I can see this in an internet appliance grade system, just so they can say "Well, we have linux too, its just not for 'real' computers, its for these appliances."
This would allow them to SELL and RESTRICT use of the GUI, while letting others develop the kernel for FREE. This would also remove much of the security blame. Its not like they are new to Unix, they were developing Unix products before Linus installed his first copy of Minix.
I don't think they will drop their regular Windows product, but I can see them "using" Linux or BSD to dilute the market and create confusion by selling the exact same thing cheaper, demonstrating that it is "an inferior product suitable for small tasks".
Doohan, 84, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's "within the last couple months,"
Doohan has lived in Redmond for almost a dozen years with his wife, Wende. They have a 4-year-old daughter and two older sons, and Doohan has four children from a previous marriage, Stevens said.
84 and has a 4 year old daughter? Way to go Scotty! An inspiration for all of us. Its redundant, but like everyone I wish him well.
Slashdot Mirror
In the last 4 years (since I gave up driving) I haven't used any gasoline (hydrogen, natural gas, or electricity) while going from point A to point B.
Yea, easy to say if you are in prison...
Lying to the police is illegal, too. You can plead the 5th here in the states and say nothing, but you can't lie to the cops. There are several laws covering this, from Making A False Report, to Obstruction of Justice. Ask Martha Stuart, its what she is about to be sentenced for.
So I think they even have a call center for 419 scam :)
So now we are outsourcing scams, too? Great, now you can't even get ripped off without the guy having an accent so thick you can't understand him...
Don't worry, it'll be in SP3
Might as well say it is included in Half Life 2. Or Doom 3.
Its not a bug, its a feature. Besides, its more FUD than fact. As long as the offending packet has the Evil Bit set, then there is no chance that any Microsoft software can be exploited. As for Linux, I am not aware of any kernel patches that can utilize filtering by Evil Bit, although I am sure the BSD crowd has already addressed this issue.
Thanks to SFU, I can finally deliver software with the Quality that Windows users Expect.
Sadly, you may be disappointed. According to MS, you can install SFU (which look all too close to STFU) on XP Pro, but makes no mention of XP Home. So you may have to wait a while until you can bring the convenience of being rooted, plus the power of Unix, to XP Home users.
Don't forget the "medical" exception. I remember when MTV showed the breast operation show, they would show the full breast while being operated on, but not when the doctor was feeling the breast during an exam. Talk about splitting hairs.
;)
No, that would be a gynecological operation, not a breast implant operation. But I'm pretty sure the FCC would freak out about splitting the hairs, medical or not.
To paraphrase Jack Nicholson (again)
Only in America, if you shoot a breast off with a shotgun, its rated PG. But if you suck it, its rated R.
thank god for metamoderation. This is *EXACTLY* why I metamoderate. To mark most "Troll" and "Flamebait" as unfair, and to mark speling and grammar nazis as unfair when they are modded up. God dammit, I even hate wasting the room here, but I wont waste a Karma Bonus point.
May I be so bold as to suggest a different search?
;)
For those who don't understand this reference, think back to the 286 days when it was originally known as 0-0-0-destruct-0
A quick googling of the term "0-0-0-destruct-0" only seems to show star trek references, primarily self destruct codes from Kirk. Combined with "286" bring up one star trek reference, but 286 is part of another number. You sure on your references boss?
I particularly liked how the author continually said how a more complete article would be better, for every topic, and how he had written such articles in the past, but provided no links. I just love articles that sum up other articles in vague terms, without any links. That was as informative as watching an Intel TV commercial.
Yeah, but you get double the bits (32 -> 64)
I hate to break this to you, but technically, 33 bit is double 32 bits. Each bit you add doubles the amount of data, regardless of how many you start with. 8 bits has 256 possibilities, 9 has 512, 10 has 1024, 11 has 2048, etc. Thats kinda how binary works.
64 is rather larger than twice, which is both good and bad, depending on whether you need to drag around all those extra bits for nothing.
Since then, the progress has slowed down. I mean, Pentium3 -> Pentium4 was only a 33% improvement
For tasks other than multimedia, the P4 was actually SLOWER than the P3, per clock tick. The P3 design had hit the ceiling for speed, so the P4 was a redesign that was optimized for desktop stuff, like video, etc. But for most raw cranking tasks, it was slower than the P3, relatively. Oh yea, and you can run P3s in Dual CPU systems, another plus. The Centrino chip, on the other hand, is closer to the P3 in performance (work done) per clock tick.
Your natural compression is still distortion, and as I said, tube amps have value when distortion is required. Transistors are much cheaper and more reliable when accuracy is your priority (just buy a powerful enough amp that you don't need to overdrive it).
