Trademarks are quite often purposeful mis-spellings of existing words. And in reality you can trademark an existing, generic term, under certain conditions. Apple Computer comes to mind. Gigabyte (makes motherboards) is another, and similar to the "googol" morphing into "Google".
Anyway, you can't purposely try to trademark a term similar to a competitor -- like the MacDonald's example -- as it creates confusion, usually intentional.
You could have Apple Real-estate, or Apple Shoes, without problem. But if you tried Apple Computer Consulting you might be asking for trouble.
Bottom line: Google is a perfectly valid trademark. As for it becoming a generic term -- well, I consider "google" as a verb to mean "search using Google". I'd never use the term in reference to searching using another engine, that wouldn't make much sense.
I may use it to generically describe the act of searching the 'Net, but the use of Google is implied. I don't believe I've even touched another SE since discovering Google -- and likely those using the term as a verb are the same way (that's why the term became popular).
So the risk of losing the trademark IMO is low, but they still are required to defend it...
Re:Redifference between uppercase and lowercase
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Verbing Weirds Google
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But maybe they fear that something happens to them like to Xerox. If "to google" becomes a common word, maybe then their trademark would be worthless? Next, someone sets up googler.com and defends itself by purporting that "googler" cannot breach a trademark more than "searcher".
Worse, if "google" becomes a generic word, then other search engines could use the term. Imagine AltaVista having a Google box, with a Google button...
To me, the word "google" as a verb means to search *using Google*. I never thought of the word to mean searching in general -- searching SUCKED (for me) before (I discovered) Google. To use the term in reference to the other search engines is an insult to Google. Hell, in their position I'd defend it just for that reason... but of course the trademark vs generic term issue is good reason as well...
Many companies in the entertainment as well as computer chip design industries use rooms full of cheap x86 machines to perform the bulk of their batch processing. _That's_ where they're hitting the 4GB-per-process problem.
Right, but these people are not in the consumer desktop market. Entertainment companies don't buy a bunch of cheap Sony Handicams to film a movie, then complain about the quality or lack of options. For non-desktop applications there are other options -- Itanium, IBM's 64-bit offering, and other alternatives that will come in the future. But these are things that desktop users won't need until at least 2010, and likely even beyond that.
We're running Linux on hundreds of Pentium III/4s, and with kernel tweaking are getting around 3.2GB per process. But even that's not enough for many job types...
What kind of processing are you doing that requires access to arbitrary pieces of a 3+ gig dataset? Even if that's justified, the processing overhead and I/O on that kind of data would hinder you much more than any memory-size limit, at least with today's processors...
And again, you made a choice to use a consumer product for this application. Consumer-targetted products are always inferior to industrial-targetted products, and this applies equally with computer hardware.
Err...video encoding? After all, aren't iMovie and Windows Movie Maker aimed at the consumer market?
But again, why do you need 4 GIGS of memory to do this? Unless your encoder has some serious memory leaks... most any video you might want to encode would fit in 4 gigs *uncompressed*. Even aside from that, you encode in small chunks.
In other words, it's not a memory-bound application, rather it's CPU-bound (and sometimes I/O-bound, eg, reading the unencoded source from disk).
It will be difficult to think of a real-world desktop-user application that could justify that much RAM. Anything that would process that much data, that couldn't be processed in chunks, is going to be bound by too many other factors (CPU speed, I/O) for the RAM issue to matter. Think about how much CPU time it would take to perform even one simple operation on all of 4 gigs of in-memory data.
And realistically, an application that needs that much memory must need to do operations on arbitrary parts of the data, each dependant on other unknown parts. If that weren't the case, then the processing could be done in chunks. So again, if it really needed that much RAM, it would be UNGODLY slow on any current and near-future PC processor (64-bit or not).
Until such time as everything else is fast enough to make more than 4 gigs of RAM really usable, 4 gigs should be more than enough.
Wow! So RMS wants us to simply call it GNU now? Dropping the Linux part altogether? Sorta hypocritical to me;).
Or do you run Hurd? Which is technically the GNU OS.
He does mention Linux -- Mandrake specifically. But I agree, calling it GNU is a bit confusing (he also calls XFree86 "X-Windows", and refers to Unix-style text files as being in "GNU format").
As others have mentioned, running the command-line compiler isn't all that much of a feat. I was a bit disappointed that he "hand edited" all the #include directives to correct the case -- something that could be done with a Perl in-place edit...
Part of the problem is that to get financing, you must look like you already have money.
This is why a lot of dot-coms had to get offices in places that were expensive.
That's just plain stupid. And yet, I know it to be true. Damned if you do...
That being said, this might be the lesson of the whole dot-com (and even post-dot-com) world.
I truly do hope so. Though I'm having a very hard time finding work, in a way I'm glad to see that era gone, if only because new businesses are a lot more careful, and we're seeing a lot less unrealistic (and plain stupid) ideas popping up. And TV commercials are more or less back to normal (except for Monster.com, (the.com for those who lost their.com jobs?))
Trying to build one *after* the bubble burst was harder because no one trusted dot-coms to stick around anymore anyway.
And that's a good thing, in a way. You have to have a solid business idea now -- just as you did before 1998 or so. We went through an odd period, Salon signed a 10 year lease (wtf? who does that?) on a seriously over-priced office, and now that it's all over, they're stuck for 7 more years (someone break a mirror over there?)
And unfortunately, though they have (had?) a good online publication, they are now paying for their mistakes -- or their shareholders/investors are...
[Salon] took out a 10-year lease on pricey but prestigious offices in downtown San Francisco. It seemed not to matter then that to be at the epicentre of the Internet revolution meant paying some of the most expensive rents in North America.
With seven years left on the lease, Salon is struggling to get out of the deal. It already missed a $200,000 payment to its landlord in December. (The company is also trying to get out of a less pricey lease on office space it maintains in New York.)
And seriously, I know things were great at the time, but who though it was going to last forever? The dot-bomb (or whatever we're calling it) was inevitable, for reasons just like this -- all the crazy spending that went on in these companies, on things that have little to do with the business you're in (an Internet-based mag could easily be located, well, anywhere).
So they signed a TEN YEAR LEASE. Most companies put together 5-year business plans at the most, and have no idea what will be going on in yet another five. Most Internet companies from the dot-com era had nothing to base a real business plan on, and again the bust was inevitable.
Ugh, they were a good online magazine, but I feel no need to help prop up a failing business. They made some mistakes, and, unfortunately, that's business.
1.3b is nowhere near that bad. I tried it out as an experiment about 6-8 weeks ago, and now only use IE when I have to. 1.3b is incredibly stable and predictable for a beta release. In all the time I've being using it, it has bombed on me twice.
I didn't think it was. If the Alpha I'm using (1.3a) is this stable, I'm sure the Beta wouldn't have introduced such major issues as the grandparent has experienced.
I suspect he was exagerating, but if he really is having that many issues, he should at least try a version considered by the masses to be "stable" before ranting about how buggy it is in a public forum.
Now that I think about it, why am I not using 1.3b?/me heads off to download...
I just wish people would take the time or get the opportunity to see Mozilla perform on the Linux side of things.
In my experience, Mozilla runs slower on Linux than Windows -- but much *faster* on FreeBSD than any of the others (hm, I'd guess OSX would also be quite fast? Haven't used it (YET!) personally)
Likely other options come into play here -- FreeBSD was running XFree86 3.3.something, but I've heard from others that Mozilla just isn't as fast on Linux (I'm told some certain system libraries aren't up to speed).
I wonder what systems are most popular among the core developers? I may get bored and go research that, but I always guessed it was pretty split between Linux and Windows, with the other platforms in the minority. Of course I formed that opinion pre-OSX...
But I've yet to see Mozilla run as fast or as nicely as it did under Gnome 1.4/XFree86 3.3/FreeBSD 4.3/3dfx Voodoo3, on what is currently my Windows box.
Makes me miss FreeBSD again... need... more... machines!
Keep the kitchen sink. I'll settle for them fixing the fucking browser link problem.
First, you are using a BETA version (hence the 'b' in the version string). You can (and should) expect bugs.
Second, I've been using 1.3a since it was released, and haven't had any problems even remotely close to what you report. It's been damned stable, and predictable in behavior.
If 1.3b is so bad, might I suggest using a "stable" release?
Look at the date; this is an eight year old article that, for some reason, was posted to the front page of Slashdot...
Anyway, a couple points:
- I think there was some mis-communication. Gates is right -- nobody buys a new version to fix bugs. You might download an updated point release (or service pack or whatever) to fix bugs. But you don't often go from Office 97 to 2000 over some minor irritations.