With tubes, natural compression is the reduction in the input voltage as a whole, without changing the tone (much). Transisitors simply can not do this, by design. Its not an opinion.
Roland spent a lot of money, and made a lot of money, by getting transistors to do something not as good, but very similar. Again, this is not my opinion, any oscilliscope will demonstrate this. It is a characteristic of analog tubes. The article covers this, if you have not read it yet.
Tubes do NOT distort when you push them to 105%-110%, not in the traditional way. They tend to push the input voltage down, which keeps the sound clean. To get desirable distortion, you have to push one hell of a lot more than a few percent. This is why some amps, like the original Fender Twin, CANT get desirable distortion. (new ones are very different). You crank all the knobs to 10 and its still pretty clean if you play soft to moderate. It breaks up a little if you attack the strings hard enough, but its not the same.
I DO have opinions, based upon a few decades of owning dozens of amps from Fender, Laney, Gibson/Lab Series, Legend, Peavey, Marshall, Crate, and many brands you probably have never heard, but what I am talking about, the charactaristics of tubes vs transisters are well documented. Go google it, or read the article.
"Uncolored sound" and "natural compression" are mutually exclusive. Tubes are only better when distortion is required (eg. guitar amps), for accurate sound reproduction transistors are much better.
Not exactly. Common misconception, however. Natural compression *IS* desirable when you are pushing the circuit passed its threshold. I don't mean as in distortion, I mean as in CLEAN sound, only with a major attack on the strings. The transister will create distortion, the tube will slightly compress instead. When you have the preamp set for clean tones and then push it this way, a transistor will give you unnatural harmonics and a biting THD. The tube will naturally compress, so the sound you get is still clean, and represents the sound you get without an amp better. The only transistor amp I have seen that approaches this is the Roland Blues Cube 50 (no longer made).
Part of the reason is NOT just the transistor or tube, but its the rectifier as well. When you push the preamp in a sudden attack, the power section has to deliver more power as well, and a tube rectifier tends to deliver cleaner power than a transistor based bridge rectifier. Lots of tube amps in the medium price range do NOT have tubes in the rectifier section, so you do not gain that advantage.
It also makes a difference if you are attempting to get a grey tone, the sound of a tube amp pushed too hard but still clean. This is where you are still clean at low attack, but it breaks up nicely as you attack harder. (think some blues, rockabilly, modern country). You get more control over the tone that you simply can't do with transistors.
Transistors ARE preferable (to me) if you are playing back preprocessed music, like your home stereo, but live you want a larger dynamic range and the ability to push the preamp into clip while it is still clean (think 2-3 on the preamp, 7 on the postamp). Go grab an old twin or deluxe, or a new deluxe, jr or bassman and set it up clean but loud and see. This is also the reason why many musicians (myself included) prefer tube amps in the 20 to 40 watt range, so you can get it clean, but at 70% of rated power for the tone and characteristics of the tube if you want to push them a bit.
another method is to alias the site to the fake name. so im my case, "freshmeat@[mydomain].com" would go to the throwaway account. The only bad thing about both methods is that if you don't cull the mail box every now and then, its gets pretty large so that the easiest way to clear it is to "rm -f /var/spool/mail/myname; touch /var/spool/mail/myname; chown me:me ...etc"
You like hwo your tube amp sounds with your guitar. It has *nothing* to do with accuracy, or accuracy at high volume, or anything like that; it just makes a better sounding tone.
Im not talking about distortion, I am talking about clean tones, no effects (except some reverb in small halls). Tubes have a fuller sound, without harsh harmonics. They have a broader range of tone and harmonics. Its not about "sounding cool", its about getting the true tone of the instrument without coloring it. Properly tuned, tubes transmit the tone of the instrument better than solid state, at any volume level. Its not exactly revolutionary, its why almost every country, blues, rock, jazz, etc. guitarist uses tubes.
The amp is NOT part of the instrument. It is part of the sound (good or bad) but so is the PA system, the acoustics of the building, etc. It is a tool. It *IS* about accuracy. When you hit the strings hard, transisters create bad harmonics that are NOT coming out of the guitar, but are instead created inside the electronics. Tubes are more forgiving and will slightly compress. This allows me to get the sound of the string being played hard, instead of the sound of the transister being pushed hard.
For the average wanker banging out "Smoke on the Water", it would not matter, but for a musician it does. Not all transistors are bad (Roland makes a great transistor amp, for instance) but for true tone, across a wider dynamic range, tubes simply work better for guitar. Its not exactly a singular opinion, since tube amps generally cost twice the price of transistor amps, have 10 x the maintenance, but are used by the vast majority of touring musicians and club musicians.
Only if you have an exceedingly narrow-minded definition of musician. Most of the musicians that I know use acoustic instruments. No tubes or transistors involved.