- I actually believe the bug report percentage in relation to their phone call volume. When's the last time you called a software company to report a bug? When is the last time you discovered a truly unique bug in a major piece of software that you were sure wasn't known about?
And as someone else mentioned, most of their calls are along the lines of "how do I turn my computer on?" or "I upgraded MSN and it broke my inner-net"
So, basically, it's a poor article from 8 years ago. Slow news day...
In other words, by installing this software, they could legally plant a virus (not including DRM viruses) and you would have to repercussions.
See this part:
Some states do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so the above exclusions may not apply to you.
I believe that MOST states have laws against this, especially when the software is doing things it should not be doing (writing to the boot track) without permission or good reason.
In other words, the EULA (like most) wouldn't stand up in court. It is there to *attempt* to remove all liability, and mostly to make the average user -- the ones who believe everything they read/see/hear -- think that they can't fight back.
Okay, how? Short of the person turning up in person with photo ID, 100% proof of identity just isn't going to happen.
In this case, *resetting* the password (changing it to something new) would have been much more appropriate. Given that he had been accessing the account over a period of three months, obviously the real account holder would have noticed that their password no longer worked by that time.
I say, never *give out* the current password, only reset to something new after confirmation (using the correct email address, or providing some information that was provided upon account setup -- a "security question" perhaps). Not foolproof, but it would certainly stop someone from using a hijacked account for such a long period of time.
...and often those customizations are in the engine itself, not just some add-on DLL like it should be done, so the engine (or an engine component) cannot simply be updated by Epic and have it end up everywhere
There's often good reason for this. Many times there are customisations that couldn't easily or efficiently be done by just 'adding a DLL' to the Unreal (or whatever) engine. Actually modifying the code to do what you need is quite often faster than adding a plugin-style hook in the form of a DLL in some pre-determined place that the engine designers designated. And with games, every little speed gain counts...
Games are, inherently, vulnerable to this type of attack. It's difficult to stop this without it having been a concern at design time... if you don't design with security in mind, it's very difficult to bolt it on later. Games usually concentrate on frame-rate, features, polygons-per-second or whatever other things will help the game to sell. I doubt that "secure" is a feature that pushes many gamers to purchase one game over another, so naturally (by the way the market works) security is not of top priority in the games that sell.
If your supermarket created a rule stating that you could only purchase 55 gallons of milk per week (sounds like enough for even the largest family to me), wouldn't the simple principle disturb you?
Two conter-points:
1) You're paying for each of those gallons individually. It's not a flat-fee deal like Internet service. The more you buy, the more money the store makes. The more bandwidth you use, the *less* the ISP makes.
2) Supermarkets offering sale prices often *do* limit how many items a customer can purchase at one time. They don't want you taking advantage of the temporary price, and even worse they don't want you reselling their products for profit.
So your analogy (like most) is flawed.
I never got the impression from my DSL provider that I had unlimited bandwidth usage, though I'm not even sure I ever saw, much less signed, any contract (I did download a PDF "user guide", that's about it). Luckily they don't seem to be limiting anything, because I do transfer a lot of bits in both directions...
The point is, bandwidth costs money, and the heavy users are subsidised by the majority that don't use much. Just like in web hosting -- most web servers hosting multiple sites would puke if every site used all of the bandwidth allotted to them. This is why the bandwidth appears to be cheap compared to, say, leasing a T1 yourself.
Why does it still take 5 damned days for a transaction to "clear" when I move money from one account to another? Has anyone actually ever challenged any banks/building societies to justify this delay?
Hm, maybe it's your bank. My banks always state that it may take up to 5 business days, but I've yet to see it take more than 2, and often it happens the next day. Transferring money from PayPal to Washington Mutual, for example, or direct deposit from a credit card processor I use -- both of these generally take 1-2 actual days.
My guess is that some banks have more modern systems, while others do not -- and that they are likely not compatible, thus requiring manual processing/intervention.
Umm Microsofts Ultimate TV can handle two streams, so with it you could record two shows at one. I believe it's the only system to offer this in their first version. Perhaps Tivo will have it in their next?
I believe the DirectTivo variant has had two tuners for a while. Since the dish receiver and Tivo are in the same unit, it made a lot of sense to go ahead and throw in a second tuner.
For a stand-alone unit, this is a bit more difficult. My (now dead, first Philips version) Tivo didn't even have *a* tuner, unless you count tuning in channel 3 or 4 for the RF input. But even so, and even with two, only one could be your cable box/dish receiver, the other could potentially be an antenna or (non-pay channel) cable input... though certainly possible.