Even all accoustic musicians go to the studio every now and then. You know, they do make tube mics and pre amps...
I just use "throwaway@[myrealdomain].com" and don't monitor it. When I DO forget a password, etc. I first log into the account, delete all mail, then do a "Forgot your password?" which sends it to the newly clean inbox of that user. Then I reclaim my password, and ignore that email address until I forget my password for some other site.
Of course, it helps if you have your own mail server and you ONLY use that address for that purpose.
Digging up an ancient speech which probably SPARKED the religious war in the first place is idiotic, in my opinion.
Maybe its a war for audiophiles, but for musicians, there is no dispute. The vast majority of professional musicians use tubes for the reasons stated in the article and others. Transisitors are used for different things, such as when size and heat are a consideration, like in a practice amp.
I never understood why there was a debate anyway. Tubes sound better, transistors are much easier to work with. They each have their place. You can make each sound good or bad by design, but when all is equal, tubes sound more pleasant to the ear, while transisitors look better on paper. I tend to believe my ear rather than a piece of paper. My home stereo is transistor, my guitar amps are tube. This is because I want good sound at moderate levels and excellent reliability from my home stereo. For my guitar amp, I am willing to put up with lower reliability and higher maintenance to get the dynamic range, uncolored sound, natural compression and punch that only tubes can bring.
The flame wars are pretty silly, its like arguing "horse vs. car". Obviously the car is better in most cirumstances but the horse is handier if you are where there are no roads.
Oh, the relevence today is that the quality of transistors today are not as good as they were years ago in some respects (as you state, they have changed) yet my guitar amps still use the same tubes other amps used 50 years ago: 6V6, 6L6, 5880, EL34, EL84, 12AX7, etc.
So maybe, once products reach a certain maturity level and sales have dropped off to the point that support costs outweigh sales, they should be open sourced.
.91). I was able to enjoy every upgrade until they released 2.0 less than a year ago. I went ahead and paid for an upgrade, even though I still like 1.93 better, just because I WANT them to succeed. I could have continued to use version 1.93+ (in 16 or 32 bit versions) without paying anything.
Forteinc.com makes Agent newsreader, the best USENET tool around (IMHO). They spend 10 years on the 1.x branch. I purchased around 94, while it was in beta (like
Not every product needs major updates every year or two. Forte did it right the first time, and used minor updates for new features (yENC, etc) and bug fixes and not just to try to pump more revenue out of their customers. They let you use a limited, but powerful version of the software for FREE, forever. I have had to email them twice for support, years after I paid for the product, and they have always been professional, courtious, responsive and willing to go the extra mile. THIS is why I am happy to give them my money, even if I don't have to.
Can you imagine someone paying for an upgrade to XP, but continuing to use 2K, only because they respect the company and want them to do well?
Try again, slashbot. XP is demonstrably more stable than Win2K. But hey, your version of the story nets you more Karma points, right?
Lighten up, cowboy, Funny doensn't get you karma, and I pegged out years ago anyway. I just can't resist the easy joke, and I am willing to risk karma to make it. Hell, Im on my XP laptop now, so I know that XP doesn't freeze up all the
[NO CARRIER]
Odds are, MS is, as the article mentions, just going through a "mid-life crisis". They'll either recoup, tighten down, and keep chugging along - or just proceed with "business as usual" for all their talk, then wonder 5 years from now why all of the business are running Slinux (simple Linux - easy enough for Grandma to figure out how to change the screen resolution) or Apple OS X instead of Windows.
I am still betting that Microsoft will release a version of Linux in a few years, that has a proprietary GUI on top of a Linux kernel. Closed source, still has registration, but just Linux on the bottom end (or maybe BSD). I can see this in an internet appliance grade system, just so they can say "Well, we have linux too, its just not for 'real' computers, its for these appliances."
This would allow them to SELL and RESTRICT use of the GUI, while letting others develop the kernel for FREE. This would also remove much of the security blame. Its not like they are new to Unix, they were developing Unix products before Linus installed his first copy of Minix.
I don't think they will drop their regular Windows product, but I can see them "using" Linux or BSD to dilute the market and create confusion by selling the exact same thing cheaper, demonstrating that it is "an inferior product suitable for small tasks".
Why does somebody who has Windows 2000 need Windows XP?
Twice the eye candy, and its so much more powerful, you get to reboot twice as often.
According to the article:
Doohan, 84, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's "within the last couple months,"
Doohan has lived in Redmond for almost a dozen years with his wife, Wende. They have a 4-year-old daughter and two older sons, and Doohan has four children from a previous marriage, Stevens said.
84 and has a 4 year old daughter? Way to go Scotty! An inspiration for all of us. Its redundant, but like everyone I wish him well.