My next PVR will most likely be a DirectTV w/Tivo built-in for just this type of reason (plus just being able to channel surf while something else is recording would be nice).
What I dont understand is ALL frequencies are running through that wire going in to the TiVo. Why cant you just do a stream record of the WHOLE analog signal (ad converter) and then re-play all channels when you want to?
Because the required bandwidth would be obscene. That, and I don't believe we even have any existing technology to simply capture a collection of mixed radio signals and somehow (digitally or analog) store them...
But think of the amount of information contained in each signal. Even if you ignore everything but the video, how do you store all of the detail for 100+ channels (or even just a few)?
Those are only a couple of problems with the theory... I'm sure there are many more, but that's the obvious reason.
Homer: Twenty dollars? But I wanted a peanut. Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts! Homer: <very excited> Explain how! Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services. Homer: Woo hoo!
Unfortunately, since this would not be a criminal case but rather a civil case, you might be up the creek and have to defend yourself.
And on what grounds would they file this case? Because they accused you of stealing and you told them to get lost?
Sorry, but filing a civil case still requires some sort of evidence. Even if filed, what are they going to use in court?
Burden of proof *still* lies with the accusor. I can't just go around suing people, and having the court order that people prove their innocence by bringing in evidence -- and neither can the Bullshit^wBusiness Software Alliance.
"On what legal basis can they force me to let them into my business to perform an "audit" to their satisfaction?"
I take it that you didn't read all those EULAs barfed out at you during the installs.
WTF does that have to do with anything? On what legal grounds can someone walk into MY business and demand to see software licenses?
Suppose I don't run any such software (all OSS). Then your (weak) EULA argument is nullified anyway.
The point is, these people (the BSA, et al) are NOT a law-enforcement agency, have not been granted any power by the lawmakers, general public, or anyone else. And I certainly didn't sign any contract with them.
It's sad to see how many people comply with these people. Not that I'm for piracy, I'm really not -- but even moreso I'm against organisations like this using scare tactics, etc. It's damned-near misrepresentation.
So you say "Fuck off, BSA". Then what? Do you think they'd file a case, with no evidence or legal grounds? Do you think someone would be able to obtain a warrant?
If I send you a letter and say "If you've stolen any stereo equipment, tell me or I'll call the cops". You say "Fuck off". I tell the police. They tell me to get lost, end of story. This is, after all, the US, and we still do have some rights, for now anyway. Failure to prove innocence (or unwillingness to cooperate) is NOT itself evidence of guilt. Especially when it's NOT a law enforcement agency, rather some "alliance" sticking their nose in other people's business.
I remember taking apart an old computer once, and the CD Rom drive connected to the SOUND CARD.
I mean, WTF? Who came up with that glorious idea?
Two reasons:
1) At the time, sound cards and CD-Rom drives weren't popular, and didn't usually come with the computer. So they were typically sold together as a "Multimedia Kit", or just "Sound Blaster Kit", usually along with cheap speakers.
2a) A lot of machines didn't have extra IDE connectors (most certainly didn't have a "secondary" controller), and so it was easier to integrate it on the sound card and avoid the support hassle;
2b) Some CD-Rom drives (Matsumi, Yamaha, IIRC) had proprietary interfaces that were *not* IDE. Some used the same cable, some a 32-pin cable, but all required a separate card (or, as was common, the included Sound Card/Interface Controller).
Anyway, for 2a it made sense. Nothing like coming home with a new CD-Rom drive to run Encarta, only to find out you have no where to connect it. Was nice to get a Multimedia Kit, with your drive, sound card/controller and speakers, not to mention a bunch of crapware bundled with it (the sound blasters used to come with a CD-ROM full of sound effect WAV files).
Direct your attention to the "x", in Greg Cox's name. Is it just me, or does it look somewhat like the logo for a certain M$ product?
I think this is the result of a bad anti-aliasing. It seems to be averaging a large range of pixels, so as you go further from the center of the X, the pixels fade.
For reference, also take a look at the 'R' on number 6, Matthew R Powell, in the same image -- you'll see the same effect. Likely anything at a 45 degree angle would have similar artifacts under this anti-aliasing...
Slashdot Mirror
Trademarks are quite often purposeful mis-spellings of existing words. And in reality you can trademark an existing, generic term, under certain conditions. Apple Computer comes to mind. Gigabyte (makes motherboards) is another, and similar to the "googol" morphing into "Google".
Anyway, you can't purposely try to trademark a term similar to a competitor -- like the MacDonald's example -- as it creates confusion, usually intentional.
You could have Apple Real-estate, or Apple Shoes, without problem. But if you tried Apple Computer Consulting you might be asking for trouble.
Bottom line: Google is a perfectly valid trademark. As for it becoming a generic term -- well, I consider "google" as a verb to mean "search using Google". I'd never use the term in reference to searching using another engine, that wouldn't make much sense.
I may use it to generically describe the act of searching the 'Net, but the use of Google is implied. I don't believe I've even touched another SE since discovering Google -- and likely those using the term as a verb are the same way (that's why the term became popular).
So the risk of losing the trademark IMO is low, but they still are required to defend it...
But maybe they fear that something happens to them like to Xerox. If "to google" becomes a common word, maybe then their trademark would be worthless? Next, someone sets up googler.com and defends itself by purporting that "googler" cannot breach a trademark more than "searcher".
Worse, if "google" becomes a generic word, then other search engines could use the term. Imagine AltaVista having a Google box, with a Google button...
To me, the word "google" as a verb means to search *using Google*. I never thought of the word to mean searching in general -- searching SUCKED (for me) before (I discovered) Google. To use the term in reference to the other search engines is an insult to Google. Hell, in their position I'd defend it just for that reason... but of course the trademark vs generic term issue is good reason as well...
Many companies in the entertainment as well as computer chip design industries use rooms full of cheap x86 machines to perform the bulk of their batch processing. _That's_ where they're hitting the 4GB-per-process problem.
Right, but these people are not in the consumer desktop market. Entertainment companies don't buy a bunch of cheap Sony Handicams to film a movie, then complain about the quality or lack of options. For non-desktop applications there are other options -- Itanium, IBM's 64-bit offering, and other alternatives that will come in the future. But these are things that desktop users won't need until at least 2010, and likely even beyond that.
We're running Linux on hundreds of Pentium III/4s, and with kernel tweaking are getting around 3.2GB per process. But even that's not enough for many job types...
What kind of processing are you doing that requires access to arbitrary pieces of a 3+ gig dataset? Even if that's justified, the processing overhead and I/O on that kind of data would hinder you much more than any memory-size limit, at least with today's processors...
And again, you made a choice to use a consumer product for this application. Consumer-targetted products are always inferior to industrial-targetted products, and this applies equally with computer hardware.
Err...video encoding? After all, aren't iMovie and Windows Movie Maker aimed at the consumer market?
But again, why do you need 4 GIGS of memory to do this? Unless your encoder has some serious memory leaks... most any video you might want to encode would fit in 4 gigs *uncompressed*. Even aside from that, you encode in small chunks.
In other words, it's not a memory-bound application, rather it's CPU-bound (and sometimes I/O-bound, eg, reading the unencoded source from disk).
It will be difficult to think of a real-world desktop-user application that could justify that much RAM. Anything that would process that much data, that couldn't be processed in chunks, is going to be bound by too many other factors (CPU speed, I/O) for the RAM issue to matter. Think about how much CPU time it would take to perform even one simple operation on all of 4 gigs of in-memory data.
And realistically, an application that needs that much memory must need to do operations on arbitrary parts of the data, each dependant on other unknown parts. If that weren't the case, then the processing could be done in chunks. So again, if it really needed that much RAM, it would be UNGODLY slow on any current and near-future PC processor (64-bit or not).
Until such time as everything else is fast enough to make more than 4 gigs of RAM really usable, 4 gigs should be more than enough.
Wow! So RMS wants us to simply call it GNU now? Dropping the Linux part altogether? Sorta hypocritical to me ;).
Or do you run Hurd? Which is technically the GNU OS.
He does mention Linux -- Mandrake specifically. But I agree, calling it GNU is a bit confusing (he also calls XFree86 "X-Windows", and refers to Unix-style text files as being in "GNU format").
As others have mentioned, running the command-line compiler isn't all that much of a feat. I was a bit disappointed that he "hand edited" all the #include directives to correct the case -- something that could be done with a Perl in-place edit...
Part of the problem is that to get financing, you must look like you already have money.
.com for those who lost their .com jobs?))
This is why a lot of dot-coms had to get offices in places that were expensive.
That's just plain stupid. And yet, I know it to be true. Damned if you do...
That being said, this might be the lesson of the whole dot-com (and even post-dot-com) world.
I truly do hope so. Though I'm having a very hard time finding work, in a way I'm glad to see that era gone, if only because new businesses are a lot more careful, and we're seeing a lot less unrealistic (and plain stupid) ideas popping up. And TV commercials are more or less back to normal (except for Monster.com, (the
Trying to build one *after* the bubble burst was harder because no one trusted dot-coms to stick around anymore anyway.
And that's a good thing, in a way. You have to have a solid business idea now -- just as you did before 1998 or so. We went through an odd period, Salon signed a 10 year lease (wtf? who does that?) on a seriously over-priced office, and now that it's all over, they're stuck for 7 more years (someone break a mirror over there?)
And unfortunately, though they have (had?) a good online publication, they are now paying for their mistakes -- or their shareholders/investors are...
[Salon] took out a 10-year lease on pricey but prestigious offices in downtown San Francisco. It seemed not to matter then that to be at the epicentre of the Internet revolution meant paying some of the most expensive rents in North America.
With seven years left on the lease, Salon is struggling to get out of the deal. It already missed a $200,000 payment to its landlord in December. (The company is also trying to get out of a less pricey lease on office space it maintains in New York.)
And seriously, I know things were great at the time, but who though it was going to last forever? The dot-bomb (or whatever we're calling it) was inevitable, for reasons just like this -- all the crazy spending that went on in these companies, on things that have little to do with the business you're in (an Internet-based mag could easily be located, well, anywhere).
So they signed a TEN YEAR LEASE. Most companies put together 5-year business plans at the most, and have no idea what will be going on in yet another five. Most Internet companies from the dot-com era had nothing to base a real business plan on, and again the bust was inevitable.
Ugh, they were a good online magazine, but I feel no need to help prop up a failing business. They made some mistakes, and, unfortunately, that's business.
1.3b is nowhere near that bad. I tried it out as an experiment about 6-8 weeks ago, and now only use IE when I have to. 1.3b is incredibly stable and predictable for a beta release. In all the time I've being using it, it has bombed on me twice.
/me heads off to download...
I didn't think it was. If the Alpha I'm using (1.3a) is this stable, I'm sure the Beta wouldn't have introduced such major issues as the grandparent has experienced.
I suspect he was exagerating, but if he really is having that many issues, he should at least try a version considered by the masses to be "stable" before ranting about how buggy it is in a public forum.
Now that I think about it, why am I not using 1.3b?
I just wish people would take the time or get the opportunity to see Mozilla perform on the Linux side of things.
In my experience, Mozilla runs slower on Linux than Windows -- but much *faster* on FreeBSD than any of the others (hm, I'd guess OSX would also be quite fast? Haven't used it (YET!) personally)
Likely other options come into play here -- FreeBSD was running XFree86 3.3.something, but I've heard from others that Mozilla just isn't as fast on Linux (I'm told some certain system libraries aren't up to speed).
I wonder what systems are most popular among the core developers? I may get bored and go research that, but I always guessed it was pretty split between Linux and Windows, with the other platforms in the minority. Of course I formed that opinion pre-OSX...
But I've yet to see Mozilla run as fast or as nicely as it did under Gnome 1.4/XFree86 3.3/FreeBSD 4.3/3dfx Voodoo3, on what is currently my Windows box.
Makes me miss FreeBSD again... need... more... machines!
Keep the kitchen sink. I'll settle for them fixing the fucking browser link problem.
First, you are using a BETA version (hence the 'b' in the version string). You can (and should) expect bugs.
Second, I've been using 1.3a since it was released, and haven't had any problems even remotely close to what you report. It's been damned stable, and predictable in behavior.
If 1.3b is so bad, might I suggest using a "stable" release?
Look at the date; this is an eight year old article that, for some reason, was posted to the front page of Slashdot...
Anyway, a couple points:
- I think there was some mis-communication. Gates is right -- nobody buys a new version to fix bugs. You might download an updated point release (or service pack or whatever) to fix bugs. But you don't often go from Office 97 to 2000 over some minor irritations.
- I actually believe the bug report percentage in relation to their phone call volume. When's the last time you called a software company to report a bug? When is the last time you discovered a truly unique bug in a major piece of software that you were sure wasn't known about?
And as someone else mentioned, most of their calls are along the lines of "how do I turn my computer on?" or "I upgraded MSN and it broke my inner-net"
So, basically, it's a poor article from 8 years ago. Slow news day...
In other words, by installing this software, they could legally plant a virus (not including DRM viruses) and you would have to repercussions.
See this part:
Some states do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so the above exclusions may not apply to you.
I believe that MOST states have laws against this, especially when the software is doing things it should not be doing (writing to the boot track) without permission or good reason.
In other words, the EULA (like most) wouldn't stand up in court. It is there to *attempt* to remove all liability, and mostly to make the average user -- the ones who believe everything they read/see/hear -- think that they can't fight back.
Okay, how? Short of the person turning up in person with photo ID, 100% proof of identity just isn't going to happen.
In this case, *resetting* the password (changing it to something new) would have been much more appropriate. Given that he had been accessing the account over a period of three months, obviously the real account holder would have noticed that their password no longer worked by that time.
I say, never *give out* the current password, only reset to something new after confirmation (using the correct email address, or providing some information that was provided upon account setup -- a "security question" perhaps). Not foolproof, but it would certainly stop someone from using a hijacked account for such a long period of time.
...and often those customizations are in the engine itself, not just some add-on DLL like it should be done, so the engine (or an engine component) cannot simply be updated by Epic and have it end up everywhere
There's often good reason for this. Many times there are customisations that couldn't easily or efficiently be done by just 'adding a DLL' to the Unreal (or whatever) engine. Actually modifying the code to do what you need is quite often faster than adding a plugin-style hook in the form of a DLL in some pre-determined place that the engine designers designated. And with games, every little speed gain counts...
Games are, inherently, vulnerable to this type of attack. It's difficult to stop this without it having been a concern at design time... if you don't design with security in mind, it's very difficult to bolt it on later. Games usually concentrate on frame-rate, features, polygons-per-second or whatever other things will help the game to sell. I doubt that "secure" is a feature that pushes many gamers to purchase one game over another, so naturally (by the way the market works) security is not of top priority in the games that sell.
If your supermarket created a rule stating that you could only purchase 55 gallons of milk per week (sounds like enough for even the largest family to me), wouldn't the simple principle disturb you?
Two conter-points:
1) You're paying for each of those gallons individually. It's not a flat-fee deal like Internet service. The more you buy, the more money the store makes. The more bandwidth you use, the *less* the ISP makes.
2) Supermarkets offering sale prices often *do* limit how many items a customer can purchase at one time. They don't want you taking advantage of the temporary price, and even worse they don't want you reselling their products for profit.
So your analogy (like most) is flawed.
I never got the impression from my DSL provider that I had unlimited bandwidth usage, though I'm not even sure I ever saw, much less signed, any contract (I did download a PDF "user guide", that's about it). Luckily they don't seem to be limiting anything, because I do transfer a lot of bits in both directions...
The point is, bandwidth costs money, and the heavy users are subsidised by the majority that don't use much. Just like in web hosting -- most web servers hosting multiple sites would puke if every site used all of the bandwidth allotted to them. This is why the bandwidth appears to be cheap compared to, say, leasing a T1 yourself.
Why does it still take 5 damned days for a transaction to "clear" when I move money from one account to another? Has anyone actually ever challenged any banks/building societies to justify this delay?
Hm, maybe it's your bank. My banks always state that it may take up to 5 business days, but I've yet to see it take more than 2, and often it happens the next day. Transferring money from PayPal to Washington Mutual, for example, or direct deposit from a credit card processor I use -- both of these generally take 1-2 actual days.
My guess is that some banks have more modern systems, while others do not -- and that they are likely not compatible, thus requiring manual processing/intervention.
Umm Microsofts Ultimate TV can handle two streams, so with it you could record two shows at one. I believe it's the only system to offer this in their first version. Perhaps Tivo will have it in their next?
I believe the DirectTivo variant has had two tuners for a while. Since the dish receiver and Tivo are in the same unit, it made a lot of sense to go ahead and throw in a second tuner.
For a stand-alone unit, this is a bit more difficult. My (now dead, first Philips version) Tivo didn't even have *a* tuner, unless you count tuning in channel 3 or 4 for the RF input. But even so, and even with two, only one could be your cable box/dish receiver, the other could potentially be an antenna or (non-pay channel) cable input... though certainly possible.
My next PVR will most likely be a DirectTV w/Tivo built-in for just this type of reason (plus just being able to channel surf while something else is recording would be nice).
What I dont understand is ALL frequencies are running through that wire going in to the TiVo. Why cant you just do a stream record of the WHOLE analog signal (ad converter) and then re-play all channels when you want to?
Because the required bandwidth would be obscene. That, and I don't believe we even have any existing technology to simply capture a collection of mixed radio signals and somehow (digitally or analog) store them...
But think of the amount of information contained in each signal. Even if you ignore everything but the video, how do you store all of the detail for 100+ channels (or even just a few)?
Those are only a couple of problems with the theory... I'm sure there are many more, but that's the obvious reason.
Hibbert: (referring to Willy) He may try to slobber on your crotch.
Homer: Pfft. I've been around Scottsman.
The best one is from the episode where the kids are snowed in at the school.
Homer and Flanders are driving there to rescue them when they run over something in the road.
Flanders: "We just ran over something."
Homer: "Yeah, I hope it was Flanders."
I laughed my ass off for probably 5 straight minutes.
From the same episode, I spewed Dew through my nose when Skinner said (to the hamster/girbil/whatever): Quick, now chew through my ball sack!
Homer: Twenty dollars? But I wanted a peanut.
Brain: Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts!
Homer: <very excited> Explain how!
Brain: Money can be exchanged for goods and services.
Homer: Woo hoo!
Unfortunately, since this would not be a criminal case but rather a civil case, you might be up the creek and have to defend yourself.
And on what grounds would they file this case? Because they accused you of stealing and you told them to get lost?
Sorry, but filing a civil case still requires some sort of evidence. Even if filed, what are they going to use in court?
Burden of proof *still* lies with the accusor. I can't just go around suing people, and having the court order that people prove their innocence by bringing in evidence -- and neither can the Bullshit^wBusiness Software Alliance.
WTF does that have to do with anything? On what legal grounds can someone walk into MY business and demand to see software licenses?
Suppose I don't run any such software (all OSS). Then your (weak) EULA argument is nullified anyway.
The point is, these people (the BSA, et al) are NOT a law-enforcement agency, have not been granted any power by the lawmakers, general public, or anyone else. And I certainly didn't sign any contract with them.
It's sad to see how many people comply with these people. Not that I'm for piracy, I'm really not -- but even moreso I'm against organisations like this using scare tactics, etc. It's damned-near misrepresentation.
So you say "Fuck off, BSA". Then what? Do you think they'd file a case, with no evidence or legal grounds? Do you think someone would be able to obtain a warrant?
If I send you a letter and say "If you've stolen any stereo equipment, tell me or I'll call the cops". You say "Fuck off". I tell the police. They tell me to get lost, end of story. This is, after all, the US, and we still do have some rights, for now anyway. Failure to prove innocence (or unwillingness to cooperate) is NOT itself evidence of guilt. Especially when it's NOT a law enforcement agency, rather some "alliance" sticking their nose in other people's business.
I remember taking apart an old computer once, and the CD Rom drive connected to the SOUND CARD.
I mean, WTF? Who came up with that glorious idea?
Two reasons:
1) At the time, sound cards and CD-Rom drives weren't popular, and didn't usually come with the computer. So they were typically sold together as a "Multimedia Kit", or just "Sound Blaster Kit", usually along with cheap speakers.
2a) A lot of machines didn't have extra IDE connectors (most certainly didn't have a "secondary" controller), and so it was easier to integrate it on the sound card and avoid the support hassle;
2b) Some CD-Rom drives (Matsumi, Yamaha, IIRC) had proprietary interfaces that were *not* IDE. Some used the same cable, some a 32-pin cable, but all required a separate card (or, as was common, the included Sound Card/Interface Controller).
Anyway, for 2a it made sense. Nothing like coming home with a new CD-Rom drive to run Encarta, only to find out you have no where to connect it. Was nice to get a Multimedia Kit, with your drive, sound card/controller and speakers, not to mention a bunch of crapware bundled with it (the sound blasters used to come with a CD-ROM full of sound effect WAV files).
Ah, the memories...
Direct your attention to the "x", in Greg Cox's name. Is it just me, or does it look somewhat like the logo for a certain M$ product?
I think this is the result of a bad anti-aliasing. It seems to be averaging a large range of pixels, so as you go further from the center of the X, the pixels fade.
For reference, also take a look at the 'R' on number 6, Matthew R Powell, in the same image -- you'll see the same effect. Likely anything at a 45 degree angle would have similar artifacts under this anti-aliasing...
Interesting nonetheless...